A Simple Solid Solution for FC Housing

[Darus]

It's obvious a lot of people are angry at housing right now and some are confused as to why, so here's a look at the problems that exist with the FC Housing system.

Reason for Anger -

- Promised feature for all to enjoy

- Yoshida far off when stating medium plots cost quest money from lvling to 50 x3

- Escalating prices requiring extensive grinding to afford

- Poor game design over a separate problem (gil sink)

*The anger is over promises and honor. We would have been less angry if they said they were holding off until they could accommodate more.*


Yoshida says that "the wealthiest players could easily buy up all available plots of land". Thus he changed the pricing and claims we can make about 20,000 gil a day.

Problems with the Approach -

- How many hours does making 20,000 gil take? Most work or study and hours mean more

- Out of 20,000 a day, what % will a person give to their FC if any? We save our money and spend some on gear and items

- The cost makes many turn to RMTs to buy it

- No restrictions in place on housing separate from money


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If you take a moment to think about it, Yoshida is expecting all FCs to form 20 man money train teams who spend many hours a day to make money for the FC. FCs are not a totalitarian state however, and the players do no give their money in whole to the FC. Yoshida is looking at the problem without details. If you earn 20,000 gil, you spent how much on items and equipment? If everyone was stuck on earning gil in this way, they wouldn't be able to play other classes as that costs money to equip unless you are an obsessive crafter like myself. By this way of thinking, he is expecting ALL FC members to donate 100% of their money into getting a house, which is an unlikely occurrence.

As it stands, Yoshida's stance is flawed in every way but he has overlooked more efficient means of limiting houses! He has forgotten that Game Design is about finding better more inspired approaches to problems and never neglecting that a simple solution is best. Here he has become fixated on removing Gil from the population to limit house purchasing instead of a better more game innovating solution.

Fundamental Pricing Stance

Our fundamental stance toward housing prices was that we wanted to ensure that plots would be evenly distributed, avoiding a situation in which the wealthiest players could easily buy up all available plots of land. Please understand that while we will be adding servers and expanding housing areas as soon as we can, it is simply physically impossible for us to accomplish this easily, in a matter of one or two weeks.

So, we don't want the Wealthiest Players to buy out plots? How do we lower the number without raising prices?! Employ a non money linked number of course!

Solution!

- Limit Housing to a simplified number of members in an FC for a house grade. 8 for Small, 25 for Medium, 60 for Large. Employ a number based on required players and multiply with a possible minor addition of cost (5% more for medium, 10% for large). This lowers the cost to 250,000 gil per person, (275,000 per person for a large house).

(I've heard a lot of people talk of buying multiple plots so - if FC's can buy more than one plot, make it so they can buy only one. There is no real need for more. If we ever needed to be able to buy more, make it so you can have only one of each grade)

- 2,000,000 for small

- 6,875,000 for medium

-16,500,000 for large

This solution just means that an FC of a certain size qualifies for a house. It has the unfortunate prevention of smaller FC being unable to buy a large house, but good luck having 4 people earn 60-650 million gil as is. This solution forces a number of people per house meaning that a certain number gets to enjoy it. (An important note here is that it should be based on accounts and not characters, as alts would just be made otherwise). This solution means that if every "wealthy" person went to buy out all the big houses, they'd be dragging 59 or more people with them to buy em out. The only "problem" with this is that a small house requires 8 people. This does limit 4 man FCs a bit, but they can easily make 4 new friends to join them. In that sense, this actually boosts community bulding too.

If you can't supply a large house for every 60 players then you will NEVER be able to supply for private player housing.

This is a FAR more fair and qualified solution that charging us more than we've even SEEN in game. As it stands, only those who HAD money on legacy can afford a house EVER. Even after the time for it to decrease occurs, we'll never see the feature. Many people stuck around with the idea of what housing will add to the game for them but are betrayed by this flawed system.

It is obvious this flawed design crumbled under the desperate need for a gil-sink. This tunnel vision is hurting the game that has risen to become so great. Whoever came up with this messed up money idea needs to be given a vacation and to rethink their stance on game design. It is not about coming up with a solution, it is about creating an easier and better solution that is simplistic in the approach and adds a greater depth to the game.

So lay off the gil sink Yoshi, you and your team are better game designers than that!