Why is there still no good solution to the housing shortage?

[TeraRamis]

Look, I fully understand why home ownership in this game is restricted:

1. FFXIV seems to struggle with funky data restrictions, so it's no surprise that housing has limitations, too. And...
   
2. If houses weren't in such short supply (let's just say that there were infinite wards, with new plots spawning all the time) then neighborhoods would quickly see huge die-offs as people who unsubbed lost access to their homes (or, worse yet, kept them in perpetuity, with the houses becoming dead, unlived-in shells), but new buyers favored 'fresh' wards where there was more activity (something exactly like this happening in LotRO, and it was absolutely brutal to visit the housing areas to see 1-2 active homes in a neighborhood with 20+ plots).

... I get it - some restrictions are necessary. But what we have right now just cannot be the best balance possible; not with the thousands of fresh arrivals in Eorzea who actually want to dip a toe (or more than just a toe) into the possibilities associated with home-ownership. I realize that the likely release of the Ishgarde wards may momentarily alleviate the mad crush to pick-off an open plot in one of the existing neighborhoods, but at this point it's looking like slapping a band-aid on a missing limb - it isn't going to do much to solve the greater problem.

What's most possibly aggravating is that, as with the restriction on glamours, the housing shortage is something that gets talked about a lot by players, but seems to continuously be as low a priority as can be for the admins. And... that's just not a good thing. Housing is one of those pretty unique (or at least polished and attractive) aspects of FFXIV that we use to talk-up the game to friends and relatives - it's a selling point. But how can it actually be a selling point when it remains essentially unattainable to the bulk of the playerbase?

[Seraphor]

"What's most possibly aggravating is that, as with the restriction on glamours, the housing shortage is something that gets talked about a lot by players, but seems to continuously be as low a priority as can be for the admins."

They are constantly promising more Housing wards, and even now, we are expecting new wards by Endwalker, with an entirely new zone (and all the wards that would come with) set for 6.1. Not to mention new servers, which are also due by Endwalker, which themselves will come with the whole set of wards that existing servers have. It's never not one of their priorities.
The only solution is spend more money on more server space, or rework the entire system. The latter isn't going to happen, because they respect players who already have plots. Hell they even allow players who used to buy up multiple houses to keep them under their grandfather clause.

[hobostew]

I know people can be very vocal about housing but I'm pretty sure it isn't as big of an issue for most people as it seems when you look at the forums/social media. In just about every game I've played that had more accessible housing only a small portion of the player base engaged with it and I can only assume that to be the case here too. People who want it are more passionate about it but on the whole I can understand why it isn't as big a priority as content with a more wide appeal to it. Having a pretty place of your own to idle at is nice but it isn't really "playable content" if that makes sense.

[Seraphor]

I know people can be very vocal about housing but I'm pretty sure it isn't as big of an issue for most people as it seems when you look at the forums/social media. In just about every game I've played that had more accessible housing only a small portion of the player base engaged with it and I can only assume that to be the case here too. People who want it are more passionate about it but on the whole I can understand why it isn't as big a priority as content with a more wide appeal to it. Having a pretty place of your own to idle at is nice but it isn't really "playable content" if that makes sense.

As well as only appealing to a subset of players, it's problems only manifest on a subset of servers as well.
Some servers are more populated than others, my server Zodiark, nearly always has plots available on my ward in the Goblet.
The newer servers don't have any shortages at all.
And for those players who are having trouble getting a house, it's not usually "I can't get any plot", as much as it is "I can't get a Large house in Shirogane", i.e. they're being picky.
This is why it's not an easy problem to fix, because if you add say, 10 new wards to each server, you're still not going to meet the requirements on the most populated servers, but you're adding vastly unnecessary capacity for the lower populated servers, leading to dead empty wards.

So this problem is in a way, created by the players. Move to another server if you want a house. It's not an ideal solution, but it's a solution.

[Jojoya]

Some servers are more populated than others, my server Zodiark, nearly always has plots available on my ward in the Goblet.
The newer servers don't have any shortages at all.

When's the last time you actually engaged with the housing system outside of teleporting to your own house and going inside?

The newer servers very much have a shortage now. What had been a decent supply of available plots on Spriggan and Twintania dried up earlier this year. Now the only time you'll see an open plot is when the purchase timer is still active so it can't be purchased. Even the JP worlds that used to have a couple of hundred houses available for the taking have been sold out so they're down to what's being held back by the purchase timer.

Twintania has 3 available smalls as of about 15 minutes ago, all still under the purchase timer.

Zodiark had 1, again under the purchase timer.

That's plenty of available houses to you?

It's about making the place look active and somehow busy so the players don't feel alone.

Same reason folks make towns or villages in survival games, even when they are alone - It gives a sense of activity and presence.

The problem is that it's not working. When I'm in my ward, I feel like I'm in a ghost town. For all that I'm there every day and make trips over to the vendor for Curious Crop exchange, I've seen other players in the ward maybe 3 times this year.

The ward with my FC's house and the apartments for my alts is slightly better. I'll actually catch the occasional player teleporting into the apartment building while I'm standing that the Summoning Bell. They of course immediately disappear inside so the area goes back to being empty. Sometimes I'll catch another player at Dappled Stalls (the FC house is next to it) but most of the time all I see are FC members hanging out at the FC house even if I'm riding between the FC house and the Apartment building instead of using the aethernet to travel.

Wards are not going to feel busy unless there's reason for large numbers of players to be in the same ward together. There's no content in the wards (outside of houses and player organized RP venues) to draw players into the wards and so they remain empty most of the time.

It's pretty eerie and uncomfortable to feel like you're living in a town that the other residents recently abandoned so you're the only one left.

[Rofel]

The only real fix would be going full instanced housing.

And they aren't backing from wards since they wanna insist on the "community" aspect - even if you barelly meet someone on the wards, and when you do, there is no interaction at all.

[Shougun]

The only real fix would be going full instanced housing.

And they aren't backing from wards since they wanna insist on the "community" aspect - even if you barelly meet someone on the wards, and when you do, there is no interaction at all.

I think the ward system would have worked better if they stuck to FC only, it really doesn't seem worth it except for very rare situations given the alternatives one could have had (rather than having to settle "not be picky".. its a video game so I think that's silly, no one would have had to, and you can still technically have some community elements in other more dynamic systems).

While the work would be quite intensive now I believe they could add instances without ruining anything for the current ward users. Though personally IF they're making a new mmo I don't think the work to do that here is worth, may as well just save it as a major selling point for the next one (if that's something that is coming in not "10 years" lol).

to be fair, there would be a lot less people wanting houses if they arent limited anymore. people want to have rare limited things. and they cant show of their houses if housing is instanced.

Many MMOs with instanced housing systems, with very active housing communities - strong doubt here.

IF anything it's the other way around, if houses were more progressive in their growth and easier to obtain then far more people would be involved in houses.

[Rofel]

IF anything it's the other way around, if houses were more progressive in their growth and easier to obtain then far more people would be involved in houses.

This is another good point! Instanced houses can still have external fixtures. Having less houses to load is one steap towards increasing the space limit for furnishing outside.

[Seraphor]

This is another good point! Instanced houses can still have external fixtures. Having less houses to load is one steap towards increasing the space limit for furnishing outside.

Instanced houses with external features... isn't that what we have now?

When people say 'instanced houses', what they generally mean is one universal teleport that sends you to your personal/specific players own little instance. This instance would presumably be a small external zone to show off the garden, which leads to an internal housing system like what we have.

You lose the wards, but you double up on all of the individual instances, because instead of just having indoors, you now have indoors and outdoors.
So how would this actually solve anything? just as many instances (if not more), just as much server strain (if not more).

Well these 'instances' would be Duties, just like Eureka/Bozja, so that they are temporary instances which are only loaded by the servers when they're needed, when accessed.
This means:
- Duty queues to access your house, and if we get a repeat of Raubahn EX, you'll have to queue up to enter your own house.
- No queuing for Duties when in your house/garden, because you're already in one.
- Time limit on how long you can stay in your house, just like Eureka/Bozja, because you can't have everyone hogging up all the duty allocations by camping inside their houses 24/7.

This is what you're asking for when you ask for instanced housing in FFXIV. Just so you know.

[Shougun]

This is what you're asking for when you ask for instanced housing in FFXIV. Just so you know.

No it's not, if someone wants a new system they want a new system. Of course FFXIV can say "impossibru" but that doesn't mean they asked for something else.

There are plenty of examples of instanced housing where you don't have all the issues you listed, people are saying "figure it out". Clearly what people are asking is not what you said, and I think it a bit off putting and perhaps a fallacy to suggest that's what people are asking for when they're clearly not. You might say "this is what is likely to happen given current system limitations" but /obviously/ people are saying "fix the limitations, make it work". They are NOT asking for what you said, to say that is incorrect- to say they might get what you said .. well that's entirely possible. There are many clear examples of the system working perfectly well, it's not some figment of an imagination on what an instanced housing system would look like as we've many examples and when reading people's posts it's clear what they're looking for. There are no smoke and mirrors, if someone had a pikachu face "ooops" because they did what you suggested and were shocked people were upset it's because they weren't paying attention (or of course determine what players want impossible and so they do a compromise, but players are allowed to say "I don't want the comprise, I want this, this is what I said, this is what I want"... and of course dev players may say "I'm not doing that" lol).

Alternatively to counter your point on timers and such, we've plenty of instanced spaces to the player that you CAN queue for duty and there is not a timer (like the garrison or inns, or the current internals of houses, naturally most of those spaces don't get customized- but example where such a system exists in the game that doesn't require what you said people are asking for when they clearly didn't).

Naturally if the company says can't be done it makes it more of a pipe dream, but we've numerous items that couldn't be done at one point but were later do-able (or sometimes it might be a strong notice into the future). As personally I've limited hope for the current game will change, I think the Sanctuary is meant to be a way to alleviate some of the desires for players, and so I mostly comment as a future "next mmo, don't use this exact system- it's not great". I comment for the idea of 5-10 years in the future in another world, to not see this system done as it was done.

As for instanced part- you'd have an instanced internal (house), external would be ideal (so let's say garden space), but a ward user would still have a physical address. Such a concept can be seen in beautiful action in the movie Howel's Moving Castle, or less pretty but basically the same via the flower girl quest in FFXI (for your mog room). Some people's idea was phasing where your house is represented in the physical space with other houses loaded in the other nodes. Phasing can be both cool and painful though, can see WoW where it worked well and not so well. There are multiple ways to go about it. Of course you can keep the same system that requires people to settle, lack of creativity, etc, but.. ew? Obviously imo, but in general the system gets a "ew" / 10 (with the objects themselves generally being pretty cool, some of the people who go dozen hour plus on designs have shown real creativity).