New Wards Alone Aren't Going to Solve the Housing Issue

[Almagnus1]

While I appreciate new wards for all the housing districts coming in 4.2, and this is very much a step in the right direction, this is only going to be a short term solution at best as the unaddressed issue with housing (being land barons) is going to cause the exact same issue we saw with Shirogane to appear AGAIN.

SE needs to take action to kill FFXIVs house flipping market, or they will never be able to add enough wards because all the land barons will do is further increase their holdings while the rest of us get screwed.

That's why they need to restrict personal houses to one per server.

That's why appartments need access to yard space (so we have true instanced housing).

That's why there needs to be a random, invisibile, timer that lasts between 1 to 24 hours when house is released so the risk involved with getting your house from a house flipper is so great, that many will not want to do just that.

That's also why the alt shell FCs intended solely to take up housing slots need to be dealt with.

We need ALL of these things with the additional wards in order to fix this issue, as any of these fixes by themselves isn't going to resolve the issue.

[Amomomo]

Even though the housing situation as it is, shouldn't put all the blame on to Yoshi P! He may be the director, however, there are many situation and decisions that is not up to a director to make. For example, putting in resources into a casual content (e.g. housing) at the cost of main contents such as MSQ and raids, as well as allocating additional server space and financial costs. From what I have read from various forums this week, adding wards isn't as easy as pushing a button. However, it seems like the negative feedback for patch 4.1 is much more negative and wide spread than previous housing releases, which hopefully (however slim the chance may be) will push the game development team to have enough valid reasons to provide long term solutions to the existing housing problem.

[Alastair_Helyous]

...

While you do have a strong point, it's like a lot of people and me have said before. The system of the bloody thing was wrong from its conception. The fact they claim constantly there's no solution (due to server/ps4/infrastructure/<insert-excuse-here> limitations) while smaller/f2p games such as LotRO/Warframe have solved that eons ago is also very frustrating, given that this is a p2p game. And a big one at that.

[Amomomo]

I agree with you 100% on that it is a faulty concept from the beginning. Heck, when I tried to secure housing, my eyeballs almost dropped from my sockets when I was asked to pay absurd prices for house relinquishment. I think, with the 4.1 failure (personal opinion), the FFXIV dev team can no longer mask over the current housing system flaw as more and more players speak up about the current problems (ranging from RMT, monopolizing, limited supply, and more).

[Pence]

'Although this issue will be addressed in today’s hotfix, we understand this does not address the underlying issue. In light of the feedback we have received, we will be working to bolster our servers in preparation for additional wards in the Lavender Beds, the Goblet, Mist, and Shirogane by patch 4.2.

We’ve also received considerable feedback as to how they should be added, and we will be making an announcement outlining the number of new wards and how they will be sold after reviewing said feedback. To prevent speculation, we will refrain from releasing information until absolutely necessary. We ask for your patience and understanding until we can provide you with these details.'

[Amomomo]

Yes, in Yoshi-P's announcement, he promised that the dev team will review feedbacks. However, players who have long struggled with housing issues are very cautious in placing trust and faith in the dev team actually coming up with a satisfactory solution (of course you can't please everyone). Housing issues have been brought to their attention many times over the past few years, however, no solutions were offered other than extended wards last year. I believe this is one of the main cause for players not giving 100% faith to the implementation of a feasible solution. More than likely, due to the dev team requiring to work on other patch contents, we can only hope for additional wards added as a temporary fix to the current issues.

[Pence]

They've already announced they will be changing the system somewhat, I'm sure they put a lot of thought into releasing a statement like that for housing knowing that if they don't deliver -something- other than additional wards now all hell will break lose and it'll be a disaster for them. Faith my child.

[Amomomo]

Faith my child.

I sure hope so, good sir ;u;...

[Lady_Venus]

Making new wards with the same setup wont solve anything... I KNOW i will be camping my screen all the maintenance hours, log INSTANTLY to only be chain booted out of the game for 10,20 mins then log to find everyhting purchased and 80% is personal houses again!!

Make personal and FC houses in different wards!

Ward 13 (FC housing Ward)
Ward 14 (Personal housing Ward) .. etc.

Let the alts fight each other in their wards and get them off our backs.. we want to get our fc house!

[Mikki]

snip

But you'd still be fighting alts. There were some really lovely plots I've been eyeing for my FC for months but sadly many times after investigating I was met with the realization that they were just shell FCs squatting on the house. An FC with two people in it, both level 1 characters and the house locked most of the time. I wondered what the point of that even was, honestly. You can't enjoy that house at all. Why are you squatting on it? Probably to resell. It seems common to sell a house under the guise of selling an FC. Other times, it was unlocked and I'm guessing they had fun decorating it. So the point here is......... you'll still be competing with alts, scalpers and all of that junk no matter what.