Latest comment from Yoshida regarding Housing + Inventory space issue

[Naunet]

It's only a ball and chain, when you think it to be so.

There's tons of other things you can do in game to get a sense of fulfillment out of the game itself. The problem lies in people believing that they need to do a specific task in game to gain that sense of fulfillment, then in turn they complain about the work required to get there.

This is absurd. Oh, I just believe I enjoy housing systems in MMOs! If I flip a magic switch in my brain, I can suddenly find them no longer fun, and magically things that I didn't find fun before will be fun! Because everyone likes the same things and everyone can freely change what they like or don't like on another person's whim!

[loreleidiangelo]

I don't care about the price. It can be 4mil, 5mil, 10mil, whatever! The fact remains that those who are still working on getting the gil or just can't be on when the patch drops, will never get a house because you got the people who either stay awake all night until patch drops or set their alarm to get up. They all sit and wait for that patch to drop just to get their house. Leaving those who have to work, school, etc with nothing because it "limited". Please, doubling the wards in 2.4? Does he really think this is going to fix the issue? And let not forget the people who are buying 4mil plots and reselling them to people for 10+mil.

Is this actually happening? I've seen a lot of people post fear-mongering theories that this WOULD happen, but with no way to feasibly "sell" a plot of land if you bought it as an individual I have yet to see it actually take place on my server (not through zone shouts or PF, at least).

[MageBlack]

I dont care about the price, What I'm concerned about is will there even be ANY plots avaliable once I can actually save the money. With how fast plots sell out, even at the prices they are at, I dont even want to bother trying to save cause I doubt there will be anything left.

[BreathlessTao]

Raine - ask him if he sees the bigger picture. If he's aware that this personal housing debacle is only like the snowball that started the avalanche that had been waiting to happen. Because he seems way too adamant that pricing is everyone's primary issue here, with availability being secondary. While that is true, when comes strictly to personal housing, it is entirely not the whole case here.

The issue here, on one hand, is how the whole thing was handled: if they've known, since 2.1 (9 months!) that this is how it was gonna be - why didn't they say so? If they were working on something else that was scrapped in the last minute - why don't they tell us what that was and what happened to it? Communication between devs and players has been such a cornerstone of FFXIV (lack of it in 1.0 and emphasis of it in ARR), so, really, whatever happened to that? Extensively, why do us, non-Japanese players, have to feel like we're just ignored, time and time again?

Also the issue this managed to fester, on the other hand, is the serious concern we now have: the game is just one year old, and we've already heard server/infrastructure limitations as the main reason way too often for so many things getting limited or outright not implemented at all. Is this how it's gonna be, is this what's down the road for ARR? Because if it is, then we might as well start thinking about designing the coffin and the gravestone of the game.

On another, but somewhat related note, you could ask him if he enjoys gating content. Because for 2+ million players, with a casual nature of the game being emphasised so much (everyone's able to play the way they want, in a tempo they want), we sure as hell are being cornered and put into grindmills over and over and over again.

Hard restrictions:

• gardening - have a high enough ranked FC with deep enough coffers to afford the necessary facilities
• chocobo training - have a high enough ranked FC with deep enough coffers to afford the necessary facilities
• colouring your chocobo - have a high enough ranked FC with deep enough coffers to afford the necessary facilities
• glamour - prisms: lv50 DoH classes
• glamour - gear: lv50 DoH/DoL classes
• extreme primals: good luck doing any of them beyond Garuda (and even that is a gamble) with PUGs
• Coil: good luck doing any of it beyond T3 (and even those are a gamble) with PUGs

Gil sinks:

• housing - no comment, personal or FC doesn't even make any difference
• glamour - gear: full HQ AF for your DoL/DoH classes and better have it all overmelded, else don't even think of creating/finding most stuff
• glamour - prisms: the price of those is just insane considering what they do (but probably thanks to the nonsensical requirement to craft them)
• Novus and basically anything that requires materia - if you take the "easier" route

Time sinks:

• FATEs: whatever it is for, having to camp often hours just to complete one FATE is anything but fun
• glamour - gear: don't want to / can't pay for a certain piece, good luck desynthing items until you finally get it
• relic weapons: anything from atma onwards is a mindless grindfest
• Novus and anything that requires materia - if you take the "cheaper" route

RNG:

• crafting HQ (or even NQ in some cases) items beyond lv50
• gathering HQ (or even NQ in some cases) items beyond lv50
• atma
• all the loot rolls (absolutely no way to influence "luck" even in the slightest amount)
• chocobo colouring (just ridiculous, as if it wasn't gated enough already)
• Novus and anything that requires materia - if you take the "cheaper" route

...obviously these lists aren't complete (only the ones I personally know/care about), and are, individually, not long either. But if you consider all of them together, a generic casual player will have a hard time deciding which one to spend their limited time on to work for (and that's considering they aren't locked out of content by any of the hard restrictions). And I don't think it takes a genius to see that, perhaps, not everyone wants to spend their every online minute just throwing themselves at one of these contents. I also agree that some of these are perfectly fine as they are (a rookie lv50 shouldn't be able to complete T9 blindfolded); but most of them are just arbitrary gates to content that should be fun, content that should be enjoyed by everybody. And these lists keep growing, it's already alienating people, forcing them into quitting. Which is something they should be concerned about right now, in my opinion, if they don't want an early funeral to ARR.

So, yeah, if I was you, I'd try to highlight these things to him. Obviously too much at once and most probably needs some thinking and even then would be too long to reply to. But he should start thinking about it. And when he's done thinking about it, he could perhaps give us answers in a nice long Letter from the Producer.

[Cylla]

Is this actually happening? I've seen a lot of people post fear-mongering theories that this WOULD happen, but with no way to feasibly "sell" a plot of land if you bought it as an individual I have yet to see it actually take place on my server (not through zone shouts or PF, at least).

From what I've been hearing (I haven't seen shouts myself on hyperion) is that people buy up the plot and don't put a building permit on the land. Because they don't have to build a house on it right away, they can just hold on to the plot. Therefore, selling it for 10x more then they bought the plot for to someone who is willing to pay that doubled price just to have a house. My guess is the person buying would had to have 14mil in pocket. 10mil to the person who reselling the plot and another 4mil just to buy the plot. Again, this is what I've been hearing and can't actually prove it myself on Hyperion but sadly, I do not doubt that people are doing this. However, I will add also that the day of the patch drop I did see a house in ward 4 of mist go up for 4mil and then was quickly bought out before I had even gotten to it. Was it a trade? Or was it someone else just being quicker. I don't know but only one can assume at this rate. I suppose one way to find out would be to go to all the areas that are sold and see if their houses on them. If there aren't you can only assume that them lands are being held on to and resold by the person for double what they paid.

[ZReport]

This is absurd. Oh, I just believe I enjoy housing systems in MMOs! If I flip a magic switch in my brain, I can suddenly find them no longer fun, and magically things that I didn't find fun before will be fun! Because everyone likes the same things and everyone can freely change what they like or don't like on another person's whim!

Pretty bad response, but typical of entitled-minded people who have no better argument. Don't be mad because a precedence is set before you and you aren't up enough to meet the bar. If you want a personal house, make the required amount of gil for it. Complaining about a lack of space is a non issue that will correct itself with patch 2.4 and subsequent patches. So it now becomes a problem of how hard you want to work to make gil to purchase the house.

Don't want to make money for the house? Stop complaining and quit or go do something else. Same thing applies to everything else, from Hunts, to Coil 2, to crafting and gathering, and everything inbetween. No one will care about your well being or if you quit or not.

tl;dr: You can like whatever you want to like in the game, but realize there's various levels of work required that you need to put in to get whatever it is you are looking for. Using the lack of wards as an excuse is also pretty poor, because it's a known problem that came about even before patch was released and they are working on correcting the issue.

[Dark-Saviour]

They'd make a lot more people a lot happier if they flipped that philosophy upsidedown. The house should be a given. The reward should come from upgrading and decorating.

This. The 'achievement' should be what you accomplish with it, rather than just getting the ability to make use of the system at all...


I've never been fond of instances in the style this game uses and have, for quite a while, hit my limit as far as playing through those with any degree of regularity goes.
Likewise, I am not fond of playing the market or any of that jazz; I like gathering and crafting for myself, but playing the economy minigame is a complete no-go.

Housing was the one form of content that I actually looked forward to at this point, as it is (or should be at least), a laid-back and fun experience I can just take at my own pace.
By saying, "Try harder to make gil", it's basically saying "Force yourself to do the stuff you don't enjoy and eventually you may get to have some fun."

I don't mind if upgrades, side-grades, etc. require doing a bit more of this-and-that, but by front-loading it all, the appeal of even this content is lost.

And the concept that making it cheaper encourages RMT?
:-/
Just admit that it's a way of artificially-gating it purely so that the availability issues won't be more obvious since you don't want to be on the hook for buying new/better hardware. The RMT argument doesn't even remotely work here.

[Yurimi]

I said Live letters. not dev posts, blogs.

Ive been around since the start. and I havent seen such dedication from a producer, Like yoshi. So ill give him the benefit of the doubt

Carbine does 2 livestreams on twitch every week.

Blizzard has done 2 in the last 2 months that I can see in the battle.net launcher quickly skimming it

Nice try though

[Naunet]

Pretty bad response, but typical of entitled-minded people who have no better argument.

Hilarious, as I'm perfectly happy to put work in when said work is more than just "grind gil". I have dumped an inordinate amount of time, gold, and effort in constructing homes in WildStar. I am not work-averse; I am inappropriate entry barrier-averse.

[myahele]

At this point, I just want more inventory space. I have multiple jobs and crafting leveled up. Would wanna do more, but my armory is nearing its limits