Why Removing Houses from inactive is NOT a solution.

Well the entire concept was to make a player town, not just personal housing and FC housing. Even if personal housing was instance or you could customize your inn, you still need resources to manage all that data and remember how each little detail of each person. Though it'll have negative feedback, in the grand scheme plot reclamation is going to make this feature better for those who use it and able to add new things since they can clear up ghost towns. It might even open the door for personalize inn rooms down the road.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

in the grand scheme plot reclamation is going to make this feature better for those who use it

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Why is it so worth SE's time and money to try and make an experience better for maybe 2% of their player population, when they could make a good experience for 100%?

Exactly what Naunet is saying. Even if every single house in every single ward gets removed and freed for new people, within a few weeks they will be full again and only 1-2% of the playerbase will have a house.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Well the entire concept was to make a player town, not just personal housing and FC housing. Even if personal housing was instance or you could customize your inn, you still need resources to manage all that data and remember how each little detail of each person. Though it'll have negative feedback, in the grand scheme plot reclamation is going to make this feature better for those who use it and able to add new things since they can clear up ghost towns. It might even open the door for personalize inn rooms down the road.

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Just going to repost this with the key phrase underlined for you. They have to clean up their server in order to even come close to what you wanted. That means reclaiming plots that aren't used.

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Originally Posted by Titor

Exactly what Naunet is saying. Even if every single house in every single ward gets removed and freed for new people, within a few weeks they will be full again and only 1-2% of the playerbase will have a house.

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Here's the thing....what you and Naunet think is ONLY true on very high pop. worlds, like the Legacy World you are residing on. On many other worlds however, housing doesn't sell out within hours...my server only a couple months ago sold out on all plots...and even then, occasionally, you can find one opened up.

So, while on all servers, there'd likely be a rush, depending on how many homes opened up, and depending on server populations, I'd expect several plots to remain available for a while. My server likely won't sell every home right away...and once housing does free up a bit on my server, you'll even see some folk WITH houses, moving and selling them to either move to a more preferred ward and/or to a larger home...this means smaller (and typically cheaper) homes will open up that are easier for 1st time buyers to grab (sounds a little like RL now doesn't it).

And while I have long believed that the very high pop servers should have more housing wards, than the lower pop servers....SE doesn't seem to be of that mindset, maybe in part to encourage people to server transfer (not that it's working obviously).

Still, with this whole 'evict' plan, it'd actually make finding a home on a large pop server EASIER because they'd become free at more /random times and not just at big patches. So suddenly, you won't have to try to fight the log in queues/lag etc on a patch day to maybe, hopefully grab a plot before they all sell out.

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People concerned about losing homes due to inactivity:

I believe one reason SE is implementing the 'house sharing w/ up to 5 friends' feature is to alleviate some of the potential of loss if you NEED to unsub/be inactive for a period that is long enough that'd it'd equate housing loss. Likely the system will be something like they originally intended with FC's and loss of the home 'as long as someone enters the home within x amount of days, the home is considered active' So basically, if you know you need to take and extended absence from the game, invite a couple buddies you KNOW are trustworthy, and who are likely to log in/communicate w/ you if they can no longer log in and they would be enough to 'save' your home for you.

Also, by allowing house sharing (finally!), it'll make it so folk like myself, can easily share a home with my husband and close in game friends and make it so that instead of us ALL wanting to purchase a home, we'll all happily share one home. If even a couple other people in each ward do the same, you effectively get more people in housing without actually needing to increase the amount of available plots etc.

But....judging housing from a Legacy world, is actually, not the best idea. I use to live on Excali...and like the folk of Balmung, if you didn't log in as soon as the patch went live, esp if you wanted a Small home, you were out of luck. But that is actually the exception and not the rule....it took a LONG time for housing to settle on most Mid pop worlds...and some small pop worlds might even still have plots available. The actual real issue is there are simply servers with too many people on them. SE should have from launch, had about 3-4 more Legacy servers to better spread out not only the actual LEGACY playerbase load, but this would have allowed for more room for their friends and family to join as well.

Overall, the housing system on Non Legacy' worlds more or less works (I think there are only 1-2 Non-legacy worlds w/ populations matching those of the Legacy worlds...at least on the NA/EU datacenters)...sure over time, things get sold out and crowded...but if SE removed the abandoned lots and allowed them to be repurchased, that would ALREADY be enough to supply the need/growth of the average server.

So the problem is the exceptionally high-population Legacy worlds, which could also be 'fixed' if SE either:
1. Put more wards on those worlds to compensate the boosted playerbase numbers
or.
2. Offered Free Server Transfers to people currently on high-pop worlds to low pop worlds.


But really, it's not doom and gloom for everyone. I know. I've experienced both sides of it.

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Originally Posted by Kinseykinz

Here's the thing....what you and Naunet think is ONLY true on very high pop. worlds, like the Legacy World you are residing on. On many other worlds however, housing doesn't sell out within hours...my server only a couple months ago sold out on all plots...and even then, occasionally, you can find one opened up.

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No. It's simple numbers. There are a finite number of housing plots. This number is MUCH smaller than the population on any server. Only a tiny fraction of a server's population will ever get to own a house.

You say that "occasionally" a plot opens up on your server. While that is technically better than the situation on higher pop servers, it is still far worse than what we should have. I mean, I can roll up a character in Rift or WildStar and have a housing plot of my own within a few hours of playing, that I can then customize to my heart's content. The only limit is how much gold I possess (well, and the 1,000 inside/1,000 outside item limit - soon to be 2500!) and I guess my own creativity. This is the kind of system we deserve in FFXIV, an ostensibly high quality, successful MMO.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

No. It's simple numbers. There are a finite number of housing plots. This number is MUCH smaller than the population on any server. Only a tiny fraction of a server's population will ever get to own a house.

You say that "occasionally" a plot opens up on your server. While that is technically better than the situation on higher pop servers, it is still far worse than what we should have. I mean, I can roll up a character in Rift or WildStar and have a housing plot of my own within a few hours of playing, that I can then customize to my heart's content. The only limit is how much gold I possess (well, and the 1,000 inside/1,000 outside item limit - soon to be 2500!) and I guess my own creativity. This is the kind of system we deserve in FFXIV, an ostensibly high quality, successful MMO.

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It's the system we have and the devs are doing everything to squeeze every last ounce of server space for it. I'm not going to pretend to understand the infrastructure of FFXIV or how they run instance. What you are asking for though is complete remodel "Housing" design from the ground up which would completely tear down the old system and require a lot of time to make a new one. Right now we need to focus on short term goals and that's reclaim housing plots. I do think SE should allow players to sell back their plot to a NPC and refund gil to players who lose their house in reclamation.

Long term SE should increase the amount of FC chambers and introduce player apartments that require monthly rent. They also need to fix the BS that FC can own multiple plots. Hopefully with the EU servers coming up this will help spread the wealth and reduce the taxing on current server loads. Which means they can relocate empty space toward housing improvements.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

What you are asking for though is complete remodel "Housing" design from the ground up which would completely tear down the old system and require a lot of time to make a new one.

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I am fully aware of this and think it is the only way to actually solve the problems surrounding FFXIV's housing system. The current system will never work to provide everyone with a home.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

I am fully aware of this and think it is the only way to actually solve the problems surrounding FFXIV's housing system. The current system will never work to provide everyone with a home.

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There is a 99.9% probability that SE is going to continue to maintain the current structure no matter how much you're opposed to it or how vocal you are. Regardless of how old the quote was (posted in this thread and another), SE has clearly indicated their path and it's very doubtful they're going to do an about-face at this stage of the game. We don't even know if the entire player base would even go along with an entire housing structure tear-down even if you think it's the best idea. Whether you like their structure or not, or believe the reasons SE posted for why it is how it is or not, is 100% up to you but, IMO, you're fighting a losing battle.

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Originally Posted by Syrehn

There is a 99.9% probability that SE is going to continue to maintain the current structure no matter how much you're opposed to it or how vocal you are. Regardless of how old the quote was (posted in this thread and another), SE has clearly indicated their path and it's very doubtful they're going to do an about-face at this stage of the game. We don't even know if the entire player base would even go along with an entire housing structure tear-down even if you think it's the best idea. Whether you like their structure or not, or believe the reasons SE posted for why it is how it is or not, is 100% up to you but, IMO, you're fighting a losing battle.

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This. The best thing you can do right now is accept the system for what it is and make suggest to improve upon that system that works for everyone. One idea I was thinking is give personal home owners the option to turn their house into an Inn by adding a finite amount of personal chambers.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

No. It's simple numbers. There are a finite number of housing plots. This number is MUCH smaller than the population on any server. Only a tiny fraction of a server's population will ever get to own a house.

You say that "occasionally" a plot opens up on your server. While that is technically better than the situation on higher pop servers, it is still far worse than what we should have. I mean, I can roll up a character in Rift or WildStar and have a housing plot of my own within a few hours of playing, that I can then customize to my heart's content. The only limit is how much gold I possess (well, and the 1,000 inside/1,000 outside item limit - soon to be 2500!) and I guess my own creativity. This is the kind of system we deserve in FFXIV, an ostensibly high quality, successful MMO.

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I transferred to my server from excalibur several months after the last housing update w/ new plots was added. On Excali, I wanted a small home for myself, so the day of the patch(when they released the subdivisions), I fought the /rng log in queues and finally got on. By the time I got in, only 1 of my desired plots was left, and as i purchased it, 2-3 people came running by just missing it themselves.

As I said, several months later, I decided to swap worlds (which meant my plot on excali opened up btw)...on my new server, even though it was months after the patch, that SAME plot not only was still available, but actually 2-3 of it's same plot/different ward were available. Not only that, but there were still wards in the mist that were only 1/3-1/2 full etc...all sized plots still open (the Goblet was in some wards, a ghost town). Exodus is NOT a low pop server...and yet, months after all the additional housing was offered, there still was enough availiblity that anyone who wanted in, could be in.

Yes, NOW there are no homes....but that is mostly because, there are lots of 'dead' FC and personal homes on our worlds/ there have no new additions to the wards in new plots etc. But, in my neighborhood alone, many of the plots are owned by people who've abandoned the game/their home. All my server needs, is for those plots to be reclaimable and there would be likely enough homes just within that, to sustain us for at least 6-12 months down the road....now sooner or later, yes, other wards and areas would likely need to be opened, but SE already said their plan was to free up the abandoned lots first, give it some time, then add new housing areas from there.

And for most servers, this will work....but it's never going to work for a server packed to the max like the legacy worlds....and really, SE shouldn't base their resources on what would work for Legacy....instead, they should use resources to encourage Legacy high pop worlds to transfer to other lesser populated worlds to spread out the resource and data use. (like free transfers to lower pop worlds).

But see, yes, my server DID have enough housing to supply the demand for a very long time...it's been only recently that every plot has been 'bought up'. Many other servers were the same way. My suspicion by the way is once SE allows personal house sharing and inactive plots reopen, there will again be plenty of plots on my server that sit idle for a couple months as there will be more homes than buyers for awhile. Actually the most common topic in /FC or/l chat on my server is about 'moving up to a bigge sized home'/moving to the desired ward/waiting for Ishgard to open up...very little chat is dedicated to 'woe is me, i don't have a house/can't get one'...and the few times that DOES surface it's almost always 'I'll never save up enough to buy one because...and those folk commonly admit, they could save if they wanted to, but the FC room is good enough for them. So the perception of housing on Exodus isn't that it's some rare commodity for the chosen few, but something, that with patience and time raising the funds, is totally obtainable by most...especially once some lands are cleared.

Meanwhile on YOUR server, the first day, they'll be gone. But you're the exception, not the rule....and the most likely 'fixes' are either free server transfers to lower pop worlds to spread out the needs/use the available resources more effectively and/or add more wards to High pop worlds to compensate. But SE has been pretty direct in their plans/intentions on housing....and I'm just trying to show you how while it looks majorly broken on your world, doesn't mean it actually is, especially with upcoming 'fixes', the supply/demand works out just fine on MOST servers in the game.

Keep trying to justify a horribly sub-par system. I will never agree that what we have is acceptable for the level of quality in gaming FFXIV purports. There's a lot of great things about this game. It would be really damn nice if SE treated their fluff content with the same care to providing a quality product available to all of their subscribers.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

Keep trying to justify a horribly sub-par system. I will never agree that what we have is acceptable for the level of quality in gaming FFXIV purports. There's a lot of great things about this game. It would be really damn nice if SE treated their fluff content with the same care to providing a quality product available to all of their subscribers.

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No one is saying it isn't flawed, SE just decided that they're going to keep going this route till it's how they invisioned it. (Ya know, instead of crashing moons into the housing areas) and most of us have accepted that what they've decided is final.

I myself, as I've said before, don't likebthe idea either. But I'm just a player so I'm in no position to tell them how to run the game.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

Keep trying to justify a horribly sub-par system. I will never agree that what we have is acceptable for the level of quality in gaming FFXIV purports. There's a lot of great things about this game. It would be really damn nice if SE treated their fluff content with the same care to providing a quality product available to all of their subscribers.

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It's not broken everywhere. After the next major housing update/change, I urge you to create an alt on a mid and/or low pop server and just use it to occasionally check out the housing scene on a server less populated/gil bloated than yours. You'll see, it's not as broken as you think. Is it 'fair' that this is the case? No. But SE has other tools they could use to make the situation on your world more acceptable...why they haven't used them yet, I do not know. But overall, for most servers, the supply about meets the demand as long as they either: 1. implement home foreclosures and/or 2. Add more wards every so often to account for player population growth. The only way to fix the problem on servers like yours though is to encourage a chunk of the population to transfer to other servers lessening your servers load. (Free server transfers would go a long way in this department). 3. House sharing w/ friends will also help because many friends/couples actually would prefer to share than each own their own.

I'd also personally like to see them add wards to Legacy worlds (and other high pop worlds), without necessarily adding more wards to other lower pop worlds at the same time (but for some reason, this seems difficult and/or impossible for them to do within their coding system).

But I DO get how broken it can be on legacy worlds. As I've said previously, I use to live on one and I KNOW a fair amount of FC's/individual players who wanted homes simply couldn't get them because they sold out so fast. And so I get from your perspective how broken it seems because I use to only see it from the same perspective. It was moving, and seeing how a 'normal' server operates and actually uses the games resources that made me go 'okay, so this system actually will work with some tweaks.' Because you're correct, on your world, at ALL times, it's a failed have/have not system. And that does suck.

SE screwed over the legacy worlds when they only released so few at launch...I knew it back when we all had to fight population surges etc just to get on the same desired worlds w/ all our friends during that transfer period. ZI believe there were only 10 worlds for us...andI believe SE planned those 10 based on the legacy population with little to no foresight into how many people just starting the game would want to join these same worlds/established communities either to play with Real Life friends, or for the stable playerbase etc, they likely presented. Really, they should have given us at least 4 more worlds per data center to spread out across+limited how many people could originally make new characters on them at launch more than they did (or use a system like FFXI had to get friends of players on these servers but lock them to general base until their populations settled better).

It really is your worlds population, more than the housing system that is screwing you all over (that was my point). And if SE planned housing zones based on what the high-end pop. servers needed...everyone else would have wards that never fill, and remain lifeless...which would be an even greater waste of game resources. So they need to do things that free up the resources they currently have (foreclosures), allow less strain on high pop servers (free server transfers/allow players to share properties), and then when/if that all still doesn't meet demand, either come up with a new system (maybe instanced) for the new zones of housing, and/or figure out a way to release housing wards on an 'as needed' server by server basis.

No one disagrees with you that Balmung doesn't have a HUGE housing problem. It Does. I'm just trying to explain to you this is not a gamewide 'everyone' problem.

I can't deny that what you're saying has some truth to it Kinseykinz, but as you yourself pointed out, they're not going to address specific servers with extra wards. And since there is an issue with higher population worlds, something does need to be done to address it. While I think giving incentives for world transfers is a good idea, it's also something that would probably have very little effect, as few people are willing to lose their friends and FC just to gain a house. Not to mention many people tend to prefer being on high population worlds in the first place for the end game benefits, and the more casual players who care little for that tend to be more involved with other players on their current server. All Naunet is saying, quite accurately at that, is that the design of the system can't support the weight of the community. We only have the number of total subscribers to go by, and that number demonstrates that the housing system as-is, overall, can not house even 2% of players, much less FCs.

I am also very skeptical of a system being implemented that punishes players for not paying their subscription, and it's even worse given that they once claimed they wouldn't resort to such a system. If it's implemented in a way that room mates can also refresh the repossession timer, giving some credit to the intended design of the system, then it will be harder to argue against. But if they put the system in place and make it so only the active home owner can refresh the timer, and I can see it now, "Due to the system design we can not configure the servers to recognize anyone other than the owner. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause," then I hope that every subscriber voices their outrage at such a shady practice.