Please SE, do something about housing

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Originally Posted by KadaRemnant

Please SE, i beg you. Add more wards, more subdivisions, a third, a fourth but please. This housing is a mess. It's very tiring to click for hours and see so many people trying to get the house too.

Just add more please and now. We all want a house!

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Housing isn't bad, it's working as intended. Sure, it's bad for the players but that is not the point. The point is to keep some mooks paying for the game only to keep the demolitioner away and considering how most people do anything else than actually play, even in dungeons, it is working perfectly.

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Originally Posted by Tsaranoga

Housing isn't bad, it's working as intended. Sure, it's bad for the players but that is not the point. The point is to keep some mooks paying for the game only to keep the demolitioner away and considering how most people do anything else than actually play, even in dungeons, it is working perfectly.

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It's actually kind of frustrating, and slowly having the opposite effect on me. I'd probably have unsubbed these last few months if I didn't have a house, and if I haven't been working towards a large for a couple of years now. But I'm definitely feeling burnt out, and feeling like I can't properly take a break because if I do I'll lose my house just makes it feel even worse.

Dunno how many others feel this way, but the longer I go paying a sub just to hold onto something I won't really be enjoying until the next patch, the less good I feel about having the house in the first place. I've thought more than once about just giving up the house and taking a longer break, but the thought of spending another 14+ hours spam clicking placards is just off-putting enough to drag me back. It's such a miserable, discouraging system that it's becoming a growing dark smudge on a game that I otherwise genuinely enjoy playing. Enough so that I think if I did give up or lose my house, I'd just give up on housing in this game entirely.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

It's actually kind of frustrating, and slowly having the opposite effect on me. I'd probably have unsubbed these last few months if I didn't have a house, and if I haven't been working towards a large for a couple of years now. But I'm definitely feeling burnt out, and feeling like I can't properly take a break because if I do I'll lose my house just makes it feel even worse.

Dunno how many others feel this way, but the longer I go paying a sub just to hold onto something I won't really be enjoying until the next patch, the less good I feel about having the house in the first place. I've thought more than once about just giving up the house and taking a longer break, but the thought of spending another 14+ hours spam clicking placards is just off-putting enough to drag me back. It's such a miserable, discouraging system that it's becoming a growing dark smudge on a game that I otherwise genuinely enjoy playing. Enough so that I think if I did give up or lose my house, I'd just give up on housing in this game entirely.

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Just a quick note - housing demolition is currently suspended due to COVID, so you technically COULD be unsubbed right now...at least for a wee bit. Just be sure to keep a close eye on their announcements for when they turn the demo timers back on.

But I'm with ya - I hate the feeling like I need to stay subbed just to keep a house as it's near impossible to get a new one. I'm always reminded of the live letter from waaay back in the day: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-%2810-30-2013. The relevant bit is:

1:14:22
Q: Will there be any maintenance fees or other costs for housing, besides the cost of the land and house?
A: In older MMOs, such as Ultima Online, there was a house maintenance fee you had to pay weekly, but in FFXIV: ARR we decided against this system. Similarly, these older MMOs also had a system where your house would break down if you didn’t log in after a while in order to have you continue your subscription, but this is a thing of the past and we won't have any system like that.

I'm assuming they just had lofty dreams back then and hadn't yet accounted for their poo-infrastructure (or whatever the limiting factor is). But this is a modern game (albeit aging now), and I feel like they should have been able to make a far more functional housing system than what we have. There are older games that managed to give housing to all, and don't require you to remain subbed . I can't imagine that the devs are entirely thrilled with the situation either, but there isn't much they can do either due to system limitations and/or funding. Probably enough complaining from me for a day. X:

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

J
I'm assuming they just had lofty dreams back then and hadn't yet accounted for their poo-infrastructure (or whatever the limiting factor is). But this is a modern game (albeit aging now), and I feel like they should have been able to make a far more functional housing system than what we have. There are older games that managed to give housing to all, and don't require you to remain subbed . I can't imagine that the devs are entirely thrilled with the situation either, but there isn't much they can do either due to system limitations and/or funding. Probably enough complaining from me for a day. X:

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I want to say they actually had some big lofty idea for housing but FC housing simply never took off in the beginning and it really didn't take off until a couple of years down the road so I imagine the idea got pulled and we are stuck with what we have currently.

Yeah I might just unsub til August after all. Only a month but... I mean hey, that's a quick meal I guess :P

Can only really hope they try something different with Ishgard... or next expansion, maybe (if Ishgard won't actually be in next expansion anyway). The fact that I have a house at all right now feels like sheer dumb luck in just happening to be in the right place at the right time. It's just not a good feeling.

Thank you guys to understand me how it feels. I gave up on housing because i come online to have fun, not click a house for 24 hours. This system us not right, unhealthy and just ruin the fun i have in the game. I just want it is back to normal or better.

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Originally Posted by Tsaranoga

Housing isn't bad, it's working as intended. Sure, it's bad for the players but that is not the point. The point is to keep some mooks paying for the game only to keep the demolitioner away and considering how most people do anything else than actually play, even in dungeons, it is working perfectly.

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If the point was to keep people paying for the game, the demolition timer would never be suspended.

Considering how often they suspend it, I don't think that's the point.

Well housing has become something of a limited feature. On larger servers it's it feels prestigious to have a house, on smaller ones nah. SE seems to have this mentality as well that's why they don't want it to be available to everyone (we also have the server restrictions) so I don't see an overhaul on the system anytime soon. What needs to be done now though is restart of the demolition process so that active players can have a chance on getting a house if they wish so.

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Originally Posted by Tsaranoga

Housing isn't bad, it's working as intended. Sure, it's bad for the players but that is not the point. The point is to keep some mooks paying for the game only to keep the demolitioner away and considering how most people do anything else than actually play, even in dungeons, it is working perfectly.

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While you're right that housing is "working as intended", the intention isnt to keep us paying, seeing how they started without a demolition timer. Housing was intended to be something special, something rare, something for an FC to work towards together - well... that didnt work out, thanks to opening it up to individuals and inflation (suddenly, everyone has the money for a house - its not something a whole group of friends is saving up for over months).

The demolition timer was eventually added because there were so many houses that belonged to people who stopped playing alltogether - homes that were just sitting there, empty, unused and with little chance that they would get used again in the future. The main intention of the demolition timer is to free up those unused homes - not to keep us paying our subs. You'll notice that just paying them money is not enough to keep your house - you need to enter it once every 45 days aswell. To me that suggests that they actually care more about houses belonging to active people, who care about their house (at least enough to enter it every 45 days...) than just about money. If it were only about money, keeping an active sub would be enough to keep your house.

Housing is working as intended in the sense that it was supposed to be bragging rights and something special - thats not what the community wants, though.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Housing is working as intended in the sense that it was supposed to be bragging rights and something special - thats not what the community wants, though.

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I'm doubting that it's working as intended. Well sure somebody thought open world housing was "da bomb" but I'm having a very hard time understanding why locking game features like gardening, workshops, and subs and airships behind a sereverly limited commodity was also intended.

Regardless this experiment has backfired so bad they had to break their word that demolition would not be a thing. Ward expansions do little to mitigate the problem and the laughably small apartments fail on so many counts.

It is not acceptable in its current state. The point of the multitude of threads regarding how bad housing feels is encouragement for Square to make it right.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

If the point was to keep people paying for the game, the demolition timer would never be suspended.

Considering how often they suspend it, I don't think that's the point.

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Can't be too obvious with it, of course. Need to keep the "goodwill" for the next failure they push out. Cynical? Indeed it is.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

I'm doubting that it's working as intended. Well sure somebody thought open world housing was "da bomb" but I'm having a very hard time understanding why locking game features like gardening, workshops, and subs and airships behind a sereverly limited commodity was also intended.

Regardless this experiment has backfired so bad they had to break their word that demolition would not be a thing. Ward expansions do little to mitigate the problem and the laughably small apartments fail on so many counts.

It is not acceptable in its current state. The point of the multitude of threads regarding how bad housing feels is encouragement for Square to make it right.

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Well, the problem is that when they first set up the system it was intended to be for FCs only - something FCs could work towards as a group, that would require lots and lots of gil (back when housing was first released, the 5 million you needed for a small house was a lot for most players. I remember it took me and my then-FC-leader about 3 months of constant crafting to finally get the 18 million we needed for the medium house we wanted - and that included adjusting prices every hour, constantly crafting, aswell as some donations from other FC-members, who gave like 500k, which translated to basically being half their money). My guess would be that those functions ended up being tied to housing to make it worth the hassle - it was supposed to be a real achievement for the FC to get a house and with it all those functions.

...as you said, though... that didnt work out - but at the point that became apparent, we already had the system with the housing-wards and everything and just changing it didnt seem to be an option. They did mention that they were looking into offering bigger apartments eventually, so please look forward to that (...one day)!

At the heart of the problem lies this missunderstanding between what the devs wanted with housing (an endgame-goal for people to achieve together, rare and limited, with special perks tied to it) and what the community wanted (housing for everyone). With the inflation happening, housing prices also started to look affordable to the average person and I've got the feeling that a lot of new people missunderstood that the system was never meant for them to have their own house, despite them having the money for it.

So... yeah, you're right - this has backfired, but its apparently not that easy to fix. They cant just delete the current housing system and put in a new one at somepoint, so they're working with bandaids (like the demolition timer, apartments and adding new wards once in a while) until they can actually solve the problem. They adressed several times that they are aware that this problem exists - but so do a lot pf other "problems", like people wanting new dungeons, relics, raids, glamour, mounts, not going through 500 fetch quests in ARR (excuse the hyperbole).

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Originally Posted by Tsaranoga

Can't be too obvious with it, of course. Need to keep the "goodwill" for the next failure they push out. Cynical? Indeed it is.

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The demolition concept, just like the timers, came from the community - because of the scarcity issue. People wanted a house and didn't want others clogging and claiming up all the houses forever when they stopped playing/gave the content no mind.

Does it have the effect of being held hostage? Yes.... Unfortunately.. but they're largely community driven band-aid solutions to the problem that is scarcity based housing.

I agree with Jojoya, they didn't intend for this. If they did then I'm both impressed and scared, but I think it's a good life rule to assume premeditated malice as the last possible resort and work through other alternative reasons first. Like they made this system long ago after a crazy crunch, intending it for FC, that they were probably not prepared to financially invest so much when they weren't even sure the game would be that successful, and now they can choose to revamp it at massive cost due to it having to do with many complex systems or they can spend that for new content, and it appears they think new content would be better. Can argue what they should and shouldn't do but I just imagine purposefully locking people up into the sub via a negative experience was not on their intentions list.

Maybe the demolition timer is suspended because of the global pandemic???

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Quick preface to explain my point of view on XIV's housing: I think the system is crap and needs a massive reworking (and should be available to everyone). My thoughts have been hashed out in more detail in all the various threads, but that's at the base of it.

So now, you are correct that lowering the timer on houses won't change the actual process itself, but it will allow people to move onto other activities far sooner. It's a bad process as a whole, and it can also be quite unhealthy for the player themselves. In theory, having the potential for 24+ hours on a house would allow more people to take a stab at it, but plenty of houses open-up well under that time frame and so any perceived fairness that a longer timer may provide doesn't really hold that much weight in my opinion.

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While being as it is RNG houses can open up before the 24 hour timer. The reality is that some still do not, and for those for whatever did not notice the plot during that 5 hour window the 24 hour rng chance still provides more people a chance at the plot.

Also might just be me but if a person wishes to take unhealthy risks at getting a plot that is on them and if seems unfair to put the burden on SE for a personal choice made by a person. I get within the currenr climate that this is not an appropriate viewpoint, but that is my personal take.

I just do not see why people care so much that others are doing silly shit like staying up for 24 hours straight clicking to get a plot and if they complain about the health conqueunces that is on them imo.

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Originally Posted by Awha

I just do not see why people care so much that others are doing silly shit like staying up for 24 hours straight clicking to get a plot and if they complain about the health conqueunces that is on them imo.

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I think the problem is that in order to get a house you have to compete with these people for one, and that pressures you to do it too.
Especially since there's not a surplus of empty houses...

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I think the problem is that in order to get a house you have to compete with these people for one, and that pressures you to do it too.
Especially since there's not a surplus of empty houses...

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I that if you want to compete with them you cannot take a break, but that is still a choice one has to make and if something negative comes about it one has to live with those consequences. I get that overall one feels that they should not have to put in such a situation in the first place. I agree instances housing would best, but if players wish to compete with bots are those willing to stay up for 24 hours for a plot then that is on them and no one else. I do not understand why people want to save people from themselves all the time. If they are old enough to log into the game, I do feel they are old enough to make their own choices as to what they wish to do with their time ingame and whatever may result because of that choice.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I think the problem is that in order to get a house you have to compete with these people for one, and that pressures you to do it too.
Especially since there's not a surplus of empty houses...

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Its a video game. If you are sacrificing your health for it, that's on you, not anybody else. Least of all other players.

In regards to the health concern, I was actually thinking more for everyone's hand/wrists and not so much the fact they may be planted in a chair for numerous hours (which is also not all that great, but that's a different concern).

If you're just randomly clicking the placard once or twice a minute, I'm sure you'd be fine - but you're also incredibly unlikely to win that plot. To have a decent chance, you have to spam a single mouse button or a key for an extended chunk of time and any repetitive motion like that can do some bad things. Carpal tunnel is no joke.

The overall process does also lend itself to people getting creative in using scripts or keyboard/mouse macros in order to automate the clicking. So that takes another bit of that fairness and tosses it right out the window. I don't think any of us can tell exactly who may be cheating, and I'm not trying to say that it's even the majority of people, but it's definitely a thing.

Regards to the health concerns, I think people were referring to any possible health concerns one may have regarding what people compete with when it comes to plots. Might just be me but if someone wants to endlessly click for hours at a time that is on them what happens because of it is on them. Since we cannot know for certain how many people cheat it does seem unfair to limit the window as to when people can try for a plot due health issues or injuries or cheating. Keeping the timer an rng within 24 hour window is not horrible as people try to make it out to be.

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Originally Posted by Awha

Regards to the health concerns, I think people were referring to any possible health concerns one may have regarding what people compete with when it comes to plots. Might just be me but if someone wants to endlessly click for hours at a time that is on them what happens because of it is on them. Since we cannot know for certain how many people cheat it does seem unfair to limit the window as to when people can try for a plot due health issues or injuries or cheating. Keeping the timer an rng within 24 hour window is not horrible as people try to make it out to be.

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SE has set this up in a way that if you're not endlessly clicking, you will most likely not win a house if there is competition around. Yes, ultimately it is on the individual to decide if that is worth it to them, but that's what typically has to be done if you want a house. It's pretty bad all around.

If they can't fix housing in any substantial way, I'd rather see a lottery system get implemented. Put the demolished house on a 24 hour timer (or whatever timer they want) and let people put their name in for it. Perhaps limit this to one "ticket" per account at a time in order to prevent people from sending all their mules to put their names in. Obviously this could benefit people who have multiple accounts, but I don't believe most people keep up more than one subscription. But yes, that would allow a good amount of people the chance to find the plot and take a stab at it without needing to mindlessly click a placard for hours.

A lottery system typically gets a lot of hate around here whenever it gets brought up. Amusingly enough, one of the reasons being it would give more people a chance at the house. From my (limited) experience, the largest crowd I ran across was maybe 30 people. Typically it was around 10 or so. So yeah, those willing to camp are probably far less than those who would happily just go click the placard to submit a ticket, so there will be more competition, but I feel this would be the better option.

Do you know why this "lottery" idea is basically a laughing stock?
Who ever is promoting the idea is totally ignoring the fact that people will relocate from different plot.
How is this "lottery" system is going to work?
Are you telling me that people should lost their right to relocate to a better plot?
Do you really thinks these devs have never thought of that?
They decided on this random timer system after they weighted pros and cons.
Have you even thought of that?

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

Do you know why this "lottery" idea is basically a laughing stock?
Who ever is promoting the idea is totally ignoring the fact that people will relocate from different plot.
How is this "lottery" system is going to work?
Are you telling me that people should lost their right to relocate to a better plot?

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Honestly, I'd still take that over what it is now. I've been part of a group of people camping for hours and then someone randomly drops by and relocates to the house. It sucks and is incredibly annoying, but it is what it is.

With the lottery, you put your name in, and while someone could still still swoop in half-way through the timer and relocate to the house, at least you haven't wasted a chunk of your time standing by a placard and not moving.

Is either situation ideal? Not at all. But I'd rather take the one that still allows me to do other things while waiting for the possibility of claiming a house.

Lottery system is fine and dandy, and as anotber poster mentioned it was considered. A lottery system makes it murky with relocation possibly other reasons that made it ao SE choose the timer system instead.

Personally I have no dog in this race cause I have plots but if I didn't have a plot I would rather the endless clicking method because at the very least I have some control over my chances. Not a huge fan of pure RNG systems cause if someone has the chance to roll zero someone will.

What we have is far from perfect, but why change it because people go to such extreme lengths to get a plot? If they were to change it I rather time go into finding a permanent fix instead of putting time into bandaid fixes.

I get clicking a placard is not fun and engaging gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Awha

Lottery system is fine and dandy, and as anotber poster mentioned it was considered. A lottery system makes it murky with relocation possibly other reasons that made it ao SE choose the timer system instead.

Personally I have no dog in this race cause I have plots but if I didn't have a plot I would rather the endless clicking method because at the very least I have some control over my chances. Not a huge fan of pure RNG systems cause if someone has the chance to roll zero someone will.

What we have is far from perfect, but why change it because people go to such extreme lengths to get a plot? If they were to change it I rather time go into finding a permanent fix instead of putting time into bandaid fixes.

I get clicking a placard is not fun and engaging gameplay.

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I do get that at least with the clicking option you are definitely more in control of the odds. I do also have a house as well, but I feel for those who don't. It's just such a limited system and annoying process.

When I was still on Balmung, I spent one weekend camping houses. This had been one of those times where the demo-timer had been reinstated recently, and so a lot of houses were becoming available all at once. I figured that would be my best shot, so why not!. It was definitely not my cup of tea and I would never do that again. I did end up moving to Coeurl a bit later, and I lucked out as they still had open houses at that time.

At this point, I'm just optimistically hoping that they are trying something new with Ishgard housing. For what it's worth, I do truly think that the devs love this game, and want the best for it...but that their hands are essentially tied when it comes to many things (including housing). I just wish it could be better.

After all these it should have been clear that housing will remain as is.
You can only hope for more wards and new areas.
Wait until Ishgard housing.
Perhaps they will consider adding again more wards to existing areas.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Honestly, I'd still take that over what it is now. I've been part of a group of people camping for hours and then someone randomly drops by and relocates to the house. It sucks and is incredibly annoying, but it is what it is.

With the lottery, you put your name in, and while someone could still still swoop in half-way through the timer and relocate to the house, at least you haven't wasted a chunk of your time standing by a placard and not moving.

Is either situation ideal? Not at all. But I'd rather take the one that still allows me to do other things while waiting for the possibility of claiming a house.

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Devs definitely do not agree and do not expect you to sit in front of the placecard doing nothing.
There is a reason why timer is set to be random from 1 to 72 hours.
It is random, they are expecting you to check on it every once a while.
In another word, it is not system, it is you mentally cornered yourself into it

I think that instanced housing is the way to go.

I know that people are against this due to the fact that they enjoy the community feel that wards bring, but I feel like very few people benefit from this. I've been living in the same house for over 4 years now in ward 1 of lavender hills and I've seen less than 5 neighbors in those 4 years. my house is right next to the MB and summoning bell too.

I've also had an FC home for 2 years and I haven't seen a single neighbor in those 2 years.

Thought process of clueless XIV players in 5 steps:

1: Housing is too expensive.
2: We want personal housing.
3: We want more wards.
4: Why am I not seeing any neighbors?
5: Replace everything with instanced housing.

You all got what you deserved with this timer. Careful what you wish for next time.

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Originally Posted by Yshtola

Thought process of clueless XIV players in 5 steps:

1: Housing is too expensive.
2: We want personal housing.
3: We want more wards.
4: Why am I not seeing any neighbors?
5: Replace everything with instanced housing.

You all got what you deserved with this timer. Careful what you wish for next time.

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While it's fun to try to group the opinions of tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people into 5 tidy points, it's rarely ever accurate. I've always been team-instanced housing.

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1: Housing is too expensive.
2: We want personal housing.

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These 2 points are pretty spot on though.

Housing, when first released used to be way more expensive and FC only. Then SE introduced personal housing and reducing prices.

The persistent ward system along with low prices is terrible, considering the player population, if every player were to have a personal house.

The most feasible thing to do, seems be to keep the persistent ward housing, while improving upon apartments. Let us upgrade apartments as a gil sink, all the way to a large penthouse. Give apartments balconies for gardening.

Lastly, link the FC workshop to the GCs, so even houseless FCs/individuals can access the workshop.

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Originally Posted by Voross

This topic is new and interesting, thanks for making a new thread instead of using one of the other 20.

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No need to be so sarcastic. Housing is an important issue and that's why there are so many threads about it.

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Originally Posted by KadaRemnant

Please SE, i beg you. Add more wards, more subdivisions, a third, a fourth but please. This housing is a mess. It's very tiring to click for hours and see so many people trying to get the house too.

Just add more please and now. We all want a house!

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They added more but of course, it wasn't enough... Gone within 2 minutes.

they don't have to add more wards and housing. They can start by optimising what they have, redo the whole purchase system. Actually the whole system as its broken.
Then have a good test and if its smart, then I am sure they will find it can save and optimize their servers, and with what they save and find, theyc an add more plots and wards.
So please, invest some of that money you guys get each month from us, to have a go at a better housing system, please.