Relo mechanics are Cancer

[Commander_Justitia]

The only way I could imagine it being less an issue.. While not playing in the hands of RMT and alts (with or without fake fc's) and not having to press buttons for 12hrs would be a non static ward situation.
Imagine a dynamic ward, lots of players are inactive at times because the actual owner of a plot is offline or unsubbed. The plot could be used by somebody else, a non permanent resident in a dynamic ward. The advantages? Everyone can buy a house, they would be cheaper, they are all small, you keep them forever until you can upgrade to a permanent one which costs more gil or if you want to upgrade to medium or large. The moment they login their house loads in on a plot of an offline user, whatever is available.

The server issues devs complain about are because many different wards exist at the same time for everyone at all times. It wouldn't be an issue if plot data is just in a database saved, and only specific is displayed on demand. The server load is still the same.

Lots of wards are dead, because players are just inactive, which is normal, I think nobody would mind temporary neighbours till they logout, then the permanent owner appears again even if offline. Optionally you would have the option to allow your plot to be made temporary if you are logged out and you receive a very small fee from the other player for using it.

And I know this will never get implemented because SE likes us to press the same buttons for hours just too much.

But in general its a difficult problem, if they make it too fair it will get abused. Too random and it will get abused too. Current system still should change, its unhealthy for some.

[Arohk]

250 items on the first floor wow!!! Must homes have scene in photos and videos using that many items on one floor. Have had some serious detail put into the decorating and covering of every inch of space.

funny enough, it looks rather empty, the items are mostly walls and partitions.

[Jojoya]

Why would you relocate to a small house when you already got a medium one. You will lose so much item slots. Small houses are ao limited of what you can build in them because of the 200 items. Just get rid of your basement in the medium house then 300 items is alsmost fine for it. My medium house uses around 250 items in the First floor already and i just had enough left for a small bathroom on the top.

That's what I frequently do - float items in the stairwell to the basement to partition it off then use the item budget on ground and top floors.

But then I think about what use I make of the space in the house once it's decorated and that amounts to about the same that a small house has. Until I stripped my house to redecorate yesterday, I'd walk in and immediately go to the space next to the stairs going up where I had my summoning bell and would do my crafting. If I was going to afk on my character for a bit while I look things up online or do some quick chores, I'd use the "sitting area" in the stairwell partition or go upstairs and doze on the bed. I pretty much ignored everything else despite the effort i went to decorate it all.

I don't need a medium house interior when I'm not actively utilizing the entire space except when redecorating. The layout and increased item limit might have more flexibility for design (why I wish housing interiors were more of an open sandbox than a prefab multifloor dwelling) but I'm still able to decorate in a small.

Limitations can be good for sparking creativity just as much as their lack. "How much can I accomplish with what little I have?" The truth is quite a bit even in the case of an apartment. You can't fill it with lots of clutter but you can create interesting spaces.

I do need the medium exterior because of all the gardening I do and I'll freely admit I love having the larger outdoor item limit. I do the same outside as I do inside - one third gets mostly ignored (has my 2 garden patches and a lamppost) while the rest of the item limit is used on the other 2/3s of the yard.

I understand the technical reasons why we've got such small outdoor item limits but then that becomes another reason for wanting a better fully instanced housing system. Imagine the exteriors we could be designing if we weren't limited to 20/30/40 items and could use 100 or 150 items instead. Housing in this game really gets held by the idea that everyone wants to be city folk living in cramped neighborhoods when some of us would rather be country folk living in isolation and saving the city for when it's time to work.

But, yes, I wouldn't have a problem downsizing if I either lost interest in gardening or could still access it in other ways. If I ever got a major itch to work with a medium interior, I have lots of friends who hate decorating and some of them have mediums (I've decorated for them in the past).