Housing Credit System

[sharlim]

For one, your idea only encourages botting resulting much negative impacts on entire FF14 as whole.
Second and most important of all, FF14 house issue is result of supply (sever hardware) is unable to meet demand (player base growth)
Issue was never how you obtain a plot.

Does it encourage botting more than a new set of trials or crafting/grinding quests?

re: housing supply see response to Jojoya below on how this approach increases the price to balance the demand (player base growth) to meet the supply (server hardware)
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/ans...ect-prices.asp

[sharlim]

FC credits, gil, tomestones, etc has all existed for years. Now if you're saying "like raid tokens" then you mean an actual inventory item? That sounds like a mistake "Oops I left my housing tokens on my retainer"

Yep, you got it. Personally to me it sounds exclusive and fun.

[sharlim]

The fundamental problem is that the number of houses available world wide is less than the number of players world wide, not to mention the supply of houses is static across all worlds while the player populations vary widely. Some JP worlds are in a decent position because there are 5,760 houses to share among their 6,500 active players (not every player wants a house, of course). Compare that to NA worlds with the same 5,760 houses to share between 15,000 players.

Your suggestion addresses nothing. It's just exchanging the Hello Kitty Band-aids for Teenage Mutant Turtle Band-aids. It doesn't matter how many tokens you've got if there is still no house to buy.

Right - to address the fundamental problem on the quantity of houses available not meeting the demand from the number of players seeking houses - this proposal makes acquiring a house an endgame activity. How many of the 15k NA players have cleared every alliance raid, normal raid, trial/ex trial, crafting challenges etc. Players would need to be endgame to acquire and this drastically reduces the drain on supply since the number of players who can clear the required hurdles is alot less.

Instead of housing as it is today - which all players feel they are entitled too once they have a few mil, housing becomes a goal that you are rewarded with after putting in the effort. It gives you something to work towards and feels good when you acquire it.

[Jojoya]

Right - to address the fundamental problem on the quantity of houses available not meeting the demand from the number of players seeking houses - this proposal makes acquiring a house an endgame activity. How many of the 15k NA players have cleared every alliance raid, normal raid, trial/ex trial, crafting challenges etc. Players would need to be endgame to acquire and this drastically reduces the drain on supply since the number of players who can clear the required hurdles is alot less.

Instead of housing as it is today - which all players feel they are entitled too once they have a few mil, housing becomes a goal that you are rewarded with after putting in the effort. It gives you something to work towards and feels good when you acquire it.

Why should any player be forced into specific end game activity just to have a chance to enjoy a house, which has nothing to do with combat? That makes no sense.

In the end, we're all paying the same subscription fee to get access to the content we specifically enjoy. Telling a customer that they are less deserving of the product they enjoy because they don't pay all of your other products and/or don't spend all of their money with your company is a good way to lose customers completely.

SE has already set requirements to be eligible to own property. Reach level 50 and obtain the rank of Second Lietenant with your chosen Grand Company. Adding in additional requirements, especially one that relies heavily on time investment, is not only necessary it is unhealthy for both the player and for the game.

[Divinemights]

Does it encourage botting more than a new set of trials or crafting/grinding quests?

re: housing supply see response to Jojoya below on how this approach increases the price to balance the demand (player base growth) to meet the supply (server hardware)
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/ans...ect-prices.asp

Do you even realize how absurd that idea is and the consequence that costing this game.
Not mention it not only encourage more botting and it will also encourages people to buy clear from RMT group
You are just going to destroy the community and turned this game into unofficial pay to win
Why am I saying that?
It is simple, non raider is the majority for mmorpg
We don’t need another credit system
FC credit already proven it does nothing

[Seleni]

A credit system actually already exists. It’s the Grand Company Seals, in form of your Grand Company rank. Second Lieutenant is required to purchase any housing. It fits the lore and it is achievable through both combat and non-combat means.

Problem with anything sold by NPC is that it does not scale well as the game expands. What used to require full raid can be solo’d an expansion or two later. What was an astronomical sum to most is now gained by simply going through MSQ. And once you have set a rate, it would cause tremendous backlash to raise that rate. Existing players would get upset that what seemed to be almost within their reach a while ago is now pushed further away. New players would feel that they can never catch up so they lose the will to continue.

If SE actually considers to make housing availability to be tied to special achievements, it’ll need to be implemented in a new residential area to avoid backlash. So it would not solve the issue with existing housing areas, and controversy is likely to ensue among the “top” players (whatever the type) on where the cut-off line should have been.

And if an exclusive area is set up to top-raiders, drama would ensue among FCs and static’s on who gets into the raid first once it becomes farm status (or even before that). And a large sum of gil (or real world money) would likely be given to the top raiding groups to “escort” their client to get the achievement needed for housing.

It’s a scenario that benefit only the top 1%. It’ll do nothing to decrease the demand.

[Rofel]

Yep, you got it. Personally to me it sounds exclusive and fun.

"Exclusive and fun" lol

At least you wrote personaly, which is an important detail: you're sugesting an activity log based on stuff YOU think are relevant in a game that caters to a multitude of playstyles. And the devs themselves recognize this, having differences in playstyle reason enough for a vote kick.

So, yeah. By making the system worse you're just hiding the problem, not addressing it at all. Hard pass.

[sharlim]

Why should any player be forced into specific end game activity just to have a chance to enjoy a house, which has nothing to do with combat? That makes no sense.

In the end, we're all paying the same subscription fee to get access to the content we specifically enjoy. Telling a customer that they are less deserving of the product they enjoy because they don't pay all of your other products and/or don't spend all of their money with your company is a good way to lose customers completely.

SE has already set requirements to be eligible to own property. Reach level 50 and obtain the rank of Second Lietenant with your chosen Grand Company. Adding in additional requirements, especially one that relies heavily on time investment, is not only necessary it is unhealthy for both the player and for the game.

To your point, there are already requirements in place - level 50 and 2nd LT with GC. One of my core arguments is this requirement is outdated and has not scaled with the game and should be raised.

I completely argee on the potential impact of your counterargument; the introduction of the housing credit/token system I am proposing would make housing less accessible to all players. SE has done a pretty good at this though in other regards. For example, you can reach essentially max ilvl now through multiple means - crafting, bozjan and raiding. IMO it would be bad for players to be required to do some specific content they are not interested in - but if there were multiple paths - then it becomes similar to attaining endgame mounts and/or endgame gear.

This fits into the existing flow how we invest our time into the game already. Imagine an endgame "housing points tree/nodes", where maybe combat oriented players get different options than crafters, etc. Players who love to complete everything are then given another level of depth. There was a classic secret of mana game that did something like this and I loved spending hours developing the different areas. Stardew Valley is another modern example, though this level of complexity may start to overlap with instance based housing.

[sharlim]

Do you even realize how absurd that idea is and the consequence that costing this game.
Not mention it not only encourage more botting and it will also encourages people to buy clear from RMT group
You are just going to destroy the community and turned this game into unofficial pay to win
Why am I saying that?
It is simple, non raider is the majority for mmorpg
We don’t need another credit system
FC credit already proven it does nothing

Lots to respond to in this blurb. Will try to extrapolate your main points:
1. feeling that this idea will make the game worse, with specific example of encouraging RMT
2. non-raiders are majority and this proposal does not cater to the majority
3. credit(s) system(s) already exists (GC/FC) and are not useful

For 1 - any activity in the game which is easily repeated can be botted. This credit/token system I am proposing does add potentially another system with some inherent repeatable nature since I propose crafting is one way to get points/credits/tokens, and I've even heard of raiding bots also. The only options I see to solve this are to remove/replace/do not add any new systems which are easily repeatable or come up with a new system.

For 2 - raiding would be one way to get the "housing points/credits/tokens". If you've played a game which has a graph/node/tree based skill system, this is how I imagine this, where you can reach equivalent nodes through multiple means - such as crafting or combat - so you are not forced into one particular activity.

For 3 - I think the existing GC and/or FC credit system could potentially be a part of this proposed system. Open to any ideas here. The existing system is so intertwined with other resources and activities though that I think a new credit/token would be simpler to implement rather than overhaul the existing one, and maybe phase it out over time.

[sharlim]

A credit system actually already exists. It’s the Grand Company Seals, in form of your Grand Company rank. Second Lieutenant is required to purchase any housing. It fits the lore and it is achievable through both combat and non-combat means.

(reduced full quote fit word count)

It’s a scenario that benefit only the top 1%. It’ll do nothing to decrease the demand.

Cool, some good points in here! Dissecting it; let me know if this does not summarize your main points accurately:
1. how does this proposal scale better than the existing GC credit system and/or anything sold by NPCs
2. rolling out achievement locked housing in control groups and new residential areas vs retrofitting existing areas
3. does this idea propose an exclusive area/option for top raiders

I want to respond with thoughts on these in reverse order, because I think 2 and 1 are potentially a lot longer more complex debate than 3.

For 3, I've seen this sentiment from a few people, so I probably didn't explain my thoughts on this very well initially. Raiding would be one option in the "housing skill tree", but you could also follow a "crafting branch" in the tree to get the same results as a top-raider for example. So it would encourage endgame specialization in area(s) of your choosing.

For 2, I would recommend standing this system up the next time a new server is added to a DC with this new housing system, encourage new players using leveling incentives, and use this approach to A/B test rather than retrofitting into an existing world. Retrofitting into an existing world is an interesting idea though also, since it opens the option for the new area to have different new features gated behind this new system and if players sell their homes in old areas to get into the new area this could open up housing as well, so this could also be a formula to play with.

For 1, this is an interesting point on long term implications of the scalability of such as a system. In a simplified example, if I need to get 1 gatherer and 1 crafter to 80 for a small or 100 raids etc, 2-2 for med or 200 raids, 3-3 for large or 300 raids, then the general population can potentially reach critical mass due to the reasons you mentioned (easier for more tenured players with higher ilevel and more friends). In this scenario, either you have to continue increasing the difficulty in which case new players have a seemingly unachievable goal or you wind up in the same situation again, it just kicks the can down the road for X years. If you have a better solution that does not have this same side effect, I'm in support, but I honestly think this is OK to defer for a few years because it provides time for more hardware and hosting cost planning it should become cheaper to simply add more resources (so long as crypto mining doesn't shut down the internet) but I admit this makes assumptions about the server infrastructure which I don't know. The hardware utility trend could also be a completely wrong prediction and maybe overly risky assessment, open to additional thoughts.