Housing

[EaMett]

Latin huh...
I dont need to know your game experience to know we differ from opinion, and to that end it's not even relevant either
However... you claim your opinions to be facts. In laymans terms you are arguing that "buying a sofa" or a aquarium fish is a Pvp mechanic...Do you understand how rediculous that sounds?

You're being unreasonable, it's obviously the action of purchasing a house that is the pvp mechanic (and the mechanic we're discussing in this thread). Not what you do with it after, which is the reward.

First of all, I have explained myself in detail, you just don't like my opinion (and I don't like yours)
secondly, neither post is intended as bait. After raiding 5 days a week on hardcore mode in MLG groups, I simple came to the conclussin that the bigger the difference between the casual gamer and the elitist(jerks) the more unhappy the masses become. Its like dance class, if I make the choreography WAY to difficult. I will lose 95% of my students(speaking from experience), whereas Zumba classes are overflowing everywhere.
If you want to appeal to the masses you have to cater to that end. MMO = " massively multiplayer online" it is intended for the masses thus the devs should develope accordingly! But I'm straying off topic, this is the other post(though similar in nature).

This is much too simplified. You don't simply cater to the masses because of cognitive flow and behavioral game design which you see excerpts of throughout FF14 and many other games. This increases the stickiness (read sustained playthroughs/memberships/etc) of the game. In a nutshell and a really rudimentary way, you need to balance content and gameplay in such a way that players with lower skills or less dedicated time have content that is accessible and easy in order to avoid anxiety all the while teaching/pushing them to get better and providing more difficult content to then avoid boredom. aka: It's a fancy way of saying that tiered content is often a requirement.

In housing this translates as :
- Apartments and FC rooms that everyone can buy. It has a low entry cost, for practical purposes it's unlimited, and it allows you to enjoy the housing experience and rest your head on a couch, albeit a limited one.
- As you get richer, and/or if you have more available time (which is an increase in ability for the purpose of this mechanic) you can move towards purchasing houses. As it stands it will almost always be a small unless you get pretty lucky. You get to enjoy a garden and a bigger house in your neighborhood. This allows you to enjoy the medium house experience. albeit a limited one.
- You know where this is going, you try to upgrade to medium and so on and so forth.

You see this in other parts with tiered difficulty in dungeons that teach you basic marker mechanics > trials > raids > ex trials > savage raids > ultimate fights. It ramps up progressively.
Offer only ultimate level content to new players and everyone would be so anxious they would stop playing. Don't offer ex/savage and ultimate raids and people will eventually get bored and unsubscribe.

In puzzle games it's teaching you tricks before you learn new ones and then combining them. If you started puzzle games with the last level you'd never manage.

Of course you can be capped in your endeavor by your current ability in both scenarios. Those abilities are based off of different criteria, for housing it's mostly time, in PVE dungeons it's a combination of time and skill.

To tie this all in with what I've been saying before. Yes it's a forum for feedback and yes if people want to complain about the availability of the content, they can. But like I said in my previous posts. Arguing for instanced housing is a point that has been around forever now (with no success) and is a hard sell because the main complaint is that some people don't have access to it when that very fact is the whole point of the design in the first place. A design that isn't lazy or working incorrectly (as per the scope) in the first place. They've accounted for quite a few scenarios and they readjust the availability ever so often.

I you want to complain about the actual design it'll take a lot to justify the stance. You would need to demonstrate that it's so tedious to get a house that a significant amount of people leave over it. Or demonstrate that people who get houses aren't happy about the accomplishment and instead are frustrated to the point of ruining the whole experience. (And yes I'm aware placard spamming is super frustrating and needs a change. I 100% agree but that's separate from housing availability.).
Next to that, complaining that housing is hard to get is exactly what they expect to hear from such a design.

As for my input on potential changes, I've made them already. Some in this very thread. The placard spamming is an ugly mechanic and needs to be replaced. It needs to be replaced with a mechanic that favors people spending higher amounts of time while not completely abandoning those that have, for lack of a better word, a social life. The current placard does this already but in such an insufferable way. The easy fix would be to unlock plots for sale every 20 minutes on the hour so people need to camp but don't need to end with carpal tunnel syndrome. It would be nicer if they found something a little more user friendly though: maybe you can roll/random on a house every 20mn and if it unlocks in that time period and you're the highest roll you can claim the plot. No more button mashing and it still favors those with more time.
Changes to the system to avoid empty/unused FC houses from being held hostage by players who literally only log in to maintain the timer sounds like a nice idea but would probably simply be adapted to by said players.

The rest works well. Mansions are very hard to access for individuals but this was a community request. The rest is completely achievable.

[Eldevern]

...

Just one thing : provide us a proof housing is purposely designed by developers as some kind of PVP mechanic (not what you think but what they say).

From all interviews I can find, Y-P admits there is a problem with housing. One of his main argument to keep the system is to create some kind of neighborood effect... that is totally a mess since housing is opened to individuals. Don't take that as an ad hominem, you are in the game since 2016, I'm in since the beta. I've observed before and after. It has NEVER been lively when it was FCs only, except around big FCs (in number of players) and RP FCs. It has become worst after it has been opened to individuals.

There is nothing to do with some kind of PVP mechanic. Everything show that Y-P had in mind some kind of lively town it is not and has never been.

You talk about achievment. We have the Inn at level 10, the apartment at level 50 and housing... you achieve crafts, msq, gathering and... you finally get a house... where you can lose everything. What kind of achievment is that if you can lose everything, even event items you can never get back except through mogstation?

You talk about "work as intented", it is some kind of cash-shop trick. Nothing to do with achievment or PVP. It is closer from Pay-to-win logic. It is somehow similiar to the TESO system where you can buy a virtual house with real money (but in TESO, at least, from what I know, you will not lose it, thought).

And something you are really mistaken. We are not here to ask "But why?". We don't ask, we don't need some kind of explanation. We say the system is a fail as QoL.

A question comes to my mind... if it is some kind of PVP and you can lose the house... where are the titles that show you succeeded to achieve it? Nowhere in PVP you reach a achievment were there is no record of any kind. PVP : you keep stuff, you keep mounts, you keep titles, they just add new ones. There are titles in FFXIV for many things but not for that?!? Housing is the only thing in the whole game where you can actually lose everything with no records.

[Cirque-it]

Just one thing : provide us a proof housing is purposely designed by developers as some kind of PVP mechanic (not what you think but what they say).

I mentioned this too. every fibre in me tells me this is NOT how a dev intends it... I would never EVER design something like housing to be a PvP experience and I cant wrap my head around the guy (if its true) that came up with that... could you imagine that meeting????
director - Okay creators, we want new and fresh ideas on how to make FF as engaging as possible, give me your ideas!
person 1 - Create engaging and dynamic storylines that evolve over time as the game progresses and new expansions are released
Director - LOVE IT
person 2 - Create multiple battlegrounds with unique machanics to stimulate pvp
Director - Excellent!
Person 3 - Create multiple difficulties for a plethora of dungeouns/raids/trials to really get the community together and make boss kills
Director - Obviouisly!
person 4 - Create an immense end game experience with glamours, legendary weapons, and housing neighbourhoods
Director cool!
person 5(looking at person 4) - Oh yeah!! and lets turn that housing system into a pvp environment!
Director and person 4 - Wait WHAT!?????

[Cirque-it]

As for my input on potential changes,

Okay! we're getting somewhere.
If you read somewhere that the devs intended for the game to work in this way ethically (tht the devs intend for you to ram your head against other players for the chance to own a house/mansion) I would like to see that if you have acces to such a link.
Let me explain to you how I interpreted this mechanic from an outside perspective.

When I saw the housing system the first time I thought "Oh wauw cool, you can see eachothers houses, square-enix must be trying to build comminuties of players creating neighbourhoods of social players that can visit each-other like neighbours. thats really cool because it makes the housing system feel real and makes the quality of life aspect more enjoyable".
After looking for over a year, and never seeing a mansion slot open up once (and I play everyday!) I thought "This is starting to feel an aweful lot like pvp.... I should make a post of this on the forum because I'm sure the devs did not intend for this to feel like that".

Now imagine how I felt when I read your post, stating that not only is it supposed to feel like pvp... it basically IS pvp. If I experience it in this way, others do too(i am not so naive as to believe I am unique!)
This is not an attack, I'm just trying to be sure that the devs WANT this to be a PvP experience, as I never in a million years would have assumed it was when I started.
I instruct dancers from day 1 beginners to long term profesionals, oversimplifing things (for the sake of communication) is basically my job. You wherent understanding why you where triggering an insanne amount of frustration, and it felt like you where just protecting the current system(like an elitest jerk whom wants to be the only person who has a mansion). So to make you understand I simplified.
The placard system is by far the most frustrating thing about the housing system. So fixing that would be a start. However you have been around this game since 2016, and I think most people from that time don't realize the FF14 player base has more then doubled since then. The housing supply has not. I still think the idea of an "extra ward" with only medium and large slots would be a great idea (someone else suggested that). You could quadrouple the prices in this ward and it could be a sort of "beverly hills" for ff14 players.

This would fix the shortage of housing (to account for the wave of millions of subscribers that joined in 2019 -like me-). Then either a bidding system like you mention, and perhaps a NPC where you can inscribe yourself so you get notified if a new plot becomes available. These two things I think would make a huge difference.
I'm happy to see you list possible fixes, though I still cant wrap my head around the idea that SE intends housing to be a PvP experience, it just makes no sense to me. I've never even seen a FF14 battleground! I avoid PvP like the plague.

[Cirque-it]

You see this in other parts with tiered difficulty in dungeons that teach you basic marker mechanics > trials > raids > ex trials > savage raids > ultimate fights. It ramps up progressively.

This is more a reply to my other post but I will reply to this one here as wel.

I do in fact agree with this perspective. And honestly, after raiding so high tier for so long I cant be asked to do the ultimate thing again... What bothers me about the current set-up is that you dont get to truly experience the fight unless you do it in its ultimate form. Eden 8 is a completely different fight on savage then it is on normal.
I feel as a subscriber I should be entitled to "experience"the content. But no I do not have the time to find a static group full-time and dealing with OT that miss the duty abillity time and time again makes me want to smash my head against my keyboard. What I want, is a mode where you experience the same fight as savage, but with much more forgiveness on the mechanics (not instant kills!) You could call this "Savage-practice mode" for lack of a better name.
killing the boss in this way gets you NO loot for the kill. Since you clearly dont deserve the ilvl 500 reward.
It would however provide us with an additional option in the duty-finder, Duty complete for players that cleared the full version of the boss, and duty semi-complete for people who cleared the boss in practice mode. That way even if you have not cleared the boss, you can look for people whom you know for a fact understand the mechanics because they cleared it in a practice mode. (normal is nothing like the real deal and proves nothing)