Instanced Housing

[AlexiaD]

Wasting people's time posting here seems to be the entire point of these forums. Not like anyone from the devs is reading all that. Anyway it technically exists also for the sake of giving feedback, big or small, so it's here.

Anyway given how many threads we get for housing each month it is safe to assume that housing is not working as intended. It's a mistake of a system that takes too many resources and not enough for people's demands, and housing should never be implemented this way. Just because they added some band-aid solution until all houses that people actually want run out and we are back to square one. But yes, definitely it’s the fault of these spoiled gamers, who dare dream that if they managed to get 50 mil, they should have slightly higher chance for their wanted house then 0.1%

And it’s not the first time some systems and game modes got scrapped due to negative feedback and/or devs' decisions. The feast, original diadem, you can even count the entirety of 1.0 getting scraped. Or when they iterate on previous systems, such as Trust and duty support being upgraded and refined squadrons. So why couldn’t housing be improved?

Because what you deem an improvement is not an improvement for everyone.

[Reinha]

Anyway given how many threads we get for housing each month it is safe to assume that housing is not working as intended. It's a mistake of a system that takes too many resources and not enough for people's demands, and housing should never be implemented this way. Just because they added some band-aid solution until all houses that people actually want run out and we are back to square one. But yes, definitely it’s the fault of these spoiled gamers, who dare dream that if they managed to get 50 mil, they should have slightly higher chance for their wanted house then 0.1%

What part of housing isn't working as intended? We can design the outside walls, decorate, store furnishings, use functional items like bells and gardening plots, teleport there, leave messages and likes, add tags, lock the house or let people enter, change the lighting, and move to a different plot. It's functional in every way. They are working on increasing the item limit for all house sizes next expansion and apparently there is also talk about housing mirage which I understand could be a way to increase the size of the interior.

The only people complaining are the people on a few overcrowded NA serves and people who want a bigger house. That's it. Neither of those are problems that require an entirely new system to be developed. And the idea I've seen thrown around that the whole housing system should be scrapped, is... I don't even know how best to describe it. Self centered and delusional? That thousands of people around the world should have their houses deleted from the game because some people didn't win a house with more space and got mad. What?

[Jojoya]

Anyway given how many threads we get for housing each month it is safe to assume that housing is not working as intended.

Only if our assumptions match the developers' intent for housing, which I suspect they don't in some cases.

Wards weren't a bad idea in concept but the developers executed them badly if they were truly trying to create a neighborhood feeling. It's pretty easy to point out the flaws - too few owners per ward for a game that's running 24/7, too strict a limit on tenants that would bring in additional foot traffic not to mention tenants are at the mercy of the owner's willingness to keep playing the game, marketboards being scattered all over the ward instead of just having one or two placed in the vendor areas so players are drawn to a central location instead of more or less sticking to their house, mini-aetherytes allowing direct teleportation to an owner's house and aethernet shards allowing visitors to bypass most of the ward to get where they want to be (both again reducing foot traffic), vendor selection being too limited to draw most players to visit them at all let alone on a regular basis.

Yet an improved instanced housing could help salvage part of the idea if integrated into the wards. More owners per ward means more potential foot traffic. More foot traffic means more opportunity to meet other players and chat. We already have apartments as part of the wards. Why not instanced private estates that likewise are reached by entering the ward?

Name me a successful MMORPG in 2024. (I wouldn't call Skyrim Online successful)
WoW has no housing system and FF14 has Ward system

Why wouldn't you call ESO successful? It's hitting its 10 year anniversary this year (only a year behind this game if you start with ARR instead of 1.0) and still going with new content continuing to be added.

People have a warped idea of what success is for MMORPGs (thanks, WoW).

I think a better question is how many active MMORPGs can people name regardless of whether they'd call them successful or not, and which have any form of housing.

WoW players have been asking for housing since its inception and there had been a crude version in the alpha version of the game that the developers scrapped before it moved to beta. No, Garrisons were not housing. They were a phased individualized quest hub.

Guild Wars 2 has a very limited form of instanced player housing based in its guild halls.

SWTOR has its instanced housing (Strongholds).

LotRO has a ward-style system (but one that at least automatically adds new Neighborhoods as certain plot types fill up instead of waiting for everything to fill up).

Lost Ark has instanced housing somewhat similar to Island Sanctuary but with more features.

New World has instanced housing.

ArcheAge has open world housing (neither instanced nor confined to housing specific zone).

Black Desert Online has instanced housing.

Old School Runescape has instanced housing.

Star Trek Online does not have housing (customizable ship interiors are for engineering purposes, not residential).

EverQuest II has instanced housing.

Star Wars Galaxies (it's been revived with a private server) has open world housing (though with a few more restrictions than ArcheAge).

Ultima Online has instanced housing.

Aion uses both instanced (guaranteed to each player) and non-instanced housing (limited in number, traded through player auctions and getting a lot of hate from its players because of player monopolies).

I found references to several more that I hadn't heard of but wanted to abbreviate the list. I also didn't dig deep into whether the instanced housing was interior only or both interior/exterior. Many were both.

You can be dismissive of each game's "success" as you want but they are all still active MMORPGs with active player bases. Whether housing is part of the success of any specific game could be endlessly debated. It comes down to whether a housing system is a source of satisfaction, dissatisfaction or is irrelevant to the individual player.

[Divinemights]

Yes!, those people need to go away as far as possible. Otherwise there might be enough people asking about it and devs might actually listen and implement housing system slightly better then begging RNG for 0.2% chance of getting a house bigger then just a small

You are wasting your time and energy.
Loud minority forced changes via lobbying and social media is not really acceptable by Devs raised under culture focus onobedience
If an objective is set (in this case, ward system), devs will only making attempts to improve it instead of copying other failed MMORPG's instance system

Name me a successful MMORPG in 2024. (I wouldn't call Skyrim Online successful)
WoW has no housing system and FF14 has Ward system

[Ayan_Calvesse]

Have you considered relocating to Dynamis?

[Kaiproberts]

Have you considered relocating to Dynamis?

Leaving all of your friends and your FC for only a CHANCE at getting a med/large just isn't worth it whatsoever. If you only want a small, sure go for it; It is still slim pickings for any desirable plots.

[Jojoya]

To any who want to jump in and tell me it's not an issue, and to go play other games with better Housing. No you. That is all you will get from me, good day.

An unfortunate drawback for choosing to play on the one world that vies with Balmung for the top population spot. Most worlds are fairly close to where they need to be for overall housing; the lack comes from the limited supply of the larger plots.

We do have instanced housing, it's called apartments but it's substandard compared to what an instanced housing system can be. If SE implements Housing Mirage and if apartments are included, would that be an acceptable solution for you, or is part of your issue wanting access to an outdoor area to decorate and not just a larger interior?

English please? ; x ;

It wasn't related to housing, I think the poster was trying to get a different subforum and picked the wrong one.

Leaving all of your friends and your FC for only a CHANCE at getting a med/large just isn't worth it whatsoever. If you only want a small, sure go for it; It is still slim pickings for any desirable plots.

I'm guessing you and all of your real life friends must live in one huge house together.

No one has to leave their friends if they go to another data center to get a house. All it means is hopping in the car (using data center travel) to get where the friend lives.

[Divinemights]

Why wouldn't you call ESO successful? It's hitting its 10 year anniversary this year (only a year behind this game if you start with ARR instead of 1.0) and still going with new content continuing to be added.

It would be same reason that I will not refers FF11 a successful MMORPG.
It is a love letter to FF franchise fanboy and a game hold up by fanbase.
I admit I had a good time in FF11 but the fact does not change.
FF11 is not a successful MMORPG title. (SE only refers it as best selling FF title)
ESO falls into same category.
The Bethesda fanboys will keep it alive just like how they in denial that Starfield is a boring game.
If ESO is successful as you claim it is and it it had better instance housing then why FF14 and WoW are the go-to MMORPG for players want to enter this genre?

We also had same conversation 4 years ago, any luck on your push for instanced housing.
You clearly don’t understand the Asian culture and expect a non Western company like SE to bow down to noisy minority.
It is not going to happen

[Palin]

I'm actually not against separate instanced housing. People can keep asking for it obviously but I don't believe it's ever going to happen. Instanced housing carries none of the benefits ward housing does and doesn't offer any new gameplay to people who already have a house.

Instanced housing can have many new gameplay features if properly untangled from wards. We could have houses in places where there could be no wards at all(since they seem to be tied to market boards and need to be connected to any main hub for a given expansion). We could have seamless outdoor/indoor transition without loading screens. A bigger outdoor and possibly side buildings we can decorate. There can be an entire storyline about acquiring a house and then upgrading its size (housing grind similar to relic grind).

Ward housing keeps people engaged whether it's by the allure of submarines that require daily logins or the creative and social aspects that draw people together. Even the hated scarcity/FOMO element benefits the game: people have to stay subscribed in order to participate in the lottery or to keep their house from being auto-demoed.

Problem with such a system is that a person that loses their house, especially if it was a prized location or congested server might go “welp not doing that again” and be much less likely to come back to the game at all. Also it again clashes with “you can take a breaks” design of the game, while other mechanics (such as gearing up) tend to go along with it.

If ESO is successful as you claim it is and it it had better instance housing then why FF14 and WoW are the go-to MMORPG for players want to enter this genre?

Maybe because they put all the cool items in the cash shop, their writing is mid at best, the combat system can be confiusing for newcomers and requires basically an ascended glitch to perform at any respectable level and any form of endgame content requires constant meta chasing and character stat tweaking. Not something that could easly attract mass appeal

Still they have their audience, and even went on to win a few awards from community choice. I'd call it a fairly successful
Also does not mean they cannot do anything right and I still consider ESO housing to be a much better system and something similar in FF would go a long way.

[Divinemights]

Maybe because they put all the cool items in the cash shop, their writing is mid at best, the combat system can be confiusing for newcomers and requires basically an ascended glitch to perform at any respectable level and any form of endgame content requires constant meta chasing and character stat tweaking. Not something that could easly attract mass appeal

Still they have their audience, and even went on to win a few awards from community choice. I'd call it a fairly successful
Also does not mean they cannot do anything right and I still consider ESO housing to be a much better system and something similar in FF would go a long way.

Now there, you are just being salty.
When ESO is actually made by a company showing their greed on trying to gain money on free mods.

Again, I don't doubt ESO has an housing system you want, but it doesn't mean FF14 need to clone it.
Just because you want a large house and can't get it doesn't mean Ward is a failure, it is just not the style you want.
Takes Android vs IOS, each has their weakness and strength and you have freedom to choose, but it doesn't mean both platform need to be same.
Being noisy on a social platform doesn't makes you correct