Housing System & Development Suggestions

[Novirae]

Housing system suggestions:

1. Have a new ward generate when all plots in the area are full. Or..

2. Have one additional ward per housing zone with a small village (think british cul-de-sac) containing for example five small standardised houses providing an instanced version of a house with an entrance portal at the gate (allowing a personalised garden from the inside). The instanced plot could be slightly more expensive than a normal small plot and can be bought outright (like apartments or other MMO’s housing structure, think BDO or ESO). This way, players can choose to have more room than an apartment, yet knowingly sacrifice the ‘exclusivity’ of a plot in the normal wards. Allowing more players to have housing may increase the supply and demand in the crafting market.

3. This option would only be applicable to current system to reduce wasted hours of several players: A wait list option per plot (that could prioritise Free Companies). When a plot becomes available, a timer of around 2 hours begins. If no interest is registered the timer resets. Those seeking a plot submit their interest via the placard (so they’re not left camping a sign for countless hours). As the system is highly RNG based anyway, the plot then is distributed to a random player on that list. A prompt is then sent to the ‘winner’ who can either accept or decline. The plot then chooses another player/FC from the list.

4. Increase the player tenant allowance a little and/or allow tenants to have private chambers.

5. Extend apartments to have two floors (with increase of furniture/storage capacity).

6. This option would only really apply if more residence options are added to meet demand: Change the 45-day timer to inactive sub for say 6 months. If a player is active in game, their plot should not be demolished.

7. Demolition: Implementation of an active in-game warning that needs dismissal e.g, “You have not entered your house in X-days, it will be demolished on <date>”.

8. Add the ability to convert your personal plot into an FC plot. I would have happily given up my small personal plot for the FC use.

9. Low priority but, additional placement options for furniture would be great for the building community (reference: ESO). Having to painstakingly bug items into place is clunky, though perhaps understandably the argument against this would be that SE doesn’t wish placement to have that flexibility. However, the reality is that players find workarounds which could be there as standard. Ruining immersion by having a floating wardrobe in a house? Well, we have giant flying whales and cars so..^^.

Continued..

[Novirae]

Additional notes:

• Ideally a player should not have to, in effect pay, real money to maintain the house by locking you to a minimum of 6-month subscription over a year period, with threat of demolition on a 45 day timer. If a player has been subscribed for years and wishes to take a break or has financial/life trouble, they should not be punished for this, especially considering the painful system some players go through to secure a plot. Housing is an in game item you have already paid for. The threat of demolition isn’t a healthy way to keep players subscribed.
  
• A couple of sleepy misclicks while trying to attain a plot for your FC and you can accidentally relocate (I have shaky hands so I nearly made this mistake several times). A third confirmation just for this option would be ideal, as relocation is instant, timing to click the button is not of essence.
  
• You should never, ever lose items you have paid for from the Mogstation, timers or no. You have paid real money and thus such items should either be returned to player inventory or the mail (or a reclamation NPC in the main city).

Personal experience with the system:

Lastly as a point of reference for this wall of text:

• Purchase of FC plot when Shirogane ward opened up. Witnessed two friends put time aside from work to battle the server queues, disconnects, only to lose out on plots when they were empty, ready and available to buy, due to a server bug.
  
• Loss of a medium plot due to demolition notification email going into spam, I had active subscription and regular porting to house but seemingly only using the garden. Several friends have also suffered the same fate.
  
• Purchase of personal plot after server move, total time 15 hours.
  
• Purchase of FC plot after server move and rank up, total time 17 hours (3 FC members trying - 2 plots unsuccessful).

Yes these hours might seem extreme and a highly impractical (insane) waste of time, but if you want a plot, it’s what you have to do to have a decent chance, or potentially no chance, it’s a roll of the dice. It’s an entire system based on a gamble. I thought, once it’s done it’s done, and I didn’t want to waste the hours already invested, so I kept going.


Thank you for reading though this and again I apologise if there are any duplicated thoughts in here. I've done my best to present this in the most concise way possible. I've said for a long time I would put together a large post surrounding this topic so this is the result. Input is always welcome and appreciated! Best wishes for your travels in Eorzea!

-Aeyvi