Pushed to quit after 1,860 days subbed

[MomomiMomi]

I think the worrying thing is that the game did not inform him that a demolition timer even existed. Well I am not sure if this is the case, I skipped through the pop-up tutorial when I bought my house because I didn't need to read it given I read everything I could about housing on wikis before getting my own. If it does come up in the pop-up tutorial message...well it's OP's fault for not reading it. If it doesn't, then SE are at fault for not making the existence of the timer clear.

That being said it's possible if there is a pop-up message informing of demolition, that may not mean it was always there. Maybe it wasn't when OP got his house. Hard to say without knowing exactly when OP got his house.

There is a pop-up when you enter residential areas whenever they've added new features to housing, including the demolition timer. OP probably just didn't read it. Doesn't change the fact that it sucks they lost everything, and the housing system does need a lot of work, but I find it hard to believe that OP didn't know about the demolition timer through no fault of their own.

[Penthea]

There is a pop-up when you enter residential areas whenever they've added new features to housing, including the demolition timer. OP probably just didn't read it.

The problem with that is it's possible OP didn't read it at the time because it didn't concern him. He may have not gotten his house until long after he first entered a residential area after demolition was introduced. Not saying it excuses him from reading it, but I can see how a player would dismiss such a pop-up if they had no house at the time nor would think they would even have one soon. I imagine new players could get caught by this if they read the information when they were a low lvl sprout and weren't sure what it meant, or even forgot about it by the time they could buy a house.

I suppose a way to improve it is have a pop-up window stating what demolition is directly after purchasing a plot, instead of only the first time you enter a residential district.

[Canadane]

So after being subbed from 2.0's release, owning every collector's edition (including the original 1.0 release), with additional retainers, buying merchandise and Mogstation items, and even attending fan festivals, I'm out. I only offer that info for background, not a boast - I know many others have done the same, and more. But I'm not a casual fan - I was a fully invested, "I'm going to play this game til the servers burn down" kind of fan. And now I'm not.

...


When I purchased my housing plot, there was no mention of the auto-delete system. Nothing to say that I needed to carry out a certain level of upkeep, or what would happen if I didn't.

It was never a secret, and if you were invested as you say you were, you would have known about it.

I'm sorry you lost your house, I really am. I wish houses for everyone.
But to say that there was no notice of the system in place, is just asinine. It was in patch notes. It's been in the games. It's been all over the forums and other media from others who don't read these things. If you're going to say that you are heavily vested into playing the game, one would reasonably ascertain that you've known about this non-secret.

However, that all aside, it sounds like the house wasn't terribly that important in your day-to-day activities within the game. You seemed to have had 1800~ days without it just fine.
Why not keep playing and enjoy as you were? There's a lot more out there for you to do!

[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.

[Raskbuck]

It was never a secret, and if you were invested as you say you were, you would have known about it.

I'm sorry you lost your house, I really am. I wish houses for everyone.
But to say that there was no notice of the system in place, is just asinine. It was in patch notes. It's been in the games. It's been all over the forums and other media from others who don't read these things. If you're going to say that you are heavily vested into playing the game, one would reasonably ascertain that you've known about this non-secret.

However, that all aside, it sounds like the house wasn't terribly that important in your day-to-day activities within the game. You seemed to have had 1800~ days without it just fine.
Why not keep playing and enjoy as you were? There's a lot more out there for you to do!

Oh, please. Implying that OP should've known about it is completely missing the point of the thread. There have been several reports of housing e-mails not working the way they should, despite SquareEnix claiming otherwise. As it is right now, the system is very unfriendly in notifying you when your house is going to get demolished. First off, the timer that should notify you doesn't even appear unless you're a couple of weeks away from demolition (now that's asinine). Secondly, there's no in-game mention at all if your house is approaching that time; no popups, no in-game mails, no notifications, nothing. You have to hope that the automated e-mail they send isn't lost in the void.

Even if you end up losing your house, you should at the very least be able to recover your items at any given time. Housing is great in this game, but as it is right now, they are holding you and all the time you've invested at ransom to keep the subscriptions up. It seems disingenuous, to say the least.

[HyoMinPark]

Oh, please. Implying that OP should've known about it is completely missing the point of the thread. There have been several reports of housing e-mails not working the way they should, despite SquareEnix claiming otherwise. As it is right now, the system is very unfriendly in notifying you when your house is going to get demolished. First off, the timer that should notify you doesn't even appear unless you're a couple of weeks away from demolition (now that's asinine). Secondly, there's no in-game mention at all if your house is approaching that time; no popups, no in-game mails, no notifications, nothing. You have to hope that the automated e-mail they send isn't lost in the void.

Even if you end up losing your house, you should at the very least be able to recover your items at any given time. Housing is great in this game, but as it is right now, they are holding you and all the time you've invested at ransom to keep the subscriptions up. It seems disingenuous, to say the least.

Housing emails functioning as intended or not, if you don’t step into your house for not only 45 days, but an additional 35 after that to lose your reclaimed items from the NPC, that tells me that the house itself wasn’t something direly needed to the OP. I’m sympathetic towards how crappy this housing system is, but if you go 80 days without even looking at or thinking about your house? 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.

[Raskbuck]

Housing emails functioning as intended or not, if you don’t step into your house for not only 45 days, but an additional 35 after that to lose your reclaimed items from the NPC, that tells me that the house itself wasn’t something direly needed to the OP. I’m sympathetic towards how crappy this housing system is, but if you go 80 days without even looking at or thinking about your house? 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.

That's glossing over a very real issue several players seem to been having lately. There have been reports of people getting other player's housing e-mails despite not owning one, or they simply poof into the void.

Sometimes life happens, and it's not up to us to judge whether another player is invested or not in the house. It could be surgery, deployment, or anything else that prevents them from playing for an extended period of time. Pointing out the game's flaws isn't meant as an attack to the company. It's criticism to help them improve upon the game and address the concern a lot of the playerbase have. Sitting comfortably on your side of the fence and judging them isn't helping anyone.

[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".

[HyoMinPark]

Sometimes life happens, and it's not up to us to judge whether another player is invested or not in the house. It could be surgery, deployment, or anything else that prevents them from playing for an extended period of time. Pointing out the game's flaws isn't meant as an attack to the company. It's criticism to help them improve upon the game and address the concern a lot of the playerbase have. Sitting comfortably on your side of the fence and judging them isn't helping anyone.

Okay....

Shortly after, real life things happened. There's no use going into it - I'm not looking for a pity party - but needless to say I had less and less time for FFXIV. But I stayed subscribed. I logged in to do seasonal events as they came up, grinding Yo Kai watch weapons, all of that stuff. I was doing the Cactpot every week. The simple things.

But you've probably guessed what happened. I hadn't stepped foot in my house in months. I hadn't needed to, and frankly what little time I had to play didn't need to be spent in my house. Not yet - I'd finish it when I had more time to play!

The OP had enough time to devote to seasonal events and the weekly Cactpot. That’s enough time to also step foot into your house, because that’s all it takes to reset the demolition timer. It takes less time to do that than seasonal events.

[Raskbuck]

Okay....



The OP had enough time to devote to seasonal events and the weekly Cactpot. That’s enough time to also step foot into your house, because that’s all it takes to reset the demolition timer. It takes less time to do that than seasonal events.

That's because it wasn't explained clearly anywhere in-game. I feel like we're talking in different languages here, not to mention completely missing the point of my response.

If deep down you're implying that it was ultimately OP's fault and that there's nothing to improve upon the housing system, I suppose there's nothing else to discuss. I know you are not saying that, but it sure seems like it if we're arguing about technicalities.