(Large Housing Problem) 177 Bids on One House

[Jojoya]

Yeah, I think it was around that until they fixed it, probably around 12 now.

You were correct about the number of FC only wards at the time that the lottery was first introduced. Wards 1-18 were designated for FC purchase and 19-24 were for personal purchase. A few months later, they changed it to wards 1-9 for FC only and 10-24 for personal (except for the 4 EU worlds that had just been added). Finally when wards 25-30 were added they changed ward designations to 1-6 FC, 7-20 mixed, 21-24 personal, 25 FC only and 26-30 personal only (except on the Dynamis, Materia and 4 EU worlds where wards 25-30 are still unavailable).

Some thought that the 30 day waiting period on FC master eligibility would kill housing RMT. I don't know the actual outcome since I don't study RMT but my guess is that it was reduced but not stopped. Those who do study it say a fair portion of the RMT housing ads seen are scams and not legitimate sales attempts.

SE is still going to favor FCs over individuals when it comes to availability of plots since houses were originally a FC only content with FC only features gated by ownership of a FC house. I'm certain they're aware that RMT still occurs but they have to balance that against what they intend for legitimate FCs.

It's not the lottery that has placed housing in shambles. It's been in shambles all along. It is the supply system that is the problem and will continue to be the problem until SE makes changes so supply will meet demand. That includes demand by size of plot, not just overall number of plots.

If Housing Mirage gets implemented, it will reduce part of the demand by size but not eliminate it. Gardeners are going to prefer large plots to be able to place 3 garden patches instead of one. Players like me are going to prefer larges for the outdoor decorating potential even if we prefer smaller interiors.

If a greatly improved instanced housing system gets implemented, it's hard to say what it would do to ward demand. We don't really know how many players will prefer having a house in a ward to getting the instanced housing. A lot of that will depend on exactly what improvements are made to it. I can dream that SE will bring RIFT style housing to FFXIV but getting it is doubtful.

Our hopes for more housing focus were killed with island sanctuary. Island sanctuary should have been scrapped to make room for more housing; it was a complete waste of game resources and server space. Now we are left with a half-baked system for both.

I don't agree. Island Sanctuary was added to address player requests (evidently primarily from the JP player base) that SE couldn't implement into the current housing system.

I also feel like Island Sanctuary may have been used as a testing ground for instanced housing and possible features in the same way that Squadrons were a testing ground in the development of Trusts and Duty Support.

What will happen if every player is given their own private instance? We had temporary congestion at the contest release then after those first couple of weeks players had no issues entering their islands unless there was a technical issue with the servers. Instanced housing would likely have a short period of congestion since there would be no need to spend hours in it gathering materials and trying to rank it up.

Can a system be created that allows players to place multiple copies of a furnishing they own instead of needing to own and store that number? Yes. Imagine the improvement to player inventory if we only needed to have one of every item we wanted to use then could place it into our housing as many times as we like up to the total item limit.

Things they would still have to work on: allowing players more flexibility in setting up guest permissions for their private instance. Players are constantly requesting ways to blacklist players from entering their housing while allowing anyone else to enter. Island Sanctuary went to the opposite extreme - only those included within specific social circles of the owner (friend, FC, party) could enter.

They also need to set up a search function for finding housing to visit. Estate tags are a good way to accomplish in a multi-lingual game. If they could also record Likes in the Message Book to a central database, that could become another way to search for housing to visit.

Hopefully all these little things will add up to a better housing system in the future for all players, not just those lucky enough to score a plot in the lottery,