Housing Solutions: Can we do it together?

[Phoenometroid]

I'd like to start compiling a list of possible solutions to the Housing situation. If we all could brainstorm and band together we might be able to deal with what we have and hopefully in the future require less not MORE plots than that can be allowed.

Possible Features that could be found as a solution(but not to be confused to an order):
1. Active Subscribers safeguarded from relinquishing (45 days starts after unsubbed)
2. Add Private Chambers to Personal Houses
3. Implementation of gardening furnishings for Private Chambers
4. Allow home owners to sell back their plots.
5. Personal Housing opened to the community of a certain threshold, add Airship Workshop
6. Give players an incentive of selling or transferring their homes to others.
7. Limit plots to 1 personal house per account per server (2 if you count being an FC owner).
8. Add the ability to share your plot between all characters on the account.
9. Demolished Houses Item Retrieval - Remove the restriction on "unretrievable" items.
10. Shared House Mates triggers the Inactivity Timer reset of a Personal House.
11. Housing Conversion Permits - Swap FC to Personal Housing or Personal to FC.

[Phoenometroid]

(Reserved for future posts)

[Phoenometroid]

• Add Private Chambers to Personal Houses - If each home FC/Personal could all hold 512 chambers it might help the lack of plots. Personal home owners could allow members that don't want to be in a Free Company a home, what it does not provide is the use of the garden.

  On a side note, if this feature allowed the home owner to openly share their home I believe it would only make sense that the warp crystal and chocobo stables be shared as well.

• Gardening furnishings for Private Chambers - Provides a solution for those wanting their own home mostly from being locked out of this key housing feature completely, Personal/FC alike, what that doesn't help is those that want to decorate more than 1 room like a mad man(this one I don't have a solution just yet and may never if we don't go anywhere towards real "instanced housing"
• Plot Refund already added this for 3.1 auto relinquish with 80% might as well allow the owner to do it for the same amount if not more and saves SE the hassle of warning them with in-game and RL emails and frees up the plot faster to boot. Win-Win.
• Airship Workshop Personal Houses that are opened to allow other members of the community can band together and have access to the airship features from Heavensward without forcing players to be in a guild.
• Player Housing Market Players are holding on to their homes before quitting the game is probably because the believe they may return but who just wants to throw all their investment away? That's right, no body.
• Housing Conversion Permits Owners of dead FC's could swap easily to a Personal or Existing Home owners starting up their own FC willing to offer their current home rather than needing to buy another.

[Phoenometroid]

Private Chambers added to Personal Houses - by Dyvid
Players relinquishing their own plots - by Dyvid

[Dyvid]

1. Dislike because that is basically 75 days rather than 45 days. I understand where you are coming from but for people actively playing, that just makes the waiting list longer. Maybe a blanket 60 days?
2. Love it of course lol
3. I can dig it.
4. Love this one too.

[Phoenometroid]

Hi Dyvid I'm really glad to see you here actually. I understand that you might not like my first point. But it's mostly because I believe that it isn't the player's fault that SE couldn't come up with a better way to accommedate their player base by giving each of us a house, but I'm pretty sure they didn't intend to though I can't remember the source if where I might have gotten that myself. The housing were introduced to be an end game goal to players and to me if they didn't implement a "housing decaying" from the beginning because of their lack to provide to us all it shouldn't be our faults and therefore take back. I made a really long post about this on one of MrHappy's vid and that made me rush here to seek for better answers. Due tot he limit of characters in each posts I was unable to truly explain my position on that matter which is why it's short to the gritty (or so I tried). If I haven't bored you too deeply with this I felt that my post on that video mostly said it all.

[Dyvid]

The key issue I think is a misunderstanding of FFXIV housing system and the wards in general. The idea was to have them as a player village but SE really hasn't focused on that aspect much. It's just plots right now and nothing really for the community. The player driven Inns would be a first step to help the problems we face. I would also like to see an expansion of things though.

Two main complaints I've seen are chocobo stables and gardening, basically that only personal housing owners can use these services:
1. Have gardening lots placed around the wards that player can rent and grow crops.
2. Have a chocobo ranch with stables that players can rent.

As for housing decay, SE needs to have something and should have added it from the start. An open housing system like we have eats resources and you need something to clear out abandoned homes. I've seen a few FC houses that I know the FC has disbanded, some how those need to be cleared out so other can use it. I've seen player who haven't played in over a year come back for Heavens Ward only to vanish two months later. It just not fair to actively subbed players to not grant them the option to own a house on the off shoot chance that non subbed player might return from a eight month "break". Nothing is ever going to be perfect and SE is stuck with the "damned if they do and damned if they don't" decision.

[Phoenometroid]

Agreed. I don't believe a non-subbed should keep their homes. I just believe that a subbed player should be safe until they're not and even suggest it could be reduced to 30 or no greater than 60 days. It was a major flaw to accompany this housing system without some kind of decaying upkeep for such a resource heavy feature. That's why I loved your two suggestions.

The key reasons due to Housing specific features: Gardening, Chocobo Stables, Furnishing, and Now Airship Workshop. The hard part is allow more players access to those features with limited available plots.

Chocobo Stables if I'm not mistake were alleviated by allowing players to use city chocobo riders to stable their chocobos.
FC's provided members a Private Chamber for them to furnish.

What's left out are players who want to garden, or not be affiliated to an FC, to mass furnish, or those who really want to have it all for the sake of having it to themselves or partners (Eternal Bonds).

[Syrehn]

I'd like to start compiling a list of possible solutions to the Housing situation.

It just not fair to actively subbed players to not grant them the option to own a house on the off shoot chance that non subbed player might return from a eight month "break". Nothing is ever going to be perfect and SE is stuck with the "damned if they do and damned if they don't" decision.

I agree with Dyvid, the decay timer is a necessary evil in the ward model.

While I can also understand the desire that only active sub's retain their housing that's a fine line to walk since not everyone pays monthly. If a person is paying for huge blocks of time (i.e. 6 months) and they don't log in for any of that time I don't personally think those players should be able to hold onto a house that someone else could be actively using. Which is probably the same conclusion SE drew when they implement the decay time for all players regardless of subbed/unsubbed.

That being said I'd like to see the following (some of these repeat suggestions already mentioned):

1) Limit the purchasing of plots to 1 personal house per account per server (2 if you count being an FC owner).
2) Add the ability to share your plot between all characters on the account.
3) Add Chocobo Stables to a local area; like Bentbranch. This will allow players to take advantage of Chocobo Dye/Leveling.
4) Possibly add a small item for personal rooms to give some sort of small gardening feature. 3 pots to plant in maybe?
5) Inactivity Timer - Applies to both subbed and unsubbed account. However, I'd like to see the time extended a bit; maybe something more like 60 days.
6) Demolished Houses Item Retrieval - Removed the restriction on "unretrievable" items. All items should go to the Caretaker. I'd also like to see the length of time those items are held be extended.
7) House Sharing - This is already planned by SE but from my understanding the house owner still has to enter the home. It would be nice if your house mates could trigger the Inactivity Timer reset.
8) Housing Market - To allow safe transaction of plot sales between players and allow current home owners to relinquish unwanted plots with a cost recoup.

I'd like to also note that I don't think Workshops need to be added to personal housing; this is a perk of owning an FC and should remain an FC activity. SE has even gone so far to allow for Airship Exploratory Ventures to be done from Ishgard for players that don't have an FC.

We do need to keep in mind that even if we come up with a decent list and SE implements some of our suggestions that they will still take time between adding wards. They'll gauge demand against their own current financials/time.

[Phoenometroid]

I'd like to also note that I don't think Workshops needed to be added to personal housing; this is a perk of owning an FC and should remain an FC activity. SE has even gone so far to allow for Airship Exploratory Ventures to be done from Ishgard for players that don't have an FC.

Ok, I wasn't aware of the Airship Exploratory Ventures being available for those without FC's but with that you might be right that's not needed at all. I personally like being apart of an FC and it gives the members a feeling of purpose. I only mentioned it for those that prefer not to join an FC but still have the ability to see that bit of content. I was also thinking that the airship worked addition to the personal homes could even have a stipulation as to how much players were allowed room and board there and not just instantly giving solo owners their own airship to boot.