Give us Instanced Housing, SE!

[Gemina]

Either they are not capable of understanding the specific requests for YEARS... or they simply don't care....

SE fess up and please have the decency to say which it is.

This is ridiculous. You know what this sounds like? It reminds me of a kid telling their parents that if they don't get what they want for their birthday, then they must not care or love them. I remember telling that to my parents... when I was eight.

Let me swing this another direction. if after 8ish years you still haven't accepted that housing is a finite system in FFXIV, AND you're still paying a monthly sub, I am going to strongly suggest some self-reflection, and possibly even time away from the game.

[Midareyukki]

Those "wants" have already been voiced 1000x now when it comes to apartments and housing in general. For what..8ish years now?, if they cant understand what players want when it comes to housing by now, then its a lost cause .

Either they are not capable of understanding the specific requests for YEARS... or they simply don't care....

SE fess up and please have the decency to say which it is.

That's a false dichotomy.

They might be aware of what people have been asking, but they look at the way their current system is designed and they realize they would need to rework it from scratch. And that's just not going to happen. Best we've gotten were apartments.
They'd have to rework the wards in their entirety. They'd have to rework the code for plots, especially the outside which likely won't be available anymore. Likewise for items and furniture that would change the layout of the exterior.
No investor would be okay with that, and SE itself would likely tell the team to get bent. Plus, that's not even accounting for the manpower and work hours required to do that.

[hynaku]

Every online game I have played with instanced housing has been great not sure why ones is against it. Not like I hardly ever see anyone come and going next to my home. When I visit wards I only see players is at big fc homes. Maybe just make private housing instanced. Even on FFXI everyone one got a apartment inn room that you could decorate and add storage items.

[hynaku]

8 years ago there where plenty of free plots and no housing demolition, no lottery, no plaquard spamming and i certainly dont remember any housing complaints. So i would say those 8 years are hyperboly.

There sure was no open housing plots on my server 8 years ago. It took me 4 years from when they made private house to get a small house plot.

[Midareyukki]

Every online game I have played with instanced housing has been great not sure why ones is against it. Not like I hardly ever see anyone come and going next to my home. When I visit wards I only see players is at big fc homes. Maybe just make private housing instanced.

Only argument I can really provide is "as it stands, after over a decade (?) worth of designing stuff like this, and seeing the dev team have less resources and working on other projects, odds are they won't throw stuff to the bin and start anew".

Otherwise, yeah, instanced housing would likely solve quite a lot of their issues. Question is, those other online games you played likely had them from the start. 14 hasn't, and that's kind of the biggest obstacle.

[Gemina]

Every online game I have played with instanced housing has been great not sure why ones is against it. Not like I hardly ever see anyone come and going next to my home. When I visit wards I only see players is at big fc homes. Maybe just make private housing instanced. Even on FFXI everyone one got a apartment inn room that you could decorate and add storage items.

I don't recall seeing anyone being strictly against instanced housing. Not supporting an endeavor is not the same as being against it. The reasoning of a rationally minded person isn't so absolute, so I would quickly get away from thinking someone is against something if they are not in 100% agreeance with you.

There are valid reasons why the dev team can't just implement instanced housing, and there are also caveats to it that are being overlooked by those wanting this system implemented into the game. A couple of those I bring up are glitches not being baked into the system, which would make a lot of housing content concerning décor redundant. The other is the likelihood that it would be entirely separate content like what they are doing with Island Sanctuary, which would mean it would use its own furnishings.

I also don't see anyone using the 'neighborhood' argument to support their stance on the matter. I'm not saying it hasn't ever been made, but it is one of those things you just throw against the wall hoping it sticks.

What I think this really is, is a statement the devs made that somehow got misconstrued. The 'neighborhood' refers to an aesthetic that the devs like to see. Regardless if people interact with each other in the wards are not, all the housings and how players choose to decorate the outside creates a 'neighborhood'. I can't speak for everyone, but I would love to design something for players, and see it go from a large zone filled with empty plots, to what looks like a large village, or a small town. That is just an amazing sight to behold.

[Sotaris]

I mean different opinions are fine, when its within a normality range.

just because its "different" doesnt make it acceptable or any less stupid.

Who decides that it’s acceptable or “less stupid”? You?

[Solarra]

I'd definitely like to see instanced houses added alongside the ward system.

My reasons:
This system would be more flexible than adding wards, if demand drops then it makes no obvious difference to the game, whereas if they add a lot more wards and demand drops, you would get wards with just the large and mediums taken, like FC wards in Empyreum now.

Wards are persistent, meaning they are always there regardless of whether anyone is in the area. An instanced house would close the instance when the player leaves.

Because wards are resource hungry, it's unlikely they could add enough to meet demand, especially on the U.S. and E.U. servers.

If players are allowed to upgrade their plot to a larger size, it would provide a useful gil-sink.

The existing wards would still be available for the players who like them.

I don't think it's selfish or entitled to ask that the supply of houses is increased so that it more or less equals demand, we're all paying the same sub.
As people have pointed out, other games manage it just fine. We now have a whole new personal instance that can be enjoyed not by every player, but by every character. That makes the 'lack of resources argument' look decidedly dodgy to me, plus the devs have never said they lacked the resources to provide house.

I have a personal house and my fc has a house, but it gives me no pleasure seeing my friends who weren't so lucky, entering lottery after lottery, bidding against other players and coming away disappointed.

[Jojoya]

Only argument I can really provide is "as it stands, after over a decade (?) worth of designing stuff like this, and seeing the dev team have less resources and working on other projects, odds are they won't throw stuff to the bin and start anew".

Otherwise, yeah, instanced housing would likely solve quite a lot of their issues. Question is, those other online games you played likely had them from the start. 14 hasn't, and that's kind of the biggest obstacle.

While the housing was part of the game design from the start, most games would introduce it a couple of patches after launch.

FFXIV is in a weird position because not much of what we currently have was part of the original game design (ie 1.0). It was all thought of and added after the fact (the ARR relaunch and later throughout ARR).

Something that gets so frequently ignored is that housing in this game has been partially instanced from its introduction. Interiors have always been instanced. It's the non-instanced exteriors that are the main roadblock because those have to be limited in quantity by design.

There should be no reason why SE can't improve on the instanced side of the system and add in things not possible within the ward part of housing. We already know it's possible to access multiple instances from a single entry point (apartment buildings). Expand on that. Add in different sizes for apartments - they could be part of separate wings or even a separate building entrance. Add in a new entry point for instanced estates that include an outdoor environment, not just interior.

The players who like the wards would still have wards. The players that want better instanced housing would have that. Increasing the number of players utilizing a given ward for housing would increase the player activity within the individual wards so they would feel less like ghost towns and more like actual neighborhoods. Just about everyone wins except those who hoard prestige from having things others can't get.

[Caitlinzulu]

There sure was no open housing plots on my server 8 years ago. It took me 4 years from when they made private house to get a small house plot.

I first bought a small, then when I had the gil together i moved to a medium house. All without waiting, without lottery or camping. Was i lucky to play on a server that wasnt overflowing at the time? Perhaps yes but 1 server being overcrowded does not mean housing was bad at the time.