Feedback on what housing has become

Hello all,
First of all, I've been a player since ARR launched in 2014. I've been having a blast.

I did take a break 7 months ago and came back and here are my thoughts on housing.

First, it's like if nothing has changed at all. Logging and trying to buy a plot to build a house is nearly impossible. I looked up on pretty much every single server, and all plots are taken. It's been almost 5 years since this game came out, and we are still in the same situation as we were back in the days. One would've thought improvements would've been made.

1: Random timer on free plots. I do understand the goal is to prevent people to sell them for massive amount of gils, however the people really affected by it are the new players or returning players who have to camp Placards for hours or days.

2: The removal of auto-demolition for Months. I do understand for a couple of weeks, but MONTHS? Especially that now JP servers got it back?

Obviously, since I took a long break, I lost my house and my plot. This is obvious and totally normal and acceptable. However, what I find unacceptable is the fact that now, auto-demolition has been turned off since OCTOBER 2018 (which is nearing 5 months, almost half a year) and there has been a massive influx of new players, specially coming from World of Warcraft.

What it means is this: Lots of new players looking for houses and plots, and nothing is available. So basically, sad to say, it's nearing a False Advertisement, whereas one of the keypoints of FFXIV is it's housing system, yet we can't experience it anymore(not because we aren't skilled enough or lacking money or anything we can change) due to the way it's being taken care of.

5 years, nothing has really changed, result is the same.

Now, this isn't a "I will cancel my account" kind of topic. This is just to add my voice to all of you who expresses concerns about the way Square Enix is dealing with FFXIV Housing system issues.

You state nothing has changed, but then list two things that have changed!
But I agree with you, the auto-demolition timer is way overdue. However the placard change is mostly for the good. It affects everyone equally,p which is what we want. To give everyone a fair chance.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

You state nothing has changed, but then list two things that have changed!
But I agree with you, the auto-demolition timer is way overdue. However the placard change is mostly for the good. It affects everyone equally,p which is what we want. To give everyone a fair chance.

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I wouldn't really call it a fair chance considering you have a sizable percentage of players using mouse/keyboard macros, automation software or "premium" software with memory injection :rolleyes:. Having a free market was a lot better for literally everyone.

Actually, a free market was better for the sole reason you could farm gil and eventually buy the house, even if you had to spend 8-9Mil for a small plot. Now it's just based on luck, that's all. Sit in front of a Placard for hours and pray you click faster than the other 10 people spamming the placard at the same time as you do.

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Originally Posted by Azgarde

Actually, a free market was better for the sole reason you could farm gil and eventually buy the house, even if you had to spend 8-9Mil for a small plot.

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The free market wasn't as shiny and nice as many make it out to be. You weren't protected if you got scammed when you tried to buy or sell a plot. Reporting the scam meant you would also be reporting yourself for engaging in house flipping, which is against the ToS.

Also the ridiculous prices tempted some players to use RMT, which is also against the ToS and again you wouldn't be protected if you got scammed for the same reasons.

The "free market" system and the current system are both bloody awful. Just for different reasons.

basically you need to have enough money to buy two houses these days. get a crappy small in the goblet and then transfer to your plot of choice.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

basically you need to have enough money to buy two houses these days. get a crappy small in the goblet and then transfer to your plot of choice.

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You did a lot of the time before as well seeing as 99% of the time house flippers sold plots for several times their price. If you bought a plot for only twice the price that was considered very cheap on some servers.

After witnessing a player relocate to a small house another player said they had been standing at for a few hours in the hope of having a house I believe that relocation's should also be affected by the housing timer for fairness sake.

Sure when you relocate you are giving up one spot for another but the housing timer resets and they need to go through a waiting period again. Not sure of the actual specifics of the timer but that scenario mentioned earlier seemed unfair especially when said re-locator then seemed to be taunting the other person which really annoyed me for some reason.

Better still would be complete removal of the housing timer but for that to occur it would likely require instanced housing to be implemented as that would heavily reduce the incentive for RMT as there would be more supply resulting is less profits.

Admittedly waiting at a housing plot for hours on end hoping for the timer to be up seems counter productive but can understand that with the way relocation works you need literally any house then you join the re-locators in relocating into any future open spot.

Apartments aren't good enough to satisfy players want for housing either so hopefully they are improved to have some form of outdoor area (balcony perhaps) and possibly a 2nd floor in the future.

I would recommend new house hunters to use FC housing temporarily for now and save up for when the auto-demolitions are turned back on. At that point there will be an immense amount of housing which will likely never be filled to capacity on small to mid tier servers at least until the next time auto-demolition is turned off.

Hang in there :)

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Originally Posted by Losara

After witnessing a player relocate to a small house another player said they had been standing at for a few hours in the hope of having a house I believe that relocation's should also be affected by the housing timer for fairness sake.

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I agree, I know having a personal and FC house puts me in a privileged position, but I was also one of those players when the free market operated that could never afford to buy a home off a flipper. I love housing and it's easy to forget how it feels when I was on the outside looking in (on peoples homes) and removing the relocating buff so to say would (in my opinion) make things fairer.

Being on Moogle we occasionally would have plots available in goblet, even going down to sub 2 million gil, but the last couple of weeks we've had no free plots so I'd guess demand is at its peaks, I guess when the transfers go up that will change and I hope that will help alleviate demand until further solutions are provided

First let me start with welcome back.

Second just a quick correction, FFXIV 2.0 released in August, of 2013.

Third, if you want to have fun with XIV, finding things to complain about isn’t going to help.

Forth, on April 23rd there will a data center shuffle and many players are likely buying up housing in attempts to get free Gil with their free transfers, so expect to see many houses plots going empty. Try to buy a small plot and then “relocate” to a medium or large if that’s your goal.

Housing is a goal like anything else. Not everything needs to be for everyone. That’s what the inn room and apartments are for. You don’t *need* a house.
Also, not everything needs to be easy. Leaving the game and coming back expecting to buy a house immediately is a bit of an ask.

The only different between an apartment and a house, is gardening, and the "trophy" aspect. I cant imagine all the people complaining about housing whom dont have apartments are such avid gardening players. If its because of the trophy, refer back to "housing is a goal" statement. There are inn rooms and apartments for a reason. Not everyone needs a house.

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Originally Posted by Azgarde

2: The removal of auto-demolition for Months. I do understand for a couple of weeks, but MONTHS? Especially that now JP servers got it back?

However, what I find unacceptable is the fact that now, auto-demolition has been turned off since OCTOBER 2018 (which is nearing 5 months, almost half a year) and there has been a massive influx of new players, specially coming from World of Warcraft.

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JP data centers had their auto demolition paused from July 30, 2018 - Jan 7, 2019. NA data centers had their auto demolition paused on Oct 24, 2018. Going by that same basic time frame, the NA data centers should have their auto demolition resume some time in April. Probably pretty close to the April 23 data center reshuffle, since we haven't had an announcement for it yet, and they announced the JP data centers starting back up a month before it happened.

FFXIV has had quite a few influxes from WoW being bad. Just because we've had a new one doesn't mean they're going to change how they treat auto demolition. It normally lasts about 6 months to try and let people get their lives back together. Keep checking for random people leaving the server and demolishing their house, see if you can get lucky. More than likely, you won't have much chance until April after the server shuffle.

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Originally Posted by Losara

After witnessing a player relocate to a small house another player said they had been standing at for a few hours in the hope of having a house I believe that relocation's should also be affected by the housing timer for fairness sake.

Sure when you relocate you are giving up one spot for another but the housing timer resets and they need to go through a waiting period again. Not sure of the actual specifics of the timer but that scenario mentioned earlier seemed unfair especially when said re-locator then seemed to be taunting the other person which really annoyed me for some reason.

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I feel like relocations should have a window of opportunity to new plots, but after that window, they should be stuck with the same rng as everyone else. So when a lot opens, for the first hour, someone can relocate to it. Maybe if it's a med or a large, make it 2 hours (for FCs at least, since larger houses mean more crafting benches can be placed down for people). I think that could balance things out a little.

Over all I feel the whole rng placard click ordeal should be removed. If they want to keep the rng, they should just make it an official lottery, so at least then it gives everyone an equal chance, and allows people to get back to playing the game, as they should be.

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Originally Posted by Annakajima

Being on Moogle we occasionally would have plots available in goblet, even going down to sub 2 million gil, but the last couple of weeks we've had no free plots so I'd guess demand is at its peaks, I guess when the transfers go up that will change and I hope that will help alleviate demand until further solutions are provided

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Players who plan to transfer off their current worlds during the free transfer period have been snatching up available houses so they can get the free 3 million gil that SE is giving away to house owners who choose to transfer. Most of those houses will end up available again once those players have transferred since there's no incentive for anyone to transfer to the preferred worlds outside of getting a house and that's not going to be enough for players who would be leaving behind friends and a strong raiding community.

It's rather ironic that SE gave players more incentive to transfer off the preferred worlds than to transfer to them.

Its making those of us who want to exploit the... err, use FC housing for more airship and subs have to sit back and wait for a while.

Someone here on Coeurl did a house search yesterday, and on the ENTIRE server, there were TWO plots up for sale/empty. And yet when I visit many or even most of those houses, they are 95-100% empty, often with nothing but the Aetherite thing, and some don't even have that.

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Originally Posted by Daniolaut

The only different between an apartment and a house, is gardening, and the "trophy" aspect. I cant imagine all the people complaining about housing whom dont have apartments are such avid gardening players. If its because of the trophy, refer back to "housing is a goal" statement. There are inn rooms and apartments for a reason. Not everyone needs a house.

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Take a look at the houses on your server. I will bet that half of them are empty.

Update: I managed to snag one on Adamantoise server. So yeah, I had to spend 18$ (25$ CAD) to transfer to another server, then buy a plot in the Goblet. Wasn't a good spot, but at least I had one. Then, a well-placed plot opened in The Mist, so I relocated there.

Good part of this is Adamantoise is an amazing server full of good people, already made new friends and joined an awesome FC There. Also is on the same Data Center as Midgard, so I can play with the friends I had there.

However, it didn't change my mind. Even though I managed to snag a good plot and now have my house, I kinda feel bad for all of those coming from other MMOs (*cough* WoW *cough*) having big hopes about FFXIV Housing only to get deceived by how poor it is dealt with.

Now, I know patience would be rewarded, as it is obvious plots will free up when free server transfers happen on April 23rd. However, it is still a month and a half before it happens.

By the way, I've literally asked someone on every server of Aether Data Center to know how housing looked like on their server and it's the same everywhere: Nothing is available. That's just sad for new players or returners. That's all :)

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Originally Posted by Azgarde

By the way, I've literally asked someone on every server of Aether Data Center to know how housing looked like on their server and it's the same everywhere: Nothing is available. That's just sad for new players or returners. That's all :)

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As I said before, there's nothing available now because players are milking the system to get the free gil when the free transfers are available.

Trying to judge the true state of the housing situation on all servers at this point in time is useless. We need to wait for the data center changes to happen and for the free transfer periods to close. We also need to wait for the auto-demo timers to be reactivated on NA servers (which will likely be at the same time as the data center change).

From what I've seen on Coeurl, the big influx of new players started with the Twitch Prime promo. We did have new players showing up before that but it wasn't the flood we got once the promo was announced. Those players are still learning the game and how to earn gil so likely don't yet have the gil to be able to buy a house. By the time they do, the data center change should have happened and they'll have a much better chance of getting a house than they would right now assuming they've been choosing the preferred worlds and not the high pop worlds.

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Originally Posted by Windsun33

Someone here on Coeurl did a house search yesterday, and on the ENTIRE server, there were TWO plots up for sale/empty. And yet when I visit many or even most of those houses, they are 95-100% empty, often with nothing but the Aetherite thing, and some don't even have that.

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I took a tour of my ward a couple of months ago, saw nobody, many unfinished or not furnished, nor even a book to sign saying I visited. I use my house constantly and enjoy deco. A person visiting me the other day said "There's a lot of love that went into this house", and I guess there was :) Not sure why so many have a house except to say they do. Right now there are close to zero houses available here.

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Originally Posted by Besame

I took a tour of my ward a couple of months ago, saw nobody, many unfinished or not furnished, nor even a book to sign saying I visited. I use my house constantly and enjoy deco. A person visiting me the other day said "There's a lot of love that went into this house", and I guess there was :) Not sure why so many have a house except to say they do. Right now there are close to zero houses available here.

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I wish people would visit my fc's house and sign the message book if they like the decor. It's furnished inside and everything. I guess the passia housing skin is a turn off or scares people away (but my fc adores the damn thing, including me). xP

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Originally Posted by Lissandra

I wish people would visit my fc's house and sign the message book if they like the decor. It's furnished inside and everything. I guess the passia housing skin is a turn off or scares people away (but my fc adores the damn thing, including me). xP

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There aren't a lot of players who will randomly visit houses and with over 4,000 houses per server they're pretty unlikely to get around to visiting them all.

Get everyone in your FC to invite their friends to visit it if you want the traffic. Make certain Estate Teleportation is enabled so it's convenient for those friends to get to it. Most of all, display the Message Book Stand in a prominent place that's easily seen rather than trying to blend it into the decor. I use it in my FC's house as a "reservation book" for the upstairs cafe and visitors rarely notice it, saying it's a shame we didn't place a message book until I lead them back upstairs to it.

I'd say housing is more of a personal thing. Sure you can be a massive show off and put millions and millions of gil towards your Furnishings, but there won't be that many people who will even see what you accomplished (Except if you truly are a madman and you are renowned on your entire server like "The Housing Crazy Dude"). As long as you are personally satisfied with your house, that's what it's all about !

As for houses with no furnishings or plots without a house on them, it's pretty simple. People are buying the first plot they come across, so then when a plot they want opens up, they can just relocate and avoid spamming the placard like crazy to buy the plot.

So yes, by trying to take control over the "Housing Market" that developped whereas people bought plots to resell em, they literally overdid it and destroyed the entire system.

Right now, we're back at the same spot we were at ARR release: No plots available for anyone. Not a great day to join FFXIV if you're a WoW Refugee looking for a decent housing system I'd say :S

The housing system in this game is disastrous. You should always have a house to come to after taking a break, like any other normal casual game. You shouldn't have to stay subscribed just to not lose your house. But Yoshida's too ambitious vision of a neighborhood made all this a disaster and players are the ones being punished. I don't see how losing your house is acceptable for many, this isn't a sand box MMO. Housing should've been instanced from the beginning, everyone gets a house, no need to lose your progress only because you have to take a break and stress over losing your house. I really don't understand how people accept and defend this practice as something reasonable. Punish the flippers, the ones looking to just make a profit off a plot, with no desire to actually get a house... not the players who have a house or have a desire to actually get one. Had they gone instanced, none of this would even be an issue. I hope the dev team learned from this mistake and never ever do it again.

And to the person who said: "Housing is a goal like anything else. Not everything needs to be for everyone. That’s what the inn room and apartments are for. You don’t *need* a house.
Also, not everything needs to be easy. Leaving the game and coming back expecting to buy a house immediately is a bit of an ask.

The only different between an apartment and a house, is gardening, and the "trophy" aspect. I cant imagine all the people complaining about housing whom dont have apartments are such avid gardening players. If its because of the trophy, refer back to "housing is a goal" statement. There are inn rooms and apartments for a reason. Not everyone needs a house."

This is a game feature, in a casual game and it should be available to everyone. What dev in their right minds would limit a game feature in the game if they want to attract or keep players? This sounds like a bad business move. Not everything needs to be easy, but this is not Archeage, and you leave the difficulty to actual battle content (savage/ultimate), even crafting if you want to. You come to this game to relax and have fun, not stress over getting a house or losing it. The challenge should be in decorating it, even upgrading it to a bigger one if there was an option, not in being lucky to get a plot. This was marketed as a more casual game and it should be so, for other more hardcore gameplay where you even have to pay taxes to keep your virtual house (lol) there's other games.

people always complain about the house flipping but at least back then you werent stuck spam clicking a placard and nothing else for 12+ hours to have a chance at the plot (if youre lucky).

just get some extra gil and boom the plot was yours.

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Originally Posted by Tyla_Esmeraude

You should always have a house to come to after taking a break, like any other normal casual game.

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What other normal casual games with housing would those be and why would you expect a MMORPG to be like them?

You have a place to come back to after taking a break if you want. It's called an apartment. They've been part of the game for 2 years now (since patch 3.4). It is the casual form of housing. Owning a house in a ward is the end game form of housing. It's not going to be right for every player anymore than Savage raiding is.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

What other normal casual games with housing would those be and why would you expect a MMORPG to be like them?

You have a place to come back to after taking a break if you want. It's called an apartment. They've been part of the game for 2 years now (since patch 3.4). It is the casual form of housing. Owning a house in a ward is the end game form of housing. It's not going to be right for every player anymore than Savage raiding is.

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I don't recall housing being in the party finder.

SE needs to add more to the housing supply especially since we've had a huge influx of new players from WoW. Up to them to decide how to do it, were just the messengers. The demand for houses is clearly there.

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Originally Posted by Losara

I don't recall housing being in the party finder.

SE needs to add more to the housing supply especially since we've had a huge influx of new players from WoW. Up to them to decide how to do it, were just the messengers. The demand for houses is clearly there.

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What does party finder have to do with anything? It doesn't have to be in party finder to be end game content.

People need to remember that housing does not mean a house in a ward. It means a personal space for a player to decorate as they see fit.

The housing supply is more than adequate thanks to apartments. Every world has apartments available, even Balmung.

But certainly the supply of houses does not meet current demand. The question is why players want a house over an apartment. If the majority want a house because of the interior sizes and not other reasons, then SE is better off expanding the apartment system over increasing the number of wards.

Even though Auto-Demolition will be resumed in a month, I do think it'll change things a bit and help new players get their house.

Now, as I mentioned a couple times already, all aboard the waiting train !