Just Another Housing Complaint

[Fybrile]

1\3

Heya,

First off, please understand that I don't want to post this here. I'd much rather send a well-thought-out private email to a company account - where I'm sure it would be auto-deleted and that would be the end of it. But, I've searched and searched, and everything I've read says that this is the singular place to send feedback. So, here I am. I don't suppose I'll have any more luck getting my thoughts in front of the eyes of someone that can help here than I would via email - but, I will enjoy the opportunity to receive condescending, sarcastic or diminishing responses from onlookers as I am forced to make my private thoughts for SE very, very public.

Just saying, for someone with social anxiety, this is not the best way to allow one to give their heartfelt feedback and honest complaints.

I'm also not truncating my thoughts as your character limit expressly wants me to do. This is my one post here, and I want to say what I have to say. It won't be new, or interesting, or groundbreaking. This is just another complaint from a frustrated player who sees that there are far too few houses for private buyers in this game. But, I felt it was important for me to take the time and put in the effort to add my voice to the cacophony of complaints about this simple-to-resolve issue.

So, allow me to just say that, at this price, at this level and length of development, EACH player should have a house in FFXIV. The current system is not a fix. It is yet another carrot-on-a-stick for players who really want to experience housing but can't. The added Ishgardian districts were clearly a drop in the ocean of demand, and there is no possible way SE doesn't know this - and didn't know that long before it was released.

I am a Legacy player who has never un-subbed since 1.0. Like many, I am a player who missed out on houses in 2.0 because I didn't have enough gil during the brief window they were available on my server (a period of about 1 week), and who didn't have the DAYS of free time and general level of masochism it required to sit in one spot for an indeterminable amount of time and right-click on a sign with a dozen RMT accounts, and who is now being further disappointed by the current RNG mechanic SE has mislabeled as an auction system. Over 2000 days subbed, nearly $1000USD all told in subscription fees, app companion fees, retainer fees and store purchases, and not even the faintest glimmer of optimism about getting a house.

I am pointing out how much money I spent on this game PRECISELY because I feel it entitles me to buy a house in this game. I believe wholeheartedly that ANYONE who has spent even $3 on on a sale for this game is ENTITLED to buy a house in this game. It should not be a privilege for the lucky few simply because SE doens't want to fork over their capital on servers. We are giving them this money to buy those servers. They are not holding up their end of the deal.

[Fybrile]

2/3

This is housing, not endgame gear. It shouldn't be an RNG mechanic in the first place.

The developers should be ashamed of themselves for not fixing this system as soon as it was clear it didn't work - which was immediately upon release. There are some players - myself included - for whom getting a house is one of the biggest draws of the game. Some find pvp really important. Many are are here for the story. Some want to get into progression statics. Myself, and players like me, want to decorate their house. Certainly, the game itself incentivizes having a house, with outdoor furnishings being presented as rewards throughout the story. This reinforces that having a house is supposed to be a given. But, actually getting the house is possible only mathematically. We all know that players joke that housing is the REAL endgame, but it's honestly not funny. It shouldn't be that way. This is an advertised facet of the game that is frankly revealed to only be slightly better than an outright lie. Not exactly false advertising, but misleading to be sure.

Under the current auction system, you have to struggle just to see which houses are available to private buyers (why that information can't be made available from the teleport screen is beyond me), and, once you've found the 5 available small houses in the worst plots that are for private buyers, you get the opportunity to roll for it with over 20, 30, 40 or 50 other players. A 2% chance at getting a house is not a chance at all. If it were an actual auction, then at least it would be slightly better. At least then, we could throw all the useless gil burning a hole in our pockets at the problem. At least then, there'd be a modicum of self-determination in this singular aspect of the game completely out of the player's control.

Which is all besides the point that SE makes more than enough money to buy the servers they need to just give us each a house. The lack of concern this complaint gets from the developers is really disappointing, and belies their otherwise attentive façade. "Look, bunnymen! See? We're listening! We care! Well, not enough to sink the time into development to make hats visible on them, which modders did overnight. But, well, here they are! Please ignore the things you want that would actually eat into our profit margins."

SE, we don't care that the results for the first auction weren't displayed. 7 letters from the producer about how they are checking the backend of their blah, blah blah... who cares! Where's the letter explaining why, nearly a decade on, and you still have dozens of players begging for scraps the rare times a small house becomes available? FCs with hundreds of millions in gil that can't get a large plot? Where's that letter?

[Fybrile]

3/3

At the very least, allow us to purchase a house for real money. We can purchase a high level character with all jobs nearly-maxed for money. We can purchase weddings. I can expand my inventory space with real money. I can buy the rewards from one-time festivals I've missed with real money. Why can't I buy a house with money? If you're saying we can't have a house because of server costs, why not let the whales in this game offset those costs by making housing available for real money? Or, larger plots available for real money? You don't seem to have a problem taking my money to solve your other problems? Why's this one special?

As you can tell, I'm frustrated. I'm sure no one even read to this part of the post anyways, so I'll just step off my soapbox now. I just needed to say what I wanted to say. I just wanted to put my hand up and say that this isn't right.

[Themarvin]

No one is entitled to a house, that i my point of view, you get alot out of this game by just playing it and housing is just an extra feature, now made fair by a lottery system, further more if just want a roof over the head, get an apartment, it is the same as a house except the garden, and they are really nice as well.

Look at the wards, so many houses is never used and quite a bit even stand empty, and that is for a start.

[Jojoya]

First, just to let you know if you decide to post in the forums again that you can exceed the character limit by editing a post after it's been made.

Second, I (and many others here) struggle with social anxiety as well. I find it much easier to challenge myself to interact with others in the online environment and sometimes that helps me when it's time to do it face to face. I hope you're getting help and that things improve for you in time.

Regarding your feedback - feedback does get read even if the developers don't respond in a way some players would prefer. We're seen plenty of examples of them responding to various topics over the years.

I think most players would agree that everyone should be able to get a house if they want one. There's really no reason for it not to happen when we see plenty of other MMOs with housing systems having no issues with giving not just each player but each player character spaces to customize. It shouldn't require an extra real money payment to get something displayed as part of the base game's advertising.

We just have to hope that SE comes to realize that the current housing situation is having a negative impact on players' game experience when they keep stating they want the game to be a positive experience.

[Fybrile]

No one is entitled to a house, that i my point of view, you get alot out of this game by just playing it and housing is just an extra feature, now made fair by a lottery system, further more if just want a roof over the head, get an apartment, it is the same as a house except the garden, and they are really nice as well.

Look at the wards, so many houses is never used and quite a bit even stand empty, and that is for a start.

Thanks for taking the time to read my complaint and responding.

Players are certainly entitled to having a reasonable chance to experience a basic, advertised aspect of a game that they pay for. Otherwise, said aspect would be false advertising. And, as it has always stood in FFXIV, players have never had a reasonable chance to experience housing. I don't think anyone has ever tried making the claim that getting a house is achievable, and from what I'm reading in your reply, you're not trying to make that claim either. Your point seems to be more along the lines of "Oh, this isn't available, so you should be happier with this other inferior product" - which isn't a very strong position for a consumer to take. I don't think you'd, for example, expect customers of Subway who want a meatball sub to be happy with a veggie sub instead simply because Subway falsely claimed they had a stock of meatballs when they really didn't. We would call that false advertising, and there would be apologies, refunds, and communication about meaningful steps they would take to correct both the issue as well as the corrupt corporate culture that led to the bold-faced lie in the first place.

As for your next point, I already mentioned, for some players - myself included - housing isn't an extra feature. It's a feature. Like raiding, crafting, pvp, story and exploration. But, if pvp were as impossible to participate in as housing, it would certainly receive justified complaints - and frankly receive much quicker corrective action because fixing it doesn't cost SE money.

SE can't, on the one hand, champion how many million more players they have, and on the other continue to be flabbergasted that adding a few hundred more houses isn't somehow enough to solve this obvious problem.

The current lottery system doesn't make housing "FAIR". It just makes player EQUAL in an UNFAIR system. I don't think anyone could reasonably say a 2% or lower chance of winning a house are "FAIR ODDS" for such a basic part of the game. Again, these aren't the RNG odds for the legendary, ultra-rare Ashbringer in WoW Vanilla we're talking about - it's the odds of getting the smallest house in the worst plot of land in the least popular housing district. That's just ridiculous, and, frankly, indefensible.

As for "If you want a roof over your head, get an apartment" - this is the textbook dismissive position. Your own follow-up shows that you're fully aware that the apartment system doesn't include over half of the content that housing does. No outdoor furnishings. No plot of land. No gardening (cutting players without housing off from being able to farm 100k gil thavnarian onions). It's not the same thing, and attempting to paper over the issue like that is just willful dismissiveness - the kind of apologist response that has allowed this problem to last for so long.

Finally, whether a house is used or not is entirely besides the point. It's not SE's business, or yours, or mine, what someone does with their house. If they never use it, the reclamation system will put that plot back in the pool. It's a non-issue.

The point is SE advertises that we can buy a house, but we cannot. They advertise we can buy medium and large houses, which is and always has been a near mathematical impossibility. These are (I don't want to say flagrant false advertising, so I'll say...) unfulfilled promises from the developer. They have had a very lucrative decade syphoning capital from the playerbase. It's time this basic part of the game was made available.

[Amenara]

No one is entitled to a house, that i my point of view, you get alot out of this game by just playing it and housing is just an extra feature, now made fair by a lottery system, further more if just want a roof over the head, get an apartment, it is the same as a house except the garden, and they are really nice as well.

Look at the wards, so many houses is never used and quite a bit even stand empty, and that is for a start.

I'm gonna disagree with no one being entitled to a house. If you are making me pay the same sub as the player who has access to a system I probably will never have access to with the current mindset on housing at SE, especially as the OP pointed out is advertised specifically on their website, I should have access to all the same game features as everyone else. As for your second point, that is the problem with wards. They were a dream that never came into fruition and should be enough reason for SE to accept defeat and come up with an equitable system so everyone can have access to housing, not just apartments.

[Naoki34]

Just Another Housing Complaint

/ popcorn / popcorn / popcorn

[Roehann]

No one is entitled to a house, that i my point of view, you get alot out of this game by just playing it and housing is just an extra feature, now made fair by a lottery system, further more if just want a roof over the head, get an apartment, it is the same as a house except the garden, and they are really nice as well.

Look at the wards, so many houses is never used and quite a bit even stand empty, and that is for a start.

I agree with you in that no one is entitled to a house. I am not sure why people seem to think that just because they paid their sub they are entitled.

My wife, who has been playing since 1.0 has two mansions. One is her Free Company that was started years a go and the other one is a mansion in the new district. She worked and crafted and saved for these homes, furnished them and is proud of what she has done. I have only been playing for a little over a year and have a small house.

The people that want a house will get a house.. I spent countless hours clicking against the bots to win mine, but it's what mattered to me.. Some players spend countless hours in PVP or Savage and then want something given to them in the game because they feel entitled to it.. If you want something in this game, work for it and get it. Period. PVP doesn't just gift rewards to users.. The Best gear doesn't just drop into your inventory while you sleep.. Why is housing different? If you want it get it.

The lottery has certainly made it a fairer system. One step forward.. Now, they could open up some of the FC only wards for personal housing and that would be another step forward.... they could bring a new district online sooner rather than later and that too would be a step forward. Yes, SE can do things to make this better but user should NOT think they are entitled to it. You are entitled to nothing, everything in life even in a game, one must work for it if you truly want it.

As to the OP... if you have been playing without un-subbing for all these years and don't have a house yet, it's not the fault of SE, it's yours. Plain and simple, you just didn't want it enough to do what it took to get it.

[Jakkal]

I agree with the OP. Housing is advertised as a feature of the game. Anyone saying "No one is entitled to a house" is not making a rational argument against it (Especially if you say in the next breath that you have a house.) This would be like saying the other features can only be accessed if you're lucky such as PVP. Can't play PVP unless you win a lottery against 70 other people entering it. You can enter it and wait 9 days to see if you won access to play, and if you didn't, you have to wait til the next lottery period, where the odds will be even worse. C'mon.

I was lucky enough to win my FC plot this last round. I have been having so much fun decorating the house, almost everything in it was crafted by my FC. For some people this is as much fun as the MSQ or PVP, and yet it's the only one that's locked out because SE does not provide enough for everyone. Apartments are not a suitable work around unless they give apartments a balcony with outdoor space.

I've only been playing for a year and the lottery was the first time I've seen a plot available on my server. This is not a matter of "not doing enough" to get it. This is not some lazy player wanting a handout. The old system is gone, and was still an awful system. Let's not blame the players for a lack of housing. And let's not blame the players for being upset about missing out on a fun part of the game. This is not their fault.