So devs don't understand math.

[Jaquan]

Except it's not really FC housing for the group. It's FC housing for the FC Master and those the FC Master decides can have access to the housing features. Everyone else is effectively a visitor even though they're FC members.

Players are looking for a personal creative outlet but that requires a measure of control so they can express themselves. That control is absent when access is granted at someone else's whim and that person has the ability to override the player's personal choices, not to mention has given access to others also able to override the player's choice. That's why the demand for personal housing is so high - no one else can interfere.

How about getting an apartment then? You'll have limits but it's your own space, costs fraction of what the house costs and you'll never lose it. Seen enough barely decorated houses to feel more than enough people doesn't really commit to the house as much as they claim they do/would.

[Jojoya]

How about getting an apartment then? You'll have limits but it's your own space, costs fraction of what the house costs and you'll never lose it. Seen enough barely decorated houses to feel more than enough people doesn't really commit to the house as much as they claim they do/would.

Apartments lack gardening, which is a feature players commonly want access to.

Apartments lack the ability to place outdoor furnishings.

Apartments lack multiple floors, which makes certain certain decorating tricks impossible without the use of third party mods. Why can players doze on the Manor Couch on the ground floor of my FC's small? Because I floated a bed in the basement up to the ceiling directly under the couch. Try to hide a bed in an apartment to do the same trick uses up a lot of valuable space (and a greater percentage of the item limit). Want a marble staircase? You can do that in a house by floating Marble Paritions up through the ceiling of a lower floor. You can't do it in an apartment.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a proponent for more use of apartments, especially by players worried about taking breaks from the game and worried about demolition. What's the point of having a house in a game you rarely play? But there still are not enough houses for the players who would make regular use of them and want access to the things an apartment can't provide.

As for barely decorated houses, there can be multiple reasons such as the player only wants access to garden/workshop but neither are available without house ownership, or the player likes more sparsely decorated areas. Not everyone wants a house cluttered up like a bad thrift shop.

[Eraden]

Apartments lack gardening, which is a feature players commonly want access to.

Apartments lack the ability to place outdoor furnishings.

Apartments lack multiple floors, which makes certain certain decorating tricks impossible without the use of third party mods. Why can players doze on the Manor Couch on the ground floor of my FC's small? Because I floated a bed in the basement up to the ceiling directly under the couch. Try to hide a bed in an apartment to do the same trick uses up a lot of valuable space (and a greater percentage of the item limit). Want a marble staircase? You can do that in a house by floating Marble Paritions up through the ceiling of a lower floor. You can't do it in an apartment.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a proponent for more use of apartments, especially by players worried about taking breaks from the game and worried about demolition. What's the point of having a house in a game you rarely play? But there still are not enough houses for the players who would make regular use of them and want access to the things an apartment can't provide.

As for barely decorated houses, there can be multiple reasons such as the player only wants access to garden/workshop but neither are available without house ownership, or the player likes more sparsely decorated areas. Not everyone wants a house cluttered up like a bad thrift shop.

I would tend to agree with all of what Jojoya said here. It's also the reason why, I suspect, that Island Sanctuaries are being developed. The developers don't appear to have any interest in dealing with the housing issue in any definitive way. I believe they are implementing Island Sanctuaries to provide players with access to gardening without having to deal with the housing issue.

[Amenara]

I would tend to agree with all of what Jojoya said here. It's also the reason why, I suspect, that Island Sanctuaries are being developed. The developers don't appear to have any interest in dealing with the housing issue in any definitive way. I believe they are implementing Island Sanctuaries to provide players with access to gardening without having to deal with the housing issue.

Using dev resources to ground up create a whole new system to appease a portion of the playerbase instead of using those resources to fix an existing system and appease a much larger portion. Sounds like something they would do to me.

[Jojoya]

I would tend to agree with all of what Jojoya said here. It's also the reason why, I suspect, that Island Sanctuaries are being developed. The developers don't appear to have any interest in dealing with the housing issue in any definitive way. I believe they are implementing Island Sanctuaries to provide players with access to gardening without having to deal with the housing issue.

Except we already know that whatever farming is coming with Island Sanctuary won't be the gardening we have with housing. YoshiP has stated there are no timers involved. The timers in gardening help contribute to the high prices of items like Thavnairian Onions on the MB because few house owners are interested in dealing with the timer stress.

It makes no sense for SE to invest a lot of time and effort into Island Sanctuary if it's intended to be a substitute for housing systems when they could have put the time and effort into updating housing directly instead.

With 6.15 announced for June 7th, we should be getting one of the Live Letters for 6.2 soon. Let's hope they finally release concrete information about Island Sanctuary that will put the speculation and rumors to rest finally.

[Eraden]

Except we already know that whatever farming is coming with Island Sanctuary won't be the gardening we have with housing. YoshiP has stated there are no timers involved. The timers in gardening help contribute to the high prices of items like Thavnairian Onions on the MB because few house owners are interested in dealing with the timer stress.

It makes no sense for SE to invest a lot of time and effort into Island Sanctuary if it's intended to be a substitute for housing systems when they could have put the time and effort into updating housing directly instead.

With 6.15 announced for June 7th, we should be getting one of the Live Letters for 6.2 soon. Let's hope they finally release concrete information about Island Sanctuary that will put the speculation and rumors to rest finally.

The key point here is that it will be some form of gardening. Whether or not it is exactly the same as what is done with house plots is not the focus here. It IS a form of gardening that allows those who do not have houses, to be able to participate in. I strongly suspect that the time and effort that they have spent and will spend on Island Sanctuaries, pales in comparison to what is required to overhaul the housing system. In addition, the developers apparently have already made it clear that instanced housing is off the table. Thus it actually DOES make sense that Island Sanctuaries are an attempt to satisfy at least part of the player base without having to invest the substantial resources required to massively increase the amount of housing that is available.

[Corvus_V]

The key point here is that it will be some form of gardening. Whether or not it is exactly the same as what is done with house plots is not the focus here. It IS a form of gardening that allows those who do not have houses, to be able to participate in. I strongly suspect that the time and effort that they have spent and will spend on Island Sanctuaries, pales in comparison to what is required to overhaul the housing system. In addition, the developers apparently have already made it clear that instanced housing is off the table. Thus it actually DOES make sense that Island Sanctuaries are an attempt to satisfy at least part of the player base without having to invest the substantial resources required to massively increase the amount of housing that is available.

Instanced housing shouldn't be off the table. I own 2 apartments. That's 2 instances. They can do it. If you even have a source for them saying its "off the table" then its a lie (as in SE is not telling you the truth.)

They cut corners on virtually everything else, they can afford to develop instanced housing. Even island sanctuaries more than likely function like every other instance.
They can do it, they absolutely have the space and everything they need to do it. It would not crash the servers, any more than every FC member of every FC that owns a house filling up all the apartment slots (if there is even a limit) for the FC apartments might crash the servers. Please, stop with the concessions. Its such a pitifully crafted excuse for a company that has made less and less per expansion despite increased subscriptions.

Adding wards to meet large and medium demands? Impossible. THAT might crash the servers. Instanced housing? No. Enough of the bullshit. It is not even as if in a situation where every single player was able to own a house, they would constantly be moving in and out of them. People actually log out.

[Eraden]

Instanced housing shouldn't be off the table. I own 2 apartments. That's 2 instances. They can do it. If you even have a source for them saying its "off the table" then its a lie (as in SE is not telling you the truth.)

They cut corners on virtually everything else, they can afford to develop instanced housing. Even island sanctuaries more than likely function like every other instance.
They can do it, they absolutely have the space and everything they need to do it. It would not crash the servers, any more than every FC member of every FC that owns a house filling up all the apartment slots (if there is even a limit) for the FC apartments might crash the servers. Please, stop with the concessions. Its such a pitifully crafted excuse for a company that has made less and less per expansion despite increased subscriptions.

Adding wards to meet large and medium demands? Impossible. THAT might crash the servers. Instanced housing? No. Enough of the bullshit. It is not even as if in a situation where every single player was able to own a house, they would constantly be moving in and out of them. People actually log out.

I don't disagree with much of what you said but there have been plenty of people on these forums who have stated that Yoshida himself was against instanced housing. This appears not to be a case of they can't do it, but a case of they don't want to.

[Jojoya]

The key point here is that it will be some form of gardening. Whether or not it is exactly the same as what is done with house plots is not the focus here. It IS a form of gardening that allows those who do not have houses, to be able to participate in. I strongly suspect that the time and effort that they have spent and will spend on Island Sanctuaries, pales in comparison to what is required to overhaul the housing system. In addition, the developers apparently have already made it clear that instanced housing is off the table. Thus it actually DOES make sense that Island Sanctuaries are an attempt to satisfy at least part of the player base without having to invest the substantial resources required to massively increase the amount of housing that is available.

I think you're ignoring why players keep asking for access to gardening. It's not because they want "some form of gardening" to do. That's already available via flowerpots in FC rooms and apartments. Any seed you can buy from the MB or a vendor can be grown in flowerpots (which is more than you can say for garden patches - you can't grow the decorative flower seeds in those).

It's because they feel the prices for things like Thavnairian Onions are too high so they want to be able to cross breed to get the seeds and then grow the onions themselves. "Some form of gardening" in Island Sanctuary isn't going to provide that.

It's also clear that instanced housing is not off the table when they gave us apartments in the first place. Apartments are instanced housing. It exists in the game. The question is whether SE is willing to expand on it so it provides more of what makes house ownership more attractive than apartment ownership.

Island Sanctuary was not being developed to satisfy housing demand. It was developed to satisfy other requests coming from the player base (primarily the JP side) for things like being able to have more than one minion out at a time. I don't envy SE the rage they're going to have to face when specific details about Island Sanctuary get released and players found out they've been misled by other players like you that insist it's to satisfy housing complaints.

[Brygd]

Island Sanctuary was not being developed to satisfy housing demand. It was developed to satisfy other requests coming from the player base (primarily the JP side) for things like being able to have more than one minion out at a time. I don't envy SE the rage they're going to have to face when specific details about Island Sanctuary get released and players found out they've been misled by other players like you that insist it's to satisfy housing complaints.

I would argue that we know precious few details for a feature that was bandied about prominently in the promotional materials for Endwalker. Heck, even my former WoW guildies (I'm unsubbed) who don't play FFXIV keep asking what exactly Island Sanctuaries are out of curiosity. You're most likely correct that it's just some place to...unleash your minions.

Still, if it was just a minion ranch, you think they'd clarify that by now. There's a non-zero chance that the devs are frantically adding personal housing features, or the ability to introduce them in a later update at this point. We'll find out in the live letter. But I do agree that getting your hopes up is a fool's errand.