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

Im trying to be optimistic here but the size of the smallest fc house is prettyyy small. I wonder how small personal housing is gonna be like since they say its going to be a whole lot cheaper.

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Originally Posted by Centershock

I haven't gone through the 96 or so pages of this. Let me see if I'm getting this right. If I'm wrong, someone correct me on this please.

If I grind 7 days a week for 5 hours and get what... 20k gil a day, I'll be able to afford a house on a small plot.

20,000 x 90 = 1,800,000 gil

So that's not even enough to get a small plot on Balmung.

Unfortunately, some of us don't have 5 hours a day to spare. We have jobs and other things we need to take care of. So for us, this 3 month deal will end up being 5-6, maybe even 7 months...

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When that was said, you would take into account that others in your FC would be doing the same thing and add their daily total to yours. Not justifying it, that's just what was said.

What I'm concluding from all this, is that this dev team has little to no foresight and as much as I hate to compare, they seriously need a dev lesson from other MMO dev teams, bad.
The very fact that they're still defending this ridiculous decision alone is just plain sad to read.

Well, I've sat here and thought about all of this. I've visited all of the housing zones and honestly...I'm still so sad. I'm so, so sad that my free company will have to wait another three months to hope to get a house (maybe...depending on if our economy picks up. nothing is selling -_-). Just the smallest house (which looks to be smaller than an inn room, actually >.>).

Thank you for responding, Mr. Yoshi-P, but your response hasn't done a lot for those of us standing on the outside looking in. It's just...so great...being able to look at housing you'll never be able to own. I really believed you when you said that it would take 3-5 players pooling their 1-50 gil to buy an FC house. I really did, and now I see that you either changed your mind or weren't telling the truth in the first place. Honestly, the mistake is mine - for believing you. I've been playing MMOs for so long I should have been more judicious and not let myself get so excited and hopeful. I really should have known better. I'll do better next time, and remember that I should never take what you or the Devs say at face value, and that anything I might be interested will probably suck. That way, my expectations can't be dashed, and my hopes won't be crushed again.

For building airships in future you're going to need basement, or at least they mentioned like you're going to build in your underground workshop.

Now if your FC worked so hard and got S size house, I got bad news for you...

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Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

Why has it not been decided that the data centers should be upgraded to handle the game and all of its features in full?
Why does this continue to be such a limiting factor, and how long is this going to keep cropping up?

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Been asking those same questions since Alpha.

Great post. +Like

I hate to repeat myself but after reading Yoshi's reply I believe more than ever that the land should've been attainable through the use of CP and FC fame obtained by completing quests, dailies and successfully running dungeons and activities. With a percentage of reward CP and gil going towards the Housing fund automatically for those that chose to participate in the endeavor.

If it took a month or three (or more) to gather the points for your desired FC housing I don't think many would have complained because it would've at least been fair.

Then have furniture and consumables be the gil sinks so the markets actually started working again.

Why they chose to screw people by using ludicrous amounts of gil instead is something I'll probably never understand. Why not reward you for playing the game instead of rewarding you for playing the markets or buying gil from RMT? Because you can bet your chocobos that the increase in gil rewards will mean RMT will receive a huge boost as well.

I am not sure what the fuss is all about here. Basically he is saying that the economies were reviewed before making the housing prices. Personally I don't see a problem with them. On my server a first rate large plot of land is 100 million. Assuming you have a company that has 500 members in it and all of them contribute then that is 200k per member. Which, is an easily affordable sum. Of course you don't have to go first rate either, you can go up to fifth rate or you can down size to make it even cheaper.

This whole thing is being blown out of proportion. If you don't have the active members to actually work as a free company to achieve the goal then you need to do more recruiting. If they don't contribute then they are not interested in the housing in the first instance. If you have a small company, then you are over reaching too much to try and afford a large first rate plot.

"This is FFXIV: ARR Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida. First of all, allow me to express my thanks to all of you who have offered feedback on the matter of housing prices. Needless to say, I have been following the discussion very closely."

First off allow me to express my response. "HORSE SHIT" to the above quoted comment. Now that we got that out of the way lets move on.

Anyone else feel cheated by the news about housing prices? From the 98 pages of topic responses I'm going to throw out a guess here and say yes. And in some ways I feel the same. For those of you who are expressing a feeling of apathy towards the subject I can relate too. Lets take this back a decade or so. (Gawd I'm old) Anyone here remember what it was like playing Everquest for the first time? Whens the last time you got that feeling? Been a while? There's a reason. MMOs aren't new anymore. It's the same regurgitated shit over and over and over.

Yoshi, although I don't know you personally I feel like I'm accurate in assuming that behind the closed door meetings and the PR written responses to your games community you really couldn't give a shit about those of us who play the game. And that's o k. The feelings mutual. Its called Dunbar's number. (For those of you who don't know what that is...look it up.)

For those of you who are experiencing MMOs for the first time here or are still somewhat new to the subject please prepare yourself for one constant. Disappointment and overwhelming under-appreciation. Your going to pay a monthly subscription to a game(s) that reels you in with promises and always fails to deliver. But don't quit completely it's the nature of the beast. Not everyone can be pleased all of the time. Different strokes for different folks as they say, yes? Anyhow back at the subject at hand....housing. Something I feel NO MMO should be without.

Why on Earth would SE go the route they ultimately went? Lets grind the shit out of something until our eyes bleed and we start chewing off our own fingers to get away from the keyboard. It's because they have a different way of thinking/doing things than us Westerners. However, from a GLOBAL COMPANY STANDPOINT, it seems like a poor choice to only do things one way. This is clearly visible in FF14:ARR in the fact that they have "Americanized" (SOMEWHAT) the western releases not just FF14:ARR but all SE titles, PC or otherwise. However the basic Eastern fundamentals are still there...grind your ass off. Here's a thought Yoshi. If you really listen (although this is late) think this over. Instead of a GIL GRIND FEST FROM THE 7TH CIRCLE OF HELL in order to "balance" and obtain a housing plot...just the plot mind you.

Why not involve the FCs in a more SOCIAL means. I.E. require the plots to be excavated and the homes to be built with massive quantities of goods/raw materials? Economy boosted by adding more money into the system and out of the pockets of the individual while at the same time bringing a race of competition and goods to the market. As well as bringing FCs closer socially in order to obtain said goods. fail-proof right? WRONG. The amount of man hours required to work that net code is NOT cost Effective. (remember that regurgitated comment?) and thus it's simplified by making you grind it out.

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Originally Posted by Tsumoro

I am not sure what the fuss is all about here. Basically he is saying that the economies were reviewed before making the housing prices. Personally I don't see a problem with them. On my server a first rate large plot of land is 100 million. Assuming you have a company that has 500 members in it and all of them contribute then that is 200k per member. Which, is an easily affordable sum. Of course you don't have to go first rate either, you can go up to fifth rate or you can down size to make it even cheaper.

This whole thing is being blown out of proportion. If you don't have the active members to actually work as a free company to achieve the goal then you need to do more recruiting. If they don't contribute then they are not interested in the housing in the first instance. If you have a small company, then you are over reaching too much to try and afford a large first rate plot.

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I know this may be difficult for you to understand, since apparently you are only aware of how it is on your server, but on your server, that being Coerul, the smallest piece of land costs 6.4 million gil, and the largest costs 100mil. I, too, agree that this is reasonable. But on my server, the smallest piece of land in the least favorable spot starts at twenty million gil. The largest, best plot of land on my server goes for 312.5 million gil.

Our servers are not the same. Please do not dismiss what people are saying simply because you are only aware of what is going on on your server.

In closing allow me to pass on some knowledge to all those out there looking for it. (And if you don't want to take my advice or don't believe me look at the history of any subjugated people) IF you don't like your situation, change it. DO NOT support something you don't believe in. Take a stand. Make a choice. If you feel you've been wronged, cancel your subscription. If you don't give a damn, keep playing. Look what happened to FF14. Enough people said F U and moved on to more promising prospects and the game was shut down. It happens. Bottom line don't feel like your forced to do something.

On a side note some people are long winded. 1000 characters for each forum post sucks...virtual space is almost endless and reservations are not necessary.

The base of a house shouldn't be aspirational. Making your guild house perfect should be. Doing it backwards means that the hard part is over once you buy the land, and that's dumb. It gives you nothing to look forward to except amassing a ton of money.

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Originally Posted by DarthDelerium

Why not involve the FCs in a more SOCIAL means. I.E. require the plots to be excavated and the homes to be built with massive quantities of goods/raw materials? Economy boosted by adding more money into the system and out of the pockets of the individual while at the same time bringing a race of competition and goods to the market. As well as bringing FCs closer socially in order to obtain said goods. fail-proof right? WRONG. The amount of man hours required to work that net code is NOT cost Effective. (remember that regurgitated comment?) and thus it's simplified by making you grind it out.

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Here to defend SE on this one.

Building the house is a crafting venture of biblical proportion. It's going to take more than one or two Builders of the realm to put up a Mansion. I don't know how many wall units and roof units and floor tiles, ceiling tiles, the schematics request but the building aspect of ARR Housing is on par with SWG PreCU house crafting, without the factories.

I salute them in this respect. They went all out in how that's done.

Add On: Be nice if you made these schematics public, SE. I can spend a good month or two just getting the lists together to make whatever house we want to build but I do need a shopping list.

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Originally Posted by DarthDelerium

On a side note some people are long winded. 1000 characters for each forum post sucks...virtual space is almost endless and reservations are not necessary.

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not to mention the POST LOCKOUTS. lol we even have lockouts in the forums. Just found out about that about a week ago. I never really kept track of how many posts we are allocated per day. It baffles me why we have post lockouts, its like a temporary ban

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Originally Posted by Ksenia

Here to defend SE on this one.

Building the house is a crafting venture of biblical proportion. It's going to take more than one or two Builders of the realm to put up a Mansion. I don't know how many wall units and roof units and floor tiles, ceiling tiles, the schematics request but the building aspect of ARR Housing is on par with SWG PreCU house crafting, without the factories.

I salute them in this respect. They went all out in how that's done.

Add On: Be nice if you made these schematics public, SE. I can spend a good month or two just getting the lists together to make whatever house we want to build but I do need a shopping list.

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Did you play SWG PreCU? Am I confused somewhere? In no way does grinding Gil even remotely resemble the awesomeness that was SWG crafting.

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Originally Posted by Tsumoro

I am not sure what the fuss is all about here. Basically he is saying that the economies were reviewed before making the housing prices. Personally I don't see a problem with them. On my server a first rate large plot of land is 100 million. Assuming you have a company that has 500 members in it and all of them contribute then that is 200k per member. Which, is an easily affordable sum. Of course you don't have to go first rate either, you can go up to fifth rate or you can down size to make it even cheaper.

This whole thing is being blown out of proportion. If you don't have the active members to actually work as a free company to achieve the goal then you need to do more recruiting. If they don't contribute then they are not interested in the housing in the first instance. If you have a small company, then you are over reaching too much to try and afford a large first rate plot.

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On my server, the cheapest plot of land is 40 million. Your argument is invalid.

Part of the uproar is the high prices, the bigger part is that depending on which server you chose, and the actions of others some of us are locked out of housing for an indefinite period of time.

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Originally Posted by DarthDelerium

Did you play SWG PreCU? Am I confused somewhere? In no way does grinding Gil even remotely resemble the awesomeness that was SWG crafting.

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You are talking about the land. I am talking about the house and all the new recipes and parts recipes that have been added. In this respect, S.E. are kind of right. Even if you buy your plot today, you are a long way from a Building.

I don't support the over the top land prices but I do respect the detail in the crafting of a house.

Another suggestion S.E.

Learn from the past.
Tifa lived in the slums. We didn't look down on her. You need story line to make it "cool" for us to be in the slums and story line for us to want to get the hell out.

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Originally Posted by Ksenia

You are talking about the land. I am talking about the house and all the new recipes and parts recipes that have been added. In this respect, S.E. are kind of right. Even if you buy your plot today, you are a long way from a Building.

I don't support the over the top land prices but I do respect the detail in the crafting of a house.

Another suggestion S.E.

Learn from the past.
Tifa lived in the slums. We didn't look down on her. You need story line to make it "cool" for us to be in the slums and story line for us to want to get the hell out.

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that is the point of this whole thread. the main goal of housing is to decorate it. not to buy the plot. that's where the main time sink should have been at instead of farming gil to even get a house.

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Originally Posted by Aerin

When that was said, you would take into account that others in your FC would be doing the same thing and add their daily total to yours. Not justifying it, that's just what was said.

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Oh yeah, that's right. In Balmung, the smallest plot starts at 20 mil. There are only six different people in my FC. 1.8mil x 6 = 10.8mil. So we wouldn't be able to achieve this in 3 months. It'd be 6. And that's if we actually had 5 hours a day to spare. Which I do not.

Yeah...

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Originally Posted by Axidrain

that is the point of this whole thread. the main goal of housing is to decorate it. not to buy the plot. that's where the main time sink should have been at instead of farming gil to even get a house.

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Go back and read the original quote and reply.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1689789

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Originally Posted by Centershock

Oh yeah, that's right. In Balmung, the smallest plot starts at 20 mil. There are only six different people in my FC. 1.8mil x 6 = 10.8mil. So we wouldn't be able to achieve this in 3 months. It'd be 6. And that's if we actually had 5 hours a day to spare. Which I do not.

Yeah...

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I true intention behind this move from the Devs was not a fear of a few players buying up all the housings spots. It is just they can't handle the server load of alot of people buying up housing. Makes me fear that they have half ass server side computers that can't handle the load. Yoshi said, they need a few weeks at least to get more hardware.

If they are scared of crashing the servers with FC housing, can you imagine personal housing?! Yeah, personal housing is a year away I bet. So guys don't get your hopes up and learn to either have some morons who are willing to shell out 30-625 million gils for a house or just live in the 3 major city hubs.

I personally loved the way SWG had set up their housing system. The land didn't cost anything. Just the cost of the house on top of the upkeep costs. The real challenge came when you wanted your house to look impressive on the inside. Finding the good decorations was a scavenger hunt, and then you had to figure out the placement of it all when you acquired it. I have an occasional nostalgic moment thinking back to the player created cities before the dreaded holocron-grind came around, and interior decoration contests.

Here, it seems that they are more intent on making just acquiring the land to be a challenge in and of itself monetarily, so that few can afford it. Before I get flamed from the "So you want everyone to get handouts" grouch crowds, I have no issues with people needing to take time for the high end large lots. But for even the low end, shanty lots to be priced excessively makes me wonder.

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Originally Posted by Fal13nMetalGod

Look if I'm honest this will end up being fine. They It was already stated that prices will fall (albeit it'll take a while but it will fall) and that more plots will eventually be added. As well as that the dev team are looking at prices and will adjust the accordingly. While it may seem quite pricey for a house, i understand what they are doing here and am willing to wait. Plus we have a but load of other content to play while we wait (which can generate us more gil).

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Yeah, what wait 3 months to maybe buy a plot that is 300 million gil to 150 million? Here's a clue, most of us are NOT gil farmers, gil buying cheaters, or gil sellers. I think it's total BS that a main feature of a game goes live and yet the majority (80% by Yoshi's words) can maybe afford the smallest plot?! That is not even the carrot on a stick deal, its pure utter horse crap.

Legacy World Price Adjustments
Due to the prodigious amount of gil in circulation in legacy Worlds, we regret that current housing prices may be prohibitive to the following players:
Those new to the game who started on legacy Worlds
Those returning to a legacy World after taking an extended break
Those on a legacy World who have been unable to save gil


You took our Gil

Just a thought "SE"
Sense your aware of these accounts that have an excess of several million gill will you be investigating as to how those individuals obtained that amount sense this game was solely designed to excessively limit the ability to earn that gill?

It seems that you already failed preventing BOTS and RMT in this game so now that you singled them out what will be done with them?

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

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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Not everyone can even afford it as a FC, I personally would rather have personal housing then FC housing, i mean the game was released when? and you expect to have millions and millions to buy stuff, thats just not fair, some of us just started playing :/

For me, the biggest problem with the high housing prices is the way it discourages fun. I don't mind working hard for something. But this is supposed to be a game, and I want my in-game work to be fun. Have to solve problems, cooperate with others, go through layers of challenging quests to get something? Fine! But if I wanted to spend hours in a dreary repetitive grind just to get the money to buy housing, I'd stay with real life. I know my other FC members feel the same.

I agree with an earlier poster who said SWG housing was awesome. I remember.... LOTRO housing is a bit lame, but at least it's available and reasonably priced, and some of my greatest fun has been at role play events hosted at player or kinship (FC) houses. I'd hoped for something even better from FFXIV. Instead - ridiculously overpriced land, nice new content for L50 players, not much for anybody else. And you still have to grind those boring fates to level, especially side classes. Sigh.

I'm not even sure why they went with the high to low price reduction either I would figure most groups would just wait till they hit 50% then buy. So what's the point of the high value only to have people wait till the price drops.

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Originally Posted by Vipey

This is very confusing to me. It may have to do with server econ scaling but I have been playing the game literally for one week and I have made at least 40-50k gil easily. How can a veteran player only have roughly 6 times as much gil as me?

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your getting money from quest, wait till you have to farm.

I love how the existence of RMT have made housing completely unaffordable except by RMT. Nice going, SE.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Needless to say, RMT traders are served with immediate bans and their gil removed from circulation, so these figures are not included in the above.

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I take this statement to mean that when I log in after I post this in the forum, that all 130+ names on my black list will now be deleted, since they were all reported the appropriate way, and by numerous other players.

I was going to reply to this, but it seems people already have lol. But yeah, this is all about data center capacity, not wealthy players monopolizing housing lol

Just a suggestion on my side, but why not aim for a small house for now, if everything else is out of reach for the time being?

Here are a few suggestions to make it fun:
-have fundraisers events with your FC:
a) have spiritbond parties! (our fc made easily over 5M on 2 evenings, while playing as a group)
b) farm up philo stones in all the new ways there are atm and sell the items and get mytho for "free"
c) have crafting and gathering parties and work together as a team! Help your fc friends/members to get new crafting jobs for new skills and new income!

In short: the options to make gil are out there. If you dont think of it as your personal chore, but as a challange for your FC as a team, there might actually be fun somewhere hidden inside this situation.


On a side note: i might be a legacy member, but i gave most of my gil away at the end of 1.0 and only had one craft at 50, i also wasted most of my gil and cracked materias in the first week of 2.0. But now it is fairly easy and quick to lvl a craft to 50 by yourself - even more so if you help each other. The amount of money i could make daily, if i spent several hours are beyond what would be needed to get a house in a week or two - but as many said, "simple gil grinding" is tedious. However, with just 30-1h semi-daily crafting i can still easily net a profit of 100-200k a day, if i get lucky 500k - 1M+. (please be aware i invested quiet some time to lvl up my craft and researched my possiblities, so there was a longer groundwork)



Also on the whole topic of getting everything right away vs "feeling of achievment", i would like to say that a part of this playerbase does enjoy long term goals and doesnt want everything right away, there are even ppl who enjoy the occasional grind and they too are customers, maybe even longer than most of the ppl who want things right of the bat, as nearly all (if not all) FF tittles had a long and grindy endgame, which is something a lot of us enjoyed.

happy hunting and farming!

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Originally Posted by MagicWand

Yeah, what wait 3 months to maybe buy a plot that is 300 million gil to 150 million? Here's a clue, most of us are NOT gil farmers, gil buying cheaters, or gil sellers. I think it's total BS that a main feature of a game goes live and yet the majority (80% by Yoshi's words) can maybe afford the smallest plot?! That is not even the carrot on a stick deal, its pure utter horse crap.

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Not only that. You can't upgrade.
Why waste millions of gil on the shittiest of shit plot?

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Originally Posted by Punainen

I love how the existence of RMT have made housing completely unaffordable except by RMT. Nice going, SE.

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Yeah, this is what happens when you have RMT's roaming the place and take years to get them outta here.
Yeah, sorry I am not playing Sherlocke Holmes The RMT detector.
Got more hackers and BS than many F2P games, god dang.

I started with all hopes for a fair fantasy game and the prospects were so promising :( Alas, another disappointment - it's all about money again and impsiible prices again. Have fun playing -I quit.

Not to sound like im complaining but if ur worried about players buying up all the housing because they are rich would the obvious answer be to make it so fc's could only purchase 1 house and give the rest of us a chance tobuy a house instead of just these wealthy players you are trying not to let buy everything. It just seems idiotic too me that your solution to stopping the wealthy from buying them all is to make it so only the wealthy can buy them. In the meantime the rest of us have to wait to get content which we have been looking forward to for ages whilst the wealthy get to buy it all up before we can get achance. I mean come on how many months we going to have to wait for this new content we got promised just because we are not hoarding gil.