Adressing the roots of the housing problem

[Heartilly-Rinoa]

I'm wondering if the reason why some players seek to own multiple estates will be solved as well

One of the issues, as I am only speaking for myself and a select crowd on this one point, is gardening plots. I own 1 small personal FC and 1 small personal home ( I don't have alts as there is no reason for them in this game IMO) strictly due to the fact that (1) I have not had the luck of getting a medium or large plot (2) I need more gardening space to do crossbreeding. Have you ever tried to crossbreed Thavarian Onions from scratch? If your very lucky it will take you 25 days to grow a few (without the slight time boost from fishmeal).(this last round took me 20 days IRL to procure a total of 3 bags of Thavarion onion seeds from both houses in 8 slot gardens, I had bad crossbreeding luck on this round) and if I'm planting Thavarian onions I would rather do it in a full 8 slot garden bed then just plating 3 at a time as I cant crossbreed to the full potential that way. So for someone into the gardening aspect of the game like me be it for Thavarion onions, blood peppers, or any rare crossbreeding and only owning 1 small home with only 1 garden plot, it could take months for them to make onions for their chocobo / peppers for crafting. That's what you call a "time sink" not a gil sink. And yes this is all based on a DIY concept not just buying seeds/finished product from the MB. This also applies to everyone that was not able to even get a home but an apartment. They cant have a garden plot at all . Now if the devs were to double the amount of plots you can own per estate size I wouldn't have an issue only owning just my FC plot and giving up my personal one (TBH it would make it easier for me as well as I wouldn't have to teleport between the 2). I'm not speaking for all house hoarders but I do know some of them have several plots for this very same reason and they have zero intention of relinquishing any of their growing space. But as I mentioned if they all got an increase to garden plots allowed per estate they may be willing to relinquish some extra house plots as well. So this is one of the many "roots" to the housing problem. Not everyone that owns multiple plots is a hoarder or a house flipper. Some of us just need more gardening space and the only way to do that is by owning multiple plots. So go ahead and flame players and call us greedy for just trying to garden at a reasonable rate. But next time you go to buy a wind up minion or a Thavarion onion to up your choco's level, don't get mad when prices go up 10 fold or more on the MB because we have been forced out of all our gardening homes . Now in no way am I condoning the ownership of multiple plots for re sell, all I'm bringing up is one of the issues surrounding the housing from MY perspective, and that of other gardening cross breeders.

[Darrcyphfeid]

You do know that private owners make up almost 80% of the plots right? FC's have every right to get the first weeks to themselves.

FCs don't have first week, or even first day, to themselves anyway. They're competing for prime real estate with anyone that currently owns a house and real estate in general with people creating dummy FCs over the next two and a half weeks.

If the implemented changes don't resolve the issue, by 4.3, you can bet they'll make a system forcing players to get down to one property.

/sigh

LuckyBancho* suggests the following, if we assume no FCs whatsoever have houses and all players have only a single personal house. The percentage is how much of the population would have a house of their own:

EU: Largest - Louisoix: 19,098 (22.62%), Smallest - Zodiark: 13,861 (31.16%)
NA: Largest - Balmung: 22,562 (19.14%), Smallest - Zalera: 11,105 (38.9%)
JP: Largest - Tonberry: 14,497 (29.79%), Smallest - Valefor: 6,586 (65.59%)

4.2 isn't going to fix the problem. Freeing up ~150 plots (I'm being generous) per server isn't going to help anything. It won't even be noticeable; it's 3.47% of the total number of plots that will be available (4,320) as of Feb 6th.


* Please take a moment to consider the argument "LuckyBancho isn't accurate because it doesn't include tons of people" and realize that would make the situation worse.

[RiyahArp]

One of the issues, as I am only speaking for myself and a select crowd on this one point, is gardening plots.

It would help if FFXIV didn't major in minors. I can go into Savage at day one of the expansion now, using crafted armor that someone probably will be ready to make on day one too, and spend maybe a couple of weeks or less to get a couple of the best armor pieces in the game. If you want to get a single piece of material to make a glamour bikini, or a particular vegetable to boost your chocos level or make a piece of optional furniture, I need to spend weeks trying to catch something, or own a house and spend a month gardening. People spend more time trying to get a single legendary fish than beating Savage endgame.

it's just crazy.

[Ametrine]

Snip

Oh dear, I'm fully aware that we have at least thousands of more players that want housing that can't get a plot due to availability.

Right night what SE is doing can barely be considered damage control. But, when you enter a ward and see 15 homes owned by one player and wonder why people sitting on a few million gil barred by another player's decision are salty when our options are considerably inferior in every way. Every way.

I quote myself;

Because they've shown zero interested in adding a ton of amenities to apartments or just adding instanced housing.

Everyone unable to earn housing will always have a reason to be upset, and SE, over and over, keeps taking the wrong route

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Nope, the opposite on both points. Prior to Jan 30th, they can (will and should) charge more than usual because they're now not selling you just any plot, they're selling you access to the whole shebang on Feb 6th. They're selling you the best chance you ever have of getting your ideal plot.

At the same time, they should be in the process of creating and ranking up as many dummy FCs as possible. On Jan 29th, any personal houses in their possession should be relinquished and picked up by those dummy FCs. On Feb 6th, those dummy FCs will then relocate to more coveted large or medium plots in Shirogane/Mists/Lavender Beds, which the reseller can then sell as per usual whenever they find someone desperate enough once all plots in the new Wards are gone.

This is the exact thing Square said they wanted to avoid, their reasoning for not telling us housing details too early, and yet here we are.

This assumes you can upgrade your plot. While they said relocating will be allowed, they made no mention you could relocate your small Lavender Bed plot to a large Shirogane. Given you have to pay the difference; essentially buying a new estate, it's quite likely you won't be able to upgrade to a larger plot.

It's not greedy. I know more than a few players who bought multiple houses and started FC's on their alts (mainly for airships) because wards were empty for months and they had the gil and time to sink into such projects.

Telling those players to go screw themselves because they worked and purchased land with in the rules is beyond selfish.

If anything the whole Apartment system should be reworked so that apartments function just like houses but as a personal ward/zone. Allow players to pick any size plot they want for the current cost of plots and allow players to assign apartments as personal or FC so they can have airships and submarines.

To be fair, owning an entire Ward just because the devs foolish failed to account for the potential abuse, is equally greedy. You can't make the selfish argument while being selfish.

[LaylaTsarra]

This assumes you can upgrade your plot. While they said relocating will be allowed, they made no mention you could relocate your small Lavender Bed plot to a large Shirogane. Given you have to pay the difference; essentially buying a new estate, it's quite likely you won't be able to upgrade to a larger plot.

I sincerely doubt that any transfers allowed would be restricted to the same size plot. You would still have to re buy the small if you're transferring a small. They would have full purchasing rights that any transfer would have in my opinion. I suppose we would have to wait and see but I'd be personally surprised if they restricted that in the way you are suggesting.

[Alleo]

Absolutely not. If someone has several houses they bought when a server was small, have built them up with things like shirogane walls, expensive chandeliers and mogstation interior walls, how is SE going to pick which house stays, and reimburses them for the ingame and mogstation purchases? Not going to happen.

And if someone is not able to play the game for a certain amount of days they will also lose all of that. Thats also not fair but still part of the game. Also they introduced the timer after housing existed for quite some time, so people bought houses with the belief that they wont ever lose it, even if they dont play for a longer time. Yet the change came and it was used on older houses too. So why should the new rule be only for new ones?

[Darrcyphfeid]

Right night what SE is doing can barely be considered damage control. ... Everyone unable to earn housing will always have a reason to be upset, and SE, over and over, keeps taking the wrong route

We seem to be on the same page in general. I just felt the need to reaffirm that 4.2 isn't really fixing anything and that getting hung up on retroactively punishing some small number of people, however satisfying some may find that, won't help and most likely isn't happening (else, you would assume they would be announcing that now).

Though for what it's worth, they did say some months back that once the housing "adjustment" for 4.2 was done they would turn their attention towards making apartments come in small, medium and large sizes. They have already confirmed that apartments will never have front lawns nor balconies due to the way they set up the instances for them, however. {insert facepalm here}

This assumes you can upgrade your plot. While they said relocating will be allowed, they made no mention you could relocate your small Lavender Bed plot to a large Shirogane. Given you have to pay the difference; essentially buying a new estate, it's quite likely you won't be able to upgrade to a larger plot.

I feel this has to work in reverse; they have to specifically say that you can't relocate to a different size. Because when they say "You can still relocate," the default expectation must be that relocation is relocation - would work exactly as it worked in 4.1. Buying and relocating are somehow completely different things, even though the entire foundation/concept of relocation is that you're purchasing a new plot.

[LaylaTsarra]

And if someone is not able to play the game for a certain amount of days they will also lose all of that. Thats also not fair but still part of the game. Also they introduced the timer after housing existed for quite some time, so people bought houses with the belief that they wont ever lose it, even if they dont play for a longer time. Yet the change came and it was used on older houses too. So why should the new rule be only for new ones?

Because they said so and because taking something away from someone is different than simply changing the rules for new purchases. You can continue with your vendetta against multiple home owners but it certainly appears from the directors comments that the new rules will apply to new purchases only.

[Zojha]

Buying and relocating are somehow completely different things, even though the entire foundation/concept of relocation is that you're purchasing a new plot.

They're probably simply processed by a different block of code or script and they only changed the original block for buying/selling.

I fully expect people to be able to upgrade via relocation as usual.

As for the situation as a whole, well... they dug their grave the moment they put personal housing into the wards instead of developing a separate system for them. Removing {Foresight} from the game with SB was downright symbolic.