How do people play for 3 years without a house?

[Almagnus1]

Most of the people complaining are on high pop servers.
Well, you can play on a high pop server, or you can have a house.
I've only played for a little over a year and I've already moved to a different house a half dozen times.

The system should be flexible enough that server population is a non-issue.

[Divinemights]

The system should be flexible enough that server population is a non-issue.

Oh? If it is really a non-issue why is Balmung received server lock?

[Big_Panda]

I have been playing for about one and half year.

I did not have the Gil for the first six months as I leveled every job for fun

Over the last year, I have gotten one small, moved to medium and relocated to a large this Tuesday

I play on Behemoth so it is not a small server. It is really just a matter of checking housing board regularly.

I also scouted houses for friends and some houses were unsold for a long time because nobody bothers checking.

[MizArai]

during the first ward expansion

There have been a few ward expansions. Digging through patch notes, 2.3 added the 6th ward, 2.38 added wards 7 & 8, 2.4 added subdivisions (doubling the existing plots), 3.3 added wards 9-12, then Shirogane with 4.1, and now wards 13-18 with 4.2.


I got my first house with 3.3. I set my alarm and got up super early, made sure I had plenty of time to download the patch, and got a great beachfront small in the mists. If people have played for 3 years and don't have a house, I'd say they don't really prioritize housing, as there have been countless opportunities to own houses, and so many servers had tons of empty houses before the free transfers (though I realize that transferring with money was more difficult back then it was still possible if you were smart about it). I really have almost no sympathy for people who have played a long time and don't have a house. The opportunities were there, people just had to be willing to do whatever (camp wards, transfer servers, take something that was not a dream plot) to get a home.

[MizArai]

Oh? If it is really a non-issue why is Balmung received server lock?

Try reading that again.

The system should be flexible enough that server population is a non-issue.

They were saying the housing system should be more flexible so that no matter what size a server is looks at Balmung housing will not be an issue.

[Darrcyphfeid]

There have been a few ward expansions. Digging through patch notes, 2.3 added the 6th ward, 2.38 added wards 7 & 8, 2.4 added subdivisions (doubling the existing plots), 3.3 added wards 9-12, then Shirogane with 4.1, and now wards 13-18 with 4.2.

Fair enough. That was before my time; started around 2.55.

We're getting close to the 3-year anniversary of Heavensward already. Time flies.


Edit: Oh, and for the sake of contributing-

Got my first home Christmas 2015. Later relinquished it and turned it into an FC house, and then randomly found a crappy small in Mist somewhere around 3.4 or 3.45, I think? Passed that on to the missus a few weeks later, and then found a small in Beds somewhere around the tail end of HW. Gave that one to a friend a couple days before 4.2 dropped since I saw the cluster**** coming.

Found a medium in Goblet and a medium in Lavender Beds at different points between 3.4 and 3.56, and let friends know so they could quickly pick them up. Have definitely seen my fair share of houses, but I also have the ability to be logged into the game far more than most.

[AriesMouse]

Lack of gil, or lack of solid play time to keep/maintain a house, thus not being able to justify the purchase at the time.

[Besame]

If people have a clue when seeking out a new game, they will come read the boards like I did and see all these issues with housing. If they are in it for the raiding, they won't care and might sub up. If not and want a crafting/housing model more that banging your head killing mobs constantly, they will pass on FF. I enjoy some raiding but I also craft/gather and deco my house a lot. I want a system where I can do all these things and enjoy it for the money I pay.

[Dzian]

How do people play this game for 3 years without managing to find an open house from auto-demolish?

I used to find 2-3 every week on Faire, and later when I transferred servers I went to Mateus, because they were low-pop. (who needs to be in the big-city server when you can commute with party-finder).

So how do people endure 3 years without a house suddenly "need" one right meow?

I imagine it'd be quite easy. Unless you play 24/7 it's quite easy to miss plots because the reclaimed ones don't sit empty for very long at all.. I've literally been in my garden when a neighbour's place suddenly vanished and within an hour it was bought up by someone else.

Most of the empty ones don't stay empty very long at all. So quote easy to miss if your not watching 24/7.

[Amantisa]

snip
Most of the empty ones don't stay empty very long at all. So quote easy to miss if your not watching 24/7.

Pretty much this. For a couple months I followed some new friends by making alts on their servers, and when they had to move the FC there were always some of them looking for houses for a time before getting one. One extra blink and you may miss it, specially on higher pop servers.
For who just plays sometimes, not having a home is actually the easiest-expected.
The only reason I got my small was because I was in the right place and right time on the first demolition. I was at the FC house talking to our lead when I suddenly saw plots popping up. And it took no more than a couple minutes for all of them to vanish, this considering that my server is not even a crammed one.