Housing - SE This WILL Help!

Square Enix,
I know this is a problem on many servers and I know it was briefly addressed prior to the Heavensward drop; but every single housing ward on my server is full.. a large portion of these plot owners aren't even active. Players & FC's that haven't been online in months(some being well over 6 months).

Now wouldn't it be easy to add an active owner time limit? To be more specific, if the owner of the house/FC leader hasn't been online for so many months or however long.. the housing plot is forfeited.

Granted, we might even still need more wards added to each housing zone.. but would this not help?

Or add tax the house (like pay per week ?) to keep house active and able to fund for thier own FC home ?

This was due to be implemented at one point and people threw such a huge fit that SE scrapped it.

They said in the most recently live letter that they are working on it.

I suspect that the first thing that will go is houses for deleted characters.

F2P flavor of the month very wrongly managed korean MMORPG = Housing for all its player base and guild halls.
B2P sub AAA re-release of a big budget exclusive super hyped housing = LOL nope sorry, 3hard5us.

No weird system needs to be made. SE needs to buy more servers and optimize their coding, because its horrible, this game isn`t limited by consoles, but by horrible coding that need SE to host the game on CERNs labs to work like any F2P game does.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

They said in the most recently live letter that they are working on it.

I suspect that the first thing that will go is houses for deleted characters.

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I'm quite sure houses owned by deleted characters are automatically freed.

They NEED to implement a Decay timer. I really don't care how many players cry about it being unfair. If you can't be bothered to log in for 6 months you don't deserve to hold a limited resource that other players could be using.

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Originally Posted by Syrehn

They NEED to implement a Decay timer. I really don't care how many players cry about it being unfair. If you can't be bothered to log in for 6 months you don't deserve to hold a limited resource that other players could be using.

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Actually he does. As he does deserve all his achievements, gear and possessions to stay just as he left them even if he doesn`t log for 10 years.

Hurting player to try to help a badly implemented and thought system is even worse. A real solution is needed.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

Actually he does. As he does deserve all his achievements, gear and possessions to stay just as he left them even if he doesn`t log for 10 years.

Hurting player to try to help a badly implemented and thought system is even worse. A real solution is needed.

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We can agree to disagree then because a decay time is absolutely needed and is a real solution in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

Actually he does. As he does deserve all his achievements, gear and possessions to stay just as he left them even if he doesn`t log for 10 years.

Hurting player to try to help a badly implemented and thought system is even worse. A real solution is needed.

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It's unreasonable to expect SE to keep spending server resources on a house that for a character that hasn't been logged into for 6+ months. What about if in 5 years time and FFXIV is more popular and then add more housing, do you honestly expect them to keep up a house for potentially hundreds of thousands inactive players (if they ever fix the limited space issue)?

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Originally Posted by Colorful

It's unreasonable to expect SE to keep spending server resources on a house that for a character that hasn't been logged into for 6+ months. What about if in 5 years time and FFXIV is more popular and then add more housing, do you honestly expect them to keep up a house for potentially hundreds of thousands inactive players (if they ever fix the limited space issue)?

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Might as well delete their accounts too with that logic, takes up SE server space right?

Something's gotta happen, cause man it's been a long time since there's been houses available.

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Originally Posted by MihaelB

Might as well delete their accounts too with that logic, takes up SE server space right?

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The difference is, accounts aren't a finite resource. Housing is.

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Originally Posted by MihaelB

Might as well delete their accounts too with that logic, takes up SE server space right?

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From what we've been told SE saves what's currently going on in the server every few seconds, meaning housing as they're not instanced and not inactive characters, server space for characters (I'd assume anyway) would be a few KBs at most, server stress is a different matter entirely. It if it was a simple as throwing more server space we'd have plenty of housing available. But yes, let's compare two entirely different things to somehow support your point.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

Actually he does. As he does deserve all his achievements, gear and possessions to stay just as he left them even if he doesn`t log for 10 years.

Hurting player to try to help a badly implemented and thought system is even worse. A real solution is needed.

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Actually no, he doesn't. A player is fine to do anything as long as it does not inhibit the activities of other players, and an inactive player effectively squatting on an unused plot of land prevents other players from using that land. Plenty of other MMOs have real estate housing like this and they all have a decay system that takes property out of the hands of inactive players. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. The players are compensated for the loss and all their belongings go into storage usually but they cannot keep the house.

The fact is housing is a finite resource and thus any player that is not actively using it must be forced to give it up to another player that will use it. There is no other solution short of building an entirely instanced housing system and that is incredibly unlikely at this point.

May I direct your attention to the Housing subforum where this (and I guess every other related idea and opinion) has been discussed to death already...

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Actually no, he doesn't. A player is fine to do anything as long as it does not inhibit the activities of other players, and an inactive player effectively squatting on an unused plot of land prevents other players from using that land. Plenty of other MMOs have real estate housing like this and they all have a decay system that takes property out of the hands of inactive players. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. The players are compensated for the loss and all their belongings go into storage usually but they cannot keep the house.

The fact is housing is a finite resource and thus any player that is not actively using it must be forced to give it up to another player that will use it. There is no other solution short of building an entirely instanced housing system and that is incredibly unlikely at this point.

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Accounts are also FINITE, they use space, out there, somewhere, inventory spaces, item IDs, profile settings, etc, etc, etc. So, lets delete all 6 months unplayed accounts.

NO.

The fact is that SE needs to upgrade servers and learn to code. Hurting players by making them lose their stuff if they become absent is just nonsense, and actually, a very bad overall policy cause it means the end of any chance of said players to return to the game, so, no, that unjustified terribly thought fantasy of you people won`t happen.

All MMORPGs out there can do housing right when we talk about accesibility and being able to support the whole player base potentially. The excuse for SE (and this has become the scapegoat for almost all of this game problems) of the server issues has been used enough. Its time for a real solution, no inverted clone wards. Hurting players to not solve a problem is bad. Even unactive players that could potentially always return.

For example, if i leave, and i know my plot was fred and now someone else is using it, thats it, gg SE, and i would never return to the game. So thankfully, SE is smart enough to see that this is NOT a solution.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

For example, if i leave, and i know my plot was fred and now someone else is using it, thats it, gg SE, and i would never return to the game. So thankfully, SE is smart enough to see that this is NOT a solution.

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I'm in the opposite boat here. If I left the game for 6months - 1+yrs I wouldn't expect SE to hold my house in limbo when other active players could use the plot; that's just asinine in my books and nothing that I would quit the game over.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

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As opposed to a new player joining and seeing that they'll never have a chance at obtaining a house? But yeah, I do agree with the general idea that SE needs to do something about the system first before implementing this. Instanced housing! I couldn't care less if it opposes Yoshida's original vision and he shouldn't either, it's good for the game.

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Originally Posted by Syrehn

We can agree to disagree then because a decay time is absolutely needed and is a real solution in my opinion.

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So is instanced housing.

Then it doesn't matter if he hasn't logged in in 20 years.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

So is instanced housing.

Then it doesn't matter if he hasn't logged in in 20 years.

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Unfortunately I sincerely doubt that SE will change the current housing model and short of constantly adding new servers for wards/housing (I really don't see that happening) then a decay timer is a reasonable solution providing appropriate decay limits are set.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

As opposed to a new player joining and seeing that they'll never have a chance at obtaining a house? But yeah, I do agree with the general idea that SE needs to do something about the system first before implementing this. Instanced housing! I couldn't care less if it opposes Yoshida's original vision and he shouldn't either, it's good for the game.

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Thing is, the free up space will not do anything for said new player joining, cause the plot would be used by other person and we would still have the same issue.

Just do maths. 26 wards of 30 houses, 780 houses per server (lets not even begin to divide them per size). Which players AND guilds have to fight for, even if being INCREDIBLY generous and saying that 10% of those plots are of unactive players, that would be a wooping 78 houses slots being open PER server each 6 months that would get bought in a few weeks because need. The new player? gg the new player.

Making unactive plots free is not a solution. And this needs solution.

Saying that is a solutions, equals to accept that SE shitty coding and server managment is ok and is an acceptable excuse for every freaking failed system they have implemented in the last 2 years.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

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I think the goal is that with enough housing added overtime (maybe 100,000-300,000 spots? I imagine that's still a incredible amount more than we have now though) it'll be enough to satisfy the current player base's demand, as opposed to just building onto it over and over each time there's an increase in subscriptions.

There's no real decent "solution" until they rework it. The benefits of instanced housing are limitless, easier on the servers, the possibility to own your own island instead of just a house, larger outdoor furniture (seeing airships float fly around the instanced island maybe?), guild towns with each room being visible on the island, etc. Of course this would take a lot of development time but instanced housing would open all that up, and in the end I believe it would be worth it and could be a major selling point of the game... rather than what we have now.

The only thing SE can do to salvage housing is make it all instanced the way it should have been in the first place. They shot themselves in the foot when they decided to make little neighborhoods (cute on paper, trainwreck in practice). No matter what they do they'll never be able to provide enough houses for every single player and FC to have one with the current system.

Solution for today and tomorrow there is none.

Right now, players coming to this game, only read horrible things about this game housing, lack of basic QoL options (mirror!), customization (all houses are squared clones of each other) and the worse part, accesibility. So yeah, this needs to be adressed and change. In a way that doesn`t hurt the already crippled system.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

The only thing SE can do to salvage housing is make it all instanced the way it should have been in the first place. They shot themselves in the foot when they decided to make little neighborhoods (cute on paper, trainwreck in practice). No matter what they do they'll never be able to provide enough houses for every single player and FC to have one with the current system.

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While I don't disagree with instanced housing I doubt they'll do it and I don't think they originally wanted every FC/individual player to own personal housing (which also sucks).

The fact personal housing and guild housing are the same thing and you have groups of players fighting for plots against individuals.

Honestly, i think is one of the worse design decisions in the history of MMORPG housing, but, i think housing is meant to be a luxury item only a few can have. Which is horrible beyond words.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

The fact personal housing and guild housing are the same thing and you have groups of players fighting for plots against individuals.

Honestly, i think is one of the worse design decisions in the history of MMORPG housing, but, i think housing is meant to be a luxury item only a few can have. Which is horrible beyond words.

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unfortunately things that matter to many (chocobo stables, garden) are tied to housing...so much for it being a fluff luxury item, eh?

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Originally Posted by Syrehn

While I don't disagree with instanced housing I doubt they'll do it and I don't think they originally wanted every FC/individual player to own personal housing (which also sucks).

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They originally*did* want everyone to have one.

The wards were supposed to be FC only and personal houses were going to be separate and cheaper.

Since they threw that idea out, they kept the prices way up so that no one could afford them and made them ffa.

Basically if you couldn't afford it the instant one became available, you were SoL.

It would be nice if FCs could have certain areas for their homes (more like fortresses - Ishguard style!) separate from the player base.

Why the housing wards are not on cloud-based servers that grow as needed boggles my mind.

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MMORPG.de: A lot of players complain about the housing situation. They want to buy a house, but it is impossible to find free plots on some worlds. Are there any plans to improve the situation?

NY: Yes, we are working on it, and there are three phases. The first step is working on abandoned houses, so there’s no owner, or player there actually. The second step is to make it available to players that they can move house. There is no system in game yet that can help you to change the house, so we want to help and support this in the game. With these two steps we will be able to have some empty plots. Then we want to see if we have to open up an Ishgard plot or add more plot to the existing areas. That is the third step. We want to be careful here and judge the situation first. We are working on step 1 and 2 already. There will be some updates, probably in patches 3.1 to 3.15, around this time.

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Source

I mentioned this in my thread about Housing. You can find lots of details and great suggestions here. Please feel free to add to the conversation and see what others have suggested. You have touched on another of the failings in what could have been an excellent piece of content.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

Accounts are also FINITE, they use space, out there, somewhere, inventory spaces, item IDs, profile settings, etc, etc, etc. So, lets delete all 6 months unplayed accounts.

NO.

The fact is that SE needs to upgrade servers and learn to code. Hurting players by making them lose their stuff if they become absent is just nonsense, and actually, a very bad overall policy cause it means the end of any chance of said players to return to the game, so, no, that unjustified terribly thought fantasy of you people won`t happen.

All MMORPGs out there can do housing right when we talk about accesibility and being able to support the whole player base potentially. The excuse for SE (and this has become the scapegoat for almost all of this game problems) of the server issues has been used enough. Its time for a real solution, no inverted clone wards. Hurting players to not solve a problem is bad. Even unactive players that could potentially always return.

For example, if i leave, and i know my plot was fred and now someone else is using it, thats it, gg SE, and i would never return to the game. So thankfully, SE is smart enough to see that this is NOT a solution.

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This is a false equivalence. The limitation on wards is nothing to do with the amount of data it takes up in the database. There is effectively infinite storage space for accounts because they take up only a small amount of room and they are stored in a database on a separate server. When a player goes inactive their account data is not being loaded into the live world server since they're not accessing the game. It's also very likely they have an archiving system that archives accounts that have been inactive for prolonged periods of time so as to improve access speeds for the accounts that are currently active (I know FFXI used to do this). The inactive account is, therefore, not getting in anyone's way and not slowing anything down.

The housing wards are persistant areas. This means they are always loaded into the server at all times. This is why SE cannot easily add new wards since it requires them to expand the actual physical world servers to be able to hold the data for each new ward. When an inactive player has a house in a persistant area they are essentially wasting space on the world server since their house is being loaded to the server even though the player is inactive. In addition to this other players cannot access that plot for themselves because it's being squatted by a selfish inactive player who has no use for it.

Expanding the database for accounts is cheap to do and they take up little space. Expanding the capacity for housing is expensive since every new ward added is like adding a new zone in an expansion. I hope you see the difference and why your argument holds no merit.