Please Remove the Inactivity Timer

[Jojoya]

To be able to take a break from the game and unsub for more than a month would be nice but no, because I still like my house a lot I am locked to this game.

Which is why we need an enhanced instanced housing system. You would then be able to take a break without losing your house since your ownership wouldn't prevent another player from also owning.

But until that happens, the demo timer is going to remain. It makes no sense to leave a limited resource in the hands of people who are not playing the game and might never return when others who are actively paying and playing also want that resource. It's your choice to pay to remain tied to something in a game you don't want to play.

[Saix027]

Common misconceptions

"The Inactivity Timer is meant to stop people owning several plots"
Wrong, but only by a technicality standpoint. The Inactivity timer was not meant to discourage or punish / penalize people having multiple plots. Just ensuring that they need to enter every plot once every month to maintain ownership. The timer itself originally was to ensure that, regardless of the player fluctuation, That there would still be availability On top of that, players that own multiple plots are from before the housing rework. Meaning they got those houses legitimately and played by the rules and systems they had at the time. SE can't do anything about it, as it would be deemed unfair for them to rip the houses the players earned away from them. No exceptions.

"The Inactivity timer is meant to stop overcrowding"
That's OUR fault, not SEs. They've tried time and time again to get us to spread out and, frankly, we just spit in their face. Nothing much can be done when people are stubborn.

"Housing is for everyone"
Also wrong. While yes, everyone deserves the right to have a go at housing, not everyone is going to GET a housing plot. The Housing Plots need to remain a finite resource in order to keep a demand. If everyone could get one, then there goes a major gil-sink for the game. It's doing its job. What people seem to enjoy ignoring is the apartments out there for people to own a house.

And before anyone says "Apartments aren't houses" or they're not proper instanced housing? Stop being picky. Yeah, you may not get every system with an apartment, but apartments don't auto-demo, they're permanent and about 3/4 the size of a Small (interior at least). For the price you're asked for its purchase, it's a pretty great deal. For everything else, just join an FC and get permissions to grow / water plants. Boom. There you go. All of the systems at your disposal.

Timer exists to continue subs, end of story, regardless how SE trys to show it, they are not the gaming messiah, Yoshida is not jesus, and by god i know he and his team try very hard with this mess of a game and spaghetti code and they succeded a lot, but SE itself i call greedy wtih the subs, mogry store, subs for retainers, etc.

It pays the game becasue SE not gives them money to work with the game, so they are FORCED to rob people of there wallets, i love this game but SE itself is such a scam, i can't wait till Yoshida can start really from scratch without bad influences from SE with his next project.

[Jojoya]

Timer exists to continue subs, end of story, regardless how SE trys to show it, they are not the gaming messiah, Yoshida is not jesus, and by god i know he and his team try very hard with this mess of a game and spaghetti code and they succeded a lot, but SE itself i call greedy wtih the subs, mogry store, subs for retainers, etc.

It pays the game becasue SE not gives them money to work with the game, so they are FORCED to rob people of there wallets, i love this game but SE itself is such a scam, i can't wait till Yoshida can start really from scratch without bad influences from SE with his next project.

Every game company is greedy. They are for-profit companies, not charities. They are out to make money and that means offering things people want to buy.

It's hard to find any multiplayer online game that doesn't sell optional items, content and/or services you have to pay extra to get. Stop making it sound like SE is so horribly different from the rest when it's not.

If you object so much, why do you continue to patron these greedy gaming companies when you could stick to purchasing from game companies where a one time purchase gets you every thing possible for the game? I'm sure there are a few that exist somewhere out there if you take the time to look.

The timer does not exist to force players to continue to subscribe. Even players who are actively subscribed will lose their house if they don't enter it for 45 days. The timer exists so that a limited resource can get in the hands of those who will actively use it if the current owner is not.

We the consumers ultimately decide whether or not to spend money on the product provided. You can be an ignorant consumer and pay money for something you aren't actively using, or you can be an intelligent consumer and pay money for something you are actively using.

If you know something requires continued use to retain possession but you don't want to maintain continued use, why did you buy it in the first place? That's being the ignorant consumer.

If you're only intermittently playing FFXIV when new content gets released and find you want to have long gaps between your subscription periods, you're better off buying a different game to get your housing fix. It's not like FFXIV is the only game that has housing or that we're only allowed to enjoy a single game. You can be playing both.

[redheadturk]

Purchased houses on Spriggan as of this morning (early am Pacific (US) time) in Mist, Goblet and Lavender Beds. Every housing district has 720 smalls, 252 mediums and 108 large plots for a total of 1,080 per district and 4,320 per world.

Mist
Small - 61
Medium - 54
Large - 81

Lavender Bedst
Small - 38
Medium - 74
Large - 52

Goblet
Small - 19
Medium - 16
Large - 14

My alt is only 21 so doesn't have access to Shirogane. It tends to be the most popular district so more houses are likely to have been purchased there. Perhaps someone with access could give us the numbers.

Make of the numbers what you want. Looks to me like not every FC is interested in owning a large, or even a medium in many cases, considering what is still available 3 weeks after the wards opened. It also seems pretty clear that blocking individual purchase of a house so only FCs can own is going to leave massively empty wards. Only 13% of the plots in the housing districts I could access have been sold.

As for who cares if SE has to do work to change the wards to fit your vision of what they should be? You clearly don't but intelligent players do. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

This intelligent person [who does finally own a house, but I digress] thinks SE needs to swap to instanced housing asap.

[Jojoya]

This intelligent person [who does finally own a house, but I digress] thinks SE needs to swap to instanced housing asap.

I agree. Enhancing the existing instanced housing system to give players a greater of variety of options within it, including house plots and not just different apartment sizes, would be far better than continuing to pour resources into a ward system that struggles to fill demand.

But I also understand it's not a change that SE could make overnight on a whim even if they made that decision. We're not going to see things getting any better soon.

At this point, I think we're stuck waiting to see how Ishgard housing turns out. For now it looks like it's going to be another ward based housing system but I still remember the information Yoshi-P shared at the EU FanFest about new technology they're working on that would allow players to view non-instanced housing areas from inside an instanced housing area. Hopefully it means that Ishgard housing will be using that technology and what we'll get is instanced housing organized within a ward layout.

I doubt it - but I'm still going to hope.

[LaylaTsarra]

This intelligent person [who does finally own a house, but I digress] thinks SE needs to swap to instanced housing asap.

I like the housing districts the way they are. I'm not opposed to having instanced housing exist alongside those.

[hasana]

I agree with the removal of auto demolition for inactivity however all the plots should then be given back to the oldest players who lost their houses for inactivity but still have their characters they bought the plot with on the world. Regardless of them still playing the game or not.

You most likely got a house because because someone lost it to inactivity timer. They should have it back.

[Lolli282]

I agree with the removal of auto demolition for inactivity however all the plots should then be given back to the oldest players who lost their houses for inactivity but still have their characters they bought the plot with on the world. Regardless of them still playing the game or not.

You most likely got a house because because someone lost it to inactivity timer. They should have it back.

I completely disagree with removing auto demolition for inactivity. No way should a house be taken by someone who doesn’t even use it.

You are exactly right, I got my house because someone didn’t enter their house for more than 45 days, a beautiful small on plot 47 of the Lavender Beds. I checked multiple times a day for that plot hoping one would open up someday.

I spent a straight week gathering/crafting to decorate it (still tweaking it a little to get it JUST right ) and enter it DAILY. Its somewhere where I go to craft in peace, to veg out to orchestrion music, and get materia melds until my crafters are back up to 80. That house is very much loved by me and all plots should go to those who truly want to use it.

[Jojoya]

I agree with the removal of auto demolition for inactivity however all the plots should then be given back to the oldest players who lost their houses for inactivity but still have their characters they bought the plot with on the world. Regardless of them still playing the game or not.

You most likely got a house because because someone lost it to inactivity timer. They should have it back.

No, they shouldn't. They failed to meet the requirements to retain ownership of the house.

The subsequent owner should not be punished for their failure.

[HyoMinPark]

I agree with the removal of auto demolition for inactivity however all the plots should then be given back to the oldest players who lost their houses for inactivity but still have their characters they bought the plot with on the world. Regardless of them still playing the game or not.

You most likely got a house because because someone lost it to inactivity timer. They should have it back.

Sorry, but someone who couldn’t be bothered to step into their house for 45 days doesn’t deserve the property. The timer exists to prevent people from quitting the game but permanently retain their now-unused house.