Hoarding Houses - Sometimes a Depressing Sight (a rant)

[Numenor1379]

My solution would be; SE to enforce the 1 personal and 1 FC house per SE account while also unlocking house use for characters on that account, and HEAVILY encourage current owners to relenquish their extra houses while grandfathering them in as current.

I'd love to say SE should just take the houses, but that is wrong. Encouraging players to voluntarilly relinquish their extra houses is the only fair way to do it. Perhaps give them a free subscription month per house, or triple the in-game value... etc.

[MaybeOliverB]

My houses are not grandfathered.

[Besame]

Reading this thread and chuckling. Don't waste your breath arguing with a true hoarder. They always have a "valid" reason in their mind and you will get frustrated dealing with them.

[Themarvin]

This is becoming a farce in a way, standpoint still sticks with removal of grandfathering or deporting all multiple house owners to a server their own, to free up the servers they reside some more, or given the option to to transfer all for free or the likes.... or just SE stepping in revoking the grandfathering giving the players a choice with a patch that they can keep 1 house +1 FC house, wont be bad PR either really, and hey if SE can up the visible item limit for houses when inside would be nice too now when they are at it

[Harmonea]

You won't get a source for it because there is none that they can provide. I didn't read their last post because I have them blocked now, but other times they answered this it was little more than napkin math based on their personal experience on only one server along with conveniently overlooking anything that contested their claim.

Grandfathered houses are houses which, once lost, may not be repurchased by their original owners since the rules no longer allow those purchases. Therefore, the number of grandfathered houses can only ever go down. While the owners of these homes are almost certainly very active and attentive toward our demo timers, one by one, we will quit, make mistakes in our login rituals, fall prey to bugs, or have RL interventions that will reclaim the land. No one can make claims as to the rate that's happening, but I'd guarantee this time next year there will be fewer grandfathered houses than there currently are. I think that's the logic being employed here, and the "napkin math" you eschew is only intended to give example numbers.

The data centre splits makes me both hopeful and concerned. It does mean that many players who leave crowded servers will finally have a chance to get a house elsewhere, but this doesn't mean each will be a success story. I expect to see posts from people saying things like "I thought I would have the chance to get a house on <server> but all the wards are full and I can't transfer for a few days while the empty plots elsewhere are being bought. I'll never get a house." and "I left my house behind to go to the same data centre as my friends and the server I moved to has no plots left". We already saw similar happen before with the first free transfers. It's one of the primary reasons why those two players on Mateus became so controversial.

I would hope any player for whom housing is so big a draw that it's their primary reason for considering a server switch would plan ahead. They should make an alt, stake out the wards, and find a couple of open plots they're interested in. They should form their FC ahead of time to push it to rank 6 with a few like-minded friends to prevent the weeks-later housing crunch that happened on Mateus; leveling some alts through the MSQ on a preferred server doesn't take long and nets a silly amount of FC leveling credit. And of course, they should be in money-making mode now if they don't already have the funds.

[Penthea]

Grandfathered houses are houses which, once lost, may not be repurchased by their original owners since the rules no longer allow those purchases. Therefore, the number of grandfathered houses can only ever go down. While the owners of these homes are almost certainly very active and attentive toward our demo timers, one by one, we will quit, make mistakes in our login rituals, fall prey to bugs, or have RL interventions that will reclaim the land.

You're not entirely correct. While the number of grandfathered houses can never increase this does not mean they can only decrease. Yes people do make mistakes, life can get in the way, the game has bugs and people do quit, but this doesn't mean that all grandfathered players will eventually be careless, unfortunate, or will quit the game before the servers shut down forever. It is possible we will hit a point in which their number of plots will completely stop dropping before they're all gone.

Certainly I expect that pair on Mateus, who own an entire ward, intend to keep it right up until FFXIV shuts down forever. They put in far too much time and effort to let easily remedied carelessness take away any of their houses. If they remain diligent with resetting timers then only bugs, very unfortunate life circumstances or direct intervention by SE can remove their houses.

I would hope any player for whom housing is so big a draw that it's their primary reason for considering a server switch would plan ahead. They should make an alt, stake out the wards, and find a couple of open plots they're interested in. They should form their FC ahead of time to push it to rank 6 with a few like-minded friends to prevent the weeks-later housing crunch that happened on Mateus; leveling some alts through the MSQ on a preferred server doesn't take long and nets a silly amount of FC leveling credit. And of course, they should be in money-making mode now if they don't already have the funds.

I completely agree that anyone even just thinking about leaving their current server should already be doing as much research and preparation as possible.

But sadly all the prep and research won't make someone immune to bad luck. You could unknowingly go to a server where a large amount of players also went to. You could get denied access to the game because of login queues, dcs, lobby errors, or just waiting for your character to be transferred. Or you could be defeated by the simple fact that you do not have a SSD, so your slower load times allow others to get ahead.

[Harmonea]

Certainly I expect that pair on Mateus, who own an entire ward, intend to keep it right up until FFXIV shuts down forever. They put in far too much time and effort to let easily remedied carelessness take away any of their houses. If they remain diligent with resetting timers then only bugs, very unfortunate life circumstances or direct intervention by SE can remove their houses.

I must confess I find your fixation on this one case strange considering the context of your OP, which is about depressing, pointless hoarding of barren plots of land with little to no interior or exterior decoration. That's not what was done there.

Regardless, as has been mentioned in many other replies... When a thousand people want a house, removing 14 (in that case, at least) isn't going to solve any problems. SE knows this, and that's why they've left things as they are.

What we should be doing, if the goal is truly to ensure everyone has enough rather than to take from those who got too much under different rules, is to focus on pushing for a system that will provide for everyone. If I may quote myself:

The solution truly is to provide instanced housing for those who want them. If we can have 200 pieces of data for a glamour chest, we should be able to have 200 pieces of data *tied to the character* for furnishings in a personal home.

[Penthea]

I must confess I find your fixation on this one case strange considering the context of your OP, which is about depressing, pointless hoarding of barren plots of land with little to no interior or exterior decoration. That's not what was done there.

It is because the Mateus situation is a fine example of how hoarding houses not only got very silly before SE stepped in, but also shows the impact a small amount of people can have on a far larger group. They also served as an example that saying that grandfathered plots can only ever decrease is wishful thinking. I think most of us will be surprised if those two on Mateus let their plots go of their own accord. The number of grandfathered plots may be falling, but as long as the system stays as it is we are never guaranteed that number will fall to zero. We aren't even guaranteed that it will fall below the current number.

As I said before I am more willing to be understanding with hoarders who actually do decorate, but this likely means little to someone who doesn't have a house at all. The presence or absence of decoration doesn't change much for someone who has no house.

One of my points with my first post is that grandfathering increases the likelihood of a waste of limited content. While everyone is free to do nothing with their houses, surely it's better when more individual players have this choice? Surely it's in SE's interests to increase how many people content serves without having to spend a lot of money by making more wards?

Honestly I'd be more lenient towards grandfathering in general if plot sizes didn't exist. If we instead had a system in which you bought a plot and you put a house size of your choice on the land, and could replace the house at any time. It would mean that no one would be stuck in a cottage if they need or want bigger a house, which would mean the negative impact of grandfathered plots would be smaller.

I probably wouldn't have bothered to make this thread if we had that system instead, as one of my gripes with the person I mentioned in my first post is that the grandfathered player has several unused medium houses and a mansion, while there are active fcs stuck in cottages.

Regardless, as has been mentioned in many other replies... When a thousand people want a house, removing 14 (in that case, at least) isn't going to solve any problems. SE knows this, and that's why they've left things as they are.

Removing the houses from those two players on Mateus alone frees up most of a ward. That's potentially over one hundred people deprived of housing because of two players. I'm pretty sure those people would disagree with you when you say removing grandfathering won't solve any problems.

True it doesn't solve the actual heart of the problem, but as I said before SE seemed disinclined to tackle housing in a manner which would ensure equal fairness and opportunities to every player. They only want to tweak. I hope 5.0 will break this cycle. I want my cynicism towards SE's stance on housing to be proven wrong.

What we should be doing, if the goal is truly to ensure everyone has enough rather than to take from those who got too much under different rules, is to focus on pushing for a system that will provide for everyone.

Ah, this again. So many here are happy to tell me what I or we should be doing instead, but I don't see them making a thread to contest my own. Would it not make more sense to let my thread die and then have the forum activity here go to a different thread presenting what you consider to be a better solution, rather than keep bumping a thread you strongly disagree with?

[Harmonea]

Ah, this again. So many here are happy to tell me what I or we should be doing instead, but I don't see them making a thread to contest my own. Would it not make more sense to let my thread die and then have the forum activity here go to a different thread presenting what you consider to be a better solution, rather than keep bumping a thread you strongly disagree with?

Are you implying a public forum is a place where threads full of people who agree with each other compete for which universally-agreed-upon (within the thread) idea gets the top spot and therefore the most attention? That each thread should be filled with "Yes, this is what I think too" and "/signed" and "SE please do this" only? That's not how any of this works. People discuss because their ideas differ. That this thread has so many replies shows only that it's a hotly debated topic with a lot of passion on all sides that SE needs to tread very carefully with, not that we think your OP is the best idea we have.

Let me ask, since twice now that it's been brought up we've ended up on this "if you disagree, stop talking" thing - are you opposed to instanced housing as a solution? What are the cons to such a system that make you believe removing grandfathered personals would be better for the health of housing in general?

Just so we're on the same page, I mean one single plot with a yard that could be bought by many players - each player, upon approaching the area, would see their own plot set up in front of them or, if they don't own it, either a blank parcel of land or a random home. Players could visit each other's instanced homes by using subcommands (that is, right click on a party member while within the borders and click some "visit home" option) or by selecting players from a list of those who own that bit of land. There could even be multiple sites or sizes for this system, so one player could buy the Ishgard plot while another could buy the one in Rhalgr's Reach and still another could get one in the Doman Enclave, but each individual plot could have hundreds of owners.

[Penthea]

Are you implying a public forum is a place where threads full of people who agree with each other compete for which universally-agreed-upon (within the thread) idea gets the top spot and therefore the most attention? That each thread should be filled with "Yes, this is what I think too" and "/signed" and "SE please do this" only?

No I didn't say this at all. I'm merely pointing out that I keep being told what I/we should be doing by people who don't really seem to be doing it. It appears people are more interested in banding together to tell me that I'm wrong, rather than band together to tell SE that they are wrong. Even though they keep saying we should be doing the latter.

SE would be more likely to pay attention to a strong thread where everyone is unified in their demand for something, rather than a thread like this where we are at odds. My thread is obviously failing at the unity, so then would it not make sense for the larger opposition to present their ideas in its own thread so it will be more likely to get attention? Let the thread with the bad ideas die, and let the one with the good ideas flourish?

Or do you somehow think bumping a thread you disagree with is better than creating a thread that you think would have a more positive impact on the game? You appear to be a reasonable person, so I doubt this.

Let me ask, since twice now that it's been brought up we've ended up on this "if you disagree, stop talking" thing - are you opposed to instanced housing as a solution? What are the cons to such a system that make you believe removing grandfathered personals would be better for the health of housing in general?

No, if you read my first post you would see at the end I say that I want one of two solutions, but people here keep debating with me as if I only brought up one. It seems I hit some nerves and it has made people decide I want one thing. I would far prefer instanced housing for a lot of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with grandfathered housing.

The main con with instanced housing is the likelihood of SE giving it to us. You can't deny that SE's history with housing shows us they want to do little other than tweak the current system. Furthermore they have so far only given us substantial positive changes to housing after the community unified in a gigantic wave of discontent, and this was after literal years of ignoring the multitude of complaints, warnings and foreshadowing the players gave them.

They were equipped with everything they needed to know to see that the Shirogane launch would be a disaster, but they launched it anyway without bringing in changes that would have greatly mitigated its ill-fated introduction to the game. When it comes to housing SE simply do not care unless enough people complain at the same time.

Just so we're on the same page, I mean one single plot with a yard that could be bought by many players - each player, upon approaching the area, would see their own plot set up in front of them or, if they don't own it, either a blank parcel of land or a random home. Players could visit each other's instanced homes by using subcommands (that is, right click on a party member while within the borders and click some "visit home" option) or by selecting players from a list of those who own that bit of land. There could even be multiple sites or sizes for this system, so one player could buy the Ishgard plot while another could buy the one in Rhalgr's Reach and still another could get one in the Doman Enclave, but each individual plot could have hundreds of owners.

This system would be far better than what we have now. I love the idea of having more options for areas to live in as well. Though I do wonder what would get displayed if your house and fc home occupy the same area. I also note the possible absence of neighbourhoods, which is something people do enjoy with the current ward system.

I would like what I call micro wards. These are small instances you could purchase and in there one or several houses can be built. I envision you would select the one you would like to visit in the same manner that you would select an apartment to visit. Fcs, rp communities, a bunch of friends, or even a house hoarder could create their own little neighbourhoods, or players could have just one house if they wish. This would mean we wouldn't lose the neighbourhood feel of wards, but wouldn't be shackled by the limitations of them either.

But sadly I don't think your or my idea is likely given SE's history with housing so far.