Can we have instanced housing please?

[mbncd]

When housing was first announced, I was honestly expecting it to be instanced. There were far fewer wards than there are now and no private quarters. I felt so incredibly sad for all the folks who simply could not get a house because there weren't enough plots available. It was like giving a single cookie to a thousand people and expecting them all to share only it was more than that because houses actually had functionality and purpose.

I got angry at SE (billing issue, not relevant) and left the game back in about 2019 or so, and only came back the other day, moving to the new server here in Aussieland.

There're no houses or apartments here. People are talking about maybe they'll be back in 6.1 but I don't know if that's true or not. I won't lie; I miss my house. Unfortunately, I didn't even get back the money or items from it because I was away for too long.

I have fond memories of the one person I saw in the neighbourhood on a regular bases shortly after the wards were first doubled but he left after a little while and I'd never regularly see anyone after that that I hadn't invited to my own house. It wasn't because I was locked away inside either; there was a market board, summoning bell and aethernet node right outside my place and even when I felt lazy I'd just sit on a stump in my front yard and relax but people didn't tend to come. I dunno, it just never felt like it was what SE expected it to be and it felt really exclusionary to have people buy houses only to never step foot in them other than to keep the demolition timer from running out.

It's very possible that all my qualms with it were resolved long ago (remember, I'm a recent returner on a server without housing so I really don't know the current state of things) but I still think instanced housing was the way to go. Having to keep whole neighbourhoods up all the time seems silly if you can just put a person's house away once they go outside, and it works perfectly well for inn rooms (and I'm assuming apartments, knowing nothing about them).

I'm all for personal house instances. Please make them a thing where you can still decorate, have stables and gardens, place decorations and useful implements, and invite others to your place. It doesn't have to be as complex as it is now but I'd get rid of the demolition system in exchange for an archival system after a while of inactivity (maybe the same 45 days as it was, I don't know if it still is that or not) and maybe they have to apply to get their house back and wait up to a day or something for it to get shuffled back in. Being instanced, it can all be incredibly modular, added to and archived as servers and funds allow.

I'm not dealing with the optional items store but I'm spending an awful lot on my full roster of retainers and collector editions and stuff like that. Surely SE could use some of that money for more instance servers and instanced housing amongst other things.

[Naoki34]

Keep the current housing system for people who wants a sense of real community and neighbors, and add instanced version of housing zones that all plots are available with the same price tags but without real player neighbors.

As said, over and over again: Yoshi-P wants housing to be a social place to meet and blah blah blah...

Except, it's nothing more than a ghost town where the probability of meeting a neighbour is close to zero, except for a neighbourhood created for Rp purposes, I guess. And day one of the new big patch.

But whatever the reality, it's Yoshi-P who decides.


It's like the fact that FFXIV is even more casualized in Endwalker, despite the fact that noobs die in a loop over rather simple content. Experienced players have nothing better to do than farm the Ex, Savage and let and take a break until the next big patch.
Oh yeah, there's a reason the queues are down to 20-50 at the most now.

Again, it's Yoshi-P who decides.


There you go.

[KitKatnip]

I'm waiting to see what Island Sanctuary will have and whether or not it will fill this need.

[ironbutterfly]

I've always felt wards should be for FC's. Before moving DC to OCE the ward our FC was in on Tonberry there was a total of 3 FC houses the rest were all private houses. Was always dead and most of the houses were absolutely empty. Most annoying because we were a FC in a small house and private mansions sitting there with nothing. Been to other wards where there were mostly FC houses and they always felt more alive, even our old plot had more of a community and that was 50-50 mix. Though apartments could easily be sized up slightly and include a balcony to allow some form of gardening (this of course depends on what Island Sanctuary brings to the game).

[MistyMew]

I have seen another player at my house and in vicinity maybe 3 times in YEARS!!

I have always advocated for instanced housing IF that would accomplish availability for all.
In Rift we could own many housing zones to build in ,and yes there was a list to search to visit a specific friend etc.
It was far superior imho.

They could use the idea of apartments but vastly expand their size and functionality. ie/ terrace that can hold garden plots, extra rooms for subs and airship building if we ever need fc apartments as well...

The neighborhood has always been a waste of resource space imo. The instanced homes can still be visited/seen if the owner chose to open them up...no different then now.

[Wolwosh]

I think its a bit like why they don't want to improve on the inventory system in 14.
If they would update the inventory system, like having 1 material bank, people would need less retainers = less money for SE.
If everyone has instanced housing what would be the point of having to stay subbed to keep your house from getting demolished?
You could just get a new one if a timer would still apply.

[Nanne]

If everyone has instanced housing what would be the point of having to stay subbed to keep your house from getting demolished?

So they are doing this system really badly just to keep the really small number of players who have a house subbed every month? Sounds like terrible idea to make money when you could make something that would force everyone to keep subbed. Even now during prime time it takes a small time to reserve a server for a dungeon roulette so I can just imagine what happens during patch/expandion launch days. People will be stuck reserving an dungeon instance when there are thousands of players AFK in their own housing instances. You couldn't even get to a housing ward the first few weeks so imagine all those players now having an entire instance reserved for their house

[Jojoya]

Not really. Instanced housing will feel like a dungeon. Theres no sense of achievement in it at all. And they have said Island will be like a house with more features and it is instanced. People just need to wait.

I don't want housing for a sense of achievement. I want housing for when I'm in a mood to flex my creative muscles.

And no, they never said Island Sanctuary will be like a house. That was people misunderstanding what the interpreter was saying in the Shenpai/Meoni interview (it's really funny how everyone attributes the question to Meoni when it was Shenpai who asked it). Island Sanctuary is intended to be different from housing, not the same thing.

[Snorky]

There is nothing wrong with ward housing. I guess I'm lucky I have seen lots of people running around near my FC and near my apartment. Wards are not bad and the concept of neighborhoods is a good thing, the problem is there are not enough of them and the way they are obtained. It should be one house one apartment one FC room per account. I don't know what the solution is to stop people from buying and reselling the except to make them unsellable and only refundable for what you paid for it. If instance housing isn't a option. I love instance housing and I also love the ward concept. We just need more available and affordable.

[Tlamila]

There're no houses or apartments here. People are talking about maybe they'll be back in 6.1 but I don't know if that's true or not.

They did say they'd only enable housing later there, a month or two? Something about giving people time to settle in and all.
Otherwise all houses would have been hogged right away from the first transferrers/people levelling the fastest and the rest would have been left with nothing.