Devs Please Revisit Apartments

[LittleArrow]

I believe the apartments are due for a revisit from the dev team. Although housing is incredible, I believe apartments can be very comparable to housing. Currently, apartments are only missing a few things that could be remedied very quick with a few adjustments.

Here are my suggestions, please add more below!

1. Add an instanced "outdoor" porch:
This to me is possibly the biggest feature that could help players feel they're not missing out on not owning a home, but also not taking away from those that do. A small porch / outdoor area where people can decorate with outdoor furnishing would add more value to the seasonal events and foster good will with players. It wouldn't be as big as the small house yard, but it would at least give players an option.

2. Increase the floorspace (not the floors):
Currently the floorsize of an apartment is not terrible, but could be increased. I could be wrong, but it seems smaller than the basement of small houses. I think it should be increased to the size of the basement of small houses. This would be a great quality of life change for apartments and still preserve the special feeling of small/med/large houses of having mult floors.

3. Increase the item space:
Personally, all houses should have an increase item size of at least 50-100. Again, this would allow players more options and higher value all the furnishings added to the game.

4. Provide an option to upgrade apartments to multiple floors in the future:
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe the apartments could be provided with upgrade feature to increase the floors to a small/med/large (penthouse!). Although the outdoor space would stay the same or increase only slightly (still keeping value to the houses), this would provide so many players with the fun of having a home without the disappointment of the very limited current housing system!

Apartments are such an incredible feature in this game. They provide a lot more to the general health of FFXIV than I think many people may know. Apartments are a great way to keep the economy healthy, since they further player investment even with those that have houses. Apartments also allow players to enjoy all of the housing districts without taking houses away from other players. Apartments also provide a horizontal progression for players outside of the gear chase, and increases the lifespan of many players' subscription. All of these points are great for SE's business! Please consider these suggestions and revisiting apartments dev team!

[Midareyukki]

snip

I'll preface by saying that a lot of what I will say is based on my experience playing mostly large-bodied races.
1 - Interesting addition, especially if we can have a bit of a vista. But if not, I kind of get why they'd rather not deal with it, since it can get in the way of server space?
2 - I agree on the increase of space, because a lot of furnitures are huge and what you can do with a house varies A LOT between Lalafell, Hyur and Roegadyn-sized characters. The floors only really help with further customization because of glitching, which is obviously heavily limited in an apartment, but the reasons for it are obvious.
3 - Agreed as well, especially on Large houses where the space is too big for just 300 items if you're not planning on using the large furniture
4 - It's definitely an interesting proposition, though I don't know how much this would strain the servers. However, if added, it can alleviate the issue with furniture and character size as mentioned in #2.
Because it's so different how much workspace you'd have on a house built by a Lalafell, a Hyur or a Roegadyn. Not just in terms of what you can add, but also in terms of what will then be used up. Especially if your house happens to be an FC house with other people of similar size. Or just overall being an FC furnished by standard-bodied\short-bodied races and then see a Hrothgar or a Roegadyn awkwardly make use of what you've built.

[aveyond-dreams]

I believe the apartments are due for a revisit from the dev team. Although housing is incredible, I believe apartments can be very comparable to housing. Currently, apartments are only missing a few things that could be remedied very quick with a few adjustments.

Here are my suggestions, please add more below!

1. Add an "outdoor" porch:
This to me is possibly the biggest feature that could help players feel they're not missing out on not owning a home, but also not taking away from those that do. A small porch / outdoor area where people can decorate with outdoor furnishing would add more value to the seasonal events and foster good will with players. It wouldn't be as big as the small house yard, but it would at least give players an option.

2. Increase the floorspace (not the floors):
Currently the floorsize of an apartment is not terrible, but could be increased. I could be wrong, but it seems smaller than the basement of small houses. I think it should be increased to the size of the basement of small houses. This would be a great quality of life change for apartments and still preserve the special feeling of small/med/large houses of having mult floors.

3. Increase the item space:
Personally, all houses should have an increase item size of at least 50-100. Again, this would allow players more options and higher value all the furnishings added to the game.

4. Provide an option to upgrade apartments to multiple floors in the future:
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe the apartments could be provided with upgrade feature to increase the floors to a small/med/large (penthouse!). Although the outdoor space would stay the same or increase only slightly (still keeping value to the houses), this would provide so many players with the fun of having a home without the disappointment of the very limited current housing system!

Apartments are such an incredible feature in this game. They provide a lot more to the general health of FFXIV than I think many people may know. Apartments are a great way to keep the economy healthy, since they further player investment even with those that have houses. Apartments also allow players to enjoy all of the housing districts without taking houses away from other players. Apartments also provide a horizontal progression for players outside of the gear chase, and increases the lifespan of many players' subscription. All of these points are great for SE's business! Please consider these suggestions and revisiting apartments dev team!

Would've much preferred all of these suggestions over the entirety of the resources wasted on Island Sanctuary.

[ICountFrom0]

I like these ideas, but they'd probably increase the cost on apartments...

So lets tweak this.

What if all those things were options that could be bought. Double the cost to double the size, once you purchase it for the base cost.

Add in another 500k for the backyard door.

Another 500k to double storage, inside or outside.

Once you hit a total of 5 million spent, it should basically be a small house worth.

For the next set of upgrades, make them 5 million each, so at 25 million you've got a medium house worth in your apartment, spent and recieved.

And of course, push it to 50 million, 100 million, 500 million.

As long as people have to pass through a DOOR to reach the new space, instancing can happen properly, people can be split and shifted as needed.

In the end you'll end up with a space equal to a large, with less server demand then an actual large due to the limited amount of it that will be loaded at once.

Door into a stairwell, climb the stairwell and go out a door to the floor you want to be in. Only ever one floor loaded per apartment per person.

[Gemina]

I believe the apartments are due for a revisit from the dev team. Although housing is incredible, I believe apartments can be very comparable to housing. Currently, apartments are only missing a few things that could be remedied very quick with a few adjustments.

Here are my suggestions, please add more below!

1. Add an "outdoor" porch:
This to me is possibly the biggest feature that could help players feel they're not missing out on not owning a home, but also not taking away from those that do. A small porch / outdoor area where people can decorate with outdoor furnishing would add more value to the seasonal events and foster good will with players. It wouldn't be as big as the small house yard, but it would at least give players an option.

2. Increase the floorspace (not the floors):
Currently the floorsize of an apartment is not terrible, but could be increased. I could be wrong, but it seems smaller than the basement of small houses. I think it should be increased to the size of the basement of small houses. This would be a great quality of life change for apartments and still preserve the special feeling of small/med/large houses of having mult floors.

3. Increase the item space:
Personally, all houses should have an increase item size of at least 50-100. Again, this would allow players more options and higher value all the furnishings added to the game.

4. Provide an option to upgrade apartments to multiple floors in the future:
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe the apartments could be provided with upgrade feature to increase the floors to a small/med/large (penthouse!). Although the outdoor space would stay the same or increase only slightly (still keeping value to the houses), this would provide so many players with the fun of having a home without the disappointment of the very limited current housing system!

Apartments are such an incredible feature in this game. They provide a lot more to the general health of FFXIV than I think many people may know. Apartments are a great way to keep the economy healthy, since they further player investment even with those that have houses. Apartments also allow players to enjoy all of the housing districts without taking houses away from other players. Apartments also provide a horizontal progression for players outside of the gear chase, and increases the lifespan of many players' subscription. All of these points are great for SE's business! Please consider these suggestions and revisiting apartments dev team!

So, just more housing/wards, am I correct?

[Kemeko]

I'd rather improve upon the system on a fundamental level while keeping resources in check.

1. Instead of an outdoor porch, change the tag of "outdoor furnishing" to "indoor/outdoor furnishing". This will allow for better management of inventory, increase decoration combinations indoors, and allow gardening for those that couldn't afford a plot.

2. Add new layout presets that can be purchased for half the cost as if you had bought an equivalent plot. For example, you could buy the interior of a small (1.5m), medium (10m), large (25m) and they would naturally come with the storage increase already built in. If you relocate to another apartment, you keep the upgrades you bought. Additional layouts can be bought for the same price, and you keep them unlocked if you decide to change the interior.

3. Apartments are the base size of an FC room. With new layouts, you can make presets beyond what it already in the game, like having a small with stairs leading upwards instead of downwards, making the room twice the size as a square or twice as long as a rectangle without the stairs, keeping the combined size the same as a small. You can do similar layouts for the medium and large.

4. These changes can also be applied to the existing plots, further enhancing ward usage, which would reduce the need to swap locations unless you prefer a closer marketboard, a different outside view, or just a bigger yard.

[LittleArrow]

I like these ideas, but they'd probably increase the cost on apartments...

So lets tweak this.

What if all those things were options that could be bought. Double the cost to double the size, once you purchase it for the base cost.

Add in another 500k for the backyard door.

Another 500k to double storage, inside or outside.

Once you hit a total of 5 million spent, it should basically be a small house worth.

For the next set of upgrades, make them 5 million each, so at 25 million you've got a medium house worth in your apartment, spent and recieved.

And of course, push it to 50 million, 100 million, 500 million.

As long as people have to pass through a DOOR to reach the new space, instancing can happen properly, people can be split and shifted as needed.

In the end you'll end up with a space equal to a large, with less server demand then an actual large due to the limited amount of it that will be loaded at once.

Door into a stairwell, climb the stairwell and go out a door to the floor you want to be in. Only ever one floor loaded per apartment per person.

I completely agree with everything you stated! I'd love the idea of working towards upgrades. It'd be so fun (and kind of frustrating lol) to have to save and spend, but it would make it that much more rewarding! Great ideas!

I'd rather improve upon the system on a fundamental level while keeping resources in check.

1. Instead of an outdoor porch, change the tag of "outdoor furnishing" to "indoor/outdoor furnishing". This will allow for better management of inventory, increase decoration combinations indoors, and allow gardening for those that couldn't afford a plot.

The ONLY reason why I don't think this would be viable is maybe lumping all the furnishings together would hurt the servers more? I could be completely wrong, but I figure we have so many categories for not only organization, but also server space. That would increase the amount of furnishings by a lot, and although the item space is limited, the amount / size / detail each item has would be change drastically by putting them together. It's a really interesting idea though, thank you for sharing

[Striker44]

Would've much preferred all of these suggestions over the entirety of the resources wasted on Island Sanctuary.

Meanwhile, all of the people who enjoy IS and have no interest in apartments are glad they didn't "waste" all of those resources on apartments. Seriously, dude. Grow up. Just because you don't like something (or anything) doesn't mean it's a waste.

[Corvus_V]

..

I agree for the most part. I just don't think that the "special feeling of owning x house" is something really worth preserving. It's a bit of a content island where players are really only meant to trade something like a furnishing, so owning a house itself isn't really something that's meant to be valuable, since you aren't supposed to trade it to other people, and at this point you don't really get it through anything like persistence, like clearing an Ultimate or farming a mount. You're really only meant to pay gil for the experience.

Which kinda ties into point 4: I think they should really just do from the start. To be totally honest, it'd be really low effort but if they just made it so you could pick the size of your interior and made it identical to the size of a house of your choosing and a gil fee, I'd be fine with that at this point. I hadn't really considered the economy part you mentioned. It actually really is a shame that it's so limited because creating furniture could be way more lucrative and fun thing for crafters to do rather than solely focusing on making raid gear for gil. That's just another thing that'd be great about everyone being able to have fun decorating something they actually like.

[Corvus_V]

If anyone needs to face facts, it's players who think there's an easy fix to this. We're stuck. Deal with it.

Based on trial and error I still think we can at least safely say we're past the part where continuing the course is viable. Whether they decide to do the right thing going forward or ignore the feedback is up to them; I just think they should be honest about their intentions, because they definitely can fix it whether they say it's easy or not.