The Cost of Living in Eorzea

[Alphi]

In light of the recent revelation in the patch notes about Free Company housing prices, many players have come to complain about the extortionate amount of money SquareEnix is charging players who wish to purchase a plot of land. Many emotions have been spreading such as disappointment, anger, and frustration. But let's break down the arguments and flesh out what the problem really is.

First off, I would like to make it clear that my opinions were generated using the facts at hand and double checking my resources so as to not cause any more confusion than is necessary.

Crushed Expectations
At the heart of this matter we can feel a sense of disappointment that we were expecting Free Company houses to be popping up like daisies, thus assuming that the prices of houses would be reasonable enough for a common group of casual players would find a place to call home in Eorzea. However this is very far from the case itself. Given the release of the prices for housing, particularly for Legacy Servers, this was very far from the case.

As a few people pointed out the prices are not only unreasonable they are also virtually unattainable by any particular group of people given their Free Company status. A few typographical errors seem to have been made in the release of the Patch Notes for 2.1. If I may draw the attention to the statement “The price of a plot of land is set to be reduced 14% every six hours.” At a glance this seems to invoke the thought of “Oh, it’s only expensive at first then I can eventually afford a house.”

But the harsh reality is broken in when the sight of the example catches you. Doing all the maths it actually is flat rate of 0.14% of the starting price (8,000,000g) for every six hours equating to 11,200g. So after 40 devaluations (i.e. 10 Days) it results into 7,552,000g as they provided in the example. Being a player in Sargatanas, the 312,500,000g depreciates by 437,500g every six hours, and in 10 days would result in 295,000,000g, which most people will agree is understatedly unreasonable.

The only silver lining I can see is if this is in Eorzean time and there is no minimum price for each plot of land. I’m still hoping that it is and this is just a big PR mistake. And if that’s the case, a plot will become more than 50% cheaper in 4-5 real life days, assuming the calculation of one real life minute equals 20 Eorzean minutes.


The Assumption of Cost
If I were to guess, SquareEnix has setup their prices based on poor calculations and methods. As mentioned in the Live Letter, the prices were reached based on the amount of money circulating in the economy. Again, this assumption is very dangerous since most servers experience economy in a similar fashion to real life; We have the high earners way up at the top with Gil in the nine figures and all the way down the bottom we have adventurers who barely make six figures, seven at a push.

Now even if the Gil in all the players in the server (i.e. Sargatanas or Excalibur) is a very large amount, this straight calculation of averaging it among all players is prone to faults such as curve breakers that skew the results. Taking that to be the average amount a regular player has is not acceptable given there are so many factors that may influence the distribution of wealth.


Factors of Wealth to (Re)Consider
Although this is a Legacy server, there are a lot of non-legacy players in them who are now being penalized that they chose poorly. Of course they weren’t told this would happen at all. This may be a legacy server but not all players played 1.0 until the end and are basically new players as well.

The number of players that exist in a Free Company isn’t always a large number. You may have 20 dedicated crafters in one or a total of 200 casual and hardcore adventurers in another. This entry barrier presented before us is too high. It would in theory, using Sargatanas as an example, take at least 300 people contributing 1,000,000g each or 30 members donating 10,000,000g each, assuming everyone is willing to give that amount of money. This would force Free Companies to merge losing the unique vision each Free Company has and causing leadership problems, management of too many members, and flooded chat channels.

If these people were to pool their money together as a collective unit, what would they achieve? A house that is almost useless apart from say aesthetics or bragging rights? For all intents and purposes, the house has no practical application that would serve a unique function. A Free Company chest, a market board, and NPCs are freely available in the markets in the city-states anyway. Wouldn’t the money be better spent on i70 gear or lots of crafting materials?

If an average person were to see this dilemma, would he even consider buying this huge Gil sink or just hang on to his money? The latter would seem more plausible. This Gil sink will cause a large upset in the markets. Put it this way if you have 1g and the server as a whole has 100g then 50g gets taken away spent foolishly on houses, your 1g is now worth more. You used to own 1/100 of the economy and now you earn 1/50 of it. Therefore, the longer players hold onto their money and watch other players waste money on large Gil sinks, they inadvertently become richer and the prices for all items become affected.

Our markets have already been affected by botters who pump too much supply into the markets anyway and horde money while not losing out in the investment of time. Now this situation is going to cause even more need to buy Gil from questionable sources.


What is the Point?
What is the point of a Free Company house that is a huge drain in income? What would even justify that amount of money even for a tight living space that won’t fit 20 people? There are a lot of questions to be asked of Square Enix since this raises problems in several areas.

Furniture was supposed to be one of the biggest markets for a crafter when housing is implemented, now it’s a far cry from being even remotely profitable. If a Free Company already has the money to buy such an expensive luxury item what is stopping them from making the furniture themselves? Will there even be enough demand? How can we sell furniture to the minority that is able to make buy plots of land? Will I even be able to sell furniture and have enough money for my own house?

They also mentioned a system of being able to create more instances when a particular one becomes partly full. What is the use of that when housing will be too scarce that no one will buy them when even the server can’t afford to fill up an instance?

Several Free Companies take housing as a place to relax and enjoy a second life in Eorzea, but the prices just cause more players stress. As a crafter myself, who has sold dozens upon dozens of high level clothing, it does not make sense that such a vast amount of sales only equates to a small house. In actuality, it doesn’t equate to a house, it equates to a pile of dirt that is bought but cannot be sold again nor can the Gil used to buy it be refunded.

Conclusion
Housing was supposed to be one of the main focuses of Patch 2.1, but now it seems more like a vanity system for those who do not have anything better to spend their money on. This is not content accessible to anyone, this is content accessible for those who made insane amounts of money in the game because they either got lucky by buying Materia from 1.0 in huge quantities or they horded so much money that the 90% of Gil barely affected them. With such a high barrier to overcome, would anyone even consider playing the game with housing in mind? SquareEnix has made a disappointing move already only time will tell if they will respond humbly and hear our concerns.

Thank you for reading this article and please share this to anyone who might like to read up on the troubling situation at hand.

May our voices be heard,
Alphi Windspring