So devs don't understand math.

[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.

[Corvus_V]

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.

I'm glad at least that people are finally acknowledging that. The only thing left for them to do is to decide that his idea of the neighborhood isn't making the game better for a vast majority of the player-base and its generating a ton of grief amongst everyone who doesn't own a house of the size they want. It isn't helping them to not cater to their demographic; infact it's a really gross and weird hill to die on

[Breakbeat]

Dear Fellow Humans,

We are not infallible. Despite the insistence of religion, humans make mistakes. Even the Pope.

...Even people that design, create and maintain video games.

I suggest more people have some understanding that others will fail from time to time. Be that other random humans with no power, or doctors, lawyers, teachers, police officers - even the humans that control your favorite video game. Yeah. None of them are infallible but somehow... we expect them to be? That's madness.

Swallow that momentary pang of disappointment instead of spreading it around to anyone who will listen, and the world will be quite a better place. Look around, anywhere, and you'll see we humans have completely lost the ability to feel bad for a minute and internalize minor pain. Instead we stub our toe, and immediately head for the nearest social media connection to complain about it.

[Drkdays]

Skip a battle content patch and add twice as many new wards. We can go another few months without a new set of bosses to farm.

If a year-long battle content drought didn't kill WoW, 14 will be fine.

[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.

[Eraden]

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.

Crossbreeding can only be done at the moment, in garden plots at houses. I see nothing in what I wrote that would invalidate the theory that Island Sanctuaries are a way to provide access to that sort of activity while not owning a house. That addresses the gardening concerns of those who can not get houses. Additionally, you appear to be ignoring the reports by others that Yoshida is not in favor of instanced housing and prefers the ward system. I would submit that until he changes his mind on that issue, instanced housing (with all of the functionality of current housing plots) is indeed off the table. For now. Which is a shame because I'd like to see an expanded system for apartments and maybe even instanced housing as well. Also, I never wrote that Island Sanctuaries are meant to "satisfy housing complaints". I wrote that they may be, in part, meant to satisfy the desire for gardening without having to address the housing issue. This is a bit more nuanced than what you are suggesting I wrote.

[Jojoya]

Crossbreeding can only be done at the moment, in garden plots at houses. I see nothing in what I wrote that would invalidate the theory that Island Sanctuaries are a way to provide access to that sort of activity while not owning a house. That addresses the gardening concerns of those who can not get houses. Additionally, you appear to be ignoring the reports by others that Yoshida is not in favor of instanced housing and prefers the ward system. I would submit that until he changes his mind on that issue, instanced housing (with all of the functionality of current housing plots) is indeed off the table. For now. Which is a shame because I'd like to see an expanded system for apartments and maybe even instanced housing as well. Also, I never wrote that Island Sanctuaries are meant to "satisfy housing complaints". I wrote that they may be, in part, meant to satisfy the desire for gardening without having to address the housing issue. This is a bit more nuanced than what you are suggesting I wrote.

We already know that Island Sanctuary won't be providing crossbreeding of items currently in the game because they are a timed activity and YoshiP has specifically stated there will be no timers involved in Island Sanctuary.

Will there be things we can grow? Almost definitely. Are they going to be the things that create the current demand for houses with respect to gardening? Not a chance. It's the market competition that drives the current gardening demand. Another thing YoshiP has told us is that Island Sanctuary will not be competitive in any way (not that players won't try to find ways to make it competitive). That means whatever we can produce will not be things that can be sold on the marketboard since the marketboard is the most competitive content in the game.

Players are still going to demand houses for gardening because they're still going to want the items that come solely from gardening. Island Sanctuary isn't going to fix that.

People have their expectations set too high for what Island Sanctuary might be when YoshiP has told us repeatedly to lower them. It doesn't help that players continue to go around saying "you'll be able to do this with it" when "this" contradicts what we do know.

What do we know for certain about Island Sanctuary?

It is farming themed, inspired by games like Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing but much simpler in nature with fewer features.

It is primarily solo content.

It is intended to be relaxing, stress-free, non-competitive content that the player can enjoy when they want and ignore when they want without progress being impacted (hence why no timers).

We will be able to have our minions run around our Sanctuary.

We will be able to place buildings.

It is scheduled for release in 6.2.

There's probably one or two other things he's told us that I can't remember off the top of my head but that should be most of the information shared so far.

Where do you get gardening out of that?

[Hasrat]

I'm glad at least that people are finally acknowledging that. The only thing left for them to do is to decide that his idea of the neighborhood isn't making the game better for a vast majority of the player-base and its generating a ton of grief amongst everyone who doesn't own a house of the size they want. It isn't helping them to not cater to their demographic; infact it's a really gross and weird hill to die on

Where's the data for the "vast majority" claim coming from? Cuz, from the number of bids on available plots, the demand for housing might be a lot lower than claims like that would suggest.

[Dyvid]

Well the first "fix" for this is to get people to move the correct wards; Private to FC and FC to Private. That would mean you have to offer some kind of free transfer, most likely to FC first.