Released Properties Need an Invisible Random Timer

[Penthea]

Huh I had no idea this thread even existed. Wow.

Personally I think housing acquisition equally sucks whether there is a timer or not.

I got my house long before the timer was in the game and I very rarely saw plots open, obviously because they were bought in a matter of minutes or less. It took me over a year to get a house. The timer ensures that plots are unbought for long enough to catch many people's attention...but it gives the illusion of hope. Spam clicking for hours is not any better than rarely seeing plots open before the timer came. In both cases your chances of success are super low. It just so happens the manner in which you fail is not the same.

The reason why both suck is because the housing system sucks. We wouldn't need a timer if house flippers didn't go crazy with inflated prices, and house flippers wouldn't have had a market to exploit if houses were abundant enough that there is enough for everyone. Every problem surrounding acquisition and sales can be traced back to a severe shortage in houses.

I was wrong to treat Penthea so poorly over the past few months; it was in fact Almagnus1 that shot and killed my dog and also slept with my wife.

I'll bite.

I'm against grandfathering because there are a very small amount of limited plots in the game. If plots were unlimited or there were so many that every server constantly had open plots, then I really wouldn't care much about grandfathered players at all. Just like acquisition and sales, the issue with grandfathering can be traced back to a severe shortage of houses....and anyway grandfathering wouldn't have been necessary if the housing system was even good in the first place.

Grandfathered players make a bad situation worse but I recognise that they are absolutely not the root of the issue. Even if grandfathering is removed tomorrow there would still be a large number of homeless players. There would be less, noticeably less on some few servers...but not enough to consider the issue of availability fixed.

Hell if grandfathering and the placard timer gets taken away tomorrow along with the return of demolition there would still be an incredibly large amount of homeless players. None of these tweaks are fixes and tweaking the tweaks doesn't help either.

But as long as there is this horrendous shortage of houses then I will continue to advocate for more even distribution of them. If we ever get to the point that there are always plots available to buy everywhere, then I'll hang my coat and hat on this issue. I just want more people to enjoy housing. That's all.

Also I love dogs. I would never shoot a dog.

[Arielen]

I'll bite.

I'm against grandfathering because there are a very small amount of limited plots in the game. If plots were unlimited or there were so many that every server constantly had open plots, then I really wouldn't care much about grandfathered players at all. Just like acquisition and sales, the issue with grandfathering can be traced back to a severe shortage of houses....and anyway grandfathering wouldn't have been necessary if the housing system was even good in the first place.

Grandfathered players make a bad situation worse but I recognise that they are absolutely not the root of the issue. Even if grandfathering is removed tomorrow there would still be a large number of homeless players. There would be less, noticeably less on some few servers...but not enough to consider the issue of availability fixed.

Hell if grandfathering and the placard timer gets taken away tomorrow along with the return of demolition there would still be an incredibly large amount of homeless players. None of these tweaks are fixes and tweaking the tweaks doesn't help either.

But as long as there is this horrendous shortage of houses then I will continue to advocate for more even distribution of them. If we ever get to the point that there are always plots available to buy everywhere, then I'll hang my coat and hat on this issue. I just want more people to enjoy housing. That's all.

Also I love dogs. I would never shoot a dog.

I think the timer wouldn't be so bad if it was just 1-4 hours. A 24 hour span is just horrible, not that I think housing resale is a significant issue in the first place: people were selling at near to placard price before the timer was implemented (with some notable exceptions due to high profile plots such as 11/41 LB, 5/35 Mists etc). In other words, most housing resale was not done for profit but rather to recoup the cost of ones house in the first place without having to wait for the 45day autodemo timer refund.

And in regards to grandfathered houses: I think that the 5-10 designers across all the DCs that own several plots still make up for less of a problem than the sheer volume of people that have houses and leave them empty altogether. I ran around the wards on Mateus recently for shits and the volume of plots that I see where it's just people throwing whatever furniture they have into their house (regardless of size) is huge. I don't mean poorly decorated houses, I mean houses that are deliberately used as storage or not decorated at all. That chaps my cheeks way more than anything else.

[Penthea]

I think the timer wouldn't be so bad if it was just 1-4 hours. A 24 hour span is just horrible

I honestly very often think the same thing myself. I really am unsure as to why it can be up to a full day. I don't think there's any server in the game with constantly full wards that would let a vacant plot go unnoticed for more than an hour.

not that I think housing resale is a significant issue in the first place: people were selling at near to placard price before the timer was implemented (with some notable exceptions due to high profile plots such as 11/41 LB, 5/35 Mists etc).

I have no idea as to where you get your house flipping info from, but personally I subbed to the housing market subreddit out of sheer curiosity quite some time before Shirogane was released. Usually only on massively populated servers had some super high prices and even then it very much depended on the plot location and size, and if the player was in a rush to leave the server. While the prices were often very high, they were realistic for the most part. However when Shirogane launched everyone and their mother went freaking crazy with the mark-up. I saw many cottage Shirogane plot posts stating a price at over 50 million gil, I clearly remember one being at 80 (it was on the beach) and the highest price I saw was a Shirogane mansion for 500 million gil. And this did not fly under the radar at all. Many players in the official forums posted about this.

And in regards to grandfathered houses: I think that the 5-10 designers across all the DCs that own several plots still make up for less of a problem than the sheer volume of people that have houses and leave them empty altogether.

Ehhh while that number of players may seem small it could be a large number of houses altogether. A few years ago I did some lodestone digging with a friend about a few plots in our fc ward we were curious about (the gardens are mostly empty and have no aetherytes) and we pieced together that the same person owns seven houses. And these are just the plots we found in our fc's ward. They could have more elsewhere.

But I do get what you're saying. Some grandfathered players only have two or three houses. My point is knowing the amount of players who engage in it doesn't really give an accurate picture of the amount of houses that is because the amount each person owns can wildly vary.

I think that the 5-10 designers across all the DCs that own several plots still make up for less of a problem than the sheer volume of people that have houses and leave them empty altogether. I ran around the wards on Mateus recently for shits and the volume of plots that I see where it's just people throwing whatever furniture they have into their house (regardless of size) is huge. I don't mean poorly decorated houses, I mean houses that are deliberately used as storage or not decorated at all. That chaps my cheeks way more than anything else.

Well anyone can do what they like with their house, even if it's nothing or just for storage. Though I do completely understand why this is infuriating to see. It annoys me as well.

As someone who redecorates a lot there is a bit of a storage problem. All of the private residences I have access to are decorated except for my apartment but I do use their storage as additional storage for the fc house.

I redecorate the entrance floor and the garden of the fc house for every in-game event. Xmas, Halloween, etc. Because of this I have accumulated a tremendous amount of furniture, a lot of which is costly and irritating to replace. The storage in the fc house on its own is not enough. That plus a dedicated retainer for furniture is not enough. Outdoor furniture is particularly troublesome because the amount of storage slots is tiny.

I truly can understand why someone would use a residence for furniture storage because I have been doing it for a long time now. Though I suppose the main difference between me and some others is that you wouldn't know unless I told you because anything strangers can access is fully decorated.

[Arielen]

Well anyone can do what they like with their house, even if it's nothing or just for storage. Though I do completely understand why this is infuriating to see. It annoys me as well.

As someone who redecorates a lot there is a bit of a storage problem. All of the private residences I have access to are decorated except for my apartment but I do use their storage as additional storage for the fc house.

I redecorate the entrance floor and the garden of the fc house for every in-game event. Xmas, Halloween, etc. Because of this I have accumulated a tremendous amount of furniture, a lot of which is costly and irritating to replace. The storage in the fc house on its own is not enough. That plus a dedicated retainer for furniture is not enough. Outdoor furniture is particularly troublesome because the amount of storage slots is tiny.

I truly can understand why someone would use a residence for furniture storage because I have been doing it for a long time now. Though I suppose the main difference between me and some others is that you wouldn't know unless I told you because anything strangers can access is fully decorated.

To be clear, I don't care if people use apartments as storage. They can essentially hold 200 slots of whatever shit you want to throw in there, and they're an essentially unlimited resource. It's a drag to see people with actual concepts get shimmed by people who don't use their houses for anything (most people don't even garden, in my FC's ward there's 2 gardens, ours and someone else's). But if the argument is that people who buy into a system have every right to do what they want with their property, including not using it, then I guess the whole idea of grandfathered houses isn't an issue regardless.

[Penthea]

But if the argument is that people who buy into a system have every right to do what they want with their property, including not using it, then I guess the whole idea of grandfathered houses isn't an issue regardless.

Nice try but no.

My issues with grandfathering are:

1 These people are knowingly hoarding something that is a limited resource under huge demand, which is directly depriving other players of content. They could let go of multiple houses and not lose complete access to housing content on that account.

However! I understand that it would suck to have alts suddenly homeless, so I think that if grandfathering is ever removed then it should only be done when all characters in the same server can share the same private home. I also think players should be able to invite their alts to their own fc without needing to use a third party to help them.

2 They're not following the same rules as everyone else. I really don't like the idea of seniority perks, especially when said perks have impact on other people.

Yes legacy players do get a cheaper sub but this does not grant them an in-game advantage. The in-game extras they have don't affect someone else's game experience and are purely cosmetic. Housing doesn't fit into this category.

But like I said before I wouldn't care much about these people if there was no shortage of houses. Every single issue with the system always goes back to not enough houses.