Housing Ideas and Feature Requests

[Thee_Freshness]

To the previous poster, the problem with that method that gets pointed out so often is instead of just 10 people showing up and clicking away, imagine several hundred to several thousand people just deciding hey I'll buy a ticket. The chance that those 10 people have no drastically decreases. I know none of the solutions that get proposed are perfect, I'm just hoping that "something" gets done, and that "something" isn't just another band-aid on a severed limb sliding down into a wood chipper like it has been.

If you're putting the entire amount of the house down on the ticket (to be refunded if you don't get it), then that would reduce the number of people bidding on it significantly. Of course, you point out the larger problem here: Supply vs. Demand. If it's true that 1,000 people have the money for a house and are looking to buy one, then there's no bidding system that will rectify the issue. Only increasing the wards, adding new housing areas, and/or adding new server clusters would make much difference.

Without numbers on turnover rate and the number of people camping the houses, it's difficult to know how pervasive the problem is. Is the availability 5% below the demand or 50%? We just know that there are more people who want housing than can get it. Too much housing would make it less attractive and cause it to fail its primary function from a game design standpoint(remove gil from the game to keep the economy from exploding). If it were my game, I'd incrementally add more wards based on what my demand numbers told me until I reached the ratio I was looking for. A better long-term answer is to make housing available in more cities since that will tend to increase the churn rate as people change their mind as to the most desirable location.

Another thing I wish they would consider is allowing cross-world bidding and, if you win, you have to transfer to the new server. Given the scarcity of housing and how many hours I have sunk into waiting for a plot to become available for sale, the $18 transfer fee would be an absolute no-brainer. I get that this one is kind of niche, but it would help balance the server populations a little as people would naturally gravitate to the low-pop servers.

[Krunalat91]

I saw this in another thread and I cant recall who suggested it, so my apologies for not giving proper credit, but since this is a housing suggestion thread here goes: institute a "lottery" system so that people can pay their deposit on an empty lot and go about their business rather than deal with the endless clicking to try to get a plot...after 24 hours, one person gets mogmail saying they've won and gets the house and the rest get their gil back by the same means. 10 people want the same small plot, rather than all 10 sitting there clicking, each pays their 3.5 Mil and goes on to have fun for the day. I think this would be a method that would not use up too many resources for the dev team and it would help ease tensions about getting a house. I understand they probably wont do much, if anything, about the housing issues on NA datacenters until the big patch, but it's out there as food for thought.

It seems you're suggesting my idea but slightly misconstrued. More of an application system. As Sauteed said though (And a fair point) I suppose people could abuse that system and flood the market. Maybe be able to purchase on property a month or week.

[Krunalat91]

Here we my original post:

It seems to me that the answer would be obvious for Squenix: Implement an application system.

Have players be able to visit their Housing estate of Choice (Lets use The Mist for this example).

Upon entering The Mist, they can speak to someone or interact with something to "Apply for housing". They would then select one of the three types of housing (Small, Medium, Large) and select Personal or FC. This would then place them into a queue. If this places you 3rd in the queue and a housing zone becomes available within your selection, it offers it to the person in 1st for that size. They then have 12 or 24 hours (I just come up with ideas, the specifics are for the genius') to accept or decline the property. Should they accept, its theirs and the queue moves up, placing you 2nd. Should they decline, it then gets offered to the 2nd person (Maybe at a slightly reduced cost) and they get the same option, 12 or 24 hours to accept or decline. This then goes on until someone accepts.

This gives everyone a "First come, first serve" option so nobody feels like they have to spend XX amount of hours waiting for a plot to go out of its waiting period while spamming the placard with 12 other players, hoping to be the winner. It's a fair system allowing everyone a fair opportunity at a home.

I'm new to the game, just over a month but my FC members and I have become frustrated at seeing plots become available then seeing 7 people blindly spamming the placard. It's made us feel a bit left out of what the game can truly offer, especially since I love designing a home and having little farms to care for (Go back to Animal Crossing, amirite).

The idea of adding more wards is nice but realistically, what are the odds of them doing that soon, let alone having them all snapped up within 12 minutes. I don't play Fortnite because 100 people scrambling around a map and hurling obscenities at eachother isn't very fun for me.

I know this is all conjecture and is "easier said than done" but it seemed more obvious than "Hey look, spare land! Hope you're okay with 4-32 hours of sitting and doing nothing."

Best of luck to you all in getting a home, it seems my choice of picking Moogle as my server may not have been the brightest idea.

[EthanXdeath]

Here we my original post:

It seems to me that the answer would be obvious for Squenix: Implement an application system.

Have players be able to visit their Housing estate of Choice (Lets use The Mist for this example).

Upon entering The Mist, they can speak to someone or interact with something to "Apply for housing". They would then select one of the three types of housing (Small, Medium, Large) and select Personal or FC. This would then place them into a queue. If this places you 3rd in the queue and a housing zone becomes available within your selection, it offers it to the person in 1st for that size. They then have 12 or 24 hours (I just come up with ideas, the specifics are for the genius') to accept or decline the property. Should they accept, its theirs and the queue moves up, placing you 2nd. Should they decline, it then gets offered to the 2nd person (Maybe at a slightly reduced cost) and they get the same option, 12 or 24 hours to accept or decline. This then goes on until someone accepts.

This gives everyone a "First come, first serve" option so nobody feels like they have to spend XX amount of hours waiting for a plot to go out of its waiting period while spamming the placard with 12 other players, hoping to be the winner. It's a fair system allowing everyone a fair opportunity at a home.

I'm new to the game, just over a month but my FC members and I have become frustrated at seeing plots become available then seeing 7 people blindly spamming the placard. It's made us feel a bit left out of what the game can truly offer, especially since I love designing a home and having little farms to care for (Go back to Animal Crossing, amirite).

The idea of adding more wards is nice but realistically, what are the odds of them doing that soon, let alone having them all snapped up within 12 minutes. I don't play Fortnite because 100 people scrambling around a map and hurling obscenities at eachother isn't very fun for me.

I know this is all conjecture and is "easier said than done" but it seemed more obvious than "Hey look, spare land! Hope you're okay with 4-32 hours of sitting and doing nothing."

Best of luck to you all in getting a home, it seems my choice of picking Moogle as my server may not have been the brightest idea.

Actually I think, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure FC's are first come first serve when new housing wards become available, even if the FC doesn't have a house. Now any person with a house that wants to relocate to one of those empty plots can also at that time, same with FC's. But as an FC without a house you should still be able to get one relatively easily, though you may want to be logged on at the approx time the patch goes live for that particular new set of wards.

[Thee_Freshness]

The idea of adding more wards is nice but realistically, what are the odds of them doing that soon, let alone having them all snapped up within 12 minutes. I don't play Fortnite because 100 people scrambling around a map and hurling obscenities at eachother isn't very fun for me.

I know this is all conjecture and is "easier said than done" but it seemed more obvious than "Hey look, spare land! Hope you're okay with 4-32 hours of sitting and doing nothing."

Best of luck to you all in getting a home, it seems my choice of picking Moogle as my server may not have been the brightest idea.

I'm of very much the same opinion as you are. I've spent several months saving gil for the sole purpose of buying a house only to find out that it's harder to buy one in the game than in IRL. It's frustrating to say the least because there are a lot of poorly-documented nuances and bad design decisions that have been papered over with worse "fixes"

Honestly, we don't know the impact of adding 3 more wards to each area; my suggestion would be just to keep doing that until you start to see a little slack in the demand. That would be the easiest fix from a development standpoint and one which SquareEnix usually implements outside of patches so it could be done tomorrow. Your "Apply for Housing" seems like a no-brainer: It still prevents anyone from being able to "sell" housing with any certainty. The only wrinkles I'd add would be:

1. You have to put the full amount for the plot down as a deposit (to be refunded if you don't get it)-this is to keep people from just placing rando bids on things.
2. Restrict individuals to a single plot per account, and FCs to a single plot per city. Phase out the existing grandfathering.

This would take some development work, but it's so much better than what there is now.

Another thing that would be awesome is opening Ishgard earlier, but I'm worried about how those plots will be distributed. Will transfers get priority? Will FCs get the first shot? Ugh.

As for server choice, I leveled a toon on each NA server cluster to look for available housing and I'm afraid none of the NA servers have any availability to speak of. That, of course, would be another option: Add new server clusters. North America has by far they highest number of active accounts per server. If Square would bring them in line with Europe or Japan, the problem probably wouldn't exist.

[EthanXdeath]

I'm of very much the same opinion as you are. I've spent several months saving gil for the sole purpose of buying a house only to find out that it's harder to buy one in the game than in IRL. It's frustrating to say the least because there are a lot of poorly-documented nuances and bad design decisions that have been papered over with worse "fixes"

Honestly, we don't know the impact of adding 3 more wards to each area; my suggestion would be just to keep doing that until you start to see a little slack in the demand. That would be the easiest fix from a development standpoint and one which SquareEnix usually implements outside of patches so it could be done tomorrow. Your "Apply for Housing" seems like a no-brainer: It still prevents anyone from being able to "sell" housing with any certainty. The only wrinkles I'd add would be:

1. You have to put the full amount for the plot down as a deposit (to be refunded if you don't get it)-this is to keep people from just placing rando bids on things.
2. Restrict individuals to a single plot per account, and FCs to a single plot per city. Phase out the existing grandfathering.

This would take some development work, but it's so much better than what there is now.

Another thing that would be awesome is opening Ishgard earlier, but I'm worried about how those plots will be distributed. Will transfers get priority? Will FCs get the first shot? Ugh.

As for server choice, I leveled a toon on each NA server cluster to look for available housing and I'm afraid none of the NA servers have any availability to speak of. That, of course, would be another option: Add new server clusters. North America has by far they highest number of active accounts per server. If Square would bring them in line with Europe or Japan, the problem probably wouldn't exist.

FC's and plot relocations (personal and FC) will get first priority they always do, when a new ward is introduced and I'm sure Ishgard will be no different here.

[Thee_Freshness]

FC's and plot relocations (personal and FC) will get first priority they always do, when a new ward is introduced and I'm sure Ishgard will be no different here.

That's what I was afraid of. "You already own a house so we're going to make it easier for you to get a better one." That's not Final Fantasy; that's real life.

*sigh*

[Krunalat91]

1. You have to put the full amount for the plot down as a deposit (to be refunded if you don't get it)-this is to keep people from just placing rando bids on things.
2. Restrict individuals to a single plot per account, and FCs to a single plot per city. Phase out the existing grandfathering.

Its quite refreshing to see someone coming up with ideas and furthering the point. I look forward to Ishgard becoming available.

Assuming they make the same amount of wards/plots in Ishgard as other locations, that should open up some possibilities.

Sadly, on another Forum thread, I was berated for my choice of Moogle. I had to put something up to validate my choice XD Sadly, EU servers don't seem much better than you're saying the NA servers are.

[Krunalat91]

Is that so? I'll have to keep an eye out for these patches. Not like I have anything else to do, right now.

I've been excited about owning a house for a while! My crafting classes are averaging 50 and I have so many ideas!

I'll continue to be patient but I'm nearing the end of Heavensward, I was hoping to have a home by now.

[EthanXdeath]

Is that so? I'll have to keep an eye out for these patches. Not like I have anything else to do, right now.

I've been excited about owning a house for a while! My crafting classes are averaging 50 and I have so many ideas!

I'll continue to be patient but I'm nearing the end of Heavensward, I was hoping to have a home by now.

At least you're not here on Gilgamesh where 1 person owns like 50+ houses and is trying to sell them for 500 million gil.