A proposed, overall solution to a complicated and heated problem.

[Fleap]

I have ideas and I must share.

This is intended to be an all-around fix that covers many of the "But what about..." of the housing situation.

First, Apartments (and Free Company rooms):

Let me say here, first and foremost, that I feel like regular instanced housing should just replace apartments. The irony of what apartments literally are, is not lost on me. But this is a list for solutions that would not take on a huge amount of potential changes for the dev team.

Apartments can and should cover the need for personal housing, but to do so we need a lot more than a horribly shaped rectangular room. If you have ever decorated an apartment, you know that lofts don't even fit perfectly within that space, nor does the 100 item limit help.

• Increase item limit.
• Structure the apartment to have add-on rooms, possibly capped.
• Possibly add the option to size upgrade, also possibly capped.
• Allow customization of interior walls/stairs/pillars.

Get that item limit up to make even a basic apartment more appealing. Make an upgrade system to serve as a gil sink, something this game sorely needs. Maybe you can choose 4 upgrades. Want an apartment with a single floor that is the size of a medium house with a boost to item limit? There's one upgrade. Take it to a single story the size of a large? That's two. Sunroom/balcony with a garden and a few outdoor furnishing slots? Three. Second story? Four. Basement? Figure out which you would rather have, and go with it. This feature also adds a ton of player agency, which is important.

Now, we have a gil sink, we have more appealing apartments, everyone can have a garden, everyone can have the size of house that pleases them, etc.

Free Companies:

• Keep a small number of FC only wards.
• Untether the workshop.
• Give FC rooms the same capacities as apartments mentioned above.

Lets be honest. A large enough free company isn't gonna be renting out rooms for 200 members, that's gonna be an entire town in and of itself. So keep some wards around for FCs. An FC can buy one house if they so choose, and its members can take the risk of FC housing if they want to, with the same benefits as an apartment.

"But the workshop!" Untether it. Don't make it linked to the house. I don't need a house to go work on my squadron. Couldn't we have a place near the GC's where, like squadrons, we go into that room to do work for our FC?

Sure, several FCs are still going to want a house. Which is why they could have surface wards and (maybe a bonus) of an upgradeable, decoratable meeting room/hangout/hideout. Since FC rooms transfer with the house, that seems like it could be switched over if the FC gets a house, or gets rid of a house. I know there are FCs out there who don't even really want their house and do not decorate it, just own it for the workshop or FC rooms. If we could get those people into a system that provides them that without a house, that might work out for the better in terms of ward housing.

This could also help minimize the existence of shell FCs, as regular players and multis will be able to workshop farm to their heart's content without taking up an entire ward. I'm sure there are some out there who still would, but that's an entirely different level of problem solving that I am not paid for.

Personal Open Wards and Houses:

• keep a percentage of wards personal
• increase item cap
• allow floor/layout changes

Keep a portion of these around for people who absolutely just have to have a surface-visitable wards. Let the people who want that, strive for that, while also being able to be comfy with everyone else in their newly revamped apartments while they wait. I feel like what is getting lost in a lot of these threads is that several of these players don't even want a ward house, they just want a house. They want a garden, a place for their outside furnishings, a second story. Whereas for others, their egos enjoy having something that is visible to the open world. (That's not a negative ego, mind, but the simplest form of its definition: some want to show off, some want the feeling of accomplishment, etc etc.)

I know if I buy a small ward house I shouldn't be able to click and turn it into a medium (plus this would be a ton of work for devs, as nice as it sounds). However, being able to choose between a basement, or a second story, would be insanely neat. We can sort of choose to do that, but the first story is where the door takes you, so even if you're pretending as hard as you can, a basement is still a basement. Also, Empy's interiors are something that we should give the dev team props for. Its amazing. But not everyone is going to get into Empy, so letting us choose our pillar and stock wall/stair types would be so absolutely fantastic. I can see plenty of what the Goblet looks like by going outside. I don't need it in my house.

Thank you for reading and good hunting!

[Corvus_V]

snip

I agree with almost everything you've written. The only reason I don't make suggestions like this is because I feel like from a design standpoint my suggestions would be entirely ignored. I've never actually seen someone's influence from a forum be reflected in a game, outside of maybe Warframe (which is why I'm actually kind of a massive fan of DE.)

I make suggestions like "just have a functional copy of an isolated plot in an instance" because it is probably the laziest solution. They barely have to create assets for that outside of a skybox(s) and some background, it would just be something that already exists in the game; isolated so players can actually have one. All they'd need after that is whatever UI, netcode, and servers to support that.

You are correct, if I could have a large in the form of instanced housing, (while being able to choose my exterior/interior, including the backdrop because I'd want it to be snowy) I would not care about "showing off" to people. I want people to be able to visit it, yes, of course, but I don't care about it being in a ward, especially because wards are essentially ghost towns 98% of the time. I can absolutely count the number of times on one hand that I've interacted with someone from the same ward as me, or anyone who happened to be passing by, and I'm not shy. Despite that, I also know there's an RP community, so whatever plots there are that RP venues exist at, typically will actually have people at them. That's why I'm not totally cool with "destroying the ward system." I'll acknowledge that if that was the price to pay, that would suck, but it isn't as if a visitable instaced RP venue with even more access control wouldn't be beneficial, either. It would have pros and cons. Overall, I would like compromise, just not the kind of compromise that leaves people out. (Which is why I said "hey, lottery sounds cool, but maybe don't just make it all lottery? how about leaving in relocation so people can work up to larger houses rather than buying one outright, as that isn't fair to everyone who participated in the old system")

The only thing I disagree with a little is this:

I know if I buy a small ward house I shouldn't be able to click and turn it into a medium (plus this would be a ton of work for devs, as nice as it sounds)

They would probably have to expand a bit of the geometry of the plots and such to fit all house types, but if it fits (even if it's not a ton of yard space) it's still preferable to the way it is right now. I don't really see why we shouldn't be able to, anyway. People would just fight over normal plots then, in that case. I think editing that might be easier than designing tilesets to slap together to make a customizable home with up to 4 floors, since fixing up one housing zone in its entirety would allow you to make sweeping changes for all houses across all wards per housing area (since the subdivisions are just rotated 90 degrees, I was unaware of this until about 2 years ago).

As far as FC's are concerned, giving people the option to have a company workshop and gardening without access to a house would probably go a long way as well, since there's absolutely people who make shell FC's and consume houses just to have access to more subs and airships; as those can bring in a lot of gil. It'd also be kind of useful if FC members didn't have to gil sink individually for apartments, but the apartments were bulk purchased in slots by the FC houses. It would probably draw people into FCs and get them to actually interact with their apartment

[Fleap]

They would probably have to expand a bit of the geometry of the plots and such to fit all house types, but if it fits (even if it's not a ton of yard space) it's still preferable to the way it is right now. I don't really see why we shouldn't be able to, anyway. People would just fight over normal plots then, in that case. I think editing that might be easier than designing tilesets to slap together to make a customizable home with up to 4 floors, since fixing up one housing zone in its entirety would allow you to make sweeping changes for all houses across all wards per housing area (since the subdivisions are just rotated 90 degrees, I was unaware of this until about 2 years ago).

That would be really cool, but I am aware of how much of a nightmare that could be for the 3D team. Lots of roads to move, assets to scoot, it would be a lot more effort than just saying 'every plot be large dimensions now.' And Yoshida already has them on a project, iirc, to update the textures in the game.

[Corvus_V]

That would be really cool, but I am aware of how much of a nightmare that could be for the 3D team. Lots of roads to move, assets to scoot, it would be a lot more effort than just saying 'every plot be large dimensions now.' And Yoshida already has them on a project, iirc, to update the textures in the game.

I'm sure it's not as simple as scooting the vertexes away from each other; but it would be fairly shy of a total redesign I guess, at least I'd think. I figured a lot of the textures are mostly repeating anyway so it wouldn't be a huge issue but I know next to nothing about that either. I just figure again that the assets are more or less there; just that there's so many wards and subdivisions already it would be a huge sweeping change that would placate a lot of people. Not that that is necessarily a good thing anyway, since people would still be left out of housing; even if every small/medium/large plot filled.