Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[Syrehn]

This is still a bad fix compared to instancing. FFXI had instanced housing in its own way, Mog Houses. Not nearly as large of scale but instanced with customization so everyone could have one. WoW recently added instanced based housing with the war garrisons or whatever they are called. This if anything will keep players who had homes from coming back to the game if they decide to take a break because they will know a house the worked hard for/decorating will be reduced to 80% gil and the loss of rare furnishings.

I shared a link in my previous post to a thread where I talked about instanced housing but I'll just say it here. As it stands currently instanced housing isn't a be-all end-all solution and isn't necessarily a "fix".

Finally, I’ve seen a few posts on the forums saying housing would be better if it was instanced like inn rooms are, so I want to point out that instances aren't saved. Nothing in an inn room needs to be saved; player housing, on the other hand, necessitates personal save data for things like furniture placement and character location. So, it would really amount to adding more land anyway.

I'd be willing to bet the biggest obstacle that SE is facing with housing is tied to SAN Storage; it's expensive. As seen in the above quote even in an instanced housing model all that data needs to be saved (object placement, character location, etc.). This means that SE would still need to purchase/set-up additional hardware/storage anyway; the same way they do with wards.

Again, just to reaffirm, the above means that more land for more players regardless of ward or instance = more hardware/storage = more cost. All that data has to get processed and saved somewhere.

[Yshnal]

I don't like this at all its a nuisance to house owners like myself. This presents a problem for me since I have ocd, now I have to worry about going to my house every single day or I could possibly forget for awhile and lose my house. I play FFXIV every day, however I don't visit my house every day. Now I have to deal with the worry of going into my house every single day just so I can be sure I don't hit 45 days and lose my house. It sort of becomes an annoying chore that now I must visit my house everyday to reset the timer. There will be times where I am like did I visit my house today I don't remember better waste some gil teleporting to my house to make sure.

Instead of visiting my house when I feel like it, or if I want to put out some new furnishing that I got.

Actually, that's something that they've done well. You get notifications both in-game and to your registered e-mail, so don't worry about forgetting.

They should just change it to inactive sub for 45 days you lose your house. If I am paying the sub I shouldn't have to worry about losing my house all the time.

I agree.

[Lexia]

I don't like this at all its a nuisance to house owners like myself. This presents a problem for me since I have ocd, now I have to worry about going to my house every single day or I could possibly forget for awhile and lose my house. I play FFXIV every day, however I don't visit my house every day. Now I have to deal with the worry of going into my house every single day just so I can be sure I don't hit 45 days and lose my house. It sort of becomes an annoying chore that now I must visit my house everyday to reset the timer. There will be times where I am like did I visit my house today I don't remember better waste some gil teleporting to my house to make sure.

Instead of visiting my house when I feel like it, or if I want to put out some new furnishing that I got, now I am required to visit my house even when I don't want to.

They should just change it to inactive sub for 45 days you lose your house. If I am paying the sub I shouldn't have to worry about losing my house all the time.

Yea I would say that a bit of OCD having to enter your house everyday. You have a smartphone? Set a reminder on your phone to enter your house.

[Zumi]

Actually, that's something that they've done well. You get notifications both in-game and to your registered e-mail, so don't worry about forgetting.


I agree.

Notification is in the timers menu which almost nobody ever looks at.

If they had some huge pop up that says you will lose your house in 15 days after you don't visit it when you log in then that would be ok but they choose not to go with something like that, its hidden in a menu within a menu.

[Zumi]

Yea I would say that a bit of OCD having to enter your house everyday. You have a smartphone? Set a reminder on your phone to enter your house.

I do not have a smart phone.

[Yshnal]

Notification is in the timers menu which almost nobody ever looks at.

If they had some huge pop up that says you will lose your house in 15 days after you don't visit it when you log in then that would be ok but they choose not to go with something like that, its hidden in a menu within a menu.

Hmm... Maybe they should send a Mog letter too, if they don't want to make any changes to the UI. That would be easier to notice.

They send you an e-mail too, starting 5 days after the in-game notice, but now that I think about it maybe not everyone checks their registered e-mail often, if at all (or has it auto-forwarded). But that's not under their control.

[worldofneil]

Notification is in the timers menu which almost nobody ever looks at.

People who are levelling crafting/gathering probably do to see what the GC hand-ins are or what the Beastmen want. Likewise it's useful for seeing if you can gather a new map, but yes if someone doesn't do crafting gathering I can appreciate they probably don't look in it very often.

You will get emailed 10 days before though and again 3 days before so as long as your email address in your account is correct (and you actually check your email once a week?) then you really shouldn't have a problem.

Also how much do you go into your house now? I go into the house probably every few days (either to sell them junk or to buy stuff from them) so maybe you already do something similar and so won't need to change your pattern at all. Or if you hardly ever go in, perhaps make it a new thing/part of your login process where you go into the house as soon as you first login (maybe use a summoning bell for a retainer inside the house instead of your usual one if that's an option?)

[FriendlyUncle]

I shared a link in my previous post to a thread where I talked about instanced housing but I'll just say it here. As it stands currently instanced housing isn't a be-all end-all solution and isn't necessarily a "fix".



I'd be willing to bet the biggest obstacle that SE is facing with housing is tied to SAN Storage; it's expensive. As seen in the above quote even in an instanced housing model all that data needs to be saved (object placement, character location, etc.). This means that SE would still need to purchase/set-up additional hardware/storage anyway; the same way they do with wards.

Again, just to reaffirm, the above means that more land for more players regardless of ward or instance = more hardware/storage = more cost. All that data has to get processed and saved somewhere.

This is the same costs as adding new wards, albeit even more resource consuming due to a wards permanent fixture in the world where instanced it does not need to be actively loaded into memory unless in use. And looking at how often housing is actively in use, an instanced solution would be more efficient. A single ward holds how many houses with their external fixtures in a permanent state? Plus all the sub wards. Multiplied by 3 for each of the city states. So yes, they have to lay down some costs for SAN or VSA solutions, or the scrap some of the existing sub wards and use those resources house instanced copies of houses only called when a player enters it, much like how interiors of houses are handled now just for the whole package.

Creation of additional wards is more expensive hardware wise, and more resource intensive on said hardware the single instances, once the player is leaves the instance makes a save of any changes to storage and closes freeing it's resources. As it stands now we currently have 25+ houses of varying sizes and configurations consistently loaded, and then additional instancing for interiors which seems horribly inefficient. Does it look nice, sure? But why not cut the number of wards down, so people who don't care for the look and just want a house can get one. Shift the resources from those retired wards to instancing new player houses, and these 'additional wards' they say they may be adding could be additional hardware for the instances which again could host many more houses with the same hardware.

[Amby]

As much as I understand the desire for fc/personal housing, and the frustration with the lack of availability, I find this solution stressful.

I think a better option would have been to implement a function, where players could report a house or lot as abandoned through the sign post outside of them. This could cause the system to send an email and in-game mail to the owner of the plot, telling them to refute the claim by "reclaiming" it at the sign post or an npc.

I know there could be potential for abuse of the "report as abandoned" function, so a way to mitigate that would be to restrict this. Once a plot is reported, if reclaimed it can not be reported for another 60 days. The person reporting it should also be visble* in some way, either to the owner or the devs, so if the try to abuse it anyway, the onwer can lodge a complaint against the excessive reports.

The players that report abandoned houses could be assigned an id# by the system*

[worldofneil]

implement a function, where players could report a house or lot as abandoned

How can we (the players) know for sure a plot is abandoned though? Obviously a plot of land with no house is, but if we don't see our neighbours doesn't mean they don't come on. One of my nearest neighbours comes on a few times in the week, but at completely different times to me so I never see her. In fact I thought her house WAS abandoned for months until finally ran into her and realised that wasn't the case.

And realistically what difference does it make if the players report the house for inactivity or if the system just does it automatically? The owner of the house then doesn't feel someone is attacking them as they'll know it was just the automated system and likewise with set rules for inactivity it's going to be a lot less stressful than possibly being "reported" at any moment (even if you aren't inactive).