Housing For Free Companies Needs Desperate Attention

My name is Grady Judd and I have been playing FFXIV for going on five years now, for the last two years my FC and I have been attempting to upgrade from our small plot to a medium or a large with no success. We had gotten our hopes up when we heard the announcement that several new wards were to be added to the game, but once again after entering into bids every single week since the new wards were added we still cannot win a lottery. My question and concern is why do FC specific wards which are meant to help with some of the housing population issues by housing multiple members of a Free Company instead of those individuals attempting to purchase private plots on their own, have the same distribution of small/medium/and large plots as private or mixed wards? On my home world Jenova server Aether and at the time of writing this, looking at just the FC exclusive wards 1-6 and 25, there are 270 open small plots and that number of open small plots has not changed much in the last several months since the new wards were added. I just cannot understand why FC exclusive wards have this much wasted housing space which is littered by small plots that Free Companies clearly are not interested in to the same degree as Medium and Large plots. Free Companies by design have both more members to house in a single plot and more Gil to invest into a more expensive plot which is why I would assume that these smalls are left largely ignored. I sincerely wish the FFXIV team would take a good long look at this issue and please address it.

The idea is to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible. The jump from no house to small house opens a ton of official functions (FC rooms, workshop) and a very important unofficial one (designated place for your FC to meet). There is no increase in functionality going from a small to a medium besides more crafting stations (which are barely used) and an extra gardening plot.

Even so, considering house prices have not kept up with inflation, this is really just a holdover from back when even a small house cost an arm and a leg. The reality of it is it would be better to have a split that skews more towards larges and mediums, as long as there are still enough smalls for newbie FCs to get their foot in the door. You'd be safe with a 5/10/15 L/M/S split, or even 10/10/10. They just stuck with the same design they had back in ARR.

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Originally Posted by GradyJudd

My name is Grady Judd and I have been playing FFXIV for going on five years now, for the last two years my FC and I have been attempting to upgrade from our small plot to a medium or a large with no success. We had gotten our hopes up when we heard the announcement that several new wards were to be added to the game, but once again after entering into bids every single week since the new wards were added we still cannot win a lottery. My question and concern is why do FC specific wards which are meant to help with some of the housing population issues by housing multiple members of a Free Company instead of those individuals attempting to purchase private plots on their own, have the same distribution of small/medium/and large plots as private or mixed wards? On my home world Jenova server Aether and at the time of writing this, looking at just the FC exclusive wards 1-6 and 25, there are 270 open small plots and that number of open small plots has not changed much in the last several months since the new wards were added. I just cannot understand why FC exclusive wards have this much wasted housing space which is littered by small plots that Free Companies clearly are not interested in to the same degree as Medium and Large plots. Free Companies by design have both more members to house in a single plot and more Gil to invest into a more expensive plot which is why I would assume that these smalls are left largely ignored. I sincerely wish the FFXIV team would take a good long look at this issue and please address it.

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The reality is that the cost of housing is not reflective of the current availability of gil. People pay upwards of half a mill just for a few hours of RP now versus 5 years ago. As such most people can easily skip purchasing a small - so they do so immediately. Essentially many skip to the "endgame" of housing the moment they enter the market as a result.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

The reality is that the cost of housing is not reflective of the current availability of gil. People pay upwards of half a mill just for a few hours of RP now versus 5 years ago. As such most people can easily skip purchasing a small - so they do so immediately. Essentially many skip to the "endgame" of housing the moment they enter the market as a result.

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Theirs a small in my ward thats been bid been unbid on for a like a month and a half now

On the new worlds, there is multiple wards full of empty plots. At least in EU.

You just need any house for FC, size is really not of matter and only advantage is up to 3 garden plots, so wont lose/need anything whenever it get to it

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

You just need any house for FC, size is really not of matter and only advantage is up to 3 garden plots, so wont lose/need anything whenever it get to it

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Maybe they enjoy decorating the house, small is very limited with inventory slots.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

Maybe they enjoy decorating the house, small is very limited with inventory slots.

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Use the FC rooms and create alts.... each room could represent a part in the FC.... had a friend who did that... the entire houses was like a ship... with all kinds of rooms, just saying of course.

And also the decoration limit for FFXIV makes the game dekadent and silly to have to shut off areas in Houses Medium/large because the limit is to low.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Use the FC rooms and create alts.... each room could represent a part in the FC.... had a friend who did that... the entire houses was like a ship... with all kinds of rooms, just saying of course.

And also the decoration limit for FFXIV makes the game dekadent and silly to have to shut off areas in Houses Medium/large because the limit is to low.

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You make it sound like every FC is a solo FC. That's far from the truth.

The problem with FC rooms as additional space for the FC house is that what happens in the room is up to the individual characters. Tenants can't be added to help with decorating while the FC Master can set up rank permissions to give part or all of the FC members the ability to decorate in the house.

Other members would also have to remember which member's room serves what purpose instead of just moving through the house room to room without loading screens.

The big discussion would be "what creates a reasonable need for one FC/player type to own a larger house compared to other FCs/players" and I don't think the player base would ever be able to come to an agreement on that. Personally I think a large social FC with a large number of active player online concurrently each day would benefit more from having a large house. And by that I mean a FC with 20+ members online concurrently actively doing things together instead of everyone doing their own thing. If it's a FC where everyone is doing their own thing, then a small FC house would work regardless of the total number of members.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Personally I think a large social FC with a large number of active player online concurrently each day would benefit more from having a large house. And by that I mean a FC with 20+ members online concurrently actively doing things together instead of everyone doing their own thing. If it's a FC where everyone is doing their own thing, then a small FC house would work regardless of the total number of members.

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I agree with this. Only large fc's that actually use the house for their events and daily gatherings would have a reason to have a mansion. Anyone else, fc or private, wants it for the bigger decorating space and item storage.

To put this into context, my server (Odin) has 329 free companies with at least 31 members. The server has 210 mansions in fc-only wards, and an additional 540 mansions in hybrid wards which add to a total of 750 mansions available to free companies. An fc with that many active members would be able to place multiple bids and eventually get a mansion if they wanted to. Going by the few fc profile pages I looked at on the Lodestone, most of those large fcs have already done so.

Once auto-demo is put back on and the new data center is opened it will be easier to get a medium or a mansion again and the ones who missed out will get their chance.