Unpopular Opinion - Housing Demolishment should be much stricter

[VenKitsune]

So i was recently going around the districts looking at and taking some screenshots of peoples houses for ideas for how i might furnish my FC's house (We're hopefully upgrading to a large some time this year if we get lucky), i went in to a lot of houses both FC and personal alike...and you know what i saw?

I saw two types

The first was what you might expect, fully furnished and maybe with a few personal chambers for their members

The second....

Well, suffice it to say i went in to many large houses and all they had in them was a few vendors and a few partitions and NOTHING else. For some of these FC's, who leave their houses abandoned, i looked them up on the lodestone and found that many of these FC's are full of near necrotic levels of active players - Maybe only 1 or two people at lvl 80 that likely haven played since July or August other than to log in to make sure their house isnt demolished, when i consider the gear they're wearing on their lodestone page. This wasn't just one FC either - It was dozens of them, with both medium and large houses just sitting nearly empty not even offering anything to random visitors such as myself.

I know my post may seem a bit ranty...But ultimately i see two solutions to this kind of thing, and prefereably i think we should get both.

Firstly, we should get more use for housing outside of gardening and the workshops, but that's no secret, we've been asking for that for years.

And secondly, i really think that housing demolish timers should be FAR stricter. 14 days instead of 35 for example, or perhaps instead of requiring someone simply enter the front door, require that the house actually be used in some way....

I dont have all the answers and neither will i pretend that i know the perfect solution to this, i'm not a professional game designer but as someone who is part of an FC that has been waiting for the opportunity to get a large house for YEARS its honestly quite upsetting to see all these houses standing basically empty. There is something to be said for housing being available to everyone, a recent thread on here was calling for such, but when people buy property in-game simply because they can, and not even engage in it? Well...It's frustrating to say the least when those of us who are actively interested in it and work hard to get the funds to do so are stuck while others spend money on a sub just to seemingly log in, open a door and then log out again for another 34 days before repeating it.

[NessaWyvern]

The fact that we have to keep our sub up, and enter every 45 days enough I think. I have been subbed for 4 years straight to keep my house.
I am looking forward to getting a large if ishgard housing is a thing

[MomomiMomi]

My FC house has three members, a summoning bell and a few other things, like the crystal bell and orchestrion.

You know why? Because I've already lost my house before, and I'm not going to put more effort into something I can lose again. I lost hundreds of hours of decoration.

[VenKitsune]

The fact that we have to keep our sub up, and enter every 45 days enough I think. I have been subbed for 4 years straight to keep my house.
I am looking forward to getting a large if ishgard housing is a thing

Yes but do you USE your house? You keep it furnished atleast? If you do, then yea fair enough, i consider a mostly or fully furnished house to be of use to some degree because ultimately you've paid for it and then put time towards furnishing it and are engaging in it, you're LIVING in it, or alteast making it feel like it is and not leaving it empty straight after buying it.

My FC house has three members, a summoning bell and a few other things, like the crystal bell and orchestrion.

You know why? Because I've already lost my house before, and I'm not going to put more effort into something I can lose again. I lost hundreds of hours of decoration.

I don't think that's much of a consolation. If you've lost your house before its your own fault and shouldn't be used as justification as why your current house is stark empty. Seriously? A summoning bell and that's it, basically? Sorry, but you're part of the problem here.

[MomomiMomi]

I don't think that's much of a consolation. If you've lost your house before its your own fault and shouldn't be used as justification as why your current house is stark empty. Seriously? A summoning bell and that's it, basically? Sorry, but you're part of the problem here.

Really don't care. I use my house. I just don't decorate it. Blame the design for tying gardening and workshop to housing. There's no other way to get them.

Also for making it stupidly cheap, to the point that I don't care about losing the gil I dumped into buying the house.

[Risvertasashi]

I think it would be a lot better if the penalty for losing a house was softened. For example, some MMOs will save the decorations/layout of your house when you lose your spot due to inactivity. So when you eventually return to the game, you pick a plot, put your house down, and it's as it was before.

Of course, the mainly referenced game also has automatically expanding wards so shortages aren't really a thing...

[MomomiMomi]

I think it would be a lot better if the penalty for losing a house was softened. For example, some MMOs will save the decorations/layout of your house when you lose your spot due to inactivity. So when you eventually return to the game, you pick a plot, put your house down, and it's as it was before.

Of course, the mainly referenced game also has automatically expanding wards so shortages aren't really a thing...

I brought this up in the past, and yeah, it would be a great thing. It would be great if we "kept our house" but lost the plot. Our house being saved, and brought back just the way it was when we buy a plot again.

Even non-sub games will keep your house saved indefinitely.

[technole]

I think it's fairly reasonable already. It's not enough to pay for your sub, you have to go into your house to stop the timer. Then there is the reimbursement if you can't keep it.

If anything, they need to force people who buy property to build a house immediately. I've seen some squatting on land for months and it's quite an eye sore. Either buy and build, or it falls to open market again.

[Mirassou]

Yes but do you USE your house? You keep it furnished atleast? If you do, then yea fair enough, i consider a mostly or fully furnished house to be of use to some degree because ultimately you've paid for it and then put time towards furnishing it and are engaging in it, you're LIVING in it, or alteast making it feel like it is and not leaving it empty straight after buying it.

This hit me wrong - to be somewhat blunt, it's really not your business whether someone wants to decorate or not. They may want the house for a reduced teleport option, I don't know. Or they may be putting it off until they feel like decorating. But really it's not fair to judge someone for having a house and not "decorating" it. They went through the process and paid for the house.

[Penthea]

require that the house actually be used in some way....

What counts as use? Decoration? Easy fix, just slap a load of random stuff everywhere and it's done. Interacting with npcs or retainer bells? Easy, it's just one extra step after entering the house. Being in the house for a set amount of time? Easy, log in and go afk.

Using the workshop? What if the fc doesn't want to do that? Should a fc have to use a workshop to keep their house? Should a fc be forced to do something they may have no interest in, just to keep a house they may already use a lot but the game happens to not think they do?

There is no easy way to quantify use. It would have to be done on a case by case basis to not accidentally punish players who were using houses but happened to not be in a way software reads as use.

And honestly I don't like the idea of grading the use of houses as a way to see who deserves to keep a plot or not. This takes freedom away from players to use their house in the ways they wish.

And secondly, i really think that housing demolish timers should be FAR stricter. 14 days instead of 35 for example, or perhaps instead of requiring someone simply enter the front door

14 days is crazy short. That would punish people for going on holiday somewhere without access to the game.

I understand that you're frustrated that houses you want are empty, but this isn't the way to fix it. The problem isn't the demolition timer. The problem lies in the amount of plots and SE not taking decisive action against house hoarders. There are some servers with wards owned by one or two people or a large number of shell fcs, which is ridiculous. SE also quietly lifted the restriction on fc house purchase (but did not update the lodestone entry about housing) and many are taking advantage of it, so that's not helping the situation either.

We will get more wards at some point with Ishgard housing, but if we don't see any action taken against house hoarders...it's just going to end up being the same situation in the end, again. There are probably people with shell fcs ready to buy plots there as soon as they become available.