I believe Houses SHOULD be sellable/tradable, otherwise what's the point of Gil?

[SenorPatty]

Saying there's nothing to spend gil on but using housing as an example is a poor argument. It's the buy and trade of houses that actually made things for players with less gil even have less chance to get the house they wanted in the first place. And since housing itself is a finite feature, there are people who won't give up the house of their dreams short of an act of god where they live (in real life) that forces their hand to give up their house, usually through the demo timer.

A proper gil sink for FFXIV would have to be items or features that can only be bought with gil and have recurring expenses attached to them. That or a system where multiple steps requiring gil only is needed to complete.

[DiaDeem]

Yeah, those people with 9000 billion gil totally wouldn't buy an entire ward then sell them at 100 times the original value...

[Aelin_Ashryver]

I think gil sinks like the mounts they added are a good idea. Just make them less hideous and I will buy them, make some gil sink minions too. I have 86 mill atm which is pennies vs other people but still. I wouldn't mind a nice expensive mount to buy. Though I do plan on buying my fc a large if I can so 50mill is aside for that.

[Curisu]

Just implement a reasonable weekly tax on the houses.
Something like 1% of the buying price.
Every active player should not have a problem to earn some Gil to keep at least their small plot.

And everyone who owns a big house will defenetly have enough Gil for it or a whole FC to pay for it.

[Eraden]

Just implement a reasonable weekly tax on the houses.
Something like 1% of the buying price.
Every active player should not have a problem to earn some Gil to keep at least their small plot.

And everyone who owns a big house will defenetly have enough Gil for it or a whole FC to pay for it.

I think you need to check your math. Let's take the top of the line medium plot that sells for 20 million Gil. 1% of that is 200,000 Gil. You want to charge players that much PER WEEK. People would riot and this game would suffer. If you REALLY want to charge property taxes in order to add another money sink, something more modest like perhaps less than a TENTH of what you were requesting might be more adequate but even then, players would still be upset. So you see the addition of property tax would probably not be a good idea. There are already other money sinks in the game, the biggest being portal costs. I'm not really sure we actually need more money sinks. Those who have billions of Gil primarily got their money through focused efforts on crafting and playing the markets. There are a significant number of billionaires but they are still just a drop in the bucket compared to the majority of players who might have just a few million Gil (or even less) to their names. Additional money sinks tend to disproportionately hurt the poor and are but a tickle to the rich.

[Rhysati]

What we need for a gil sink is something both desirable and reusable. Housing is a one-time expense, so it's not much of a sink. (I mean, it's a huge time sink to prowl the wards looking for an open plot and then camp there clicking the placard and hoping to be the lucky one, but that's another thread.)

One solution is what Lord of the Rings Online did. The housing districts we have in FFXIV clearly originated with the housing system in LotRO. What that game does differently however is that you have to pay upkeep on your house. It's a small fraction of the overall cost of the house, but every so often you have to pay a small fee/tax in order to keep using the house. I want to say the fee was once a week but you could bank up to a month's worth ahead of time so you'd only have to put more money in once a month really.

It wasn't enough to bankrupt you or be a major issue, but it was a constant drain of funds from the economy and discourages people to buy up houses if they aren't going to actually use them.

[Curisu]

A tax would also make some people think twice if they really want a House.
There are so many abandoned plots that have nothing on them for month.

Also, give me a option to store all my damn housing event item's.
Because right now I don't have the motivation to do something new with my house, but I don't want to sell it because of all the housing items that i have no inventory space for.

[Padudu]

Yeah, those people with 9000 billion gil totally wouldn't buy an entire ward then sell them at 100 times the original value...

lol that's exactly what I thought. No way it wouldn't be abused immediately by RMTers

[Meowdyj]

Just no. Anything that motivates RMT should be avoided at all cost.

[MaikoRaines]

But Buying/Selling plots, I think it also totally justifiable. It's just forcing players who REALLY want a house to resort to sketchy outside sources or RMT

You literally just gave the very reason why what you're proposing is a bad idea. They've had to make adjustments because this was a thing that was already happening (EG: Selling actual FC's for real money)

That feeling when a developer has to change the way's housing is handled because of aforementioned sketchy outside of game arrangements.

Sorry, but no. Not on board.