The housing system is trash, and other players aren't making it any better.

Dear SE,

I don't know what the problem is with creating more housing. The demand is way higher than the supply. Since housing was released, players on all servers have been demanding more availability. It was really nice for you guys to create additional housing, but you still haven't fixed the problem with availability. FFXIV has 14 Million players. Every server has over 9000 active accounts, and the housing availability is absolutely atrocious.

What makes this system awful is only compounded by the fact that you've got 10 players spamming "purchase plot" trying to get lucky and be the first to click the buy button the moment the plot is available for purchase.

Good old fashioned camp rules are completely ignored due to the frustration of the players that housing is not available. Players come and go, and lots of houses are lost to auto-demolition, which you've had turned off for months longer than necessary, creating an even bigger shortage in lieu of the fact that many of these homes belong to players that probably haven't logged on in months, for whatever reason.

I've had to plots sniped by players running up and clicking the placard while I was actively camping the plot, and just got lucky. This is completely unacceptable, when people are spending hours camping a plot because of the shortage of housing plots.

Please fix this. You could lose subs because of something like this. There doesn't need to be enough houses for everyone, but when you can't even buy a house for a Free Company, that FC will fall apart. FC members, especially sprouts, need access to the perk and benefits of an FC house. If you can't provide more housing options, at least make it so FC's can get apartments or something for crying out loud.

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

FFXIV has 14 Million players. Every server has over 9000 active accounts

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That's not even close to accurate...

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...2579606376.png

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/

14 million Players, on the home page.

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/

14 million Players, on the home page.

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Those 14 million players include everyone who ever made an account - including people who played for one hour, three years ago and who will never login again.
Number of active players is much lower.

Exact number of active players is unknown, partly because it depends on how you define 'active', and partly because us players have no good ways of getting population counts from the servers.

I'm using numbers reported by SE. If they aren't accurate, that's SE's problem. But if those are the numbers reported by SE, they are the numbers i used in my post. Accuracy is on them. That's all i'm getting at. Don't be a part of the problem and make drama on a forum like a trolliollio.

The housing problem is partially a symptom of the game being a victim of it's own runaway success - SE locked themselves into a housing design planned for ironically a far far smaller player population than what the game ended up with (and to be fair to SE they could have hardly been blamed for that, as they only had FFXIV 1.0's dismal population figures and FFXI's 10+ years of player data to guide them).

Unfortunately by the time it was clear that FFXIV ARR was a runaway smash hit and the player population exploded, they had already come too far to change things with the housing system and had no choice but to implement it as is, a problem compounded by players demanding private housing use the same servers because they were too impatient to wait for SE to make a seperate system.

As much as I would like SE to try and actively fix the problems with the housing, at this point in time, I don't see them being able to do anything more with it I'm afraid other than just adding new housing servers as time goes by.

The question is, how hard is it to add more housing? They already demonstrated they can do it, by adding the additional housing they did just a short while ago. They still don't have enough housing to support the player population and demand.

There's never been "good old fashioned camp rules" lol.

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

I'm using numbers reported by SE. If they aren't accurate, that's SE's problem. But if those are the numbers reported by SE, they are the numbers i used in my post. Accuracy is on them. That's all i'm getting at. Don't be a part of the problem and make drama on a forum like a trolliollio.

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How is anything MistakeNot said "drama"? The only one trolliollio here is you apparently...

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The housing problem is partially a symptom of the game being a victim of it's own runaway success - SE locked themselves into a housing design planned for ironically a far far smaller player population than what the game ended up with (and to be fair to SE they could have hardly been blamed for that, as they only had FFXIV 1.0's dismal population figures and FFXI's 10+ years of player data to guide them).

Unfortunately by the time it was clear that FFXIV ARR was a runaway smash hit and the player population exploded, they had already come too far to change things with the housing system and had no choice but to implement it as is, a problem compounded by players demanding private housing use the same servers because they were too impatient to wait for SE to make a seperate system.

As much as I would like SE to try and actively fix the problems with the housing, at this point in time, I don't see them being able to do anything more with it I'm afraid other than just adding new housing servers as time goes by.

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So very very true.

Seems like you had a house (or at least had access to one) on a previous world, so why would you give it up if you knew housing had been an issue in the game for so long? The auto demo is now back on so without a doubt a number of properties will get freed up so there is your chance.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...91#post4445491

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The housing problem is partially a symptom of the game being a victim of it's own runaway success - SE locked themselves into a housing design planned for ironically a far far smaller player population than what the game ended up with (and to be fair to SE they could have hardly been blamed for that, as they only had FFXIV 1.0's dismal population figures and FFXI's 10+ years of player data to guide them).

Unfortunately by the time it was clear that FFXIV ARR was a runaway smash hit and the player population exploded, they had already come too far to change things with the housing system and had no choice but to implement it as is, a problem compounded by players demanding private housing use the same servers because they were too impatient to wait for SE to make a seperate system.

As much as I would like SE to try and actively fix the problems with the housing, at this point in time, I don't see them being able to do anything more with it I'm afraid other than just adding new housing servers as time goes by.

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Makes sense until you remember SE has lowered the cost of purchase for housing... twice.

I was talking to you, GomJabbar. With your little "that's not even close to accurate" when I had the actually SE reported numbers to back my statement up. Whether they are 100% accurate or not is not my problem. That's just information reported by SE themselves. Where is YOUR evidence that the numbers are incorrect?

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

I was talking to you, GomJabbar. With your little "that's not even close to accurate" when I had the actually SE reported numbers to back my statement up. Whether they are 100% accurate or not is not my problem. That's just information reported by SE themselves. Where is YOUR evidence that the numbers are incorrect?

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There's a "reply with quote" for a reason... Your agressive tone makes it clear you're not interested in genuine debate, but simply venting. Using words like "trash" in your title, and referring to my response as "little". Not to mention the whole "drama" and troll accusations... My mistake for engaging in the first place. I won't be doing it again.

You do understand what debate is right? to engage in intelligent argument or discussion, as in a legislative or public assembly. You were not engaging in debate. You were just saying i was not even remotely close to accurate with nothing to back your comment up. And if calling you out on that is considered aggressive, you should take your snowflake behind back to your safe space and stop trolling on the web trying to spin people up just to back-peddle out of a conversation you initiated.

I was trying to share my frustration with the housing system for SE. Not to be verbally engaged by someone who just wants to start crap and can't hang when it comes back at them.

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

The question is, how hard is it to add more housing? They already demonstrated they can do it, by adding the additional housing they did just a short while ago. They still don't have enough housing to support the player population and demand.

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Truly believe the split of the servers by the DC are not only to solve latency related problems but also to increase the housing system possibilities in a way it will reach much more players, we only have one solution instead of speculating which is await for the next live letter perhaps will bring news about it.

Totally agree with the player that wrote that SE didn't expect so many players to enjoy the housing system therefore dedicate game time to decoration.

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/

14 million Players, on the home page.

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In addition to what MistakeNot said, fairly certain that also includes RMT bots. Unofficial censes (which you seem to be using for your server population data) have the active player base at roughly 600,000 currently (because of pre-expansion lulls).

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Originally Posted by AnnaRosa

Truly believe the split of the servers by the DC are not only to solve latency related problems but also to increase the housing system possibilities in a way it will reach much more players, we only have one solution instead of speculating which is await for the next live letter perhaps will bring news about it.

Totally agree with the player that wrote that SE didn't expect so many players to enjoy the housing system therefore dedicate game time to decoration.

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I wont hold my breath. I dont trust SE to do this right

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

(and to be fair to SE they could have hardly been blamed for that, as they only had FFXIV 1.0's dismal population figures and FFXI's 10+ years of player data to guide them).

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Yoshi-P himself promised separation from FC housing and that would not have limits like the MMOs of old. Some forum users still have snippets of these posts in their signature.

Plenty of blame to go around ~

edit: I think I'll keep it around in my signature for easy reference for a bit.

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

I was talking to you, GomJabbar. With your little "that's not even close to accurate" when I had the actually SE reported numbers to back my statement up. Whether they are 100% accurate or not is not my problem. That's just information reported by SE themselves. Where is YOUR evidence that the numbers are incorrect?

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You posted it.

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...2579606376.png

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

Dear SE,

I don't know what the problem is with creating more housing. The demand is way higher than the supply. Since housing was released, players on all servers have been demanding more availability. It was really nice for you guys to create additional housing, but you still haven't fixed the problem with availability. FFXIV has 14 Million players. Every server has over 9000 active accounts, and the housing availability is absolutely atrocious.

What makes this system awful is only compounded by the fact that you've got 10 players spamming "purchase plot" trying to get lucky and be the first to click the buy button the moment the plot is available for purchase.

Good old fashioned camp rules are completely ignored due to the frustration of the players that housing is not available. Players come and go, and lots of houses are lost to auto-demolition, which you've had turned off for months longer than necessary, creating an even bigger shortage in lieu of the fact that many of these homes belong to players that probably haven't logged on in months, for whatever reason.

I've had to plots sniped by players running up and clicking the placard while I was actively camping the plot, and just got lucky. This is completely unacceptable, when people are spending hours camping a plot because of the shortage of housing plots.

Please fix this. You could lose subs because of something like this. There doesn't need to be enough houses for everyone, but when you can't even buy a house for a Free Company, that FC will fall apart. FC members, especially sprouts, need access to the perk and benefits of an FC house. If you can't provide more housing options, at least make it so FC's can get apartments or something for crying out loud.

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Most had to fight for their house. When I first moved to cactual waited about 3 hrs for mine. You say they might loose subs over it? Who the weak ones that don't want to try for a house are the same that quit mid-dungeon and don't want to wait in queues. Why complain when you could actually go to the housing suggestion thread and just make it more productive? When you make a post like this it feels hostile and like you want counter-points?

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

I'm using numbers reported by SE. If they aren't accurate, that's SE's problem. But if those are the numbers reported by SE, they are the numbers i used in my post. Accuracy is on them. That's all i'm getting at. Don't be a part of the problem and make drama on a forum like a trolliollio.

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14 million accounts created =/= 14 million active players. 14 million people have probably tried FF XIV at some point or another but the actual figure (active players) is far, far below that number at any given time.

As to what actually matters in regards to this topic, I agree that the housing system could use some work. They should, at least imo, be trying to meet the player demand which far exceeds the number of houses available.

So, I came to make a housing complaint thread and much to my non-surprise there's already plenty of those, so I'll just chime in here. This system is terrible. I understand the reasoning, though I missed the time of the bad house flipping while I was on hiatus I suppose. I've spent the last two days trying to get a house. Every single time, without fail, someone who already has a house rolls up and just takes it. The timer-jumping for people who already have the privilege of owning a plot is incredibly frustrating. Especially when you've been camping out at a spot for upwards of six hours, only to watch them stroll up for the first time and just take it.

Is there any way to prioritize for people who've never owned a plot at all? Or at the very least to not give priority to people who already have a place any longer.

SE offers housing as a part of their gaming experience. They also deluge quest, retainer and event rewards with cute decorations for housing. Why do this if only a small portion of your player base can use these rewards? Housing should be available to ALL players.

TBH I've played for nearly 4 years and haven't touched housing and I'm still happy with the game /shrug

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Originally Posted by Besame

SE offers housing as a part of their gaming experience. They also deluge quest, retainer and event rewards with cute decorations for housing. Why do this if only a small portion of your player base can use these rewards? Housing should be available to ALL players.

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Most housing items events can also be used in apartments, so in actual fact a big portion of the player base CAN use these rewards they just choose not to, so they are either too good for apartments or they are not willing to compromise (joining an FC with house, using FC rooms, moving worlds etc) to begin with. Yes housing has some issues, but don't act like there are no options out there.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Most housing items events can also be used in apartments, so in actual fact a big portion of the player base CAN use these rewards they just choose not to, so they are either too good for apartments or they are not willing to compromise (joining an FC with house, using FC rooms, moving worlds etc) to begin with. Yes housing has some issues, but don't act like there are no options out there.

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I have a med house and an apt, my hubby has a FC so it's not a problem with me. There is no way in "H" I would even buy a FC room in another non-family/rl owned FC. Too ez to get the boot if things change. The fact is, SE said housing is available and it is not to all players that want, period. Everyone that desires a reg house with a garden, stable, etc. should have it available without camping spots or changing worlds.

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Originally Posted by Kitayne

The question is, how hard is it to add more housing? They already demonstrated they can do it, by adding the additional housing they did just a short while ago. They still don't have enough housing to support the player population and demand.

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The real question is: How hard is it to add a garden to the apartment? I just wanna grow some crops, and the FC garden is 100% full.

Apartment is instanced, so load on the tiny gerbils that power the FF servers is minimized, since they only have to render when I'm there. If they are worried about the economy (lol but whatever), limit the garden apts. to one per character.

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Originally Posted by Goona

The real question is: How hard is it to add a garden to the apartment? I just wanna grow some crops, and the FC garden is 100% full.

Apartment is instanced, so load on the tiny gerbils that power the FF servers is minimized, since they only have to render when I'm there. If they are worried about the economy (lol but whatever), limit the garden apts. to one per character.

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I have heard the excuse is that gardens won't work unless they are in a zone that's open all the time like the outdoor residential zones but doesn't make sense to me because you can grow plants inside your apartment in flower pots with no problem. And if a constantly open outdoor map is necessary for some strange reason, why not set it up as a single constantly open area that everyone uses but is phased so you never see other people or their garden plants. That way it looks like its yours alone but actually everyone is using that same map, they just cant see each other or interact with other people's plants.

The big issue you seem to have is simply your assumption that housing can just "Be added" with no repercussions. Keep in mind that, if ONE server gets extra wards, all servers / datacenters get those wards. Only the NA side of things (and some of the EU) are having a "Housing crisis", while other datacenters (and even some servers on NA / EU) are literal ghost-towns. There's a balance.

Not to mention, if they just "add more housing" it won't fix the issue. It'll delay it. Maybe a week or a month at most of praising SE for "fixing the issue" when it hasn't been fixed at all.

Keep in mind that housing was originally intended for Free Companies ONLY. Apartments and "Personal Housing" was added later on after enough request. Then more wards and another district. It's getting to the point that, even when SE tries to appease the vocal community, it's never enough..

The Timer system we have in place right now works in your favour, as much as you may despise it. At least with this system, you can -see- the plots being sold and have a chance at them. Before, you wouldn't even get to see any vacant plots as they would have been swallowed up the MILLISECOND it unlocked.

There are groups that are trying to help you (NA specifically, though I've heard some EU communities are following suit) get a house by minimizing the "camping time" you submit yourself to. You can't really complain that SE is at fault, when its the players that think they MUST / HAVE to sit online for large periods of time, not stretching, not taking care of themselves.. Just for a bunch of 1s and 0s.

Can you guys complaining just change servers and buy a house? I just got a house with my alt with no camping or waiting and had some houses to choose from too. Your title is kind of funny too since you are just like any "other player" doing the same thing. You sure aren't making it easy either.

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Originally Posted by Leloa

Can you guys complaining just change servers and buy a house? I just got a house with my alt with no camping or waiting and had some houses to choose from too. Your title is kind of funny too since you are just like any "other player" doing the same thing. You sure aren't making it easy either.

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At this time I suspect most servers are out of available houses. I know for sure that some servers that had a fair amount of houses available for purchase a few months ago no longer have it - ShB brought in enough people looking for houses that the available ones disappeared.

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Originally Posted by Leloa

Can you guys complaining just change servers and buy a house? I just got a house with my alt with no camping or waiting and had some houses to choose from too. Your title is kind of funny too since you are just like any "other player" doing the same thing. You sure aren't making it easy either.

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You might have choice on the EU worlds. Players on the NA worlds haven't had choice since about 2 weeks after our free transfer period ended in May.

We're packed, with more players than the JP servers but only 24 NA worlds with 103k houses versus JP's 33 worlds with 142k houses. We didn't get the benefit of 2 new worlds to help spread out population and free up housing on crowded worlds like EU worlds did. I don't know if SE ever opened up housing on Spriggan and Twintania but that will help EU even more.

NA isn't getting any help.

NA players stopped reporting NA housing census information because there is nothing worth reporting. Any house that becomes available is bought as soon as the random timer expires. Yay, one player is now happy out of the hundreds still hoping to get a house?

You're not going to see NA players transfer to JP and EU worlds that have houses available when that's going to separate them from their game friends and greatly increase their latency in a game that's already latency sensitive.

So your ill-mannered advice is less than helpful for the NA players who want to have a house while enjoying the game with their friends.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

You might have choice on the EU worlds. Players on the NA worlds haven't had choice since about 2 weeks after our free transfer period ended in May.

We're packed, with more players than the JP servers but only 24 NA worlds with 103k houses versus JP's 33 worlds with 142k houses. We didn't get the benefit of 2 new worlds to help spread out population and free up housing on crowded worlds like EU worlds did. I don't know if SE ever opened up housing on Spriggan and Twintania but that will help EU even more.

NA isn't getting any help.

NA players stopped reporting NA housing census information because there is nothing worth reporting. Any house that becomes available is bought as soon as the random timer expires. Yay, one player is now happy out of the hundreds still hoping to get a house?

You're not going to see NA players transfer to JP and EU worlds that have houses available when that's going to separate them from their game friends and greatly increase their latency in a game that's already latency sensitive.

So your ill-mannered advice is less than helpful for the NA players who want to have a house while enjoying the game with their friends.

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Flipping bingo! Nail on the head! We give them a large portion of thier profits and we get screwed for it!

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Originally Posted by saxman09

Flipping bingo! Nail on the head! We give them a large portion of thier profits and we get screwed for it!

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You're screwed for it how, exactly?

You can play the game, you can do everything and get everything the game offers (obviously, some things easier than others.) simply by playing and using the systems given to you. Once again, it's not SEs fault for the playerbase willingly subjecting themselves to torture

You're not obligated to stand at a placard for hours on end, clicking away aimlessly. You're subjecting yourself to that issue because you're adding so much worth and weight to housing when, for a personal house, only has one thing that Apartments don't. Cross-breeding.

Everything else (minus FC-housing. But that's a rather obvious one) can be achieved with apartments.

TL;DR:
You're not screwed for jack. You pay to play the game and you can play the game. No game mechanics / systems are locked behind a paywall.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

At this time I suspect most servers are out of available houses. I know for sure that some servers that had a fair amount of houses available for purchase a few months ago no longer have it - ShB brought in enough people looking for houses that the available ones disappeared.

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Maybe I can offer a bit of hope here!

I am part of an unofficial community which tracks open housing plots and collects plot timer statistics, primarily on Crystal datacenter, with the aim of helping people plot camp in a way that is sustainable for them. (Some of you may have seen our PF ad from time to time!)

• Since June 26th (about 2 months now) we have recorded more than 350 plot openings on Mateus, about half of which have gone to a new plot owner and not to relocation. That's about 2 new purchases per day, though of course they come and go in waves.
  
• On Balmung, we recorded about 70 plot openings from mid-July to mid-August, with 31 of those going to new plot owners -- one new purchase a day, on average, again not evenly-distributed.

And these are only the plots we have caught and which we have purchase data for -- not including the ones we missed or couldn't record the purchase type for, since we rely on volunteers to manually go and look at every ward and subdivision to record new openings.

The upshot of this: there are always new plots opening due to auto-demolition and folks moving servers.

The data we have collected so far has helped people to keep their camp times within more reasonable limits. Even so, with all the people we interact with who are feeling hopeless or worn thin with the plot timers -- some of whom have camped a dozen or more plots without any success (because it is still about 80% luck) -- I am 100% in favor of a lottery system AND instanced housing with gardening support. I would love nothing more than to see our hard work become totally obsolete.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Yoshi-P himself promised separation from FC housing and that would not have limits like the MMOs of old. Some forum users still have snippets of these posts in their signature.

Plenty of blame to go around ~

edit: I think I'll keep it around in my signature for easy reference for a bit.

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In response to the quote from your signature: while that may have been the intent, the playerbase did kinda screw that much up. While we're lucky to not have to pay a regular "rent" fee for houses, the practice of other players to snag up tons of houses for themselves (like so) and less scrupulous players flipping houses for highway robbery prices necessitated changes, including the auto-demo system.

File this under "reasons we can't have nice things".

(also, you can always buy an apartment, like I did)

Honestly? I'd rather plots go for "auction" during the timer period. Highest bid at end of timer wins. People who want it will pay up for it. If it stays up after the timer with no bid, then it just default prices.


I mean, essentially, that's how real housing works, yes? Auction/highest paying buyer?

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Originally Posted by JWag12787

Honestly? I'd rather plots go for "auction" during the timer period. Highest bid at end of timer wins. People who want it will pay up for it. If it stays up after the timer with no bid, then it just default prices.


I mean, essentially, that's how real housing works, yes? Auction/highest paying buyer?

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Maybe, but it wouldn't really do much to alleviate the issue. People would still be camping plaques.