Awe, welcome! Regardless of where our opinions lie, hopefully this place doesn't end up being too toxic for you. I thoroughly enjoy popping in every few months. Good stress relief! xD
I take you at your word that you read it. I dont have any reason to think otherwise.
Our disagreement boils down to what is considered within "Intended Design" and not.
My point is that just because it happens to occur in game doesnt mean that this is what the devs intend to occur. Simply saying "It's something you can do" is missing the a lot of some of the other aspects that are in the game, and not analyzing why something exists. Devs create the systems but no system is perfect. They may not choose to address an issue that goes against their intended design simply because there are no feasible solutions or what solutions they have dont work effectively enough to be long term viable.
Quoting a GM and not looking at the broader picture is also the same issue. "Using Ungarmax is fine " is not something they would say, and likewise theyre not going to endorse using suggested work arounds that allow for more property ownership than intended either. If those work around were fine, they would suggest it or explicitly tell us to use said work around. But they dont. Why not?
As a point - Ishtola up there says that trading between alts was intended. That since 2.1, this was meant to be a thing. Alright, Ill take that as fact. Then why is it devs put in a ton of inhibitors to accomplishing this? There are far more easy work around options they couldve introduced that would make it easy for them to allow trading between alts, including a shared account chest or even simply adding your alts to your mailing list automatically. Either the game's base code is so spagetti that they cant do this, or theyre choosing not to do this for design purposes. Given what we see in how the game is designed, what is more likely?
As for taxes, the point being made seems to be "Well, they did it fair and square before the rules change, so no punishing them." But under that concept, the rule change itself is a punishment against newer players. They will not get the same footing or advantages as an older player. Youre not arguing for a fair treatment in the rules, youre saying "These people get to have one set of rules cause they were grandfathered in, but newer players dont get this privilige". How is this justified? As for RMT, your point pretty much states that adding a tax will make it increase, but then suggest that people do it boldly currently. I dunno, but that sounds a lot like people dont fear the RMT punishment as it were, so why not just RMT non stop to get mansions or large scale houses? Why bother being poor when you can RMT? If RMT is as rampant and unchecked as suggested, than a tax is irrelevant. Youre not stopping anything, and a tax wont increase the amount of RMT by any significant margin.
Take RMT aside, how do you think people get houses? With Gil. Howd they get the Gil? By Grinding or getting Lucky. Most players put effort to get the property, and is part of the reason why Property has status or value beyond just Gil in this game. Same like Glamours. So how is it any different grinding for Gil to buy a property vs grinding reputation to get special mounts? I suspect that if the devs rolled up tomorrow and said "Were gonna give everyone a free mansions if they spend a week doing a daily quest!" that players who own mansions are gonna be a bit upset about that, let alone anyone else involved who went to trouble to get the gil for a house. First question thats gonna show up : We gonna get compensated if we bought a mansion/house?
But oddly enough, we see the devs do this very thing already, so its nothing new. And yeah, people give it flak as it were. So there is no winning or being fair. Or is it only unfair when ti comes to housing, but everything else its ok? Its a bit loosy goosy on whats fair. Introducing a tax system that discourages multiple property ownership is just a new means of addressing something in the game.
But lets be fair then. You want to meet players who have multiple houses halfway? Buy them out. Force them to give up property, but let them choose which ones, then pay them for it at max value. Worst case scenario for players - Item overflow and they cut even on the houses. Best case scenario - They bought the houses on the cheap and make a profit.
As for foolish, I said what I think. Being free to spend your income as you see fit is fine, but that doesn't mean that people cant critique you for what you spend it on, nor does it mean my opinion is somehow right. Its my opinion. Its what I feel about something. It by no mean is the end all be all, and no one has to take it to heart.
They were being flippant, so I decided to act in kind.
I do appreciate the kindness and gesture. As bullish and argumentative as I am or can be, I do admire and appreciate people who are cool like this.
I do agree there, it comes down to a matter of personal perspective. Considering the GM role is to take reports, review them and offer guidance to the player base, I am 100% convinced that they would have never sanctioned the purchase of 60 plots, post 4.1 if it wasn't something they were ok with.
The player bought 60 plots. 60 and told on herself. She was directly asking and challenging the perception that owning multiple homes was wrong, asked for supervisory escalation for confirmation and received it. At the point we have clear proof and you're still like "Welllll", it'll just be an agree to disagree lol. I don't know what more you could want. To this day, the page that explains how they implemented the new housing "restrictions" still says "Temporary". I don't think they would have written that, if they meant "nope the one FC per person rule is permanent." Why use the word temporary at all? https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ing_land/#tab3
This coupled with the GMs response 2 years after the introduction of these rules seems pretty clear to me.
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As for new players, it is not the responsibility of older players to care about what they have or don't have for the same sub cost. That is 100% on the developers. To take from the loyal longer patrons to give to new players is the actual punishment. Not to mention, even if you took back all the grandfathered plots/multiple homes and made it so that each service account had two plots (1 personal, 1 FC) it STILL would not solve the current housing predicament. It wouldn't even put a dent in the amount of houses needed for all the active players that want housing. So that is clearly not a solution that has long term merit. No, don't bite the hand of the patrons that have been feeding you for years (some of us with 5 service accounts, max retainers and every item from the mogstation) to accommodate new players that may or may not stay.
The early bird gets the worm.
Now that seems heartless and if you knew how much money I've given away to buy new players housing, this might seem incongruous but my point is that, Housing is fantastic and I want everyone to have it. But that is squarely SEs problem, not mine and I should not have to bear the brunt of them finally catching up and realizing housing is suddenly popular. SE is not investing enough money into their cash cow, this is their problem to solve, not the long term players.
Also, I'd totally read all the posts about Ishgard housing. People who are actually into housing. (Me, I am ride or die housing) WANT them to give everyone a free mansion. I am SICK, SICK of everyone's bitching. I am tired of people whining about not having a house, additionally as someone that owns multiple houses it would shut them up. Mind your own business about the wealth I've amassed over the years with my own two hands crafting. I am tired of this housing situation as someone that is kinda sitting at the top of privileged with it. I NEED everyone to have a house so all of this bitching ends. My hope is that Ishgard is instanced and everyone gets a manor. They leave existing wards alone and just add more instanced options going forward. I have many posts on these forums advocating for this, so I'm not even bullshitting here to make this point.
Forcing me to give up ANY of my properties will cost them the subs of 5 players as well as the rest. Is that worth it to them when it won't solve their housing problem overall? No, that's a silly idea imo.
Also critiquing someone for spending their IRL money makes me feel ways, but it would be rude of me to comment on my financial assumptions. I'll just count my lucky stars I'm able to afford this life and move on lol. I realize I ranted a bit in the middle there about the housing but man oh man, you have no idea the feels looking at people whine about this day in and day out when there are people that have been here for years.
---Edit, to add on to the sentiment about other players getting housing and how it would feel? I won day one shirogane savage, got a large and a medium right next to eachother while people that were assholes to me got nothing. THERE IS NO BETTER FEELING THAN THAT. (Yes, I'm petty about this one incident, people were mean lol this was my only feel good moment). SE giving mansions to everyone would never take that away from me. But you know what would? SE taking the plot from me because "oh well, we refuse to invest in an infrastructure that will accommodate demand"... I'll unsub if they take my houses and cheer them on if they fix this mess.
Last thought before bed - Re: Glamours and Housing.
Housing is permanent side content in the game. At every juncture a player has access to an apartment and potentially an FC room.
The White Raven Earrings were old content that was completely inaccessible to newer players forever. Housing is different, it's dynamic and the availability changes daily.
There is a difference in taking houses from existing players to give to a few, and adding in a glamour item that literally no longer exists in the game so that everyone has a chance to get it.
One route punishes players by directly taking from them, the other route allows the older players to keep what they have and provides for the new players.
I am advocating the same for housing. Allow older players to keep what they have and provide for the new players. People can bitch all they want about rarity and exclusivity when it comes to those earrings , but SE didn't reach into their glamour dresser and steal theirs to give to someone else.
People feeling like someone else getting what they have is a personal problem SE doesn't have to accommodate. To me, the real value of these digital items is in the memories that they've given me. Not how long they are exclusive. If that was the case, I'd be miffy about all the Honest Gillionaires that botted their way to that title, while I made every Twinsilk Apron ever to get there.
I think it's wrong to take from older players to give to new, when they should just provide more resources overall.
People always forgot one thing when they talk about taxes : People always find a solution to compensate. The tax will solve nothing for this simple reason.
(I could admit I'm wrong but the fact RMTs exist sounds to me enough as a proof that taxes are not and will not be a solution. It will just punish people who play less even if they play regularly. Do you want to exlude them just because they don't play enough in the game in your opinion? There is a huge difference between playing a lot, playing less but regularly and playing occasionally. A taxe will actually favor cheaters and players who play a lot.)
My point was the principle of it. The items have intrinsic value beyond just existing. They also represent something. No, theyre not reaching into your glamour dresser and taking the item itself. You still have it. But now so does every tom dick and harry who did some simple stuff and received it too. Theyre stealing the underlying meaning and value of the item by making it common place. That matters to players just as much as owning an item or piece of property. SE has demonstrated through that process that it has no qualms taking things from players - whether it is items, or titles, or intrinsic meanings behind things - if it means accomplishing a goal. So yeah, they are taking something from older players and giving it to new ones.
While I agree adding more wards, or even instanced housing may solve the problem, this isnt as easy as people suggest.
First, it wont ever be enough based on the current system. Until they can literally give everyone a house, there will always be a limit to how much they provide and that limit will pretty much be reached eventually. Sarg has what...12k Players active on average? They need 12000 plots of land for that. We currently have....1260 plots. Meaning there is only enough housing, at max, for 10% of the player population on Sarg. So just adding more servers isnt gonna cut it with the curretn system. And making it all instanced? Well you either run a parallel housing system or you rebuild the entire system from scratch. Both have hefty costs attached to them (otherwise devs wouldve done this already).
Which is problem two: No matter how you cut it, price of maintaining housing will increase. Either they buy newer and more numerous servers to meet demand (which costs money to purchase and operate), or they rebuild the entire housing setup from the ground up and rejigger servers. Both cost money and man power - which means that budgeting towards other parts of the games structure either suffers, or they need to bring in more funds.
Somethings got to give. If you tell SE to fix it, but then demand SE dont do things that you personally dont like or youll unsub, youre just hamstringing their efforts to resolve the issue. And I personally dislike the "Well they just need to throw money at it," angle. It's such a narrow point of view that assumes SE is Scrooge McDuck - has a vault filled to the brim with gold but nickles and dimes everything cause why not.
If you want to be serious about revamping the system and fixing the problem, then everyone should be prepared that its gonna come a price tag of some kind. Put all options on the table. Yes, you might lose your extra property. Yes it might entail cutting back development from other aspects of the game and slowing down the game. Yes, it might include destroying the current system and building it. It may include all these things, or perhaps none and they find some other solution. But if the issue is to be addressed, be prepared to pay for it as well in some capacity. They will provide us the services we desire, but it wont come free.
Your numbers are way off. Each world has 5040 houses right now. If the Firmament is another standard housing district with 21 wards, it will add an additional 1260 houses once it is opened to players.
But you'd be correct when you say that still would not be enough for the NA worlds and many of the EU worlds. Not everyone player wants a house but most seem to. Apartments in their current form aren't an acceptable substitute to most of those looking for a house because they are so small. And then there are FCs who also want a house as a gathering place and/or for workshop access so the overall demand increases.
Hopefully the increased discussion about housing in the forums recently is demonstrating to SE the value of housing to the game. It's something that will help keep many players engaged during the content lulls at the end of each patch cycle.
Hmm, youre right about the numbers. I think I didnt multiply it by what districts exist....(30x2)x21. Should've then multiplied that by 4. Derp.
But this considered, yeah, we still end up short, even if they add an additional 6 wards per district + a housing area with Ishgard, that would end up short, again. It would supply 8100 houses. A lot better, but on higher capacity servers, thats 2/3s the population. If they make housing up to 12k plots, that would cover some of hte higher pop (gilgamesh would be still lacking.) But then that creates the odd conundrum which the devs have mentioned - Empty Wards. The lower pop servers on NA, as an example, are running around 10kish. If you were to meet capacity for high pop servers, low pop servers are gonna end up with excess housing. Might soudn good on paper - have more than you need, but in practice it looks kinda bad. IIRC the devs have mentioned not wanting this as well.
Upgrade able apartments are where it should be at in the short term, unless they go with something completely new. A tiered apartment system I think is a functional short term solution. Max tier would give you, more or less, a cottage sized house. Possibly give up yardspace for more interior space - something I dont think most people would actually have issue with. What balcony/yard space you do get would probably be better for gardening and access to that kind of thing. Its instanced but heavily under utilized, pretty much due to limitations.
As for Devs dealing with housing based on forums, I dunno. These housing threads pop up pretty much around the same time an xpac or a housing expansion occurs. They havent gone to instanced housing, and while they do add more houses (and helps abate the discussion) give it a year and its back to "We need more housing".