Reactivate The Housing Demolition Timer

ok so, me and my partner transferred to Materia once it opened but we had to keep someone in our old data center because of our FC house so they'd get our gil and furniture back and transfer to Materia once the plot got auto demolished.

i think it should be reactivated alongside the housing lottery fix in May so then people who havent logged in for literal months can give their housing to someone else who wants one.

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Originally Posted by moenbrydas

ok so, me and my partner transferred to Materia once it opened but we had to keep someone in our old data center because of our FC house so they'd get our gil and furniture back and transfer to Materia once the plot got auto demolished.

i think it should be reactivated alongside the housing lottery fix in May so then people who havent logged in for literal months can give their housing to someone else who wants one.

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How about instead they leave it off forever and stop holding people with a house hostage? :3

Yoshi always says; "it's fine to unsub guys!".
I've spend years of my lifeblood getting and decorating a house.

And he wants me to unsub and literally condemn it? :D

Yeah, no.

Am sure if they really wanted - by they I mean the big CEO decision makers, housing could've been well supplied for a while now.

Remember when they had to stop selling the game? :D

Feels more and more like SE is spending the least amount they can to get the most out of it. Much to the detriment of the playerbase.

That's what it feels like to me atleast.

And hey, maybe they're gonna do everything I want tomorrow - who knows.

Hope dies last but it eventually does.

Considering the state of the world I'm going to assume they have good reason to keep it disabled. Personally I think it underscores the utter failure of the system and my fervent hope is that this latest embarrassment finally gets a housing revision on the schedule.

Instead of asking for auto-demolition to resume perhaps it would be better to ask for the relinquish option to provide the same refund or a way to manually resume the demolition timer on a per-plot basis.

War is still going on. It's not going to come back until it gets resolved.

I unsubbed back during HW and lost my house. Back then, there were still smalls readily available on my server. By the time I returned about 1 year later, all plots were purchased. I was lucky to get a house during the auto-demo FCFS times where you didn't have to wait some random time to purchase it. And that was only because a friend quit the game and forwarded me the email with his plot demolition time.

Since then, when I want to take a break from the game, I rotate 40 days unsubbed, 30 days subbed, etc. My wife wound up benefiting from a black market sale gone wrong and she picked up the vacant large plot. Coming from our privileged position, it does feel like we are "held hostage" subscription-wise. Considering the methods in which we both got a house, I don't see that happening ever again.

If I could buy a large for 50M, possibly lose it due to unsub and purchase another for 50M with ease - I would do it. If only so I kept a house when I return from a 6-12 month hiatus.

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Originally Posted by IckeDerTyp

How about instead they leave it off forever and stop holding people with a house hostage? :3

Yoshi always says; "it's fine to unsub guys!".
I've spend years of my lifeblood getting and decorating a house.

And he wants me to unsub and literally condemn it? :D

Yeah, no.

Am sure if they really wanted - by they I mean the big CEO decision makers, housing could've been well supplied for a while now.

Remember when they had to stop selling the game? :D

Feels more and more like SE is spending the least amount they can to get the most out of it. Much to the detriment of the playerbase.

That's what it feels like to me atleast.

And hey, maybe they're gonna do everything I want tomorrow - who knows.

Hope dies last but it eventually does.

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Sub a month. Enter the house on the first day and last day of the subscription period to reset the demo timer.

Unsub 6 weeks.

Sub another month. Repeat entering to reset.

Unsub another 6 weeks.

And so on. If you get lucky, a free log in campaign will occur in the last 2 weeks of your unsub period and you'll be able to stay unsubbed an additional 6 weeks by logging in to enter your house.

You have been able to unsub - but you're also able to retain your house.

If you're playing the game so little you want to be unsubbed most of the time, why bother getting a house? Is it really worth paying a subscription just to keep something you aren't using? Especially when you can get an apartment that you likewise won't be using but at least it's cheaper and won't demo?

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

Instead of asking for auto-demolition to resume perhaps it would be better to ask for the relinquish option to provide the same refund or a way to manually resume the demolition timer on a per-plot basis.

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While one of the old reasons for not offering a full refund no longer apply (resellers can no longer benefit by relinquishing to sell), it would reduce housing's effectiveness as a gil sink if the gil can be reclaimed at a later date.

It's also going to be hard to get players to relinquish plots when it will be very difficult to get another house if they later decide they want a house after all. Most will go ahead and keep it.

You'd only see players relinquishing if they're transferring home worlds or quitting the game for a long period of time. Neither of those situations would increase supply as the vacancy would occur regardless. It just makes that supply available slightly sooner.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

..., it would reduce housing's effectiveness as a gil sink if the gil can be reclaimed at a later date.

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It's only a partial refund -- 80% -- so some gil is sacrificed. One time purchases are awful currency sinks. If they were all that effective we would have seen several more of those gaudy golden mount reskins by now. FF:XIV housing is a particularly bad sink because of scarcity and the account limitations placed on it. Not to mention that auto-demo's been paused more than it hasn't so new purchases have been incredibly rare.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It's also going to be hard to get players to relinquish plots when it will be very difficult to get another house if they later decide they want a house after all. Most will go ahead and keep it. ... It just makes that supply available slightly sooner.

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In case you missed it the topic is about an FC that migrated to another DC with the exception of the caretaker waiting for auto-demo to kick in. It is not about getting more houses into circulation. If that's all this was I wouldn't have bothered with it.

There are legitimate reasons people no longer want to be tied to housing. If auto-demolition is going to remain on hold then some QoL changes might be in order.

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Originally Posted by moenbrydas

ok so, me and my partner transferred to Materia once it opened but we had to keep someone in our old data center because of our FC house so they'd get our gil and furniture back and transfer to Materia once the plot got auto demolished.

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Mmm, it was nice that when we transferred we got 1,000,000 back for an apartment and a full ~4.5 million back for a personal small. And it was nice that we got a million more for getting an alt to level 30.

It would have been ideal if they could have made it that the FC leader transferring returned the full FC house gil + million bonus to cover furnishings as well, like the personal did.

It would have freed up a few more houses for people in NA and EU for sure.


I am not sure SE will re-enable it though, wars have happened for decades, but this one seems to have a bit more flow-on to the economy than usual. Plus of course, COVID-19's disruption isn't over yet. And the floods in Australia and Canada. And people are still reeling from the bushfires....

Get a level 1 alt in, and don't worry about being nice to other house hunters is about where you are stuck.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

There are legitimate reasons people no longer want to be tied to housing. If auto-demolition is going to remain on hold then some QoL changes might be in order.

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If someone truly does not want to be tied to housing there's nothing to stop them from removing all furnishings, dismantling the Estate Hall and relinquishing the plot.

Is it really worth putting things on hold for the sake of getting a gil refund?

What we pay when we purchase a plot isn't a security deposit. We're paying to be able to use the plot. We shouldn't feel entitled to a refund when we've used it.

I still believe that's where SE is making a mistake since they're making house ownership a limited resource system- not requiring a meaningful gil investment to retain a house. If players had to pay more to keep a house, fewer would demand one.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

If players had to pay more to keep a house, fewer would demand one.

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Only took you 4 years, wow! Did you stop drinking the koolaid or something?

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Originally Posted by Aldotsk

War is still going on. It's not going to come back until it gets resolved.

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There have been wars going on (practically) for decades non stop at this point. It's not really a viable excuse

Timer needs to go.
Its bordering unethical to take away ANYTHING we have paid for/earned/achieved in the game. So Karenish

Why not just delevel everyone to 1 and delete all gil, mounts, pets, glamours if you don't log in every 45 days. (while still paying to boot)
How nutty can Yoshi be thinking a timer with an active subscription is a good idea??...its ridiculous without an active sub let alone with one lol

how about meet demand instead

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Originally Posted by MistyMew

Timer needs to go.
Its bordering unethical to take away ANYTHING we have paid for/earned/achieved in the game. So Karenish

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For someone who's been here since 2011, you're either oblivious or have been afk this whole time

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

If players had to pay more to keep a house, fewer would demand one.

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bud thats what your monthly sub is

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Originally Posted by Lihtleita

bud thats what your monthly sub is

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No, the monthly sub is for access to the game servers.

If you're going to use that line of thinking, then nothing in this game should have a gil cost. We should get everything for free because we pay a sub.

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Originally Posted by MistyMew

Timer needs to go.
Its bordering unethical to take away ANYTHING we have paid for/earned/achieved in the game. So Karenish

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Imagine a game where there's a limited resource that people retain possession of in perpetuity even if they quit the game and never come back. Just imagine the public outrage from people playing the game who will never have access to that limited resource because people who don't play don't lose it.

Imagine going back to before patch 3.1.....

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Originally Posted by Shazzinoth

There have been wars going on (practically) for decades non stop at this point. It's not really a viable excuse

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It's not a question of "is there war somewhere", though, as like you say, that is not realistic. But it is a question of "is there a major disaster currently affecting one of the areas that FF XIV does a significant part of its business in".

Sure, there will always be some war somewhere, same as natural disasters and whatnot. However, right now we are looking at a war in one of the four official operating regions of the game, Europe. It is a show of goodwill to affected customers, hoping that they will return to the game when times get better for them, so that they don't feel punished by the game for circumstances completely outside of their control.

In principle, I agree with what many have said here: The housing demolition timers is a bandaid fix for the problem of "there is not enough housing", and I would love to see it removed, though I acknoweldge that it is neccessary until sufficient amounts of housing can be supplied.

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Originally Posted by Shazzinoth

There have been wars going on (practically) for decades non stop at this point. It's not really a viable excuse

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You mean, it's not a viable excuse for you because you can't get a house? So your only way of getting a house is having someone who may have lost family and a home during this crisis and can't come online for 45 days, and have them automatically be booted from the housing?

Man. Must be nice to have someone have that kind of thinking.

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Originally Posted by MistyMew

Timer needs to go.
Its bordering unethical to take away ANYTHING we have paid for/earned/achieved in the game. So Karenish

Why not just delevel everyone to 1 and delete all gil, mounts, pets, glamours if you don't log in every 45 days. (while still paying to boot)
How nutty can Yoshi be thinking a timer with an active subscription is a good idea??...its ridiculous without an active sub let alone with one lol

how about meet demand instead

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There was a time when MMOs would delete your character if you unsubbed for 6 months or so. I think they learned awfully quick that that is a terrible business model.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

There was a time when MMOs would delete your character if you unsubbed for 6 months or so. I think they learned awfully quick that that is a terrible business model.

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Diablo 2 flashback.

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Originally Posted by Shazzinoth

There have been wars going on (practically) for decades non stop at this point. It's not really a viable excuse

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There will always be a reason, on a global-scale, to halt the auto-demolition timer. I'm not saying the war in Ukraine isn't a big deal. This crisis will end or before that, there will be another crisis.

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Originally Posted by Aldotsk

War is still going on. It's not going to come back until it gets resolved.

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Not only that but the pandemic as well.

Seems to be they don't feel pressure to lift it quite yet given the lottery has only had one round and there are houses available to bid on in a 2nd and 3rd round. The pressure to lift the moratorium will come more so when there are no houses left for sale.