Day 1 of nonsense: Why is this allowed?

[Kirutsuki]

Again I must emphasize you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to say robbing an entire district is not an exploit, but fundamentally it is.
Otherwise the game would have always had a little button for you to press that just gives ownership of the house.

The reason why SE hasn't done anything about it is the same reason they didn't touch blacklist system for almost 10years.
There wasn't a pressing concern to do anything until harassments came into question. This system will stay as is as long as majority of the playerbase just turns a blind eye to shenanigans like this.

But I 100% think we would be better off if SE fixed existing systems in the game instead of introducing new systems with new problems.

[Solowing]

Instanced housing done right isn't a band-aid. It is a solution. It's why so many other MMORPGs use it over a ward style system.

Instanced servers only have to be flexible enough to handle the players online at a given moment since the assets are only loaded when entered. Ward servers have to handle those both online and offline since part of the assets are always loaded even if a player is offline.

The question becomes if SE would create a good instanced system or if they would continue to make mistakes when it comes to judging why players want housing and how they use it.

As for it being an example that it's okay to bend the spirit of the rules, you'd be better off talking about 3rd party mods. That's where the example is really being set. That gets far more public discussion than the rare sub farms.

Instanced housing is another Homogenized system that I'd rather not have. A game doesn't stay unique when you're trying to rid it of anything that makes it such.

[Reinha]

Otherwise the game would have always had a little button for you to press that just gives ownership of the house.

It does though. It's called "finalize purchase". You can click that button when an empty plot is available for you to purchase. But it's pretty self evident from your post that's not good enough for you because you want control over other people's houses. Essentially, your desire is to rob them of what they obtained fair and square.

Why didn't anyone on Spriggan buy those houses when they were available? Why didn't you?

[Eastwall]

ccp? Chinese communist party?...

[Jojoya]

The problem with instanced housing is that it completely removes the joy of housing. E.G showing off to others how your house looks.
Even if it had player visits enabled it would literally function the same way Island Sanctuaries do and no-one actually visits anyone's Islands.
So while decorating your house is cool, it'll eventually loose all novelty and be forgotten behind the instance. It is not a solution, at all.

And I doubt SE is going to fundamentally re-work how instances work in the game so you wouldn't even be able to join someone's home instance and play together with them since you'd constanly drop out of the hosts instance the same way you always teleport out of your house when you do a duty.

I never had a problem showing off my house to others when I was playing RIFT and setting up my Dimensions. It was actually easier there to find other good housing designs to tour because there was a system with Likes displayed publicly and a keyword search.

Here, it's hit or miss when you pick a ward. The estate tags have no search system; you have to check the individual ward plot list.

Island Sanctuary is not the same as instanced housing. Instanced housing allows for random visitors (see apartments). Island Sanctuary does not. Island Sanctuary also had zero reason for anyone to visit another player's island until patch 6.4. By then, most of the player base adopted the mindset that Island Sanctuary was something to be ignored. That we're heavily restricted on where we can place items within Island Sanctuary doesn't help. We can't decorate within the buildings, only around them.

Instances don't have to be fundamentally changed in how they function in order for improvement to occur.

Again I must emphasize you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to say robbing an entire district is not an exploit, but fundamentally it is.
Otherwise the game would have always had a little button for you to press that just gives ownership of the house.

The reason why SE hasn't done anything about it is the same reason they didn't touch blacklist system for almost 10years.
There wasn't a pressing concern to do anything until harassments came into question. This system will stay as is as long as majority of the playerbase just turns a blind eye to shenanigans like this.

But I 100% think we would be better off if SE fixed existing systems in the game instead of introducing new systems with new problems.

What is being robbed? Nothing is being robbed.

Essentially we are asking for them to fix an existing system and not asking them to introduce something completely new. The interior of a house is instanced. Apartments are instanced. But the player base is not being well served by the system as it currently exists. We're asking SE to fix it so it will.

If you think that wards are capable of being fixed to serve the entire player base better, how do you think it would be accomplished?

Instanced housing is another Homogenized system that I'd rather not have. A game doesn't stay unique when you're trying to rid it of anything that makes it such.

Most of us aren't asking SE to remove ward housing.

We're asking for them to improve the instanced housing the game already has.

[LianaThorne]

Most of us aren't asking SE to remove ward housing.

We're asking for them to improve the instanced housing the game already has.

Personally I'd like to see both exist but I don't see a point to it ultimately after thinking about this for a while.

Square makes money off forced subscriptions to keep housing. Implement instanced where you don't have to have a subscription to keep it and I have two questions:

1. Who is actually going to stay in neighborhoods at that point if a free option exists? (Since I assume they would carry over everything involved in FCs and private housing unless it's specifically private housing only)
2. How is Square going to make up for the loss with the forced subscriptions no longer being a thing? A more invasive cash shop perhaps? Higher subscription prices in general?

I mean, personally, if I had a house I couldn't lose I'd just be subbing at expansion launches for a month or two and probably closer to the .4-.5 patches to catch up.

[Solowing]

I never had a problem showing off my house to others when I was playing RIFT and setting up my Dimensions. It was actually easier there to find other good housing designs to tour because there was a system with Likes displayed publicly and a keyword search.

Here, it's hit or miss when you pick a ward. The estate tags have no search system; you have to check the individual ward plot list.

Island Sanctuary is not the same as instanced housing. Instanced housing allows for random visitors (see apartments). Island Sanctuary does not. Island Sanctuary also had zero reason for anyone to visit another player's island until patch 6.4. By then, most of the player base adopted the mindset that Island Sanctuary was something to be ignored. That we're heavily restricted on where we can place items within Island Sanctuary doesn't help. We can't decorate within the buildings, only around them.

Instances don't have to be fundamentally changed in how they function in order for improvement to occur.

What is being robbed? Nothing is being robbed.

Essentially we are asking for them to fix an existing system and not asking them to introduce something completely new. The interior of a house is instanced. Apartments are instanced. But the player base is not being well served by the system as it currently exists. We're asking SE to fix it so it will.

If you think that wards are capable of being fixed to serve the entire player base better, how do you think it would be accomplished?


Most of us aren't asking SE to remove ward housing.

We're asking for them to improve the instanced housing the game already has.

By asking for features, such as a upgradable instance (when plots don't even get to do that)

Same amenities as a ward plot (such as a yard and planting plot)

And no Demo timer (which plots are subject to)

Which is why I think your tradeoff should be visibility. Friend List limited instanced plot. You get a plot, decorate it to your hearts content. But if you want the masses to see it, try for a ward plot or use the Apt until then.


For me the idea is you get instanced housing, but ward house is still preferential for like venues/display homes.

[Kirutsuki]

It does though. It's called "finalize purchase". You can click that button when an empty plot is available for you to purchase. But it's pretty self evident from your post that's not good enough for you because you want control over other people's houses. Essentially, your desire is to rob them of what they obtained fair and square.

Why didn't anyone on Spriggan buy those houses when they were available? Why didn't you?

As discussed earlier the houses were never actually available when the transformation to a full FC ward happened. Most likely people left Spriggan and the people who originally owned the houses either contacted the FC or the Fc got in contact with the owners of the houses.
Sure some of them might have been a straight up eviction and a purchase, but more than likely people logged off for the duration of the ownership transfer.

And that kind of comment is really not worth responding, but I will. You CANNOT purchase more than 1personal house and 1FC house per service account.
Anything beyond that and you are using an exploit in how the system flags your character. It is not intentional use-case, it's an oversight from SE and they just either don't care or the issue isn't pressed, because;
"Well the ward still has plenty of S houses in there".

The main reason why Chaos in general has less traffic should be evident, why Spriggan still has housing plots. It's because everyone plays on Light AND there should be a consolidation of DC's for EU where the entire playerbase is limited to one DC.
People just moved to Light and ever since then Chaos has been open for shenanigans like this.

[Kirutsuki]

Personally I'd like to see both exist but I don't see a point to it ultimately after thinking about this for a while.

Square makes money off forced subscriptions to keep housing. Implement instanced where you don't have to have a subscription to keep it and I have two questions:

1. Who is actually going to stay in neighborhoods at that point if a free option exists? (Since I assume they would carry over everything involved in FCs and private housing unless it's specifically private housing only)
2. How is Square going to make up for the loss with the forced subscriptions no longer being a thing? A more invasive cash shop perhaps? Higher subscription prices in general?

I mean, personally, if I had a house I couldn't lose I'd just be subbing at expansion launches for a month or two and probably closer to the .4-.5 patches to catch up.

You bring up a good point actually. Instanced housing could literally make all wards empty in an instant since there is no way of losing them.
And it would make these kinds of FC wards the norm for the entire district and only a select few people are willing enough to make that happen so the district system would just become un-used, even more so than it is today.

So I really hope they just fix issues with the current system, stop allowing these shady ownership exhanges and give more people options to buy M or L houses.
As it stands most available houses in Spriggan are S sizes. So there's clear demand for M or larger and at best for those we get 1L house a week and a few M houses for bidding per week.

[Kirutsuki]

I never had a problem showing off my house to others when I was playing RIFT and setting up my Dimensions. It was actually easier there to find other good housing designs to tour because there was a system with Likes displayed publicly and a keyword search.

That's kind of exactly what I mean. Instances work on other games because they are either newer games or they just designed their instance system from the ground up to be quite robust.
FF14 instance system is literally archaic and even Yoshi-P has stressed that if he could have his way he would re-design the entire system from ground up. Specifically for housing.
I believe he said this during the last update to the housing lottery system.

Regardless, you mentioned that there is no reason for anyone to visit Island Sanctuaries. Even IF it was available to randoms I think you mean.
So what is the reason for anyone to visit your instanced housing? We already have decorations in Island Sanctuaries. So if that isn't enough to entice people to come check the sick decorations, then what changes for housing?

It can't be the possibility to play duties together because of how instances work. So SE should then have to fix instances to work so that you wont get booted from a host's instance the second you enter a duty.
As you said, instances would have to be fundamentally changed, which is much larger of an issue to fix than to just try and fix the existing housing system so that people have enough houses to buy in a district and that these exploits are rooted out.

As for the robbing. Houses are supposed to go back in the sale market every other week and as long as the owner of the house has been logged out a period of a time.
But there are people literally keeping houses as hostage, selling them to the highest bidder in worst cases. Alot of these houses are literally someone keeping them so that they can do an ownership exhchange with anyone willing to pay more than the default gil amount.
OR they keep them as farms or just personal enjoyment, what ever it is someone is now without the option to buy a house from that district.

I don't know if I can make this any cleared, I probably can't. We will more than likely have to agree to disagree that this is or isn't a problem.