[Salt thread] Owning a House Offically became Dead content for me

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

I moved to a new server. Got a medium no problem.

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I planned on doing this but the new NA servers keep getting delayed. Can't really expect people to move out of their regions either...

Moving servers seems to work for people here, but y'all, not all who want a house can move servers. Not much of a solution there tbh
Really wish they'd stop adding more to this problem and address it properly

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Originally Posted by Corrupted

Moving servers seems to work for people here, but y'all, not all who want a house can move servers. Not much of a solution there tbh
Really wish they'd stop adding more to this problem and address it properly

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What do you feel prevents you from changing servers now that we have both World Visit and Data Center Travel? I can think of one specific reason that would prevent it from being an option (ironically related to housing) but it's an outlier situation. I think the majority would find not moving is more a matter of convenience than necessity.

I don't think telling players to transfer is the correct way to address the problems with housing supply but it is an option that should work for most.

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Originally Posted by Sharie

Since the inception of the Housing Lottery, i lost every time and now on my Home world Shiva there is no Housing Plot Left as of Yesterdays Drawing(as far as i looked).

Since they dont do Demolitions anymore there wont be freed up plots from inactive players occupying plots making it mpossible to be able to own a House.
FC Rooms or Apartment is not a Sufficient alternative, i had the faint hope island sanctuary maybe we can have a house to ones liking but its static Buildings.

Please add more wards.

Thank you,

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Demolitions should be eliminated.

I find myself not even bothering anymore. I had to make my own FC to get land and I find myself just being content not having a personal house and enjoying what I already have.

Well it won't help you get a house but the old system was way worse for casual players. Back then plots for sale weren't really on sale; there was an invisible timer blocking purchases but not relocations. So if you found a plot for sale you couldn't buy it right away and someone else could hijack it if they already owned a plot somewhere else. On top of that, if nobody relocated you had to compete for the plot against other players, who were very likely to be using an external macro to try to purchase the plot repeatedly (a violation of the ToS but I didn't see anyone ever getting in trouble) until the invisible timer runs out.

The new system is more casual-friendly, in that you don't need to camp out at the plot overnight to purchase it nor run external macro programs. You just dump some money and wait for the lottery to happen. Equal chance for all but lower chance than the old system. People who want to relocate also have to play under the same rules; they can't hijack plots anymore.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

What do you feel prevents you from changing servers now that we have both World Visit and Data Center Travel? I can think of one specific reason that would prevent it from being an option (ironically related to housing) but it's an outlier situation. I think the majority would find not moving is more a matter of convenience than necessity.

I don't think telling players to transfer is the correct way to address the problems with housing supply but it is an option that should work for most.

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If you have old friends on the server you're on and/or a free company you actually like, makes the whole moving away to get a house not worth it in my opinion. For instance, no way in 7 hells you could drag a whole FC with you especially if some people have houses. Same thing with friends/people you know on the server.

For me, I don't need to move currently. Was fortunate enough to grab a small way back, but I know this to be the case for a lot of people myself included of course.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

I planned on doing this but the new NA servers keep getting delayed. Can't really expect people to move out of their regions either...

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I'm thinking when the new NA servers debut, I'll get together with the people I play with, see if I can get them to create new alts with me on a world there, create an FC on that world, and see what we can get for an FC house. A cozy cottage in the Mists would be nice. :)

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

What do you feel prevents you from changing servers now that we have both World Visit and Data Center Travel? I can think of one specific reason that would prevent it from being an option (ironically related to housing) but it's an outlier situation. I think the majority would find not moving is more a matter of convenience than necessity.

I don't think telling players to transfer is the correct way to address the problems with housing supply but it is an option that should work for most.

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None of us here can know for sure, but:

• modifying old software, or developing new software is expensive, risky, and time-consuming
• adding new hardware is relatively cheap, low-risk, and usually can be done quickly (except when governments shut down large parts of the global economy)
• QED: starting new servers and encouraging people to move to them may be the cheapest, fastest, lowest-risk way for SE to increase housing availability.

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Originally Posted by Corrupted

If you have old friends on the server you're on and/or a free company you actually like, makes the whole moving away to get a house not worth it in my opinion. For instance, no way in 7 hells you could drag a whole FC with you especially if some people have houses. Same thing with friends/people you know on the server.

For me, I don't need to move currently. Was fortunate enough to grab a small way back, but I know this to be the case for a lot of people myself included of course.

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Yet you can still use Data Center Travel to play with your friends and your old FC.

A FC that has such close friendships within it likely is using a Discord so you're never cut off from communicating (it would be a problem if they aren't using Discord or some other third party communication). I talk with my cousin's FC in their Discord frequently even though they're on a different world. If they need me to help them with content, they let me know in Discord and I go visit. I keep my house while getting to play with them.



I still want SE to implement a better solution than "just transfer to a new world". That only works when new worlds are available and still have housing available. Spriggan and Twintania were new worlds back at the start of Shadowbringers and their wards filled before the expansion ended. What happens when the wards on the new worlds being added this year and next year likewise fill? Back to having the broken system shoved in our faces with no relief.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

None of us here can know for sure, but:

• modifying old software, or developing new software is expensive, risky, and time-consuming
• adding new hardware is relatively cheap, low-risk, and usually can be done quickly (except when governments shut down large parts of the global economy)
• QED: starting new servers and encouraging people to move to them may be the cheapest, fastest, lowest-risk way for SE to increase housing availability.

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Except the game already has the housing system partially instanced so it's far less expensive, risky and time-consuming than starting from scratch.

Adding new hardware right now is problematic due to the semi-conductor shortage. Why were the new NA worlds delayed an additional 3 months? The suppliers couldn't deliver when expected. Who's to say the same won't happen again next year for the EU and NA worlds scheduled to be added then. Or there could be a new severe COVID outbreak or even other virus causing new global lockdowns and preventing the work from getting done even if the hardware is available.

Adding the new servers is not happening because of housing. It's happening because servers are already handling more concurrent player logins than they were intended to handle. That the new servers can also be used to address the housing issues is just a bonus for SE.

Once the announced EU expansion is completed, the EU populations should be down to roughly JP levels. NA will still be screwed and SE has said they are seeking further solutions but nothing they can announce yet. That means possible years more of overcrowding on the NA worlds plus lack of houses to meet NA demand.

In the meanwhile, we all get to be the head slave in our personal instanced Tataru sweatshop when many players would rather have something they could consider a home.

Did SE genuinely think that it would be an acceptable substitute or did they think they had the house situation under control after 4.2 so the island would be fun additional content to supplement houses, not knowing that WoW was about to make their dreams come true and drop close to a million new players in their laps?

I won a Medium on Light, I didn't really need nor do I have it decorated at all but it was fun standing around when the lottery was drawn and wave to everybody that had to get there just to get their money back

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

Or they could just do instanced housing since this stupid bloated ward system has been a complete dumpster fire that serves no purpose other than to be a constant source of frustration and drain on resources. The fact that people are obtaining houses for the sole purpose of being a complete douche to the community is just insane. Does square enix even care?

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Instance the plots themselves. No wards, Hundreds of owners per plot in the same neighborhood will also produce more street traffic. You select which owner's house will be visible on a plot via the placard (with thumbnails please.)
It would also be nice if you could see the street activity from your instanced plot, but I suspect that would be difficult.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

It would also be nice if you could see the street activity from your instanced plot, but I suspect that would be difficult.

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Back at the 2019 EU FanFest, YoshiP said it would be impossible to see the traffic in a ward from inside an instanced housing area but they were working on a technology that would simulate seeing it. Have no idea what the status is though we already do have similar from the random NPCs that appear and having pathing/dialogue in places like Firmament.

Housing isn't that bad. I mean I just walked up to the bridge in Gridania and claimed it as my own cause no one wanted it. So I decorated under the bridge with rocks and some more rocks. When I think I'm having company over I like to rearrange the rocks.

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Originally Posted by Sharie

Since the inception of the Housing Lottery, i lost every time and now on my Home world Shiva there is no Housing Plot Left as of Yesterdays Drawing(as far as i looked).

Since they dont do Demolitions anymore there wont be freed up plots from inactive players occupying plots making it mpossible to be able to own a House.
FC Rooms or Apartment is not a Sufficient alternative, i had the faint hope island sanctuary maybe we can have a house to ones liking but its static Buildings.

Please add more wards.

Thank you,

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Wait let me grab my pen... "Add more wards in like next expansion for you to also lose on", got it.

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Originally Posted by sagacious

I don't understand why you want a house with island sanctuary's available? I have a mansion and a level 65 workshop and I spend most of my time on the island. If I had to choose between the two I'd pick the island.

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Yeah no. I have a house to and my FC has a workshop I use. You can farm at your house and make actual money and idling in a furnished house that doesn't kick you for AFK beats the island.

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Originally Posted by Hafu

I'm utterly convinced people who find the gameplay loop of island sanctuary so utterly captivating don't have a great deal of experience with the life-sim and colony management genres of games in general.

It missed the mark by quite a margin from what the concept of settling and developing an uninhabited island could've been, it's more like Tataru tricked us into running her off-shore mammet sweatshop for her.

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We seriously need some MSQ or at least a major side quest where we find out she's actually evil.

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Originally Posted by KurohNeko

We seriously need some MSQ or at least a major side quest where we find out she's actually evil.

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She's not evil. She's just obsessed with wealth like so many other natives of Ul'dah. That's been obvious since the Four Lords. Until that point, her concern about the Scion's need for money to fund operations seemed reasonable. On the other hand, her efforts seem to be focused on making certain the Scions stay well funded (and independent of outside money unlike ARR and post-ARR) as opposed to some sort of personal power scheme. We'll have to see how it plays out in the future.

Island Sanctuary is one of the few times I've gotten mildly annoyed with SE's marketing of new content. Turns out it's not that relaxing place our character can go to when we need a break, We're merely getting the chance to manage Tataru's remote mammet sweatshop. I don't mind it as content but I feel the theme was misrepresented.

I honestly thought the lottery would make things better, but somehow I feel, today, more hopeless than the placard clicking from before.

The only thing the new system achieved was probably just stop people from doing unhealthy camping, like not sleeping.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I honestly thought the lottery would make things better, but somehow I feel, today, more hopeless than the placard clicking from before.

The only thing the new system achieved was probably just stop people from doing unhealthy camping, like not sleeping.

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Plaquard clicking at least gave you the agency to actually feasibly get a house if you dedicated the unrealistically stupid amount of time to it.

All the Lottery has done has made it statistically impossible to even get a house in the first place for a majority of bidders.

Both systems are shit, nothing has been solved, and the core issue of housing continues to be ignored.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

She's not evil. She's just obsessed with wealth like so many other natives of Ul'dah. That's been obvious since the Four Lords. Until that point, her concern about the Scion's need for money to fund operations seemed reasonable. On the other hand, her efforts seem to be focused on making certain the Scions stay well funded (and independent of outside money unlike ARR and post-ARR) as opposed to some sort of personal power scheme. We'll have to see how it plays out in the future.

Island Sanctuary is one of the few times I've gotten mildly annoyed with SE's marketing of new content. Turns out it's not that relaxing place our character can go to when we need a break, We're merely getting the chance to manage Tataru's remote mammet sweatshop. I don't mind it as content but I feel the theme was misrepresented.

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Considering how she started in life, it's not that shocking to see her trying to be a wannabe Rowena. lol

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Originally Posted by Raikai

The only thing the new system achieved was probably just stop people from doing unhealthy camping, like not sleeping.

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I sincerely hope that was the motivation behind the change. I struggle to believe that Square would be that naive to think it would solve the housing shortage. Quite the opposite in fact: It made competing in the housing market accessible. At least now they have metrics on just how badly the ward system has missed the mark.

An unintentional side-effect of their lottery implementation is that the playerbase also has the ability to collect fairly accurate metrics on how badly they missed the mark.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

I sincerely hope that was the motivation behind the change. I struggle to believe that Square would be that naive to think it would solve the housing shortage. Quite the opposite in fact: It made competing in the housing market accessible. At least now they have metrics on just how badly the ward system has missed the mark.

An unintentional side-effect of their lottery implementation is that the playerbase also has the ability to collect fairly accurate metrics on how badly they missed the mark.

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What information we have available to collect as players really isn't going to be that accurate because we have no way of knowing how many entries are from players who already own, want to relocate or entered for a personal house on multiple characters for the sake of winning on one of them. We also can't tell how many players have been doing this with characters on multiple worlds so they can get multiple houses.

We also don't know how many players have given up trying because they feel they'll never beat the lottery with so much competition.

Considering the type of reports that could be generated to pay attention to this sort of thing (and watch for players abusing the spirit of the 1 personal/1 FC house guideline), I wouldn't be that surprised if SE isn't bothering to pay attention to that sort of information.

They've been pretty much silent on the supply problem since start of Shadowbringers. I can understand the initial silence. They had pretty much told us that the Ishgard housing was coming even if they didn't say it outright until the Endwalker announcements, and probably had felt that would solve the problem as it existed before Shadowbringers launch.

But that changed when all the WoW content creators started giving the game an honest try, drawing in a lot of new players not just from WoW but from other MMOs as other content creators hopped on the FotM bandwagon. It's hard to say how many stuck around but certainly it was enough that the Ishgard addition isn't close to handling the new demand.

Hopefully, some of the JP players will get in some useful housing question during the live Q&A in the 14 hour broadcast. With YoshiP reiterating that Island Sanctuary is not intended to be housing , it would be good to hear where they intend to take the housing system from here.

Are they going to stick to wards plus apartments? Do they have something new planned? What about that technology YoshiP had described during the 2019 EU FanFest Q&A - what's the status and what does that mean for housing when they're ready to implement? It makes zero sense that they would invest all that time and money into developing it only for the sake of 62,000 mansion owners while leaving the concerns of hundreds of thousands of players who can't get a house unaddressed.

Yoshi wants you to take a break but still pay the sub XD

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Originally Posted by Bladedance87

Yoshi wants you to take a break but still pay the sub XD

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Don't need to pay a sub to keep a house when demolition has already been suspended for 10 months and likely will be suspended for another 10 while they try to get players to populate the new worlds they're adding.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Plaquard clicking at least gave you the agency to actually feasibly get a house if you dedicated the unrealistically stupid amount of time to it.

All the Lottery has done has made it statistically impossible to even get a house in the first place for a majority of bidders.

Both systems are shit, nothing has been solved, and the core issue of housing continues to be ignored.

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It's not ignored. They just aren't going to do instanced housing. It's pretty clear by now that they have no interest in it and want to keep the ward structure. Otherwise, why did we get Island Sanctuary? It shows they can still create instanced areas for every player and they strapped it onto the housing servers (which they could have done for instanced housing)so.....yeah I'm kinda just wiping my hands of anything IH related actually existing.