"The REAL Problem With Housing" and Other Flaws on the Devs' Behalf
Everyone has been talking about "add more houses" "add more wards" and as a person who has been homeless for about three years now I can tell you, I'm pretty damn thirsty to live in a taste of vanity. I hear the frustrations of the common man, I share them, I understand them. But I am here to tell you that simply adding wards isn't going to solve the issue, and it goes back to core issues we experience in game.
Brace yourselves cuz I got a lot of replies to this post and its gonna get chunky.
Bots
Let's start off with this. Botting has made this game absolutely abhorrent and it doesn't look like this problem is being addressed. We have servers that should belong to players, not programmed player scripts. Botting gets worse as patches roll around, as with each patch new features are promised, features which normally cost gil, gil that these bots earn, and they need to hoard a lot of it so EVERY server in EVERY data center goes through huge member inflation.
Bots lead to server crowding and sometimes crashing, so every real human player, because they are not on a real time program, can't take priority to get in or even join some servers because the servers are always full and the load isn't even humans behind it.
This NEEDS fixed. And it isn't enough to say that it needs fixed, we as players all know this, but the game only gives us an option to report these fake accounts and that's it. Furthermore the accounts can be easily remade and rebotted--they don't mean anything to the people behind the scripting programs that uphold them, all these bots are to them is gold generators, gold that can be remade in a given amount of time and redistributed. SE should dedicate more of its time getting to the root of this rather than ban single characters and call that a solution.
Real Money Transfer
As if the botting isn't enough there are people who actively participate in real-money-to-gil transactions. In both situations, gil is sold, meaning that gil is given real money value. In many cases in games with a currency of their own this causes inflation. Put that to the housing sink, everything purchased in it can now be converted to a real life currency, one in which people will pay rather than earn it in game.
We can't just say 'well give them more gil either because that isn't solving that problem, at least not fully, but at least then the market would be determined by the players who work for their gil rather than pay money for it.
Self Sufficient Gameplay
Sounds like a good thing, and it is..but it isn't. "Omni" players, objectively, do not need anyone to fulfill their purposes if they so choose. It is interesting as it gives players an option to try a little bit of everything they want, but at the same time it eliminates community and cooperation. In games where players have a list of jobs and are only allowed to choose a few but have need for all, this gives players a chance to work with other, make trades, barters, and exchanges, and flourish the economy. Really the market board is used for luxury purchases with the necessities taking second slot, this can be seen by looking at any board; I guarantee you pets and bardings will completely outprice most to all crafting materials.
Too late now to take the classes back, but one way to aid this issue is to give more benefit and reward for specialization, and something that people will use and circulate.
Gold Sinks
So we've established that bots take up too much room (and one is too much frankly) and that gil is as valuable as the real money amount that is placed upon it. We've also established that gil isn't circulating properly just by self sufficient all-available crafting and gathering, eliminating the need for community cooperation and commerce. But now consider the gil sink traps into which we fall in game, which includes but is not limited to market board taxes (which pay for nothing, so why do they exist?), the steep cost of housing and estates (for what reason should the best large estate be 50,000,000 gil??) and all furnishings therein, teleportation fees (though small they do stack up), and so on. As MMO players we just grow accustomed to the nickel-and-diming, but if that gil isn't being circulated back into the hands of the people, then for what are we spending it and why in such large quantities?
Supply & Demand
Three housing districts. The Goblet, The Lavender Beds, The Mists.
Each district has 8 wards
Each ward is constructed of 2 divisions
Each division contains 30 houses each
For every 1 ward that is 60 total
For every district, that is 480 houses.
For all three districts that gives us a total of 1,440 houses.
You would think that number of houses isn't bad, right? But we've all played this game, busy servers easily top such a number, hell that number could be a collection of only three or four full Free Companies! So what does SE do? Give us 720 more houses in total and tell the players have fun.
Considering the tens of thousand of game subscribers, that number isn't going to cut it. Further still, when the census was taken, ward needs were distributive objectively rather than to server/data center need. Meaning that a low pop server will get just as many new wards as a high pop, rather than distributing wards to places with a much greater demand.
House Availability and Ownership Restriction
But the worst out of ALL this is this scenario right here.
Let's say I run a free company (I do), and I pay the full sub so I have 8 characters on a server (I also do). Housing as far as FC estates will count the FC leader as estate owner. This means that in theory I can:
-Have my characters buy houses within my own estate
-Have my characters buy personal houses of their own.
The only thing it doesn't restrict is the ability to purchase FC estates. SO, in THEORY I, as one player, can own up to seven personal estates and one free company estate. In a word? Stupid.
Why should I be allowed that greed? Account bound ability would be nice in this case, and as disheartening it would be to limit what I could get, much rather I have the limitation if it means more availability to others. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this scenario, and I know for a fact that there are people who exploit it to the dismay of others.
Demolishing Restrictions & Activity
If someone is going to squat on a plot, why let them? But so far that is what SE allows. This can be easily eliminated by shortening the activity window. Will the victims of demolished estates be mad? Sure, they have the right of it, but if they have been gone for so long, at whom should they direct their anger? Their damn selves.
Conclusion
One thing I'd like to note is a Tweet I read a while ago discussing how Final Fantasy XIV isn't given proper budgeting and adding too much wards isn't possible because that means paying for additional server space. I mean XV has an anime, manga, movie adaptation, merchandise, and inspired fashion line even BEFORE the game, but *cough cough*
One suggestion to that? Set up an RMT system where SE can profit. World of Warcraft found HUGE success when they offered coins that players could purchase in their vanity shop and sell in game for in game gold, it virtually ELIMINATED the need for gold sellers, and even better it made the in game economy player dependent. It was a win/win/win from all fronts, and i guarantee you that there wouldn't be a person willing to throw a tenner for something poofy or sparkly to show off in game. And then the bots would diminish. And the the economy would find a bit of stability. And that money could go to server space and other necessary fixes. Boom, there it is.
