We deserve an explanantion.

[KikiTia]

I'm not talking about the mess with the lottery. For the past few years the housing system has been a dog-eat-dog, FOMO mess that puts housing almost entirely out of reach of normal casual players. Housing should not be limited. Fuck neighborhoods to be honest, I don't even see anyone in my neighborhood anyway. While there may be technical limitations that prevent the devs from adding more wards you can't tell me there are limitations which prevent them from creating instanced housing. Apartments are proof that it is possible for them to do. I would rather Yoshida and the devs give us a "long and complex explanation" as to why, after 3+ years, they still accept and continue to push for a system that turns a laidback feature into a vicious fucking competition where you will miss out if you join the game at the wrong time. I don't even care if they have to push back plans and not have it done for a few years. Just knowing that instanced housing is on the agenda would make me feel a million times better about it. Neighborhoods aren't worth having to trust in the grace of god to get a house. Frankly I'm sick and tired of seeing this system go unchanged and I'm done being ignored. The community, both the loyal players of 10+ years and the people joining just now, deserve much better than this.

[Oizen]

I just don't get how they can take so long to add new housing districts, have them fill up in less than an hour, then proceed to stop adding new wards for a couple years and say "yeah our work here is done"

[Theox]

Tbh I like the idea of having a neighbourhood, but there's no reason for not having some kind of alternative for the people who want to get that same experience of owning a house (apartments SUCK so dont even come for me saying they exist). I think neighbourhoods should stay as a much more complex system to get into (cuz it's been like that for years and it seems like the devs dont know how to change that) AND we also need a very similair alternative like instanced housing that gets talked about a lot on here and seems to be absolutely ignored as a possibility by the dev team.

[MistakeNot]

I'm not talking about the mess with the lottery. For 10 years the housing system has been a dog-eat-dog, FOBO mess that puts housing almost entirely out of reach of normal casual players.

No, it hasn't. It is only for the last 2-3 years or so that getting a house has been difficult. Before that you could generally get a house without much problem or waiting (except on Balmung).

As to why housing wards instead of instanced housing, it is not a question of technical limitations. It is because the devs like open wards where you have neighbours, and prefer that over instanced housing. They think that housing should be somewhat limited and not something everybody and their dog can get - apartements are for everyone else.

[KikiTia]

No, it hasn't. It is only for the last 2-3 years or so that getting a house has been difficult. Before that you could generally get a house without much problem or waiting (except on Balmung).

As to why housing wards instead of instanced housing, it is not a question of technical limitations. It is because the devs like open wards where you have neighbours, and prefer that over instanced housing. They think that housing should be somewhat limited and not something everybody and their dog can get - apartements are for everyone else.

Yeah that's fair, I'll admit I haven't been around long enough to have known that, so thank you for correcting me. Still I wish they would explain to us why they insist on these band aid patches as opposed to larger, systematic change. We shouldn't have to guess their intentions and hope they know what they are doing.

[Dionysius]

Agree with post above, the dev doesn't have listen to players all the time (sometimes players don't know what they want). They should stick to their vision and if players don't like they can play other games with instanced housing.

[Oizen]

No, it hasn't. It is only for the last 2-3 years or so that getting a house has been difficult. Before that you could generally get a house without much problem or waiting (except on Balmung).

As to why housing wards instead of instanced housing, it is not a question of technical limitations. It is because the devs like open wards where you have neighbours, and prefer that over instanced housing. They think that housing should be somewhat limited and not something everybody and their dog can get - apartements are for everyone else.

"Somewhat Limited" is really downplaying it imo.

[Fleap]

Hubris and not communicating/not listening to a part of their player base is part of what killed FFXIV and brought us this dev team and ARR. At that time we were promised much better. That our new devs would put in actual effort to make the game amazing and accessible. And I will not lie, we got some of that.

But what I see now when one of the devs reacts dramatically to housing questions? Pride. I see pride and I see someone who is refusing to understand their player base. (Hrothgar ears make me see it further but that's for another part of this forum). And I absolutely do not feel we have gotten good communication.

There's a sticky at the top of this forum that is quite old, but very interesting to read in current times. Is Yoshida still grateful for our feedback? Or is he sick of hearing it? Were those promises only for that time or meant to be continuous? Why is the only dev sticky from over a decade ago?

I half wonder if the reason they went so very heavy on FC wards, is because they are aware of the bad press they get about housing. Leaving several FC wards half empty, they can then go "But look, all these houses are still available!"

Frankly I never have trust or hope for corporations, but I cannot elaborate how utterly disappointed I have been in this game since EW. I do not think I would have the wordcount, nor would I be able to take the jumbled mess in my brain and sort them out well enough.

[KikiTia]

Agree with post above, the dev doesn't have listen to players all the time (sometimes players don't know what they want). They should stick to their vision and if players don't like they can play other games with instanced housing.

I thought that too until my friends and I lost our chance at a large FC House due to being past the 200 spot in the server queue. We literally got on 10 minutes after the patch and every single large on the server had been taken. And now because of the way the system works the only way for us to get a large house is to pray to god someone with a large quits the game or an FC with a large disbands, or worse yet we have to pay 10x the asking price to go through relocation with someone who owns a large. Creative integrity is all well and good, but it's an issue if it comes at the expense of 80%+ of the player base.

[Fleap]

(sometimes players don't know what they want).

I might be speaking from a slightly biased perspective as a person who quit this game a few times due to frustrations with trying to get into a house and how the devs managed housing through the years, but I am pretty sure after a decade, the fact that players have been begging for more housing means that they want more housing, no matter how it comes.

Frankly instanced housing would be intelligent and solve issues for a lot of people. Not just getting a house, but also, for instance, that you can expand estate settings and let people kick or ban people out of their house. That would reduce stalking, harassment, and other toxic behavior. There are as many players, if not more, that would love that, than players who actually live on wards with active players.

My ward's dead. All of my old FC's wards, across several servers and years, were dead. My current FC's old ward was dead. My current FC's current ward is dead (but at least we can blame that being Empy). My apartment's ward is dead.

For chuck's sake keep a few "live" wards for the people who just have to show off or want to try to band together and be social. Rededicate unused servers to something else, maybe an expandable apartment system that lets you add on rooms or upgrade size or put in a greenhouse balcony. Maybe it can have a list of upgrades pertaining to sizes of each floor, floors, greenery room for a garden, and you get 4 slots to choose your customizations. That would make most players downright ecstatic.

This is miserable. Players are miserable. Devs are miserable. Everyone's miserable and been miserable for a decade. Players have quit over it, players have remained hoping for it, new players have come, and they're all significantly more upset than not. If everyone* hates this, solve it.

(everyone refers to an apparent majority of house-wanting players)

When I first started playing this game years and one account ago (had to ditch the old due to constant harassment from an ex-FC member), the housing quest all but implied housing wasn't for the common folk but was for special folk, like me, like every player character. I was so excited I said in my FC chat "Oh cool! What level do we get a house?" The resounding answer was to give the usual information on what was required, followed up by a "But they're impossible to get, you'll probably never get one." That was eight years ago. I got my house two months ago due to persistence and literal, sheer luck of clicking the placard at just the right second. I'm hardly a super-FFXIV-fanboy but I waited, with a few long breaks between, eight years. I think that's fairly good evidence that this system might have a problem.