Coming from an MMO player of 20+ years who has played almost all the big titles and many smaller ones as well. For many players of MMOs, housing is a major part of the endgame. It allows us to artistically express ourselves.
No player should ever have to feel the soul crushing pain of losing a housing lottery over and over again with a sliver of hope in sight for the future.
The current system excludes the majority of players from using a major piece of content. Leaving them feeling like what is the point of grinding and continuing playing this game if I will never be able to own a house. All while a handful of players are happily building and using their homes.
I for one would like to see and inclusive system over an exclusive system.
We have a global standard when it comes to MMOs and expect a certain level of polish/features or we just move onto a different game. Housing is the true endgame for me and without access to it I cannot see myself playing this game past the storyline and some of the end game raids.
Every single player really should be able to have a house even multiple houses.
The pure joy I felt playing ESO and owning multiple instanced houses and being able to build houses out of scratch on empty plots was overwhelmingly fun. They have a housing mod also which makes it easier to build your custom homes though.
Basically I would like for FF14 players to experience even a sliver of that joy.
The housing is already very basic and limited. It takes a massive amount of time to set up a house and after you have it finished you are less inclined to redecorate which is the appeal of owning multiple houses so we can have different setups.
Lost Ark has an option where you can save multiple setups also. I believe they have about 10 or so presets.
If this was implemented in FF14 you could click a button and you house is a tavern, another button and your house has a kitchen/bedrooms, another button something else. The sky is the limit.
I would prefer multiple houses but this option works also.
Constantly running full wards is a massive drain on system resources. The majority of resources for instanced houses are not being used if no players are there.
My suggestion is to keep the wards the way they are or convert them all to FC only. Since FC's are gaming the system and ruining the experience for other players anyways.
Add instanced housing options where all players can build a small/med or large depending on their budget for the rest of the players in the meanwhile. Those players can then move to a ward when/if they are even lucky enough to win a lottery.
The economy boost from furniture was also insanely good in ESO since we had very high demand for furniture with all the houses we owned. We could hunt around for furniture recipes as rare drops or loot them from containers. Other systems would reward furniture recipes. For me it was the hottest way to make money.
Forcing players to maintain a subscription to save their house with no other options available to them is predatory also, as players spend countless hours on decorating their homes just right. People can risk it to be in a ward if they want but instanced houses never go away. I can log into ESO after 4 years and play with all my houses.
Housing for all please !!! <3
Edit*
Another amazing/easy to implement solution that I have seen going around is to add the ability to build your own small/med/large house on your island sanctuary. You will still be able to keep or buy a house in a ward (if you are lucky enough) as well as have the house on your island.
This idea would allow for more, artistic expression, venues and depth to the game.
Please come to the future SE and give us instanced options... Your game is really good other than the inventory system and housing...