Just Another Housing Complaint

[ValkyriaCrystalis]

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.

This.
I’m sorry OP but I think the same. When I started in march 2016 and discovered that you can have a house on the game, my FC mates told me “forget it”, all are taken”.
I didn’t gave up, upped my gatherers and crafters and finally manages to grab a house in may 2017.
My husband is playing since 2014 and told me that back then, it was much easier to have a house because there often were empty plots (I don’t see your server since I’m on mobile, but still…). Plus, crafting was a very much easier to make gils than is it now.
So I really don’t understand how you couldn’t make the money to afford even a small.

[Fybrile]

This.
I’m sorry OP but I think the same. When I started in march 2016 and discovered that you can have a house on the game, my FC mates told me “forget it”, all are taken”.
I didn’t gave up, upped my gatherers and crafters and finally manages to grab a house in may 2017.
My husband is playing since 2014 and told me that back then, it was much easier to have a house because there often were empty plots (I don’t see your server since I’m on mobile, but still…). Plus, crafting was a very much easier to make gils than is it now.
So I really don’t understand how you couldn’t make the money to afford even a small.

Thanks for taking the time to read my complaint.

I appreciate that you agree that it's my own fault that I don't have a house, but I have to say that opinion is wrong.

The flaw in your logic is that you then go on to describe your own experience as evidence and assume that my experience should be the same. It was not. Regardless of you and your husband's dedication and stick-to-it-tiveness, the primary, deciding factor that got you your houses was just blind luck - you were at the right place, at the right time to right-click a sign at the exact moment all the other bots and players weren't trying to click it. You got lucky. Then, you turned around, pulled up the ladder behind you, hopped on the forums and told people that if they just wasted more of their time they would be able to get to experience a basic part of the game. It's akin to people who think tuition shouldn't be free because they paid tuition. It's just a mentality of paying misery forward, which I disagree with.

In a system based on luck, no amount of rolling up your sleeves and exerting just a bit more effort is going to guarantee you win. For all you know, I have spent twice or thrice as much time as you clicking on signs. That doesn't guarantee me a house. The moral of the story is you should appreciate that you simply got lucky, avoid blaming players who have not, and really take an honest, objective look at the problem. If you did, I'm certain you would also see your position is wrong.

If SE can give us each our own island, something that each and every character will be entitled to, something that appears to be far more server-intensive than housing, without any of this misery, than there's no defense for the current suffering that is the player housing system.

[Fybrile]

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.

This is truly a sad and terrible way to look at the situation. It's depressing to think people really think like this.

It's not that what you're saying is objectively wrong, it's that it's lacking all reasonable context.

I do want a house, and I have been prepared to sink countless hours into sign clicking. Early on, I even had fun pulling a 3-day, double all-nighter camping a sign, clicking it once every fifteen seconds. But, after growing up and experiencing a bit more of life, after having a child and generally being better able to appreciate better priorities, I came to realize that what SE is asking IS NOT worth the reward in question.

I have simply gotten better at recognizing when what is being asked is not worth the return.

You shouldn't be proud of the time you've wasted for something that's handed out for free in other games. You should be angry that the developers who forced you to do that when they didn't have to. I don't see you or anyone having a house as an achievement, the same way I don't see someone having a retainer as an achievement.

I'm more than ready and willing to sink whatever time and effort and skill is required to get what I want through playing this game - to repeat dungeons, to get better at my job, to wipe again and again and again - because it's doing what I paid to do... playing the game. Trying to get a house is irrefutably NOT playing the game. It has heretofore been just periodically hitting a mouse button while catching up on Netflix. It's something that could be (probably was being) easily performed by the most basic of mods.

I hope that you take some time to reflect and reconsider in the future before you tell someone how much they want things isn't enough. Here, you decided to do that without knowing me, without knowing my experience, and instead of assuming I'm a good guy that's had a real problem, you chose to assume I'm lazy and lesser than you, wade into my complaint to SE, and criticize me for your assumptions.

And, honestly, that's just not cool.

[Nepentha]

Hard agreement with the OP here. I have no idea why people are taking the stance of 'You aren't owed a house'. Why? Why does housing have to be a finite resource in this game? Why was it designed that way? Why can't the devs figure out a way to make housing a feature all players can enjoy? Why is there such resistance to the idea of it?

[ValkyriaCrystalis]

Thanks for taking the time to read my complaint.

I appreciate that you agree that it's my own fault that I don't have a house, but I have to say that opinion is wrong.

The flaw in your logic is that you then go on to describe your own experience as evidence and assume that my experience should be the same. It was not. Regardless of you and your husband's dedication and stick-to-it-tiveness, the primary, deciding factor that got you your houses was just blind luck - you were at the right place, at the right time to right-click a sign at the exact moment all the other bots and players weren't trying to click it. You got lucky. Then, you turned around, pulled up the ladder behind you, hopped on the forums and told people that if they just wasted more of their time they would be able to get to experience a basic part of the game. It's akin to people who think tuition shouldn't be free because they paid tuition. It's just a mentality of paying misery forward, which I disagree with.

In a system based on luck, no amount of rolling up your sleeves and exerting just a bit more effort is going to guarantee you win. For all you know, I have spent twice or thrice as much time as you clicking on signs. That doesn't guarantee me a house. The moral of the story is you should appreciate that you simply got lucky, avoid blaming players who have not, and really take an honest, objective look at the problem. If you did, I'm certain you would also see your position is wrong.

If SE can give us each our own island, something that each and every character will be entitled to, something that appears to be far more server-intensive than housing, without any of this misery, than there's no defense for the current suffering that is the player housing system.

Except the fact that, when I bought it, the placard thing was not implemented.
I was lucky a spot was free at this time, on that I can agree very well.
So what I genuinely not understand is that : you are on this game since a very long time, so why didn’t you try before the placard war nightmare?
I totally agree this system of luck is pure garbage, but back then it wasn’t. And it was more easy to make gils.

Sorry if I sound aggressive, English isn’t my main language and I wasn’t aiming for bashing you.

I’m really in favour on instanced housing as I said in others threads, this way everyone could finally have a house.
I forgot to add in my previous post but like you, I think if we are all paying the same sub, we all should have access to houses, period. But the amount of work to make gils in game is the player responsibility.
If you have the money, you should be able to by a house, of any size.

I wish you can secure one, one day !

[Silverbane]

Housing as it is now isn't an auction, it's a lottery drawing, where the price of entry is refunded if you lose.

This isn't the best way IMO: a sealed-bid auction with a minimum bid based on lot size would have been better.

The amount of gil such a house-sale system would have removed from the game would have been staggering; there are plenty of people who could bid 200 million or more on house without breaking a sweat. And removing gil from the game results in deflation, which lowers prices of everything, and that benefits us all.

[Fybrile]

So what I genuinely not understand is that : you are on this game since a very long time, so why didn’t you try before the placard war nightmare?

My point is that I did, but also that that's not really relevant.

Do a quick google search for "FFXIV player housing released" and you'll see that even in the announcement articles, people have been disillusioned and mislead by the developers of this game since the beginning. I don't believe you'll find a single article written in a positive light. From the beginning Yoshi-P has been apologizing for the lack of houses, and they have not backed up these apologies with meaningful action since then.

The unspoken premise of your disbelief is that it's unbelievable someone who's played since 2.0 (or, in my case, before) wouldn't have a house. If that were true, this forum wouldn't be overflowing with the exact same complaint, changeless, since before patch 2.38. If you go back all the way to 2014, you see the same threads again and again and again and again and again and again. And the same apology again and again and again and again. Even when they add new wards, they're still apologizing with the announcements, because they know they're far, far short of the number of plots needed for the player base. There are 100 plots in a Ward right? 25 wards? 4 districts. So, around like 10,000 plots on a server. The server populations are between 80,000 - 100,000 each. And, let's say half of those plots are for FCs, not players.

THAT'S SE PROVIDING HOUSING FOR 0.5% OF THE POPULATON.

It's indefensible.


There are just two sides to this fence. The one that agrees with the complaint, and the one where you've already got lucky and want to pull the ladder up behind you.

But, what you're basically asking me for is my own personal story, so I'll try my best to recall what happened 8 years ago.

When they were released in 2.38, I had been on the Hyperion, a Legacy server. At the time, it was one of the more populated servers, and they had variable pricing for houses, which - if my memory serves me - led to small plots on my server costing around 7 million gil. I'm not 100% certain how long that lasted, but what I recall is that 7 million was the amount I was working towards. At the release of housing, I had around 5 million gil on my main character - which I don't think was an abnormally low amount of gil at the time. Unless you were a crafter back then - which I wasn't - there wasn't a lot of ways to make gil. This was before a lot of the gil bonuses that players benefit from today.

When housing was released, it was for FCs only - so that's why I didn't get one in the first wave. And then when private housing was released, I didn't have 7 million. If I recall correctly, I didn't get to the amount I needed until around patch 2.5 - by which time the few dozen small plots (I think there was like 10 wards only at the time, so like a couple thousand private plots for a server of probably like 80,000 at the time) had long sold out. As Legacy players, many of them had tons of gil burning a hole in their pockets.

I had heard that the newer servers had houses all the way up until 3.0, but at the time I had friends on Hyperion and I'd been there since Leviathan was shut down, and I really didn't want to play on a non-legacy server, so that wasn't an option for me. And, believe it or not, I'm a patient, quiet guy and I felt like: "one day, I'll get that house. No worries." When a plot did become available, I'd sit there for my entire play session and try to get it. But, I wouldn't pull an all-nighter, because that's really unhealthy and harming yourself isn't something I'm willing to do for a video game. So, that's how I missed the 2nd wave.

But, housing really didn't really change from then on. There would be new wards added from time to time, which I'd race to get - and fail. I don't remember when they added the sign - but it's all I've ever known so it must have been pretty early on in the timeline. In 3.0 I took trying to get a plot a bit more seriously, and against my better judgement, I did pull all-nighters trying to get the worst plots of land in districts I didn't even want to be in. Usually with between 8 and 15 other players. Not only did I never get a plot, I never even saw the end to a hidden timer. Inevitably, I'd either have to go to bed or go to work, and when I came back there was a house there.

In 4.0, I became disillusioned with the game a bit (one large reason being housing). And, while I maintained my subscription, I was taking a break at the release of the Kugane housing.

I hope that suffices as enough of a backstory. I really shouldn't have to provide one. Regardless of what one might try to say, I know that I have done more than enough (frankly, far too much) to get a house in this game. The kneejerk reaction from the players here shouldn't be to disbelieve people when they take the time to post a complaint on this forum.

[ValkyriaCrystalis]

Ty very much for explaining your story to me, it’s nice from you. I didn’t want to be intrusive so for that I apologise!
I forgot that houses were more expansive when you wanted to buy one years back and that was an important part of the problem.

My little story too :
At some point, came the placard war nightmare, in which I had to take part in 2019, because I moved from Switzerland to France, had to set my internet in my new place and I wasn’t able to connect in time to save my first house.
So like you, at some point, I had the money but was stuck with that stupid timer. I feel your pain.
I logged many times in the morning before going to work, for seeing that the house I saw before going to bed was gone… Like you, I refused to sleep deprived myself, that’s not normal SE was expecting this from us. (I am a social worker and I need to be in shape for my work, because my job is very mind exhausting sometimes). Plus, on Phoenix, we have people with very different times of play, so it’s really not easy. :/

I repeat : ever player who can afford to buy a house should be able to buy a house.
Lottery is certainly more healthy, but the house supply is inadequate.
Instanced housing, please, SE !

If you took part in the current lottery I really wish you the best of luck !

Ps : I looked on Google for housing history, I will put my rose tinted glasses away,the old FFXIV times wasn’t better than know, I guess.

[Fybrile]

Ty very much for explaining your story to me, it’s nice from you. I didn’t want to be intrusive so for that I apologise!
I forgot that houses were more expansive when you wanted to buy one years back and that was an important part of the problem.

My little story too :
At some point, came the placard war nightmare, in which I had to take part in 2019, because I moved from Switzerland to France, had to set my internet in my new place and I wasn’t able to connect in time to save my first house.
So like you, at some point, I had the money but was stuck with that stupid timer. I feel your pain.
I logged many times in the morning before going to work, for seeing that the house I saw before going to bed was gone… Like you, I refused to sleep deprived myself, that’s not normal SE was expecting this from us. (I am a social worker and I need to be in shape for my work, because my job is very mind exhausting sometimes). Plus, on Phoenix, we have people with very different times of play, so it’s really not easy. :/

I repeat : ever player who can afford to buy a house should be able to buy a house.
Lottery is certainly more healthy, but the house supply is inadequate.
Instanced housing, please, SE !

If you took part in the current lottery I really wish you the best of luck !

Ps : I looked on Google for housing history, I will put my rose tinted glasses away,the old FFXIV times wasn’t better than know, I guess.

+1 I wish everyone was as nice as you!

That sucks that you lost your house. My friend lost his house for pretty much the same reason and, instead of going through it all over again, he literally just quit the game.

[MistyMew]

I think every player IS indeed entitled to a house...every last one.


Stop being so incredibly stingy and stubborn SE, you know the demand as well as we all do, fulfill it. Do it.