My absence and return - thoughts on demolished houses

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

If they make the gameplay elements (cross-breeding for all, FC wheels and workshops for FCs) available elsewhere for all, then we can talk about keeping them limited. But until then, a fix needs to be made for housing. Anything else is just locking out content for the sake of exclusivity.

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This is another issue I have it is limited. Why do they design new features for it? They spent all that time increasing the amount of items can house. They put workshops, gardens, and stables into it. A feature should be available elsewhere before housing. Then you could argue you already have it. Instead its designed for housing, sorry. New furniture doesn't spring out of thin air. These are probably skilled professionals that could be working on other items.

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Originally Posted by Geryth

But as a developer, my biggest pet peeves against my peers are when they code half-assed projects simply because doing it "the right way" is hard. Doing it right, despite the difficulty, is always better for everyone.

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Best comment in this thread hands down. Period.

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Originally Posted by kamenkuro

This has been noted to be one of the most lenient and versatile housing systems in an MMO.

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WHAT.

I just...

No.

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Originally Posted by hijifa

so you understand why they need to demolish houses, and you're still complaining?

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Oh my god, people, please comprehend the OP's entire statements. He agrees that in the current system, demolishment is needed. However he disagrees with the current system. He's said this at least a dozen times now.

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Originally Posted by hijifa

instanced housing? thats literally what people DON'T want in a housing system

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It's literally what a lot of us DO want in a housing system.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

Uhh wasn't that a self inflicted wound? You were boycotting and knew it was gonna happen.

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Just because he made a conscious decision to not give SE any more money (in response to an action he disagreed with) doesn't mean he doesn't have a right to be upset at how the system works. He quit BECAUSE of how the system works.

Instanced housing will remove my ability to throw snowballs at people standing in front of the marketboard. Sorry, I vote no. It's the best part of my day greeting my neighbours.

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Originally Posted by Geryth

But as a developer, my biggest pet peeves against my peers are when they code half-assed projects simply because doing it "the right way" is hard. Doing it right, despite the difficulty, is always better for everyone.

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I'm reminded of this one xkcd lol.

https://xkcd.com/844/

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Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

It was just another example of them blatantly contradicting the initial concept for housing.

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Perhaps when they made such statements they meant them, but for technical, financial or other reasons they couldn't go through with them as originally intended.

Or maybe they simply changed their minds? I know I've done that before...

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

Perhaps when they made such statements they meant them, but for technical, financial or other reasons they couldn't go through with them as originally intended.

Or maybe they simply changed their minds? I know I've done that before...

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IIRC the case I gave was the instance that left a lot of people peeved because when pressed for an answer as to why things changed, the response was simply an insincere apology stating, "I'm sorry... that you all misunderstood me."

I understand you were trying to make a point OP, but it still kindof is on you. You knew what would happen and choose to wait 2 years. Why didn't you make this post within your time before you quit? You could've done this. I mean.. is 45 days REALLY that short? I'm not saying their system is perfect.. far from it. But I feel this post is 2 years too late to matter i nthe grand make of things :c.

so people do want everyone to have instanced apartment? those cost like 300k, even from playing a few days you can get that much. getting it demolished is no problem...

i really don't see why one couldn't just sell their house when they wanna quit and buy a new one when they play again. the net loss wouldn't be alot

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Originally Posted by hijifa

so people do want everyone to have instanced apartment? those cost like 300k, even from playing a few days you can get that much. getting it demolished is no problem...

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2 problems:
1) Can't do cross-breeding or put in outdoor furnishings (of which a lot seem to get made) in apartments. Outdoor furnishings is quite possibly a negligible problem though. Cross-breeding however is a sizeable loss.
2) FCs can't access apartments. Only individuals. Airships are locked behind FC housing. The Company Workshop is locked behind housing. FC buffs (grade 3), I believe are locked behind housing (you either need to pay an egrogorious amount of gil for a wheel with a grade 3 slot, or have a workshop to build your own, the latter of which is locked behind housing, in order to craft it, if it isn't).

A fair chunk of gameplay elements locked behind housing. Housing that is limited and not addressed by apartments.

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Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

IIRC the case I gave was the instance that left a lot of people peeved because when pressed for an answer as to why things changed, the response was simply an insincere apology stating, "I'm sorry... that you all misunderstood me."

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I think SE misjudged how 1) high demand housing (house flipping squatter douchebags was definitely not something that had come up in their planning) was 2) only realized AFTER the fact that their system did not have the resource to support the robust system they envisioned because I remember logging back INSIDE the FC house like the first 2 weeks or so when few plots were taken. Then they changed it to you logged in outside of the house....

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Originally Posted by hijifa

so people do want everyone to have instanced apartment? those cost like 300k, even from playing a few days you can get that much. getting it demolished is no problem...

i really don't see why one couldn't just sell their house when they wanna quit and buy a new one when they play again. the net loss wouldn't be alot

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Is housing very available on your server? Cause on mine it was all taken within minutes of the server being up. It's not the money everyone cares about, it's having the house.


I think the only solution that would be acceptable at the moment would be making a change to apartments that added gardening like a "go to greenhouse" when entering the apartments which spawned a little 8 plot instance for you to mess with.
Also maybe make some sort of "warehouse" or "Hangar" available to FC's as a level upgrade with options for crafting and airship deployment. (these ideas have been mentioned before , just as a disclaimer to someone who says I'm repeating things. )

More houses and wards would be nice.. but we need to think of something scaleable and cost effective.

Seriously people stop defending SE and their absolutely archaic, garbage housing system. This is the reason they will never ever bother to fix the damn thing, because you all have the mindset of "oh well there's nothing they can do about it". Why are you flaming out another fellow player instead of getting angry at the developers? Didn't realize the consumer of today was happy to get bent over and milked for every penny they have.

There is no excuse for the auto-demolishing of houses barred behind a subscription. It's lazy. It's cheap. It's pathetic. The sooner you all realize this the sooner we can have a better housing system.

The lack of support for your fellow gamer makes me so disappointed.

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Originally Posted by Leknaat

I think SE misjudged how 1) high demand housing (house flipping squatter douchebags was definitely not something that had come up in their planning) was 2) only realized AFTER the fact that their system did not have the resource to support the robust system they envisioned because I remember logging back INSIDE the FC house like the first 2 weeks or so when few plots were taken. Then they changed it to you logged in outside of the house....

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I don't doubt they underestimated demand or lacked the proper architecture to do things properly. That's kind of their "thing".
That said, the lack of transparency about the specifics of player housing prior to the last minute and the sudden shift to "It's just FC housing without the FC" (especially considering housing availability was already a problem) really just felt like they abandoned a better idea because it was too much hassle before going into diversion/deflection mode.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

2 problems:Outdoor furnishings is quite possibly a negligible problem though.

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Another tangent, but I personally wouldn't call it negligible since the decorating facet of housing is a major part of its appeal to me (and something I wish they'd spend more time on [resizable furniture/partitions, having partitions adopt wall-patterns, etc.])
Aside from availability, it's why instanced housing has so much more potential to me; you could have a huge lot that supports a large number of decorations (pools, Gazebos, etc.) and possibly multiple buildings (that don't have to be accessed as a separate instance even!).
Exterior decoration can be super-fun too. :-(

This might be a dumb question lol.

Can't SE add a few servers specifically for houses and nothing else to alleviate shortages?

Would work just like Duty Finder cross server jumping.

On Midgardsormer I select housing teleport get whooshed off to Little House On The Prairie server.
When I exit housing it kicks me back to Midgardsormer.

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Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

Personally, yes, I'd say that would be fair, as any system should have permanence as one of its core features.
If that system then has issues (as the current implementation does), then you need to rethink the bloody system.

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In what world is it fair to favor a non paying customer over a paying one? Just because you "could" return and complain? We don't need to discuss that there are way to less houses, thats obvious.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

Can't SE add a few servers specifically for houses and nothing else to alleviate shortages?
Would work just like Duty Finder cross server jumping.

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omg noo, the housing areas are connected to maps beside the city.
it's quick route for Fates, hunts, etc. and it's basically instanced housing where no guarantee you will meet same neighbour?
Can you imagine queueing for housing when Shirogane is released? Will make Raubahn savage so easy.

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Originally Posted by Ilan

In what world is it fair to favor a non paying customer over a paying one? Just because you "could" return and complain? We don't need to discuss that there are way to less houses, thats obvious.

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Player 1 bought a house. It should be there for them forever.
Player 2 has yet to buy a house. When/if he does, it should also be there for them forever.

If no houses are available, then player 2 should be free to complain about the lack of available houses, yes, but the solution to that complaint isn't to screw over player 1, it's to increase the availability of houses in general.

I personally hold conditional/temporary prizes to have no value.
If permanence is guaranteed, barring additional action by SE, player 1 has something of value, and player 2 has nothing.
If permanence is not guaranteed, however, and Player 2 takes over Player 1's house, neither player has anything of value.

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Originally Posted by Valinis

Seriously people stop defending SE and their absolutely archaic, garbage housing system. This is the reason they will never ever bother to fix the damn thing, because you all have the mindset of "oh well there's nothing they can do about it". Why are you flaming out another fellow player instead of getting angry at the developers? Didn't realize the consumer of today was happy to get bent over and milked for every penny they have.

There is no excuse for the auto-demolishing of houses barred behind a subscription. It's lazy. It's cheap. It's pathetic. The sooner you all realize this the sooner we can have a better housing system.

The lack of support for your fellow gamer makes me so disappointed.

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http://i.imgur.com/tfmdGBY.gif

I think this topic is a good place to ask.

If i will not login for 1-3+ months, will i lose my apartment?
(I.e. does same rules apply to apartments or not?)

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Originally Posted by Zeonsilt

I think this topic is a good place to ask.

If i will not login for 1-3+ months, will i lose my apartment? I.e. does same rules apply to apartments or not?

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Currently, apartments do not demolish.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Currently, apartments do not demolish.

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Thanks for answer!
Good to know.

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Originally Posted by hijifa

so you understand why they need to demolish houses, and you're still complaining?

instanced housing? thats literally what people DON'T want in a housing system.. people want actual plots, actual space, and an actual neighbourhood. many other games have fully instanced housing and those feel like a single player housing simulator rather than housing in an mmo. ffxiv has 1 of the better mmo housing system.

secondly, housing is luxury, something you never need in the game, and something that only 10% of players have, while like 80% of players want, theres a huge demand for them.. as someone waiting to buy a house, i can't wait to see plots get demolished lol..

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Actually I think if you polled the community the result would be overwhelmingly in favour of scrapping neighbourhoods and using an instanced system. Neighbourhoods are great on paper but don't work in reality when you have limited real estate. Most wards are deserted regardless as no one ventures out of their own personal house so the current system still feels like it's all instanced. There's absolutely no benefit to the neighbourhood system.

Most players would happily give up the current failed system in favour of individually instanced private housing locales. It would guarantee everyone a house and would also remove many of the 'server limitations' cited with regards to housing.

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Originally Posted by hijifa

i really don't see why one couldn't just sell their house when they wanna quit and buy a new one when they play again. the net loss wouldn't be alot

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There's NO guarantee a house will be available, and there is a gil loss regardless.

As for apartments - they are small, have very low decor limits, and don't have access to a number of features that houses do.

I want to thank everyone for the discussion. I had a positive experience engaging with most of the people in this thread. I edited my original post for people to continue talking about what they like or don't like about housing, and what they would like to see in the future. I hope SE listens to the community, and that they realize how severely punishing house demolition is for their players.

Jesus the community in this game is disappointing.

1. You talk about it not being fair for people to have houses if they are unsubbed because there are people who own more than one house, specially FCs that have like 128 houses and so on. So then people who aren't willing to pay for something they are not going to play for a few months because let's be real the game is designed this way unfortunately, yet have effectively stayed subbed for the past 3 years and so on deserve to get their houses taken away? How does this even make any sense?
Solution: Make it one house per account. It's as easy as that?

2. You relate it to paying bills irl. Are you for real? This is a game, people are already stressed irl having to pay their bills, why should they have to be stressed to keep their house in a game? >_> (This is not Archeage) It's not like they are going away for years. Would you be happy if because you decided to take a break, your character deleveled and you had your gear deleted? People work hard for their houses, they spend a lot of time decorating them, only for them to be taken away because of this bad implementation.
Solution: Increase the demolition time limit. Also, Make it one house per account. It's as easy as that?

3. You talk about the cons of instanced being the lack of a neighborhood. I too like showing off my house to my non existant neighbors. They are never there! It's always felt like a ghost town regardless.
Solution: Make it instanced OR make it one house per account. It's as easy as that?

4.

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Originally Posted by AlexanderThorolund

OOOOH poor us. How have we all coped without your complaining! I'm surprised the forum didn't grind to a complete halt.

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Really? I mean REALLY? What's even the point of this post and others like it? This is completely unnecessary. (And it even has upvotes, dear god, baby jesus) Why don't these kind of posts get deleted or get their users banned? Seriously, this forum.
https://emojipedia-us.s3.amazonaws.c...palm_1f926.png

So, you think other people actively playing the game should go without access to limited content so others can claim said content and neither use it or pay into the game's sustainability?

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Originally Posted by Tyla_Esmeraude

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There is no question housing was implemented poorly. I've always felt there should be a communal ward, with the houses and yards being instanced. And honestly.... the content that went into the GS should have been put in the wards to promote congregation. Bottom line.... the wards current state are a huge development mistake, but they are what we are stuck with.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

So, you think other people actively playing the game should go without access to limited content so others can claim said content and neither use it or pay into the game's sustainability?

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Could you tell me what part of my post makes you think I would prefer inactive players to keep houses over active players?

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Originally Posted by Geryth

The previous implementation of housing had issues, and inactive players were taking precious housing resources from active players. This was a major problem that needed to be solved. I was hopeful that SE would fix that by implementing a system that made housing not so limited, however they took an easy and cheap way out and kept the system they had, and decided to demolish houses of inactive players. With that design philosophy, they severely punish players who want or need to take an extended break from the game. Housing is such a huge and enjoyable part of the game, and I know for myself a majority of all the gil I ever made went in to my house, so deleting it is a major punch in the gut. Let me reiterate that housing demolition is absolutely necessary in a system where housing is so restrictive and limited, and is better than what it was before. However, there were so many other and better options that they could have gone with, and in my opinion they picked the laziest and worst solution.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Neighbourhoods are great on paper but don't work in reality when you have limited real estate. Most wards are deserted regardless as no one ventures out of their own personal house so the current system still feels like it's all instanced. There's absolutely no benefit to the neighbourhood system.

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I have to disagree here. While I agree that there needs to be more housing to accommodate the demand, the neighborhood system is what gives FFXIV housing its life imo. Being able to walk through the wards and see FCs and players houses is one of the main draws to the housing system for me. If it was an instanced system, there would be no real reason to go to it. I'd warp to my house for the melder, ect and warp out instead to spending time outside in the ward as many of my FC currently do. I understand the need for more housing, but gutting the charm of the current system for the generic, pointless variant that every other MMO does isn't the answer imo.

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Originally Posted by ImmortalDreamer

I have to disagree here. While I agree that there needs to be more housing to accommodate the demand, the neighborhood system is what gives FFXIV housing its life imo. Being able to walk through the wards and see FCs and players houses is one of the main draws to the housing system for me. If it was an instanced system, there would be no real reason to go to it. I'd warp to my house for the melder, ect and warp out instead to spending time outside in the ward as many of my FC currently do. I understand the need for more housing, but gutting the charm of the current system for the generic, pointless variant that every other MMO does isn't the answer imo.

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So would you be happy with a system that auto-generated wards as the previous ones become full? That could be a decent compromise right?

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Originally Posted by ImmortalDreamer

I have to disagree here.

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The instanced housing of Rift and WildStar couldn't be further from "generic" and "pointless". The communities around housing in both of those games are rich, interactive, and highly social - things this game's housing sadly lacks despite its veneer of community.

The social interaction in the game revolves around hanging in a shopping mall and coffee shops.
But that's another topic, they can easily put a catalog npc anywhere like they did scrips exchange.
Housing sort of have community places where the resident caretaker is but it lacks activities.

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Originally Posted by uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu

The social interaction in the game revolves around hanging in a shopping mall and coffee shops.
But that's another topic, they can easily put a catalog npc anywhere like they did scrips exchange.
Housing sort of have community places where the resident caretaker is but it lacks activities.

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Most of the social aspect of housing is simply seeing other players in your vicinity, on rare occasion, at the summing bells and market boards around your house. If housing was instanced and summoning bells and market boards were placed outside of the instance, that piece of it would still be retained. Improved, possibly, since we would likely have more people use the same summoning bells and market boards.

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Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

Player 1 bought a house. It should be there for them forever.
Player 2 has yet to buy a house. When/if he does, it should also be there for them forever.

If no houses are available, then player 2 should be free to complain about the lack of available houses, yes, but the solution to that complaint isn't to screw over player 1, it's to increase the availability of houses in general.

I personally hold conditional/temporary prizes to have no value.
If permanence is guaranteed, barring additional action by SE, player 1 has something of value, and player 2 has nothing.
If permanence is not guaranteed, however, and Player 2 takes over Player 1's house, neither player has anything of value.

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Sorry but i disagree. Housing is pure luxury and not mendatory for the gameplay so its completly fine if you lose it when you are not paying anymore, not to mention the needed serverspace for all the bought but not used houses. I don't even understand why SE allowed that players can buy houses who should be for FC's only, especially when they are limited. But whatever, you can complain all that you want SE will, hopefully, ignore it anyway.

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Originally Posted by Geryth

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I prefer to keep housing as it is implemented now, indoor instanced and outdoor to have something shared with public.
Have you ever seen a stage theater being held like A Stage Reborn? Indoor instances are limited to 100 people, so they
had to held several performances while 300 other people waiting and having fun outside the fc house in the yard.
Think of the shared outdoor as a lobby system. While it's okay for apartment-living city folks to have a set number
of participants for their events, those with yard would like an unset number for their events/partys either as host or guest.

Only exception for instanced housing are apartments and the community center.
There's 2 types missing instances from the resident caretaker place:
1) A gallery museum that shows every painting in the game
2) An Expo/Exhibit area for indoor/outdoor furnishings available
Can add marketboards, summoning bell, npc etc if they want but these two
instances are desperately needed so people can have ideas what they want
for their house instead of stalking all over housing.

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Originally Posted by Geryth

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Honestly, take a break if you want, but if you can't spare a few minutes of ONE day out of the 45 day limit, to log in and visit your house. You're just wasting valuable resources that others could be using. Others that are still actively paying, playing and have yet to experience said resources.

As the saying goes, use it or lose it.

You've seen what it's like for someone having a house, now you get to see what it's like trying to GET one.

But most importantly, you left and even knowing what their intention was, you came back.
so I'd say it's working as intended.

I don't think SE will lose sleep over people who leave permanently over such a thing.

Welcome back btw

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Originally Posted by Pyroxene

Honestly, take a break if you want, but if you can't spare a few minutes of ONE day out of the 45 day limit, to log in and visit your house. You're just wasting valuable resources that others could be using. Others that are still actively paying, playing and have yet to experience said resources.

As the saying goes, use it or lose it.

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At this point I just wish I could crawl into people's brains and mind meld what I'm saying to them so they'll understand. My break was completely separate from me quitting. I quit because I disagreed so heavily with their housing design. Do you understand I protested with my money against the design? And that, quoted straight from you, these "valuable resources" should not have been so limited and restrictive to begin with? Why do people keep making the argument about inactive players taking housing from active players? Why do people keep thinking that Square's current design is devoid of responsibility not able to be criticized? I've seen one person explicitly say they like the system because having a house gives them a status symbol. Otherwise I would think a vast majority of players don't like that they can't get a house right now (even with demolishing), and that any potential returning player isn't going to want to return if their stuff was deleted. How is this good design in any stretch of the imagination, except for those who enjoy being special snowflakes? And snowflakes by luck more than anything else.

As my saying goes - make good design decisions in the interest of your players, or lose my business. They made housing what it is because they were too lazy to do it right, or it was a cash-grab way to try to retain players. Can I spare a few minutes of ONE day out of a 45 limit to log in and visit my house? Why yes, easy peasy. At the expense of having to pay a subscription to keep my house if I'm otherwise taking a break? No, I will not pay for that design. Unlimited housing for all is what it's supposed to be. That's what I'm willing to pay for. That's why I quit. And me quitting has the unfortunate side effect of being victim to the design itself.

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Originally Posted by Pyroxene

You've seen what it's like for someone having a house, now you get to see what it's like trying to GET one.

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Can you point to any part of any of my posts that I ever said anything remotely negative towards active players unable to get a house? The whole system is terrible, on all ends of the spectrum. Again, your thinking within the walls that SE engineered as their housing system. So yes, I'm definitely experiencing the horror of their housing system on both sides. Because my hope is to rebuild my house and enjoy the game long enough that they'll fix housing, and I'm giving them money and this thread to let them know what I want to pay for and continue paying for.

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Originally Posted by Pyroxene

But most importantly, you left and even knowing what their intention was, you came back.
so I'd say it's working as intended.

I don't think SE will lose sleep over people who leave permanently over such a thing.

Welcome back btw

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Yes, I resubscribed and I even bought Stormblood. But it's been two years. Hearthstone and Overwatch have enjoyed hundreds of my dollars over that time that would have gone to FFXIV. Two years of lost time is a lot for an MMO, and makes a poignant statement to the developers.

And I think any developer would like to know why people are quitting their game, whether or not they lose sleep over it.

PS.
The next person who comments anything to the effect of "what, so you want active players to not have access to houses" is going to make my mind explode.

I understand how the OP feels. I actually had a friend leaving the game and he demolished his house and he knew i had the gil to buy it he made sure i got it because it went unnoticed there was a house available. However, OP did you know when they added shared housing the same time they did the demolished. they said if you hare your house with someone and they enter it resets the timer. So if you knew someone who was a very active player and remained that way or at least 2 ppl they could have helped u retained the house. thats what me and my bf are doing when he has to get deployed. It works i promise! i did it for several friends of mine.

what, so you want active players to not have access to houses?




..


(Kidding, I just wanted to see your mind explode.)