In Regard to Housing in Patch 4.1

[Luxyn]

Thank you very much for the quick and solid response on this problem, I knew that you would address this quickly after observing how the sales of plots went after some more balance was brought to the distribution of players across all of the data centers.

I would like to submit my own feedback on how this can be addressed here, I hope you find some of the suggestions helpful:

1. As many have already said, restricting the owning of plots to 1 personal and 1 FC house per account is very badly needed. (As for how you define what it means for any one player to "own" a FC house on their account, I suggest for it to be defined by a player holding the leading rank of a FC with a house means they "own" that house as their FC house - this should make any other characters on that player's account to be unable to receive the leadership of any other FC that owns a house until one of the FCs gives up their plot) If this isn't addressed then there will always be people making alts to buy up plots to flip them for a profit or even simply to prevent other players from obtaining them out of spite - there has even been linkshells dedicated to this last cause, unbelievably. As for players who already own multiple houses, they should be given a warning in advance to pick the personal and FC house they own that they most want to keep and let go of the others by a certain time. If they have not done this by this time, then their excess plots get removed either randomly or in a specific order i.e. they only keep the first of each type they purchased, or the last. I assume it would be random.

2. Add an official reselling system for plots. Unfortunately reselling is always going to be a practice on the FFXIV "black market" so-to-speak. The only way to reduce this problem is to make it so it's not as much of a black market practice - by adding this system and limiting the amount of gil that can be spent on a plot, you will be preventing players from being overcharged and allow for people to make their money back for a plot they no longer want to own for whatever reason. It should be possible for the seller to choose to not charge the other player (if they wish to be generous and give away the house for free) and a maximum price as you believe is appropriate for the plot. This may not eliminate the housing black market, but it will reduce it by a large amount as players will start to refuse to buy from someone not using the official reselling system.

3. Add the 80% gil refund for relinquishing a plot. It is a bit strange that if you leave your plot alone for 45 days you will lose the plot and gain 80% of the gil back but that it is not the same for relinquishing it immediately. This change will make many people a lot more willing to simply give up plots they no longer want to own.

4. Put timers on how close together a plot can be relinquished/repurchased. After a plot has been relinquished, it should work like a notorious monster fate i.e. Ixion - at least 24 hours must pass but anytime after that within a 72 hour window the house will go on sale. This will make it down to luck who manages to catch the house on sale, and will come into effect when someone lets go of a plot and isn't reselling or gifting their house via the reselling system (I.e. when someone relocates from a plot, it is demolished from the auto demolition timer or they simply relinquish it).

5. Make apartments bigger and make it possible to choose different layouts for them. I expected apartments to be bigger on the inside when I heard they were 200k gil more than a FC room. They should at least be the size of the inside of a small house in my opinion. But adding the option to expand the size of your apartment would be greatly beneficial to players. (Also while on that note, more interior layouts for houses would be a very welcome addition!)

6. Personal houses should be usable by all the characters that player has on that server in order to eliminate the need for alts to have houses. Also, maybe increase the amount of tenants you can have in your house.

7. When people talk about the idea of instanced housing in this game I hear about it as if it has to be one or the other - the neighbourhood approach or instanced housing. I think the best approach, if possible, would be to add instanced housing as an option on top of our already existing housing. Is it not possible to have both? Obtainable by every player, and again shared across all their characters on that server for personal housing. It should be an option for both personal and FC housing, and it should be explicitly a choice between an instanced house or one in the wards, making your options as follows: A.) Instanced Personal + Instanced FC house | B.) Instanced Personal + Ward FC house | C.) Ward Personal + Instanced FC House | D.) Ward Personal + Ward FC House. This will help to prevent too much server stress and again ensure everyone only has 1 personal/FC house. I think the best way to approach this would be to make different environments for the house to be in - little private islands, a clearing in a forest, etc - so the player can choose what type of private, isolated location they want their instanced house to be in - with each size of house able to be built in each available instance type.

8. And as always, more wards and/or apartments are always a good addition, but I feel like the previous suggestions would help benefit the housing situation much more.

EDIT: OH! I also remember seeing this idea and it was a really good one: 9. After a plot goes up for sale there is a window of time where players can choose to buy a chance at obtaining the plot (this is the cost of the plot, and they can only do this for one plot at a time), possibly a limit on how many players can do this (At least 10, I would suggest) = At the end of the timer, a player is chosen at random and they get the plot, with all other players getting their gil back. This could just be added in the script of the devaluation timer - At the time of the plot dropping in price, a player is chosen from the ones who put the money down at the previous price. If there is only one player who put the money down, they get the plot. If no player has, the plot devalues. This would be making it totally down to luck - which would make it a lot more fair to everyone and heavily prevent people owning multiple houses, especially since the players who genuinely want and don't own a plot outnumber those who do by a large amount.

10. Also the idea of making plots go on sale a few hours after the servers launch so everyone has time to log in is also a very good suggestion, as that would make it more a matter of speed and luck also and help bypass launcher errors/slow download times/server and connection issues/queues. How would this work? Everyone is kicked out of the housing wards so everyone gets the same start from the entrance when the wards unlock at the designated time.

If you've actually read this, thank you for it and again I hope some of these suggestions are helpful.