Thread: Genshin Impact has better housing. Suggestion for 5.0 ...

Video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQbzx8AD4gI

I have plenty of experience in FFXIV housing.
In my FFXIV lifetime, I've "used" 4 different houses:

- A mid plot in Mist, which belonged to my old FC
- A mansion, which I owned in Lavender Beds, and I had stolen from me
- A small plot, which I currently own in Mist
- A mansion in The Goblet, which belongs to my new FC

I don't know about you, but I've never benefited from the "social" aspect of housing (i.e. having neighborhoods). I visited a neighbor's house -ONCE- and hanged around for like 10 min, because said neighbor was on my FC alliance.

My other social interactions are limited to doing a poke emote to the Lala who is near the markerboard, who has a 1% change of not being afk and emoting back. Other than that, all around me are neglected houses with furniture from 2 years ago, or empty neighborhoods because multiple houses belong to a single FC/player.

The last time I enjoyed FFXIV Housing wasn't because I was casually strolling through my neighborhood. Neighborhoods are useless. It was because I got an INVITATION (remember this) to a certain out-of-the way plot of land, maybe in a subdivision of a different server, to a cool concert, or play, or halloween party.



Enter Genshin Impact housing less than 1 month ago.

GI Housing is in an early state, with few furniture options. But usage already is so much better. First, I don't have to battle bots for 12 hours to buy a measly small plot.

EVERYONE gets THREE HUGE PLOTS of land with MULTIPLE areas, where you can build up to THREE MANSIONS, and you can even build a SMALL NEIGHBORHOOD AROUND YOUR MANSION.

Currently you get a huge beach area and build your mansion there. You get a huge mountain area and build another mansion there. And you get a huge celestial area and build another mansion there. In total, 3 little sandboxes where you can place multiple houses, pets, trees, furniture, etc...

Everyone gets this FOR FREE... and oh, yes, Genshin Impact is a MOBILE GAME.

Want to visit other player's housing area, or want them to visit yours? All you need is to right click on a name, and click invite. Two clicks. Yes, the system works using an INVITATION.

Let's say you're playing FFXIV, and someone is hosting a concert on X plot of land. You have to go to the right city, aetheryte, click housing, access the division, teleport, walk to the house... YAWN. Just let us right click and get the hell inside the party. I don't give a damn where the house is located or what is AROUND the house I'm visiting.

Final Fantasy XIV needs instanced housing, and needs to forget the messy, resource-greedy, bot-infested, house-abandoned, suscription-dependant, black-marketed concept of neighborhoods.

In 5.0 we'll be getting our little own instanced "farm island" with minions, gardening, and stuff. It's the perfect moment to enable instanced housing. Let everyone have their own huge house to play with. Get rid of bots, gil-sellers, housing blackmarket, and all that crap all at once.

They already said that island sanctuary isn't a replacement for housing. It's its own non-competitive pet and gardening thing. It's possible that it isn't even customizable or supporting of decorating.

Also, Genshin Impact is a new game that doesn't have to deal with 10 year old relic code and existing features which conflict with any possible update. The only way they could offer instanced housing for everyone in the playerbase by using the current system would be to expand on the apartment system, and they'd have to figure out a way of doing that without nuking everybody's current apartment.

Originally Posted by Bladehawk

They mentioned that bigger apartments would come at the expense of the number of wards we have. It doesn't sound like the current system only needs to be expanded, it would need to be totally replaced.

Jesus, that's even worse.

Mind you, depending on the size of the apartments, I wouldn't mind having small/medium/large apartments over having more than 24 wards. Apartments don't expire; you can safely unsub and keep them, unlike standard housing.

Originally Posted by Bladehawk

So you would be ok with giving up your small personal house/fc house so someone else can upgrade their small apt to a medium sized one? Thats how the numbers game would work out with the current state of things. Not sure less housing for everyone so a few can have bigger housing is the way id like to see things go.

Not certain why you think that would be the case. As far as I know, there's been nothing said to indicate changes to the apartment system would cause players to lose their ward houses.

All that YoshiP has said was that the apartment system was not designed to accommodate an expansion of an existing apartment (ie add on a second room to your current apartment). He also said at the time apartments were added that it would be far easier for them to add additional wings to apartment building if there was enough demand than it is for them to add new wards. That demand has never materialized since the current apartments are no better than a FC private chamber (other than no risk of losing the apartment) so no world has ever sold out of apartments.

It seems like it should be possible to add new wings to the apartment buildings that would hold larger apartments (possibly with fewer apartments per wing). A player would probably need to relinquish their current apartment to buy the larger just as we currently need to relinquish to move to a different building.

Originally Posted by Bladehawk

So you would be ok with giving up your small personal house/fc house so someone else can upgrade their small apt to a medium sized one? Thats how the numbers game would work out with the current state of things. Not sure less housing for everyone so a few can have bigger housing is the way id like to see things go.

Not Sure less housing for a few so everyone can have a bigger apartment is the way id like to see things go. *fixed that for you*. Clearly you don't understand the numbers game here. When Ishgard drops that means 1,440 housing on the market and 4.320 apartments not including what can be created in FC houses. Rather than make 5 new wards for a total of 300 house, maybe people would rather see larger apartments considering there are 4 times more (note apartments are fluid and numbers depend on demand per ward). Even if they could only make half apartments the size of small houses floor space, that would still mean 960 small houses per ward versus 2,160 in apartments.

So yea, I think SE should consider investing in making bigger apartments instead of adding more wards. They should also give everyone in 6.0 a one time pass to move to any server they like to help those that want a house can go to lower pop world. Maybe even add a buy back system for player that decide they don't want a house and can sell it back to the system for equal value.

Yea, it sucks. The truth is that most people won't be able to own a house in the current system. There is only going to be 7,200 (60 plots x 24 ward x 5 districts) houses per world when Ishgard drops, and if the ffxivcensus is to be trusted there is 114,000 characters on Diabolos with 10,000 active. The only other option I see is to bulldoze the whole damn thing and try to give every player a small apartment. So would you be ok with giving up your small personal house/fc house so everyone can have a small apt?

Originally Posted by Themarvin

No matter what, these houses and wards and whatever else will be empty and barely used or populated, there is no point hanging out there, when everyone hang out in the big cities.

This is the best comment I've seen in a long time and so true. It irks me that SE isn't improving the wards because they have to be so focused on trying to make enough houses for everyone because that is what dominated the forum boards