An Open Letter to Yoshida-san: Please Slice One Zero Off the Housing Prices

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

If the initial price of land was easily within the means of wealthy players, one can envision all available plots of land being snatched up immediately, leaving other players—even those possessing the necessary gil—unable to purchase land for an extended period of time.

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Well when you explain it that way, I completely understand. We've clearly avoided a situation in which players would have been unable to purchase land for an extended period of time!

Oh, wait...

The amount of nonchalant disregard for non-hardcore players I've seen surrounding this issue is astounding, and frankly disheartening. Defenders of housing prices act like it's no big deal that the content was presented in a certain way and delivered in another way that is completely out of reach for SO MANY people. I'm not saying that housing should be free, or even cheap - it SHOULD cost a lot - but it just shouldn't be SO prohibitively expensive such that people are forced into playing the game differently (grinding/farming instead of raiding/dunegeons/etc.) for literally months in order to purchase.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Fundamental Pricing Stance[INDENT]Our fundamental stance toward housing prices was that we wanted to ensure that plots would be evenly distributed, avoiding a situation in which the wealthiest players could easily buy up all available plots of land.

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So, no housing for gil starved casual players because of RMT and rich legacy players... Because its easier to hike prices of 150 plots of land rather than to just make 300 plots of land available at reasonable prices from the start.

And still no wolrd transfers! So, no housing for gil starved casual players and we can't transfer to another world where our friends play for another 3 months (and thats a big maybe)

Ok, tell you this, I'm gonna cancel my automatic renewal, play the new released content while it lasts, and come back in say 3 months time and see how things work then. ;)

I appreciate your patience and understanding while I put my money elsewhere. :)

Create housing neighborhood servers like LotRO. Make the houses affordable to anyone, then create tons of trophies to increase longevity. This is the only non-combat game in town. The only RPing friendly content. Don't hide entry behind a hardcore grind. We have enough hard entries in the form of dungeons/raids.
Or make each house instanced, like Rift and Wildstar. You won't have to worry about limited space.

What I find funny is they give an estimate months ago on how much housing would be. Then people started to save up for that housing. Then they turn around look at the total Gil and decide to change the amount for a plot based on the new amount of Gil in each server but the only reason there is more Gil is all the saving going on before the 2.1 announcement.

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Originally Posted by EthanParcival

So, no housing for gil starved casual players because of RMT and rich legacy players... Because its easier to hike prices of 150 plots of land rather than to just make 300 plots of land available at reasonable prices from the start.

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Also about Yoshida's reasoning:
Yes the wealthiest FC's could buy up all the land...but why would they? Does anyone honestly see a wealthy FC buying up all the land plots? I've played numerous mmorpgs with guild housing, I've yet to see a single instance where a wealthy person or guild bought up all the houses. Its a huge waste of money. Most big guilds need that money for raiding, crafting, etc.

I really get the impression that Yoshida doesn't observe other mmorpgs, and sort of just designs them based on his assumptions.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Fundamental Pricing Stance

Our fundamental stance toward housing prices was that we wanted to ensure that plots would be evenly distributed, avoiding a situation in which the wealthiest players could easily buy up all available plots of land. Please understand that while we will be adding servers and expanding housing areas as soon as we can, it is simply physically impossible for us to accomplish this easily, in a matter of one or two weeks.

If the initial price of land was easily within the means of wealthy players, one can envision all available plots of land being snatched up immediately, leaving other players—even those possessing the necessary gil—unable to purchase land for an extended period of time. Seeking to avoid this, we made the difficult decision to go forward with the pricing scheme we presented, aware that many players would be unable to afford housing for a while.

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So.. just out of curiosity, what's to stop the Free Companies that have the available means to purchase the Large-size plots from simply spending their gil on the small plots instead? They would end up cornering a market because the smaller FC's would -only- be able to realistically afford the small housing.. then because larger FC's have the means to generate more gil, they continue on with the medium and then after they control the market, only then do they finally buy the housing that they want on the large plots?

I only mention this since someone buying up all the land is -YOUR- reasoning for making all but the wealthy unable to buy a house.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Personal housing will be far more affordable than free company housing

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Really sorry, but right now, your promises amount to just about nothing; And crocodile tears won't help this time.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

This is FFXIV: ARR Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida.
Upon considering the feedback we have received since the release of the patch notes, we have decided to make the following adjustments:

• Land prices will start at the figures indicated in the patch notes
• From January 2014, devaluation will be adjusted every two weeks
• After three months, final land prices will match those of World Group 3

* World Group 3 (third listed in the patch notes)
Bahamut / Behemoth / Cactuar / Carbuncle / Chocobo / Diabolos / Fenrir / Garuda / Gilgamesh / Ifrit / Leviathan / Mandragora / Midgardsormr / Odin / Ramuh / Shiva / Siren / Tiamat / Titan / Tonberry / Ultros

Although this takes place over the course of three months, land prices in legacy Worlds will eventually fall to match those of World Group 3. In the event that pricing changes are made to this group, the same will be applied to legacy Worlds.

By adjusting devaluation at set intervals rather than in one go, we hope to prevent a sudden rash of purchases.

The introduction of housing will help to unify the perceived value of gil in each individual World. Furthermore, it has presented an opportunity for us to consider the lifting of restrictions on transfers between between legacy and non-legacy Worlds.[/INDENT]
Personal Housing

While I cannot give a specific date on when personal housing will be implemented, I can say that prices will be completely separate from free company housing, and, naturally, far more affordable.

In Summary

• The final price of land on all Worlds is subject to adjustments, and may fall lower
• Over the course of three months, prices on legacy Worlds will fall to match those of World Group 3
• Personal housing will be far more affordable than free company housing

We realize that these measures will not immediately satisfy all players, especially those on legacy Worlds who are either new to the game or returning from extended absences. We ask for your patience and understanding as we strive to create a balanced housing system.

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And that, solves more of the player issues than anything else...and IF presented along with the patch notes, would have maybe cause far less outcry. I DO still Feel after 3 months ALL worlds should have the same price point, but this is tolerable.

PS: SE, if you really were worried about the rich buying up all the plots, you shouldn't have made the LAND purchasable for a FC in the first place. The LAND should have been an epic FC quest/adventure...or a level 10 FC needed to unlock it etc. Then you could have charged primium amounts for the actual guild house, making it the gil sync. And since the houses would only be purchasable via the game system, and only after the FC earned the land...and since only one FC could own 1 plot of land, you would have erased the desire for people to 'buy out' an instance...especially since you already have the use it or lose it rule in place.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Personal Housing

While I cannot give a specific date on when personal housing will be implemented, I can say that prices will be completely separate from free company housing, and, naturally, far more affordable.

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Faith restored. Crisis averted. This was all I needed to hear. Thank you.

I still don't like the FC housing prices, but at least I can remain subbed, in good conscience, for personal housing.

Uh, now I read other peoples posts, and now I am curious - why not just limit the number of FC houses to one per FC? I can't imagine many would need more than 1, maybe some of the larger ones might have need of more than one base of operations?

Unless they figured people would kick off for being restricted to one per FC, lol, which is a given with this community, we kick off about everything!

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the wealthiest players could easily buy up all available plots of land

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How? Each FC can only have one land.
Why? The lane and house cannot be resold. It will be stupid to buy all available lands even if I can.

I hope this is NOT the way SE tried to keep the subscription as I keep hearing 90 days. I subscribe to the game because the rich contents not because SE's marketing tactics.

An easy answer for the worry is to allow each FC to purchase at the most three plots. Periood. No more ever. that removes the worry..and then lower the price by 50 percent. That way we can enjoy the fun and not have to focus on making money instead of enjoying the story.

the areas esp Gridania Lavender Fields are beautiful btw and very very very very nice. As a professional artist and long time researcher and student of MMO design, this is the most beautiful housing area I have ever seen or even imagined. Superb work! thank you so much.

Why not just limit the # of plots that could be purchased by a FC? It could even just be raised later if that's an issue..

I have to agree, I am in a Small FC too, and we would't be able to effort a House at any point soon. We already agreed not to go for it and consider it a non-excistent feature ;-)

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Originally Posted by Nephandi

I have to agree, I am in a Small FC too, and we would't be able to effort a House at any point soon. We already agreed not to go for it and consider it a non-excistent feature ;-)

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Honestly, it's not "a feature" to me at all until I have my own house. If personal housing will be "affordable," then clearly "overdoing" the saving of gil with the new gil fountains apparently in the game now will just lead me to a bigger house, and spending cash to boot...

As opposed to a communal house, and being broke after handing over most of my money. I love my FC, but they're understanding of the reality here, and the core unit that plays and funds a game is the player, not the FC/guild.

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Originally Posted by Sunarie

People are impatient because they were mislead (and even then, I would hardly call expecting to be able to get a bare minimum house after you've saved for three months or more impatient). I'm not sure if maybe you missed the part where people literally wouldn't have been able to save up because assuming Yoshi had come out and said "Housing will be 4 million minimum, with most servers needing 8 million and up"....

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That's right. You saw the house price and you brought that much, but low-and-behold other people are bringing more to the table. Weclome to a sellers market. Yoshi made an estimate. You saved only that much and now you're finding out that it isn't enough. Whose fault is it that you aren't bringing enough to the table? It's not Square Enix. You can curse your rival FC's for makng more money, but just because you want a house doesn't mean you get one just because you have a FC.

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Originally Posted by JillyBean

Why not just limit the # of plots that could be purchased by a FC? It could even just be raised later if that's an issue..

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They already did that. Each FC can only buy 1, and it cannot be sold or traded -- so the money is gone once the land is bought, meaning they can't buy it and sell it for profit.

The only way the wealthy could buy up all of the properties, leaving none for anyone else, is if there are far too few properties available because there are far too few servers being used for housing. Rather than admit that they failed, again, to use the numbers of players that they know exist to buy the correct amount of servers, they priced housing so that by their own estimate at least 20% of FCs won't be able to afford a house, even in 3 months.

That is why your attempt to apply logic to the explanation fails -- the explanation of wealthy players buying everything is an excuse.

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Originally Posted by OldGeezer

That's right. You saw the house price and you brought that much, but low-and-behold other people are bringing more to the table. Weclome to a sellers market. Yoshi made an estimate. You saved only that much and now you're finding out that it isn't enough. Whose fault is it that you aren't bringing enough to the table? It's not Square Enix. You can curse your rival FC's for makng more money, but just because you want a house doesn't mean you get one just because you have a FC.

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but at the end were all paying the same subscription costs , so we should have more equal chances on getting a house , its not about not having saved enough before patch and wanting it immediately , but not being able to save enough even in future at all

What I feel the problem is that people have been expecting housing since the beginning and because of this, they started farming gil to save up for it. When that happened, there was a huge amount of gil in the game that would otherwise not be there without saving for housing. Then, by the time housing came, they calculated the prices based on money that was saved over 4 months for the sole purpose of buying a house.

Had we not been expecting housing, we wouldn't have anywhere near that much gil (besides the RMT) because we would have no reason to. THAT is where the issues are coming from, in my opinion.

I think people will just save money for their own individual housing. FC housing is stupidly expensive

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Originally Posted by AmnesiaHaze

but at the end were all paying the same subscription costs , so we should have more equal chances on getting a house , its not about not having saved enough before patch and wanting it immediately , but not being able to save enough even in future at all

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So? It's an open market. Just because I pay a subscription doesn't mean I'm entitled to FC housing. The individual market is 6 months away and Yoshi said it will be much cheaper. With increased supply prices will come down, it just a matter of when. I can wait.

this EFFING sucks
Three times the amount a player earns leveling 1-50?

Who earned 8~ Mil by leveling 1-50 3x? Tell me who. Anyone?

Yeah didn't think so! Liars.

You are wonderful Mr. Yoshida! I truly appreciate the effort that you go to to keep us informed and I want to apologize for any of my fellow players who were less than polite in their objections. :-( You have done everything you can for us, and I personally, think that you deserve the utmost amount of respect. Thank you so much!

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Originally Posted by DawnCharis

this EFFING sucks
Three times the amount a player earns leveling 1-50?

Who earned 8~ Mil by leveling 1-50 3x? Tell me who. Anyone?

Yeah didn't think so! Liars.

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You're confusing Free Company Housing with player housing. When Yoshi-P said you could afford a house with the gil made from leveling a couple classes, he was talking about the cost of player housing. I dont know why people would think a single person levelling their alt classes would be able to afford Free company housing, which is meant to be a long term goal for ENTIRE Free companies.

Yoshida, your reasoning and logic is, as usual, very strange.

If you wanted to prevent individual people with large amounts of Atomos exploit gil from buying up everything... why didn't you roll that back in 1.0? Why don't you limit the number of plots a company can buy to one? Why don't you do any of the things that would be far easier and punish far fewer people?

Why? Because this isn't about gil. This isn't about people trolling the community. No, this is about your crap-tastic server farm and how it cannot handle everyone and their mother buying a house.

Why don't you just be honest, delay the housing for a few months until you can get the servers up to speed and then release it in a smaller patch?

Why don't we purchase FC housing with FC credits?

Then houses are actually based on FC accomplishments. At least offer some component of the purchasing to be based on FC achievements. This prevents a single player from purchasing all the houses, does it not?

It doesn't seem like it's too late to offer discount tickets to the housing prices that can be purchased with FC credits.

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Originally Posted by OldGeezer

So? It's an open market. Just because I pay a subscription doesn't mean I'm entitled to FC housing. The individual market is 6 months away and Yoshi said it will be much cheaper. With increased supply prices will come down, it just a matter of when. I can wait.

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good that you arent in charge of the game , but if SE keeps thinking the same that im not entitled to get a chance for all game features in a subscription based model game, i may find myself paying for other services sooner than the 6 months you mention , just saying ... theres one major MMORPG coming 2014 we all know which im talking about , its not about a stupid house but the whole principle of it

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Originally Posted by SpayedNeko

You're confusing Free Company Housing with player housing. When Yoshi-P said you could afford a house with the gil made from leveling a couple classes, he was talking about the cost of player housing. I dont know why people would think a single person levelling their alt classes would be able to afford Free company housing, which is meant to be a long term goal for ENTIRE Free companies.

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^^ Many of which consist of dozens (or hundreds) of players. It's not very unreasonable of a price when you look at it from a group stance. Unfortunately, most people don't look at it from that angle... only concerned about what ONE person can afford (themselves).

For the small FC's, definitely more of a problem though. Single digit active players can't really expect to get an L property right off the bat... maybe once the price has dropped a lot, but that'd be a bit much. But then comes to mind... does that single-digit FC really need the L house? People, again, are forgetting what it is that actually suits their needs, and instead only aim for "the best". The greater your goals are, the more time and effort needs to be spent. With the eventual price drops, it just becomes that much more rewarding to be patient. Player housing is intended to be a long-term goal, not something to obtain immediately.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

snip snippety snip

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Oh, look, another person on a server with lower pricing saying that the prices are fine.

Stop, just freaking stop.

We planned for housing, we were advertised housing, we saved since beta 4 for housing and because there are greedy people hoarding gil on the legacy servers, we don't get housing.

What if you had to grind out useless, boring crap for 3 months before you could even access CT or Coil? What if, players on other servers were able to get in to CT and Coil within a few weeks, or immediately; but you, because of the server you're on and other players behavior, were prevented from even beginning to access the content for 3, 6, 9 months or longer?

If you don't think that would be fine then go away and stop telling those of us that would have to spend 40 million on a tiny crappy plot of land that the prices are fine.

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Originally Posted by AmnesiaHaze

good that you arent in charge of the game , but if SE keeps thinking the same that im not entitled to get a chance for all game features in a subscription based model game, i may find myself paying for other services sooner than the 6 months you mention , just saying ... theres one major MMORPG coming 2014 we all know which im talking about , its not about a stupid house but the whole principle of it

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Oh you do have a chance concurrent with all the other 100+ member FCs out there. It's just not a big one, hence the need for high prices and depreciating lottery so your FC has a shot down the road after the bigger FCs get theirs.

@Smashington that would make sence to buy a FC house with FC credits. With the housing why dont the just build the house by the floor instead of taking up more space?Make 10 story apt complex for the FC its just a place to gather togeather. Did anyone at SE think the game space wouldnt allow the current number of FC to have a home? And for the 15 ppl with over 100mil you guys suck >.>

I would personally be ok, or at least feel better about the pricing if you were able to upgrade your plot's class and size without completely losing out on your investment of the current plot. I don't like the feeling of being forced to settle.

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Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

Oh, look, another person on a server with lower pricing saying that the prices are fine.

Stop, just freaking stop.

We planned for housing, we were advertised housing, we saved since beta 4 for housing and because there are greedy people hoarding gil on the legacy servers, we don't get housing.

What if you had to grind out useless, boring crap for 3 months before you could even access CT or Coil? What if, players on other servers were able to get in to CT and Coil within a few weeks, or immediately; but you, because of the server you're on and other players behavior, were prevented from even beginning to access the content for 3, 6, 9 months or longer?

If you don't think that would be fine then go away and stop telling those of us that would have to spend 40 million on a tiny crappy plot of land that the prices are fine.

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Putting in the amount of time to do anything in current MMORPGs (in the way they're intended) is a cakewalk. I've played older MMOs like FFXI for years after they launched. 3 months of grinding for ONE equip/item/good is nothing. Try a year... hell, several years for ONE top tier upgrade. Heck, unlike those games, this one with FC housing is a team effort. If your team doesn't want to meaningfully contribute towards that goal, then maybe FC housing isn't what you want.

I'm curious though, what about your server, which I'm assuming is on a high priced one, has prevented you from doing CT/Coil while others could? Housing deals with the active economy, so I'm trying to see how CT/Coil comes into play on that.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings everyone,

First off, we'd like to thank you for all of your feedback thus far, and as usual, we're working to get it all collected and delivered to the dev. team. That said, last night our counterparts in Japan hosted a live patch notes reading for those that might not want to read the full wall of text. Yoshida joined in to offer commentary on specific aspects, and we'd like to share what was said regarding the pricing for the Free Company housing.

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About 3 months? We are not fools. This is not the way to keep subscription.

In his post, Yoshi-p said the price of plots of land on legacy servers will be dropping to match those of world group 3. Will those prices become the new base price, meaning they'll then drop further as people dont buy them?

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

I'm curious though, what about your server, which I'm assuming is on a high priced one, has prevented you from doing CT/Coil while others could? Housing deals with the active economy, so I'm trying to see how CT/Coil comes into play on that.

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Nothing about my server has prevented me from doing Coil. That is PRECISELY my point. Everyone has a chance to experience the content equally on all servers. It doesn't take 6 months on one but 2 weeks on another before Coil is available. Why should it be that way for housing? And if it was that way for Coil, would you be defending that decision as you're defending the prices for housing?

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Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

Nothing about my server has prevented me from doing Coil. That is PRECISELY my point. Everyone has a chance to experience the content equally on all servers. It doesn't take 6 months on one but 2 weeks on another before Coil is available. Why should it be that way for housing? And if it was that way for Coil, would you be defending that decision as you're defending the prices for housing?

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Because housing isn't actual progression? It's a purchase. There's no active "going up from there" sort of attitude about it. It's an unnecessary luxury. It's the equivalent of owning Ferrari's or other such expensive vehicles that serve no real purpose for it being there besides being a luxury good.

Edit: Mind you, I'm not saying that high priced servers are priced right. Heck, Yoshi-P seems to somewhat agree and finds it acceptable for the price drop to match the lowest servers over time. If you can't find the patience to follow that, then problem wasn't anything to do with server price differences. It's impatience and using the plight of others as your shield for greed.

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Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

Nothing about my server has prevented me from doing Coil. That is PRECISELY my point. Everyone has a chance to experience the content equally on all servers. It doesn't take 6 months on one but 2 weeks on another before Coil is available. Why should it be that way for housing? And if it was that way for Coil, would you be defending that decision as you're defending the prices for housing?

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oh look its you.......can you please just leave before you turn this into another discussion about how coild should be easier because you suck?
that being said: lower the damn prices!

I don't get the big fuss. Sure I'm bummed I can't get a house, even though my free company has saved up a million, but now we have something hard to work towards and do things together.
Oh, I forgot people of this gaming generation hate to wait or work hard.:3

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Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

Nothing about my server has prevented me from doing Coil. That is PRECISELY my point. Everyone has a chance to experience the content equally on all servers. It doesn't take 6 months on one but 2 weeks on another before Coil is available. Why should it be that way for housing? And if it was that way for Coil, would you be defending that decision as you're defending the prices for housing?

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I actually see this as a valid comparison. Even on really old games where equipment would take forever to get. (like everquest.) the spawn rate of rare's could be anywhere between 1 day and day 5 days. but it wasn't on server A this spawn took 1-5 days, and server B this spawn took 5-10 days.

point being, just because some people saved up/farmed gil on one server doesn't mean they should be treated more unfairly as a population.
it really does sound just more and more like a "too much gil on this server! must do something to get them to spend it!"