Why is player housing so coveted in the community?

[GeminiReed]

If I could run a store from my house, I'd be running a store. Etc etc.

What's stopping you?

You can plop down your retainers and people can buy straight from them but their sales inventory still shows up on the MB. There also also mannequins which can be used to sell clothing or sets of clothing. If you turn on sell as set they have to go to your house to buy it. Then of course there's the RP route where sales are done by direct trade.

[TwistedTea]

oh you mean like lost ark ? with every single house looking near identical to all others ? yeah if that is that then no thanks
BUT
i wouldnt mind a system like new world (damn im saying something good bout this game) half instanced half what we have now, with best house rated by other player, shown in the lot
would also fix the issue with player gettign a house and never doing anything with it, beside gardening

There are better examples like Wildstar.

Or Rift

Also, I would rather have identical looking houses than all the problems we have faced in XIV over the years:
1. Majority of NA players do not have access to limited ward housing.

2. RMT house resales are profitable because of the artificial scarcity. You think they would be so profitable if supply was abundant?

3. The prevalent use of third-party tools like placard clickers, 24/7 ward scanning bots which near instantly relocated into open mediums/larges before lottery was implemented.

[Gemina]

I'm not asking this to be passive agressive, or dismissive, etc, I am legitimately curious. Does player housing offer things people wouldn't have access to through the game? Or is there more to it? I have assumed that since it's such a coveted system, it has some sort of advantage that the game outside of housing offers.

A lot of things overlap in this game, and housing is no different. A player would have to not own a private plot, have no FC, or an apartment to truly not have access to the privileges they offer. As examples:
A player with an apartment can still decorate and use gardening pots, they have no stable or a true garden, or a workshop.
A player who owns a private plot has access to both interior and exterior decorations, gardening pots, a true garden, chocobo stable, and free reign to do as they please; but they do not have access to a workshop, or private chambers.
Those with an FC has access to everything within the restrictions set by that FC; so while you do have access, you might also need permissions granted to use those features.

A player without any of these things, I call "free". They are free because there is no content in the game that has their ankles entwined in the powerful vines that essentially join the player with the game as it becomes an instrumental part of their weekly routine. If you have a house, and have spent/invested a large portion of your time into the expression it gives off, you are officially a leafman in I| Mheg, I kid you not.

While several homes are not taken advantage of fully, you really just need to see one or two literal pieces of art set all about Eorzea to know why this content is so highly sought after.

[Jojoya]

oh you mean like lost ark ? with every single house looking near identical to all others ? yeah if that is that then no thanks
BUT
i wouldnt mind a system like new world (damn im saying something good bout this game) half instanced half what we have now, with best house rated by other player, shown in the lot
would also fix the issue with player gettign a house and never doing anything with it, beside gardening

How about using RIFT as an example instead?

SE advertises that we get a chance to own our little slice of Eorzea but it's really just a copied plot of a specific area. A RIFT Dimension is literally a slice of Telara (name of their game's world). With only a couple of exceptions, every Dimension is a copy of a place in game that has NPCs and some of the decorative "clutter" removed.

The Dimensions range in size from about the size of a mansion plot to the size of New Gridania.

Item placement? RIFT allows placement along X, Y, and Z, no glitch tricks.

Item Rotation? All angles, not only one.

Item sizes? You can resize items to a remarkable degree. You could create a lala sized house - or a house to fit one of the Great Wyrms.

Access to houses: you can set access to self, friend, guild members or public, make whitelists and blacklists so you can better control who can or can't enter your Dimension. You're not limited on how many tenants you can add - you can set it so anyone can place or remove items, which has led to players opening Dimensions as housing item trade depots for others to leave what they don't need and take what they do.

Want to find Dimensions owned by other players? Easy enough. There are separate menu options that let you easily find Dimensions owned by your alts, friends and guild members. Want to find Dimensions owned by players you don't know? There's a search tool where you can use key words or sort by Likes. No having to teleport to the correct Aetheryte or run through a ward - just select a Dimension from the search list and click the Enter button.

Dunno but I love owning a Mist 5 and then only logging in to save it from demo lol

Edit: no it’s not decorated indoors or outdoors before anyone asks

Wouldn't it be nicer if everyone could own Mist 5 if they wanted it, and decorate it or not as they choose?

Wouldn't it be nicer if demolition wasn't need to ensure that newer players get a chance to own a house while veteran players don't risk losing their house if they take a break from the game?

I had stopped playing RIFT in 2016 or 2017 and yet when I went back to visit last fall before Endwalker released, all my Dimensions were there waiting for me intact.

[hagare]

There are better examples like Wildstar.

Or Rift

Also, I would rather have identical looking houses than all the problems we have faced in XIV over the years:
1. Majority of NA players do not have access to limited ward housing.

2. RMT house resales are profitable because of the artificial scarcity. You think they would be so profitable if supply was abundant?

3. The prevalent use of third-party tools like placard clickers, 24/7 ward scanning bots which near instantly relocated into open mediums/larges before lottery was implemented.

is 2 and ESPECIALLY 3 still happening?
Oh wait, BEFORE lottery. Then why even include it?
and is 2 still happening even after 3 became a non problem?

[Deveryn]

For me its convenience mostly. I have the marketboard next to my house, so its like my own private Limsa without the cringy people and lag

I think this is a big thing with a lot of people... getting the comforts of the city without all the spam about things like the new FC and the cringe party at someone's plot on another server.

[Jojoya]

is 2 and ESPECIALLY 3 still happening?
Oh wait, BEFORE lottery. Then why even include it?
and is 2 still happening even after 3 became a non problem?

The RMT sales are most definitely still happening. Many thought they might disappear due to the 30 day waiting period for FC. The lack of supply for personal houses gave RMT new life instead. Some players would happily choose to pay real money and wait 30 days to get their house over never getting a house at all. Empyreum houses on the Crystal data center were seen on one resale site listed at US$400-US$1300 depending on size and plot location. A few Shiro listings in the same range were also seen after plots in the other housing districts started opening up through relocation.

The click bots are obviously pointless under the lottery but if SE were to choose to use FCFS again they would be back (SE has said they might use it again for some wards in the future). The scanning mods could still be handy to more rapidly find what's currently available in the lottery so it's hard to say if those are still getting used.

[Amenara]

The RMT sales are most definitely still happening. Many thought they might disappear due to the 30 day waiting period for FC. The lack of supply for personal houses gave RMT new life instead. Some players would happily choose to pay real money and wait 30 days to get their house over never getting a house at all. Empyreum houses on the Crystal data center were seen on one resale site listed at US$400-US$1300 depending on size and plot location. A few Shiro listings in the same range were also seen after plots in the other housing districts started opening up through relocation.

The click bots are obviously pointless under the lottery but if SE were to choose to use FCFS again they would be back (SE has said they might use it again for some wards in the future). The scanning mods could still be handy to more rapidly find what's currently available in the lottery so it's hard to say if those are still getting used.

Wonder how long till SE enforces that part of the ToS...

[TwistedTea]

is 2 and ESPECIALLY 3 still happening?
Oh wait, BEFORE lottery. Then why even include it?
and is 2 still happening even after 3 became a non problem?

As Jojoya has already addressed your points, I think you're missing the larger point that I was trying to get at.

FFXIV's housing problems over nearly 10 years are due either to a lack of foresight by SE or devs who think they know better despite the reality of the situation in terms of access for the majority of players. Maybe both.

Let's briefly go through all the problems, limited ward housing, has faced since it was introduced nearly a decade ago:

1. Limited ward housing consumes more server resources as the exteriors of houses/wards are always loaded.
This is also the reason why adding new wards is not a scalable, long-term solution.

2. Auto-demolition is a logical consequence of limited ward housing.

3. Prior to the hidden placard timer being introduced, getting ward houses was a matter of luck to be on the right server at the right time, beating lobby errors, login q to land rush and competing against bots/housing resellers.

4. The hidden placard timer incentivized unhealthy behaviors such as camping for hours, Repetitive strain injury (RSI) and incentivizing the use of third-party tools.
Even if you camped during "prime time", on high pop servers, winning a plot still came down to an awful amount of luck. The hidden timer was a band-aid which did not respect players' time.

5. While the hidden placard timer was around, there were 24/7 ward scanning bots who would near instantly relocate into mediums/larges.

6. RMT/housing resale - as previously mentioned is profitable because of the artificial scarcity SE has implemented with limited ward housing. If there was an abundant/saturated supply of houses - RMT housing resale would not be profitable.

7. The lottery system made it slightly fairer for legit human players but does not address the supply problem.

The supply problem, especially on medium-high pop NA servers, will never be adequate for every individual player. Lodestone data indicates the average NA server has around 20k active characters. There are currently 7200 ward houses per server.

Adding new wards to address this disparity in supply is not a good long-term scalable solution as mentioned in #1

tldr: XIV's housing problems come down to the fundamental nature of limited ward housing. Limited ward housing, has required so many band-aids, over the years, to keep it going because it was not designed as a scalable long-term solution.

Introducing a fully instanced housing system, seems to be the best long-term scalable solution.

[debleb]

I like decorating them. Many people also use in game housing to make venues for roleplay.