Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[Kaela]

You know this is a breathe of fresh air that has been needed for the housing for a long time. Though there is another problem that should be fixed with the housing:

There are people I know that are just greedy with the housing. I have a friend who has a total of 2 alts plus his main on our server. Each of them own their own house. On top of the house he owns through having his own fc. Why so many? Gardening. However, he has not been on those alts in a long time. Those are at least 2 plots he is keeping for himself that other people who want, can't have. This is something that really makes me sick. It is underhanded and yes greedy.

If they could make it where you can only buy one personal house per account per server. Or hell even allow you to share your personal house with your alts. I think that would also relieve some of the problems that the housing system has.

[solracht]

I don't usually post here and today did a really good job of reminding me why.

I think something definitely had to be done with abandoned plots/houses, and I'm fine with the idea that people who are active should be the ones with access to limited resources. However, everything about Square-Enix's implementation of this idea on top of the current housing system is outright draconian. Here's why:

• Furniture is destroyed in the process. Those pointing out that Square-Enix allows you to keep "most of your gil and items" seem to be missing the fact that all the rare/fun furniture in this game is destroyed upon removal and thus won't be available at the caretaker at all.
  
  
• There is a very strict time limit on retrieving your gil and items (35 days). As if losing the plot/house you spent hours perfecting wasn't bad enough, if you can't log back in or reactivate within a month you will permanently lose everything you invested into the house.
  
  
• Restoring access to your house takes new gil and time investments. You have to buy another plot (which should now be at its base price), another house (which you weren't refunded for), and then spend time arranging all the furniture again.

If these issues didn't exist then the Reclamation system would be more reasonable, and it'd accomplish a lot more than simply shifting misery around. Something definitely had to be done, but what they announced today is not it.


Ultimately (as others have pointed out) the real problem is housing shouldn't be a limited resource. The wards are cool, and I can fully understand the appeal of owning a little slice of the world, but there should be instanced housing plots in addition to the wards. Just picture the Reclamation system if instanced housing was in place: you would still be able to access your house after losing the physical plot (with no penalty other than losing its physical location in the world). That would actually be the best compromise - "real" housing for active players, instanced housing for everyone else.

What Square-Enix is doing by putting forth this change is letting its players know that this game will never have a "home" for them and that the game doesn't care for their long-term investments. It's a very sad realization.

[Syrehn]

As someone who is part of a small "friends only" FC and owns a personal house, I said it in the Housing forum and I'll say it again here: Recycling unused housing from inactive players is a good thing. It's good for individuals/fc's who have been trying to get housing and it's good for SE from a business/financial standpoint. It costs SE money to hold that data and doesn't make sense that they would keep inactive player housing data over active player housing data while at the same time adding more wards.

To everyone that keeps saying instanced housing would be the best solution, it's likely not, and I talked a bit about why here.

Getting back to the inactivity timer... I personally feel that it could have been a bit longer. I would have liked to have seen 60 days vs. 45 days. 45 days feels like an odd number to come up with. Additionally, with this system being implemented, it would be nice to see unretrievable housing items have their restrictions removed; all items should go to the Resident Caretaker. I also think the time that the items stay with the Caretaker should be increased.

With regards to the inactivity timer on Personal Housing, it'd be nice if they'd make amendments to this when they implement house sharing to allow your house mates to reset the inactivity timer. It would suck if you invited your friends to share your house/garden etc. and while you took a break they got the boot while their crops were growing. :/

I think SE should add an option to just sell their house for 80% out right for those who just want to get rid of the house without waiting.

This is actually an interesting idea and would be a neat implementation for some players.

[lynn_]

I think 45 days is a bit short of a time period (idk, personally I think 60 or 90 days would be better) but overall this is a good thing.

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

Whinners whined enough for a fast solution, SE already has one for them. No solution at all and a justification to never actually come up with a solution.
These changes change nothing. Housing will still be a problem for the many and the whinners now will have a small chance of running for soon-to-be abandoned houses, leaving things... Almost identical as they are now.

But for house owners, these changes mean, literally, none of us can take a break from the game, be it voluntary or accidental, we are now, forced to log in to keep "our progress" (for those of us who consider housing elemental part of our experience and progression) if we don`t we lose it. And thats one hell of a bad way to implement things if you are, instead of solving things, forcing them into your players base.

Well, thanks SE forums, you made it, now you have no housing solution and you have utterly screwed house owners who now, aren`t allowed to be away from the game. /gg

[Ayerinn]

Well, thanks SE forums, you made it, now you have no housing solution and you have utterly screwed house owners who now, aren`t allowed to be away from the game. /gg

are you seriously blaming the players for bad game design? This is squarely on SE - they should be ponying up dedicated housing servers and adding wards while having a much more lenient reclaim policy (yes, reclaim still needs to exist but the timer is too short imo as I have said previously.)

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

are you seriously blaming the players for bad game design? This is squarely on SE - they should be ponying up dedicated housing servers and adding wards while having a much more lenient reclaim policy (yes, reclaim still needs to exist but the timer is too short imo as I have said previously.)

In a part yes. Many are still cheering at this "solution". Encouraging SE in his way of "solving" things. Now SE has come up with a solution, and a considerable part of the playerbase so thinks so and is happy about it (wonder if they will still be happy when they realize housing will never be able for them just like now) and if anything happens, SE can "wash their hands" and say, without being mistaken about it: "We did what you asked".

So yeah, im blaming, in part, a noticable part of the playerbase for this.

[Zumi]

I don't like this at all its a nuisance to house owners like myself. This presents a problem for me since I have ocd, now I have to worry about going to my house every single day or I could possibly forget for awhile and lose my house. I play FFXIV every day, however I don't visit my house every day. Now I have to deal with the worry of going into my house every single day just so I can be sure I don't hit 45 days and lose my house. It sort of becomes an annoying chore that now I must visit my house everyday to reset the timer. There will be times where I am like did I visit my house today I don't remember better waste some gil teleporting to my house to make sure.

Instead of visiting my house when I feel like it, or if I want to put out some new furnishing that I got, now I am required to visit my house even when I don't want to.

They should just change it to inactive sub for 45 days you lose your house. If I am paying the sub I shouldn't have to worry about losing my house all the time.

[Yshnal]

I don't like this at all its a nuisance to house owners like myself. This presents a problem for me since I have ocd, now I have to worry about going to my house every single day or I could possibly forget for awhile and lose my house. I play FFXIV every day, however I don't visit my house every day. Now I have to deal with the worry of going into my house every single day just so I can be sure I don't hit 45 days and lose my house. It sort of becomes an annoying chore that now I must visit my house everyday to reset the timer. There will be times where I am like did I visit my house today I don't remember better waste some gil teleporting to my house to make sure.

Instead of visiting my house when I feel like it, or if I want to put out some new furnishing that I got.

Actually, that's something that they've done well. You get notifications both in-game and to your registered e-mail, so don't worry about forgetting.

They should just change it to inactive sub for 45 days you lose your house. If I am paying the sub I shouldn't have to worry about losing my house all the time.

I agree.