Final Fantasy XIV Plans On More Housing Plots, Housing Servers in Patch 5.4

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Final Fantasy XIV Plans On More Housing Plots, Housing Servers in Patch 5.4

On the official site, Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida talked about some of the upcoming content in patch 5.4, including plans for new housing for players.

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Tiller

About time, i figured it would come eventually. They really just need to do away with demolition and and create a dynamic house system, or larger apartments.

foxgirl

The trial only applies to new accounts, if your sub is suspended you just have to pay them... and I'm 596 crysta short.

Cool about the housing though.

Apridise

They need to come up with an actual solution I think to housing, there are so many housing areas that all anyone cares about is either getting to there own, there friends, and there guilds, people don't spend time going through others. There has never been enough housing and it's been a source of contention from the very beginning. I felt that article was misleading about renting because it felt down played what you don't receive by renting. Just give everyone there own house and make these types of areas available for guilds.

Tiller

Apridise said:

They need to come up with an actual solution I think to housing, there are so many housing areas that all anyone cares about is either getting to there own, there friends, and there guilds, people don't spend time going through others. There has never been enough housing and it's been a source of contention from the very beginning. I felt that article was misleading about renting because it felt down played what you don't receive by renting. Just give everyone there own house and make these types of areas available for guilds.

I agree. My guild has one in Shirogane so I can use the services there, but I like Mist better so that's where I have an apartment. With an apartment you miss out on some of the gardening mechanics folks with a yard get, that and some of the decorations are outdoor only.

Honestly it would be nice if they instanced a personal zone for a house separate from the world, it wold allow everyone the ability to use the mechanics locked out to the rest of us. Kinda makes me miss SWG

koldmiser

In this day and age there is no reason housing shouldn't be available for all players. It's just stupid.

PaPaRoach76

They should do it like EQ 2 does. You rent the property & get a personal instance to that layout, so in theory everyone on the server could have the same house you do just their own instance of it.

QuarterStack

So, Yoshida's adding more bandaids to his broken housing system.

Yay, I guess?

What *should* be done is for the current system to be scrapped, go back to the drawing board and implement a solution where scarcity isn't a problem, and everyone can get not just *a* house, but *the* house they *actually* want.

Of course, that would require Yoshida to admit he made a mistake, which he won't do. He'll only talk about mistakes Tanaka made with 1.0. So we continue to get bandaids in the form of occasional new wards, demolition and apartments. He made poor decisions and the players get to share in the consequences. How thoughtful.

He's alluded to resource limitations being the problem in the past, probably due to cross-platform compatibility. But this is a BS excuse. Yes, the limitations are there, but they're only a problem because of how he chose to implement FFXIV's housing.

His poor implementation is the reason for:

• Constant shortage of housing, only temporarily remedied by adding new wards
• The need for Demolition, which has to be halted - in the name of 'fairness' - during times when house owners may not be able to log in.
• The need for apartments as a consolation prize to those who would like a house, but can't get one.
• The need for 'restricted' wards, where only FC leaders can get one.
• The need for people to "camp" housing plots, trying to be the first to snag it when it comes available.
• The problem of house flipping where people were buying them up and re-selling them at ridiculous rates.

Every single issue with Housing in FFXIV is due to Yoshida's poor implementation and refusal to acknowledge and correct it.

To illustrate why I can say this definitively, as fact:
ESO - another MMO with a lot in common to FFXIV (first party developer, on the same platforms, poor launch, etc) - has *none* of those problems.

With ESO's housing:

• Every player can have one of every house in the game if they want (well over 50 last I checked)
• Houses can be FAR bigger (entire mansions or caverns, etc) and support far more furnishings, shared between inside and out.
  
  The limitation to outdoor furnishings in FFXIV is, yet again, due to Yoshida's poor implementation. Each yard shares the same resources/memory pool in that Ward. And so you are limited to a small number of outdoor decorations.
• No limitations or restrictions, except the gold/crowns needed to buy them, and the desire to purchase it. There's even a 'Furnished' option.
• No "Demolition" for inactivity. You can be gone from the game for 3 years. Come back, and all your houses are there, with everything right where you left it. No "someone has to enter the house every so many days or you lose it" nonsense.
• ZOS is able to give away houses for free - as gifts during events, as rewards for completing storylines, etc.

The openness of it enables and supports a thriving community with housing showcases, themed contests, etc. It provides the freedom and encourages the creativity to produce setups like in this video.

It bears repeating, everything in that list is so despite ESO being on all the same platforms and having all the same limitations as FFXIV

In addition, ESO has far more flexible decoration, allowing for *far* superior creativity by players. A new update adds the ability to put NPCs and Pets in your house on custom paths, etc, to bring more liveliness to it.

ZOS is adding all this cool stuff to an already great housing system. Meanwhile, SEVEN YEARS after its addition, Yoshida is still wrestling with scalability/availability problems that have been there since day 1. Sad.

An announcement of "new wards" in FFXIV shouldn't be received as good news, but as a slap in the face. It serves as a reminder that FFXIV's illustrious Producer/Director won't step out of his own ego enough to admit he blew it, go back to the drawing board, and do right by his players. Except when it's convenient and/or he can spin it for positive PR. He'd rather drag a broken system through the mud, his players clamoring along behind it, hoping maybe *this time* they'll be able to get a house.

Yoshida, or someone else on the XIV team, once said that a developer should do something because it's the right thing to do, even if it's difficult. FFXIV's housing is a perfect example of a time to lead by example, and take their own advice. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

Housing has been a very popular part of MMORPGs for almost 2 decades. There are myriad examples to pull from on how to do it correctly. For Yoshida to have blown it this badly either means he's out of touch, or is arrogant enough to think "he knows better", even after being proven horribly wrong.