Getting a New House Feels Impossible

[TwistedTea]

You're forgetting whale culture and RMT. You could make a small house 100m but someone with enough vanity and cash will just buy it and keep it as a prize.

Then SE should take RMT more seriously.

Originally housing was way more expensive and FC only. It was meant to be an achievement. SE introduced player housing and made houses cheaper due to player complaints.

Am I a fan of limited housing?

No. Since I've played other MMORPGs which provide proper instanced housing. But we gotta work with what we have considering SE seems averse to changing the persistent ward system.

Demand for housing will drop if prices are higher and considering you can make over a ~1m from 100 crafting leves.

Beating a dead horse here but possible solutions:
1. Upgradeable apartments with balconies for gardening
2. Make the workshop individual content and link it to the GCs
3. Introduce premium wards alongside existing wards. Each plot in these premium wards will be in scenic locations, like Lav Beds waterfront medium 11/41.

Premium smalls to cost 50m
Mediums to cost 100m
Larges to cost 250m

Maybe even add a super mansion the size of Hakkue Manor for 500m.

Premium housing for gil will act as a significant gil sink. Additionally as people move into premium wards, plots in older areas will be freed up.

[Jojoya]

I know this topic must've already been talked over since forever but I don't get why there still hasn't been any change to the System yet.

Most likely because they either haven't found a solution they feel will improve the system, or they're still working out the programming for that solution so it can be implemented.

No point in making a random change that won't improve things and may end up making them worse.

Then SE should take RMT more seriously.

Not having definitive solutions doesn't mean they don't take RMT seriously. Every MMO has a problem with RMT. None have combated it successfully (not even WoW despite the WoW token - gold sellers simply adjusted their prices to remain competitive). It's hard to prove that RMT has occurred since the real money part of the transaction takes place through avenues that SE can't access. Banning an account simply because they think someone might have engaged in RMT without proof wouldn't go over well with the player base, especially if some of those banned had not engaged in RMT.

SE publicly stated on several occasions that the extremely high cost of housing when it was first introduced was one of their many attempts to bleed the enormous amounts of gil earned by legacy players in 1.x from the server economies. The prices were not so housing would be some sort of special achievement or wealth prestige content.

Demand for housing won't drop by increasing prices. Players will still want it because it's part of the game. All that would increase is the demand for RMT among those players who want a house but are too lazy to put in the effort to earn the gil or who are too new to the game to have had a chance to accumulate it.

Instanced housing is the only real solution. I suspect whatever aversion SE had to instanced housing has disappeared since the current ward system clearly isn't meeting player needs while instanced housing in other MMOs with it has met the needs of the players in those games. But other than we'll eventually be getting some sort of housing out of the Ishgard Restoration, we can't know what SE's plans for the future of housing are. Only they know.

[SuperSxyNerd]

Where did you find a house on Gilgamesh?

Lavender beds. I check every major city multiple times daily in all wards and generally speaking theres always 1-2 smells up every 2-3 days. Hell I even seen a medium 10 days ago but I didnt own a small yet and someone relocated.

[Missbone]

A handful of greedy people should not be the cause to punish the actual hundreds of thousands. Escalation is not the key, just a better system. What that system is, people ague about for days. But escalation and culling interest is like devs shooting the playerbase in the heart and themselves in the foot.

Of course a better system where everyone can get house would be the best, but to be honest i dont think that will happen, at least not in this mmo. Thats why i think, given the current circumstences, housing should not be something thats so easy to get, you need to earn it like raid gear, rar mounts/pets or relic weapons for example.

[EthanXdeath]

Lavender beds. I check every major city multiple times daily in all wards and generally speaking theres always 1-2 smells up every 2-3 days. Hell I even seen a medium 10 days ago but I didnt own a small yet and someone relocated.

I saw one last night up for sale in Goblet and thought I had more time to potentially get it, went to sleep for 7 hours woke up and someone had gotten it already, that's the nature of the beast, which I can't complain about. Doesn't change the fact, I feel certain things need to be changed. I'm gonna have to step up my game and check more often.

[VictorTheed]

I just wished they'd go back to the old system where you could sell your house to someone and people didn't have to be at the mercy of this aggervaring new system, I got a few friends who are desperate for any size house and if I could I'd buy a small one or two and give it to them.

It sucked wen people would overcharge but at least you had a better shot at getting a house, plus I've seen shirogane small houses go for 3 mil back then, so not everyone was ripping peeps off.

[Jojoya]

Of course a better system where everyone can get house would be the best, but to be honest i dont think that will happen, at least not in this mmo. Thats why i think, given the current circumstences, housing should not be something thats so easy to get, you need to earn it like raid gear, rar mounts/pets or relic weapons for example.

Except houses are easy to get. If it's only if you insist on playing on a NA world that you're going to have difficulty getting a house.

[Missbone]

Except houses are easy to get. If it's only if you insist on playing on a NA world that you're going to have difficulty getting a house.

Well thats not true, that also counts for a lot of EU Servers, except you expect people to world transfer for getting a plot than yes. But there are also a lot of EU Servers that are already sold out.

[Awha]

May feel impossible but it is not, just takes time, patience, and maybe some moving around.

[Alyanna_Elingval]

I'm sure I'm going to catch heat for this but I'm genuinely curious what all the hype is for housing. Is it like a symbol of wealth and status? Is it just something to do when there is nothing else?

I get it 100% from an FC stand point due to its utility but from a personal stand point? I spent my last 2 weeks camping houses like everyone else. I wanted it bad just because everyone else did and I'm competitive by nature. After having spent maybe half a day playing around with it I dont really see the excitement or appeal. Yes it's cool and slightly beneficial from a convenience stand point but unless you are hardcore into custom decorating it seems over hyped.

What am I missing?

Depends on the player. I spend a lot of time at home. I craft a lot. I like Triple Triad, so I have a board that allows matches in my house. I live in the mist, and I have benches in the yard where I sit and watch the sunset sometimes. If I'm leveling a new job, or pulling out a job I haven't played on a while I use the practice dummy. I've crafted all the miniatures in the game and have them in a room with other trophies and items I've collected over the years. I get a lot of use out of my house.

On the other hand. I know plenty of people who don't care at all about housing. They grind raids, dungeons, etc, log out.

This is where SE is stuck. Probably half the players or more on average on a server do not have a house. Tens of thousands of people. How many care? If you gave the player population a survey and with list of things.

New Dungeons
New raids
Savage forms of raids
New gear
New story content
New Jobs
Job balancing
Expansions
Housing

Then told them to list these things in order of importance. Where is housing going to finish? Probably near the bottom. So if you're SE and you're deciding where to spend your resources, where are you going to put them? Probably not into revamping the housing system, or making an entirely new instanced system. Especially if demand isn't high in every region of the world where you have a player base. So they band-aid when they can. Add some wards when they can. They just keep kicking the can down the road.