In Game Housing Crisis

[Amenara]

Not all worlds 1-18 will be exclusive to FC forever. This will be removed soon.
Easy to get, relatively yes. You will enter the experience of getting a house once in the duration of your playing, which is hard and sweet, as if you are finishing a difficult battle.

"Soon" That is also making an assumption that between now and "soon" that all the FCs that don't have a house now don't purchase the small houses. The problem with this mentality is that the small houses will all be gone after 1 lottery round because demand is so much larger than supply, thus the same issue as before will reoccur.

[Jojoya]

Small houses are not easy to get. They never have been.

Saying never isn't true. There have been plenty of times there were smalls available for the taking (watching wards sit half empty for 4.2 to 4.4, as an example).

It would be fair to say they have not been consistently easy to get. The amount of time players needed to struggle to get a small is definitely greater than the amount of time it was easy to get a small.

"Soon" That is also making an assumption that between now and "soon" that all the FCs that don't have a house now don't purchase the small houses. The problem with this mentality is that the small houses will all be gone after 1 lottery round because demand is so much larger than supply, thus the same issue as before will reoccur.

Most of the FCs looking for a house either got one this lottery, or will have one once the bug is fix so winners can claim the houses they won.

The small percentage of FCs that choose to compete for a plot in the first lottery but lost should be able to pick up a house in the second lottery without trouble (unless they again choose to compete against other FCs instead of looking for a plot without entries).

The problem with "soon" is that it's giving time for the players who failed to get a personal house in the first lottery time to set up shell FCs and complete the 30 day waiting period so they can get a house that way. If the ward adjustment is over a month away, all those empty plots may end up purchased by the players who felt going the FC route was the better way to get a plot for personal use. It's a win-win situation for them - they'll get to bid on a personal house if the wards are switched to personal, they'll get to bid on a FC house if the wards remain FC.

[Amenara]

Most of the FCs looking for a house either got one this lottery, or will have one once the bug is fix so winners can claim the houses they won.

The small percentage of FCs that choose to compete for a plot in the first lottery but lost should be able to pick up a house in the second lottery without trouble (unless they again choose to compete against other FCs instead of looking for a plot without entries).

The problem with "soon" is that it's giving time for the players who failed to get a personal house in the first lottery time to set up shell FCs and complete the 30 day waiting period so they can get a house that way. If the ward adjustment is over a month away, all those empty plots may end up purchased by the players who felt going the FC route was the better way to get a plot for personal use. It's a win-win situation for them - they'll get to bid on a personal house if the wards are switched to personal, they'll get to bid on a FC house if the wards remain FC.

My other concern with "soon" is that I don't think they are going to adjust anything housing wise till 6.18 at the earliest, but in reality it probably won't be till 6.2. It gives people who want to just make personal FCs 3 months to get their stuff in order to go ahead and make that happen thus completely wrecking the ward readjustment anyway.

[EthanXdeath]

My other concern with "soon" is that I don't think they are going to adjust anything housing wise till 6.18 at the earliest, but in reality it probably won't be till 6.2. It gives people who want to just make personal FCs 3 months to get their stuff in order to go ahead and make that happen thus completely wrecking the ward readjustment anyway.

I'd hope SE would take notice of this if in fact the case of ward adjustment isn't until 6.2. And even if it does happen, hopefully there'll be enough "screaming" here in the forums or in the next producer live letter in the comments about some of these problems. Idk when a better time would be to proactively "shout" about it than during the next live letter. Otherwise, here or we need to jump into twitch streamers chats and yell about it, I know a particular streamer has mentioned something about the "shell fc" problem, but idk about others.

[Illmaeran]

My other concern with "soon" is that I don't think they are going to adjust anything housing wise till 6.18 at the earliest

Do we have an estimated timeline on 6.18? I want to start my Custom Deliveries and help Tataru take over the world!

[Amenara]

Do we have an estimated timeline on 6.18? I want to start my Custom Deliveries and help Tataru take over the world!

Probably in the June/July timeframe? Not too sure since I think it will be dependent on getting DC travel working.

[iiTzSeb]

watching wards sit half empty for 4.2 to 4.4, as an example

It's been half a decade since Stormblood and slightly less than that since those patches. The playerbase has grown exponentially since, the problem has worsened because people aren't taking it seriously and the dev team has barely touched the real issue since then except to make it moderately worse with a lottery that will only get worse with time.

[Jojoya]

It's been half a decade since Stormblood and slightly less than that since those patches. The playerbase has grown exponentially since, the problem has worsened because people aren't taking it seriously and the dev team has barely touched the real issue since then except to make it moderately worse with a lottery that will only get worse with time.

Why are you taking my post out of context? My response was to HyoMinPark stating that houses have never been easy to get. That was 100% false. There have been times it was very easy to get a small house.

I've pointed out many times in other threads that getting a house has been difficult for NA players since the start of 2019, with EU having a similar problem once Spriggan and Twintania finally filled up in 2020 and JP ending up with the same problem more recently.

Not everyone is going to take the problem seriously because they don't care about housing as content in general, or they're happy with just an apartment. They're primarily here to play the game for the other content, not housing, and so housing issues mean nothing to them just as job balance issues mean nothing to someone who isn't into high end content.

Others are going to brush it off as not a serious problem because they're in housing for perceived prestige so it's to their benefit when other players can't get a house.

Ultimately, it's a waste of time trying to blame the player base for not taking the problem seriously. We're not in a position to fix what's wrong.

Only the development team can make changes to improve the system. We can't tell if the current situation is solely design decision or if there's some underlying technical issue with the game's code that prevents them from implementing the solutions we see working so well in some other MMOs.

[Kenky]

Not everyone is going to take the problem seriously because they don't care about housing as content in general, or they're happy with just an apartment. They're primarily here to play the game for the other content, not housing, and so housing issues mean nothing to them just as job balance issues mean nothing to someone who isn't into high end content.

Surprisingly enough, that mere concept is foreign to these people.. Housing is not XIVs main content. (The story, dungeons, raids, even PvP at this point) it's entirely optional and you can do quite a fair bit without ever looking or knowing that housing even exists.

Either that, or their focus is so zoned into housing being just the houses and refuse to acknowledge the Apartments (and FC rooms by proxy) even exist. They aren't "good enough". But none of them have truly given a reasonable answer to the following question.

"What do you want out of Housing?"

Decorating? Apartment.
RP? Apartment can suffice.
Gardening? Apartment / FC room / Join an FC and ask for Gardening rights.
Cross-breeding? Join an FC and ask for Gardening rights. (Note: This is not guaranteed. So I am willing to be a tad more lenient on this answer)

Down to the simplest, bluntest version of this discussion, FCs are the only ones that benefit from a house, purely on the basis that they have Workshop / Airship systems that grants access to more crafting / exclusive items from said airships. (Submersibles are added to this list too)

"But the playerbase has grown since stormblood" You are correct. But no company can truly prepare for that big of a playerbase growth in such a short time. Followed by another resurgence Post-Shadowlands drama. Adding more wards isn't as simple as "flicking a switch". It requires actual hardware and space to house said hardware. That takes time & money to obtain and even then, there's no guarantee as that would be in the hands of a 3rd party. Pushing the blame on 1/10th of 1% of the playerbase for whatever reason you fancy (usually house-hoarding / shell FCs) is not the right way about this.

I mean, they even introduced a Lottery Because so many people requested it. Now we have it, people hate it. Just like what plenty of others had said would happen.

[Kaiproberts]

Just to hash something out, housing IS the main content of the game for some of us. I personally only pay my sub to keep my house. I only login to check the marketboard, make money, and to look at getting a better house. I don't participate in any dailies or combat anymore (as tab targeting is extremely boring to me). No other game right now has housing neighborhoods; it is the main draw for me. This is also why instanced housing isn't an option for me; If I want instanced housing, I'll go play a different game for that experience (because there are so many that already do that). What FFXIV has, in terms of housing, is unique and special in the gaming world. The last game I can remember having it was Aion and even then the housing system was really expensive and kinda janky. For me, playing the game is having a personal house. FC's are not the only ones who benefit.