Personal housing time limit?

[Arixtotle]

Especially since theres no variety in content, the game pretty much forces you to take 2-3 month long breaks :/

Except there is a huge variety in content it's just not combat content.

But anyway, my thought with a 6 month time is that the majority of people who leave for six months are not coming back. Just make it so if they do come back eventually they get compensated with about the same amount of gil as they spent on the house and get all their housing stuff back of course.

[LineageRazor]

Except there is a huge variety in content it's just not combat content.

Agreed. Anyone that makes the ludicrous claim that there's "no variety in content" either:
A. Has decided to discount a ridiculously large part of the game as not being content (crafting, gathering, pvp, sidequests, etc etc etc), or
B. Has so much free time on their hands that they DO count it, have done it, and still aren't satsified.

The former is like going to a buffet, and claiming there isn't enough to eat because all you like to eat is french fries, and the latter, well, it's outright unreasonable to expect SE to account for such a small population of players (no work, no job, just play FFXIV all day and all night).

[HakaseNyan]

Don't FC owners lose their ownership status over 1 month, and then it gets passed down to another member? As for personal housing, and timers, since you can sub for a maximum of 180 days at a time, 6 months of inactivity sounds rather reasonable. As it stands you pay for a house and keep it forever. There's no rent, taxes, or upkeep. We have it a little too good, you know? Though, "personal housing" was implement rather poorly too

[Risvertasashi]

Don't FC owners lose their ownership status over 1 month, and then it gets passed down to another member?

I believe the exact period is 35 days, but yes.

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An easy solution would just be to tie it to the owning account's sub. If you're going to be away for an extended time, just keep the sub active and you keep your housing server space reserved. If it's not worth $13/mo to them, they can unsub and (after a month or so just to prevent losing it to billing issues), the space can be freed up for other, active players.

[Catwho]

Yeah, I think taking a house back after six months is reasonable. Heck, at this point a year.

As long as adequate warning is given, anyway, so that someone who bought a house last year with the intention of coming back after they graduated school or something has the opportunity fork over another six months of sub time and keep it.

[Amiaze]

Perhaps they should make personal housing function like additional retainers in-game. If your subscription isn't renewed, you lose it. I'm not sure how they would implement this since houses are purchased in-game, but the issue I can see with taking it away from people who don't log in is having people log in once a month, do nothing, and then log out just to keep their house. This also doesn't take multiple characters into consideration. Should the person log in with every character that owns a house, or just log in period?

Returning all of the Gil spent on a sold house also will likely not work. That opens the possibility of players simply logging in and immediately repurchasing their lot/purchasing another lot and sitting on it. It would be fair to return it, yes, but what of people who try to cheat the system?


Edit:

Housing situation in game really sucks , but i glad that SE didnt add time limits for housing . Sometimes i have to work 2~3 months w/o PC and access to game , and it will be too bad if once i back from work and my house gone ;(

This is why I think it should be subscription-based rather than log-in based. It would stink to pay for a game that you cannot play at the time, but at least it would offer some solution to a lack of housing while also offering a way for players with houses to keep theirs. I'm curious to see how Ishgardian housing wards sell if/when we get them.

[Titor]

This is why I think it should be subscription-based rather than log-in based.

If you really want people to pay a subscription during a time that they will not be able to play the game, just so they can keep their hard-earned house, you are literally asking them to pay real-world rent for a virtual house.

These houses are not cheap, especially mansions. I do not want to have to pay a sub if I am going to be away from the computer for a month or two out of my control, but I also do not want to lose my 80m gil mansion and the months and months of staring at the mb and crafting to get there.

As I have stated earlier in this thread, and in many posts in the past, removing housing from inactive players will not be the solution in the long term, only more housing plots or an alternative private housing system can.

[Amiaze]

If you really want people to pay a subscription during a time that they will not be able to play the game, just so they can keep their hard-earned house, you are literally asking them to pay real-world rent for a virtual house.

This is true. I guess I wasn't really clear in my edit. I should have said that it would be more beneficial for it to be subscription-based rather than log-in based, although it would really stink for players who can't get on for a month or two. Not that it's the best solution by far, just that it's better than a log-in solution due to there being less of a chance of people manipulating the system.

Adding more housing is the most obvious and viable solution, but how much would they have to add to satisfy their customer base? Heavensward brought a slew of brand new players that are still going through ARR content. More often than not, the DF gives me at least one new player in hard dungeons. There wasn't enough housing before Heavensward; adding them into the equation only compounds the issue.

[Nekodar]

A time limit should be there. If you have to take extended leaves regularly, what use do you have for a personal house anyway?
No gil compensation to anyone that loses their house for any reason either as that could just lead to people investing in a house on an alt, then wait for someone to buy it, or if noone wants to buy it at a higher price get the investment back without any loss.

Something needs to be done to grant more people the possibility of buying a house though. And prevent people from buying plots speculatively.
There are plenty of plots that's been bought only to gouge other players that want a house.

[Titor]

If you have to take extended leaves regularly, what use do you have for a personal house anyway?

If you really think that something that costs literally 80 million gil should be taken away due to a 1-2 month break (sometimes not even of their choice or desire), you should just support deleting the character and the rest of the account with it, because why would they need those as well?

It is a bit coldhearted to want to remove such a large investment on such short notice /and/ without compensation.

Listen, I am sorry there are not enough houses to go around. That is not my fault. I do not want my large investment to be gone without compensation if something came up IRL that I was not able to control but had every intent of returning when the issue passed. If my house was gone, I am not even sure I would want to come back. It is my pride and joy of my game right now. I worked so hard for it, to see it just gone would be devastating.


The answer is more housing instances or instanced housing/another system.