Housing and FCs...

[Colt47]

I just got to say it: The housing system in this game feels like it's making free companies far too rigid. Basically, let's say there is a healthy server and a bunch of free companies form. They all build up funds, get a house, do raids and community activities, etc. Then the wear and tear of time happens and the FCs lose a lot of members. However, the FC owners have a huge amount of time and gil invested in their houses.

What I've observed is that instead of what happens in other games (people tend to break up or merge to keep the torch going), people in this game cling to their housing and never let it go. Then there are people who start new FCs, buy a new house, and can't find enough members or just did it so they can own another house.

More housing isn't going to fix this issue and I'm afraid the only answer is going to be ripping the entire system out and evicting the land owners.

[NephthysVasudan]

Once again....a complaint from an overpopulated server.

And a complete lack of regard for servers who are not overpopulated.

How typical.

[Colt47]

Once again....a complaint from an overpopulated server.

And a complete lack of regard for servers who are not overpopulated.

How typical.

Well, given how this works in the long run it can potentially impact any server. The fact the old vanguard are getting into this problem first and the newer servers don't have the issue yet is kind of a mute point. Not going to argue that the best solution is to get out of dodge and go to a low pop until something happens here.

[Penthea]

Well, given how this works in the long run it can potentially impact any server. The fact the old vanguard are getting into this problem first and the newer servers don't have the issue yet is kind of a mute point.

Not really. Several factors contribute to Balmung's population, some of which are simply not applicable to other servers.

It's a very old server (I believe it was legacy?) so it has had plenty of time to accumulate a high population. Since very early days the community has made it the main rp hub which has greatly contributed to its popularity. Roleplayers will most times go to a highly populated server because for that specific activity server population has immense impact on the quality and frequency of rp. Balmung is also in NA, which has significantly less language barriers than EU, so you don't get as many players being naturally funneled to specific servers. For example in EU french speaking players tend to flock to Moogle while german speaking players tend to go to Shiva.

Additionally if my time in WoW taught me anything about this it's that server population will always be very disproportionate. Even though the WoW devs have made several attempts over the course of a decade to entice players to transfer to other servers for free, it never really created a large enough dent to be considered a true success. Big servers remained big, small servers remained small. They even ended up merging a lot of servers because the populations there just didn't grow despite it growing elsewhere.

So while technically speaking any server could experience Balmung's population related housing issues, the truth is the chance is extremely low for this issue to become serious on more than a handful of servers. The housing system is far from perfect but on the majority of servers it's actually working out pretty well since 4.2. These days 99% of complaints I see about housing availability comes from bloated servers, and it's usually Balmung. Whereas before the complaints were much more widespread.

I don't envision SE rebooting the housing system with servers like Balmung as a driving factor. Bloated servers suck on both sides of the fence. It inhibits some fun factors for players and it gives devs more work. Housing does act as an incentive to transfer, so it's actually in SE's interests to keep housing as it is for now. If SE ever reboot the housing system, they're going to look at a far bigger picture than Balmung.

[ElHeggunte]

Well, given how this works in the long run it can potentially impact any server. The fact the old vanguard are getting into this problem first and the newer servers don't have the issue yet is kind of a mute point. Not going to argue that the best solution is to get out of dodge and go to a low pop until something happens here.

No, not really. Outside of Balmung, Gilgamesh, and maybe Leviathan, all the other NA servers have more plots and apartments than there are active accounts and new plots open up every day thanks to the demolition timer. Unless all of the other servers suddenly ballooned in population like the Big Three I don't see this cancer ever spreading in a way that requires SE to excise the whole system.

Grammar Nazi time: It's moot point, by the way.

[Pastahnak]

Plenty of housing on my server, maybe come make a FC on a server with housing instead of thinking every housing situation is like yours

[KageTokage]

It really does bother me how easy to it is to hang onto a large house if you have little intent of actually using it much or playing the game period.

I know there's someone who owns at least three larges on my server between their main account and their alt accounts, except they only bothered decorating the main house.

[Hazuki87]

It really does bother me how easy to it is to hang onto a large house if you have little intent of actually using it much or playing the game period.

I know there's someone who owns at least three larges on my server between their main account and their alt accounts, except they only bothered decorating the main house.

They said in the last live latter they are going to make Housing Account locked so if you have a House on one character you can’t have 1 on others, but it seem to me that if you have more then one character on the said server then you can use the same House. So if it true the there’s you’re fix for that.

[Sakuraluna]

They said in the last live latter they are going to make Housing Account locked so if you have a House on one character you can’t have 1 on others, but it seem to me that if you have more then one character on the said server then you can use the same House. So if it true the there’s you’re fix for that.

That person did say that the player who owns the houses owns them across multiple accounts though, so making housing account-locked wouldn’t really be helpful in that situation. Besides, it’s already been done, but players who have acquired multiple houses on a single account before the fact have been grandfathered in, although it would be nice if multiple characters on a single account could have access to a single private house.

[Jojoya]

Housing isn't a problem. Most worlds have plenty of available smalls if not also mediums.

Balmung's problem is Balmung's problem. The players there need to solve it on their own.