Turn on Demolish for Housing and fix housing please.

[Syln]

Official response : https://youtu.be/5njqHB1_JXQ?t=20

[DragonFlyy]

I'm of the mind that they can but choose not to. They showed they're able to give each player an instanced area that has all the same functions of housing (minus furniture placement but reason stands that if it can do everything else, it has the capacity to do furniture placement as well) with extra features on top. They also strapped it to the housing servers which shows that the capacity was always there to do something like IH and not even need their own servers for it.

I just genuinely believe that they want housing to be exclusive and will use it as an incentive to shift population around when they open new servers/a way to keep people paying a sub when auto-demo is turned back on.

I still think IA is a way of testing to see how instanced housing would work. If IH was introduced before a test, people would explode because they couldn't access their house, much like IA was flooded. But doing it with IA gave them the same data they would gather with housing, but not upset people as much. With housing they know it would clog up the works even worse.

[ForteNightshade]

Contrary to popular belief, very few houses actually open up from the demolish. They still should have one to flush out people who have long since quit but I'm willing to bet not even a 100 houses on the whole your Data Center will be available. Why? They always announce it well in advance. So people who are either on a break or just haven't touched their house will go move something around right before the timer starts and bam. They're set for another 45 days.

Don't get me wrong. I'm hardly defending this terrible housing system. But housing demo isn't going to open up many options. What houses do open up will immediately be swarmed.

[Gemina]

As someone who does own a house, I am in favor of auto-demo going back on.

The game needs to be able to cycle houses between inactive players and those who aren't. Regardless of whether or not you see auto demo as fair or not, it can also be said that it's not really fair to force everyone else to wait x amount of months to have a realistic chance at owning a house again.

The question I asked was posed for self-reflection, and does not express my own opinion on the matter. It's a loaded question, and meant to have the poster accept the same terms of fairness they want applied to everyone else.

If you are in favor of a more/better cyclic system, I can impose another question and ask if you would support a property tax that would target all plot owners, meaning it includes the active players as well making them have to pay a recurring fee in order to keep their homes. The intent behind that question isn't rhetorical or reflective though. It's just asking for your opinion on a suggestion I am making.

I make that suggestion because if we want to talk about things in terms of what's fair, the matter becomes excessively complex; greatly so. Housing is a finite resource that everyone wants, and this encompasses those with greater access along with those with less to no access. It's a take from Peter to pay Paul situation, and basically hopeless. The only solution that is truly fair to everyone is to abolish housing in its current form completely, but I know the devs would never enact such a harsh decision. As such, the property tax serves to equalize grievances by those with greater access to those with less to no access.

I already know most players will read that and immediately think, "You seriously believe that the solution isn't to fix housing at all, but instead grieve the players who already own property?" And if that is the case, my answer is unequivocally, "yes." People seem to think 'fairness' applies only to situations wherein everyone benefits, and that has absolutely nothing to do with what is fair. Fairness is impartial. Granting favoritism to no parties, and unbiased judgment for everyone.

I would fully support a system that favors the players willing to put in and sustain the effort it would take to acquire a plot, and remove those who can't or become unwilling to do so. There will no longer be a need for an auto-demolish, and instead it will be a foreclosure. You will get a true cycle of real estate becoming readily available for purchase. Under this system, I'm confident that a lot of plots will be relinquished by their owners, even among active players who don't want to deal with the taxation.

I am sympathetic towards those who can no longer keep their plots due to circumstances out of their own control. However, the plots need to be available for those who are able to log into the game consistently. If circumstances pull people away from the game, I think they have bigger things to worry about than a virtual house. I think we all can agree on that.

I also know the next go to is instanced housing. Well, this isn't a solution either. It's just new content. I hope everyone understands that. The housing issue will at best, be swept under the rug. The more likely scenario is the flames get fanned.

[Avoidy]

This lottery system relies on some way of introducing new homes to the lottery system for it to function. Without demolition in the current system, the housing game grinds to a halt because eventually you just run out of homes.
The world is a turbulent place and it's probably only going to get worse. Rather than stop and start it again arbitrarily (something bad is always happening somewhere. If SE decides to end it because the Ukraine/Russia conflict is over, surely there will be a flood somewhere else on the same day. Why not stop it for those people, too? etc.) demolition should simply be removed permanently and we should get a new housing system that doesn't rely on demolition, preferably an instanced one similar to the island sanctuary setup.

[Stormpeaks]

If you are in favor of a more/better cyclic system, I can impose another question and ask if you would support a property tax that would target all plot owners, meaning it includes the active players as well making them have to pay a recurring fee in order to keep their homes. The intent behind that question isn't rhetorical or reflective though. It's just asking for your opinion on a suggestion I am making.

Certainly not, houses cost gil to buy, they are not cheap either, 50m gil for a large or 20m for a medium is not up to everyone, this would punish people that are struggling with gil even further, while multiowners would have no trouble at all as they make bank from submarines anyway.

Also bring back auto demo.

[MistyMew]

As someone who does own a house, I am in favor of auto-demo going back on.

The game needs to be able to cycle houses between inactive players and those who aren't. Regardless of whether or not you see auto demo as fair or not, it can also be said that it's not really fair to force everyone else to wait x amount of months to have a realistic chance at owning a house again (Sorry, fighting hundreds of people at one placard is not a realistic chance, I don't care how anyone tries to spin it. It's not). The devs have made it pretty much crystal clear at this point that they don't want to do instanced housing, so there's absolutely no reason to keep auto-demo off for months and months and basically strip people of the ability to own a house in general. This is why people are making FCs and buying up FC plots because people are mad and rightfully so.

I'd rather have auto-demo go back in and babysit a timer again if it means houses will start to move on the market for other people to try to win. It's been months, if not over a year now including covid auto-demo being turned off. If you haven't renewed your sub once in that time, you don't need a house. Bit harsh but it's the truth.

As someone who also owns a house I never want them to turn it on again...ever.

Its borderline criminal for them to take away an in game purchase simply because we dont log in as often as THEY say to? ...paying continually isnt even enough? LOL

It is a disgusting/shameful feature that should never have been implemented.
Fix the problem, instanced housing , enough for all. NOTHING less should be acceptable.

[Stormpeaks]

As someone who also owns a house I never want them to turn it on again...ever.

Its borderline criminal for them to take away an in game purchase simply because we dont log in as often as THEY say to? ...paying continually isnt even enough? LOL

It is a disgusting/shameful feature that should never have been implemented.
Fix the problem, instanced housing , enough for all. NOTHING less should be acceptable.

As if instanced housing would fix anything while "normal" housing would still exist.

People would still want normal housing anyway, why settle for a worst option ? It wouldnt fix anything.

Open auto demo again, free up the houses that people have abandoned for a long time, and let it roll. Housing needs auto demo to stay viable. If you dont play once per 45 days perhaps you shouldnt have the house in the first place, you dont even play the game, you shouldnt keep a house away from people that are actually playing and are subscribed.

[Espon]

Would you still be in favor of auto demolish if you owned a house? That question is for you, and I don't actually need an answer to that. Your honest answer however, holds all sorts of implications about what you deem is and is not fair when it comes to housing. Monday morning quarterbacking won't bring you an enjoyable experience, and allowing the housing system to strip you of that enjoyment is equally bad, if not worse.

If I quit playing the game, I no longer need my house. I only got my house because they turned on auto-demolition and about a third of the plots got demolished 45 days later, and if I stopped playing then I wouldn't mind losing my house.

Unless they decide to add instance housing, it'll continue to remain limited and that means inactive players need to move out. Aside from one FC, all my neighbours have not played since Shadowbringers and I highly doubt they'll suddenly come back if they turned on auto-demolition. If they're going to be upset about losing their house, they should of been paying their sub instead of taking almost a year-long break.

[Raraka]

...decouple workshops entirely from housing...

This would help a lot, idk, give us a instanced FC workshop in the City-state affiliation of our FC