Restricting houses to one per account!!!

[Titor]

.... Is not going to solve the issue.

I keep seeing people calling for more restrictions/limitations/reclamation/other hoops to jump through, just like adding more wards won't fix the problem, neither will these.
As long as the number of unique players on a server is greater than the number of houses available, there will be a problem. We need to be asking for dynamic wards or a complete rework to the personal housing system, not making houses so restricted and gated with a potential to be lost for any number of reasons that owning one becomes stressful.

Remember how reclamation and demolishing was going to solve the issue? Did it? No. A handful of people grabbed a reclaimed house, sure, but look at the number of people still homeless and wanting a house. It didn't do anything but remove a tiny little dent in the overall population who wants a house, but added a great strain on housing owners to have to keep up their sub even in the event of a personal illness, disaster, work, military, or other RL issue that might keep them away for a period of time.

There are 60*12*4=2880 plots on the server. Looking at any of the various ffxiv census sites shows that most worlds in NA have over 10k active players, and most servers on EU have over 12k active players. At best, if every person owns exactly one house (completely excluding FCs), less than 25% of the population will have a house. Adding FCs in here will make this percentage lower. So even with our current system, and only one person having a house, ~6000+ people per server that want a house can be upset about not being able to own a house.

Even if the number of wards was increased to 20, or doubled to 24, there will not be enough houses for every individual non-alt player.

"But the system is limited, we have to work with what we got!!!"
...No matter what we do with the current system, there will not be enough for anyone. It's not sustainable. It can be limited to one per account, relinquish after 10 days of inactivity, be restricted to FCs with 10+ members, lotteries, be an additional sub on the mog station.... It can be all of the suggested things and STILL have approximately the same number of people unhappy.

Let's not make the situation overly complex or annoying to deal with. Let's ask for SE to FIX the problem. It will take time, it will take a massive rewrite, but that is what we need to be asking for.

[Vahlnir]

Having maybe 2 per account would put a dent in the issue (1 personal, 1 FC), though I think 2 per server with the same limits would be ideal. It might not be a game changer, but people owning more than 2 per server is just selfish at this point. This would free up a reasonable amount depending on the server.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Let's not make the situation overly complex or annoying to deal with. Let's ask for SE to FIX the problem. It will take time, it will take a massive rewrite, but that is what we need to be asking for.

While an ideal philosophy, we also have to be realistic. The devs aren't going to overhaul nor implement instanced housing in three months. Better restricting how many houses people are allowed to own would at least help ensure more houses are going to actual players and not flippers. Frankly, I think they should improve Apartments tremendously. Allow us to customize the size, add a balcony for gardening and it becomes a nice alternative. Since it's all instanced, that shouldn't be too much strain.

[Penthea]

A dent is still a dent. Demolition was only a dent but the fact remains many people got their house because of demolition. The same would happen if the amount of houses you can have was restricted. I think it would have a much larger effect than demolition.

The reason why people are asking for these small changes is that they don't require SE to create something complex and time consuming. They instead only require tweaking what's there already. They're more likely to get introduced because it's not an enormous undertaking like creating an entirely new system

I agree there needs to be much more done to actually solve the housing issue, but I think you misunderstand some of the reasoning for why some people ask for small changes.

[Siniztor]

Removing houses people all ready own is shady. yes i own 3 houses, I broke no rules in doing so and on my server there was 200-400 empty houses for over a year ive been here i paid $18 to move there just for houses wile some of you paid to go to balmug and gil for higher pop events. i took away from no one. everyone who wanted a house on my server got one all houses were at bare minium prices they sat so long.

The greedy people are the "Free Riders"who took a free transfer to low pop servers and are complain hey look that person owns more then one house and i cant get one now that 2,000 people took a free ride in, they all could of had houses if they paid to move before the free transfered like i did.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Removing houses people all ready own is shady. yes i own 3 houses, I broke no rules in doing so and on my server there was 200-400 empty houses for over a year ive been here i paid $18 to move there just for houses wile some of you paid to go to balmug and gil for higher pop events. i took away from no one. everyone who wanted a house on my server got one all houses were at bare minium prices they sat so long.

The greedy people are the "Free Riders"who took a free transfer to low pop servers and are complain hey look that person owns more then one house and i cant get one now that 2,000 people took a free ride in, they all could of had houses if they paid to move before the free transfered like i did.

I won't deny you broke no rules, but you have taken advantage of the developer's terrible lack of foresight. From a pure business perspective, it is far more beneficial they take this on the chin, acknowledge the mistake and accept it may piss of players such as yourself compared to the alternative where a significantly larger portion of the playerbase gets nothing.

And let's not kid ourselves. You are no less greedy than players who transferred to smaller worlds after they made it free. That isn't inherently wrong on your part anymore than someone wanting both a FC and personal house. It just highlights how flawed the whole neighbourhood concept really is. Very few seem to give a hoot about neighbours and just want houses.

[Siniztor]

anymore than someone wanting both a FC and personal house. .

im not even gonna address the other parts..but by your way of thinking anyone who is in a FC that has a house shouldn't get a personal house.. The FC house isn't the leaders house its everyones the only diffence is the leaders can change ranks and permissions.. So if a fc leaders allows every member the right to deco and garden then they don't need a house right lol

[Bourne_Endeavor]

im not even gonna address the other parts..but by your way of thinking anyone who is in a FC that has a house shouldn't get a personal house.. The FC house isn't the leaders house its everyones the only diffence is the leaders can change ranks and permissions.. So if a fc leaders allows every member the right to deco and garden then they don't need a house right lol

I never said that nor did I say they shouldn't. I equated owning multiple plots to being greedy-- to which I and many others are guilty of. That doesn't make it inherently wrong, but you made a point to claim people relocating servers because it was free was somehow more greedy than you wanting three houses.

Sorry for this wall of text and I don't know if you meant to make such a direct comparison, but I know I'm not the only one in this position who interacts with the housing system like I do, so I felt the need to speak up. And risk getting salt from players who get annoyed that I technically own two houses -_-

You misinterpreted what I meant. This was strictly a greed reference. I, personally, don't have any issues with people owning both a FC and a personal. It was more so towards people who use dummy FCs to get multiple houses on one character. Perhaps I could have phrased it a bit better.

[Penthea]

I won't deny you broke no rules, but you have taken advantage of the developer's terrible lack of foresight. From a pure business perspective, it is far more beneficial they take this on the chin, acknowledge the mistake and accept it may piss of players such as yourself compared to the alternative where a significantly larger portion of the playerbase gets nothing.

And let's not kid ourselves. You are no less greedy than players who transferred to smaller worlds after they made it free. That isn't inherently wrong on your part anymore than someone wanting both a FC and personal house. It just highlights how flawed the whole neighbourhood concept really is. Very few seem to give a hoot about neighbours and just want houses.

I have a personal house and I am fc master to a fc that has a house. Please do not compare me to players who have several houses across many characters and servers.

I treat my personal house very differently to the fc house. They don't even look remotely the same, and it's not because they're not in the same district. I do what I like with my personal house, but the fc house is furnished to benefit and provide enjoyment for the fc. We take suggestions from members if they express a desire to see certain kinds of furnishings, or want to do certain things like climb garden furniture. We worked hard to furnish it to look like a social place and not some expression of singular vanity. We even asked members for their opinion and had a vote about the location when the relocation feature was announced. In my fc the house doesn't belong to the master. The master and officers merely look after it.

I realise not all fcs are like mine, but that isn't enough reason to compare players like me to those who have several houses on many characters. I'm using my personal house for its intended purpose, the fc is using the fc house for its intended purpose. Players who have more than just one personal house and are master of one or more fc houses on the same server are certainly not.

I have alts but I have zero intention of purchasing a plot for them because I frankly feel it would be wasted on a character I don't main. I am even stopping myself from buying apartments for them because I feel crappy at the thought of depriving someone else of an apartment even though there are plenty to spare right now.

Sorry for this wall of text and I don't know if you meant to make such a direct comparison, but I know I'm not the only one in this position who interacts with the housing system like I do, so I felt the need to speak up. And risk getting salt from players who get annoyed that I technically own two houses -_-

[Vrankyl]

Removing houses people all ready own is shady. yes i own 3 houses, I broke no rules in doing so and on my server there was 200-400 empty houses for over a year ive been here i paid $18 to move there just for houses wile some of you paid to go to balmug and gil for higher pop events. i took away from no one. everyone who wanted a house on my server got one all houses were at bare minium prices they sat so long.

The greedy people are the "Free Riders"who took a free transfer to low pop servers and are complain hey look that person owns more then one house and i cant get one now that 2,000 people took a free ride in, they all could of had houses if they paid to move before the free transfered like i did.

This isn't just a problem on previously empty servers, though it is more noticeable there because of things like Mateus' infamous ward. It's a problem on Balmung as well. I know a few people who own multiple houses, hell there is someone on the server who owns 18 houses. Those who have transferred off of Gilgamesh and Balmung are not the problem, as they simply took the offer given to them by SE. It's SE's own fault for even allowing people to own so many houses on one account and SE will need to fix it at least to help until they figure out how to permanently fix housing.