House Payments

[Alien_Gamer]

I feel like you didn't read through my whole post, if you completely missed the point I made that not only should there methods to pay through any type of game play (so using things like Poetics, or Wolf Marks), there was also a section specifically highlighting how this could make it easier for someone to keep a house, if they are going through a hard time/facing something similar to the hurricane issue not long ago.

Also bear in mind, the monthly cost wouldn't even be something high. It should be a number that is negligible for anyone that is an active player.

Again, so long as housing is a finite resource, things should be done to discourage people from owning homes that are not doing anything with them, aside from trying to flip them, or logging in once a month just to run inside so it doesn't auto-demo.

There are several issues with this kind of thinking though.

First, there is a huge income disparity in this game because there are so many ways to play. Unless the fee is set to something like 10M a month, I can afford it easily and I know about a dozen crafters on my world that wouldn't notice if the fee was 50M a month. I also know many people who struggle to make 100K a month. I know some people that just log in to socialize or RP with friends and don't really care about making any kind of currency; but one of them struggled for years to save up to buy a small house and they use the house almost daily; they don't craft, they don't raid, they don't pvp, they only garden to grow pretty flowers to give away, they just enjoy their time with friends. Should this person be forced to lose their house so you can buy it? I also know a lot of raiders that make a fair amount of money but recycle all of it back into their gear, should they have to lose their house because they prefer being better raiders over something else? Should they have to choose between upgrading their gear with the token or saving their house?

Where in that spectrum of 100M to 0 would you set the fee? Unless the fee is set high enough to discourage flippers, which is your stated point, why bother with it? How many other players are you willing to alienate just for those few flippers? And when the fee is set high enough to discourage flippers, how can a normal person then afford said house?

Second, this does NOT make it easier to keep a house. By definition, adding a fee means adding something the owner has to do to maintain the house. Adding an upkeep does not make it easier, it makes it harder.

Third, auto demolition already exists. Until there is no more need for it SE wouldn't allow an in game shortcut around it because it then defeats the purpose of having it. Which means you could pay for one month at a time...so that doesn't help a house owner either. And if there's no need for an auto demolition timer then there's no need for an upkeep fee either.

Fourth, can you show me where in the TOS it says someone must do something with their house once they buy it? Or can you show me where it says other players get to dictate what you can or can't do with a house? Once a person owns a house it is theirs to do with as they please, including not decorate it. You don't get a say in it.

Your entire arguement is based on making things harder for home owners to get them to give up their plots so you can have a chance at buying one and it does nothing to stop flippers. In short, there is no upside to an upkeep fee and a whole lot of bad. I appreciate you want to contribute to the solution but upkeep fees are not a solution. The only meaningful solution is more supply.

[AriesMouse]

There are several issues with this kind of thinking though...

1: The cost would be very low, and again, something that could be covered through literally anything marked under the currency tab, so literally if all someone wants to do is RP and Golden Saucer, they could easily manage to keep their house. As stated several times, it should be realistically, a negligible amount, something that shouldn't take more than two hours of play time to get the currency of your choice for (give or take depending on the currency).I said flippers were one concern, but honestly, this is mostly towards people that own houses, but do not at all use them. The people that need to be emailed and reminded to even step foot in their house at all just to keep it. If they actually have to put in some, even small, amount of effort to keep that house, would they still even have it? Or would the cost to keep it eventually become too much, since chances are, if you're getting auto-demo warnings, you're not likely playing all that much to begin with. Also keep in mind, for those having a hard time getting the gil to cover it, friends could easily help with the payment/that is why a donation box could be put in, for the people that are feeling exceptionally generous with their gil/other unused currencies.

2: It makes it easier to keep in terms of long term planning. If you save up and pay upkeep ahead of time, it pays off. A friend could give you a boost as a holiday gift or something too. It making it hard to keep a house over all, is part of the appeal, as again, it makes it so people more or less just keeping houses as unused trophies might not want to hold onto their house as badly once it starts to become a hassle to fund every month, especially if they are an inactive player.

3: Auto-Demo exists, but it's not that great of a system, since once someone gets the email warning, they just log in, run inside the house, and the timer starts over. If anything, they shouldn't even get an email about it. Maybe an in game letter, on the character that owns the house, that is it.

4: You are very right here, but honestly, so long as housing is such a finite resource, it should be one that takes some effort to keep, even if the effort is just 1 hour of time a month to get some sort of currency of your choice to pay the upkeep. idealistically, I don't think that is too much to ask. Can you honestly say that it is perfectly cool for someone to just sit on a house as a status symbol/trophy, literally just having it so say "F-you, got mine"? So many people complain about people owning more than one house across their characters, but never once bat an eye at the people that own houses and do literally nothing with them aside from say "I got a house and someone else didn't". It's just one of many, many problems that need addressed, if they are never going to address the real issue, which is that housing should not be a status symbol, and it shouldn't be such a finite resource.

[Alien_Gamer]

stuff

1. So let me get this straight, your solution for trying to take away the houses of people that use it and can't afford it under this system is to have them depend on the generosity of others? And that doesn't give you a hint that this is a bad idea? The only thing an upkeep is does is make people work harder to keep what they have. You also have yet to describe any benefits to this system beyond your statement that it will be good for players....which it isn't.

2-3. Auto-demolition exists, SE will not allow an in game system to trump this because its not in anyone's best interest to allow it. Have you considered the consequences of what would happen if they did? Lets say you can pay for your house for 6 months and the demo timer doesnt take effect until then, what would happen? People would just wait 6 months to log in instead of 45 days. If SE stopped sending emails those people would just set a calendar alarm in their email client to remind them or have a tennant that still plays remind them. So no change there. What would change is the length of time an unused plot would remain un demolished. Instead of it happening at 45 days it would happen at whatever amount of time a person prepaid it. So now SE has just pissed off all the people that were in favor of the timer as their only realistic chance to get a house outside of expansions and sellers. And the people who are pissed about the timer existing in the first place? They're still pissed because not only does it exist but its less effective. Then you have the people who make less gil, the raiders and non crafters, they're upset that they don't have the chance at a house now because the gazillionaire crafters have prepaid for the next X months. Not to mention, the subs that SE would be getting every 45 days are now extended to every 180 days, thats only half the revenue stream from that audience...SE certainly won't be happy about that.

So no, this won't make it easier to keep because it will never happen. There is no reason to make it happen because it benefits nobody.

4. See my previous comment. Its their house, you have no right to dictate how they use it or don't use it. If they want to buy it and do nothing with it, then thats on them. Many people do complain about people buying houses and not decorating them and they get the same answer. If its not your house then you have no business dictating anything about that house.

Also, housing is a status symbol in every game. Even if housing was unlimited it would still be a status symbol for people to show off their design skills and trophies from EX trials/raids.

So far you've come up with 2 arguments for this, combatting flippers and you don't like how people use their house. The first this doesn't work for, the second is none of your business. I get that you want a house, but you're going at it the wrong way with this suggestion.

[AriesMouse]

snip...

You and I will have to agree to disagree, which is fine. I just don't buy into the narrative that this would be a challenging thing for people to work with, since I don't believe the people that own homes are a bunch of poor beggars in potatoes sacks, with not even enough gil to repair their armor. Which realistically, is what the upkeep price should be equivalent to, keeping your armor repaired. While this system is off putting to some, I don't see anyone else making any other suggestions for what to do, any other suggestions to put into place to at least try to help with the housing dilemma. Most I see is people screeching "1 house per account per server" which is something I personally disagree with (guess I'm full of unpopular opinions).

A big reason I highlighted that this system should use all types of currency, is because maybe in time, it would open the gates to allow houses as a whole to be bought with more than just gil, so all those people that "just barely scraped by to get a house", could have an easier time through other means to get a house. There are so many unused currencies in the game, Poetics come to mind, that you end up capped with, without even trying more days, so why not find more ways to use those things?

Also, the whole "you just want a house, that's why you're saying this" argument gets so old, and honestly just feels like a last ditch effort to try to undermine the person you disagree with, rather than actually conversing about the subject.

EDIT: For the sake of conversation, let's say they do put in a system like this, going forward, grandfathering in all of the old wards/houses with the old system. How best would you say a system like this should/could be put in? While it may never happen, rather than just saying "no", why not try to work out the best case scenario for it? Theory craft what it could be, how it could work, etc.

There are some months I play extremely small amounts of the game daily due to other games being out and can't even make the 250k you suggested for a small.....

You're taking the example numbers to heart. I specifically said they were only examples, not even something close to what the actual numbers would be. One top of the fact, we could use any currency of our choice, not just gil.

[Siniztor]

EDIT: For the sake of conversation, let's say they do put in a system like this, going forward, grandfathering in all of the old wards/houses with the old system. How best would you say a system like this should/could be put in? While it may never happen, rather than just saying "no", why not try to work out the best case scenario for it? Theory craft what it could be, how it could work, etc.

There is basicly 2 options it seems.
1- Se upgrades there server space to hold 100+ wards per city (not gonna happen)
2-instance housing (still probly not gonna happen) This would be my go to if i were them......id preffer instanced (As long as we still could have people come over)

Were just gonna get a few mroe wards here and there with rule changes so people cant run right in and buy them up. Id be willing to bet 4.2 will not solve any thing there will still be more chars/fcs then houses.

Alot of people are throwing around lotto (not to fair) and achivement points to buy houses. ID say if you wanna house cover your bases max hunt seal Gc seals and do achivements lol

[Alien_Gamer]

You and I will have to agree to disagree, which is fine.

EDIT: For the sake of conversation, let's say they do put in a system like this, going forward, grandfathering in all of the old wards/houses with the old system. How best would you say a system like this should/could be put in? While it may never happen, rather than just saying "no", why not try to work out the best case scenario for it? Theory craft what it could be, how it could work, etc.

Disagreeing is fine but you're flat out ignoring all the points I and others have made to rebute your idea. There is no best way a system like this could be put in, its all around bad; there is no point in theory crafting something that is bad for everyone. If there was some positive for someone somewhere then sure, but there isn't. We've tried asking you for what you think the positives are and you have yet to actually provide a positive. This is not agreeing to disagree, this is avoiding talking about the points you brought up.

Reducing the upkeep fee to something in line with the cost of armor repair would make it so cheap as to be worthless. At that level it wouldn't work as a disincentive to own a house but its existence as an extra step to take for owning a house would be a constant annoyance to everyone. It would not stop people from owning a house on alts, it wouldn't stop people from flipping houses, it wouldn't make people relinquish their house, it wouldn't free up the housing market, it would only annoy people. So beyond having an upkeep fee to have an upkeep fee, whats the point? It benefits nobody.

Also, you haven't done your homework. In every housing thread for the last 6 months there have been numerous suggestions, including upkeep fees, for how to handle this issue. There are some semi-acceptable ones that don't fix the issue but at least have some benefits such as the one house per server suggestion(I think its a horrible solution and not one I'd support) but most people agree the only real solution is more houses. And poetics are an unused currency? Its the most used currency besides gil and possibly crafting scrips.

As for undermining you instead of your ideas...your own arguments undermine you. Regardless of why you started the topic it doesn't change that upkeep fees aren't unpopular just because they're a fee, they're also unpopular because they don't fix anything with the housing problem. I can promise you, if you come up with that mythical solution that makes everyone happy, everyone will support it; barring that, any proposed solution needs to do two things 1) Fix part of the problem, 2) Not hurt regular players. This community loves debating the housing solutions, propose something that fixes something and people will work with you on it. The forum history has proven it.

[Siniztor]

barring that, any proposed solution needs to do two things 1) Fix part of the problem, 2) Not hurt regular players. This community loves debating the housing solutions, propose something that fixes something and people will work with you on it. The forum history has proven it.

You whole post is wow, but this line right here make me wanna buy you a beer or drink. Well put

[StouterTaru]

I just don't buy into the narrative that this would be a challenging thing for people to work with, since I don't believe the people that own homes are a bunch of poor beggars in potatoes sacks, with not even enough gil to repair their armor. Which realistically, is what the upkeep price should be equivalent to, keeping your armor repaired.

The armor wear mechanic is annoying and nearly pointless, and you want to duplicate it? You're proposing nuisance as a means of punishment for owning a house. It's a game; it shouldn't feel like a chore to play.

[silverlunarfox]

You're taking the example numbers to heart. I specifically said they were only examples, not even something close to what the actual numbers would be. One top of the fact, we could use any currency of our choice, not just gil.

Example numbers or not the simple fact is placing a fee is unnecessary and a burden to those who don't make alot of gil in the first place. And any currency? If you're not making alot of gil, theres a good chance you're not making alot of tomes, beast tribe currency etc... What's left then is real life currency, and no that won't work either.

The simple answer is no, a fee is not necessary. It will never stop the flippers, and it will only hurt the people who own homes, many who are like me, scraped up enough to buy the house and furnish it, but wouldn't be able to maintain a fee consistently.