Demo lite suggestion

I'm sure this is probably an unpopular opinion but I think it needs to be said. In my time walking around the housing districts I've seen quite a few houses that go unused, both inside and outside other than just a single Aethernet Crystal. No farming, no choco stable, no decoration, just a blank plot (inside and out) and a crystal thrown in there. I feel plots like this should always be up for demolition, I understand the "I bought it, I'll use it how i want" mentality. But scenarios like this only compound to the issue of scarce housing for those who actually want to partake in the systems that housing allows (decoration, RP, gardening with cross breeds, choco leveling, etc.). My statement about it being up for demo doesnt mean these houses should be outright taken away, because that isnt fair either, but I feel if you arent going to utilize the housing features you should have the house, and leaving it with that demo feature would allow players who are actively playing and at least using the only feature they put on their plot to keep their houses. I'd be for leaving demo timers up permanently but that is less my concern with this post. What are your thoughts on leaving demo up for completely/nearly completely unused plots?

No. The system has a metric for taking away houses that people have. There is no good reason to extend it from the objective(they havent used it in x days) to the subjective(they dont use it well enough). Should my neighbor lose his house for putting up 6 of those namazu effigies that make the horrible grinding noise? Should anyone who ever put up a Paissa housing wall lose their house for bad taste? My yard looks nice and i craft there all the time(i visit my house daily), but my inside isnt finished yet so do i lose my house next?

Do yourself a favor. Dont go around looking at the seemingly empty houses. Nothing good comes of it. Tour the decorated ones for ideas you can use in your own house/apartment instead. Oh, and get an apartment. They dont get demo'd, and you can actually do a LOT more then you might think with one. Its small, but ive seen great work done.

I mean, people have fully furnished houses and yards, but then come on to the forums saying their house got demo'd because they never went in it. If someone buys property and just sticks a crystal on it and it doesn't get demo'd, clearly they're visiting it, unless I'm misunderstanding how the demolition timer works. I don't actually own a house because I can't stay subbed consistently enough to even bother.

I'd rather see an empty plot that gets teleported to occasionally than a house I know is collecting dust and cobwebs because the owner never goes in it.

And who determines what the level of usage is supposed to be? If they are entering the house once every 45 days they're meeting the standard for keeping it. I can understand how you feel however and I really don't quite get why people buy and then don't use them but some might simply have had only enough money for the house, aether and construction permit.

Personally I use my houses every day. I live in housing districts and it is where i spend most of my time when not in a duty.

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Originally Posted by Zedix

I'm sure this is probably an unpopular opinion but I think it needs to be said. In my time walking around the housing districts I've seen quite a few houses that go unused, both inside and outside other than just a single Aethernet Crystal. No farming, no choco stable, no decoration, just a blank plot (inside and out) and a crystal thrown in there. I feel plots like this should always be up for demolition, I understand the "I bought it, I'll use it how i want" mentality. But scenarios like this only compound to the issue of scarce housing for those who actually want to partake in the systems that housing allows (decoration, RP, gardening with cross breeds, choco leveling, etc.). My statement about it being up for demo doesnt mean these houses should be outright taken away, because that isnt fair either, but I feel if you arent going to utilize the housing features you should have the house, and leaving it with that demo feature would allow players who are actively playing and at least using the only feature they put on their plot to keep their houses. I'd be for leaving demo timers up permanently but that is less my concern with this post. What are your thoughts on leaving demo up for completely/nearly completely unused plots?

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Do you have your character parked outside those houses 24 hours a day, 45 days straight to know beyond doubt that they aren't getting used at all? Because that would be rather creepy and pretty unhealthy for you considering the total lack of sleep.

Just because they aren't being used in the way you would use a house doesn't mean they aren't getting used, especially if it's a FC house with workshop attached. SE isn't about to tell players how they must use the houses that they buy, only that they must enter them once every 45 days to retain possession. If all someone wants the house for is a cheaper teleport option as they move between the various areas of the game world, that's their choice.

I'd rather see SE address the issue of supply in a constructive manner that solves the problem over dreaming up more ways to make it more difficult for players to buy and retain a house that doesn't solve anything in the long run.

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Originally Posted by Zedix

In my time walking around the housing districts I've seen quite a few houses that go unused, both inside and outside other than just a single Aethernet Crystal. No farming, no choco stable, no decoration, just a blank plot (inside and out) and a crystal thrown in there.

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I'm just trying to think of why the houses might be like that...
Is it possible those people are/were new home owners? Are they still blank?
It's also possible that it's owned by one of those people who buys every house they can "in protest" of not liking this or that about the way housing works.
Other than that... That's a mystery...

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Originally Posted by Zedix

I'm sure this is probably an unpopular opinion but I think it needs to be said. In my time walking around the housing districts I've seen quite a few houses that go unused, both inside and outside other than just a single Aethernet Crystal. No farming, no choco stable, no decoration, just a blank plot (inside and out) and a crystal thrown in there. I feel plots like this should always be up for demolition, I understand the "I bought it, I'll use it how i want" mentality. But scenarios like this only compound to the issue of scarce housing for those who actually want to partake in the systems that housing allows (decoration, RP, gardening with cross breeds, choco leveling, etc.). My statement about it being up for demo doesnt mean these houses should be outright taken away, because that isnt fair either, but I feel if you arent going to utilize the housing features you should have the house, and leaving it with that demo feature would allow players who are actively playing and at least using the only feature they put on their plot to keep their houses. I'd be for leaving demo timers up permanently but that is less my concern with this post. What are your thoughts on leaving demo up for completely/nearly completely unused plots?

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You are witch hunting and that mentality is really hard to accept on this forum.
When I moved from Limbsa to Shirogane I have left my house empty for straight 6 months but it is not because I am not using it
I was visiting other people's house and see which decoration style would suit me.
This would be same when you are trying to decorate your house
It is a process of planning.
The system should stay from taking parameter of house entry, definitely not your idea

I think if you wanted to go with a fairer demo light solution, then maybe you would turn demos back on, but extend some sort of grace period to those who had their houses demolished where they can buy into a new home similar to a transfer.

I'm sure there are probably issues with this suggestion as well, as it's sort of a half baked and off the cuff response to the post. But just a thought.

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Originally Posted by caspergrey

I think if you wanted to go with a fairer demo light solution, then maybe you would turn demos back on, but extend some sort of grace period to those who had their houses demolished where they can buy into a new home similar to a transfer.

I'm sure there are probably issues with this suggestion as well, as it's sort of a half baked and off the cuff response to the post. But just a thought.

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I'd hate to come back and have to not only rebuy the house, but have to put my hundreds of housing items back up.
And this is on top of the fact that you might come back in that grace period, money in hand to buy a new house, and have there just be no plots available.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I'd hate to come back and have to not only rebuy the house, but have to put my hundreds of housing items back up.
And this is on top of the fact that you might come back in that grace period, money in hand to buy a new house, and have there just be no plots available.

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To be clear, I don't think any scenario is an ideal one right now. It was simply an idea that would allow more plots to open up in the current market while still not completely kicking people to the curb during the pandemic. I think there would be a way to make it that you can transfer into a house at the same amount that you get when your house is demolished.

Perhaps they can give a housing voucher to those who have houses demolished during the pandemic that you can either exchange for gil or use to immediately transfer into an open plot plus/minus the difference in price.

But, in the current scenario you also have a situation where someone just naturally left the game and are not coming back and their plot is not getting released.

At some point the demo restriction is going to be released and there will still be people that fall on the short end of the stick. So not coming back before a grace period has ended is really not that different than coming back after demos have been reinstated in terms of risk of not getting into a house.

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Originally Posted by caspergrey

At some point the demo restriction is going to be released and there will still be people that fall on the short end of the stick. So not coming back before a grace period has ended is really not that different than coming back after demos have been reinstated in terms of risk of not getting into a house.

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That's totally true. The detail that makes or breaks it for me is the length of the grace period.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

No. The system has a metric for taking away houses that people have. There is no good reason to extend it from the objective(they havent used it in x days) to the subjective(they dont use it well enough). Should my neighbor lose his house for putting up 6 of those namazu effigies that make the horrible grinding noise? Should anyone who ever put up a Paissa housing wall lose their house for bad taste? My yard looks nice and i craft there all the time(i visit my house daily), but my inside isnt finished yet so do i lose my house next?

Do yourself a favor. Dont go around looking at the seemingly empty houses. Nothing good comes of it. Tour the decorated ones for ideas you can use in your own house/apartment instead. Oh, and get an apartment. They dont get demo'd, and you can actually do a LOT more then you might think with one. Its small, but ive seen great work done.

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1) They turn off demolition after a time goes by so players may not even be subscribed to the game and the housing stays for months awaiting demo to be turned back on, how is that fair to current active players seeking housing? If my suggestion is so off base then leaving demolition on 24-7-365 should remain a thing to let that metric work the way its intended.
2) I am not proposing to demo people because of subjective opinions on "taste" so that is completely off the point I am raising.
3) No, you wouldn't, it is at least partly furnished, I am purely looking at people who have not furnished/utilized their housing at all, inside or out.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Do you have your character parked outside those houses 24 hours a day, 45 days straight to know beyond doubt that they aren't getting used at all? Because that would be rather creepy and pretty unhealthy for you considering the total lack of sleep.

Just because they aren't being used in the way you would use a house doesn't mean they aren't getting used, especially if it's a FC house with workshop attached. SE isn't about to tell players how they must use the houses that they buy, only that they must enter them once every 45 days to retain possession. If all someone wants the house for is a cheaper teleport option as they move between the various areas of the game world, that's their choice.

I'd rather see SE address the issue of supply in a constructive manner that solves the problem over dreaming up more ways to make it more difficult for players to buy and retain a house that doesn't solve anything in the long run.

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1) I frequently play for 12~ hours a day 4 times a week (my job only requires me to work 3-12's each week) and thusly I am at the FC house frequently so perhaps not 24 hours a day but certainly a large portion, I have never seen this player online, nor at the summoning bell/marketboard near their home in the 4+ months this player has owned it.
2) It is not an FC house
3) Purchasing a house for the purpose of cheaper teleports doesn't even make sense, houses cost millions of gil, in order to pay off that investment you would need to teleport about 3.5k-4.4k (assuming 999g rate decreased to 150g) times to pay it off. That would be an insane amount of teleports to the 1 city or the 1 surrounding zone that is accessible directly from the housing district. This doesn't account for favoring a teleport to reduce its cost lower than the 999g it maxes out at, which would only increase the number of teleports needed.
4) I'm not saying it needs to be a specific use case, I'm saying the specific housing exclusive systems; public decoration, cross breed gardening, RP, chocobo leveling, etc., should be utilized.
5) SE has already made it abundantly clear over the 7 years this game has been out that they will only slowly add housing due to system/server limitation, expanding housing is not something they do frequently. This makes housing ownership a luxury that should be maintained. IMO, this is completely fine, but if the bar is set so low (zone in once every 45 days) demolition should never be turned off. And in the long run what it would do; at least in the way I see it, is that it would foster a closer knit community among the people who play frequently, who own houses and utilize their features, if someone owns a house and is never there and never online except for zoning into their house once every 45 days, that is only hurting the people who want to desperately own houses and partake, and making more headache for SE themselves.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I'm just trying to think of why the houses might be like that...
Is it possible those people are/were new home owners? Are they still blank?
It's also possible that it's owned by one of those people who buys every house they can "in protest" of not liking this or that about the way housing works.

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1) The house has been owned for at least 4 months now, not a new player, house has been blank and still remains blank to this day.
2) Buying houses in protest is, IMO, abhorrent. You are actively taking something away from people who wish to use the limited system to do what exactly? Make a point to "the man?" SE has shown disinterest in changing the housing system from its current state and no amount of community trolling and screaming will change that, buying houses to "protest" does nothing but hurt the people and FC's that actually want to utilize the system as is. Even in its deeply flawed state there are many people who want to do things only housing allows. And if there are actually people who buy houses in protest, they should really rethink what that is doing to the community. They are adding to the problem they want fixed instead of finding home owners who will stand with them, I'm all for adding more wards, creating new districts all together in new areas of the game, but buying houses to make a point is just petty, depressing, and self defeating.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

You are witch hunting and that mentality is really hard to accept on this forum.
When I moved from Limbsa to Shirogane I have left my house empty for straight 6 months but it is not because I am not using it
I was visiting other people's house and see which decoration style would suit me.
This would be same when you are trying to decorate your house
It is a process of planning.
The system should stay from taking parameter of house entry, definitely not your idea

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I never said to just remove the houses from people, I understand there is planning and decision making and resource gathering that goes into getting a house set up and ready. What I said was to leave up demo for those houses, not to outright demolish the house, at least having the same 45day period completely left open for those houses. (the ones with zero decoration, plants growing, active choco leveling, frequent entrance, or workshop usage)

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Originally Posted by caspergrey

I think if you wanted to go with a fairer demo light solution, then maybe you would turn demos back on, but extend some sort of grace period to those who had their houses demolished where they can buy into a new home similar to a transfer.

I'm sure there are probably issues with this suggestion as well, as it's sort of a half baked and off the cuff response to the post. But just a thought.

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I think this is a rather neat idea. Giving previous owners a chance to buy back in immediately to avoid going through the strain of buying another home would be helpful to those who just barely miss the demolition deadline.

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Originally Posted by Zedix

2) Buying houses in protest is, IMO, abhorrent

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Amen.
I wasn't encouraging or defending it.
Just referenced it as a thing because I know people do it.
I also think it's pretty horrid.