It is time to turn auto demolition back on

It is time for the auto demolition of houses to be turned back on.

Frankly, IMO it should never be turned off. I understand the reason's why they turn it off, but by attempting to do something nice for people who may be affected with an inability to play, they are screwing over those of us that are still active. ESP if you happen to be on a high population server. And the trend of turning it off has happened with increased frequency. Heck I think its been off for longer that it has been on.

And before one of you suggests that we transfer to some low pop server with plots still for sale thats a great idea... If I wanted to leave all my friends behind. Remember the world visit system isnt live yet, and wont be for awhile. We have waited long enough.

But even with still suspending auto demolish from time to time it is usually left off for far too long. Almost always for half a year. That is too long. Auto demolition has been off for 4 months now in NA. The housing system for this game is a mess, we all know that. When you stop auto demolish you create a bad situation for the people that ARE still active and paying to play the game. You get months of almost no houses opening up for sale, and he ones that rarely do are bought up by people boting the houses waiting out the stupid timer that is universally hated.

Newer fc's are having trouble getting a plot, but 1 person boting can set up at a placard and bot click it for the 18 hours or 13 hours or 26 hours it happens to take to run out. Ive seen more than a small number of times, several people from FC's with no house (including myself and our homeless fc) at a plot that happens to have open'ed, trying to buy it, only for 1 person boting to buy it as a personal plot. Leaving the fc's to continue with little chance or hope of getting a house to finally have a workshop and a place to set an aether wheel stand. Also the standing around for hours not actually playing the game but hopelessly clicking a placard in vain is really not a fun gaming experience.

Whats worse is SE is very aware of all this and is doing nothing about the bot's. Witch emboldens people already boting and drives new people to bot because why not. SE isn't going to do anything about it and its basically the only way to get a new house right now.

Of course if they simply made infinite housing wards all this mess of house flipping, house boting, and negativity would finally end. But until then please turn on the only thing that even gives us a chance at getting a house ever. You are seriously bumming a lot of us out.

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Can agree that housing is currently a mess and that SE needs to fix that. Eventually SE will need to implement instanced housing (not just apartments) and I am hoping they do this soon as the housing shortage will only get worse the more popular the game becomes.

Housing zones have felt dead for a long time as there are so many wards/sub-wards and the few people who actively use their houses tend to be split up across these wards rather than in one centralized location. I suspect if the outdoor assets aren't being referenced constantly then there is the possibility of combining wards together and adding more houses per ward e.g. Apartments or removing the need for them completely which would improve the socializing aspect of housing.

Either way something needs to be done with the housing situation, I feel that the cross-world system being introduced is in part a band-aid fix for the current housing situation where SE can refer players to low population servers to purchase houses and give them the perks of high population servers by allowing cross-world visits but having players remain tied to their low population home servers.

The fact that housing has further stagnated due to the auto demolition being turned off only highlights how bad the design of housing really is in Final Fantasy 14. There has to be a better solution than needing auto-demolition in the first place. Why should players be penalized for not playing the game actively?

Can only hope they address housing as for a lot of players its quite an important matter and more important than content such as raiding and PVP.

I agree it is rather crappy that as things stand we need auto demolish. Its not a good thing to lose your house just for inactivity, but at the moment its the only thing that will help active players and fc's in any meaningful way. I know SE likes to use the server storage excuse for why they dont have more or allow for more housing wards or plots. To the average person that can sound like a valid reason. But start talking to someone who actually works in networking and with servers and understands programming and how networking actually works for a game such as this and they will tell that actually it simply is not that much data and it is really a weak excuse. They are ether being cheap, or lazy, maybe both. It is a lie we shouldn't believe any more. This game makes SE a lot of money, and the folks that control that money really do not like investing much of it back into the game. It is sad really.

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Originally Posted by LanikMueller

start talking to someone who actually works in networking and with servers and understands programming and how networking actually works for a game such as this and they will tell that actually it simply is not that much data and it is really a weak excuse.

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It's nothing to do with the data (I don't think they've ever said that?), it's the resources required in keeping housing active.

Housing wards are zones, always running, always on. As I'm sure you know, each server has 4 housing areas, each with 18 wards and each with 2 parts (main and sub division) so that's 144 different zones. That doesn't sound so bad by itself, but then multiply it by the 66 servers and now you have 9,504 zones. All running, all the time, just for housing.

I have no idea if they shutdown a housing area when it's inactive and then load it back up again when needed, but since my load time is always the same, I don't think they do that. Maybe because there's just one person somewhere in the zone keeping it on or maybe the time/resources required to shutdown/reload isn't worth it. We can only speculate there.

There's 43 other zones in the game, less than one third of number of housing zones (That was a quick count, I may have missed one or two, but I think you get the idea).

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not saying you should be happy about the current system and I do wish that it could dynamically expand to create more zones as needed, but since they're not instanced (all customised/decorated and completely different in each ward), from a technical viewpoint I can see why that doesn't happen.

I myself do not understand how it works, I only know what others who do have said. I once believed along the same lines, but it has been explained to me, by more than 1 person with actual knowledge of how servers, programming, and networking works. People that actually work in IT at server facilities, some at places that host and run other popular games not unlike ffxiv and such that the house wards are not much resources, data, computing resources or hardware required. Number of wards, plots, residential zones isnt the issue, grand scheme the house system as a whole simply does not use much resources, esp if you compare to any other other part of the game. Its not like the house wards are crunching the numbers that say a 24 man raid would in real time. If they were to go infinite housing, some hardware would be needed sure, but its not like for every new ward they must dedicate another whole server rack to it.

If you were to hear this from 1 person who works in this field maybe they are right maybe not. But I have heard from multiple people, who obviously know far more than average folks and they have all said the same thing. And as I understand what they have explained is it truly is not as big an issue as they make it sound. Point is, it isnt a fire breathing dragon, but more of a salamander with anger issues.

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Originally Posted by LanikMueller

But even with still suspending auto demolish from time to time it is usually left off for far too long. Almost always for half a year. That is too long. Auto demolition has been off for 4 months now in NA.

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Try telling that to people who lost their homes in real life due to natural disasters, which is usually why auto-demolition gets suspended. It can take a couple of months to find a new permanent residence. Considering this, the suspension lasts for a reasonable amount of time.

I don't disagree that the housing system in the game is terrible, because it is. If there were enough houses to meet the demand there would be no need for any sort of automated destruction system. We should all have equal access to housing and should not lose our houses unless we choose to.

But as long as demolition exists I agree with its suspensions and how long they tend to last. It would really suck to finally get a house in FFXIV and to have it taken away from you because you couldn't log in due to a natural disaster that robbed you of electricity or even your home.

We're actually very fortunate that SE is aware of these large scale life changing events and does act upon them. This is of course because they're a japanese company who are well used to the challenges of overcoming natural disasters due to the volcanic activity in Japan. It could be a very different story if the company was based in a different part of the world.

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Originally Posted by LanikMueller

I myself do not understand how it works, I only know what others who do have said. I once believed along the same lines, but it has been explained to me, by more than 1 person with actual knowledge of how servers, programming, and networking works.

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I'm not sure if I should be offended that you instantly disregard if I have my own "actual knowledge of how servers, programming, and networking works", but hey you don't know me so fair enough.

But regardless of that, none of us (including your experts) have any experience of how SE have their servers setup so we're all speculating based on the best information we have available.

I said what I said because technically it makes sense. We can literally see the numbers. As mentioned before there's 9,504 zones and each one of those has to know the location, rotation and colour of around 730 objects (the gardens of 20 smalls, 7 mediums and 3 larges) and if you add in the design/colour of the actual houses that's at least another 60 objects per zone. That's 7,508,160 objects it has to be aware of at all times and if that isn't a memory resource, then I don't know what it is. We don't know exactly how much memory it takes to run each zone and there's always a way to add more hardware/split onto more servers etc, but SE don't want to do that any more than they have to, it's not just the initial purchase, but upkeep as well.

I only replied because you were saying about data being used as an excuse, which I still don't think SE has ever said was the reason. But as for the rest I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Sir I didnt mean any offence to anyone. And yea I do only know what others have said, and it is true no one knows for sure the systems or hardware that SE is using. Could be im incorrect in what ive been told but it does seem to me like they want to do as bare minimum as they can in regards to the housing. And I must also admit i wasn't really trying to discuss on this as you are correct again that there is speculation as to how it is actually setup. Thread got a little off topic on me, I was only trying to suggest they do something right now with what they already have to assist the active players trying to play now. That the auto demolish be turned back on rather than left off any longer. I realize any major change simply will not happen until at least 5.0 or further beyond.

Why are people claiming they are homeless in FF14 in 2019 when there is Apartment in each residential area is beyond me.
I think it is probably better idea for you try to secure plots on the less populated server before World Visit launch instead of portrayed yourself as a villain figure here.
Do you know how nasty you make yourself looks like right now?

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

Why are people claiming they are homeless in FF14 in 2019 when there is Apartment in each residential area is beyond me.
I think it is probably better idea for you try to secure plots on the less populated server before World Visit launch instead of portrayed yourself as a villain figure here.
Do you know how nasty you make yourself looks like right now?

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While I don't entirely disagree with your post, you can not honestly, for a second, think an apartment is comparable to a house in this game. They are just more expensive FC rooms. The space is tiny, with only 100 item slots. It's not at all the same to owning a house, in terms of decorating, and that isn't even getting into gardening.

We just need better instanced housing, or upgraded apartments. That would solve so many issues.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

Why are people claiming they are homeless in FF14 in 2019 when there is Apartment in each residential area is beyond me.
I think it is probably better idea for you try to secure plots on the less populated server before World Visit launch instead of portrayed yourself as a villain figure here.
Do you know how nasty you make yourself looks like right now?

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Except I've spent the better part of today after I purchased a server transfer looking for an apartment to buy, so far I've checked 11 wards and all of the apartments I've checked are currently full. I'm going to keep on searching for an open room in one of the apartments, but it's getting pretty irritating, I've already long since given up on ever owning a house.

The point is, it's not easy to buy an apartment on every server. Honestly, you are making yourself look like the "villain" by calling Lanik stuff like, "nasty" and "villain". Turning off Auto Demolition was a great choice, and very thoughtful of Square Enix to do for the people who were affected by the natural disaster. It's been over 3 months since they turned it off in October, it's not an unreasonable request to turn it back on now. It's been more then a couple of months already, plenty of time for people to find new residences. We all feel for the people who lost their homes, but shaming another player for a reasonable request after a good amount of time isn't the way to properly discuss this problem.

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Originally Posted by Ftail

Except I've spent the better part of today after I purchased a server transfer looking for an apartment to buy, so far I've checked 11 wards and all of the apartments I've checked are currently full. I'm going to keep on searching for an open room in one of the apartments, but it's getting pretty irritating, I've already long since given up on ever owning a house.

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Don't forget to check the subdivision apartment buildings too. Those usually get passed up.

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

Don't forget to check the subdivision apartment buildings too. Those usually get passed up.

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I found one today, it just took me a bit, thank you though. It's good to be back on Levi.

They turned it off?! I didn't even know that!!!! I've been camping lavender beds on my server in hopes for a medium-sized plot!!! They really should turn it back on again, especially since I suspect about a couple months from now people will start being inactive again until the new expansion.

There's a considerable lack of larger houses and some people have been claiming them as personal houses or holding them for ransom. It's very depressing really when your company can't either find a house or find anything bigger than a small and struggling to produce enough crops for everyone to use because they're limited to only 1 garden plot. Personal houses should've just been limited to small houses and let the companies take priority of the medium/large ones.

The wildfires in California may have started in August when the shut off the demolition but were burning through the end of November. The biggest of the 2018 wildfires, The Camp Fire, is considered the Deadliest Wildfire in California's known history. It burned 153,336 Acres, Destroyed 18,804 Buildings of which 13,696 were homes. Displaced 52,000 people. Killed 86 and there's still 3 people unaccounted for. The damage is estimated at $16.5 Billion Dollars.

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Originally Posted by LanikMueller

It is time for the auto demolition of houses to be turned back on.

Frankly, IMO it should never be turned off. I understand the reason's why they turn it off, but by attempting to do something nice for people who may be affected with an inability to play, they are screwing over those of us that are still active. ESP if you happen to be on a high population server. And the trend of turning it off has happened with increased frequency. Heck I think its been off for longer that it has been on.

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That's a terrible thing to say just cause YOU want a house.
While I think that it should've been turned on at the start of the new year, I think that it's only fair they turned it off for a natural disaster.

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Originally Posted by New_Game_Plus

That's a terrible thing to say just cause YOU want a house.
While I think that it should've been turned on at the start of the new year, I think that it's only fair they turned it off for a natural disaster.

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If they are going to continually turn auto demotion off every time there is a natural disaster they need to rethink what they are doing. It seems to be off more than it's on and there will always be natural disasters to have to react too.

What they need to do is stop with the silliness of entering a house for a period of no less than 45 days and change it to those paying subs as being the criteria. Make it a 2 months lapse in subscription and you lose your house. This will stop the need to react to every natural disaster and simply make it easier to deal with those who actually stop playing the game.

Demolition for simply not logging in is a disgusting way to deal with housing, se should feel ashamed for implementing it. Very anal of them.

Players have given many many excellent ways to limit purchasing to ensure everyone gets a home.

(and its time to upgrade UI so WE can actually build our own items, enter 2019 plz!!)

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Originally Posted by MistyMew

Demolition for simply not logging in is a disgusting way to deal with housing, se should feel ashamed for implementing it. Very anal of them.

Players have given many many excellent ways to limit purchasing to ensure everyone gets a home.

(and its time to upgrade UI so WE can actually build our own items, enter 2019 plz!!)

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Problem is they put in the demolition timer because people asked for it, because there were so many houses being unused by inactive players. With a finite resource, there needs to be a system in places that keeps inactive players from holding onto that resource. You can't blame SE for doing what people demanded of them to free up houses. They should have just made a better housing system, but in terms of working with the system they did make, the demo timer is a necessary evil.

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Originally Posted by MistyMew

Demolition for simply not logging in is a disgusting way to deal with housing, se should feel ashamed for implementing it. Very anal of them.

Players have given many many excellent ways to limit purchasing to ensure everyone gets a home.

(and its time to upgrade UI so WE can actually build our own items, enter 2019 plz!!)

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There is literally no reason a person who hasn't logged in for over a month to keep a house (other than the natural disaster thing)

100% Agree, sick of seeing housing districts filled with people I know are unsubbed.

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Originally Posted by Britta

There is literally no reason a person who hasn't logged in for over a month to keep a house (other than the natural disaster thing)

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If you aren't paying your subscription each month then I'd agree, demo the house... but, I personally think that if you ARE still subbed there shouldn't be a demo timer.

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Originally Posted by Numenor1379

If you aren't paying your subscription each month then I'd agree, demo the house... but, I personally think that if you ARE still subbed there shouldn't be a demo timer.

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If you are subbed and using your house, it's not an issue. Entering your house resets the timer.

If you are subbed but not using your house, why should you get to get keep it instead of it going to another player who is also paying their subscription and would be using it given the opportunity? It's a resource intended to be used, not hoarded.

SE it's 2019 how about instanced housing?

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

If you are subbed but not using your house, why should you get to get keep it instead of it going to another player who is also paying their subscription and would be using it given the opportunity? It's a resource intended to be used, not hoarded.

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This is a logic with holes. They bought the property fairly and follow the rule. What they do to their property is their freeedom of choice because it is “their property” not yours

I have been sitting on a medium house in Shirogane for 4 months, waiting on the timer to turn back on. It's completely empty, I don't use it but I am not about to just loose 20m because someone else is missing out thanks to SE shenanigans. We really need this turned back on...

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Originally Posted by Britta

There is literally no reason a person who hasn't logged in for over a month to keep a house (other than the natural disaster thing)

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Buying a house in game shouldnt be a ball and chain tied to your wallet to keep you subbed forever.

If you own a house you cant take a couple months off or you lose your house, so you have to keep your sub active even if you arent actively playing, other than to log in to reset the timer.

IMO they should add a system where married couples can reset the timer on their spouse's home.

Maybe instead of taking away peoples houses because they want to take a break for a bit they should just add more housing wards, like double what they have now(plus add Ishgard housing).

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

This is a logic with holes. They bought the property fairly and follow the rule. What they do to their property is their freeedom of choice because it is “their property” not yours

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And the rules also state that you will enter your house at least once every 45 days or it will go to demo.

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

I have been sitting on a medium house in Shirogane for 4 months, waiting on the timer to turn back on. It's completely empty, I don't use it but I am not about to just loose 20m because someone else is missing out thanks to SE shenanigans. We really need this turned back on...

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Better yet, SE needs to give players who voluntarily relinquish their house the same amount of gil back that the player would get if it demos. Players shouldn't pay the full penalty for being willing to voluntarily give up their house so another player can have it. The lack of reimbursement doesn't deter the flippers who include the original purchase price in what they charge the buyer.

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Originally Posted by KeyboardFacerollname

Buying a house in game shouldnt be a ball and chain tied to your wallet to keep you subbed forever.

If you own a house you cant take a couple months off or you lose your house, so you have to keep your sub active even if you arent actively playing, other than to log in to reset the timer.

IMO they should add a system where married couples can reset the timer on their spouse's home.

Maybe instead of taking away peoples houses because they want to take a break for a bit they should just add more housing wards, like double what they have now(plus add Ishgard housing).

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Entry by any tenant should reset the timer. It shouldn't be limited to those who had an Eternal Bonding.

Expanding the wards simply so people can buy a house then quit playing the game doesn't solve the problem. You end up with a bunch of empty wards either because there aren't enough players on a specific world to fill all the available houses or because the people who bought houses have quit playing the game. If the point of buying a house over an apartment is to feel like you're living in an active neighborhood, what have you accomplished when you're the only active player living there after 2 months?

An expanded instanced housing system beyond the current apartments would be much better. Let every player be guaranteed their instanced house with no risk of auto demo - and far less strain on server resources if they choose to stop playing the game for whatever period of time since instanced housing is load on entry and not always "on" like the wards are.

I’m going to chime in to this and say that I hope they implement Auto-Demolition again. It’s not fair that users who probably aren’t playing the game anymore still have a house, or people who just bought a house for simple aesthetic purposes. Not that the ladder is bad, but when that’s the sole purpose and you don’t join the game again after, I believe those people should not have a house. If you’re currentky experiencing problems such as Natural Disasters, the sole purpose on why AD was paused, there should be an option to contact a GM about it Offline or from the FFXIV app. Saying it’s selfish that those who are dedicated to the game, who want a house, and who want people who haven’t been active for longer than 1-2 months to not keep a house is hypocritical. I switched servers because I thought one that I went to would be great, but it turns out that it wasn’t. Now I’m carrying a lot of items that were in my previous home without a place to put them. It’s a huge inconvenience, and I don’t doubt others are experiencing the same.

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Originally Posted by TovahWulf

snip.

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Auto demo was turned back on (for NA) several weeks ago, so should be seeing some houses freeing up soon if not already. Also some players couldn't play because they just weren't able too (due to natural disasters) as opposed to not actually wanting to play the game.

Just to add what Kurando said, we're not going to see the main results of auto-demolition until June 7th, when the houses of all the players who have quit playing since the end of October will demo at the same time.

Hold on a couple of weeks.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Auto demo was turned back on (for NA) several weeks ago, so should be seeing some houses freeing up soon if not already. Also some players couldn't play because they just weren't able too (due to natural disasters) as opposed to not actually wanting to play the game.

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Odd.. I’ve only seen people move from the server to the other data centers, but there are still people who have been inactive for long periods of time (over 45 days) who still have a few houses. Maybe it hasn’t reached Coeurl yet?

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Just to add what Kurando said, we're not going to see the main results of auto-demolition until June 7th, when the houses of all the players who have quit playing since the end of October will demo at the same time.

Hold on a couple of weeks.

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I understand now, my apologies to the both of you. I just now heard of the AD so I assumed it was still in effect.

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Originally Posted by TovahWulf

I understand now, my apologies to the both of you. I just now heard of the AD so I assumed it was still in effect.

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No worries. It is now in effect but was suspended from end of October until April 23rd. That was plenty of time for inactive players to pay up for a month or log in during free log in periods then enter their house to reset the timer. Most houses pending demo would have started the countdown at 45 days on the 23rd as a result.

I have a seen a couple of houses open up on Coeurl in the last week I'm almost positive were from auto demo. But it won't be until the 7th when we'll see most appear.

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Originally Posted by Britta

There is literally no reason a person who hasn't logged in for over a month to keep a house (other than the natural disaster thing)

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Disagree. Theres any number of legitimate reasons players might not log in for a month or even more. Military deployment, I'll health, new child. Overseas business.. etc etc. A month really isn't a very long time. Hell people go on vacation for months at a time...

Freeing up unused houses itself is a great idea but tying it to subscription status or logins really isn't. Theres so many things they could have done instead. Like leading fees. Even cheap like a venture for a weeks lease or something. Just cap the maximum time at a reasonable number of weeks. (Perhaps 16 as yoshi frequently says players are allowed to take breaks without feeling punished) that way someone who's just going away for a month or 2 can just pay advance lease. And the plot will be held. But if they end up leaving permanently the plot will still be released once the lease expires...

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Entry by any tenant should reset the timer.

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I 100% agree with this. If the tenancy system were better implemented or even an actual shared ownership option I believe there'd be a lot more people able to find housing as a lot of people would be happy to share. ( I know some of my friends and I would happily share a house if the tenancy system was better and not tied to someone elses logins. That would be 3 plots available for someone else right there)