Fix Housing Megathread

[Seleni]

If SE's concern was instance capacity limits, Trust would not be a thing because that's also an entire instance being devoted to a single player. Solo duties would not be a thing because that is an instance being used by a single player.

You're also ignoring the fact that the interiors of our houses along with our apartments and FC private chambers are already instanced. If it were that much of a problem, we wouldn't have any housing at all.

I think they’d already used up what they want/can afford to allocate to housing currently.

Originally I wrote up a suggestion to modify the current apartment implementation into cottage, by adding a common instance area (hide other players) with fixed house exterior(no individual customization) that lead into “personal room” space.

I was thinking that they must have planned for the resources for the apartments, so the new instance cottage could just use that excess (since apartments are under-utilized). But then I realized that they’d increased housing storage limits and added more wards since the introduction of apartments. And I remembered how in that interview Yoshida said ward is higher priority than increasing apartment size. So clearly they decided to allocate their resource into wards. In other words, no resources left for additional housing.

You mentioned before that cross-breeding requires weather and that was why they won’t allow cross-breeding in instances. Without cross-breeding, instance housing would lose a big chunk of appeals.

I don’t see how I can find some basis to convince them that it’s worth adding additional (quite expensive) hardware to implement this new instanced cottage, so I drop the suggestion and ended up with what I’d written earlier.

Maybe you or someone can do a better job justifying the additional resources need for a different instance housing.

IMO the most difficult part is still that the current top MMO by players, old and bleeding subscription as it is, never implemented actual housing. So you can’t just say you need proper instanced housing to stay competitive. (Because you’d get people pointing to that game as counter example.)

I can only be in a single instance at a time. If I'm in a dungeon, then I'm not in my housing so my housing isn't using up instance server space. If I'm in my housing, then I'm not in a dungeon so that's one less dungeon instance using up server space.

No MMO is going to allocate one instance per player online. (And not all instances use same amount of resources). The allocation would likely be based on the importance of the activity to player, and the number of instances required simultaneously and the amount of resources required to run those simultaneous instances.

[Seleni]

It probably does not help that while most players likely don’t stay in dungeons for long hours (unless they are learning fights and/or trying for some firsts/achievements), people do stay in their apartment/house for long hours. They could be decorating (maybe I’m just bad at it but floating half white partitions+ flooring mats took me literally hours), doing long crafting sessions, or simply afk’ing/listening to music (did the latter before I bought the mp4). So it means some of the housing instances will stay loaded for long hours and the resources won’t be freed up.

[Catstab]

you are going to sock-puppet me

You have entirely invented the sock puppet thing in your own head. Some of the notations I make are for context. I also sometimes weed out sections of your posts where you get repetitive, wordy, emotional, or inane and replace them with a notation of what you were talking about. It's extremely common in written English.

I'm just entertained that you think some decisions are sacred and permanent, and others need to be re-evaluated based on your concerns.

[Catstab]

epic forum win you desire

And debate has nothing to do with a desire to win.

SE came up with the relocation system, and many players and FCs find it to be a benefit. Before relocation was a thing, an FC that wanted to move house would have to destroy all FC private chambers by kicking all members who could not empty+destroy their rooms in the next 30-90 seconds. While I could fathom changes to personal relocation, FC relocation changing in almost any way would bring this travesty right back to the modern era.

SE also came up with guidelines to make housing more available, but grandfathered people so they would not lose the treasured rewards they had played for. If they did not do this, some players would lose access to content that they fairly earned and regularly enjoy.

To me, both of these are shining examples of fairness and consideration, and show that SE cares about our gameplay experience. My one beef with the gameplay of ff14 is the timer. It is a curse. I spend an hour or more every day coaching new people on discord as to how the timer works, how to defeat it, how often to rest.

Your constant "suggestions" are to take these considerations away and leave affected players out in the cold. I will stand up and say "this idea is shortsighted and will hurt players" every single time you suggest tearing down a helpful game feature.

[Almagnus1]

I'm just entertained that you think some decisions are sacred and permanent, and others need to be re-evaluated based on your concerns.

Please link where I said that.

[Almagnus1]

And debate has nothing to do with a desire to win.

SE came up with the relocation system, and many players and FCs find it to be a benefit. Before relocation was a thing, an FC that wanted to move house would have to destroy all FC private chambers by kicking all members who could not empty+destroy their rooms in the next 30-90 seconds. While I could fathom changes to personal relocation, FC relocation changing in almost any way would bring this travesty right back to the modern era.

Please go find the post where I seriously suggested the removal of that.

SE also came up with guidelines to make housing more available, but grandfathered people so they would not lose the treasured rewards they had played for. If they did not do this, some players would lose access to content that they fairly earned and regularly enjoy.[/B]

This is more about addressing the complete lack of supply (and not about hating on the grandfathered in people). SE made a dumb decision on this one. SE will likely never be able to have enough housing wards to satisfy demand. My position on this will not change until there are excess housing plots on the most populated of servers. If I lower my writing level to a third grade level (instead of collegiate level) you might be able to understand this point.

[Catstab]

If I lower my writing level to a third grade level (instead of collegiate level) you might be able to understand this point.

You say that, and then you call me notating context "sock puppeting." You would think reading notations would be easy for someone who brags on the internet about attending college.

Yes, 5700 houses per 20000 player world was SEs idea. You might not think adding 720 houses worth of wards or 1440 houses worth of ishgard is a solution and that's fine. But divesting a handful of people from their alt-character's houses to produce under 100 openings per server is a solution? Give me a break.

Grandfathering was a good idea, and every time you say it should go, you will be told you are wrong.

[Almagnus1]

Yes, 5700 houses per 20000 player world was SEs idea. You might not think adding 720 houses worth of wards or 1440 houses worth of ishgard is a solution and that's fine. But divesting a handful of people from their alt-character's houses to produce under 100 openings per server is a solution? Give me a break.

When a handful of players control a ward... that's a problem. They are denying many the chance to even participate. I would rather give people the option between the carrot and the stick, but that problem needs to end by any means necessary.

Grandfathering was a good idea, and every time you say it should go, you will be told you are wrong.

The initial system design should have been tight enough that this problem should have never been allowed to occur in the first place.

[Catstab]

When a handful of players control a ward... that's a problem.

Agree to disagree.

The behavior you describe was legal when done, and all players on the game had an equal opportunity to claim these houses. The people who claimed them chose to, the people who did not claim them also chose. We are all now lying in the beds we made.

The initial system design should have been tight enough that this problem should have never been allowed to occur in the first place.

Sure, and the titanic should've turned left, in hindsight.

Personal housing at all was a mistake if the idea was that is was for FCs only. Yoshi P should have told us to wait for apartments when we begged for personals. Cutting house prices from 50 million to 3 million just meant that everyone who could afford a house under the old system could now afford 16 houses. And surprise, they bought them.

[Almagnus1]

Sure, and the titanic should've turned left, in hindsight.

Personal housing at all was a mistake if the idea was that is was for FCs only. Yoshi P should have told us to wait for apartments when we begged for personals. Cutting house prices from 50 million to 3 million just meant that everyone who could afford a house under the old system could now afford 16 houses. And surprise, they bought them.

And when you have identified a problem that occurred, you fix it (if possible). In this case, it's entirely possible to do so by enticing players to release their excess housing (aka the carrot) or after sufficient amount of time force the issue on the ones that don't want to (aka the stick).

The implementation to the solution needs not be immediate... it may take several years to roll out, and as long as we get there in the end... I don't really care how it happens as long as the issue is dealt with and will never reappear.