The minimum acceptable situation

[Khryseis_Astra]

While I’d like to see apartments get an update with different sized layouts, apartments aren’t a substitute for a house. As it is now, you can have both, and many do. Maybe some people don’t care about outdoor space, but the ones that do aren’t going to be satisfied with an apartment, especially when anyone pining for a house probably already has one, and maybe an FC room as well.

I also like the medium/large only ward layout idea, but that would take a lot of commitment on SE’s part and who knows how much server space. One of the reasons I keep campaigning for instanced is I truly think it’s the easiest way to satisfy the largest amount of people for the least amount of effort. Keep the existing wards and add on instanced. The instanced house/ plots could be modeled after the already existing ward plots, so anyone can pick the one their heart desires. And nothing gets taken away from anyone else.

[Sindele]

What you're proposing is not in the slightest the 'least amount of effort' here - that's an entirely new system that has to be developed, and that won't come cheap. Budgeted out, there's a very real chance a 'new ward design full of nothing but larges' would cost less. Engineering time is expensive, and there's plenty of design and QA work implied there on top of that.

[dspguy]

Sadly, I don't think there will be any solution that will make the playerbase happy.

Make apartments upgradeable to mediums and large? People will complain they don't have a front lawn.
Spin up more instances on an as-needed basis? People will complain the neighborhoods are ghost towns.
Change loop-holes? Many players have had these secondary residences for years and invested lots of time and gil into it.
Etc etc

On my server, we had smalls in the new wards sit vacant in the personal ward going into the 3rd lottery. If you really wanted a house, you could have got a house. So when I hear people complain on my server, they need to realize they are complaining just for the sake of complaining. Is the system perfect? Of course not. But we are much closer to being where need to be than we were before and there is no need to scrap the whole system and start over.

[Khryseis_Astra]

As for instanced housing, I am still on my position that I was in weeks ago, only 1 system can work, either instanced OR ward, both cant be on at the same time, because having instanced while ward housing is up will change nothing, the same amount of people will still go for ward housing because it's simply superior.

If you feel ward housing is so superior, how does it bother you if they add instanced alongside it? It’s not going to affect you in the slightest. And I’m pretty sure at this point, a lot of those suffering through lotto loss after loss would jump at the chance to have an instanced house of their choice. Not all of them, I’m sure some will always prefer the wards, but enough that it’s worth doing for those want the option.

[Jojoya]

If you feel ward housing is so superior, how does it bother you if they add instanced alongside it? It’s not going to affect you in the slightest. And I’m pretty sure at this point, a lot of those suffering through lotto loss after loss would jump at the chance to have an instanced house of their choice. Not all of them, I’m sure some will always prefer the wards, but enough that it’s worth doing for those want the option.

Part of Stormpeaks' position is that SE can have ward housing or instanced housing but not both.

Nevermind that apartments exists so it's clearly possible. But apartments are only rooms, not houses, and so few players find them an acceptable alternative.

[Reinha]

If you feel ward housing is so superior, how does it bother you if they add instanced alongside it? It’s not going to affect you in the slightest.

No one would be bothered by more houses but it's simply not a matter of being in favor of instanced housing or against it. Players' opinions are irrelevant in this matter.

Square won't make an entire new housing system to ease NA lottery problems when JP and EU are doing fine. All of that development time would be wasted just to serve a few thousand people in one region who couldn't win a personal house on a server of their choosing. Getting an instanced housing system without auto-demolition would encourage more people in all regions to unsub between patches while Square is stuck running servers to maintain ward housing. It's a monetary loss for them any way you look at it.

That's why instanced housing is never going to be added. They have communicated this clearly and continue to act on it by adding more wards. Apartments are inferior by design, so that people will continue to chase ward houses. They also intentionally made island sanctuary separate from housing to offer new content for those who already have a house and to keep wards relevant. Ward housing guarantees a good number of subscriptions at all times, which will cover the costs of keeping the game running as the game gets older and less profitable.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I mean, on the other hand, how much sub money do they lose from people who can’t get a house un-subbing and only coming back for new expansions or when new wards are added? I know a lot of people who’d be around a lot more often if this problem were solved.

[Stormpeaks]

I mean, on the other hand, how much sub money do they lose from people who can’t get a house un-subbing and only coming back for new expansions or when new wards are added? I know a lot of people who’d be around a lot more often if this problem were solved.

And how much sub money do they get from multiowners with a lot of houses ? Pretty sure that evens out the very few people that are leaving because of housing

[Reinha]

I mean, on the other hand, how much sub money do they lose from people who can’t get a house un-subbing and only coming back for new expansions or when new wards are added? I know a lot of people who’d be around a lot more often if this problem were solved.

The people who are willing to leave their fc and friends for months at a time and mostly play during new expansions have already transferred to the new servers. More houses, less congestion and login queues.