Fix Housing Megathread

[SmashingQuasar]

Housing is one of the big interests I have in this game but buying a house is just disgusting.

I recently asked on Reddit why SQEX does not deploy more instances (Docker containers or VMs) for housing purposes to scale accordingly to player demand and apparently at some point SQEX indicated they are deploying bare metal infrastructures for housing? It's 2021, how can they not have a scalable infrastructure? It's unthinkable!
If they really are relying solely on bare metal, then there is a way bigger problem that should be addressed. Solving this issue would probably solve a lot of other issues especially the growing queues on all servers.

[Hybie]

As much as I enjoy clicking on a placard for 8 + hours and not being able to purchase it, I would really prefer if housing just gets fixed in general, or add in more housing instances like discussed in this thread.

[TroySoFab]

Yeah, I think none of these suggestions, aside from making the purchase timer visible, are viable strategies to help fix housing. Lottery doesn't address the fact that many houses are owned by singular players across multiple characters, and with the auto demo timer being suspended so frequently, it has made it harder to have inactive players removed. Secondly, having instanced housing really undermines what housing is supposed to feel like in FFXIV. Housing was supposed to foster a neighborhood type feel, and while there are customization and QoL issues that hinder that, instanced housing would only further reduce it.

Looking at how housing is now I have a few of my own suggestions that I think would improve things.

1. More Wards:
Yes its a simple fix that on its own won't do much, but when looking a the number of Active players (usually hovers around 15k or even lower for most servers) we currently have nearly enough houses. So just throwing more at the problem is a slight fix, but it becomes better when combined with other solutions.

2. One personal house and One FC house ownership per account:
This is the big one and would probably have the most impact. Some have suggested this be even more restrictive, but I think this should suffice. Yes, there are players who own multiple houses. Some have even owned an entire ward and bragged about it. This alone would free up so much space for active players.

3. You must be at the current max level to purchase a home:
This is just another way to help mitigate multiple homes being owned by one person. No sprout is going to have the gil to buy a home, but an alt account will.

4. Stricter auto demolition timer:
If the wind blows, the timer has been suspended. I understand that the devs want to help accommodate players who have been impacted by whatever large scale event occurred, but it seems like the timer is paused for months at a time. Did we really need the timer paused during most of covid lockdown when even more players were actively playing this game?

[Jojoya]

Housing was supposed to foster a neighborhood type feel, and while there are customization and QoL issues that hinder that, instanced housing would only further reduce it.

That might have been the intent. It wasn't the result.

Neighborhoods feel like neighborhoods because you see people doing things, not because you see houses. We're stuck only seeing the houses because there's little reason for players to be in the wards themselves. If they're at their house, they're far more likely to be in it than outside but we're got no way of knowing they're in it from what we see on the outside.

Player behavior when in the wards goes far in showing how players don't really want neighborhoods. There have been a few occasions when I've been at my house or our FC house and someone randomly comes by. Greet them and they almost always run away if they were caught doing something wrong. Clearly they're interested in how others have decorated their houses but they aren't looking to be a neighbor.

If all other players are interested in is seeing how someone else decorates, that can be achieved with instanced housing. Create a party finder type menu that lists instanced housing with guest access enabled so players can visit. Enable teleports just as we have estate teleportation to anyone on our friend's list that has enabled guest teleport. I hate being the broken record but other MMOs are doing these things and it would be nice if they were happening here so all FFXIV players could have a fully enjoyable housing system instead of one filled with drama and frustration generated by the current limitations.

[Thorncraft]

Once a plot is relinquished 8-12 hours for relocation after that NO more relocation and it goes up for sale. Maybe instantly for sale or for a 4-6 hour window (something reasonable). It sucks waiting hours and hours just to have someone relocate because the "invisible timer" can take up to 24 ungodly hours.

[NanaWiloh]

Yeah, I think none of these suggestions, aside from making the purchase timer visible, are viable strategies to help fix housing. Lottery doesn't address the fact that many houses are owned by singular players across multiple characters, and with the auto demo timer being suspended so frequently, it has made it harder to have inactive players removed. Secondly, having instanced housing really undermines what housing is supposed to feel like in FFXIV. Housing was supposed to foster a neighborhood type feel, and while there are customization and QoL issues that hinder that, instanced housing would only further reduce it.

Looking at how housing is now I have a few of my own suggestions that I think would improve things.

1. More Wards:
Yes its a simple fix that on its own won't do much, but when looking a the number of Active players (usually hovers around 15k or even lower for most servers) we currently have nearly enough houses. So just throwing more at the problem is a slight fix, but it becomes better when combined with other solutions.

2. One personal house and One FC house ownership per account:
This is the big one and would probably have the most impact. Some have suggested this be even more restrictive, but I think this should suffice. Yes, there are players who own multiple houses. Some have even owned an entire ward and bragged about it. This alone would free up so much space for active players.

3. You must be at the current max level to purchase a home:
This is just another way to help mitigate multiple homes being owned by one person. No sprout is going to have the gil to buy a home, but an alt account will.

4. Stricter auto demolition timer:
If the wind blows, the timer has been suspended. I understand that the devs want to help accommodate players who have been impacted by whatever large scale event occurred, but it seems like the timer is paused for months at a time. Did we really need the timer paused during most of covid lockdown when even more players were actively playing this game?

Number 2 is not as simple as you think there is something your failing to address.



Here is a picture of my FC house placard. Take a good look at the owner, cause thats not my characters name or anyone elses..

[Catstab]

Once a plot is relinquished 8-12 hours for relocation after that NO more relocation and it goes up for sale. Maybe instantly for sale or for a 4-6 hour window (something reasonable). It sucks waiting hours and hours just to have someone relocate because the "invisible timer" can take up to 24 ungodly hours.

I see where they were coming from with the 24 hour timer. With a 4 hour time you could release a plot at 3 am and it would sell by 7, making transfers pretty simple. That said, I think the timer in general is a travesty. People pour blood, sweat, and tears into thousands of hours camping every day across the game. It's horrible. SE really needs to come up with a way to make the camping process fully passive.

Obviously their thinking was we would just walk up, check, no. Walk up 6 hours later, check, no. 4 hours later, check, yes! But in reality, you can click 36,000 times in those 10 hours, so players will click 36,000 times.

[Nepentha]

I see where they were coming from with the 24 hour timer. With a 4 hour time you could release a plot at 3 am and it would sell by 7, making transfers pretty simple. That said, I think the timer in general is a travesty. People pour blood, sweat, and tears into thousands of hours camping every day across the game. It's horrible. SE really needs to come up with a way to make the camping process fully passive.

Obviously their thinking was we would just walk up, check, no. Walk up 6 hours later, check, no. 4 hours later, check, yes! But in reality, you can click 36,000 times in those 10 hours, so players will click 36,000 times.

My college degree is in psychology, research specifically. In one of my freshman research methods classes, we did a study using rats to determine behavior with different delivery of food (reward).

Other groups got fixed ratio schedules (the rat would receive a pellet after a set number of bar presses). Or Fixed interval (the rat receives a pellet after a set amount of time has passed).

My team got the variable ratio schedule. (There's also fixed ratio which has similar results.) There was no set amount of time or number of bar presses. Meaning the rat had no idea when they would get a food pellet, no matter how many times it pressed the bar or how long it waited between bar presses. It was entirely random. Much like the clicking of a placard in FFXIV's housing savage.

Predictably, the other rats learned to either wait a certain amount of time, then go press the bar for a food pellet. Or press the bar a certain number of times to get a food pellet. Our rat, having absolutely no freaking clue when it'd get a pellet, never stopped pressing it.

Thanks to SE, players have been reduced to rats on a fixed or variable ratio schedule.

[Thorncraft]

MMOs run into problems when they restrict access to content to a lucky few instead of making that content equally accessible to every player who is paying the required real money to play and meets the game play entry requirements for the content.

If limited resource content systems that only a few players get access to were so beneficial to MMOs, why don't we see more of them getting used?

When you want customers to keep returning to a theme park, you need to make sure they can get access to the content that interests them the most. If they can't get that access, they stop returning and your theme park is short the revenue it otherwise would have been earning. That's not a good business decision.

Agreed it's shows they don't care about the average player. If you don't buy on release day then you get punished by SE. So either get a third-party click program or suffer your mental and physical health and spam click every second for 24+ hours. This specific reason has prevented me from login into FF over some other game from time to time.

[Caitlyn]

I would like to buy/own a house. But not with a demolition timer forcing me to login every x days or otherwise I m gonna lose my lovely decorated house where I spent tens of hours and millions of gil in it. Nah... I m happy with my appartement ^^.