Are the Islands better than owning a house?

[Limecat]

Yes understood but if you didn't have a house would the island be a viable option?

Not really. You still can't use the indoor furnishings(what most people are probably after), you can't install a garden(if you wanted to do seed crossing and such), and of course there's no ability to do airship and submarine ventures like if you purchased a solo FC house.

[Oizen]

Maybe if they'd put a house on the island that could actually be customized, but they didn't.

what did you expect effort in your subscription mmo? Do you not like spreadsheets??

[iMaximusRex]

I have leveled up my island to max level and have had numerous friends come over and they all say islands are more fun and more to see and do. I have a nicely decorated mansion and a worshop with 4 maxed out submarines but the island is more fun. love having both, but if i couldn't get a house, islands are an equal option, imo.

Islands are no where near equal.

I like my Island, but you literally cannot do any of the things you might want a house for, and can do at a house. I can't grow plants, stable my chocobo, teleport, share it with my friends when offline, use in game mail, play more than one song at a time, decorate how I want to, or interact with my Retainers.

[Gralna]

Islands are no where near equal.

I like my Island, but you literally cannot do any of the things you might want a house for, and can do at a house. I can't grow plants, stable my chocobo, teleport, share it with my friends when offline, use in game mail, play more than one song at a time, decorate how I want to, or interact with my Retainers.

With island alone? no. Though combined with an apartment which is much more accessible, you can do indoor furnishing, grow potted plants, have a stable, teleport, and get mail. If you had island and apartment, only thing you'd be missing out on compared to a personal house, would be housing gardening, and sharing with friends. I'd much much much rather find a solution for housing (instanced housing isn't it, houses are already instances. They need a better way to store and retrieve the data), an island and apartment is nearly there.

[sagacious]

Apartment? Decorating, very limited gardening.
Private house? Gardening plots, decorating.
FC house? As the prior but also comes with a workshop which is fairly substantial.

The island sanctuary is more like an outdoor version of a FC house, but instead of airships and submarines, its cowries and what rewards they offer. But still misses out on having a lot of gardening plots.

But still 100's of forum posts wanted instance housing and we got instance islands. Square hit two rocks with one stone by not angering the housing owners and providing the entire player base a Island home. I'd say that's a win win for sure .

[Colt47]

Island Sanctuary isn't even the first "house like" substitute they made. Before this they created Apartments, which basically are houses but without the exteriors. The problem is that no one uses them after they get done decorating once, so it just sits abandoned and forgotten.

True housing is a pipe dream in FFXIV as they just aren't built to support it. It was supposed to originally be only for FCs, but then it was like the only ones any FC really wanted were the large houses and the smaller ones were more personal sized. Then they allowed personal housing after the fact and instead of broadening who owned a house, it just ended up being an excuse for those who owned a house already to own a second one. Heck, to this day there are people that still own more than two houses thanks to work-arounds that predate the current restrictions, and this is with the housing demolition timers going so that tells you something right there.

The whole reason housing is what it is, is that it is a limited commodity that is placed in a shared space, where owners can show off to each other and everyone else is left gawking and scraping to try and get one. The value of the house comes from the gawking and scraping, and the second everyone owns one the magic will go away as they realize the only point to the houses are RP parties, submersibles, and growing onions for chocobos. The island sanctuary is an infinitely more useful "house", yet it lacks the other qualities of being limited, special, and a shared space, so it will be forgotten just like many other pieces of side content.

[undull1]

Housing is cancer, I spent months fighting against the garbage item placement system to make my house and now if I demolish it all that work and money evaporates.

Like imagine if you lost all your glam dresser or your jobs delevelled if you let your sub lapse? Yet people still defend the artificial housing scarcity whilst CBU3 demonstrates they have the means and resources with island sanctuary, they just choose not to.

[sagacious]

Island Sanctuary isn't even the first "house like" substitute they made. Before this they created Apartments, which basically are houses but without the exteriors. The problem is that no one uses them after they get done decorating once, so it just sits abandoned and forgotten.

True housing is a pipe dream in FFXIV as they just aren't built to support it. It was supposed to originally be only for FCs, but then it was like the only ones any FC really wanted were the large houses and the smaller ones were more personal sized. Then they allowed personal housing after the fact and instead of broadening who owned a house, it just ended up being an excuse for those who owned a house already to own a second one. Heck, to this day there are people that still own more than two houses thanks to work-arounds that predate the current restrictions, and this is with the housing demolition timers going so that tells you something right there.

The whole reason housing is what it is, is that it is a limited commodity that is placed in a shared space, where owners can show off to each other and everyone else is left gawking and scraping to try and get one. The value of the house comes from the gawking and scraping, and the second everyone owns one the magic will go away as they realize the only point to the houses are RP parties, submersibles, and growing onions for chocobos. The island sanctuary is an infinitely more useful "house", yet it lacks the other qualities of being limited, special, and a shared space, so it will be forgotten just like many other pieces of side content.

I disagree, everytime they add new sub routes the people owning houses run workshops like crazy to get those special mats and items that sell for millions. Likewise if they keep adding new mats and items from the Island vouchers it will have the same effect and people will run to the island to get it. Islands will not die same as FC workshops don't die.

[Wolferey]

But still 100's of forum posts wanted instance housing and we got instance islands. Square hit two rocks with one stone by not angering the housing owners and providing the entire player base a Island home. I'd say that's a win win for sure .

Nah, as a housing owner I am angry, they had every chance to make a better system and they squandered it hard, so now you have two systems that are bad instead. Actually getting a house was and still is a terrible experience and has whole systems locked behind it (you can argue as much as you want about how useful gardening/fc workshop is, its still locked), and island is missing even basic stuff like teleport, retainer bell or since its an instance they could even have let you have a glam dresser. Besides outdoor furnishing limit its not even close. We just got a spreadsheet sim we can kinda decorate that someone made an optimized spreadsheet for.

[JMadFour]

Personally, if I could build an actual house(with furnishings), aetheryte and summoning bell on my Island, it would absolutely replace the public housing for me.

I would not need anything else.