I'd like to take an extended break from the game, but...

[Cabalabob]

The game punishes you for it.

All my friends got burnt out on the tome grind and having nothing to do, so they all left to let the story and content build up. I want to do the same because I'm bored on my own.

But if I leave, I lose our FC housing plot and the game will hand FC leadership off to someone else.

I don't even really care about losing the house itself, the thing that bothers me is losing all our workshop progress. Someone I know from another FC demolished their house so they could move and told me that when they did, all their airships, routes and schematics were reset. I don't want to have to go through all that again if I come back.

As for leadership, I don't want it to go to someone who may not come back when I do, if at all.

So my suggestions:
Have an option to "store" houses. All decor, furnishings and workshop progress will be saved and you will be given a ticket that can be redeemed on an equivalent empty plot (e.g. If you stored a large house, when you come back you can only redeem it on an empty large plot). When you redeem the ticket your house will be reloaded as it was when you left.

And for FC leadership, instead of forcing it to pass on, make it an option. When the leader has been gone too long an option will open up to qualified members to adopt leadership. That way if your FC don't want leadership passed around, it won't be.

I just feel like as it is right now, I'm being extorted to keep subbing so I don't lose progress.

And before anyone says it, no, I couldn't have known when I bought a house that this would be the case, because our FC got one back when the director claimed he wouldn't put a timer on housing because he felt like it was a cheap way to make people keep playing.

[DaikiKiyoshi]

Honestly they should remove auto demolition completely (or greatly increase the timer), set up a system where players can 'demolish' their houses at any time they choose and get their Gil refunded, and set it up so that houses are limited to one per account. Housing is a total mess right now.

[ADVSS]

I agree with you gunsa, same thing happened with me and my friends, luckilly we left the server we were on before so we got nothing to lose by taking a break. Another good thing about your idea is that if the devs could do this, this would actually save them time on the "moving houses" thing theyre talking about. The rest you mentioned, I agree with a lot. Youve been playing 14 for a loooong time, like me, maybe longer idk. Thing is, the grind with no new story and just diadem getting added, its just too much. At the moment though...the only thing you can do is remember to log in every week and enter the house then log out, as far as being trapped. yes. I think your idea is a great one, especially considering it isnt witholding unused plots.

something as simple as the chocobo registrations for covering would work too, like a line for fc credits, workshop progress, airships and ranks.

[Zodiar]

I feel like I read this before...

[Kaethra]

You know.. I could login to EQ2, after not playing for a couple of years. And even though the server I was on was merged twice in that time. My guild's Guild Hall and my personal Houses across a few characters will be exactly as I left them. I'd have to pay the weekly rent to enter them (but not back rent). But everything would be fine once I did.

They're able to pull that off because the stuff is Instanced. I have no idea why that isn't done here. ESO just added housing and it likewise is instanced.

Sure instancing loses a measure of immersion because you can't see neighborhoods of plots that players have decorated. But can anyone explain why that has precedence to a player being able to get a plot on a crowded server, or in the case of the OP losing progress because they take a break?

As a veteran I kinda feel for my active duty cousins who have to take breaks due to field time and deployments. I don't believe immersion has precedence over them, lets go ahead and instance this stuff and save it to the account.

[SeriousxSarcasm]

I like OPs ideas better than switching to instanced housing. The neighborhoods are one of the big appeals for a lot of people (myself included), getting to know people in the same area, smaller FCs doing events together, etc... I honestly think instanced housing will be one of those things where everyone asks for it, and then when we get it they'll whine that they didn't just expand the districts again.

[Texa]

I like OPs ideas better than switching to instanced housing. The neighborhoods are one of the big appeals for a lot of people (myself included), getting to know people in the same area, smaller FCs doing events together, etc... I honestly think instanced housing will be one of those things where everyone asks for it, and then when we get it they'll whine that they didn't just expand the districts again.

We already have some instanced housing in the form of apartments. They're terribly restricted atm though and bigger servers like Balmung have even burned through those.

I think keeping the neighborhoods we have and adding larger apartments (like deluxe condos) without population limits (at least on the big servers) would be the best solution.

[Hasrat]

I think keeping the neighborhoods we have and adding larger apartments (like deluxe condos) without population limits (at least on the big servers) would be the best solution.

I'm going to guess that these requests and suggestions never get anywhere because it only affects such a small number of servers. You lot are all complaining that even your apartments are full, meanwhile, plenty of other servers still have housing available, or at the very least (I presume) haven't yet exhausted their apartments.

The housing solutions are not the problem. Overpopulation is the problem. So why are all the suggestions intended to encourage further overpopulation?

I have no contribution to the auto-demolish feature.

[Texa]

You lot are all complaining that even your apartments are full, meanwhile, plenty of other servers still have housing available, or at the very least (I presume) haven't yet exhausted their apartments.

The housing solutions are not the problem. Overpopulation is the problem. So why are all the suggestions intended to encourage further overpopulation?

1. I don't play on a big server, I'm on Diablos. It's medium sized and I have my own house.
2. People are going to play on the server they want to play on and their opinions are still valid even if they're on a big server. It's still a sizeable amount of the playerbase that's affected.
3. "Complaining" isn't trying to take the experiences of other players into other account to come up with a workable solution for both the op and other severs, it's posting in a thread just to talk down on people who play where they want to and saying you have nothing to contribute to the actual topic.

[Kaelah]

I like your ideas OP. I've been struggling with the same dilemma. Most of us want to take a pre expansion break but we don't want to return to find the house gone.

Don't know if you are aware though, that FC lead passing goes to the next highest ranked player, and the most active of those. So if you set up your ranks in relation to that, you have no fear of lead dropping to a random newer member. One of our commanders says she'll not be taking a break so I at least have peace of mind that leadership can pass to her if need be.