Pushed to quit after 1,860 days subbed

[Sigma-Astra]

I just question how invested one is when they go almost 3 months without using this asset that they are now quitting the game over.

And herein lies the main crutch of the problem with the OP's heading, if one is so invested into getting an in-game house, then they would seek to at least familiarize themselves on the information available to them first and foremost.

It's different to say that you can't decorate it right away, that's fine, I said the same thing. It's another to just be willfully blind and/or ignorant towards housing entirely and then blame your lack of knowledge on the game because you didn't feel like researching properly to cover your own bases.

It sucks with what happened, but this sounds like a case of "I really wanted this house, but decided to be lazy about making sure that I knew everything that there was to know regarding the rules and timers regulating housing. And now, I'm going to blame my lack of knowledge for losing said house on the game/devs because it's easier to blame others instead of admit that I made some clear oversights and mistakes in the end".

[Kurando]

How does someone play the game for so long but not hear of the requirements for owning a house and the upkeep involved? I mean even if you don't own property yourself, it's not uncommon to come across other people that might discuss it in-game. If I considered buying a house I'd ask my FC for advice or even the Novice Network if I was a new player, I wouldn't go in to the situation expecting it to be the same as some other MMO on the market.

Could SE improve on notifications? Perhaps, but there is enough information out there to assist players before purchasing property.

[Enkrateia]

Greetings,

If I may add a slight point of clarification to the housing demolition notification e-mails, since it seems the response from the Game Masters may not have been clear or misunderstood.

When this is reported to us, we escalate these reports as potential errors to be looked into to ensure there is not an error within our system. In the cases that have been reported to us through various means, we have been able to confirm that the notification e-mails were sent correctly by our system to the e-mail address that is registered on the account. However, once the e-mail has been correctly sent by us, we cannot ensure that it was successfully delivered. Internet issues between e-mail delivery systems, spam filters (by an ISP, e-mail provider, or the settings that have been set), the incorrect e-mail being looked at, or the notifications being improperly labeled as junk mail could all result in the notification not being seen.

We do recommend making sure that any filters or settings under our customers' control are set to allow these e-mails to be correctly received and to make sure that the e-mail address on the account is correct.

If you do feel that the notification is not being sent correctly, please do submit a bug report so that we can investigate it. We do not want to assume that errors never occur, and would prefer to verify the system is working correctly than allow errors that prevent the notifications from being sent out.

I hope that helps clear up the Game Master responses that have been mentioned.

LGM Enkrateia

[Penthea]

However, once the e-mail has been correctly sent by us, we cannot ensure that it was successfully delivered.

We do recommend making sure that any filters or settings under our customers' control are set to allow these e-mails to be correctly received and to make sure that the e-mail address on the account is correct.

Many people who have said that they did not receive emails about demolition or found them in their spam section, have no issue receiving other emails from SE for things such as notification of subscription payment, receipts from the Mog Station and promotional notices in their standard inbox.

Perhaps SE need to change something about the nature of the emails they send regarding demolition, because it's very odd and honestly irritating that they're often flagged as spam while other emails from them are not.

If a person has no issue receiving other emails from SE then they're naturally going to assume they will not have issue getting demolition notices either. This inconsistency is very misleading and many people have found out about it too late.

[Claviusnex]

Greetings,

If I may add a slight point of clarification to the housing demolition notification e-mails, since it seems the response from the Game Masters may not have been clear or misunderstood.

When this is reported to us, we escalate these reports as potential errors to be looked into to ensure there is not an error within our system. In the cases that have been reported to us through various means, we have been able to confirm that the notification e-mails were sent correctly by our system to the e-mail address that is registered on the account. However, once the e-mail has been correctly sent by us, we cannot ensure that it was successfully delivered. Internet issues between e-mail delivery systems, spam filters (by an ISP, e-mail provider, or the settings that have been set), the incorrect e-mail being looked at, or the notifications being improperly labeled as junk mail could all result in the notification not being seen.

We do recommend making sure that any filters or settings under our customers' control are set to allow these e-mails to be correctly received and to make sure that the e-mail address on the account is correct.

If you do feel that the notification is not being sent correctly, please do submit a bug report so that we can investigate it. We do not want to assume that errors never occur, and would prefer to verify the system is working correctly than allow errors that prevent the notifications from being sent out.

I hope that helps clear up the Game Master responses that have been mentioned.

LGM Enkrateia

So why not send a parallel message through the in game moogle mail? Sure seems to me it would cover those folks who are still playing but didn't get the e-mail for whatever reason.

See, I think the problem here is that there is no in-game notification about this sort of thing. If they can send you an e-mail, SURELY they could send a moogle mail, or even have "housing" tucked under the timer menu.

As it is, auto-demolition sucks. I get to worry about "What if something in life happens and I can't log in for a while? Better make sure to hit up my house compulsively" and it's annoying.

Housing is tucked under the timers menu. However it doesn't show up until 15 days to demolition. There is a thread about wanting to see it all of the time on the Housing forum. However if you didn't know it was there I'm not sure it would have helped either.

[R-Pete-G]

Genuinely wasn't expecting so many replies!

To the most common points:


- When I first got the house, I spent a good few days just hanging out there, messing about with decorations, etc. As I mentioned in the OP, real life happened. I had very limited time to play FFXIV and things that are "time limited" (ie: a finite number of Cactpot draws for a chance of 1st prize, and seasonal events) were the things I prioritised. Hell, I kept buying the furnishings from the season events in that time because I fully intended to get back and stuck into that house when I was able to play more again.

I get that these systems exist to free up housing plots from people who aren't "active", but in my mind I still was. It would have been just a few minutes a month, if I'd known, to keep the upkeep. I genuinely never considered that as someone paying their subscription and logging in regularly, that content I had earned would be taken away.


- My knowledge of housing came from having private chambers / apartments / the FC house. I knew how the furnishings worked, stuff like that. I figured I knew how it worked - I didn't think there was any need to go looking for hidden catches. I thought I'd just enjoy the experience of figuring it out as I went along, and that's what I find lacking about the poor level of in game communication about this.

I like figuring stuff out in the game on my own. I don't trawl through the Lodestone, I follow the FFXIV Twitter for news updates and stuff, but I enjoy the experience of asking FC friends things, or exploring. Reading every new Lodestone article in case something might be relevant to an in-game activity I do in the future isn't really how I play. It doesn't feel like that should be a requirement for not losing your stuff.

I do understand some of these responses - for a lot of you who are here on the forum, it probably means you are that sort of player who reads up on fan sites, forums, wikis etc. I have been that player in the past, in MMOs over the years. But not everyone is, and for the most part Square Enix do cater to both kinds of player. Think of all the help text that is in the game - how frustrating would it be if other systems weren't explained as you used them? I was invested in playing the game, and that shouldn't come with a requirement of reading every set of patch notes and every article on the Lodestone.

What we're talking here is the difference between "I like reading up on a feature to understand it better", which is the angle I think a lot of these replies are coming from, and "I have to read up on a feature because otherwise things I've invested time and effort into will disappear". It's easy to say "How could you not know?" with the benefit of hindsight and already knowing, but here I am - an actual example of someone who's played the game a lot, and didn't.


- To the people wondering if I'd just missed it somewhere, I did actually watch some YouTube videos of people buying their houses during the same period I did. There's definitely no mention of the auto demolition schedule when you purchase a new house.

[Sigma-Astra]

My knowledge of housing came from having private chambers / apartments / the FC house. I knew how the furnishings worked, stuff like that. I figured I knew how it worked - I didn't think there was any need to go looking for hidden catches. I thought I'd just enjoy the experience of figuring it out as I went along, and that's what I find lacking about the poor level of in game communication about this.

I like figuring stuff out in the game on my own. I don't trawl through the Lodestone, I follow the FFXIV Twitter for news updates and stuff, but I enjoy the experience of asking FC friends things, or exploring. Reading every new Lodestone article in case something might be relevant to an in-game activity I do in the future isn't really how I play. It doesn't feel like that should be a requirement for not losing your stuff.

I do understand some of these responses - for a lot of you who are here on the forum, it probably means you are that sort of player who reads up on fan sites, forums, wikis etc. I have been that player in the past, in MMOs over the years. But not everyone is, and for the most part Square Enix do cater to both kinds of player. Think of all the help text that is in the game - how frustrating would it be if other systems weren't explained as you used them? I was invested in playing the game, and that shouldn't come with a requirement of reading every set of patch notes and every article on the Lodestone.

....Uh, there's no way that the game could theoretically tell you through in-game notifications about every little patch or update because it would literally boggle down the entire system. Some patch notes are incredibly long to shift through online, so imagine trying to sit there and shift through 11 mini pages of in-game notes before you're able to play. I'm sorry, but if you're too lazy to check the Lodestone and read through the notes, that sounds like a personal problem and not a game breaking problem.

WoW posts their patch and in-game content fixes I'm sure to their own forums and whatever is their Lodestone equivalent as well.

You are blaming the entire housing system on a problem you could have prevented yourself. Either read, or don't...that's your own decision. But, do not blame the game or others because it's "not really how you play".

Take responsibility for your own lack of insight on the matter instead of pointing fingers that no one was there to hold your hand or tell you anything.

[Penthea]

....Uh, there's no way that the game could theoretically tell you through in-game notifications about every little patch or update because it would literally boggle down the entire system. Some patch notes are incredibly long to shift through online, so imagine trying to sit there and shift through 11 mini pages of in-game notes before you're able to play. I'm sorry, but if you're too lazy to check the Lodestone and read through the notes, that sounds like a personal problem and not a game breaking problem.

But this isn't what they're saying SE should do. They're saying SE should be clearer about the presence of the demolition feature and the personal state of it for a person's house. They're not asking for patch-notes in their moogle mail or pop-ups.

[Sigma-Astra]

But this isn't what they're saying SE should do. They're saying SE should be clearer about the presence of the demolition feature and the personal state of it for a person's house. They're not asking for patch-notes in their moogle mail or pop-ups.

And yet how often do we hear of people getting their houses demolished because they neglected to read or learn of the tools available towards them? You don't reward willful ignorance of a situation.

It doesn't take much effort to educate oneself about the housing system and if people didn't necessarily buy houses and leave them to sit there for months or years and not even put a garden in them...we probably wouldn't even have a need for an auto demolition feature to begin with, now that I think about it.

It was put into place because people buy property and then never do anything with it or they unsub from the game, don't relinquish the house first, and then it's stuck on a service account no one is using.

[Penthea]

And yet how often do we hear of people getting their houses demolished because they neglected to read or learn of the tools available towards them? You don't reward willful ignorance of a situation.

It doesn't take much effort to educate oneself about the housing system

No it doesn't but people should not have to read third party sources to find out that their house can be removed. Having something you own being taken away from you is a really big deal, and SE should make it exceptionally clear when someone buys a house. Not when they're a lvl 15 sprout who barely know how the game works and have not even 10k gil to their name.

Information about demolition is simply not relevant to a sprout. They won't be able to purchase a house for at least a few weeks, if not a few months or even over a year. You can't expect people to remember every tiny sliver of information they read. People are human. They forget things. It wouldn't kill SE to put in an additional pop-up about how demolition works directly after someone purchases a house. You know...when the information is actually relevant to them.

I have encountered plenty of people like OP, avid players of the game who eventually got a house and had no idea demolition was even a thing. They completely forgot the game even mentioned it at all. The timing of when information about the demolition timer is presented is extremely poorly timed.