Restrictions Being Lifted on 20th Feb

[Settiesama]

So what's wrong with a small starter home?

People seem to be under the impression that because they saved gil, they are 'entitled' to obtain a Medium/Large house. Basically it comes to a greed of wanting only the best and a belief that smalls are below them. These people don't want housing, they want something to wave in front of people to show off. Anyone with a real desire for a house will take what they can get and aim for higher while knowing they always have something they already love to fall back on.

[Searban]

Did square fix the housing crisis? Course not. That's not the only problem this time though, this time I'm pretty peeved at the people I see in here too. What is wrong with a small house? It's preferable to no house right? And you can upgrade if you spot a med/large available right? And you can upgrade the NEXT time they add more wards as a solution (because you know they will) right?

So what's wrong with a small starter home?

There is nothing wrong with a small plot per se (even if it is, in fact, disappointingly small). But I think you're misreading the reason why some people might be upset about this situation.

After the debacle 4.1 was in regard to housing, SE have made some vague promises to improve the the system, in particular the way plots are acquired, to avoid a situation like that from repeating. Fast-forward to 4.2 and the only thing devs "improved" about the plot acquisition model is the moratorium that gave priority to FCs and (for reasons I truly can't understand) those who wanted to relocate. And so, Monday is going to be a repeat of 4.1, just as 4.1 was in a large part a repeat of 3.3.

What homeless players wishing to acquire a plot have to look forward to now is having to deal with the same mess that they already had to deal with a patch ago in order to be able to compete for scraps left behind by everyone else. There is of course the continuously remaining issue of a massive disproportion between an average number of available plots per server and a vastly outweighing it estimated average number of active homeless players per server, meaning that only a small share of playerbase will be able to take advantage of those scraps, again.

All of this a couple of months after Yoshi.P went on record saying what basically amounts to: We know we screwed up. Please wait until the next patch while we work to improve the system.

And while the idea to grab a small plot and upgrade to a larger one in the future is sound in theory, there are 2 major problems. First being the fact that most people won't even be able to get a small plot anyway. The other is the fact that contrary to what some people seem to think addition of new wards isn't something that happens too often in this game. Subdivisions in 2.4, then 9 new wards in 3.3, then 15 wards (an entire new district) in 4.1 and finally 12 new wards in 4.2. The last case also seems more like a freak occurrence caused by the playerbase outrage post-4.1 more than anything else. Every time devs are asked about new wards due to overwhelmingly low supply of housing plots compared to persisting demand the response the give is the same - that they can't expand housing districts easily due to server limitations. Even those 12 new wards added in 4.2 were supposed to require additional reinforcements of the server base.

So don't be surprised if people aren't appeased by the possibility that they may get an opportunity to get a better plot somewhere down the line, 1 or 2 years from now. Especially when SE saw it fit to make Shirogane one of the major selling points for their latest expansion.

People seem to be under the impression that because they saved gil, they are 'entitled' to obtain a Medium/Large house. Basically it comes to a greed of wanting only the best and a belief that smalls are below them. These people don't want housing, they want something to wave in front of people to show off. Anyone with a real desire for a house will take what they can get and aim for higher while knowing they always have something they already love to fall back on.

Being dissatisfied with a housing system that is unacceptably messy and inefficient at its core is not being entitled. Neither is voicing your discontent over the fact that nothing has been improved between patches 4.1 and 4.2 despite vows by the dev team to provide said improvements.

[Settiesama]

Being dissatisfied with a housing system that is unacceptably messy and inefficient at its core is not being entitled. Neither is voicing your discontent over the fact that nothing has been improved between patches 4.1 and 4.2 despite vows by the dev team to provide said improvements.

And that is the reason people are saying "I refuse to buy a small because I saved for and want a Medium/Large"? They said they want make more housing for people, they never said anything about Medium and Larges for everyone. Whether you like it or not, a small is a house, and those people who refuse to buy smaller because it's 'beneath them' don't deserve one.

[Searban]

And that is the reason people are saying "I refuse to buy a small because I saved for and want a Medium/Large"? They said they want make more housing for people, they never said anything about Medium and Larges for everyone.

You can't even refuse to buy a plot under current circumstances. What people are saying is, at best, I refuse to participate in another serving of the 4.1 housing debacle for a chance to buy a small plot none of the FCs and privileged players wanted. Because that's how Monday is going to look like, as nothing has really been improved since 4.1.

In other words, promises to make improvements so another 4.1 (or 3.3) doesn't happen were made but not upheld. The only thing that SE have achieved with 4.2 was appeasing some of the FCs breathing down their collective neck. While I agree that increasing % of FCs with access to housing can only be considered a success, it can't be a justification for the fact that literally everything else about the housing system was left where it was before - in the gutter.

I don't even want to discuss the matter of whether a small plot has a sufficient size for anyone or not (although the fact that small plots used to come without basements originally tells you something about how SE devs perceive the concept of sufficient space). But complaining that people aren't happy with having a (very long) shot at a handful of small plots come Monday is starting to sound a lot like Housing is fine, stop complaining. Shut up and gratefully accept the scraps you're given.

[Settiesama]

You can't even refuse to buy a plot under current circumstances. What people are saying is, at best, I refuse to participate in another serving of the 4.1 housing debacle for a chance to buy a small plot none of the FCs and privileged players wanted. Because that's how Monday is going to look like, as nothing has really been improved since 4.1.

Uh, no... People have literally been saying they don't want smalls because they saved for a medium and large so they deserve them, and that they're quitting because only smalls are left. Anyone who seriously wants housing will take what they can, these guys clearly don't. It has nothing to do with the rush to get them, but purely because they feel smalls are below their worth.

Edit:

Problem is that small plots are a total waste of time, honestly they shouldn't even exist. But don't worry, I plan to sit here and watch as anything worth buying gets snatched up seeing as we have no choice at this point.

They need to open up more wards so individuals can also buy med/lrg houses. I want a at least a chance at a medium house and if I don't hear about something to make that happen very soon I need to stop playing.

Just as a couple examples, and of course there is Hyomin's friend who is a perfect example. Who outright refused to buy a small in 4.1 despite having every chance to, purely because she wanted a Large.

Let me share my story about housing, for anyone who wants to know—it gives some insight into why I feel the way I do/why I have my opinions:

I did not participate in the 3.3 Launch, because, well, I didn’t have enough money for a house at the time so why bother. But a friend of mine did. She was after Plot 11/41 in the Lavender Beds (i.e., The God-Tier Medium plot). She gets in relatively fast (Cactuar was still pretty mid-pop back then, not as large as it is nowadays), but sadly, all 8 of that specific plot were already gone. Her response? “I didn’t get THAT PLOT, and now I’m quitting the game!!!” We, her friends, managed to convince her to stay, and even tried to tell her there was a medium near the house of the FC that I was currently in (we presented this as a great time for us to all be neighbors, since she was in a different FC from us and didn’t want to leave it because she liked it). We had to spend several hours convincing her to at least take another medium plot (I want to place the emphasis on “medium” here—we weren’t even asking her to settle for a small, but another medium), even though it wasn’t the one she originally wanted.

Come Shirogane’s announcement at Fanfest. She decides to let her nice medium in the Beds auto-demolish, because she wanted to get a house (specifically a mansion) in Shirogane, and they had not yet announced the idea of relocation (as far as I recall they had not, anyways). We, her friends, tried to convince her to wait/think about it for a little bit (especially given the way she reacted after not getting Plot 11/41) because we knew there was a chance she may end up without a house at all, but she didn’t want to, so she let her plot auto-demolish for 80% of the cost.

Shirogane gets closer, and launches in a spectacular disaster. She managed to get in with no errors, but was 900+ in queue, and by then, all the mansions were gone (apparently there were still a few mediums left, but mostly smalls?—I can’t back this up by more than just my friend’s hearsay, because I had a faulty/unresponsive launcher, 2 lobby server errors, a 90k, and was 1,600+ in the queue). Her response again? “I didn’t get the house I wanted! I’m quitting the game!” We tried to convince her to buy another plot so that she could try to relocate in the future (since this would at least be something: she wouldn’t have the plot she wanted, but she would at least have a Shirogane house, which she really wanted to have a house there), but she refused. We spend more hours convincing her not to quit the game, especially after Yoshida announced they would be adding more Wards.

Finally comes this housing release. Sometime between the 3.3 and 4.1 housing releases, she had branched off from her old FC and started her own, so for 4.2 she was looking to get one for her FC (I think she had intended for the 4.1 house to be an FC one as well, but I’m not sure; she still really wanted a personal house at that time). However, she was unaware of the rules surrounding alt characters in FCs, and one of our friends had an alt in her FC back from when she was first getting it started, while his main was the master of another FC. She tried to buy a plot, and it wouldn’t let her (because of the restriction on alts). Meanwhile, myself and another friend had celebrated that we had managed to get some houses—I just posted a simple comment in our shared LS of “I got a mansion for my FC! ” and that was it. I didn’t know until a few seconds later that she had been unsuccessful in her attempts.

After I figured out what the problem was, I tried to tell her what she could do to remedy it (all she had to do was just kick the alt and she would have been golden). But, by then, all the Shirogane mansions were gone. I proceeded then to tell her “There are tons of mansions everywhere else; I know they aren’t Shiro, but try to get one and you can always relocate to Shirogane later on”. I suggested the Lavender Beds, because there was very little competition there at the time for mansions, and it’s still a very nice area that I knew she also liked. Well, she wasn’t hearing any of that. Some more back and forth between us, and she has subsequently blocked me on Discord and Facebook, and is no longer wanting to be friends with me. Because I “just didn’t understand”, was “rubbing it in her face” that I had managed to get a house, and I “knew how much she wanted a mansion in Shirogane” and that she “didn’t want to settle for anything else”. By the way, we had been friends since 2011–way before either of us were playing FFXIV.


This is where my issue lies: the way my friend acted was so terribly entitled, that I am finding a hard time having sympathy for her, especially after she turned on me for just simply saying ONCE in the LS that I managed to get a house. I feel similarly towards a lot of the comments I see here about the housing, too—

It really sucks when you don’t get the plot you want. I know that; I’ve been there. But I still think that at least owning a house gives you a leg-up/an advantage later on, especially with the new relocation feature added. It may not be ideal, but, for me personally, if the choice is between “not having a house” and “not having my dream house but still at least having one”, I would take the latter. I also think a better response is “We should advocate for increased numbers of larges/mediums” rather than “Take away the larges/mediums from the people that relocated because I want their plot”.

However, I realize not everyone is me, nor do I think they should all think how I do. That being said, I just wish people would at least consider alternatives.

This is most definitely not about the rush.

[Dustytome]

Uh, no... People have literally been saying they don't want smalls because they saved for a medium and large so they deserve them, and that they're quitting because only smalls are left. Anyone who seriously wants housing will take what they can, these guys clearly don't. It has nothing to do with the rush to get them, but purely because they feel smalls are below their worth.

I'm not sure I've seen people taking the stance that they're 'better' than having a small house, just that it's not the size they're looking for and it can be especially infuriating when it's a digital product that a company has created an artificial limitation of due to choice, lack of foresight or lack of understanding. If that's the product they're after and the company can't supply it to meet demand (after this much time at that) then why would someone want to waste more time and money waiting out the possibility to fight other users for the chance at something that other companies can provide without issue on demand?

[Settiesama]

I'm not sure I've seen people taking the stance that they're 'better' than having a small house

I updated it with two examples of that one and one example of someone doing so after only wanting a certain plot. The idea that they're 'better' stems from their refusal to settle for anything less even when it's the only choice left. SE has already screwed up housing beyond repair at this point, so if they won't settle for small at least temporarily, I will always stick by the notion that they don't deserve any. A small is still a house and people can and have done amazing things with them, refusing to even try for a small is just bad form if you declare you want housing.

[LaylaTsarra]

I'm not sure I've seen people taking the stance that they're 'better' than having a small house, just that it's not the size they're looking for and it can be especially infuriating when it's a digital product that a company has created an artificial limitation of due to choice, lack of foresight or lack of understanding.

I believe they will be addressing small, medium and large size spaces with the apparent talked about upgrade to apartments in the future. The neighborhoods aren't going to change anytime soon. The possibility of having instanced housing in addition to the wards i suppose could happen but I don't think they'll do that and instead will provide the size issue with apartments.

Many people would be happy with decent well designed apartment spaces.

[Searban]

Uh, no... People have literally been saying they don't want smalls because they saved for a medium and large so they deserve them, and that they're quitting because only smalls are left. Anyone who seriously wants housing will take what they can, these guys clearly don't. It has nothing to do with the rush to get them, but purely because they feel smalls are below their worth.

By all means, keep ignoring the context so you can have your narrative about entitled people that, in your eyes, don't truly want or deserve housing.

And that contex is pretty simple - the post-maintenance rush isn't going to be pretty. Or a pleasant experience. It'll also require people to stay up late (if NA) or make sure they're online at either 9 or 10 am during a working day (if EU). With no guarantee for anyone involved that they will get their plots anyway. It's not simply I don't want to buy a small plot, it's I don't want to put all this effort in for a slim chance at getting something that wouldn't meet my needs in the first place. Unless someone puts small plots in front of them and tells them Buy them! while they refuse, then somehow making conscious decisions based on the effort/gain ratio and expecting the company developing an MMO that you're playing to do a better job makes you a bad person.

EDIT:

Now onto the good part. I have read the examples you provided. With the exception of the last one, which is a story of a personal drama between two people with one of the involved sides displaying what seems to be signs of deeper, personal issues, the remaining cases have nothing to do with small plots being "beneath" anyone. One of the people quoted simply doesn't find small plots worth the effort (and has every right to do so), while the other clearly complains about not having a chance at buying anything larger than a small. They're not complaining about not getting things they deserve at all. I also went through this entire thread and a few others and haven't found examples of what you're claiming to see a lot of.

I don't see how these complaints are unfair. If there was any communication from SE between 4.1 and 4.2 regarding their exact plans for 4.2 housing things would look different. But they chose to keep everyone in the dark until the last possible moments instead, so naturally a lot of people will be disappointed by the whole affair.

[Settiesama]

By all means, keep ignoring the context so you can have your narrative about entitled people that, in your eyes, don't truly want or deserve housing.

What context exactly? Either you're reading far too deeply into this or putting your own thoughts into their words. They are literally meaning they don't want smalls, nothing at all do to with fighting for them.

Edit: Clearly I need to copy and paste every post they made on the matters to get it through that it has nothing about the fight for the plots, but the actual plots themselves. You're putting context to their posts that isn't there at all. They are meaning exactly what I am stating confirmed by other posts they made, and several others have posted with the quotes about the money (many of which were deleted after being shut down by others).