What should be added to housing...

Hello everyone!

I've been playing FF14 for a long while and needless to say me and my mate have accumulated a vast amount of wealth which allowed us to purchase a large house and invest millions on it ever since. We are very proud of our acquisition to say the least! But such a valuable possession can quickly become a heavy burden and I will soon explain why.

First of all, a house cannot be sold thus making such an acquisition a very poisonous one as there is no way to ever get back the gil invested in any way. Obviously, the housing system was built to be a permanent cash sink which is a shame since it binds people. Even worst since the items inside are bound to the house thus further preventing the recycling of used items. Unable to relinquish the demesne for a price is a grave flaw that has to be fixed in the future in my opinion or at least give players the option to alleviate the circumstances... For example... If I even want to change server one day because friends move to a new place, I won't be able to in fear of losing my extremely large investment. I would like to propose solutions for such an hindrance before it does become a major problem for some.

My first idea was to allow people to move their house with them or in this case... the instance of your house from one server to the other. Since each houses are separated instances with fixed locations for a limited amount of furniture, it could technically be possible and even easy to simply move the data package depending on how the system works and allocate a new trigger (door) that will lead the target to the house instance. That would allow a player to move his house to a free plot on a different server or even better, change plot on your current server if you are not satisfied with your current plot. That would require some additional plots depending on the available ones and incoming players (a bit like what Yoshi-P said about new instances being created as the plots fill up) hence why it might not be the best solution but with a bit more polishing, something could be done.

Another idea would be to make all housing areas accessible by all the servers. Such an idea would require a lot of work, additional programming if not even additional servers altogether. It is a very complex idea but I believe this idea could bring some life to the currently deserted residential districts and turn them into social hubs and gateways to the communities of other servers thus linking us all in some way (With appropriate restrictions such as ''No-trading'' to keep things balanced). Crazy talk... I know. Anyway, as for the solution that would bring to a transferring player? It is pretty simple... It no longer matters since your house will be accessible from a different server so changing server wouldn't be a sacrifice anymore. Finally, such an idea would also allow population of crowded servers to access the housing areas of low pop servers and purchase houses there if no other plots are available.

What do you guys think? Do you think the housing areas are okay as they are? How would you feel about losing a 100 million gil investment because you want to switch server? Would you like to meet players from other worlds in your residential district?

Some people "sell" land by occupying it and freeing it up once a fee is paid. Granted, there is some risk with a transaction such as this, but the risk similar in vein to selling raid clears.

As for housing's function as a gil sink, I think that is intentional.

What should be really added to housing is the feature to kick houses that haven't been accessed for over a month. I bet there's so many abandoned houses up in the older wards right now... -.-

And I still think wards should be an option, not a must. They are an hinderance right now as they limit the amount of houses we can have. They should've started with instanced houses first.

The funny thing is that they justify the wards system by saying people asked for neighborhoods, yet said neighborhoods are mostly desert. I am in my FC's ward daily and it's a miracle if there's more than 6 people in the zone at any given time. Imo, this is what they should've done:

1) Make instanced housing. This allows everyone to have a house, especially if instead of gil it asks for GC points or Main Scenario progress like for most of other games. I'm thinking of an instance similar to the Demon Doors in the Fable games, with house, yard with field, well and whatever. It would start with small, and will be able to be expanded through further accomplishments.
2) Make the housing wards, limited as they are now (since they don't have the servers do add more currently). For a fee (like the current fees we have now), you'll be able to move your instanced house inside the ward. Of course, the price will raise with your instanced house's size, and you'll need to select a plot your house can fit in.

This way, all those who want a house can have a house, and all those who actually care to have a neighborhood (and will use it), can have a neighborhood. Houses for all, and no more ghost towns.

Instanced structured upgraded housing. Start out with a streamlined near given event, like main scenario unlocking a chocobo - in this case main scenario unlocking a customization small inn room.

Upgrade-able in size, rooms, and then to even outdoors. Make it a gil sink sure, but also make it streamlined in an extremely accessible manor. Something like Wild Star/Rift*, except with the FF insurance of quality- general awesome graphics and wims we know of FF. *Just off hand examples.

Add networking later, cheap but possible quaint FC Chrono Trigger end of time rooms- even deeper connections with actual instancing docking or just cute doors and portals, like having a "room" in your FC that is just a door to your own housing area. Make it optional, or seriously improve on the current system cause.. no one is socializing and only a few houses are actually active. I think binding FC to personal housing would be helpful (making ease between the two, and the usefulness of both).

Also a stronger housing editing system so people can make like the inn rooms as seen by the three companies, so obviously a wall editing tool. All pipe dreams, and I would not except any of this possible quickly.. but would be neat (imo). Basic shapes for people who just want to plop a square, throw some hay and trough and call it a choco shed.

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Originally Posted by Bluevann

What should be really added to housing is the feature to kick houses that haven't been accessed for over a month.

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People take breaks from MMOs. They shouldn't be losing 40 million gil because of it. Maybe 100 days, but absolutely not a month.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

People take breaks from MMOs. They shouldn't be losing 40 million gil because of it. Maybe 100 days, but absolutely not a month.

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I don't see why players who actually play every day and take the effort of making the money for a house must wait that long for someone who isn't even playing the game. Players shouldn't have the power to occupy any kind of space while offline. If you can't stay play the game for a month, then get a smaller house and lose less money. Why should you have the biggest and coolest house away from others to then let it rot while offline?

But of course this is an imaginary scenario we're talking about, cause in all servers there's plenty of large houses still free. The small houses are those that need to be free'd up. And you can make 4M back in a month if you really slack.

Also, I'm not sure if you've read the rest of my post, but if SE went with my suggestion (which is not only my own), this feature wouldn't even be needed.

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Originally Posted by Bluevann

I don't see why players who actually play every day and take the effort of making the money for a house must wait that long for someone who isn't even playing the game. Players shouldn't have the power to occupy any kind of space while offline. If you can't stay play the game for a month, then get a smaller house and lose less money. Why should you have the biggest and coolest house away from others to then let it rot while offline?

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There are many different playing patterns out there.

Some people burn through content and don't come back until the next major content update. I know some people like that, and personally have done something like that before. (Quit partway through 2.2 and came back at the cusp of 2.3)

Some people do want time to play other games. I burnt through some of my steam backlog during my hiatus.

Btw, how much is a cheapo house?

people keep failing to understand that instanced housing consumes the same amount of server memory than wards, they will be adding more plots as they upgrade the servers, but this require time and money.

I think a plot upgrade or refund system would be nice for those wanting to upgrade a house.

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Originally Posted by Whimsicalalien

Btw, how much is a cheapo house?

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Around 5m, plot and building, plus 10m if you want another player to relinquish a plot because there are no free ones.

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Originally Posted by CGMidlander

There are many different playing patterns out there.

Some people burn through content and don't come back until the next major content update. I know some people like that, and personally have done something like that before. (Quit partway through 2.2 and came back at the cusp of 2.3)

Some people do want time to play other games. I burnt through some of my steam backlog during my hiatus.

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And that is fine, but why must the staying players suffer for them? You are offline, it's been a month, all you had to do was keep paying your subscription and log in once (or have one of your FC mates do it). If you won't go through that hassle, why should you keep the house? That you paid for it a while ago is not a valid excuse. Seriously, if it were for me I'd make the cooldown ever shorter. I am a casual, take 2-3 days breaks when I really have to, but every time I log in I do spend time around my house to craft, RP, or just chat with friends while I wait for queues. The other houses around ours are empty and ghost-like, it's unnerving.

In my opinion, if you go through the hassle to get something and then don't use it at least on a weekly basis, then you didn't really want nor need that thing, and someone should have the right to take it if the source is limited.

I don't know how things work over there in the United States, but over here, if someone who cannot afford buying a house finds one that has been abandoned for x years and goes through the effort to fix it up and make it fill the requirements to be considered a safe living place, he can rightfully claim ownership of that house. It's how we solve the issue of abandoned homes in the countryside.

To want to keep something that you have not been using and that others cannot get elsewhere is selfish to say the least.

Loose your house after a month? How about no. You keep talking like the staying player is entitled to something, you're not. They beat you in the race they can do what they want with it frankly. The problem isn't in players it's in the system itself, you're just looking for reasons for those that have to loose so that you can gain.

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Originally Posted by Gurpsmeister

Loose your house after a month? How about no. You keep talking like the staying player is entitled to something, you're not. They beat you in the race they can do what they want with it frankly. The problem isn't in players it's in the system itself, you're just looking for reasons for those that have to loose so that you can gain.

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Imagine if amount of players that could be logged in on the server at the same time was limited the way wards are, and imagine offline players would have their characters still in the game world and taking space, not letting other players log in. It's the same principle with houses. You're not using it, I want to use it and there's no more slots left. It's a flawed system that makes absolutely no sense, to let offline players take up limited in-game space.

But again everyone is getting defensive and paranoid about my opinion on plots reset (as if it had any impact on what SE will do; we already saw on who's side they're on, so chill out.) and not even looking at my proposal which would fix the whole issue entirely, so we may just agree to disagree.

#1 My neighborhood (both FC and personal) is not a ghost town and I hang out with said neighbors daily while sitting around crafting and jokin. so please never change this to instance because THAT would be the ghost town.

#2 A system for relinquishing land after being completely inactive for some time SHOULD be in place. Im taking like you have not even stepped foot in said house in months, have no furnishings inside or out or you have not logged in and sub canceled. Doing this will fill those "ghost houses" with people who are actually enthusiastic about housing thus making the neighborhood more alive. (I dont know how long that should be but you know they can see the data and determine automatically some sorta set definition for losing your house due to being gone)

#3 Housing item limit. I have, in my basement alone, almost all 100 items available to a small house. That made a sweet office, bathroom and bedroom that actually looks like a home. would like to make a kitchen and den upstairs one day so please make this happen.

#4 Jukebox

#5 MEGA-SERVER just for housing... the time has come SE upgrade yo stuff!

SE really dropped the ball when they implemented personal housing by just opening up (and adding to) existing wards and allowing individuals to purchase them. This was definitely not what had been promised - accessible housing that was cheaper than FC houses. The thing is, housing is a gateway to significant game content, namely chocobo raising and gardening.


SE can keep their existing system but should add a real estate feature that would allow people to list and sell their property. Bring the existing "black market" out of the shadows (people already sell Free Companies with existing housing).

Second, they could introduce a form of rental housing that does not have a neighborhood. Something like an Inn room on steroids. These would be leased, say 50K gil per RL week or so. If you stop paying rent, all of your belongings would go into "escrow" and could be recovered (for a fee) when you renew your rent. Renters would also get optional (additional gil fee) access to "community" gardens and stables.

This would be more accessible than the current system. The downside compared to the existing housing (which would still exist) would be the inability to furnish an outdoor area and lack of neighborhood (with market boards, etc).

Housing being a gil sink is a joke, it's a one time cost, I know many people who just got loans from friend to buy theirs then paid them back. If SE really wanted to make housing a legitimate gil sink and fix the issue with houses being abandoned they should do what DAoC did for their housing.

Make enough plots for everyone for starters, but make the plots cheap and affordable, make the houses themselves be super expensive, charge weekly rent depending on size of house you have (you'd forfeit your plot if you didn't put a house down in the first week).

For rent, you'd have a rent box you could use to pay for up to 4 weeks of rent at a time, if you were gone for longer than 4 weeks and your rent box ran out of gil. Then rent would start being taken out of any gil you had on your retainers.

Charging weekly rent would be much more legitimate gil sink, keep plots opening up as peoples rent ran out and being a constant drain on the owners gil.

it's easy to let people "move", without taking out the gil sink. simply create Housing Credits which can only be used to buy housing plots, when you relinquish your land you get the equivalent of your plot's fully devalued price in Housing Credits and the only thing you can use them for is to buy another plot of land.

to make it more "fair" the amount you get back could be equivalent to the lowest price of all same size plots on your server that's still for sale. if no plots of that size are available you get full value of your plot back in Housing Credits, which in theory you can use to upgrade to a larger plot size.

and i'm so glad there's no idiotic rent system or real estate tax, i pay that in real life, i don't need to buy a fake house and have to work to maintain that too.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

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seriously... a way to upgrade to a med house then large (even tho large is to big for me lol) might actually be a legit way to alleviate this mess. the gil sink aspect is not the primary focus here, it is the server space and the lack there of. And for that rant idea above... lolwtf?

What should be added is what was stated we were getting: "that prices will be completely separate from free company housing, and, naturally, far more affordable"

I think a Option to sell their house without giving up their free company should be a new option they should add.

Or

A option to upgrade the insides of your house like make a down stairs in small house for a fee without changing the size of the house.
Example small upgrades to medium, Medium upgrades to large and large gets a room for gardening like a green house.

A crystal for the outside that teleports you between mist, goblet and lavender.
you cannot exit out of mist lavender or goblet unless you go back to the place you used the crystal from.

different looking outside looks not based on what the city gives you, like basically how goblets looks are locked away from mist looks I believe that should not exist and people should have the right to change what their house looks like from the outside not be locked from that option.

Also yard space you can't even put what you really want out there because its limited and that should be raised.

Grass option added to looks or have a swimming pool added outside maybe your house made out of ice or a rock mountain think outside of the box or a pub like a bar everyones houses look the same instead it should look like a real village.

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Originally Posted by Bluevann

In my opinion, if you go through the hassle to get something and then don't use it at least on a weekly basis, then you didn't really want nor need that thing, and someone should have the right to take it if the source is limited.

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It doesn't matter whether someone "needs" something. I bought a bicycle that I don't *need*, but I bought it with my money and if I want to let it sit all winter I will. It's not for you to take away from me just because there might be a shortage of bikes or whatever. It's mine, period.

The issue at hand is an issue of design from the ground up. IT'S THE WORST HOUSING DESIGN, EVER.


Period. It needs a redesign from the ground up so that it doesn't matter what another player has. It's not even your BUSINESS what another player has. What she has shouldn't encroach upon you, and what you have shouldn't encroach upon her. That SE is leaving the system like this, where a sizable portion of the playerbase is locked out of content, is very telling about how much they care for us. Instead of working on content that everyone can enjoy in their own way, they create systems of competition that always leaves someone out.

Awesome way to design a game. I've said it before - they better knock it out of the park with the Golden Saucer. I think there's quite a bit of us who are on our third strike with regards to our willingness to continue investing in this game.

Affordability for the regular Joe.

One plot allowed per server (fc ownership doesn't count toward this number), separate FC and individual housing there by relieving some of the pressure. Also reduce (and refund the difference) the price of individual housing.

Finally: ADD MORE WARDS TO HIGH POPULATION SERVERS!

You do not need to add wards to all the servers at the same time. You need to look at this on a server by server basis. This will reduce the pressure on your servers while solving demand on your customers end.

I want a house but I only have 250,000 Eorzean euros. I would like them to add a houses for this amount for the poor people.

They should add a slums you know like in final fantasy tactics the lion war.

For people who can't afford housing, make it a broke down village with minimal options hahahaha

Personal chest maybe? For us personal home owners. I may just buy a one man FC, for the free chest space. Though I'd like to avoid it, if at all possible. I get that housing is a gil sink and somewhat vanity. But a little more function is highly appreciated.

Completely agree... So because I worked harder and got my house earlier than you, and finished all the content... Now I get to have my house taken away cause you are slow?

I'm still paying my monthly fee, why do I have to login just to keep my house?

1 month is way too short.
3mo min.

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Originally Posted by Bluevann

What should be really added to housing is the feature to kick houses that haven't been accessed for over a month. I bet there's so many abandoned houses up in the older wards right now... -.-

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Hell no. I had planned to go on a five week trip in 2015 and I have no plans to bring my PC along. I am thinking I only dare to be gone 4 weeks now with the 35 day limit and the fact that my investment in the game is starting to effect my real life plans disgust me. Se should increase the amount of inactive time instead assuming you still pay your subscription. In fact, as long as a person keep paying they should never have to log in to ensure everything is saved.