In Regard to Housing in Patch 4.1

[Balipu]

All the thank yous are kind of funny. Like it is not his job to PR the masses. The fact that people are surprised he responded speaks volumes of the situation and actual dev interaction with the community.

Well most people are used to Blizzard PR which is: if you are lucky you get a community rep condescendingly tell you that you suck.

As for the fix, we'll see how much of a fix it is once it is implemented. I have my small cottage in Shirogane so I'm out of the race.

[Insidion]

They added more wards in the past, many times, and even doubled them yet look where we are. Adding more wards just means most people will get screwed over a second time.

Exactly. SE has been receiving this sort of feedback for years and they're just now listening? The responses is anything but quick. We ALL knew that it was going to be a login bloodbath before 4.1 launched, and it was everything we expected. How the company can claim that they did not see this coming is completely false. See every expansion rollout and the queue times. See the huge amount of complaints in posts on this forum pointing out well in advance the issues that would arise.

And the idea that by providing less information will create less speculation is a good joke. Perhaps they should have said that while all decisions are still being considered, no details are available at this time.

Oh, and 4.2 is only like four months away. Please look forward to that wait.

[Outrack]

It's called good PR. There is no proposed solution, adding more wards does absolutely nothing to a system that will never work in this game. They added more wards in the past, many times, and even doubled them yet look where we are. Adding more wards just means most people will get screwed over a second time.

You'd have a point if all he said was that they were adding more wards; the other issues were acknowledged and he expressed intentions to remedy them which at the very least shows that they do care. Implying otherwise is just petulant.

Whether the solutions are competent remains to be seen, but they aren't just brushing this off.

[BloodVixen]

I agree that instanced housing would be the best option for solving the shortage. The question for them would be most likely: "how can we implement it in our current system without detracting from the overall experience?" It would make sense for apartments, but an instanced ward would be counterproductive in fostering a neighborhood community setting.

The idea came to me to have SE refund accounts that have more than 1 house on a given server, and to set a time limit for the player accounts to consolidate their plots and furnishings. After that, they will choose which houses they intend to keep, and are compensated for the houses that were removed from their accounts. If they don't decide, all houses should be returned after the time period expires, and they'll be sitting on a large sum of gil when they log back in.

Both ideas are ambitious ones. I'm eager to see how things go in the coming days. It'd be nice to own a home. Here's to hoping that it won't stay a pipe dream.

[Valinis]

You'd have a point if all he said was that they were adding more wards; the other issues were acknowledged and he expressed intentions to remedy them which at the very least shows that they do care. Implying otherwise is just petulant.

Whether the solutions are competent remains to be seen, but they aren't just brushing this off.

Acknowledging problems does not mean they care. Fixing the problem (which they have failed to do for years now) means they care. They continue to waste time and resources on a broken foundation.

They had ample opportunity to fix this mess and they chose not to. They have no intention of creating a real solution.

Prove me wrong Yoshida, prove me wrong.

[Luxyn]

Thank you very much for the quick and solid response on this problem, I knew that you would address this quickly after observing how the sales of plots went after some more balance was brought to the distribution of players across all of the data centers.

I would like to submit my own feedback on how this can be addressed here, I hope you find some of the suggestions helpful:

1. As many have already said, restricting the owning of plots to 1 personal and 1 FC house per account is very badly needed. (As for how you define what it means for any one player to "own" a FC house on their account, I suggest for it to be defined by a player holding the leading rank of a FC with a house means they "own" that house as their FC house - this should make any other characters on that player's account to be unable to receive the leadership of any other FC that owns a house until one of the FCs gives up their plot) If this isn't addressed then there will always be people making alts to buy up plots to flip them for a profit or even simply to prevent other players from obtaining them out of spite - there has even been linkshells dedicated to this last cause, unbelievably. As for players who already own multiple houses, they should be given a warning in advance to pick the personal and FC house they own that they most want to keep and let go of the others by a certain time. If they have not done this by this time, then their excess plots get removed either randomly or in a specific order i.e. they only keep the first of each type they purchased, or the last. I assume it would be random.

2. Add an official reselling system for plots. Unfortunately reselling is always going to be a practice on the FFXIV "black market" so-to-speak. The only way to reduce this problem is to make it so it's not as much of a black market practice - by adding this system and limiting the amount of gil that can be spent on a plot, you will be preventing players from being overcharged and allow for people to make their money back for a plot they no longer want to own for whatever reason. It should be possible for the seller to choose to not charge the other player (if they wish to be generous and give away the house for free) and a maximum price as you believe is appropriate for the plot. This may not eliminate the housing black market, but it will reduce it by a large amount as players will start to refuse to buy from someone not using the official reselling system.

3. Add the 80% gil refund for relinquishing a plot. It is a bit strange that if you leave your plot alone for 45 days you will lose the plot and gain 80% of the gil back but that it is not the same for relinquishing it immediately. This change will make many people a lot more willing to simply give up plots they no longer want to own.

4. Put timers on how close together a plot can be relinquished/repurchased. After a plot has been relinquished, it should work like a notorious monster fate i.e. Ixion - at least 24 hours must pass but anytime after that within a 72 hour window the house will go on sale. This will make it down to luck who manages to catch the house on sale, and will come into effect when someone lets go of a plot and isn't reselling or gifting their house via the reselling system (I.e. when someone relocates from a plot, it is demolished from the auto demolition timer or they simply relinquish it).

5. Make apartments bigger and make it possible to choose different layouts for them. I expected apartments to be bigger on the inside when I heard they were 200k gil more than a FC room. They should at least be the size of the inside of a small house in my opinion. But adding the option to expand the size of your apartment would be greatly beneficial to players. (Also while on that note, more interior layouts for houses would be a very welcome addition!)

6. Personal houses should be usable by all the characters that player has on that server in order to eliminate the need for alts to have houses. Also, maybe increase the amount of tenants you can have in your house.

7. When people talk about the idea of instanced housing in this game I hear about it as if it has to be one or the other - the neighbourhood approach or instanced housing. I think the best approach, if possible, would be to add instanced housing as an option on top of our already existing housing. Is it not possible to have both? Obtainable by every player, and again shared across all their characters on that server for personal housing. It should be an option for both personal and FC housing, and it should be explicitly a choice between an instanced house or one in the wards, making your options as follows: A.) Instanced Personal + Instanced FC house | B.) Instanced Personal + Ward FC house | C.) Ward Personal + Instanced FC House | D.) Ward Personal + Ward FC House. This will help to prevent too much server stress and again ensure everyone only has 1 personal/FC house. I think the best way to approach this would be to make different environments for the house to be in - little private islands, a clearing in a forest, etc - so the player can choose what type of private, isolated location they want their instanced house to be in - with each size of house able to be built in each available instance type.

8. And as always, more wards and/or apartments are always a good addition, but I feel like the previous suggestions would help benefit the housing situation much more.

EDIT: OH! I also remember seeing this idea and it was a really good one: 9. After a plot goes up for sale there is a window of time where players can choose to buy a chance at obtaining the plot (this is the cost of the plot, and they can only do this for one plot at a time), possibly a limit on how many players can do this (At least 10, I would suggest) = At the end of the timer, a player is chosen at random and they get the plot, with all other players getting their gil back. This could just be added in the script of the devaluation timer - At the time of the plot dropping in price, a player is chosen from the ones who put the money down at the previous price. If there is only one player who put the money down, they get the plot. If no player has, the plot devalues. This would be making it totally down to luck - which would make it a lot more fair to everyone and heavily prevent people owning multiple houses, especially since the players who genuinely want and don't own a plot outnumber those who do by a large amount.

10. Also the idea of making plots go on sale a few hours after the servers launch so everyone has time to log in is also a very good suggestion, as that would make it more a matter of speed and luck also and help bypass launcher errors/slow download times/server and connection issues/queues. How would this work? Everyone is kicked out of the housing wards so everyone gets the same start from the entrance when the wards unlock at the designated time.

If you've actually read this, thank you for it and again I hope some of these suggestions are helpful.

[Welsper59]

You'd have a point if all he said was that they were adding more wards; the other issues were acknowledged and he expressed intentions to remedy them which at the very least shows that they do care. Implying otherwise is just petulant.

Whether the solutions are competent remains to be seen, but they aren't just brushing this off.

Actually, the only thing he said was that new wards are added and they'll try to either find a different means to obtain or sell them. In other words, limitations are likely going to be placed, but wards are still wards... limited supply. If the solutions they come up with are incompetent (i.e. adding meager amounts of wards), it is absolutely brushing off the problem. Even doubling what we have now will not remedy the problem.

Wards in their current state are bandage fixes to a problem that needs greater attention. Remember that with where players are financially in-game, it's not just the number of wards that would help fix the problem, it's the availability of specific houses too. FC's and players all want M, or ideally L, houses... and those are always in short supply with any ward.

[Bach_of_Behemoth]

First I want to say that this isnt a rant, or complaint but instead, a story and in the end a thank you for your continued support. And if you do read this, please understand that I am not truly the best and writing this kind of stuff.

Ive been playing since realm reborn working very hard to help and provide for the fc that welcomed me in and helped me in so many many different way get to know and learn so very much about this game, its community, and eventually learned how I can be of a greater help when i was passed on the lead of it.

With all the continuous support and the help and guidence of its members that i still get, that we all still get every day i have gone through alot to repay everyone back for their kindness and friendship that i have found here. We made the leap from a medium in goblet to a large in the mist which was exciting for alot of the member here as it was big enough to accomidate its 350+ members. And that was good.

[Bach_of_Behemoth]

But it was then towards the end of heavensward when a *New* area, a brand new breath of fresh air was being offered to the game. Shirogane. And i figured, lets see if we can raise money so we can get something, some place we havnt been to, been en or even experienced outside of the same old 3 citys that have been around since forever. We did. Took about a good month but for alot of the members that donated their hard work to the cause showed me that it was something that alot were looking forward to.

Fast forward to patch 4.1. Upon release of 4.1 I was excited to finally grab the house that everyone was so looking forward to logged in didnt get any errors and knew where i was going and teleported to the waterfront large for the fc.

[Mikki]

Thank you so much for your response, Yoshi P! To all of the players who said that he didn't care, I hope you realize that he does. I have outlined previously why I believe they didn't realize the extent of the issue, particularly in NA servers, but with the release of Shirogane housing I'm so happy to see that our voices have been heard!

I was fortunate enough not to receive any errors and got my dream plot in Shirogane. But so many others failed to get their plot, even though they did everything right. I hope that they will be at least doubling the amount of wards available, perhaps even more than that on servers such as Balmung, so that a more significant portion of the player base can enjoy this wonderful aspect of the game. I also hope that we will see improvements to the apartments; bigger and better, please Yoshi P!!!!


Also, some notes:
Please make it so that personal houses are 1 per account per server and please allow us access to these houses from alts automatically. Also, remove the restriction of 3 tenants. I don't understand why there needs to be a restriction on this, especially considering the fact that tenants don't reset the demolition timer.

Allow us to have our houses accessible to people on a white list or at the very least, our friend list. I hate this "all or nothing" attitude with letting people inside and I know many others do as well.

Allow us to upgrade the size of our house. I understand that plots cannot be changed, but at the very least we could use some "magic prism" logic to explain why we can make the house look bigger or something like that. It's ridiculous that there are so many small plots in comparison to large and medium, when the majority of people would prefer the larger plots!

Make apartments bigger, or have size options. We can have apartments of varying sizes in real life, why not here? And allow FCs to purchase apartments. Also, make apartments unlimited. I see no reason why they couldn't be.