Balmung is Homeless on Christmas' Eve. Is this really what you wanted, Yoshida-san?

[Abriael]

Hello Yoshida-san, and Merry Christmas.

For many of us, unfortunately, especially on legacy servers, it isn't that merry. We hoped to celebrate it in the new houses you publicized basically as the main feature of patch 2.1, but almost none of our free companies can afford one to celebrate in.

At the moment of this writing a whole TWO houses have been purchased on the whole Balmung server, and from what I've been told every single legacy server in group 4 and 5 is in a similar situation, over a week after the feature has been introduced.

I have to ask you, is this really what you wanted? Did you really want the housing zones to be a empty and gloomy ghost towns for a long while?

They look lovely, but at the moment they're basically wasted server space, which you're paying for, and which we're paying for as well with our monthly fees.

And there's a further problem, that I'll touch on in passing. Do you know what happens when you make one of the most anticipated (if not the most anticipated) features of a relevant patch extremely costly?

You paralyze the economy.

Not only on Balmung and other legacy servers almost no one can afford a house, but it became a LOT more difficult for crafters and gatherers (or anyone that has anything to sell really) to make gil.

Why?

It's easy: because when people are trying to save as much money as possible for their house, they don't buy stuff. They procrastinate putting materia in their armor, they ignore crafted gear, they use the cheapest possible food or don't use food at all.

To put it down simply, people don't buy. And the economy is nearly paralyzed.

I hope the dire situation of housing purchases will make you understand that the current pricing scheme is, for lack of gentler words, an utter failure. And you know, if you ever read my posts, that I'm not one to use hyperbole. I really dislike using such a strong term, especially since the rest of the patch is so good, but I feel there's no softer way to describe the situation.

Again, I must implore you not to wait further to drop the pricing on all legacy servers at least to the level of grouping 3, if not further. We have waited enough: a year or more since the feature has been announced and then continuously hyped. Please give us a better chance to enjoy it during the busy time of the holidays. This is when people have a lot of time to play, and this is when they should be given as much access as possible to the features, even in the name of account retention.

I apologize for the urgent tone, but I still hold hope that, while the Christmas of those that wanted a house on a legacy server has been rather somber, you'll see that the current prices are not reasonable or fair, and you'll drop them radically and in time for us to celebrate at least the new year in a new house, enjoying the fantastic feature you worked so hard for. All we're asking is to have a chance to marvel at all that work and praise you and your team for it.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas!

[Alhanelem]

TL;DR, they're already planning to reduce legacy server prices, but they'll be doing it gradually not all at once. As long as it doesn't stay absurd forever I"m not too bothered. Not in any hurry to buy.

economy isn't really paralyzed, most people on legacy servers just said to hell with it and started buying/selling normally. As the prices come down people may reconsider their options.

[Abriael]

TL;DR, they're already planning to reduce legacy server prices, but they'll be doing it gradually not all at once. As long as it doesn't stay absurd forever I"m not too bothered. Not in any hurry to buy.

Doing it gradually is not a solution, nor is beneficial in the light of account retention. Not to mention that it doesn't help in any way as a gil sink as well, because many people just say "to hell with it" and don't partecipate in the gold sink at all.

Basically, there's no reasonable reason not to drop the prices ASAP, and there's every possible reason to do it as soon as possible in coding terms.

economy isn't really paralyzed, most people on legacy servers just said to hell with it and started buying/selling normally

It's a whole lot slower than it was on December the 13th.

[Alhanelem]

Doing it gradually is not a solution, nor is beneficial in the light of account retention.

I don't think the housing costs have had any effect on account retention whatsoever. You'd have to be reeeeeeally easily upset to quit over a mostly-non-gameplay-impacting feature.

It's a whole lot slower than it was on December the 13th.

Maybe on your server, but things seem pretty normal on Hyperion. any economy issues mostly relate to the devaluing of certain rather expensive goods but they were too expensive as it was IMO.

[LiadansWhisper]

I don't think the housing costs have had any effect on account retention whatsoever. You'd have to be reeeeeeally easily upset to quit over a mostly-non-gameplay-impacting feature.

Entirely depends on who it is. There are some people for whom housing was a very big deal - much more important than, say, raiding or PvP. For those people, it might very well discourage them from subbing until after the 90 days are over, and by then they might not come back at all.

[Alhanelem]

People are also forgetting that the current housing is guild halls. They've been expensive in pretty much every MMO with a comparable feature; Personal housing will not cost as much.

[Abriael]

I don't think the housing costs have had any effect on account retention whatsoever. You'd have to be reeeeeeally easily upset to quit over a mostly-non-gameplay-impacting feature.

Housing is very commonly a high engagement feature in MMORPGs, because most of the times it's the only way for players to own something persistent outside of their character. SE also publicized and hyped it way beyond anything else in the patch, which contributed to raise many people's expectations.

While by itself it might not make many people quit, lack of access to a high engagement feature that in basically every other MMORPGs is made (at least at the entry level) very accessible is definitely a weakening factor for account retention, and summed up to other factors (like having to bear trolls in a high percentage of crystal tower runs due to the impossibility of safely queuing with 23 people you actually know know), it might definitely tip people over the edge.

It won't do that to me (but I've stayed through a lot of bad stuff), but I know already quite a few that are considering it.

People are also forgetting that the current housing is guild halls. They've been expensive in pretty much every MMO with a comparable feature; Personal housing will not cost as much.

And this is pretty much false. Guild housing is definitely accessible at the entry level in most other MMORPGs. The problem is exactly that there's no entry level on FFXIV's legacy servers.

I can't remember a single MMORPG in which an overwhelming percentages of guilds couldn't afford entry level housing upon implementation, and this is made even worse here by the fact that there's no other kind of housing for now.

[Jynx]

quit over a mostly-non-gameplay-impacting feature.

Firstly Aegis econimy has slown to a crawl selling items has reduced drastically in speed and in price (Not much in saturation)

But more to the point, we understand you think you know what people want or think is important. But just because you don't think housing was a deal breaker for some people doesn't mean it isn't for other especially after months of building it up to be something amazing. Call people crazy but they obviously care about it and making it unobtainable was the wrong way to go about the system in the first place. Should have held it back until you had proper server space and testing to know it would be stable for everyone once it was available.

Sure people would whine either way but at least they know that they are doing it to be able to release a system when it's ready, not when they can sort of half arse it.

[TohruHonda]

So... cold....

[Kallera]

So... cold....

When we Duskers said we wanted more significance with regards to our races, this was not what we had in mind...:traps a fire sprite in a oil drum: