Can we as paying customers agree the lack of Housing is simply unacceptable to SE?

[Thraze]

The current situation is indeed entirely unacceptable. To the point that people without houses are still paying the same monthly fee as people who do have houses. The homeless are paying for content that they have no access to.

[PartyBarn]

I just spent a total of 28 hours across the last 36 hours camping 3 different housing plots to try and get a house, only to fail each time. I know that the housing situation is well knowing amongst long time players but as someone who is relatively new (6 months), I frankly didn't believe it was as bad as people claimed until I had actually experienced it for myself.

I work in the games industry (on MMOs, in fact) and I'm legitimately stunned that the current system was be allowed to go live as it is not to mention that it has existed in the game for well over a year. This is the kind of system that should have existed for *maybe* a month while a patch or hotfix was worked on to solve the root problem around RMT and scalping. The fact that the timer can go for up to 24hrs is actually a liability/safety concern with legal implications. It's stunning that square enix hasn't faced actual litigation for this yet in its current form. I did the math and in the 18 hours I camped one of these plots I input roughly 470,000 "clicks" (I had to break it up between mouse, keyboard, and controller usage to prevent actual injury).

A few suggestions (which I'm sure have been suggested countless times here):
1. Make it a simple lottery. When a plot becomes available you put your name in the hat and pay the cost of the plot and its luck of the draw. If you win it, the game keeps your money and you get the plot. If you lose, most of your money is returned.
2. Make the timer be up for a maximum of 4 hours to prevent health concerns and injury. 24 is far too much and is dangerous.

I know the argument is "well if you really want it you'll endure this to get it" and while that is true, the reality is just because people are willing to do it doesn't mean its safe for them to do so, and game developers bear some of the responsibility for the health of their players in how they design and implement their systems. I grinded to Rank 14 in original World of Warcraft, which was another legendarily grueling and unhealthy grind, but even that was able to be managed by organized players via setting daily or weekly honor caps and effectively "fixing" the brackets, and you could theoretically arrange breaks or plan out your time around the grind. You could even more or less estimate what your gains would be each week, ensuring that "eventually" you do get what you want. It's entirely possible with housing to just be unlucky and miss nabbing your plot by a fraction of a second every time you try, forever.

In closing, this is--with no hyperbole--the worst and most actually legally dangerous game system I've ever encountered in an MMO. Its cruelty is on a whole different level from anything that came before it, and this is coming from a former rank 14 pvper from WoW. Change this immediately. Don't add new plots, don't add new wards, don't do ANYTHING to the game until this is changed. Run, don't walk, to do literally anything else with the timer system.

[Catstab]

1. Make it a simple lottery. When a plot becomes available you put your name in the hat and pay the cost of the plot and its luck of the draw. If you win it, the game keeps your money and you get the plot. If you lose, most of your money is returned.

You're right, that's been suggested hundreds of times.

Want to know why it won't work?

Bots.

If 2000 bots and 20 players apply for a house, who gets it? A bot? Yup.

[LaylaTsarra]

1. Make it a simple lottery. When a plot becomes available you put your name in the hat and pay the cost of the plot and its luck of the draw. If you win it, the game keeps your money and you get the plot. If you lose, most of your money is returned.

i don't want to play a lottery to win a house. Sorry but that isn't the answer. I'd much rather see them limit a timer to an hour to prevent instant transfers for money or have the timer removed all together. Housing was around for years without a timer. It's certainly better than praying to the rng gods with a lottery and is certainly better than having to click a placard for up to 12 hours or more.

And believe me I know all about timers I won a small FC house on Balmung clicking a timer for hours. The current system sucks and should be fixed.

[Shibi]

The fact the timer is weighted to around 12 hours is just nonsensical to me.

If it has to be done this way, why can't it be one or two hours?

[Gallus]

It has nothing to do with SE "not caring". They do care. But thing is, the amount of subs they retain between patches with limited housing is a lot larger than the tilted people actually unsubbing because they can't get a house.
Anyone half committed in getting a house either has one at this point or has alternate methods to get one even in the present anyway.

[Themarvin]

thing is if they just let everyone have a house you would have 100s of empty wards = not efficient = extra unneeded cost for servers.

That they add more wards now and then when populations explode more and more for FFXIV is a good enough sign already, also they should remove grandfathering and dual FC housing and more, that would on the especially exposed servers for that remove up quite the amount of slots when they go down to 1 house and 1 FC house per account... also putting back on Auto Demolition would be anice feature.

[PartyBarn]

The fact the timer is weighted to around 12 hours is just nonsensical to me.

If it has to be done this way, why can't it be one or two hours?

I mean, IS IT weighted around 12h? One of the plots I camped this weekend was reportedly up for a total of 13h (I was there for 9h), and the other was up for 18h before popping. The one I was looking at last night but didnt actively camp was also up for at least 16h. Most people I talk to seem to get theirs to pop at the 12-16h mark and I've not seen or heard of one shorter than 12h total, yet.

I'ts actually insane that SE would do this to players.

[Themarvin]

I mean, IS IT weighted around 12h? One of the plots I camped this weekend was reportedly up for a total of 13h (I was there for 9h), and the other was up for 18h before popping. The one I was looking at last night but didnt actively camp was also up for at least 16h. Most people I talk to seem to get theirs to pop at the 12-16h mark and I've not seen or heard of one shorter than 12h total, yet.

I'ts actually insane that SE would do this to players.

It is because of the players and also RMT factions... Real Estate used to be a thing.. for both heavy RMT and players earning serious fortunes on re-selling plots, which goes against the ToS... it has to be like this with these cooldowns, because of the players.

[PartyBarn]

It is because of the players and also RMT factions... Real Estate used to be a thing.. for both heavy RMT and players earning serious fortunes on re-selling plots, which goes against the ToS... it has to be like this with these cooldowns, because of the players.

I disagree. There are many many many options that don't involve spam clicking a placard for up to 24 straight hours. Hell, make it so that its the same timer but at a random point during that timer you get a system message if you are near the placard telling you that it will be available for purchase in less than a minute. THEN people still can't predict when it will pop, but it won't require you to spam click. As soon as you see this message, then you can start spam clicking. That at least would be preferable to having it be possible to pop at any second within that entire timespan, and prevent injury. I'm not looking for it to be easy or frictionless, I'm looking for it to not be physically painful or dangerous from a health perspective.

Not mention how bad this system is from an accessibility standpoint. what if you have a disability and cannot spam click for that amount of time? At that point, automation is really the only option.