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.

[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.

[Asari5]

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.

[Rofel]

Housing already is kinda instanced, tho. Wards are instances, and so are the internal spaces of each building.

[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.

[Sotaris]

Why? Simply put cost and covid travel limitations. There was plans to add more servers, but since SE still uses hardware servers and not cloud based they simply been unable to do so.