The Truth About FC Housing (Since SE Refuses to Tell It.)

[ArkhamNative]

Im rather glad prices were set high. i know my server was the second lowest prices for everything. But to see my entire free company come together and work our asses off to accomplish getting a decent plot and make a home for ourselves was quite a gratifying experience.

I'm also glad prices weren't set so low that most FCs could afford the biggest house, especially the first month. And it sounds like many of us think that pricing in the lower tiers is reasonable.

It's the legacy world pricing that's nuts. Yoshi-P said himself: over 10 people per legacy world have over 100M gil. But that's a dozen or two extra houses to worry about. Pricing housing high so those dozen can't buy means the other 400 or so FCs on legacy worlds are completely screwed. At least Yoshi-P saw sense and will be gutting legacy world pricing, but not for 3 months, which kind of proves the OP's point.

oh, and btw, we made around 25mil in 10 days with everyone helping out. its really not that hard to get it.

On a NA data center legacy world, you would need to continue at that intensity for another 20-30 days to afford the same house. Or on a JP data center legacy world, 40-60 days for that same house.

[Roflcoptorz]

So Yoshi-san or dev team, I'm wondering when/if you ever plan on coming clean and being truthful with the community. Or is the plan to simply ignore your customers and hope for the best?

[HakuroDK]

Reading the original post, I wouldn't call a lack of server space for every FC to have a house an "unfinished product", I would instead call it a demand that far outweighs the supply. That being said, there's a very limited amount of space available. I have no doubt that the housing system itself is perfectly fine, there's just not enough space to put everyone yet.

But they'll get the servers, they'll get the prices dropped for housing, and everyone will move on to talk about the next big problem with the game.

I was one of those folks totally excited about housing. My FC was racing to save up 2 million to buy one of the biggest houses. And then the ball dropped and we gave up. I don't think any amount of raging about the issue is going to solve it. I'm sure that the prices will drop on the very next maintenance after the housing servers arrive, (hopefully) tested for ping, and finally plugged in.

And as for the whole "They LIED to the community!" thing, that's kind of a shallow thing to get offended about, almost like folks are actively trying to find a target to get angry at. Doesn't really matter what the reason is that the prices are so high. What does matter is that, regardless of the real reason behind it, the prices will inevitably drop and everyone will get to enjoy housing.

[Laf]

Free housing plot, great neighbourhood!

[PSxpert2011]

Do we tell Vietnam vets their opinions about war don't matter because many more soldiers died in WWII? Only on the FFXIV forums can you find arguments like yours. You should be the one who goes away.

[+1]

There should be a quest to get a TENT(or any into other housing content), just saying. ^^

[AndrewAlexander]

I think alot of this was designed to align the free company system to go towards a common purpose. There are a ton of small FC per server that should just be an LS. SE may want these smaller FC to merge to form communities or companies rather than gangs. Some of the largest FC have had to flush out inactive members forcing them to recruit the active ones. If every FC could buy a house, there would be no encouragement to form large communities of active players. These communities contribute to subscription retention too.

[Cor_Dirge]

I think alot of this was designed to align the free company system to go towards a common purpose. There are a ton of small FC per server that should just be an LS. SE may want these smaller FC to merge to form communities or companies rather than gangs. Some of the largest FC have had to flush out inactive members forcing them to recruit the active ones. If every FC could buy a house, there would be no encouragement to form large communities of active players. These communities contribute to subscription retention too.

japanese server, english FC... nuff said. I'd rather be in a FC that I can chat with and bond with that's small than a 400 strong FC with no one to talk to. even if I were in an english server I wouldn't be able to get to know 400 members (I'd probs chill with 5-6) so the majority of the FC would be strangers and whats the point of that?

[Mhaeric]

The conspiracy theory is alive and kicking in this thread.

[TrystWildkey]

I think alot of this was designed to align the free company system to go towards a common purpose. There are a ton of small FC per server that should just be an LS. SE may want these smaller FC to merge to form communities or companies rather than gangs. Some of the largest FC have had to flush out inactive members forcing them to recruit the active ones. If every FC could buy a house, there would be no encouragement to form large communities of active players. These communities contribute to subscription retention too.

I have to disagree with this. So many elements in this game are set up for solo play, or groups of 4 or at most 8. Duty Finder groups you with people from different servers, so even if you're running dungeons, you can't meet new friends and form a community.

I think that if they wanted to foster a sense of larger communities, then elements other than housing would be adjusted for larger groups.

[YuriRamona]

And as for the whole "They LIED to the community!" thing, that's kind of a shallow thing to get offended about, almost like folks are actively trying to find a target to get angry at. Doesn't really matter what the reason is that the prices are so high. What does matter is that, regardless of the real reason behind it, the prices will inevitably drop and everyone will get to enjoy housing.

I wouldn't use as strong of wording as the original post in saying that were "lied" to, but it should be troublesome that the developers are not emphasizing and explaining the root cause of the problem, but are focusing on their short-term solution to it (the artificial barrier of high prices). You should see other posts in this thread that discuss this issue.

We should care about the real reason, because we should be concerned about how and why, at this stage in development, SE is still unable to accommodate its player base to enjoy content that they said would become available at 2.1.

You really should read the other posts in this thread and respond to the points raised. The high prices would not have existed if there had not been a problem with server capacity, and so whether they will matter or not in three months' time is absolutely irrelevant to the core point at issue. You can argue the validity of this statement but the evidence is very clear. All the other reasons forwarded (elimination of gil, combating RMT, gil sinks, extending content) were merely convenient for SE and gave them a way out. (Again, read the other posts for more about this)

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With all things being equal, it's unremarkable that a game of this size encounters problems with their ability to expand capacity. It happens all the time.

However, given SE's track record with server capacity and recognition of stability problems since the early release, we should be very worried that they still don't have their act together after having dealt with (more or less) the same issue for several months.

A key matter at debate is whether we could reasonably expected to have access to the housing content at the launch (or near launch) of 2.1.

The relevant quote to this question is here:

With this pricing scheme, we sought a balance in which roughly 80% of all existing free companies will be able to purchase at least a small-sized plot in three months’ time.

That's a large majority of the population that will be able to take advantage of content released in 2.1 in three months. We can reasonably infer that the number who are able to purchase housing at the launch or near the launch of 2.1 to be a fairly small minority.

I'm of the opinion that housing should be accessible to everyone in three months' time, and 80% at launch. Obviously, you disagree.

It's also critical to note that not everyone will be able to enjoy housing. We can assume that the 80% figure given by Yoshi-P is an optimistic estimate that relies on very dedicated schedule that takes advantage of daily rewards. It should be pretty obvious that if you're the kind of player who is poor now, it's likely the result that you are unable to log in daily for those rewards and therefore you won't make that mark in 3 months' time.

The conspiracy theory is alive and kicking in this thread.

If you would like to debate the points raised in this thread, please do so. If you think we are grasping at straws, just move on and don't post here. Your statement doesn't contribute to the discussion.