Instanced housing issue revisited

[Strife_Elvedor]

Good morning all,

I'd like to address the housing situation again.

Why can we have instanced Islands yet not instanced housing after 10 years of development?

Is it just so the game ensures players keep a sub to keep their house rather than to play patch content?

The argument for a community feel seems pointless when most wards are quiet anyways with many keeping to themselves.

I say this as someone that has had no other reason for most of this patch cycle to be in the game after about a week or two of a patch drop beyond keeping a house going for the fc.

At this point I'm wondering if it's just to keep sub revenue coming in as it's more convenient to keep housing as an issue.

I'd love to be proven wrong and for Yoshi P or someone to talk about this again in the future rather than leave it as an accepted issue that many people hate. For a game that encourages taking a break it seems pretty detrimental to have scarce housing that penalises players from taking a break.

The longer this patch cycle has gone on the less excited I've become towards future content and I'm on the verge of leaving altogether.

Please share your thoughts on the situation

(This is not an attack at developers but rather a post to vent frustration and to provide feedback on how I'm feeling towards the housing situation atm and the responses developers keep giving)

[Turtledeluxe]

[QUOTE=Strife_Elvedor;6483909]
Is it just so the game ensures players keep a sub to keep their house rather than to play patch content?

[QUOTE]

Yes.

[Zeastria]

Add a houseing plot on our [Island Sanctuary].
- Prob solved.

[LianaThorne]

The point, at least from my perspective, is to keep people subbed during low interest patch content/drought periods. Implementing instanced housing would remove that. There's also the reality that Yoshi-P prefers the ward style housing (I believe it's based off one of his favorite games).

We've had two chances already to get instanced housing, instead we got:
- A lottery system
- Island Sanctuary

With Dawntrail we're getting Mirage instead of instanced housing.

At this point the devs are actively dodging giving us it and are slapping bandaids on the situation instead.

I honestly believe we need to stop arguing why instanced is better and start arguing how it can make Square more money/be beneficial for them. As of right now, it just cuts off a income pipeline so there's no incentive.

[Edelgarde]

You are delusional if you think instanced housing is ever gonna be a thing. And Yoshi P has probably kept silent about it because he doesn't like to directly tell you guys you're wrong. You're really failing to understand the actual appeal of different housing districts. Housing will really lose its luster and it becomes not as desirable. I'd go as far to say that housing will be less popular if it was only instanced housing without housing districts. I will admit, I wish that the demolition timer wasn't too short. I would prefer at least 2 months of inactivity before someone loses their house. It is a sub trap that you choose to get into.

1. It's amazing to teleport to your own beautiful frontyard that you know you designed, before going into your house.
2. Getting to win the location that you want and being able to know that you you're chilling at a place with an amazing view is satisfying. Feels like you finally got something that a lot of other players don't have. It feels exclusive to you and a small percentage of other players who do have your same plot.
3. Most people prefer just chilling in their frontyard and just enjoying the sight of their own neighborhood that they choose to be a part of. It's also very immersive to see your own neighborhood.
4. People MUCH prefer being on their frontyard than being inside the house.


I reckon a lot of you are complaining about the actual wrong thing here. If I were to explain what is so crap about housing is that there should be an equal amount of small and medium plots. In my opinion, a medium plot is perfect. However, there's no way to give players an option to buy a piece of land and choose whether or not they have a small, medium or large plot to put onto their land. And I doubt they can implement it in the future because they would have to change the layout of ALL housing districts to be able to fit any sized plots, but it's gonna look WEIRD.

So it's just not gonna change. Housing districts was actually the main appeal of owning a plot. You have your own nice front yard, you have a location and scenery you know is exclusive to you, it feels like an MMORPG when you know the houses surrounding yours are owned by other players, and it's cool to feel like you own a piece of land. There is no way in hell the developers will make housing LESS cool.

My recommendation for people in crowded data centers is just to wait for new wards to open up and buy undesirable small plots first just to have a plot in the first place, and then go for the ones you actually desire, whether it is a small plot with a MUCH better location, or an even bigger plot. Kinda like real life at the moment. Your first house is gonna be difficult to get, but after that, you got over the most stressful step, now you need to be patient and get a better house in the future.

If new wards open up and you don't have a plot yet, but you choose to gamble for a medium plot against 10+ people, then that's pretty darn stupid, ngl.

[Karious]

Bro doesn't even communicate with the neighbors in his ward :skull_emoji:

[Jojoya]

I honestly believe we need to stop arguing why instanced is better and start arguing how it can make Square more money/be beneficial for them. As of right now, it just cuts off a income pipeline so there's no incentive.

If it's truly an income issue, instanced housing can generate a good revenue stream.

Give players one housing slot included as part of their standard subscription. Sell them additional housing slots on Mogstation.

Player has a house build they're really happy with. But they've got a new idea they want to work on. They don't want to destroy the first build so they buy another housing slot. The second turns out great but now there's an idea for a third...

Those who want to keep their favorite builds can buy more slots. Those who feel it's an unnecessary extra expense can redecorate the slot they already have.

You are delusional if you think instanced housing is ever gonna be a thing.

It's already a thing in this game.

All players are asking for is it to be enhanced with more features/options.

Bro doesn't even communicate with the neighbors in his ward :skull_emoji:

I'd be happy to communicate with the neighbors in my ward.

The only problem is that I never see them. Limiting owners per ward to 30 in a game that's online 24/7 (outside of maintenance and DDOS attacks) with the vast majority of content located outside of the wards makes running into neighbors very unlikely.

Since I don't get to see them, maybe I'd rather not have to see the Paissa and Gingerbread houses stacked with Namazu effigies they build as I travel through the ward to get to the vendors or go to the apartment building to check my mail.

[Jeeqbit]

Why can we have instanced Islands yet not instanced housing after 10 years of development?

We have instanced housing in the form or Apartments and private/FC rooms.

Is it just so the game ensures players keep a sub to keep their house rather than to play patch content?

Separate houses on wards are limited because each ward is a separate area server. Separate area servers have to be setup manually and resources allocated. If you didn't have neighbors it wouldn't feel the same. Other MMORPGs will often isolate the house so you don't have neighbors and it's not the same.

Also, SE use physical servers, so actual drive space has to be manually added. It's not dynamically scaling like a Cloud server does. There are MMORPGs that just go ahead and use the cloud, but it's slower in certain aspects.

So since housing is limited for these reasons, they want players that actually play to have priority on houses, rather than 95% of players with a house being unsubscribed and this is reasonable.

For a game that encourages taking a break it seems pretty detrimental to have scarce housing that penalises players from taking a break.

I doubt most people even have their own house so that statement is true for most people.

The longer this patch cycle has gone on the less excited I've become towards future content and I'm on the verge of leaving altogether.

I hope a hard limit is put on the patch cycles rather than them continually growing. We've gone from a 5 month expansion gap after the .5 patch to 8 months or more for the last two expansions.

[Oizen]

Add a houseing plot on our [Island Sanctuary].
- Prob solved.

Bro we dont want solutions here, we want problems.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I honestly believe we need to stop arguing why instanced is better and start arguing how it can make Square more money/be beneficial for them. As of right now, it just cuts off an income pipeline so there's no incentive.

I bring this up every time, but they can measure the amount of people subbed versus house plots. What they can’t measure is how many people have unsubbed - temporarily or permanently - due to frustration with the housing system. If I know some, I’m sure everyone else does too. To say nothing of people who have entered every lotto since it started and still haven’t won anything yet. But rather than work on an instanced system, they’re making new worlds instead. Now I get those new worlds are necessary, and I’m sure people will be more appreciative of them when Dawntrail launches, but even if everyone who wanted a house was willing to move servers moved right now, there’s still not going to be enough plots for every player to have one. Which is ridiculous, being that we all pay a sub.

You bring up a good point though, the profit angle. Other games have a much wider variety of housing options with their instanced systems. And while most can be bought with in-game currency, there’s a few really elaborate ones that are sold via cash shop. I’m talking an actual estate, with multiple buildings and such to decorate. Plus you’re not limited to just one, and there’s no auto-demo. There’s no reason this can’t be added alongside the ward system, to offset the artificial scarcity and give every paying player an equivalent housing experience. As well as a lot more variety, allowing the development of new features and new places in the world that could be called home, because you don’t need to put down a whole neighborhood to make it happen. Just from a marketing perspective, other games have this already, so both the limited supply and the limited variety is costing them both subscription and cash shop money they could be making.