Why isn't housing priced higher? (why is housing random luck)

[MStowastiqVahlshdeh]

There is a lot of demand for housing, yet very limited supply.
In this situation, it would make sense to price the housing very high, so people have an opportunity to work towards it (e.g. 150-200mil for a large house). -snip-

We have had a very long time period of just what very high prices means to housing markets on both legacy servers and non, rich servers and non.

We have had it where only super wealthy people have a chance to get a house, and yes saving up working towards it over long periods of time until one turns up available, leaving others out and those who could not afford the high prices found it unfair as well. Back through patch archives, its possible to see how high they used to be and how gradually, depending on the variables they use to determine, its gone down but it is still high on some servers.

The current new system will be our first time trying it so low, uniform prices and thus the first time that rich servers will afford lower price houses to those who are not super wealthy. We have nothing but proof of what higher housing prices does to the market and server house availability, SE decided to bring them down.

From this link below an example of how high the prices have been over time:
12/14/2013
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...7af43f3c43828a

A couple of rich servers:

Fifth-class Plot - Fourth-class Plot - Third-class Plot - Second-class Plot - First-class Plot
Small - 20,000,000 - 21,250,000 - 22,500,000 - 23,750,000 - 25,000,000
Medium - 75,000,000 - 79,687,500 - 84,375,000 - 89,062,500 - 93,750,000
Large - 250,000,000 - 265,625,000 - 281,250,000 - 296,875,000 - 312,500,000
Balmung / Excalibur / Hyperion / Ragnarok / Sargatanas



Fifth-class Plot - Fourth-class Plot - Third-class Plot - Second-class Plot - First-class Plot
Small - 40,000,000 - 42,500,000 - 45,000,000 - 47,500,000 - 50,000,000
Medium - 150,000,000 - 159,375,000 - 168,750,000 - 178,125,000 - 187,500,000
Large - 500,000,000 - 531,250,000 - 562,500,000 - 593,750,000 - 625,000,000
Aegis / Durandal / Gungnir / Masamune / Ridill

[Lulu89]

1st off not every server will be slod out on day one.. Even to this day there are over 10-20server with lots Still open. Only the big servers will be fighting over lots.

2nd no point q.qing over it just wait for a resell or move to a smaller server easy. I have an alt on a server that has over 100house still open till this day. For us on that server more houses don't mean crap to us -_-

[Niwashi]

if SE have made no other options then what exactly do people expect?
The one, somewhat flawed, option of auto-demolition is also on hold. So there literally is no other option at the moment.

Of course you have another option. You have the option of treating housing as it was intended in the first place. You pay for use of a house and in exchange you can use that house for as long as you want. When you're done with it and no longer care about keeping it, then you relinquish the plot. That's it.

A gil sink doesn't consist of paying gil for a while, then getting it all back. It's done by paying gil and not getting it back. Housing prices are suppossed to be an expense, not an investment. That's the reason why you can't directly sell a house to another player, because you're not supposed to be selling it to them at all.

The fact that some players are too greedy to use the system as designed doesn't mean the intended design is any less available. (There are, of course, a lot of other major problems with the design, like why plots are so limited in the first place. But that doesn't invalidate the designed-in "no selling" rule. If anything, it just makes it more necessary.)

[Niwashi]

i was surprised that they lowered the prices but they definitely should not be increased.

Actually, what they did was standardize prices. On some worlds that's a decrease while on others it's an increase.

[Causality]

There is a lot of demand for housing, yet very limited supply.

They're adding 4 wards per Settlement. There's 60 plots per Ward. So 240 plots per settlement for an overall amount of 720 Plots.

May the odds ever be in your favor.

[Hasrat]

I'm not going to move to a dead server just so I can have a house. Moving to Balmung was the best decision I ever made with this game. NOTHING will make me go back to my original server.

For the sake of argument, doesn't that just reinforce the problem? If more people decided to migrate to a low-pop server, it would decrease congestion on the big servers, and increase playability on the smaller ones, right? Is it bad to strive for balance, rather than having a handful of servers everyone wants to be on because everyone else is already there?
Of course, yeah, true, housing isn't much of an incentive when the price is probably longer queue times or whatever.

Just a thought. Personally I enjoy the quiet servers.

[Niwashi]

Of course, yeah, true, housing isn't much of an incentive when the price is probably longer queue times or whatever.

Well, DF queue times wouldn't even be affected, as that's cross-server anyway. High-pop servers will have more PF activity, but at the cost of less housing availability, a harder time getting hunts, usually much higher inflation, and a greater likelihood of lag issues. (Personally, I can't understand why so many people would consider all of that a good tradeoff. Low or mid population servers have so many more advantages.)

[MomomiMomi]

For the sake of argument, doesn't that just reinforce the problem? If more people decided to migrate to a low-pop server, it would decrease congestion on the big servers, and increase playability on the smaller ones, right? Is it bad to strive for balance, rather than having a handful of servers everyone wants to be on because everyone else is already there?
Of course, yeah, true, housing isn't much of an incentive when the price is probably longer queue times or whatever.

Just a thought. Personally I enjoy the quiet servers.

This is something that SE should solve, not the players themselves. e.g., free transfers from the congested servers to the empty ones. They thus far have refused to do it though. $$$$

[Nicobo]

There is a lot of demand for housing, yet very limited supply.
In this situation, it would make sense to price the housing very high, so people have an opportunity to work towards it (e.g. 150-200mil for a large house).

Instead, housing prices have been dropped to a point where pretty well everyone can afford them. As a result, upon release of 3.3 there will be a mad rush for houses. Everything will be sold within minutes. And people will probably rage about how they didn't sleep for 10 hours or missed work for nothing.

Why not allow people to get houses through effort, rather than sheer luck, or ability to sit around for 10-15 hours camping a login server?

Or, create a bidding system for housing.
Or, create a random drawing for housing.

The current system just seems unfair, and poorly thought out.

My answer to OP, it was becasue when Housing first implemented, a lot of players complained the price too high,
then YoshiP even needed make a post (below link) to explain and then reduced the price.

If you want to blame something, blame those players (maybe they have quit already). ^^;

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1685344


Now this is the time we deserve that "Needless to say, I have been following the discussion very closely" said by YoshiP, but I am innocent.

I would like to take this chance to say, this game was a very good game when YoshiP making HIS game,
and this game becomes not very good when YoshiP making it to YOUR game. ^^;

[ToasterMan]

For the sake of argument, doesn't that just reinforce the problem? If more people decided to migrate to a low-pop server, it would decrease congestion on the big servers, and increase playability on the smaller ones, right? Is it bad to strive for balance, rather than having a handful of servers everyone wants to be on because everyone else is already there?
Of course, yeah, true, housing isn't much of an incentive when the price is probably longer queue times or whatever.

Just a thought. Personally I enjoy the quiet servers.

I understand wanting a balance, but I have not gotten one single RMT tell since the moment I started playing on Balmung. I also love the RP, as well as the community events that go on in the server, I cannot get that on your server or anywhere else. SE needs to offer BIG (VERY BIG, HUGE) incentives for players if they want them to tolerate a ghost town and less opportunities. Housing (Which is a feature that should be available to everyone no matter what server they're on) and free transfers are not enough. Why should I move to your server? What does your server offer that Balmung does not? Besides available plots for housing, nothing according to the Aether data center