Hoarding Houses - Sometimes a Depressing Sight (a rant)

[Penthea]

Firstly, all I was saying is that these hoarders that people go out of their way to demonize mostly were doing no harm. Their intentions were not malicious, and many of them tried their hardest to do what they are passionate about in a way that hurt no one, and that worked well for a long time.

This would only be true if all hoarders were on dead servers to begin with. They are not. They are present in probably every server.

I did not say these people were malicious. Please do not put words into my mouth. I said they were greedy.

People who are malicious do things with the intention of hurting others. I don't think hoarders are malicious because they probably would have several houses even if the amount of plots was unlimited. They take things with the intention of having more stuff. Not with the intention of ruining someone's day. It just so happens that a side effect of having several houses affects other players negatively.

I'm not going to sit here and entertain the idea that 'house hoarders' are the root of all evil, or that what they do is somehow so morally corrupt that they need be punished.

Again putting words into my mouth. Please direct me to where I said they need to be punished for being morally corrupt. You'll find I said no such thing. I am saying they have more than their fair share of houses and this needs to change so the system will have more even distribution of housing among players. I am also saying they are not completely innocent because they are aware that they are hoarding a limited resource.

I also did not say hoarders are the root of evil. Maybe try reading my posts properly? I said all these issues root from SE because they made a bad housing system, and that players such as hoarders and house flippers made a bad system worse. I'm not sure how saying SE is the root of these problems means I'm saying hoarders are the root of evil.

That just simply isn't the case. Many of them are simply people passionate about housing, for many it is their end game in ff14

So the rest of us who don't own several houses aren't passionate either? Are we less passionate because we have less houses? And what of those whose passions are denied partially because of hoarders? Do their passions not matter?

Also the person I mentioned in my first post is most certainly not a passionate decorator given that their seven plots have been mostly barren for at least a year, and are owned by characters that have nothing above lvl 50. Most of the plots don't even have something as basic as aetherytes. Resetting a housing timer and having loads of houses doesn't automatically qualify someone to be considered a passionate decorator.

They broke no rules, and they played the game fairly.

When I was in school we had a uniform. The girls found this unfair because the boys could wear trousers and the girls were stuck with skirts, so in the winter we girls were always colder. In protest the boys helped us by swapping their trousers for our skirts, so we wore trousers and they wore skirts to school. The teachers tried to punish us until they found that the rules did not explicitly state which gender should wear which. This example shows that not breaking the rules isn't the same as following them.

Just because you are able to do something does not mean that the intention is that you are allowed to. Our school clearly didn't want gender swapped uniforms, but they didn't consider that the wording of the rules would allow this to happen.

Considering that there is a very limited amount of plots in the game, it is clear SE didn't intend players to own several. If they had they either wouldn't have introduced housing or they would have introduced a different system in which the hoarding of one player couldn't possibly affect someone else. The fact that SE changed how many plots each player can have is a clear indication of this.

I suspect grandfathering has not yet been removed because SE later plan to introduce a system in which all characters can access the same private home. They have already expressed interest in this feature. They probably don't want characters to suddenly become cut-off from content, and I understand that. While I do want grandfathering removed, I don't want it done without all characters to be able to access the same private home. I am not so merciless to think that hoarders deserve to have characters completely cut off from content.

The only solution is for SE to give enough houses for all, not to take any away.

No...that is the only solution you agree with. It is not the only solution. There are several potential solutions to this problem.

However some require a massive amount of time and money, while others require very little. Some require changing the system completely, others only require a tweak. History has shown us SE is fond of giving us tweaks. Removing grandfathering would be a tweak. I would prefer a solution that benefits all equally, but as I said multiple times already in this thread, the likelihood of this is near zero. So I'm asking for an improvement in the form of a tweak, because it's actually possible.

Punishing people for playing by the rules is never, under any circumstances, a good thing

Am I to take from this that you are against a demolition system in any form? That you are against a system designed to remove a limited resource from inactive players/characters, so that those who are actually active can enjoy it instead?

Sure you can say that grandfathered players are active. But in the case of the player I mentioned in my first post, I think most people would struggle to argue how characters that have nothing above lvl 50 and are only logged in to reset a timer on a barren house are active characters. If there was no demolition timer these characters would never be logged in.

Do you think they will suddenly stop if the rules are changed an the grandfathered people get their houses removed? Not likely. The houses freed up will vanish in days

You saying the freed up houses would vanish in days is you admitting that there are players without houses who would use houses that hoarders have. Well done, you have actually admitted hoarders are blocking players from content. Glad we agree.

and then the problem will continue. Not enough houses. It won't change anything other than giving SE an sizable amount of PR damage.

Given that there are a pair of players on Mateus who own an entire ward...removing grandfathering would certainly change things for many players on that ward alone. Never mind all the other houses grandfathered in every other ward in the entire game.

I agree that removing grandfathering won't fix the true heart of the issue, which is the amount of houses. But this is going to be a problem as long as SE hold on to the ward system. So if they're not going to let go of that system, well the best we can do is ask for changes that more evenly distribute houses. Removing grandfathering would help with this.

At the end of the day, we need to rally together to push for better housing, and not fight so hard to screw each other over out of saltiness or spite.

I completely agree but as I said in another post...where are your threads asking for this instead? Would it not be a better use of your time to draw attention to what you think are better ideas, instead of bumping a thread you disagree with? The best way to make my thread die is to stop posting here, and present your ideas in your own thread.