So originally I was going to make this topic over a month ago now, but then I saw that we were getting a homestead update later this year (or well, at least in Mabi KR which means it'll get to us around... next year) but there's not much elaborated on it yet. I think so far what we've heard is new items with functions & an overhaul to the item placing system?
So anyways its 7 am and I haven't slept all night so I am here to cook and IDK maybe people will like these suggestions maybe people will tell me to go play the sims or something who knows. Here's some suggestions. Grouping them all together because
the main suggestion here is to definitely overhaul homesteads even further than we have right now. Also going to back the reason for all of these suggestions & wanting them with the fact that people do indeed care about housing systems in games. And we have one of those, and I love it a lot, and you don't have to fight people in a bloodbath to get your own house! So even if it's not a super super important update, I think putting love and care into updating homesteads a lot more is worth it.
1: Expand the Homestead
With the large amount of new props we've been getting, even expansion 6 is beginning to feel like I just Can't Have All The Cool Things. Whether it be adding up to lv 20 or up to expansion 9 or even 12, idk, I just want more space. With the way things currently are, I can't even add more to my homestead that doesn't cause me to massively rearrange everything.
2: Reduce the space taken on the grid of some items
Certain items, especially older ones, have these huge grids. Like, why do we need cherry blossom trees bought with pon to be a 5x5 square, especially when free ones are 1x1? Or the floating star thingies to be 3x3, especially when every other floating item is a 1x1? I can understand the argument for incredibly large items but even then, things like the Mages Atelier is a 1x1 item. Even if everything isn't made into a 1x1, consider trimming some of the items slightly. I could probably compile a list of things that seem like they should be trimmed.
3: Item Overlap
We have so many floating objects and tables that it feels a bit cruel not to allow us to place things on top of other things sometimes. Especially tables. I feel like we have all these nice tables and you're telling us we can't just put stuff on top of them? Like food? I feel like there's a lot of missed opportunities. Especially if you allow homestead food to be crafted with cooking or using other life skills to make things like, for example, shelves to put all those little character figures we get from events n what not (I mean hey, that could be a way to make space without expanding the homestead size)
4: Add old event items to the craftable homestead items
You know those
oldschool Xmas Reindeers with the lights? Or the
regular Green Christmas Tree? From ancient events? That are never going to be rerun? Just let people make them. There's a lot of older items like this that are either not tradeable or, even if they are tradeable, they're so rare that they never get put on the market board or just straight up forgotten about. I don't see the harm in adding them to the ornaments list if they're never going to be brought back.
5: More Degrees of Rotation
Self explanatory but if we could have like idk, 45° or even 30° rotations it would be nice.
6: Complete Cosmetic Overhaul
Okay, so I don't know how to really call this one, but this is the one that I feel is the most subjective, and yet, I've seen other people talk about essentially these kinds of ideas the most. So I'm just going to group it into one thing, and hope everyone follows me while I Pepe Silvia my way through this all
Homesteads, without decorations, are just plain ugly. We have like: Wasteland, Slightly Greener Wasteland, and Tundra Wasteland. I've spent so much effort using trees to hide how ugly homesteads are. My solution? Just make the void around us not ugly. I mean, Outlaws already have this feature.
Having a simple backdrop of just plain fields or something would be a step up from whatever the heck this is:
Heck, I feel like even outside of default you could do something like generic things like being in a forest, or being surrounded by cherry trees, or heck, even using the backgrounds of towns like Tir, Dunby, Tailteann, Tara, etc would be cool.
Another simple addition would be a customizable skybox & weather. At the current moment there's one weather in homesteads and it's just sunny. When the sun sets, you just get cloud cover. You don't even see the moons in the sky, which kinda sucks. Adding things like weather into your homestead could make it rainy or you could do something like have a custom weather like cherry blossoms or fireflies or just a permanent view of the night sky with the moon and constellations in view. I guess by technicality, time control goes under this too, but considering right now how homesteads are kind of treated as a pocket dimension, I don't think that would be that big of a deal anyways.
Finally, let us make pathways on the floor and stuff. Like, if I want to put snow around certain parts of my homestead but not everywhere, it'd be nice. Or if I want to have like a dirt path or even just paved parts it'd be cool. Ideally something like how ACNH's terraforming would be nice (well, at least the pattern laying stuff, not necessarily the modification of land cause while that would be even nicer, I doubt that would happen in homesteads.)
7: Homestead Directory
So you know how we have that entire housing channel and there's like a little grouping and how on the housing board or whatever it was called, which a lot of people used as a way to buy things pre auction house, and when you would get a flyer, you would get to transport yourself to outside their house? So it's that idea. But applied to a board. And I'm sure you're like "we already have the homestead invitation system, that defeats the purpose of this!" and like, in a way yeah, you're right. But lets be real here, I have only ever seen 2 people use that, and one of those 2 doesn't even seem to be active anymore. There is legit just One Guy who uses that. The purpose of homestead directory would be a board placed idk, somewhere like dunbarton, and people who opt in can allow people to visit their homestead on their respective channel without needing to seek out either their physical player or an invite. Combine it with something like a rating system & message book like FFXIV has and it could be a cool system that urges people to get creative with decorating or an easy way to help people who need access to life skill items (like herbs).
Uhh thats all I've got for now I'm honestly tired and I know I'm probably babbling but thats what happens when 5.4 isn't for another 2 months.
Also I'm reviewing nothing before I post it you get my pure unfiltered thoughts.
