Restrict Personal Houses to 1 Per Server!

[Ayerinn]

I guess in the long run it won't really affect me anyway. If SE does decide to implement this stupid change, I'll just relinquish my alts house and pick it up on my second account. Throws out a little over 3 million gil but I suppose I'll do what I have to do. I'm not giving up one of my houses so it can sit ignored by whatever random person thinks they deserve it more than I do.

Suppose I should get back to work on that FC on my second account too, just in case.

While it might be implemented, no way they would be dumb enough to FORCE relinquishment - you just wouldn't be able to purchase more. Honestly, I wouldn't mind them implementing such a change as long as the do away with the auto demo timer...would save me $$$.

[Siniztor]

While it might be implemented, no way they would be dumb enough to FORCE relinquishment - you just wouldn't be able to purchase more..

And from the post you can see thats all us multi home owners are asking ..If your gonna change the rule so be it..but since we broke no rules grandfaher us in lock our buying any or heck even from transfering i personaly don't care as long as im not punished for following SE rules

[Searban]

I don't think I'm any more deserving than anyone else who uses their home, but I do get really annoyed seeing dozens and dozens of empty unused houses in Shirogane on my realm. Every house available was bought up in less than ten minutes, and over half of them are still sitting completely empty. Way more than half. I don't know why people rush to buy a house they are just going to ignore. Is it an e-peen thing? If you get a house, you should USE it. THAT is what irritates me so much about this whole issue. Yes, I have two houses. But I use both of them every single day. I'm sorry if you think its selfish or whatever, but I am not giving up one of my homes that I worked really hard to get and really hard to decorate. If that means I do have to buy it on an alt account I will.

And yet large part of what you have been arguing for here comes down to just that. Because they don't play with their houses enough (by your standards) or didn't put enough effort into getting one (again, by your standards). And as much as you don't care about players that don't own houses, they won't care about your claims that you deserve to own more than 1 plot if they consider you a part of the general housing problem. Which you are.

As for why some owned plots still stand empty in Shirogane, there are a few possible explanations. Some were bought by house flippers. Some were bought by people with multiple plots on multiple characters. They will return to that particular character and that particular house to decorate eventually. Maybe. And finally, the simplest explanation of them all - it has only been 2 weeks since 4.1 arrived. For some players a house will be an ongoing project of sorts. Some have less play time available and will take longer to decorate their plots. Some saved enough gil for a plot, but not enough to decorate it (hardly a difficult thing to imagine if costs of furnishing can easily surpass that of the plot alone). Did they have to rush to buy a plot? Yes. Because within constraints of the current housing system taking advantage of those brief windows when new wards are added is the only semi-reliable way to get a plot. I suspect some of the plots might have also been snatched by players that may want/need house in the future. For the same reason - there might not be a reliable way for them to buy a house at a later date, when they decide they actually want/need it.

While it might be implemented, no way they would be dumb enough to FORCE relinquishment - you just wouldn't be able to purchase more. Honestly, I wouldn't mind them implementing such a change as long as the do away with the auto demo timer...would save me $$$.

The big question here is whether it would actually be a dumb thing to do for them. Would some players get upset about such a change? Of course, but for every 1 angry owner of 2 plots there would be 1 player happy with the change. For every 1 angry owner of 3 plots there would be 2 players happy with the change. And so on. Would it cause a stir within the community? There is a stir caused by the problems housing system has already anyway. Would there be bad press? Probably. However, the bad press is also here already, drawn in by the housing crisis.

I've said it before, I might as well repeat myself: in a subscription-based MMO, where needs of many will always outweigh needs of a few, a move like this would certainly be controversial, but likely justifiable from the business point of view. I'm not saying SE will do it, but if they do I won't be surprised either.

The demolition timer is not going to go anywhere though. Not as long as the housing system is as inefficient as it is.

Now, on the general tone of the discussion here. I've been following it for some time now and as far as I can see the entire line of argument used by multiple plot owners relies on 2 claims. First, that they didn't break any rules. Second, that they don't deserve to be punished. I'm going to start with the latter.

Can we talk about what constitutes a punishment? Because at this point you're trying to label a change you wouldn't like as a punishment towards you. If they were take your additional plots away while reimbursing their full value to you it would merely be an attempt at restoring certain status quo in order to provide at least a band aid to an inefficient housing system. Sure, you could argue that you are loosing time invested into decorating your additional plots, but that's pretty much all about it. SE could even remove their housing system entirely while reimbursing players for it and no one would be able to claim being punished either.

And that brings us to the other point - the rules and whether any of them were broken. Of course they weren't. But just as you are aware that everything you've done so far was well within the existing set of rules imposed by SE you should be aware than SE can modify that set of rules however they want. That includes changing rules and applying them retroactively. They're well within their rights to do it, it's something all players accept by agreeing to EULA, ToS and every other document thrown their way when they buy a game and register an account.

[Niraves]

I don't care about players that buy houses and do nothing with them. Two weeks is more than enough time to do SOMETHING with the plot. Since the patch dropped I've made over 80 million gil just selling furniture, two of the small Shirogane Castle Walls and a few other odds and ends. Well some players don't craft, you say? Neither did I, until I decided that I wanted to start looking into housing in this game and I realised how expensive it was. So I leveled gatherers and leveled crafters and saved up every gil that I could because having a house, with all the nice furnishings and decorations that I wanted, was important to me.

I get it that some people don't have massive amounts of gil to throw into a house, maybe they spent every gil they had to buy the plot. But 51 empty plots out of 60 in a ward? That's ridiculous and it's unfair to players that wanted a house but couldn't beat the queue because of lobby errors or other factors. Every mansion in the ward my personal house is in is entirely empty. Every. Single. One. And I know, me having two houses means one other person didn't get to have one, but from what I can see there is a heck of a lot more empty houses than just the one extra one that I own. If people would stop buying houses and leaving them sitting empty, maybe there would be more players who actually use their house in the wards. That seems more like the issue with housing than someone owning an extra plot.

Honestly the entire housing system is stupid. This entire debate can all be laid at SEs feet because they are too stubborn to just get rid of the wards entirely and instance housing so its available to every player who wants to have a house. Or make the wards FC only, and make all personal housing instanced. Or do what they said they were going to do with apartments and generate more wards as needed automatically. This game makes plenty of money, theres no reason that we should be force fed the same old tired 'server limitations' crap every time we need a feature to be improved on.

[Searban]

I don't care about players that buy houses and do nothing with them. Two weeks is more than enough time to do SOMETHING with the plot. Since the patch dropped I've made over 80 million gil just selling furniture, two of the small Shirogane Castle Walls and a few other odds and ends. Well some players don't craft, you say? Neither did I, until I decided that I wanted to start looking into housing in this game and I realised how expensive it was. So I leveled gatherers and leveled crafters and saved up every gil that I could because having a house, with all the nice furnishings and decorations that I wanted, was important to me.

What is your point exactly? That a player should be required have a certain level of weekly income before buying a house? Not that having a decent weekly income is particularly difficult, but it will be much lower if you aren't a crafter (and becoming a dedicated crafter requires a fairly significant investment on its own).

Honestly, long as the new plot owner intends to actively work on his house at his own pace but in foreseeable future, I don't see an issue. People that bought their plots purely maintain an empty house as a status symbol are a different matter entirely. However, if all they do is owning a single plot one might argue they simply maintain their point of access to the housing system (regardless of whether they intend to make use of it or not) which has been one of more prominent features for this game for the past few years and a fairly significant selling point for the entire last expansion. Even if we were to agree that those players are in fact one of the problems within constraints of the current housing system that doesn't mean that multiple plots owners aren't one as well. Trying to suggest otherwise is an attempt at shifting the blame at best.

On another note, there is a fairly good chance that some (I'm not going to speculate about percentages here, we don't have nearly enough data on this issue to make any assumptions on the matter) of those empty houses people notice in Shirogane are in the hands of people that own multiple plots on multiple alts because they don't break any rules.

[Siniztor]

I've said it before,I might as well repeat myself: in a subscription-based MMO, where needs of many will always outweigh needs of a few, a move like this would certainly be controversial, but likely justifiable from the business point of view..

Really id like to point out the new "ultimate" series of dungeons which are for what 5%-10% of the coumminty since u have to beat savage 4..They all ready said it isn't for the majority of the players but the mainority that wanted super hard dungeon.. So what did Se do they took away 1 dungeon from the majority of the people for 1 super dungeon for the mainority. basicly they don't care about whats better for the majority . if this was a one time thing maybe but its every odd number patch from here on out we lose 1 dungeon..

Personaly i wont be doing it yes im bummed we lose out on a dungeon every other patch but im using this to kill your ohhh SE will do whats best for the majority

[Searban]

Really id like to point out the new "ultimate" series of dungeons which are for what 5%-10% of the coumminty since u have to beat savage 4..They all ready said it isn't for the majority of the players but the majority that wanted super hard dungeon.. So what did Se do they took away 1 dungeon from the majority of the people for 1 super dungeon for the majority. basicly they don't care about whats better for the majority . if this was a one time thing maybe but its every odd number patch from here on out we lose 1 dungeon..

Personaly i wont be doing it yes im bummed we lose out on a dungeon every other patch but im using this to kill your ohhh SE will do whats best for thr majority

Huh, where do I even start with this? Let me tear through it piece by piece.

First and foremost, you're comparing conflict/crisis resolution with content development. The former should be done based on the needs of many outweigh needs of a few principle, the latter on the cater simultaneously to the widest spectrum of players possible principle. It's about what way of doing things would be most advantageous for them from the business point of view. When you look at the structure of patches in each expansion cycle of FFXIV this is exactly what SE is doing.

Furthermore, the reason why odd numbered patches are going to have 1 dungeon in 4.x cycle is that devs believe dungeons aren't as important piece of content to the community now as they used to be. Their opinion is based internal data that shows people often choose other content to gather their weekly tomestones. So they've made a decision to shift resources within the project towards other content. Keywords: other content. For all we know, that other content is unlikely to be limited to the Unending Coil of Bahamut and further Ultimate fights (Assuming there will be other fights, as far as I know there have been no word on the matter either. I doubt they want to set anything in stone before seeing how the new Coil is received.) Things such as Eureka, new Deep Dungeon, further expansion of Squadrons can fall into that category as well. Even new PvP modes they've talked about in recent Live Letters. Basically a wide array of potential content ranging from very casual to hardcore.

It's also worth noting that stagnating structure of patches and overused content formula have been among the main points of criticism towards FFXIV for quite some time already. Trying to inject more variety into it is a direct response to playerbase-provided feedback. And even with that variety being improved, casual content (in other words, content for the majority) will still outweigh hardcore content by a huge margin regardless of the number of dungeons in each patch.

Finally, I never said SE will do what's most beneficial to the majority. What I said that if they were to consider their options on the matter of housing restrictions the business argument to implement them is there. I do believe this is what should be the crucial factor, but that's simply my opinion. That's it.

The only thing you're going to kill making claims like this is your credibility.

[ZStar]

Really id like to point out the new "ultimate" series of dungeons which are for what 5%-10% of the coumminty

At least you can try it and die in it repeatably but with Housing it is worst because once it is full it is done because of the lack of supplies, hoarding, luck lobby roulette and "server" problems.

To fix all these problems they should just make apartments into condos with all the bell and whistles (gardening, Chocobo and dinosaurs) of a house except for exterior decorations.

[Scardon]

I guess in the long run it won't really affect me anyway. If SE does decide to implement this stupid change, I'll just relinquish my alts house and pick it up on my second account. Throws out a little over 3 million gil but I suppose I'll do what I have to do. I'm not giving up one of my houses so it can sit ignored by whatever random person thinks they deserve it more than I do.

Suppose I should get back to work on that FC on my second account too, just in case.

Don't worry, thanks to how bad the housing system is there isn't anything you did to 'deserve it more' than anyone else that has the gil so you really can't lose it to someone less deserving.

[Jas710]

What the hell is the point of the demo timers if they always suspend it any time there is a natural disaster somewhere in the world (which is almost always)?

The current housing system is just super-dumb any way you look at it. Yoshi should be /slapped.