Open plea to the Devs

[Aeristace]

5/6
Here is my very last point I want to set out, and I am not certain it has been touched on before. I could be wrong, because the forums and reddit, and everywhere really are loaded to overflowing with displeasure about housing and I can't read them all.

The Current Housing System Actively, Unquestionably, Discriminates Against People with Disabilities - If you read nothing else of this post, please consider this point.

From the discussions people have in the crowds about the housing system whenever I'm at a plot, I don't think anyone ever really considers this. There is a lot of "This system is better than a lottery", "This system is better than the old", and I can see how that view works for the average person. In general, most people can sit and click repeatedly. They shouldn't, because carpal tunnel and other health risks, but they can and will in order to keep their odds as high as they can towards their finger smashing down at just the right time.

On this front, I am at a severe disadvantage. I suffer from nerve damage and the relevant impact here is I do not have full use of my hands and fingers all the time. I can normally play all aspects of the game just fine and to be honest, it helps me feel a bit better and like I don't have this problem because it doesn't hinder me. Then we get here, where the only way to perceivably improve your odds is to speed spam and button mash, or go against ToS and use a bot which risks being banned. Sometimes I can't move my fingers, so i resort to tapping my whole hand on the number pad and trying to get it precise (you can imagine how that goes). Sometimes I can't move fast and one placard cycle takes a good while. This deeply plays into the demoralizing effect for me personally, given that I don't really see how I could ever obtain a plot with this system. The longer I try to click, the harder it gets which also reduces my chances given I cannot stay present for as long of a window as others.

[Aeristace]

6/6
So why complain, what can even be done before Endwalker?

A handful of key presses is all it would take for Square to lower how malicious this is. A 24 hour random timer is senseless. Square is the company that made ff11, many of the development team were members of the ff11 team. Back in ff11 monster spawns were camped for days on end, then taking their items to spawn bosses that could take, notoriously such as Absolute Virtue, over 30 hours of constant attack to defeat. The excuse that they didn't think the player base would camp a 24 hour timer for a house is extremely easy to dismiss. This is literally their fanbase and players, they have literally designed encounters like this previously and had people endure it.

I don't believe it was the intention to inflict direct suffering on players who wanted housing, but it was the result. I do believe they completely understood people would camp these timers, but that this would somehow be more fair and less prone to botting; though we all know it did the opposite. On my home server it's a guarantee that at least 5-10 bots are hanging out during prime time at plots. They're often the ones winning them.

I don't believe I'm asking for a fix when I ask for this, I'm simply asking to reduce the suffering inflicted. They need to lower the timer to not exceed 6 hours, ever. It won't solve botting, it won't increase it either. But it will let the rest of us move on with our days and reduce our burnout rate. If you want to have a timer, that's cool, but you don't have to be inhuman about it.

When you have a discord server of hundreds of people just dedicated to helping others get housing and keep their morale up (Shoutout to the wonderful human beings at Sadu Dothpawrl's Housing) doing far more to prevent burnout than the dev community managers, I think that says something about a company. I don't have a lot of qualms with this game, I love it. But this one is just so glaring and large that I do just often find myself in that mindset: Will this thing freaking sell, I want nothing more than to log out and play something else.

If you cared to read all this, thanks. I wanted to try to be as objective as I could and provide substance to my complaint while supporting the OP's original statement. Be nice to each other and remember that other players are not what makes the housing system bad, it's the people in control of it.

[xenahawk]

its not really a matter of being entitled and yes just like anything else you have to put in some work to get one but you have to admit that the hurtles for housing once you unlock it is without comparison. all the other "rare drops" you bring up all have well a reasonable timer to contend with. you might not get something on the first run but again you are running the timer of that instance and only have to put in X amount of time at one sitting and dont lose out completely because you had to run to the bathroom or whatever. hell even mounts for the most part have RNG protection that you can buy the mount after so many failed attempts. personally i feel even though RNG gods arent very kind to me if they have in the works the lottery system i wish they would role it out sooner rather then later. on that note player housing is one of the things that drew me to the game and it does get pretty disheartening to basically have it out of reach

[Kniteroad]

its not really a matter of being entitled and yes just like anything else you have to put in some work to get one but you have to admit that the hurtles for housing once you unlock it is without comparison. all the other "rare drops" you bring up all have well a reasonable timer to contend with. you might not get something on the first run but again you are running the timer of that instance and only have to put in X amount of time at one sitting and dont lose out completely because you had to run to the bathroom or whatever. hell even mounts for the most part have RNG protection that you can buy the mount after so many failed attempts. personally i feel even though RNG gods arent very kind to me if they have in the works the lottery system i wish they would role it out sooner rather then later. on that note player housing is one of the things that drew me to the game and it does get pretty disheartening to basically have it out of reach

Except not all drops have a reasonable timer to contend with. EX trial mounts and those that come from beast tribes and the like are all easy to get by those of us who like to collect mounts. There are still mounts/titles/ etc that can only be obtained by a small population by design. Feast mounts and the saint of the firmament title for example. I've said that a few times now on on this thread alone. In other MMOs there are things you need to compete for, and not available to the "entitled". Just cause i pay a sub doesn't mean I'm entitled to a gladiator mount in WOW as an example.

And i feel like if player housing was something that drew you to this game will be disheartening even when you get a house. I never really understood this as it never seemed like housing was a big selling point of FF14. that being said, decorating is FF14 is also a terribly designed system and sometimes is just as frustrating as get a house (this maybe an exaggeration XD ) as if you want anything cool you have to glitch it in place. If housing is the main content you wish to partake in FF14 then that is entirely your call but there may be other games better suited for you.

[Jojoya]

please feel free to enlighten me ! what are these rare item that only gardening can provide, im curious !

Popular items (and their seeds) obtained primarily from gardening (some have a very small chance to be received from quick ventures, or other sources as noted):

Thavnairian Onion (two can be obtained per character from Heavenwards side quests but 10 will be needed to reach max chocobo rank)
Curiel Root (chocobo food)
Royal Fern (needed to craft minions)
Blood Pepper (needed to craft minions)
Glazenut (needed to craft minions and housing furnishings)
Jute (needed to craft rugs for housing)
Cloudsbreath (needed to craft mounts, can also come from company exploration voyages)
Mandragora Queen (minion)
Tomato King (minion)
Eggplant Knight (minion)
Garlic Jester (minion)
Onion Prince (minion)
Broombush (needed to craft a minion, housing item and Magicked Stable Brooms)

Seeds that can only be obtained through gardening that are needed to help grow some of the items above (even if their items have other sources or aren't popular):
Mimett Gourd
Pahsana Fruit
Tantalplant
Sylkis Bud
Gysahl Greens
Halone Gerbera
Azeyma Rose
Nymeia Lily
Umbrella Fig
Dalamud Popoto
Pearl Roselle
Shroud Tea
Star Anise

There are a few other gardening exclusives but popularity is low enough not to be worth mentioning.

There's definitely gil making potential but it also requires effort and tolerance for RNG so few players actively get into it. It's not interesting as playable content, only as a way to make some gil and there are better ways to make gil.

Those who think they want to be gardening but don't yet have a house of their own can ask friends who have a house if they can be made a tenant so they can garden. I've done that for a few friends in the past and they've quickly decided they don't want to be gardening after all. They still wanted to get a house for the decorating opportunities, of course. If anyone on Coeurl wants temporary use of a garden, look me up. I can put my own gardening on hold in storage for a few weeks to give you the opportunity to try it out so you can decide if it's really worth it to you.

1/6
Good morning, I've never posted on any forum before ever so please bear with me. This will get long.

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts as a new forum user.

Just as a side note, you can bypass the 3000 character limit per post by making a short initial post then editing the rest of your comments into it.

There is also nothing about the housing purchase system that discriminates against people with disabilities who are otherwise able to play the game. It's asking you to press a couple of buttons, that's it. Game combat is far more demanding when it comes to button presses.

[Sotaris]

Aeristace: You can edit your post btw. Isn't need to make 6 posts. In case you wasn't aware.

Snip

Thank you for posting the list. I couldn't be bothered to copy paste everything from ffxivgardening.

[Aeristace]

Just as a side note, you can bypass the 3000 character limit per post by making a short initial post then editing the rest of your comments into it.

Thank you both for pointing this out, I absolutely did not know XD

[Almagnus1]

I don't believe I'm asking for a fix when I ask for this, I'm simply asking to reduce the suffering inflicted. They need to lower the timer to not exceed 6 hours, ever. It won't solve botting, it won't increase it either. But it will let the rest of us move on with our days and reduce our burnout rate. If you want to have a timer, that's cool, but you don't have to be inhuman about it.

The problem we had before is that there would basically be no free houses because someone would snap up the houses and you had to go through a third party site (at the time, it was a FFXIV housing reddit), make a deal, and hope they honored it to get your house, often charging well about 2-3x (often 10x) the SE price for the plot. Tbh, if SE had wanted us to resale property and treat it like an asset, they would have given us an interface within the game to do it.

For better or for worse, the timer is their attempt at stopping this behavior - when the reality is the entire system needs an overhaul.

[Sotaris]

Tbh, if SE had wanted us to resale property and treat it like an asset, they would have given us an interface within the game to do it.

I never understood why SE wouldn't do this tbh. Or let you buy the deed on MB or something.

[Nepentha]

I never understood why SE wouldn't do this tbh. Or let you buy the deed on MB or something.

It defeats the spirit of what housing was intended to be, that's probably why. It's not against the ToS to sell a home or the relocation into a plot, but they weren't intending for it to be like this.

With the timer you can't do it with personal houses anymore. Resellers have adapted in two ways.

1. Creating FCs, leveling them up to 6, and bot clicking their way into recently demo'd homes. Then resell them for 10x to 70x the placard cost depending on location and server. Wait 24 hours, start a new FC, level it to 6 and rinse/repeat.

2. Ward scanning via bot to snap up any medium or large homes that demo, usually before others are even aware of it. Then sell the relocation into that plot. (Anywhere from 100 million to a billion gil depending on size and location of the lot and which server it's being sold on.) This second one also requires a small plot to be open somewhere for them to relocate into when releasing the plot they are selling to the buyer.

And this is how the timer hasn't done much to stop the housing resale market. I don't think it's even slowed it down.

Be interesting to see if the lotto affects them, too. SE mention revisions to relocation, but no idea what those will be.

And honestly, unless they also look into how FC master is handed over to someone, the resale market will sail on. The only thing that will put a serious dent in their markets is to release enough housing that you won't feel pressured to buy from them anymore.