Hoarding Houses - Sometimes a Depressing Sight (a rant)

[Penthea]

So I had some idle conversation with a friend about three medium houses in the same subdivision as our fc which are mostly barren and have been for over a year. The houses are locked and their only exterior decorations are unused gardening patches. We decided to do a little bit of digging in the lodestone and it looks like the same player owns seven houses in the same ward.

I totally understand wanting to own multiple houses. It means more fun decorating, gardening and possibly several fc workshops to highly profit from. I'm really not okay with people owning more than the current limit, but I will cut people some slack if they're actually using the houses.

But these houses have next to zero garden decorations, the gardening patches are unused and most of them are private homes so most are not even being used for workshops. The characters who own them have no classes above lvl 50 so they're not being played other than to reset house timers, and they're in tiny fcs (with similar names) with members that own these barren houses. I seriously doubt the interiors were given any attention. This just looks like pointless hoarding.

It is such a shame to see four medium houses, two cottages and a mansion to be borderline abandoned. I know SE grandfathered multi-house owners so this isn't a reportable offense...but that doesn't make these long-time mostly empty plots any less depressing to see.

I know players are allowed to do what they want with their houses, and this does include doing nothing, but as long as there are limited plots then SE should do their best to make sure as many players as possible benefit from the current system. Grandfathering goes against that.

I really hope SE will soon make all characters have access to the same private home, and at the same time take away excess housing from these grandfathered players. No one needs seven houses.

Or SE could give us instanced housing so we can have as many plots as we want without interfering with anyone else's chances for a plot. But the likelihood of that is very small. SE seem disinclined to let go of the ward system : /

/end rant

[Rymm]

I have fairly strong opinions on the topic of house hoarding and I largely agree with the general stance of the OP. That being said, there is absolutely nothing useful that will come out of this thread. It will just be the same tired, recycled arguments from both sides that we've all heard a million and one times. I'm sick to death of the whole dog and pony show.

This time around, I'm just going to kick back with popcorn and watch.

[Yui_Tenshi]

... and they're in tiny fcs (with similar names) with members that own these barren houses.

Bot housing...? Or at least Faerie has seen a few locked houses with nothing outside and the owner has a weird name that you'd normally see for bots. At least that's what this sounds like it would be.

[Penthea]

Bot housing...? Or at least Faerie has seen a few locked houses with nothing outside and the owner has a weird name that you'd normally see for bots. At least that's what this sounds like it would be.

The names for the most part look like potentially legitimate names, but this of course doesn't mean they're not bots. What I meant about the names is the fcs have very similar names.

I have fairly strong opinions on the topic of house hoarding and I largely agree with the general stance of the OP. That being said, there is absolutely nothing useful that will come out of this thread. It will just be the same tired, recycled arguments from both sides that we've all heard a million and one times. I'm sick to death of the whole dog and pony show.

I get what you're saying, but posting nothing about it does even less. I'm tired of this song and dance too, but the fact is all the major housing changes have been a direct result of players complaining. It's in our interest to put pressure on SE, no matter how small it starts. I have not yet given up but I admit I am leaning towards apathy at this point.

[MizArai]

This time around, I'm just going to kick back with popcorn and watch.

Pass the popcorn please. :-)

[Jojoya]

It's in our interest to put pressure on SE, no matter how small it starts. I have not yet given up but I admit I am leaning towards apathy at this point.

Players have been putting pressure on SE all along. That's how we got the changes they've already made. I'm not sure what else you are expecting players to do.

SE is not unaware of the situation. I doubt they're completely ignoring it. But I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't prioritizing the issue considering how many worlds have a significant amount of available housing that is getting ignored by those complaining about a lack of housing.

[Brynne]

Or SE could give us instanced housing so we can have as many plots as we want without interfering with anyone else's chances for a plot. But the likelihood of that is very small. SE seem disinclined to let go of the ward system

They wouldn't necessarily have to throw out the ward system in order to add instanced housing. IMO personal housing should've been instanced, and wards left to FCs. We wouldn't have had multiple ward increases if that were the case, but we have what we have. There are a number of small ways SE could start to ease the housing crunch on larger servers, including but not limited to:

- allowing more tenants per house
- allowing alts to share the main's house without taking up tenant slots
- adding access to crossbreeding gardens via apartments and company rooms
- adding access to company workshops via something other than housing

In the long term, I'd be happy if I heard they were working on an instanced housing system that would run in parallel to the current wards, offering incentives for any FC or character who chose to move their house from the wards to the instanced system (purchasable upgrades would be one possible perk that I think a lot of people would go for). But again, I'm not sure if SE cares enough to do any large overhauls. I get a kind of "good enough" vibe from them right now. Which is a shame.

That aside, my suspicion is that if we had unlimited instanced housing, there would be less of these empty "placeholder" houses. When a resource is limited, it seems to encourage this kind of "I'd better get one now, even if I don't need it, because soon I WON'T BE ABLE TO". I wouldn't be surprised if the player with those alts fully intends to decorate those houses "someday, when I have time". They just grabbed them to hold onto in case they want to decorate them later. If housing were instanced and they knew their alts could get houses whenever they wanted without difficulty, they probably wouldn't have bothered.

[Penthea]

Players have been putting pressure on SE all along. That's how we got the changes they've already made. I'm not sure what else you are expecting players to do.

SE is not unaware of the situation. I doubt they're completely ignoring it. But I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't prioritizing the issue considering how many worlds have a significant amount of available housing that is getting ignored by those complaining about a lack of housing.

Part of the issue is not all plots are equal, and I don't mean the amount of furnishing slots. I mean that there are certain types of furnishings that have limitations based on the size of the house.

This was somewhat alleviated with the increased slots for npcs but crafting stations and gardening patches remain very noticeably limited. So while there may be plots available on a person's server, this does not mean those plots can adequately serve the needs of themselves or their fc. I know from personal experience that going from a cottage to a medium is a significant change for a fc.

It must suck when your fc is stuck with a cottage and you know there are mediums and mansions belonging to grandfathered players who hardly use them. It must be a real kick in the teeth if your cottage happens to be right beside one of these mostly abandoned big plots.

They wouldn't necessarily have to throw out the ward system in order to add instanced housing. IMO personal housing should've been instanced, and wards left to FCs. We wouldn't have had multiple ward increases if that were the case, but we have what we have. There are a number of small ways SE could start to ease the housing crunch on larger servers, including but not limited to:

- allowing more tenants per house
- allowing alts to share the main's house without taking up tenant slots
- adding access to crossbreeding gardens via apartments and company rooms
- adding access to company workshops via something other than housing

I completely agree with this and the list you have written. The first three alone would do so much to improve the situation without needing anything resembling a massive overhaul.

In the long term, I'd be happy if I heard they were working on an instanced housing system that would run in parallel to the current wards, offering incentives for any FC or character who chose to move their house from the wards to the instanced system (purchasable upgrades would be one possible perk that I think a lot of people would go for). But again, I'm not sure if SE cares enough to do any large overhauls. I get a kind of "good enough" vibe from them right now. Which is a shame.

I am hoping for the same but like you I am doubting this will happen. Maybe the fan fest and up coming live letters will give us a pleasant surprise. Not likely though

That aside, my suspicion is that if we had unlimited instanced housing, there would be less of these empty "placeholder" houses. When a resource is limited, it seems to encourage this kind of "I'd better get one now, even if I don't need it, because soon I WON'T BE ABLE TO". I wouldn't be surprised if the player with those alts fully intends to decorate those houses "someday, when I have time". They just grabbed them to hold onto in case they want to decorate them later. If housing were instanced and they knew their alts could get houses whenever they wanted without difficulty, they probably wouldn't have bothered.

In the case of the player I referred to in my first post, I doubt this is someone planning to decorate later given one of the fcs is five years old (can't remember how old the other one is) so it's possible the ownership of the fc houses and the private homes is just as old. But I can only speculate as there is no way to know.

When I chat on voice I tend to do laps of my subdivision on my mount. I do this several times a week. Not once have I seen any shred of change or activity in those three mostly empty medium plots in more than a year. They don't even have aetherytes so the characters who own them probably never leave the housing district. Nothing I have seen so far suggests anything other than pointless hoarding.

[Themarvin]

1 personal house and 1 FC house per account per server, and no more grand fathering is my standpoint, none offense meant to anyone about it.

Suggestion to solve it: Make your alts share same private house or apartments, and have room for more tenants.

[AriesMouse]

I still say they should give instanced housing. I also strongly disagree that they should ever, at any point, remove houses from people grandfathered in. It is never good PR for a company to punish people for following the rules, even worse if they were to do it after giving those people a pass. If SE wanted the system to work differently, then they should have planned and codded things to fit that. They didn't, and they are the only ones that should be getting grief for it.

Personally, if a house is being used, maintained, decorated, etc, then I don't care who owns it, or how many other houses they own. What bothers me is seeing the same houses sit for over a year, with literally nothing changing in them. Not a single new item. Nothing ever placed in the gardens. They just sit, collecting dust. They just feel like trophy items. I get it, we can't tell people how to use their houses once they have them, but at the end of the day, what is worse? Someone having more than one house, and spending hours upon hours decorating them, loving them, and using them, like housing is their end game content? Or someone that has a house and only goes to it once a month to reset timer(made worse when the people that do this do in fact have more than one house)?

At the end of the day, there is a slippery slope here, when it comes to saying something needs to be removed from players. Where do you draw the line? When does "this person has too much, take some away" stop? Does it just stop with people with more than 1 personal house? Or would it just move on to "no one should have a personal mansion", or "an FC needs this house more, take away the personal housing". I have seen those sorts of statements before. Once you open the door to things being removed, you can't close it. Also take for example people that have more than one house because they have more than one service account. Should they lose their houses to? They are 100% within the rules, but people will argue that they should still drop to just one. Rather than fighting to take away other people's toys, why not fight harder for SE to provide enough for all of us to play with evenly?