Getting a New House Feels Impossible

[hakurou46]

I've got a friend who spent her entire day tapping away at a placard hoping to buy a house for their FC, and just had to log out because she just couldn't stand it anymore (and it's getting late).
Like, stories like these aren't rare, either. I can only assume sqex either can't come up with a functional system (which sounds absolutely impossible, if it isn't the case that all their systems designers have been fired), or think this is actually good enough: that players either should literally be sacrificing their health in order to get a house, or have to just try every plot available, every time they swing by a housing ward, and maybe they'll luck out sometime within, maybe, a year?

Like, even I can think of a better system in half a minute if you told me to. Small houses are around three million gil, right? Go up to a plot, pay the gil as a deposit, start a timer. Other players also interested in said plot? They can throw in three million of their own gil. 72 hours later, house gets sold to a random person who put money down, everyone else gets the money back through moogle mail.

[PennyStormfire]

I've got a friend who spent her entire day tapping away at a placard hoping to buy a house for their FC, and just had to log out because she just couldn't stand it anymore (and it's getting late).
Like, stories like these aren't rare, either. I can only assume sqex either can't come up with a functional system (which sounds absolutely impossible, if it isn't the case that all their systems designers have been fired), or think this is actually good enough: that players either should literally be sacrificing their health in order to get a house, or have to just try every plot available, every time they swing by a housing ward, and maybe they'll luck out sometime within, maybe, a year?

Like, even I can think of a better system in half a minute if you told me to. Small houses are around three million gil, right? Go up to a plot, pay the gil as a deposit, start a timer. Other players also interested in said plot? They can throw in three million of their own gil. 72 hours later, house gets sold to a random person who put money down, everyone else gets the money back through moogle mail.

I would say this is another solution that merits examination by SE. As I said originally, there are a great many solutions that require very little time or resources to implement. making adjustments to the insidious hidden timer could be done in a matter of minutes. There are already service account restrictions for owning multiple plots, there are already ToS stipulations regarding scalping, the penalties are already in place for RMT. If you look at the link I posted in my original response you can see that subs are up, online participation is up, and the player base has increased across the board.

In my view it would serve the active players seeking housing if SE restarted the demo timer. For a limited time refund the purchase price to any property that is demo'ed and give the player an un-tradeable item that allows them to relocate to an available plot upon return to the game. It may also be effective to put a sub waiver program into effect that allows players to log in and tend to their daily routines while this pandemic is still raging. This would give everyone a better sense of who is committed to coming back to the game and also allow folks to maintain their current property under the circumstances.

With the influx of players this situation is going to continue to get worse unless something is done. No matter how many apologists keep trying to defend this insane system, we have to speak up for the dozens of people right now who have been clicking over and over again for hours only to have to move on to the next opportunity and start all over again until they collapse at their keyboards.

[Burmecia]

Like if the housing is more important for people to keep making these threads then (for the 100 times I've said) just transfer. TRANSFER.

I have feeling that SE views this fact of the matter, that there is free plots on other servers of the datacenter, valid incentive for people to transfer from overly populated servers. It makes sense.

And if it is indeed so, I do not disagree at all. I came from NA datacenter, from Leviathan which I think is closer to being bigger server than smaller one, to EU datacenter, Louisoix, because lag was not making it fun to play for my friend anymore after the physical servers relocation in HW (that happened right - it's been while, I do not remember details).

Had to give up my medium house at Leviathan to do that, and begin that climb towards large house again from small up, because I did not transfer right away when the server opened. But I wager being on Louisoix made that all less frustrating.

[Jojoya]

I have feeling that SE views this fact of the matter, that there is free plots on other servers of the datacenter, valid incentive for people to transfer from overly populated servers. It makes sense.

For it to be an incentive, houses have to be available on other worlds in the same data center.

That's just not happening on the NA data centers right now.

[Gula]

For it to be an incentive, houses have to be available on other worlds in the same data center.

That's just not happening on the NA data centers right now.

It's a very much an NA thing and for that, I can see why budget isn't re-routed into a complete restructure. Or at least, not massive funding for immediate changes.

Every time I visit a JP world, I see free plots. Because players will not buy a house just to sit on it and have a trophy. I have not visited an EU world in awhile, so I can't speak for those. I know someone who pays for a sub just to keep her house and not log in for 40 days.