Housing Demolition & Item Destruction

I've been an active player/subscriber since 2013 and am hopelessly in love with FFXIV--so this isn't a complaint nor me saying "something should be done about this because I'm mad" or "if you don't fix this I'll quit" kind of thing. It's more of a...is there anyway this could have turned out better so they can fix it for the future sort of conversation.

I had unplanned emergency surgery that was devastating & was bedridden with complications, but I kept up my subscription current and finally could log in and it was strange because I wasn't standing on my estate where I always logged out.

It turns out my house had been demolished.

It was destroyed because I didn't ENTER my house. My character was on my property during the 45 day period that was counted for my house's destruction. While I had not logged in personally, my daughter transferred things from my character to hers, so during this period my character was on the estate property, and to me, this was "accessing my estate". It wasn't until I spoke with CS and they said I had to ENTER the house for it to reset the timer that I even knew the policy.

I discovered the warning emails lost in the mass chaos that was my overflowing neglected inbox so I recognize I'm to blame. Believe me, I can't feel any more horrible about this & personally responsible for not understanding this policy. It is heart wrenching to know that I missed the emails to warn me and I missed the window of opportunity to save my house.

The real issue I have to be honest is that they destroyed my items and my gil.

There's a 35 day holding period for the items/gil before they're destroyed--which to be perfectly honest? I think that's ludicrous. You're dealing with items that have the potential to have been collected over YEARS being held for 35 days before completely destroying them with zero recourse to recover them?

I had so many trophies and things my family (9 of us play as a family) had collected that held a lot of deep personal meaning to me, even if that's stupid because this is a game and none of those things are REAL, but to me it hurts that it's gone and it might seem stupid but as a casual player it seriously took me FOREVER to earn enough gil to buy my house and decorate it.

I also bought A LOT of items from the MOG station which are now also destroyed, something I think is super sketchy to be honest, since they're items I actually paid cash for.

I eventually spoke with a team lead discussing this situation and the way that the devs struggle with balancing the housing issues--and he admitted, that I am not/never was the kind of player that they were targeting, as the entire purpose of the demolition/destruction policy was for ABANDONED houses. Not for players who were still active in the game.

1/2

I've been trying to think of solutions that could prevent this from happening in the case of someone being a loyal subscriber who has an emergency that keeps them away from the game for an extended period of time.

A few ideas:

--ability to purchase an "insurance policy" that if your house is destroyed your items would not be. I pay fees every month for additional retainers to hold my crafting goods so let me pay for "housing insurance" which would basically be "storage" in the event my house is demolished that my items will be put into so I can get them back. If the GENUINE goal is ensuring those who want houses can get them and those who "abandon" their houses don't hold up property, then demolish the houses--but give us a recourse that protects the items we've worked so hard to acquire! The lead told me that it was an intriguing idea (that he'd pass on) but it's a fine line to walk to make sure people don't interpret it as a cash grab...so I'm sure it would have to be carefully looked at to implement something like this but not make it seem like it's about the money but about the needs of the player.

--adjust the 'trigger' for the housing counter to "access the estate" including STANDING ON YOUR OWN PROPERTY. If the menu for housing triggers, then this should be enough to reset the timer. All of this would have been avoided because MY CHARACTER STOOD on my property MULTIPLE times during the destruction countdown timer.

--When talking to the lead he said that I could have saved my house/items given the situation by making someone else a co-owner so they could reset the counter...which is fair, and I actually DO have my daughter as a co-owner, however, since it's unclear that you have to go INTO THE HOUSE, and since she'd accessed the property multiple times in the destruction countdown window w/my character & hers this wouldn't have saved the house. Could a "pop-up" or special notification warn you to ENTER the estate home to reset the timer? This is small beans maybe to the devs who I am certain have lots of things to deal with that are bigger than me losing my house but...I'd like to think that it still matters.

If you read this far, thank you so kindly! I'm loath to complain about this game as I absolutely adore it! That said, this has seriously devastated me when I'm already trying to recover physically/emotionally/mentally from my medical trauma. I sort of tremble in fear about making the investment into a new house & the time and effort it will require, knowing this could STILL happen to me. There's so much that goes on in the situation with a medical emergency, so many moving parts that can't be imagined or controlled--that *I* had never even considered! To be honest, the last thing I or anyone in my family were thinking of was protecting my house in FFXIV--which sadly means, under the same circumstances, the potential exists for this to happen again.

Thanks for listening to my thoughts!
Noralise

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noralise

--When talking to the lead he said that I could have saved my house/items given the situation by making someone else a co-owner so they could reset the counter...

---

This is very much NOT the case, nor has it ever been. For personal houses only the owner entering the house will reset the timer. For fc houses, any member of the fc entering the house will reset the timer.

Instanced housing fixes this issue.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dustytome

This is very much NOT the case, nor has it ever been. For personal houses only the owner entering the house will reset the timer. For fc houses, any member of the fc entering the house will reset the timer.

---

Really? To be honest, I don't know enough about this (obviously) to be considered informed as I never really paid any attention to this stuff. I had my house before the chaos of land explosions and cut throat tactics became a thing so I never really paid much attention to what was what before.

That said, the man I spoke to identified himself as a "Lead" and seemed quite knowledgeable about all of this, and emphasized that my house would not have been destroyed if my daughter had entered it at any time because she was also on the house?

Could this be a policy that has changed or is it that the person I spoke to was unaware of this being the case?

I really would like to know for future reference--in case it would be that I would have to tell my family to log into MY account not just merely visit the house, as if I were able to get another house I'd intended to put all of my family members (there are 9 of us) on the house to ensure that SOMEONE could go into the house in the event something like this (God forbid!) should happen again.

Is there a way to get a confirmation on this? I would have sincerely believed what this man said to be honest, he seemed quite assured, but I do NOT want to make the time investment at this point in getting the gil to buy another house only to have something like this happen again because I *still* didn't understand the way this works haha

Thanks for your help!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dfess

Instanced housing fixes this issue.

---

Agreed!

I play SWTOR and LOTRO as well, and these things don't seem problematic there. On SWTOR you pay a large fee to buy your estates. Yes, I said estates because there are MANY of them, called 'strongholds'--based on the planet they are on so like one in Nar Shadda, one in Coruscantj, or Dromund Kaas, ect. The thing is, they do cost A LOT, and they have them broken down into sections, so each entire estate might be broken up into 6-8 parts which you have to purchase individually as an "extension" of the primary lot purchase. This can be land or additional rooms, ect. They do limit the number of them you can own but I think it's five...and there's currently seven available I think (don't quote me!)...but once you buy these they are yours forever and you don't have to pay anymore. They don't have a timer on them but they ARE instanced, so I agree, this does obviously make a huge difference on resource consumption.

LOTRO allows you to own several kinds of houses, and you do have to pay a sort of "rent" for them, though they have it set up so that you can pay in advance by 6 months--this fee is also waved if you are a VIP (monthly subscriber) so that those people do not ever lose their homes--but normal players who do not subscribe are in a position to lose their homes if they do not pay their rent. That said, the ability to pay in advance for your rent is a way to stop the destruction in the case you are going on vacation or something of that nature. I'm pretty sure this housing is also instanced, though I can not be sure in considering it right now--I'd have to check because they do have neighborhoods similar to what we see here in FFXIV and you can visit each others houses much the same as well.

I play with every kind of housing in games and love that aspect, it's one of the reasons this has effected me so dramatically--the housing in these games is one of my biggest time sinks and where I honestly spend a LOT of time, effort, and money.

Still, FFXIV figuring out a way to solve this issue for everyone, especially those who are paying subscribers seems like a good move on their part no matter what. There's plenty of working, viable, and fair models out there to look at, so I don't understand why this is such a big issue (and if there's a reason I'd love to understand, as I said, I am NOT informed about the housing situation in this game because I had mine before the chaos ensued lol)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noralise

Really? To be honest, I don't know enough about this (obviously) to be considered informed as I never really paid any attention to this stuff. I had my house before the chaos of land explosions and cut throat tactics became a thing so I never really paid much attention to what was what before.

That said, the man I spoke to identified himself as a "Lead" and seemed quite knowledgeable about all of this, and emphasized that my house would not have been destroyed if my daughter had entered it at any time because she was also on the house?

---

I don't know who it was you that told you that, but again for a personal house, only the owner will reset the timer. Tenants do not have the ability to reset it. Maybe they were thinking it was an fc owned house when they mentioned it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dustytome

I don't know who it was you that told you that, but again for a personal house, only the owner will reset the timer. Tenants do not have the ability to reset it. Maybe they were thinking it was an fc owned house when they mentioned it?

---

Strange! No, they knew it was my personal house, like I said, he spent a lot of time with me--it wasn't one of the people who usually answer the phone...I was on hold for a really long time after basically losing my mind on the first two people who I talked to who kept saying they couldn't help me lol I was like "I don't want you to FIX this, please understand, I want to talk to someone who can listen and try to talk to someone to show there is an issue with the way the system is working" and so they put me on hold and then this guy who identified himself as a team lead answered, giving me his name and contact information in case I needed to get in touch with him again--and he literally was on the phone with me for a long time...looked up my account and my account on the MOG station, was making notes so we can try to get my MOG station items returned to me, etc. So, he didn't misunderstand what kind of house it was, but maybe he is misinformed which is a real mess if he's a team lead!? I mean we should be able to trust what they say! To be honest though, he seemed very sincere and I think he GENUINELY believes that if I had someone else enter my home as long as they're added to the house they'd reset the timer--which honestly, is a pretty big issue in and of itself because if they think I was a little off my meds with this situation as it were, if I had this happen again after an employee told me how to avoid it with misinformation, I shudder to imagine my reaction lol I definitely was a mess on the phone as I had just discovered it and was still in the despondent crying phase and fairly emotional lol Hey, at least I'm honest...lol I can be a little dramatic in general, but apparently this is amplified on pain medication lol who knew?! At the very least, I either gave them some good recordings to laugh their collective butts off or training or perhaps BOTH ahhahaahahaha

Thank you for clarifying! I will actually dig into this a bit more as maybe I can contact the same guy I talked to again to verify his statement, because by myself it would be sort of like maybe I misunderstood based on my medicated state, but my husband was also on the line with me and he verified that this is what the guy stated to me more than once.

What fixes the issue is doing away with the ridiculous enter the house model. You pay your sub you keep your house. Personally I have my mender inside my houses and use them so it forces me to enter pretty much daily even though I love my garden and is where I spend most of my time.

It ensures that the houses get used rather than gotten and sat on to a degree

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

What fixes the issue is doing away with the ridiculous enter the house model.

---

Yea the demolition timer is a very clear indication of how flawed the entire housing system is. I understand why it's there and why we need it for the system we have...but it's an awful thing that punishes players like OP who weren't neglecting their home. Life happened and they couldn't log in.

SE please upgrade apartments so they have more space and all the features houses have. That would be a step in the right direction to make this crappy system less crap. Players who are concerned about being able to keep their house or just want to be able to unsub for longer periods of time could get apartments without feeling like they're a miserable excuse of a home. And it would certainly reduce the amount of people aiming specifically for a house.

If my apartment offered me the same features as a house as well as more furnishing space I'm not sure if I would have even bothered with a house. But I like gardening and having an outdoor space...so I need a house to be able to do these things.

If you had instructed your daughter to enter your house every time she logged in on your behalf during your leave of absence, you would never have had to make this post because you would have retained your house. Sorry that it happened to you, but it has happened to many who simply did not know. Had you taken the time to make yourself aware of the conditions for demolition down to the fine print, you could have easily avoided this since you even had your daughter logging in for you periodically. I hope that you will find a way to one again claim a new house. Good luck.

In all fairness, even as a player not even really interested in the housing side of the game, the 35 day item hold after demolition has always sounded a bit too draconian. The demo timer might suck, but it's got some rationality to it. But the additional limit for finally getting back in to reclaim your items is brutal.