How the invisible timer can REALLY ruin housing

So I'm not posting this because I would do this (which I wouldn't), nor do I promote anyone doing this. Because I feel that something needs to be done about the invisible lockout timers on plots, I'm going to explain how they can be abused by potentially a single person to further worsen the housing crisis in the game.

Suppose, for example, you're sitting on a ton of gil even after buying a housing plot. Maybe you want to upgrade or you don't like where your house is or maybe you just want your house elsewhere, so you transfer to another open plot. Sure, you might annoy someone who had been sitting on that plot for hours waiting on that invisible timer, but transferring a plot bypasses that timer and you get that new dream plot, putting your original plot on the timer. Then maybe that dream plot you just bought isn't all you wanted it to be for some reason or another, so you buy another, again bypassing that invisible timer and getting that plot. This now puts two plots at the start of their invisible timers.

Now suppose someone more malicious with way too much gil and even more spare time comes along. If they kept doing this for multiple plots, meaning multiple plots would be on the start of their invisible timers. So long as they have the money and spare time, that one person could effectively keep several plots on lockdown with the sole intent of barring multiple players from purchasing a housing plot unless they already own one. What makes matters worse is that while it could technically qualify as "disruptive behavior" according to the Terms of Service, there would be no real way of proving that such an individual did this since they still only holding one plot at a time to their name.

Once again, I have no intention of committing the aforementioned act, nor would I ever condone anyone committing such an act. I only point it out for the purposes of alleviating the overall issue of housing in this game.

Now how could it be fixed? My guess for the dev fix would likely be to make those invisible random timers prevent plot transfers since that would be the easiest fix (and sadly what seems to be the go-to when it comes to fixing complaints), which would only result in expanding how many players there are who are already vehemently and/or angrily opposed to the invisible random timers.

Another easy solution would be to simply remove those invisible random timers, although that would go against whatever bizarre reason there is for why those timers are there in the first place. The compromise would be some sort of indicator saying "this plot's about to be available soon", but that seems like way too much work for what is already an utterly idiotic system.

At the end of the day, I'm not quite sure devs are truly aware of how far players are willing to go to get their precious piece of land in the game. Players will wait 12 hours (which I did), 24 hours or longer just to get a house. The least devs can do is do something about the timers so that they are not a risk to the physical well-being of dedicated players who may not have a problem sacrificing it for a house or emotional well-being of players victimized by someone abusing the system.

There's a certain very annoying, obnoxious and player who must not be named who does this. They admitted as such, and I don't think has been banned for it, despite well deserving of it, because the people they are abusing likely don't know who they are, and wouldn't report it. But it is possible.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

I'm going to explain how they can be abused by potentially a single person to further worsen the housing crisis in the game.

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From SE's perspective, more gil gets taken out of the game so why would they care? There are servers in this game where housing can be purchased on sight. If someone's harming themselves when they have better options, that's on them really.

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Originally Posted by Gula

There's a certain very annoying, obnoxious and player who must not be named who does this. They admitted as such, and I don't think has been banned for it, despite well deserving of it, because the people they are abusing likely don't know who they are, and wouldn't report it. But it is possible.

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https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...b2ph6ZPVK2Ae_S

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

From SE's perspective, more gil gets taken out of the game so why would they care? There are servers in this game where housing can be purchased on sight. If someone's harming themselves when they have better options, that's on them really.

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They'd care because no amount of gil lost on a server can pay off all the bad press they've been getting about the housing issue along with unhappy players, both of which result in potentially lost revenue.

Then again, if you're causing the problem, you clearly wouldn't understand how much damage abusing a system can do to a game.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

They'd care because no amount of gil lost on a server can pay off all the bad press they've been getting about the housing issue along with unhappy players, both of which result in potentially lost revenue.

Then again, if you're causing the problem, you clearly wouldn't understand how much damage abusing a system can do to a game.

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Bad press about housing? Game outlets are praising this game at the moment, especially with the release of ShadowBringers. They just announced how they went beyond 1m active players. Obviously they are worrying about a minority of players on the NA servers, who instead of unsubscribing, spend their free time clicking on a placard or use automation :rolleyes:. There's no lost revenue over this. If anything, the current system keeps player subscribed just to reset housing timers, which is an issue on it's own.

I very much understand housing, just look at the signature. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy and delusion that is plaguing this forum. Before complaining about the visible minority of multi-house owners, it might be wiser to talk about the thousands of players who take advantage of the very generous demolition timer or those who willingly let their house get demolished when they could obviously relinquish right away instead of letting their house in limbo for 45 days. Then there's personal house owners who don't have the maximum amount of tenants that is permitted as those players are effectively preventing any houseless rank 6 FC from having a house.

Considering you don't get any gil back when you relinquish your house and 80% when you let the timer go, it's not really strange that people would rather let their time lapse than give up their plot right away. The system doesn't encourage people to do that.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

Considering you don't get any gil back when you relinquish your house and 80% when you let the timer go, it's not really strange that people would rather let their time lapse than give up their plot right away. The system doesn't encourage people to do that.

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Which is yet another issue with the system that nobody ever talks about.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

Considering you don't get any gil back when you relinquish your house and 80% when you let the timer go, it's not really strange that people would rather let their time lapse than give up their plot right away. The system doesn't encourage people to do that.

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And somehow that excuses the behavior? Most auto-demos are small houses. If the owners are so desperate to get 3m back, even though they decided to unsub (in most cases), why do they own a house to begin with. 3m is absolutely nothing at this point in the game's life. Literally pocket change. Time being the most valuable thing one can have, I find it quite shocking anyone believes that such a meaningless amount of gil can justify keeping a plot from going back to the market for a month and a half.

And they call us selfish huh... :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

And somehow that excuses the behavior? Most auto-demos are small houses. If the owners are so desperate to get 3m back, even though they decided to unsub (in most cases), why do they own a house to begin with. 3m is absolutely nothing at this point in the game's life. Literally pocket change. Time being the most valuable thing one can have, I find it quite shocking anyone believes that such a meaningless amount of gil can justify keeping a plot from going back to the market for a month and a half.

And they call us selfish huh... :rolleyes:

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3 million is pocket change to YOU. Not to every player.

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

3 million is pocket change to YOU. Not to every player.

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It's pocket change to anyone who puts even a modicum of effort into trying to make gil.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

It's pocket change to anyone who puts even a modicum of effort into trying to make gil.

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No, there's no modicum here. I can make a ammount if no one undercuts me. Modicum is insinuating minimal effort, 3m as a drop in the bucket is asking for a slightly higher undertaking. Or buying gil and with this person buying multiple accounts, (I've blacklisted their others that they like to strut around) the chances are very high.

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Originally Posted by Gula

No, there's no modicum here. I can make a ammount if no one undercuts me. Modicum is insinuating minimal effort, 3m as a drop in the bucket is asking for a slightly higher undertaking. Or buying gil and with this person buying multiple accounts, (I've blacklisted their others that they like to strut around) the chances are very high.

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A couple of hours of gathering can earn you close to that 3 million gil. Doesn't take a whole lot of effort in the grand scheme of things.

If you prefer, do a few hours of FATEs in the new areas. You'll earn that gil while leveling up your jobs. It doesn't even have to be what you're trying to do, it's just a bonus.

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Originally Posted by Gula

No, there's no modicum here. I can make a ammount if no one undercuts me. Modicum is insinuating minimal effort, 3m as a drop in the bucket is asking for a slightly higher undertaking. Or buying gil and with this person buying multiple accounts, (I've blacklisted their others that they like to strut around) the chances are very high.

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The difference is where you set the bar for modicum and where I set it are worlds apart. Therefore our efforts are worlds apart. So the number of houses we own are also worlds apart. You are the one getting undercut because I am the one undercutting you.

It's simple really. But as soon as anyone claims to work harder than you that's where you point your finger and call no-life or cheating. Nobody could possibly work harder than you right? :)

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Originally Posted by GU099

The difference is where you set the bar for modicum and where I set it are worlds apart. Therefore our efforts are worlds apart. So the number of houses we own are also worlds apart. You are the one getting undercut because I am the one undercutting you.

It's simple really. But as soon as anyone claims to work harder than you that's where you point your finger and call no-life or cheating. Nobody could possibly work harder than you right? :)

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Well aren't you just special =)

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Are you really going to include people who are putting in wasted effort into being counted as putting effort in? People can make bad choices. That doesn't mean it's not easy to make a better choice instead.

As far as I'm concerned, there's a minimal amount of effort required before you can qualify as "trying to make gil." That minimum is doing a tiny amount market research. If you see that you can make 100,000 gil by making 99 of an item, and then immediately go make them, you haven't put in even the bare minimum effort to qualify. You could have instead looked and seen that you can make 20,000 gil by selling a single item that sells by the truckload.

Or you can have the foresight to know that patch 5.05 is coming up, which means prices are about to skyrocket, and tomestomes will possibly be a valuable source of income. Making 3 million gil will be child's play for anyone who actually tries.

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Not to someone starting out. It is just mind boggling to me how some veterans on this board forget what type of effort it takes to start from nothing. Then when they defend their positions it is the old tried and true reason of "well I did it so they should too". You also forget that much of making gil in this game revolves not just around market research, but time available to the player. Some players seem to have all day everyday and can move on markets and earn those tomestones. In at least one of these arguments against fixing the housing system and talking about earning gil the player seems to have an over abundance of time. There is nothing wrong with that, but this game makes its money from the casual players that simply do not have the time available. These are the people that SE needs to cater to because that is where their revenue comes from.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

While I agree that more wards are nice, they've been doing that since the beginning and it hasn't solved the issue. And as long as housing remains dirt cheap, it will likely never solve the issue.

The issue is, yes, availability. But pricing has influenced demand in a very negative manner. That houses are so affordable to everyone and their moogle means that competition for the limited availability of housing is really bad.

I'm not sure if you were here 4 years ago when housing was at its second price point. It was 1: available only to FCs and 2: about 80 million gil for a large house. Availability was not an issue despite there being only 6 wards, and we didn't have Shirogane yet. As a new player at the time, I was easily able to make enough gil to buy 3 larges, all in the same ward. I had no struggles to do this: there was no competition. I bought all three mansions at 40 million gil, their minimum devaluation.

Back then, that was a lot of gil. But I put in the effort and got 3 mansions before entire FCs were able or willing to pool their resources together and buy them.

I have since stopped trying to make gil (since 4 years ago), so I don't have nearly as much gil as you do. However, in the current state of the game, it's an easy to understand fact that it's far easier to make gil than it was back then.

As someone who has made as much gil as you have, I'm sure you have at least a basic understanding of economics. You don't decrease the price of things as inflation occurs, that defies all logic. You especially don't do it to something that has limited supply. Yet this is what the devs have done. What happens to that limited supply when you make it affordable to everyone? It disappears.

As such, I very much challenge the idea that gil is not the argument with the housing system. Yes, that's not what people are complaining about. But it is what they should be complaining about. They just don't realize that the low price point is what's causing their problems.

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I agree housing is too cheap. I would like to see them increase the price of plots in conjunction with adding new wards. I would think that at least if the plots were attainable through hard work rather than luck it would fix some of the issues.