New Housing Wards for Balmung, please!

[Frejyalen]

Another suggestion!:
The ability to trade a plot to someone!! So sick of seeing people have to drop double the gil to get a SMALL plot because the person can only "relinquish" it and not "sell" it to someone. If we could trade or sell plots (with the game making it automatic to the value of the plot or not), this would give people who bought a house but don't use it the chance to recoup their costs, thus being more willing to give up the plot to someone who will actually use it!

[KihtJakkya]

Saving up gil is difficult; especially for Role Players since we can spend good chucks of our time not earning gil at all. My small FC finally saved up for a small house, but none are available. So then we decided to go for a medium; none available. It would take us likely a year at this rate to save for a large, but oh looky there, -none- available.

It never dawned on us that we would have to race people for houses. Please, we did not look forward to it.

[Ramzirra]

It just seems like common sense for higher populated worlds to have more wards, especially since it's been a couple months (basically since release day for Smalls) since all of Balmung's Smalls and Mediums have sold out. I can think of many people who have been interested in buying a house, but simply can't get one.

So yes, more wards, please.

I could be wrong, but didn't SE say that they would be adding more wards with every major patch? Or something similar? What happened to that?

[JBHemlock]

Putting the unused wards into a pool that are allocated to servers when their existing wards fill up seems like a no brainer to me. LOTRO has had this sort of system for years (a new housing ward is allocated when the existing ones get close to being full), and they've managed to completely avoid a housing crisis.

Instead, what we're seeing is a weird sort of land grab mentality, where the plots on high population servers are bought out immediately by players who are lucky enough to get online right when the servers come up. These players then will charge gil (sometimes more than the cost of the plot!) for the opportunity to be there when they relinquish the plot.

[Izayoichan]

I was utterly disappointed/angry that personal housing was the same price and area as FC housing, the complete opposite of what was promised. Not to mention, an unfair set up because you pay as much for a house as an FC, but you can't have any extra rooms like an FC can. HMM.

Onto the matter at hand. I agree with the OP, though not with the removal of someone's property after 1-2 months. That's a pretty short amount of time considering the current economics. I've had to drop sub, and if I had come back to find that the house I saved up for with friends was gone, I would be devastated.

The number of housing and wards available should be based on the server population and the demand. On Lamia we had months of plots being open, but Balmung was a NIGHTMARE. Scrambling at 4am to get a SMALL plot because they were bought out within TEN MINUTES is taking the exclusive angle too far.

This, so very much this!

[Kestrael]

A lot of valid points have been made in this thread and I completely support it. I am new to FFXIV but was thrilled to learn that you could buy and decorate houses. That excitement has waned in the face of low/no supply and the enormous cost.

[ExKage]

To be perfectly honest I don't like how this is per Balmung specific only and that people suggested that this issue be taken away from General Discussion or Housing for that matter. It doesn't get this the type of attention or feedback this deserves. It's not just a Balmung issue either, as other high-population servers have been said to experience the same issues..

I just want to quote a relevant statement that Yoshi-P made during the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XVIII.

A: We’ve been using all our energy to increase the amount of land, so we haven’t been able to touch this aspect of housing. However, with the new wards that were added, I feel that we’ve just about fulfilled the demands.

We’ll continue to add more land, but we’d like to improve the utility of each house.

However, the team that is in charge of housing, known as the Live Team, is also in charge of Free Company elements and the Gold Saucer, and they’re currently devoting all their energy to Free Company crafting and the Gold Saucer. We expect that they will be able to address this afterwards, but they will need a bit of time.

The fact is, Balmung has no free lots. This is exacerbated when you have instances where a Free Company leader will immaturely just login and like a temper tantrum throwing toddler, kicking over 80 players in the Free Company out and then sit by their lonesome in the Free Company's house.

We understand that things take time but the larger and densely populated servers need to have some sort of respite from the heavy housing demand. There are 0 plots free. Not one large in any of the wards. Not one medium. It's expected that their are no small plots but we should be able to get more wards every so months with a server like Balmung. Find some time to continue to add land, but find some way to permanently fix the issue of land being in such a high demand that no one can even attempt to get land.

[Zyrusticae]

Argh! This is so bloody obvious I don't know how they overlooked it...

*grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter*

[Ryndilee]

Please toss me into the chorus of Balmung-ish voices crying out for more land (and easier ways to get them) in general.

Someday, little house. Someday...

[Kosme]

Ja already, I need space to build my lalafell training hut.