Housing Ownership Restrictions

[Almagnus1]

They're definitely sticking to them, in that the restriction is 1 personal house per account for the past 2 years, and will be for the remainder of the game's runtime. They already decided not to apply them retroactively, and they are extremely unlikely to go back on that decision.

If the housing crisis comes to a head in Japan (like it has on the NA servers), then it may.

Your suggestion is made lacking the data that SE has regarding how many houses are owned by alt characters. It would not make a difference. SE will not do it.

As is any post about SE as do not have their data, nor have we any idea of how static their policies truly are.

I used the example earlier that the likelihood is about the same as SE decided to be like WoW or Everquest: 1 character = 1 combat class. "Log off as the class you want to keep, all other DoW and DoM classes will be deleted from your characters records. If you want to play another role, level to 80 on a new character. Sorry for the inconvenience." Can you see that happening to us? All the hours we spent leveling alts? It's 100% not going to happen, exactly like your suggestion.

That's a rather hyperbolic red herring.

The handful of people who own alt houses are not the ones creating a housing crisis.

While that is true, they are also making a bad situation worse by artificially lessening the supply of houses.

[Kenky]

The issue there, Almagnus is.. Well. It's incredibly unlikely to happen in Japan. Purely because of the society they are a part of.

In japan, they don't want to be a burden to each other. They put major emphasis on family and sticking to said family. So it would take quite a societal shift for this issue to occur in Japan to the point of needing actual action.

(This could be entirely wrong and if that is so, I apologize. It's what I have found out from interacting with japanese families in the past.)

Compared to the materialistic obsession that the "western world" has is definitely an issue, but that's something that we shouldn't really get in to, due to Controversy, politics and that will always start fights. Better not to.

[Catstab]

That's a rather hyperbolic red herring.

It's really not.

Your suggestion is to take away earned in-game rewards, destroying hours of player effort for little to no reward. You admitted that the root of the problem isn't alt houses, as if it wasn't obvious. We've already talked about the math. 20,220 houses too few is not going to be helped at all based on removing however many of the ~3780 player houses are alt owned. Even if half of all personal houses were owned by alts (which they aren't) we would gain about 1,890 personals, reducing homelessness by 9%. If applying the change retroactively made sense, it would have already been done. But applying it retroactively hurts players, and solves nothing.

Having the change applied in the future prevents alts from getting in the way of mains when the new wards come about. The new wards are the solution, not alienating a small group of loyal players in order to free up a couple tiny corners of existing wards. If house hoarding is truly a concern of yours, you really need to be petitioning for 8 FCs per account to be lessened. That's the one that's still perfectly possible, with no end in sight.

[LaylaTsarra]

Thank you Captain Obvious.....

What is obvious is your distain for those who have grandfathered housing. What is also pretty obvious is that SE made the decision to grandfather them and they aren't going to change their mind in-spite of the resentful people like you who think their threads here will make them change their mind.

You can ask that's fine but I also suggest you don't hold your breath.

And I might also add that alts still can't share a house with their main but that house can be shared with friends. Most with multiple homes would have been content to share a house and they couldn't and still can't. What they could do was buy houses for their alts and some took the liberty of doing just that.

If house hoarding is truly a concern of yours, you really need to be petitioning for 8 FCs per account to be lessened. That's the one that's still perfectly possible, with no end in sight.

What would help but not eliminate this is the reducing of the FC exclusivity by giving FC's no more that a week to buy a house when new wards release before private owners can access those houses for purchase. A week for an existing FC is already too long in my opinion. If I had my way I'd give them no more that 2 days.

[Penthea]

And I might also add that alts still can't share a house with their main but that house can be shared with friends. Most with multiple homes would have been content to share a house and they couldn't and still can't. What they could do was buy houses for their alts and some took the liberty of doing just that.

I'm a firm believer that a good way to combat a certain type of activity is to reduce the incentive to engage in said activity.

Certainly allowing all characters in the same server and account to have access to the same private home would reduce the incentive to have multiple houses. Some may even let go of the houses that are not their favourite. Anyone with a larger house like a medium or a mansion could even designate sections to each of their characters, and it could lead to some really nice and interesting decor.

Any private home owner can benefit from a feature like this. SE did express interest in introducing it so I think it's only a matter of time until it comes to the game.

SE could even take it a step further and allow the alts of tenants have access to the same house, which would be beneficial to those who play with multiple accounts.

[Almagnus1]

The issue there, Almagnus is.. Well. It's incredibly unlikely to happen in Japan. Purely because of the society they are a part of.

In japan, they don't want to be a burden to each other. They put major emphasis on family and sticking to said family. So it would take quite a societal shift for this issue to occur in Japan to the point of needing actual action.

(This could be entirely wrong and if that is so, I apologize. It's what I have found out from interacting with japanese families in the past.)

Compared to the materialistic obsession that the "western world" has is definitely an issue, but that's something that we shouldn't really get in to, due to Controversy, politics and that will always start fights. Better not to.

It's almost like the Japanese aren't being selfish about the matter....

Your suggestion is to take away earned in-game rewards, destroying hours of player effort for little to no reward.

Do you realize how many hours members of my FC spent trying to relo to Kurogane, including trying to relo the FC house from Mist to Kurogane only to have nothing?

I imagine they're not alone, and there are probably others in the same boat as well.

Are you suggesting they should be compensated for their efforts?

Besides, the house itself is not a reward. You complete no quests to get it, you just walk over to the placard and pay for it. In other words, it's an item. Yes, you can do a lot with it, but at the end of the day, it's no different to your character than your chocobo.

You admitted that the root of the problem isn't alt houses, as if it wasn't obvious.

So then please explain why it's acceptable to have more than one personal house per service account. And no, "because they were grandfathered in" is not a valid reason here.

We've already talked about the math. 20,220 houses too few is not going to be helped at all based on removing however many of the ~3780 player houses are alt owned. Even if half of all personal houses were owned by alts (which they aren't) we would gain about 1,890 personals, reducing homelessness by 9%.

So... why not increase the number of players able to participate?

Having the change applied in the future prevents alts from getting in the way of mains when the new wards come about. The new wards are the solution, not alienating a small group of loyal players in order to free up a couple tiny corners of existing wards.

You're acting like I'm not in favor of doing both....

And even if we keep adding wards, I doubt that there's enough server capacity to generate the extra wards to match demand, so I see the only real solution here as both adding more wards and also making sure the wards are utilized by as many service accounts as possible.

And I might also add that alts still can't share a house with their main but that house can be shared with friends.

And that's something SE needs to change.

What would help but not eliminate this is the reducing of the FC exclusivity by giving FC's no more that a week to buy a house when new wards release before private owners can access those houses for purchase. A week for an existing FC is already too long in my opinion. If I had my way I'd give them no more that 2 days.

No, the problem is the shell FCs, not the exclusivity. There are plenty of FCs that want a house... but there's also plenty of greedy people that want their 20th or 30th house...

I'm a firm believer that a good way to combat a certain type of activity is to reduce the incentive to engage in said activity.

Certainly allowing all characters in the same server and account to have access to the same private home would reduce the incentive to have multiple houses. Some may even let go of the houses that are not their favourite. Anyone with a larger house like a medium or a mansion could even designate sections to each of their characters, and it could lead to some really nice and interesting decor.

Any private home owner can benefit from a feature like this. SE did express interest in introducing it so I think it's only a matter of time until it comes to the game.

SE could even take it a step further and allow the alts of tenants have access to the same house, which would be beneficial to those who play with multiple accounts.

I mean, it's not like I suggested that or anything....

• All characters [on the same account that are] on [the same] server gain teleport locations to all the houses owned by all the characters on that server.

And yet I'm supposed to be some evil multiple house owner hating miscreant....

[Miminming]

If the housing crisis comes to a head in Japan (like it has on the NA servers), then it may.

whay do you know about JP server? there's 0 housing for a while here too, and when there is it's a war too, but people tend to not complaining because they know that's the way the game works and most new player work their way and buying apartment until there's an opening, they know housing don't come easy and a limited server space not a given things.

[k99]

If the housing crisis comes to a head in Japan (like it has on the NA servers), then it may.

The biggest reason for the difference between the two environments is because the rate of earning Gil on the NA side is roughly 5x, sometimes more, than the JP side. The time it takes to be within buying power for a small house takes the average player a very long time. Because of that, the natural availability of housing with auto demolition being on almost always ensures that houses will be available. The general population of the JP market is very self sufficient. People are largely more willing to acquire things on their own instead of buying from the market for high dollar items. The behavior of the market is different on NA. There is more laziness to go around, it's very easy to become super rich over night. That is why housing demand is so different when you have people becoming millionaires within their first week of playing the game. The number of people who can afford a house is so drastically different, to keep up with that demand would be impossible on NA side.

Having the old prices of housing beforenew prices of houses after they were slashed made more sense for JP players because the prices were astronomically too high for them to achieve and the system would sit dead because of it. Coupled with the fact that RMT crackdown is much more strict here than on NA (City states have no bots advertising), the population generally shuns RMT as a whole and utilization is very low in comparison to their Western counterparts. Unfortunately, changing the price structure blew the gates open on the NA side making it easy to buy up houses. There are people who buy houses in mass on JP, but again people are not crazy about houses or specific houses being unavailable. There is less preference for location or size as opposed to can I do housing or not. Apartment use is extremely high here even if there are plenty of houses available, which there usually are during normal auto-demolition periods.

I have purchased houses both in NA and JP numerous times, but the JP market has always been easily walking up to a placard and taking whatever you find. It is only the NA market that has been so savagely cutthroat year round. The two populations see housing differently as a consumer and view their alternatives differently as well. That is why very little, if any, tension is observed on the JP side with regards to housing vs. the West.

Adjusting the prices for housing based on region/server popularity may very well be the correct first step since Yoshi himself knew that altering prices would skew demand greatly depending on the location.

[Penthea]

whay do you know about JP server? there's 0 housing for a while here too, and when there is it's a war too, but people tend to not complaining because they know that's the way the game works and most new player work their way and buying apartment until there's an opening, they know housing don't come easy and a limited server space not a given things.

It should be noted that in Japanese culture complaining is often seen as stirring the pot, which they often consider to be inappropriate behaviour even when the complaint is justified. It is partially why so many aspects of their social culture are so rigid because not conforming to the norm can get you shunned. In the west we are far more open about our opinions and individuality, formality matters far less, and it's significantly more common to see people here make their complaints with drive and passion.

We've all heard the stories about how in the JP servers there can be a community blacklist in which they decide they won't play with someone anymore but would never say anything about it to their face. They just collectively decide to silently exclude certain people. Whereas in the west if a person ends up with a large number of people not wanting to play with them it is very rare for this to occur without a heated conversation between the two parties.

When Shirogane first launched it was a disaster, and I recall people saying things like "wow even the Japanese players are complaining". I would be willing to place a large bet that this is partially why SE quickly introduced new wards afterwards with new purchase restrictions in place. Even their main target audience was openly incredibly unhappy with the situation, and not something anyone could attribute to "oh it's just western players being western".

And this makes me keenly interested in seeing how the launch of Ishgard will go.

[Arielen]

It should be noted that in Japanese culture complaining is often seen as stirring the pot, which they often consider to be inappropriate behaviour even when the complaint is justified. It is partially why so many aspects of their social culture are so rigid because not conforming to the norm can get you shunned. In the west we are far more open about our opinions and individuality, formality matters far less, and it's significantly more common to see people here make their complaints with drive and passion.

We've all heard the stories about how in the JP servers there can be a community blacklist in which they decide they won't play with someone anymore but would never say anything about it to their face. They just collectively decide to silently exclude certain people. Whereas in the west if a person ends up with a large number of people not wanting to play with them it is very rare for this to occur without a heated conversation between the two parties.

When Shirogane first launched it was a disaster, and I recall people saying things like "wow even the Japanese players are complaining". I would be willing to place a large bet that this is partially why SE quickly introduced new wards afterwards with new purchase restrictions in place. Even their main target audience was openly incredibly unhappy with the situation, and not something anyone could attribute to "oh it's just western players being western".

And this makes me keenly interested in seeing how the launch of Ishgard will go.

When you try to explain to a person what their own country's culture is like from your outsider perspective, it comes across as very, very racist.