Current Housing issues - The Lack of Actual Housing

[flopity_flips]

I'm a touch late to this thread, but I do wanna chime in to say this: in a game praised for its player flexibility, I find it odd that in order to get a house, it's suggested that you have to choose between moving to a dead DC which can potentially impede your ability to easily play with your friends or playing the monotonous, almost draconian, lottery system & pray you can get your fourth or fifth choice of a housing plot. The lack of flexibility in this one system is ridiculous. It's not a massive deal to me if someone owns a small handful of houses on a given account, but it's an issue when people buy up entire wards just to farm gil via the subs. That removes the fun that comes with ward housing given that the people that buy up entire wards don't care to decorate, which makes it sting that much more for people who want housing. This is a prevalent problem on Seraph, but from my passive observation, it's still a problem that exists on busy data centers like Crystal.

As someone who wants a house but is (delusionally) waiting for them to add housing for a certain zone, I do not want instanced housing; I don't believe that is the solution to the lack of supply given the demand, but the current system is unacceptable as is. Like I said, part of the allure of housing is being able to decorate my exterior and see what my neighbors are up to. They need to add more wards/buying restrictions, plain and simple. I know it's not as simple as pressing an "add more wards" button, but the fact of the matter is that so many of the problems with the systems in this game come from the fact that Square stubbornly refuses to actually properly reinvest into their golden goose. Fixing code that is anywhere from 10-20 years old (the game started development in 2004-5! It wouldn't surprise me if there's some 20 year old ghosts in the network/server related code!) & has little to no documentation takes time & manpower; those things cost money. They're not derailing the current patch schedule that's been in place for years just to fix something that works well enough nor will Square allocate resources (read: engineers, more server space) to fix these server-side inefficiencies whilst maintaining the current patch schedule.

It's all around a trash situation that's of Square's own making; however, it's unacceptable that a game that is praised for its player flexibility & freedom is unable to provide this level of flexibility for player housing in 2025. If the goal is to sustain a steady level of player growth year over year, then they need to anticipate & accommodate that growth in the housing system, especially on populated DCs. But, as is the current housing system and its shortfalls are a reflection of Square's shortfalls as a business. I would suggest speaking with your wallet but... well, homeowners won't wanna lose their houses (I don't blame them) and non-homeowners (like me) will keep our subs if it means we can vent to the forums about it.