72,000 House for 300,000 (NA) Accounts..How is this right SE??

Your product details state on gamestop.com

https://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/f...edition/148325

"Make your mark on the world by purchasing and decorating your very own estate"

How is this possible when there is only 72,000 houses on the 25 NA servers 300,000 accounts and 360,000 characters by the "unofficial census"..

Since there is no post flat out asking..

How can you offer this right to own a house then not supply enough for even the amount of players you have now ???

Lets now add in the amount of FCs on NA who can buy the same houses and the number of houses needed sky rockets..

Fact is you need a ton more wards peiod. a "Fair & Square" way to buy them as you put it means nothing if the amount of houses is still far below the amount of just Characters not to mention FCS

Time to stop the band aid fixs and just supply the homes needed, its your system either supply enough with this system or revamp it to one where you can supply enough for all characters/fcs/new players.....please.

I'm sure that's just a generic description they have used for most editions of the game, I mean it doesn't even mention apartments but you could also say this falls under "estate" in a sense as it is something you can purchase and decorate. The number of players on NA worlds also vary greatly so you couldn't just use the NA server as the collective example. Balmung is massively overpopulated and thus the housing situation there is much worse compared to a smaller populated world on the same server. If you were a new player purchasing this then you would never get on Balmung anyway so there is much more of a chance of being able to purchase your own estate on another world. Housing is still a feature of the game and it's right to advertise it, but saying no you won't get a house because of lack of supply isn't always going to be correct because things can change in-game (someone sells via PF, or property gets demolished etc).

Also new wards are coming in the next patch so depending on how it goes, if more is required least they know they can successfully add more and can do it again if necessary.

Oh yea i know population verys per server even the lowest is over 10,000 accounts...wile each has a total of 2,880 houses then add in fcs. They all ready know they can add more wards since they did it last year they added 4 wards per area..The problem is they are penny pinching hense only 720 houses when shiro was added when they knew even the lowest pop server had over 8,000 people homeless

Not entirely sure how else you'd like them to advertise it in any circumstance....

That being said, it's not exactly an easy task to revamp a system where there's already far over 100,000 houses across all servers, and providing more just ends up risking data. Whilst everyone would like housing guaranteed there's no need for the amount of threads there already are. Their 'band aid' fixes are just their way of letting people know they're pretty much well aware of the issue and aren't ignoring it.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Not entirely sure how else you'd like them to advertise it in any circumstance....

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The problem isn't the advertising its the lack of supply of housing. The fact that the lowest server (na) has over 10,000 characters and the highest 20,000 yet both only have 2,880 houses..The point of the post is to try and get SE to supply what they advertise housing for all

We have had our differences sin and to be clear im not trying to argue or start a fight with you but, your right and wrong at the same time. The problem is the core of the housing system that was outdated at its inception, and never properly locked down and defined with proper rules and regulations until it was too late to do something about it. Lets look at Wildstar, whatever you think about that game many people still play it just for the housing and guess what its instanced besides that fact it was designed correctly at the start. So bravo on your enthusiasm Sin and the community needs more people speaking up but more plots is not the answer. Simply wrapping a failed product with a new skin or adding to the bulk of it does not change the fact that a failed outdated product is still a failure.

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Originally Posted by Dragonrage53

We have had our differences sin and to be clear im not trying to argue or start a fight with you but, your right and wrong at the same time. The problem is the core of the housing system that was outdated at its inception, and never properly locked down and defined with proper rules and regulations until it was too late to do something about it. Lets look at Wildstar, whatever you think about that game many people still play it just for the housing and guess what its instanced besides that fact it was designed correctly at the start. So bravo on your enthusiasm Sin and the community needs more people speaking up but more plots is not the answer. Simply wrapping a failed product with a new skin or adding to the bulk of it does not change the fact that a failed outdated product is still a failure.

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I totaly agree. Instanced would solve every thing im totaly in favor of that,,But Se seems dead set on this ward crap..well if there gonna stick with this system hen its time for them to "Man up" and supply whats needed and stop trying to make people settle for little fixs..

Side note: I take none of this personal unless im attack which you have not done, So just cause we disagree on certain things dose not mean i look down on your post in any way, you have alot and i mean alot of good points in your post

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Originally Posted by Dragonrage53

We have had our differences sin and to be clear im not trying to argue or start a fight with you but, your right and wrong at the same time. The problem is the core of the housing system that was outdated at its inception, and never properly locked down and defined with proper rules and regulations until it was too late to do something about it. Lets look at Wildstar, whatever you think about that game many people still play it just for the housing and guess what its instanced besides that fact it was designed correctly at the start. So bravo on your enthusiasm Sin and the community needs more people speaking up but more plots is not the answer. Simply wrapping a failed product with a new skin or adding to the bulk of it does not change the fact that a failed outdated product is still a failure.

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omg I miss Wildstar housing so bad! Sad I didn't care for the dungeons there or I would never of left.

Fail out-dated housing is FAIL. Fix. There, I said it. :mad: I am fortunate enough to have 1x medium and 1x apartment but I feel for the homeless.

Personal housing was a mistake and it should have been kept to FCs only.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Personal housing was a mistake and it should have been kept to FCs only.

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Disagree. Because then players would either just make a shell FC for a house (and there would still be shortages), or just be stuck with apartments, which are shoddy alternatives since they're basically just more expensive FC rooms with less benefits than an actual FC room.

Housing is one of the attractions for MMOs to me so I wouldn't be playing if I had no house. I spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears (gil) on mine hehe. It is my hideaway and a place I can do as I please. As a mature (age-wise) player here, I cannot stand FCs filled with kiddies so I would not want to be forced into one. I have enough trouble coping with cross server behaviors from people in dungeons. I like my friend's small fc just fine :)

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Originally Posted by Siniztor

I totaly agree. Instanced would solve every thing im totaly in favor of that,,But Se seems dead set on this ward crap..well if there gonna stick with this system hen its time for them to "Man up" and supply whats needed and stop trying to make people settle for little fixs..

Side note: I take none of this personal unless im attack which you have not done, So just cause we disagree on certain things dose not mean i look down on your post in any way, you have alot and i mean alot of good points in your post

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Well again the 'instanced housing will solve everything' arguement, well even instances need server space and processing power, so SE would have to keep that under control or risk server instability. Would you accept a message like "sorry cannot process your housing request due to server load"?
Or to reduce server load reduce the amount of items you can place?

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Originally Posted by Caitlinzulu

...again the 'instanced housing will solve everything' arguement...

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You forget, we already have instanced housing. House interiors are instanced and so are apartments.
Why do we see fully instanced houses as a solution?
Because the wards are persistent, they are always there. fully loaded and using resources even if no one is actually using them. That's why the limits on how many outside items we can place are so much stricter than the limits on what we can place inside. Fully instanced housing would be much lighter on resource use.

The devs have already said they can increase the number of apartments to meet demand (but I'm not sure if this actually happened). The trouble is, apartments don't offer gardening and the interior is only the size of a FC room. Even worse, Yoshi P stated they are going to add more wards with the new patch, but have no plans to improve or expand apartments.

They are probably never going to be able to add enough wards to meet demand. They were a great idea, but in practice they leave the majority of players homeless and cut off from activities like gardening and building airships.
The devs seem heavily invested in the present system and determined to stick with it despite the fact that new wards will not even make a dent in demand on the more populated servers.

I'm not saying we should get rid of the wards but I don't see any point in adding to them when it clearly won't solve the problem. Developing good quality instanced housing alongside the wards would seem to be the most sensible solution.
Housing was heavily promoted when SB launched, so Siniztor is right, it's time they made it available to more than a tiny minority of players.

While I am not sure who is writing that advertisement for gamestop, the SE store gives a different description. There it purely states "A new residential district: Shirogane" among its features. https://store.eu.square-enix.com/eu/product/425194/final-fantasy-xiv-stormblood-pc

If we then look at patch 4.1 when it actually gets released I believe SE always used the words, "players will be able...", because there is a limited supply doesn't mean players aren't able to obtain a house, if you didn't receive one now then you will be able to receive one later.
Now that the demolition timer will be activated again, you will find it much more frequent that players will be evicted from their houses due to their long breaks or as before, server transfers. Be patient, check the aetherstone in your capital for available houses frequently and then just snatch it up.

Secondly, there may be plenty of accounts per server, but how many are actually active players, this is why when the game developers asked the player base which housing model they preferred, we ended up with the current one, because it allows the active player to have a cosmetic edge over the ones who take a break, imagen 9999 wards, where there are at best 2-3 active players in every ward. Sounds not so enjoyable to me, now at least I have the opportunity to interact with my neighbors when I idle at my estate, and yes, we do interact.

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Originally Posted by Mithia

imagen 9999 wards, where there are at best 2-3 active players in every ward. Sounds not so enjoyable to me, now at least I have the opportunity to interact with my neighbors when I idle at my estate, and yes, we do interact.

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Your description sounds like my ward. It's full and has been since I bought my house over a year ago, but you wouldn't know it. One neighbour I see regularly (about once a month) does not speak my language but we do 'wave' when we pass. I have spoken to two other people in the last year and I occasionally see a couple of others at the MB. I get that you personally have an active, vibrant ward and don't want to give it up, but if my house was moved to an instance I probably wouldn't notice. It makes no sense to me for the devs to keep investing in the present system simply to benefit a small percentage of players like yourself while keeping the majority locked out.

As to nit-picking about the wording on the advertisements, I don't think it's helpful. It is not an outright lie, but going by the reactions of my friends and FC members, it is misleading and leaves people feeling they were deliberately misled.

When you step back and look at the big picture it makes sense. What many people a problem understanding that instances would take a lot more space. A type of valid solutions would have been to make it a form exclusive or additional content. While it may seem unfair to most SE does have a form of instances in inns, apartments, and FC rooms. Now most people really just want to be creative and have access to some of the perks, such as gardening and over all decorations. The only reason I even got an FC house was really for the benefits of FC options vs personal housing. IF people really want to decorate would it not make more sense to just go play the sims ? -.-

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Originally Posted by Solarra

It makes no sense to me for the devs to keep investing in the present system simply to benefit a small percentage of players like yourself while keeping the majority locked out.

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This system was asked for by people who have stuck through the game while it was at its lowest and helped better it for us who followed after, SE is loyal first and foremost to those players, many of us come and go as we please afterall. So, housing is meant to be prestige, secondly people are not excluded from decorating, be it through apartments or an FC house. At the same time, SE is aware of the unfair way houses are going across the market, lets wait and see what their new system of obtaining plots is all about before we pick up our pitch forks and torches.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

As to nit-picking about the wording on the advertisements, I don't think it's helpful. It is not an outright lie, but going by the reactions of my friends and FC members, it is misleading and leaves people feeling they were deliberately misled.

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Its not about nit-picking, I admit that game stop is here giving false advertisement but that doesn't mean that its SE who is at fault here, rather game stop. What your friends, or FC members perceive is their fault and not SE, SE advertised correctly, the way you perceived it is something entirely different.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Personal housing was a mistake and it should have been kept to FCs only.

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I disagree. They should have had enough foresight to realize they would need a large number of houses to support demand whether it was FC's only or included personal housing as well. While I don't think they need a house for every character since some will forgo housing altogether, the system needs to be able to support that just in case.

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Originally Posted by Caitlinzulu

Well again the 'instanced housing will solve everything' arguement, well even instances need server space and processing power, so SE would have to keep that under control or risk server instability. Would you accept a message like "sorry cannot process your housing request due to server load"?
Or to reduce server load reduce the amount of items you can place?

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A well designed instanced housing system could be designed to dynamically add and remove housing server resources as needed. The current static ward system can't do that and wastes server resources by the wards sitting idle most of the time. So yes instanced housing can resolve much of the availability problem.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

It makes no sense to me for the devs to keep investing in the present system simply to benefit a small percentage of players like yourself while keeping the majority locked out.

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Which brings up it doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation. There is no reason that a new fully instanced housing system couldn't run in parallel to the existing wards. If someone wants a ward house bad enough they can deal with the restrictions. For those that don't care and just want the benefits of a house they would now have that option.

When you step back and look at the big picture it makes sense. What many people a problem understanding that instances would take a lot more space. A type of valid solutions would have been to make it a form exclusive or additional content. While it may seem unfair to most SE does have a form of instances in inns, apartments, and FC rooms. Now most people really just want to be creative and have access to some of the perks, such as gardening and over all decorations. The only reason I even got an FC house was really for the benefits of FC options vs personal housing. IF people really want to decorate would it not make more sense to just go play the sims ? -.- Now I would say that long term legacy players should maybe get a free pass that have shown constant loyalty by playing since day one if it ever came to that or at the very least a discounted price.

Therefore pros and cons;

Instance housing; Pro: people would stop complaining Con: Server stability, possible DC loops specially while crafting or NPC interactions.

FC exclusive; Pro: Stability, stops market inflation. Con; Seems unfair, player base would drop. More bitching.

FEE based Optional content; Pro: gives an option and sense of urgency for more revenue. Con; people will see it as a company that all it cares about is money, not everyone can afford it, most likely will have maintenance fee.

Current options; Well balance in terms server stability, depending on servers value varies, people complain and lack the understanding to the concept of optional content. Based on thread numbers the housing is close to 25% ( though I'm pretty sure it's a wild estimate and the housing is a lot higher.) When you think about it even players with homes fail to log in daily so why spend resources on content that the company knows it may not be constant? From a business perspective what SE is doing makes sense. Now the option for housing is there, and experience can vary based on servers. You CAN purchase a home if you have enough funds, is available, or people are willing to sell. Hence as per even game stop / SE the keyword "Purchase" in terms of in game.

My husband joined a 2x player FC Moogled up house with an alt and next month, the players took the 5 mil out of the fc bank and bailed. He got a free house and fc to play with. It happens.

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Originally Posted by ManuelBravo

IF people really want to decorate would it not make more sense to just go play the sims ? -.- .

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I love when i see this in comments lol well Deco not my thing but since u like it go find a game for it like i sims, same could be said for pvp you wanna pvp go to a game for pvp eso has 300 man fights wow has open world pvp , wait glamour your thing grab barbies and play dress up...

And saying Se dose any thing from a business stand point s laughable, how much did they spend on Ultimate?? and what % of the player base could do it when released...a lower % then who want houses thats for sure.. but lets makes a dungeon for the 1% crowd and in exchange take away 1 dungeon from every 70 player.. Not to mention lets hand out 4 housing items in the seasonal event yet only have 2,880 per servers for players n fcs to fight over

In my opinion there should be a word limit on housing: 1 house per word. I know many people that have alts and their alts also have houses. In extreme cases i know a person, that owns 8 large houses that way. He rarely visits all of them. My neighbour has a house greeting plate suggesting it's the 16th of 50 houses from a SINGLE FC. Just why one fc (with help of 6 people and their 44 alts) needs to have 50 houses???

Solution:
1) make alts be automatically tenants to the main estate, that don't use the tenant slot
if that is present, then:
2) limit housing to single per word
(existing players that has numerous houses can stay. No matter how you look at it, I am against of taking the houses from people)

This would be less of an issue if people weren't able to hoard houses amongst their alts. Alas, last I checked if they were to ever implement such a restriction, some people wanted their multiple houses grandfathered in.

Honestly the only way to properly fix this is immediately implement a one house per account system. No grandfathering, no any way around it. Houses are auto-demolished instantly if you have more than one, you get to pick which you keep after that you lose every other one via auto-demo rules.

That doesn't fix anything immediately, maybe 100 houses MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE that many are relinquished. And then what, the rest of the 1000+ people on Balmung are still angry. Still angry with hundreds of millions of gil on their characters they can't really do much with.

Why is it that I can log into six different F2P games...
and from just having an account, I have my own home (instanced) and more customization options that what is offered in a Sub-Based game?

I do not seek to buy a home (outside of an Apartment) for the following reasons:

1) Buying a home forces me to nearly stay subbed forever.
2) Few people buy up a lot of property and then set up webpages leading to VoiP rooms that try to RMT the plots to players.
3) I walk around the wards and I find many of them to be empty with almost no activity on the outside, but im sure there are people inside...
4) I feel owning a home makes me a target. I would have something others do not have and they will do all possible to find a way to take it away from me.

Other games welcome you into your own home and flash a cash shop in your face.
FF XIV reminds you if you don't resub after a certain time, you will lose your house.

Eorzea really is the land of the homeless...

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Originally Posted by Acilith

That doesn't fix anything immediately, maybe 100 houses MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE that many are relinquished. And then what, the rest of the 1000+ people on Balmung are still angry. Still angry with hundreds of millions of gil on their characters they can't really do much with.

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Your numbers a little low since Blamug came in at what 20,000 people on the server, 2,880 houses total,Even if every house was owned by a charcater theres 17,000+ homeless ppl there now go count all the homes owned by fc's n the number jumps ..but your right those thinking taking away from multi owners will help are blind lol between 25 NA servers theres only 60k alts.. and id bet 95% of those are under 50 hell a good chunk probly under lvl 5 used to go to weddings

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

This would be less of an issue if people weren't able to hoard houses amongst their alts. Alas, last I checked if they were to ever implement such a restriction, some people wanted their multiple houses grandfathered in.

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as much as people my beg for their houses to be grandfathered in, i don't think se will allow it. they seemed pretty disheartened by some of the house hoarding going on and it would just plain look bad to allow some few people to keep their houses that i don't think they were really intended to be allowed to have to begin with, but because the system was very flawed, they were able to get them.

i wish people would stop saying "BUT THE SERVERS" every time someone tries to suggest something for the game, though. ffxiv is probably the second most successful mmo on the market, there's no reason it can't do what games are barely struggling to stay alive can do. if it means an extended maintenance for them to remove whatever architecture is inhibiting them from making improvements then i'm all for it because it would lead to a better game in the future.

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Originally Posted by Siniztor

Your numbers a little low since Blamug came in at what 20,000 people on the server, 2,880 houses total,Even if every house was owned by a charcater theres 17,000+ homeless ppl there now go count all the homes owned by fc's n the number jumps ..but your right those thinking taking away from multi owners will help are blind lol between 25 NA servers theres only 60k alts.. and id bet 95% of those are under 50 hell a good chunk probly under lvl 5 used to go to weddings

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there is one pair of people on mateus that own 30 houses between them. they had 28, defended themselves by saying they were there first, then bought the last 2 in the ward long after mateus became an active server, which is honestly just sheer greed at this point. there are people that own even more of them. if they were limited to 1 house, that's 28 more people that can enjoy one (presumably more, if an fc buys some of them). taking away houses from multi-owners won't give everyone a house, it won't solve all the problems housing has, but it will definitely help.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

i wish people would stop saying "BUT THE SERVERS" every time someone tries to suggest something for the game, though. ffxiv is probably the second most successful mmo on the market, there's no reason it can't do what games are barely struggling to stay alive can do.

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Cannot agree with you more.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Personal housing was a mistake and it should have been kept to FCs only.

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No, it wasn't a mistake - and not everybody cares to be a part of a Free Company, either. Especially given how easy it is to be screwed over as a result of investing in one for months or even years only for petty drama to cause the entire thing to collapse upon itself...which is far from a rarity in MMO's. Numerous MMO's - some of which are older than FFXIV - offer personal housing for every single player that desires it.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

No, it wasn't a mistake - and not everybody cares to be a part of a Free Company, either. Especially given how easy it is to be screwed over as a result of investing in one for months or even years only for petty drama to cause the entire thing to collapse upon itself...which is far from a rarity in MMO's. Numerous MMO's - some of which are older than FFXIV - offer personal housing for every single player that desires it.

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You hit the nail on the head. My view exactly.

Maybe just maybe they should have went with a instanced or instanced and non-instanced mix from the get go.
I also do NOT agree that personal housing should have been just for FC's, if they would have they may as well not have bothered implementing housing at all

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Originally Posted by Theodric

No, it wasn't a mistake - [...]

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Given the limitations of their ward system? Yes it was.

Personal housing belongs into instances and should've been kept on hold until an instanced housing system is finished instead of being pushed into the ward system to be done with it. Not only because it's far less resource intensive, but also because wards filled with personal houses are almost always dead, killing the intended "neighborhood feel" right there. They even had that intention and wanted the two to be entirely separate, but didn't pull through in the end.
Chances are, the current wards would have already sufficed for that, since even in the absolute worst case scenario of every single person creating a one-man FC to circumvent the whole thing, you'd only be looking at half the potential buyers, as right now, you can have both, a single-person FC house "and" a personal house. That's not gonna work out, ever, not even on the aggregate level, much less on a per server basis.

The argument I've seen posed by multiple people saying instanced housing would be harder on the servers are just.. kind of wrong?

20x the housing they have now, instanced, would be less intensive than the wards most of which just sit there unused and empty most of the time, which are constant and ever present even when there is LITERALLY no one in them, eating up resources to have them there.

There is no reason for them to cling onto this outdated, poorly executed system for the housing, other than Yoshi P being stubborn and he openly admits as much.

Has no one else pointed out the math in the OP is wrong? Just to clarify:

4 Areas, 18 Wards, 60 houses per ward is 4320 per server
there's 24 NA servers, so that's 103,680 houses.
(they're adding 34,560 to NA with the 6 new wards).

Just thought I'd point out the flaw. It still feels a bit tight, especially on populated worlds, but it's an improvement.

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Originally Posted by DotsNnots

Has no one else pointed out the math in the OP is wrong?

(they're adding 28,800 to NA with the 5 new wards).

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Heh sorry about this, but your math is actually wrong too. It's 6 new wards, not 5 (13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18)

So that's actually 30 plots, 2 divisions, 6 wards, 4 areas, 24 servers = 34,560 new houses (There will be a 103,680 in total in NA worlds over all 18 wards).

285,120 houses in total over all 66 servers (95,040 new houses)

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

Heh sorry about this, but your math is actually wrong too. It's 6 new wards, not 5 (13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18)

So that's actually 30 plots, 2 divisions, 6 wards, 4 areas, 24 servers = 34,560 new houses (There will be a 103,680 in total in NA worlds over all 18 wards).

285,120 houses in total over all 66 servers (95,040 new houses)

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Thanks! I did the dumb thing where my brain said 18-13 is 5 so that means 5 new severs. That was a wrong thing. I fixed my post.

Point still stands, they're adding a healthy amount. It is still tight at 103,680 for NA, but it's still a large improvement.

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Originally Posted by DotsNnots

Has no one else pointed out the math in the OP is wrong? Just to clarify:

4 Areas, 18 Wards, 60 houses per ward is 4320 per server
there's 24 NA servers, so that's 103,680 houses.
(they're adding 34,560 to NA with the 6 new wards).

Just thought I'd point out the flaw. It still feels a bit tight, especially on populated worlds, but it's an improvement.

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Just to point out this was posted before the 6 new wards were mention..the only flaw is there is 24 servers not 25 the list i looked at had na showing 25 servers