Pushed to quit after 1,860 days subbed

[Canadane]

So after being subbed from 2.0's release, owning every collector's edition (including the original 1.0 release), with additional retainers, buying merchandise and Mogstation items, and even attending fan festivals, I'm out. I only offer that info for background, not a boast - I know many others have done the same, and more. But I'm not a casual fan - I was a fully invested, "I'm going to play this game til the servers burn down" kind of fan. And now I'm not.

...


When I purchased my housing plot, there was no mention of the auto-delete system. Nothing to say that I needed to carry out a certain level of upkeep, or what would happen if I didn't.

It was never a secret, and if you were invested as you say you were, you would have known about it.

I'm sorry you lost your house, I really am. I wish houses for everyone.
But to say that there was no notice of the system in place, is just asinine. It was in patch notes. It's been in the games. It's been all over the forums and other media from others who don't read these things. If you're going to say that you are heavily vested into playing the game, one would reasonably ascertain that you've known about this non-secret.

However, that all aside, it sounds like the house wasn't terribly that important in your day-to-day activities within the game. You seemed to have had 1800~ days without it just fine.
Why not keep playing and enjoy as you were? There's a lot more out there for you to do!

[Raskbuck]

It was never a secret, and if you were invested as you say you were, you would have known about it.

I'm sorry you lost your house, I really am. I wish houses for everyone.
But to say that there was no notice of the system in place, is just asinine. It was in patch notes. It's been in the games. It's been all over the forums and other media from others who don't read these things. If you're going to say that you are heavily vested into playing the game, one would reasonably ascertain that you've known about this non-secret.

However, that all aside, it sounds like the house wasn't terribly that important in your day-to-day activities within the game. You seemed to have had 1800~ days without it just fine.
Why not keep playing and enjoy as you were? There's a lot more out there for you to do!

Oh, please. Implying that OP should've known about it is completely missing the point of the thread. There have been several reports of housing e-mails not working the way they should, despite SquareEnix claiming otherwise. As it is right now, the system is very unfriendly in notifying you when your house is going to get demolished. First off, the timer that should notify you doesn't even appear unless you're a couple of weeks away from demolition (now that's asinine). Secondly, there's no in-game mention at all if your house is approaching that time; no popups, no in-game mails, no notifications, nothing. You have to hope that the automated e-mail they send isn't lost in the void.

Even if you end up losing your house, you should at the very least be able to recover your items at any given time. Housing is great in this game, but as it is right now, they are holding you and all the time you've invested at ransom to keep the subscriptions up. It seems disingenuous, to say the least.

[HyoMinPark]

Oh, please. Implying that OP should've known about it is completely missing the point of the thread. There have been several reports of housing e-mails not working the way they should, despite SquareEnix claiming otherwise. As it is right now, the system is very unfriendly in notifying you when your house is going to get demolished. First off, the timer that should notify you doesn't even appear unless you're a couple of weeks away from demolition (now that's asinine). Secondly, there's no in-game mention at all if your house is approaching that time; no popups, no in-game mails, no notifications, nothing. You have to hope that the automated e-mail they send isn't lost in the void.

Even if you end up losing your house, you should at the very least be able to recover your items at any given time. Housing is great in this game, but as it is right now, they are holding you and all the time you've invested at ransom to keep the subscriptions up. It seems disingenuous, to say the least.

Housing emails functioning as intended or not, if you don’t step into your house for not only 45 days, but an additional 35 after that to lose your reclaimed items from the NPC, that tells me that the house itself wasn’t something direly needed to the OP. I’m sympathetic towards how crappy this housing system is, but if you go 80 days without even looking at or thinking about your house? I just question how invested one is when they go almost 3 months without using this asset that they are now quitting the game over.

[Raskbuck]

Housing emails functioning as intended or not, if you don’t step into your house for not only 45 days, but an additional 35 after that to lose your reclaimed items from the NPC, that tells me that the house itself wasn’t something direly needed to the OP. I’m sympathetic towards how crappy this housing system is, but if you go 80 days without even looking at or thinking about your house? I just question how invested one is when they go almost 3 months without using this asset that they are now quitting the game over.

That's glossing over a very real issue several players seem to been having lately. There have been reports of people getting other player's housing e-mails despite not owning one, or they simply poof into the void.

Sometimes life happens, and it's not up to us to judge whether another player is invested or not in the house. It could be surgery, deployment, or anything else that prevents them from playing for an extended period of time. Pointing out the game's flaws isn't meant as an attack to the company. It's criticism to help them improve upon the game and address the concern a lot of the playerbase have. Sitting comfortably on your side of the fence and judging them isn't helping anyone.

[HyoMinPark]

Sometimes life happens, and it's not up to us to judge whether another player is invested or not in the house. It could be surgery, deployment, or anything else that prevents them from playing for an extended period of time. Pointing out the game's flaws isn't meant as an attack to the company. It's criticism to help them improve upon the game and address the concern a lot of the playerbase have. Sitting comfortably on your side of the fence and judging them isn't helping anyone.

Okay....

Shortly after, real life things happened. There's no use going into it - I'm not looking for a pity party - but needless to say I had less and less time for FFXIV. But I stayed subscribed. I logged in to do seasonal events as they came up, grinding Yo Kai watch weapons, all of that stuff. I was doing the Cactpot every week. The simple things.

But you've probably guessed what happened. I hadn't stepped foot in my house in months. I hadn't needed to, and frankly what little time I had to play didn't need to be spent in my house. Not yet - I'd finish it when I had more time to play!

The OP had enough time to devote to seasonal events and the weekly Cactpot. That’s enough time to also step foot into your house, because that’s all it takes to reset the demolition timer. It takes less time to do that than seasonal events.

[Raskbuck]

Okay....



The OP had enough time to devote to seasonal events and the weekly Cactpot. That’s enough time to also step foot into your house, because that’s all it takes to reset the demolition timer. It takes less time to do that than seasonal events.

That's because it wasn't explained clearly anywhere in-game. I feel like we're talking in different languages here, not to mention completely missing the point of my response.

If deep down you're implying that it was ultimately OP's fault and that there's nothing to improve upon the housing system, I suppose there's nothing else to discuss. I know you are not saying that, but it sure seems like it if we're arguing about technicalities.

[HyoMinPark]

That's because it wasn't explained clearly anywhere in-game. I feel like we're talking in different languages here, not to mention completely missing the point of my response.

If deep down you're implying that it was ultimately OP's fault and that there's nothing to improve upon the housing system, I suppose there's nothing else to discuss. I know you are not saying that, but it sure seems like it if we're arguing about technicalities.

If you read my first post, I said that I was sympathetic to how crappy the Housing is designed in this game. And I never said anything about being against implementing new systems to warn players in-game on top of the outside notifications about demolition. But auto-demolition has been a thing for years (since mid-2.x), and if the OP has been playing since 2.0, they would have heard about it by now, I think. It’s a hot topic of debate on various platforms, present in Patch Notes, present on the Lodestone when they mention suspensions of it and reactivations of it. I question how they missed these notices when they also show up on the launcher itself under “News”.

If someone goes 80 days (again, almost 3 months) without stepping into their house or even thinking about it (but still has time to think about seasonal events, participate in them, and even do weekly Gold Saucer content), how am I supposed to be sympathetic to someone not using their house, and then saying they’re quitting over something that they didn’t use for 3 months? I don’t know how they were grinding out Yokai weapons in 4.2, because that’s when Shirogane 2nd wave came out and Yokai hasn’t been a thing since last summer, but they had time enough to do other things.

[Sigma-Astra]

That's because it wasn't explained clearly anywhere in-game.

To be quite fair, portions of housing are explained on the Lodestone and the forums. You can't possibly argue that someone that invested in XIV and housing wouldn't think about checking the Lodestone and the game's own forums for information regarding their own house?

Why do we suddenly need the game itself to say what's already been said simply because one person did not think to use the tools that were available to him at his disposal? Hell, he could have asked ANYONE in-game about it whether it was friends or FC members.

It's one thing to be completely new to the game, like new as in they've JUST started, it's another thing to say you've been playing the game for 1,860 days and all of a sudden you didn't know about this.

Come on.

[Ilyrian]

That's because it wasn't explained clearly anywhere in-game. I feel like we're talking in different languages here, not to mention completely missing the point of my response.

If deep down you're implying that it was ultimately OP's fault and that there's nothing to improve upon the housing system, I suppose there's nothing else to discuss. I know you are not saying that, but it sure seems like it if we're arguing about technicalities.

It was the OPs fault. Let's be clear about that.
House gets demolished if you don't use it after a set time. He was even logging on and not using it. Working as intended I would say.

How much hand-holding do people need? Perhaps a countdown timer on the log-in screen?

[AngelCheese77]

That's because it wasn't explained clearly anywhere in-game. I feel like we're talking in different languages here, not to mention completely missing the point of my response.

If deep down you're implying that it was ultimately OP's fault and that there's nothing to improve upon the housing system, I suppose there's nothing else to discuss. I know you are not saying that, but it sure seems like it if we're arguing about technicalities.

Hm ... yes it was explained in game. At least from my recollection.

When you enter a housing district, either first time or after you get your house (I wanna say this but I could be wrong on the timing) you get a pop up window explaining about house demolition. From the wiki, where it states the demo timer was put in place during Patch 3.1:

Reclamation of Inactive Housing

To ensure that plots of land are not claimed and left unused, estates not accessed for extended periods of time will be automatically demolished, and the plots of land will be put back up for sale.

Reclamation of Inactive Housing was released in patch 3.1.

Estates Subject to Demolishing

Free company housing that has not been accessed by at least one member within 45 days.
Private housing that has not been accessed by the owner within 45 days.
Purchased plots of land upon which an estate has not been built within 45 days.

Steps Prior to Demolishing

30 days of inactivity: A notification indicating that the estate is being prepared for auto-demolition will appear in the Timers interface in the Duty tab of the Main Menu.

35 days of inactivity: An e-mail will be delivered to the registered e-mail addresses of all free company members, or the owner of a private estate, indicating the estate is being prepared for auto-demolition.

42 days of inactivity: An e-mail will be delivered to the registered e-mail addresses of all free company members, or the owner of a private estate, indicating that the estate will be demolished automatically in three days.

45 days of inactivity: The estate will be automatically demolished.

Halting Demolition

Any free company member or private housing owner entering the estate at any time prior to demolition will cancel the demolition process.

After Demolition

When an estate has been demolished, or the rights to an empty plot have been relinquished, said plot will be made available for purchase to all players on that World. The price will decrease every six hours from the time at which it is made available for purchase.

Reclaiming Gil and Items

When an estate has been demolished, gil and certain furnishings will be placed in the care of the resident caretaker for a fixed period of time.

Redeemable from the Resident Caretaker:

80% of the price paid for the estate grounds.
Indoor and outdoor furnishings that are not destroyed upon removal.
Not Redeemable from the Resident Caretaker:

The construction permit required to build an estate.

Furnishings destroyed upon removal.

Housing exteriors.
Private chambers.
Company workshops and any registered airships in the workshop.

Players will have thirty-five days to redeem items from the resident caretaker before they are made irredeemable. Items belonging to a free company estate can only be retrieved by members with the authorization to purchase or relinquish land. Items belonging to a private estate can only be retrieved by the owner.