Pushed to quit after 1,860 days subbed

[Raskbuck]

nothing SE would've done would've fixed OP's issue.

Actually, yes. If there were any in-game notifications, OP would have been able to prevent this. They did mention they logged in to do their daily routine. Entering their house wasn’t part of it because they didn’t know about the whole housing demolition, hence this topic.

By your logic, should I start googling every single thing they add in the game?

Oh no! They added a new Aquapolis. Better make sure to Google if they are going to delete my chatacter if I don’t do it.

There’s a new expansion! Welp, better make sure and Google if SE is going to delete my equipment just in case.

Nobody is trying to absolve OP from guilt. People are too hung up on pointing fingers and blaming OP for the game’s lack of in-game notifications about housing demolition.

Feedback is what allows the game, and SE, to grow and improve. It’s difficult to give that when they are met with finger pointing and holier-than-thou attitudes.

Nobody cares if OP is in the wrong or not. The fact is there are some things about the current state of housing that could use some improvement, and this thread is the space to comment about that.

And yet, we see pages upon pages of people blaming OP for absolutely no reason other than being petty.

[ko_]

Actually, yes. If there were any in-game notifications, OP would have been able to prevent this. They did mention they logged in to do their daily routine. Entering their house wasn’t part of it because they didn’t know about the whole housing demolition, hence this topic.

By your logic, should I start googling every single thing they add in the game?

Oh no! They added a new Aquapolis. Better make sure to Google if they are going to delete my chatacter if I don’t do it.

There’s a new expansion! Welp, better make sure and Google if SE is going to delete my equipment just in case.

Nobody is trying to absolve OP from guilt. People are too hung up on pointing fingers and blaming OP for the game’s lack of in-game notifications about housing demolition.

Feedback is what allows the game, and SE, to grow and improve. It’s difficult to give that when they are met with finger pointing and holier-than-thou attitudes.

Nobody cares if OP is in the wrong or not. The fact is there are some things about the current state of housing that could use some improvement, and this thread is the space to comment about that.

And yet, we see pages upon pages of people blaming OP for absolutely no reason other than being petty.

I disagree.. he missed EVERYTHING even ingame stuff, so how was SE posed to fix his current issue? THATS what I'm talking about tho. How did he miss it ALL. He missed the text at log in, he missed millions of people talking about it ingame, he missed everything so he would've missed whatever you are mentioning too. Cause he missed it all. 1000 days and NEVER heard of the timers? Come on man.... SE can't fix user error. They just can't.

[R-Pete-G]

Hi, Ko. I went on a trip with work, and I've just caught up. It seems to be you debating with other people primarily about me, so I'm gonna have a totally chilled and very up-front reply for you. Hopefully it can reduce the need to inflate this thread with lots of back and forth.

I'll quote your most recent post for some context.

I disagree.. he missed EVERYTHING even ingame stuff, so how was SE posed to fix his current issue? THATS what I'm talking about tho. How did he miss it ALL. He missed the text at log in, he missed millions of people talking about it ingame, he missed everything so he would've missed whatever you are mentioning too. Cause he missed it all. 1000 days and NEVER heard of the timers? Come on man.... SE can't fix user error. They just can't.

So, as other people have pointed out, one of the points of my thread was to say that essentially the auto demolition feature could be harder to miss. I know in your opinion it seems that it isn't, and that's cool. But it'd also be cool if you could - just for a minute - suspend your disbelief that other people might miss it. I mean, "millions of people" may have been talking about it, but I don't interact with all of them. I don't spend a lot of time idling in cities reading chat, I never really read the forums before now, stuff like that. Even if there's a 1,000,000,000 to 1 chance that someone could miss it, there's still going to be 1. Maybe that's me, it's possible, so we shouldn't pretend it isn't.

Next up, now that we know it's possible, we consider how much blame you can associate to that. The position you're coming from is that, as a player, you should be reading more external resources (and by external, I mean not in the game client), or speaking to all the NPCs to glean all the information (and we already established that the demolition info is behind a third-level dialogue option on an NPC with a misleading title). You know what? That's also cool. If that's your opinion on what makes me a bad player, then I can't stop you thinking that. If you want to think that I'm the most ignorant player you've ever met, I really don't mind. Can't stop you.

But the crux of this conversation is about the consequence of that. Using your example of someone going into a raid, that person totally should be reading up and making an effort. If they don't, however, what happens? They get kicked. They get criticised. They probably won't make it into any raiding FCs or Statics. But they still - and this is the really important part - don't have any risk of their Job levels being deleted. No matter how badly they play, no matter how much of a terrible Black Mage they might be, they still get to keep being a level 70 Black Mage because they worked for that.

Now, housing is a weird exception because there's an upside to demolishing a house, that there wouldn't be to taking someone's job levels away. Houses are finite - my house gets demolished, someone else gets a chance. I get why that exists. But the thing is, that system is not - and never was - designed to be a punishment for people who hadn't read enough Lodestone or Launcher articles. It's not a knowledge-check to see if you deserve to keep your Private Estate by being well-read. It's meant to take something away from someone that they've lost interest in, but the game isn't clever enough to gauge someone's interest. It has to use a metric to estimate that, and that metric is a specific kind of in-game activity involving that house.

What we're saying - at least, I know for sure I'm saying, and others seem to get it - is that if Squenix is going to use a specific metric for gauging your activity in something, they should really communicate that better. Ideally, when you start using the feature. Would that remove all possibility of user error? Nope. Someone could still forget, but you can't forget something you don't know. Someone could actually lose interest, but they'd do so knowing the consequences. And considering this is the only instance in the entire of FFXIV that I can think of where actual content gets permanently deleted without your interaction, surely you can agree that it's a bit odd that one of the severest consequences in the game has less messaging and in-game Active Help text than most other features.

[ko_]

But the crux of this conversation is about the consequence of that. Using your example of someone going into a raid, that person totally should be reading up and making an effort. If they don't, however, what happens? They get kicked. They get criticised. They probably won't make it into any raiding FCs or Statics. But they still - and this is the really important part - don't have any risk of their Job levels being deleted. No matter how badly they play, no matter how much of a terrible Black Mage they might be, they still get to keep being a level 70 Black Mage because they worked for that.

Now, housing is a weird exception because there's an upside to demolishing a house, that there wouldn't be to taking someone's job levels away. Houses are finite - my house gets demolished, someone else gets a chance. I get why that exists. But the thing is, that system is not - and never was - designed to be a punishment for people who hadn't read enough Lodestone or Launcher articles. It's not a knowledge-check to see if you deserve to keep your Private Estate by being well-read. It's meant to take something away from someone that they've lost interest in, but the game isn't clever enough to gauge someone's interest. It has to use a metric to estimate that, and that metric is a specific kind of in-game activity involving that house.

What we're saying - at least, I know for sure I'm saying, and others seem to get it - is that if Squenix is going to use a specific metric for gauging your activity in something, they should really communicate that better. Ideally, when you start using the feature. Would that remove all possibility of user error? Nope. Someone could still forget, but you can't forget something you don't know. Someone could actually lose interest, but they'd do so knowing the consequences. And considering this is the only instance in the entire of FFXIV that I can think of where actual content gets permanently deleted without your interaction, surely you can agree that it's a bit odd that one of the severest consequences in the game has less messaging and in-game Active Help text than most other features.

My only issue with goign to SE in your case is simply you were ingame for 80 plus days after the fact. You NEVER thought to go to your plot? at all? If you didn't then the only thing that comes to my mind is if it didn't matter then why does it matter now? It clearly didn't matter the 80 days and it didn't matter the 45 days before that. Even if I say ok, you didn't know. You never once thoguht " Let me check my house" Cause even if you just walked in there for a few seconds that would've saved everything even if you knew that or not. So from my end it just looks like you never checked on it - cause if you did it'll be here- and it never matter until you randomly checked and find it's gone and now you want to quit? Thats why I called foul. And why I say nothing we can say for SE to do would change your case. I'm not trying to bag on you, I'm just lost.. cause you mentioned you are quiting over items you didn't care to check for 45 plus 80 days. It looks -off-.

With that out the way the title to your thread is a big iffy. Cause it's going to be HARD for people like me to look at your playtime and go - Oh he didn't know.- People have looked and said - HOW?- cause when you post things like " I'm invested" and then go to say " I didn't know about this even though it's a huge hot topic" looks like you're trying to blame SE for user errors. Cause yeah, SE have ALOT to fix - if they cared- about their housing system. But yeah. that's why I was where I am, I just can't get past that cause it makes no sense to me.

[Raskbuck]

If you didn't then the only thing that comes to my mind is if it didn't matter then why does it matter now? It clearly didn't matter the 80 days and it didn't matter the 45 days before that..

Because they lost seasonal event items that can no longer be obtained. I thought that was relatively clear, but apparently it wasn't.

[Raskbuck]

I disagree.. he missed EVERYTHING even ingame stuff, so how was SE posed to fix his current issue? THATS what I'm talking about tho. How did he miss it ALL. He missed the text at log in, he missed millions of people talking about it ingame, he missed everything so he would've missed whatever you are mentioning too. Cause he missed it all. 1000 days and NEVER heard of the timers? Come on man....

Well, let’s dissect it step by step then.

1. The only time the game notifies you about housing demolition is when you enter a housing ward for the first time. More often than not, this information is given to you when you are a low level sprout. Let’s not forget that there is a side quest that takes you to the housing area; so it is possible for OP to receive that information when it was not relevant to them. Don’t forget that they said they were not able to obtain a house until much later (presumably several years). For me personally, it would be understandable for a player to forget some information given to you when it was not relevant. It would be like learning a Lv. 60 BLM rotation at level 10; you would likely forget some things.

2. There have been some cases of players not receiving an e-mail regarding their house demolition. A GM confirmed earlier in the thread that SquareEnix makes sure that the e-mails are sent, but they have no way of knowing if the player has received it. There have been some cases of people not receiving their housing demolition e-mails, both on here and on other sites like Reddit. To me, that would also be understandable if OP missed the information.

3. The housing demolition timer only appears when your house is 15 days away from being demolished. Even if OP checked the timer before then, they would have no way of knowing that housing demolition was a thing unless they actively searched for demolition information outside of the game (and why would you?).

4. I’m not sure what you mean when you say that millions of people were talking about it. Almost nobody talks in the game outside of Free Companies, linkshells and the Novice Network. We don’t know if OP was in either of those groups, and even then, we cannot guarantee they even talked about the topic in the first place. It would be an assumption at best.

5. The information about the housing demolition was given in an old patch note from a previous expansion. First off, it’s possible that they don’t read the patch notes in the first place, and secondly, even if they did, it wasn’t until recently that OP obtained a house and promptly lost it.

6. The housing demolition information can be accessed only by talking to the housing caretaker in-game, which is not only away from everything, but you would have to go out of your way to talk to him to obtain the information. Again, why would OP have done that if they didn’t know the demolition was a thing in the first place?

So I’d like to ask you, what do you get by blaming the OP in such a way? I know you are not suggesting that the system is perfect, but the way you come across is that you are downplaying the lack of in-game information by placing all of the blame on OP. All we are suggesting is that the system could use some improvements, and that was the sole intent of OP’s post. Perhaps they could have worded it a bit more diplomatically, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of things that can be changed about housing in general.

Obsessing over placing the blame on OP is preventing heartfelt feedback from flourishing, as these attitudes seem to suggest that everything is okay the way it is because OP was the one at fault here. Let’s not be dense about it.

[Niwashi]

I disagree.. he missed EVERYTHING even ingame stuff, so how was SE posed to fix his current issue? THATS what I'm talking about tho. How did he miss it ALL. He missed the text at log in, he missed millions of people talking about it ingame, he missed everything

All the in-game stuff? You mean the entry on a secondary, normally blank tab of a minor unrelated window that's only there for a few days? There is no message about this at login. That's the problem. If you're in that last few days of the timer and enter your house, you'll get a notification message that the timer has been reset and you're no longer in imminent danger of losing the house, but that comes only when you enter it. There hadn't been one before that saying that you were in imminent danger of losing the house. The first (and only) notification the game actually gives you comes when it no longer matters.

The only way to find out before that is hidden in the secondary tab of the timers window, which, since it normally doesn't show anything about house demolition, most players (even those who already know all about the demo rules) won't suspect it would be there. That entry only shows up for a few days and on a page not many people would look at regularly.

The house demolition timer should be there in the timers window all the time. If it's part of the regular UI, then people will have a chance to see that it exists. When someone gets down to the last couple weeks before demolition, there should be more than that, like a notification at login. (A pop up window notification would be nice, but at least add a message about it in the chat box.)

Oh, and "millions of people talking about it ingame"? I don't know who you talk to, but I've certainly never seen anyone talk about it in game. I know about it because it periodically gets talked about here on the forums. But remember that only a tiny proportion of players of any game are active on the forums. (I don't remember the statistic exactly, but I'm pretty sure the percentage was in the single digits.) You can't base your ideas about what's well known by players of a game by what's well known by avid forum participants. Most players either don't use the forums, or only come here occasionally to look for or ask about something specific. (And of course, doing that wouldn't make them familiar with everything else that's being or has ever been discussed.)

[Claviusnex]

I disagree.. he missed EVERYTHING even ingame stuff, so how was SE posed to fix his current issue? THATS what I'm talking about tho. How did he miss it ALL. He missed the text at log in, he missed millions of people talking about it ingame, he missed everything so he would've missed whatever you are mentioning too. Cause he missed it all. 1000 days and NEVER heard of the timers? Come on man.... SE can't fix user error. They just can't.

SE could fix it easily. When a house is purchased a clear warning message in red explains that they will lose their house if they don't enter it at least every 45 days. SE will have done their job by providing the information to the player when it is relevant and after that it is up to the player to conform to the rules. That is the point the majority of folks have been making. It is irrelevant how the player got into the situation as it is SE's job to inform the player with the relevant information at the relevant time.

SE can also improve the notification process. There is no rationale to not send an in-game moogle mail at the same time they send the email notifications for demolition. Yes it is possible that the moogle mailbox is full so it will be rejected but it is likely to be just as or more reliable than email. This covers cases where the email is undelivered or the player email address has changed. It is important not just for notifying the player their house is scheduled to be demolished, it is this email that tells them the rules for retrieving their items and how to get their gil refund.

Does the OP share some culpability? Probably but the majority of culpability lies with SE and their haphazard implementation of the demolition timer and no amount of blaming the players will change that.

I dunno man, I can't understand it.. LITERALLY I can't. It's taking alot for me to picture someone willing to brave gettign a house in 4.2 and never entering itt for whatever reason but doing all the events and buying housing items. I'm sorry.. I just can't wrap my head around it. It still makes no sense to me they played for so long and didn't know about the demo timers. It literally doesn't not comute in my head. :c But I'mma bow out cause I don't get it.. it doesn't make sense to me... and to me it just looks like they didn't care. So I'm out. Sorry for the trouble.

I totally understand the OP's actions as I did the events to get housing items before I could ever afford a house. I was aware that if I didn't get the seasonal items I wouldn't be able too later. Owning a house was a long term goal so it made sense to collect stuff I couldn't use and bank them for the future. I did eventually learn about the timer but only because I frequent the forums and saw the periodic demolition timer threads. I didn't know about the demolition timer display or Estate timer tab for that matter until a week or so ago when it came up in a different thread about always showing it in the UI. Even though I went to look at my other timers frequently the Estate tab never registered with me so just sat there never to be looked at. There are a lot of people in this game and most don't look at things the same way. My guess is there are a large number who know very little about the intricacies and quirks of the game which is all the more reason for SE to tell players the rules when it is relevant.