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

ITT: Community Managers waltz through minefields

There must be enough long-term FC players to make this economically attractive to Square-Enix. As a solo player ... they lose my subscription. Ah, yes, it is a business not a game.

Evidently, even if I play for nine months - as a solo - I have NO chance to get a house.

House was one of my favorite parts of Skyrim.

Glad in real life I can buy my own home ... not forced to go in with group. Well, at least in some countries.

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Originally Posted by tobyx

Everything about this is a huge slap in our faces. Servers will not hold more than a few houses? Oh ok, guess it's fine to set the prices at ridiculous amounts to make sure less than 1% of the player base will get a house in the foreseeable future.

Build. More. Servers. All of us pay a subscription.

No one is asking for free houses on patch day. But who about accomplishable goals? Something that doesn't take til 2067 to complete.

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Could always delay pvp and use that server for more housing, but god forbid we delay an event that will most likely be dead in 6 months. We all know how much FF fans love to pvp.

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Originally Posted by LiadansWhisper

I am not asking to get housing on day one. I haven't really seen anyone ask for that. I am asking that the goal be realistic and not require me to grind all day every day for months (or years) to achieve it.

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Welcome to a long term goal, that's what they are, and there's plenty of people who enjoy them.


Some people don't enjoy hand outs. Some people enjoy working for their stuff, some people enjoy saying "I have this thing that nobody else has!" and you know what? That doesn't exist in this game right now. Housing is a way for people who want a reason to keep playing after they clear the story or beat a dungeon to play. Right now I log in once a week to clear BC and then I stop playing. Now I'll log in daily to do quest and look around for how I can make money at the market and contribute to my guild's long term goal of making money for a house.

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Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

And yet here you are posting and attacking me because I disagree with you, and I'm the one who has to prove myself apparently :V..

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Well maybe you should look how you conduct yourself towards others in the first place. Its ok for people to have different opinions, its not to simply look down and snipe others because you differ.

So, we have to wait 2.2 patch? (3 month = major patch!)...
And if 50% cut isnt enough (the "worst" house will be for 20M on some servs... ) you will reduce the lower limtis and so? have to wait more and more the prices are going lower and lower? waiting one and half month more?

We have to say "god thank you for this"?

2.3, personnal housing, 1M for the worst house, and 10M on some servers?

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Originally Posted by SoloOne

Evidently, even if I play for nine months - as a solo - I have NO chance to get a house.

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These are FC Houses, not personal houses, so of course you have no chance to solo-afford it. Wait until they release solo player housing before complaining you can't afford one by yourself.

It's funny when people on the forum pull up numbers from thin air. SE has the details on their game. Let them develop and adjust it to the way they interpret their data.

Does this mean we 1.0 players are getting the gil back SE stole from us? I wish.

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Originally Posted by SoloOne

There must be enough long-term FC players to make this economically attractive to Square-Enix. As a solo player ... they lose my subscription. Ah, yes, it is a business not a game.

Evidently, even if I play for nine months - as a solo - I have NO chance to get a house.

House was one of my favorite parts of Skyrim.

Glad in real life I can buy my own home ... not forced to go in with group. Well, at least in some countries.

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This is an FC house, not personal housing.

They are doing this for a few reasons, mainly I'm guessing it's to do with the amount of servers they have so they want to limit it till they have more servers in place. The other is obviously the massive amount gil certain players have.

My real gripe is why put so much effort into making this feature if only a small amount of the player base will get to try it out. There is a ton of more pressing concerns that could have been added this patch over something hardly anyone will get to use, and saying in 3 months it's going to be cheaper so try it then only backs up why did they not add other features over it this patch, it's still insanely expensive even at half the price.

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Working three months to obtain what? Five gil to a house? My guild is on a legacy server filled with a bunch of fresh people who have saved up a hundred mil for our house and we realize we have to work more for a big one, we're not pissed off, we're happy we have a reason to play more.

The only real reason anyone has to be upset is that they didn't state the prices earlier.

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Considering that all you seem to manage to do is spout of hyperbole, i sincerely doubt you have managed to do any such thing. Come back when you understand how grown ups discuss matters. Here's a hint, they don't resort to such strawman tactics.

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Originally Posted by SoloOne

There must be enough long-term FC players to make this economically attractive to Square-Enix. As a solo player ... they lose my subscription. Ah, yes, it is a business not a game.

Evidently, even if I play for nine months - as a solo - I have NO chance to get a house.

House was one of my favorite parts of Skyrim.

Glad in real life I can buy my own home ... not forced to go in with group. Well, at least in some countries.

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Fc housing is intended for a whole FC.im sure you will be able to obtain a house when they release personal housing

Best part of patch 2.1: Being told to wait until next around patch or longer to partake in the feature you were most hyped for.

To be honest and I speak only for myself and my FC we'd rather be able to afford a plot/house and not be able to get one due to availability instead of having a price so high that there is no way in hell we'd ever be able to afford it in a timely manner. At least we would know soon as more slots become available we could get a house instead of just soaking in a pool of tears because all of the effort we put so far couldn't even afford us a doorknob let alone a house.

just wait until an FC leader gathers up 50+ million, and \fc kick's everyone so he can take all the money for his personal house. or a large FC does manage to get a large plot, sell your account for massive $$$ completely "extremely derogatory remark" ing over everyone who helped.

with a group of 100 people i know some who cant be trusted

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

SE:

If you don't have the capability to build more server structure for housing instances, I can understand, given that you guys have been playing catch-up for months at this point.

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The 'tough luck' response pretty much cements what you've said, and what I've suspected.

This isn't about taking gil out of the economy (there would be PLENTY of more efficient ways to do that). No, I'm 99% positive that it's about stalling to get housing servers stable and functioning because they just aren't ready yet.

I just wish they would have been up-front and honest about it...


In the meantime, I encourage those who are white-knighting this decision to go buy a house ASAP and prove how awesome you are... I'm gonna wait this one out.

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Originally Posted by Camate

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

In patch 2.1 you'll be able to generate a bit more gil. We estimate that by doing this for around three months you should be able to purchase land.

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I look forward to discovering that this amount is increased on the higher tier world groups. Otherwise it could take 5x (15 months) and 10x (30 months) to be able to save enough to purchase the more expensive land on the Legacy worlds at that rate.

Thanks for your time and attention.

My smallish FC was aiming that house to give a small bump into our activities along with Crystal Tower... Well, let's keep our inn rooms for a while now.
Many people state that houses have no purpose, but it's hard to keep a FC with an collective goal once most of the players haven't even logged in for weeks because they got what they wanted in the endgame content, so the house could keep the fire up a bit more.
I understand the RMT problem, but the prices are somewhat, frustrating. I've been working as a crafter for some time on my way to 50 and gathering gil to help my FC to get a house, but after ther patch notes, pretty much all the active players of WINGS gave up on that idea already...
It's better for me to get some customization items to my hotel room in Gridania! Haha.

Peace!

Myamoto Akhiro

Question for everyone saying that the housing prices are just fine and a 'goal' to work towards:

How do you feel about the loot lock outs on CT??

What if CT had been released but you couldn't actually get any loot until you'd run it exclusively (meaning doing nothing else) for 3 months?

Would that bother you?

(Rhetorical question) Is empathy that difficult to muster up?

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

One thing we wanted to avoid was situations where free companies wanted to build a house but couldn't because the land was sold out.

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Then why don't you actually use some of the subscription fee we pay you to buy some more servers? That sounds like a proper solution to the shortage of available land.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

We also examined all of the free companies across all Worlds, how many members there were, and how much gil each member possessed.

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That's funny. You must've forgotten to look at those FCs which barely have a million to their name, let alone 40.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

In patch 2.1 you'll be able to generate a bit more gil. Battle classes can earn an average of 15,000-18,000 gil per day, and with role bonuses in the Duty Roulette this can exceed 20,000 gil. Doing this several days a week you can save up quite a bit of gil, and if all FC members do the same, it will become a considerable amount. We estimate that by doing this for around three months you should be able to purchase land.

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What if I told you a lot of people were looking forward to 2.1 because it included housing? And that lot of people couldn't wait to start using the FC house, to use it for RP purposes, or to simply relax a bit with their FC?

Now you release 2.1 and tell us to basically grind/farm some more, which we've been doing for what, 3 months straight now? People say housing shouldn't be accessible from day one, well, I disagree. We've waited months for this, and now we're told to wait 3 more months (in the best case scenario) for something that should be considered casual, accessible content.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

For new users playing on Legacy servers, there were questions about how they would be able to purchase land as it's much more expensive, so moving forward we will be making adjustments to the lower limits. The prices listed in the patch notes are the high prices, and there have been comments that no one will buy them, but again, we will look at conditions and look into reducing the lower limits. We'll be keeping a close on eye on how everyone is making gil and on the economic conditions for each World.

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No, you should make adjustments to the base price for housing, not the lower limits. Besides, discriminating between different servers? Not cool. Pricing should be the same everywhere, meaning that the starting prices should be at the level of the cheapest servers everywhere. (Even though they're still not cheap)

Also, economic conditions? What economic conditions? The economy of your game is dead.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

We understand that the initial prices for housing are extremely high

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I somehow think you don't understand. If you did actually understand, you'd do something about your ridiculous pricing scheme!

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

but this is a patch filled with a lot of content, so as you are having fun and enjoying everything the price will come down.

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The housing is part of the content in the patch we're supposed to be enjoying. In fact, it's the only thing I, and others, were looking forward to. I don't give a damn about some 24 man raid, or extreme Primals.
So yeah, thanks for adding more grind to the already existing grindfest. I'll be sure to enjoy it.

They say 3 month... time for next patch.... migth as well delay housing till next patch

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Originally Posted by Xellos2099

They say 3 month... time for next patch.... migth as well delay housing till next patch

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Yeah >.< Even when I do get that much I certainly would not spend it on those ridiculous prices. Sigh...can't believe FC house is going to be a waste.

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Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

And yet they've stated that their HARD DATA that THEY HAVE BECAUSE IT'S THEIR GAME AND THEY HAVE ACCESS TO IT shows that people still have absurd amounts of gil.

And you have no idea how many housing areas there will be. I think it's ridiculous that you're saying they're just being cheap and stuff considering how many servers this game already uses and how much money they could easily save using a basic instance system or peer to peer system like Nexon does with half of their games.

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Honestly, who do you think has the majority of the gil in most servers, honest hard working players? The same players that kept getting banned at release for having millions of gil? So then you could say they weren't honest because they were investigated and banned, ok, there are still plenty of RMT in almost every server, not to mention all the exploits and hacks like the retainer bell debacle. In legacy servers sure, people had 2 years to make lots of gil in 1.0 even if everyone's money got reduced by one 0, but some people might not remember the Atomos exploit that allowed anyone to make easy millions by NPCing Grand Company potions. So now the whole playerbase in general is getting punished for either the exploits of a group of people or for actually working hard and saving up in anticipation to a very advertised and hyped feature? That doesn't seem fair at all.

Also peer to peer systems might be acceptable for F2P companies in their free games but you know, this is a P2P game and I think people deserve better service for their sub money, that's one of the reasons a lot of us are paying a subscription in the first place. I'm really sorry other people have a different opinion then yours and you really like this game and feel offended when someone tells you it has some flaws, but there are better ways to improve this game, what you're doing is not a good way to help neither the devs or the game, let alone the players.

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Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

Welcome to a long term goal, that's what they are, and there's plenty of people who enjoy them.


Some people don't enjoy hand outs. Some people enjoy working for their stuff, some people enjoy saying "I have this thing that nobody else has!" and you know what? That doesn't exist in this game right now. Housing is a way for people who want a reason to keep playing after they clear the story or beat a dungeon to play. Right now I log in once a week to clear BC and then I stop playing. Now I'll log in daily to do quest and look around for how I can make money at the market and contribute to my guild's long term goal of making money for a house.

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Absolutely right. In fact, I think they should restrict all the new dungeons until you've completed the old AT LEAST 1000 times each. People need long term goals right?

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Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

Question for everyone saying that the housing prices are just fine and a 'goal' to work towards:

How do you feel about the loot lock outs on CT??

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I'm fine with it, it's a reason for me to keep coming back to that place past day one (When without the limit I'd have gotten everything).

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

Yeah >.< Even when I do get that much I certainly would not spend it on those ridiculous prices. Sigh...can't believe FC house is going to be a waste.

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FC's themselves are getting screwed in the ass anyways.
You guys can't even have full pre-made CT party till next patch.
Now housing is just shat up.
Housing to me, is too early to be released then. As Xellos said, might as well just wait till the next patch
since it's obtainable 3 months later...who's to say that? We're already nearly a month late of 2.1.
What a damn joke this turned out to be. They release stuff half-assed is what's happening
NP, wait till next time! Man.

THIS DOES NOT COMBAT RMTing! Not saying someone would actually buy $18k IRL worth of Gil. But is it easier for someone to spend $30 on 1mil that takes 1 day to get or 1mil that takes 50 days @20k per day?

So regardless of how much RMT Gil that is still left, There will always be Buyers and will always be Gil Sellers.

They should have done something different for housing if they really Wanted to Combat RMTing, like make the housing obtainable From Quests and FC Credits ( and not 20million credits).

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Originally Posted by Roris

now the whole playerbase in general is getting punished for either the exploits of a group of people or for actually working hard and saving up in anticipation to a hardly advertised feature? That doesn't seem fair at all.

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They never once claimed that the prices will never change in the game's future, Yoshi only specifically said that he wants to drain money away from uber rich people who can just buy anything they want like it's nothing.

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Originally Posted by cainejw

WhiteDragon, more like WhiteKnight, am I right? You just keep on defending their bad decision. I'm sure you'll be looked upon favorably as you continue to prove how awesome and cool and awesome you are!

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Especially when he is by himself in mor done shouting for party cause no one plays anymore. Still wont have a house then either.

FFXIV 3.0. Can I have it?

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Originally Posted by Rex

...There's a big...BIG difference here...between 1.0 and just one aspect of an already successful game.

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FFXIV 1.0 is above 2.0 when it comes to immersion, but 2.0 is above 1.0 when it comes to many other things! i just wish they could take that point from 1.0 then 2.0 will be the best online game beside FFXI <3

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Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

he wants to drain money away from uber rich people who can just buy anything they want like it's nothing.

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Yeah but he did already.

Legacy players started 2.0 with literally 1% of our gil.

Not our fault SE sucks at controlling RMT.

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Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

Welcome to a long term goal, that's what they are, and there's plenty of people who enjoy them.

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There are plenty of goals in this game. But housing has always been - in every MMO I've played, including SE's other MMO - a casual affair. But, I actually agree with you that housing should involve goals. I simply disagree with you on how they should be laid out. Housing should be relatively easily obtainable, and the long-term goals should be locked into how you choose to customize the space. They could still make housing a huge goal - and having the most tricked-out house be a sign of greatness. But doing it this way simply locks a majority of the player base out of ever being able to obtain housing for their FC. With how much SE has pushed Housing as a cornerstone of this patch, it's incredibly disappointing and upsetting to see that they were basically just leading us on. Smaller FCs will never be able to purchase even the smallest building. Ever.

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Some people don't enjoy hand outs. Some people enjoy working for their stuff, some people enjoy saying "I have this thing that nobody else has!" and you know what? That doesn't exist in this game right now.

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Really? I kind of thought Twintania was a big deal. I guess everyone has that down. >.> Not like, less than 1% of the population.

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Housing is a way for people who want a reason to keep playing after they clear the story or beat a dungeon to play. Right now I log in once a week to clear BC and then I stop playing. Now I'll log in daily to do quest and look around for how I can make money at the market and contribute to my guild's long term goal of making money for a house.

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How is it a reason to keep playing when it's effectively forever out of your grasp? Assuming that my FC can get 15 members together (which is a big assumption as several have just stopped playing, many aren't level-capped (they're brand new or just haven't been able to put the time in to level that first class), and others simply aren't available every day due to real life constraints) and we all earn the supposed maximum of 20k a day (ignoring repair bills - I guess we'll just have to do these runs naked since we won't be able to use any of that gil to repair our gear), it would still take us about 4 months to buy the smallest plot of land. So for four months, we will have to donate everything we have - every bit of gil - to hopefully be able to pick up that piece of land. That will fit...about five people on it.

I guess we just shouldn't take in any non-level capped people. I guess we should have sold titan runs. I guess we should have taken advantage of a dirty-gil-flooded market at the beginning and sold coke and potash for 200k a pop (because, let's be honest - very few people, even on legacy servers, had that kind of legitimate money to waste on tomestone items). I guess we should have focused on grinding ourselves into burnout instead of focusing on RP and helping people with titan runs (my guild has actually hosted free runs to help people get their relics).

I don't know man. I'm happy that you're happy, but I wish you could understand why I - and many others - are not. I really wish you could for once in your life step out of your shoes and put yourself into someone else's. Because it's like you are stuck in your mind and feel that becuase it's not a big deal for you, it shouldn't be a big deal for anyone. And anyone who disagrees with you is just a whiner, lazy, or stupid.

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Originally Posted by Camate

One thing we wanted to avoid was situations where free companies wanted to build a house but couldn't so we made a scenario where noone could to avoid situations where free companies wanted to build a house but couldn't so we made a scenario where noone could to avoid situations where free companies wanted to build a house but couldn't so we made a scenario where noone could to avoid situations where free companies wanted to build a house but couldn't......

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looking forward to housing guys! ._.

Here is what SE doesn't get; unlike the real market, FFXIV housing is not an investment. You spend the money and then you lose the money. You lose being able to control the FFXIV market in the future. For 99% of the game's population; housing isn't worth donating more than 50k worth of gil to one's FC. To many, housing isn't worth 1 gil.

Housing should not be an activity that you need to save up currency to participate in. I don't know if there is a single subscriber out there who wants to save up gil for months to purchase housing. It was free in FFXI and it's free in other games.

How can SE (who claims to now listen to its subscribers) misfire so badly?

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings everyone,

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

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This is the worst news ever I love this game and I was genuinely excited but they're fucking our asses abit.

Dear Mr P,

You have introduced content in such a way that it is hideously unfair from a financial point of view of us, your customer, the people who pay your wages, pay for the servers, pay for your secret stash of hentai, us. This is unfair due to the disparity in pricing.

MMO's have to be fair to all their customers, there is a reason for this, we are giving you money each month. Real money, not gil. Because of this, everyone should have the chance, under equal circumstances, to complete the content in the same time frame.

If 4 people of equal skill and gear to 4 people on Durandal were to attempt the same dungeon, we should reasonably expect them to complete said dungeon within the same time frame (say 30 minutes). These same 4 people who complete the same content daily will achieve their respective goals in the same time frame (farming Tomes for instance). Each person pays you the same sum of money, each person should be considered equal.

Now we come to housing. The players on Asura are able to achieve their goals in 3 months (based on an FC of 10 earning 20,000 gil a day your figures). An FC on Durandal with exactly the same configuration of members requires 10 times that amount to achieve exactly the same goal.

The players on Asura, to complete this task, have paid you the total sum of £30 (£10/month over 3 months). To complete exactly the same objective on Durandal will cost each player £300 (£10/month over 30 months). This is why MMO's have to be fair, server differences created by players (example, market wards) are down to the specific servers financial situation and are out of your control, content is not out of your control.

So, Mr P. Could you explain why you expect players on Durandal to pay £270 more for exactly the same content as a player from Asura? Figures may vary, but it's always 10 times higher than the cost on Asura, requiring 10 times the time investment as an exact replica on Asura.

This is perfect! I've always wanted to role-play someone homeless. SE gave me exactly what I wanted.
Maybe someone will be nice enough to take me in out of the cold :P

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Originally Posted by PallasLloyd

Yeah but he did already.

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Again, SE has HARD DATA and you have... your imagination I guess(?) when it comes to numbers of players and how much gil they have.

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Originally Posted by Despite

Glad they're not caving to the entitled whiners. GG
The amount of "this game will fail now because housing is too expensive" is really telling to the amount of immature slackers we have here on the forums and in game.

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Ohh they will cave lol just wait a little...a few mainstream gaming newsites are in the process of writing about the issue

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Originally Posted by Velox

This is perfect! I've always wanted to role-play someone homeless. SE gave me exactly what I wanted.
Maybe someone will be nice enough to take me in out of the cold :P

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I can give you access to my gridanian inn room! Or we could use some bridges around Eorzea as a shelter! Haha.