Getting a New House Feels Impossible

[Dizzyteacup]

Hello there!

I’m really just coming here to vent. I’ve spent days at this point in game just trying to purchase a new house on a plot of land in Brynhildr, and it’s starting to feel impossible. I can’t leave Bryn to go try a lower pop server because all my friends and my FC are in Bryn. I know that SE is probably not going to do anything about this right now, but I’m just shocked at how bad the housing situation is. Even though there are a bunch of others crying out, I wanted to chime in just to add to the numbers.

I think it is great that SE is not demolishing houses during this time because of the virus. However, we don’t know how much longer the crisis is going to go on for, so I just want to voice that if the crisis doesn’t end for another two or three months, the housing system may need some small change before then. I know they’re not going to add new wards. But if they could at least make the timer visible or something so players waste less time, that would be so helpful.

As it stands right now, Brynhildr rarely sees empty plots. And when they do, there are like at least ~10 people there for at least six hours just clicking. You can’t talk to friends or do anything else during that time. Just click. Over and over. On the placard. It is so unhealthy of players to sit there for sometimes 12 or more hours of their day just clicking and using repetitive motion. But the system in mid-high pop areas makes it that way. It also makes players feel like they can’t get up to use the restroom or eat because doing so could mean they miss when the house goes up for sale.

And most of the time? After you’ve sat there for 8 hours on a house, someone just comes over and relocates there. Now you have to go find their plot and sit on it for another 8+ hours until the timer resets.

Everyone for the most part on this community is so so sweet. But I have experienced more nasty and purposefully rude players while waiting on houses than in any other activity. I even had a FC that after relocating, turned around and made fun of the waiting players saying “U sad??”

The length and invisible nature of the timer favors players who already own a house, and wastes time of players who want a new house. I get that it gives everyone time to see the listing, but it also means that players who can’t sit there for 8+ hours can not obtain a house. More than anything, it locks new house buying players out of a purchase for an excessive window of time, and gives relocating players an even longer window of time to come and take the house because everyone else is powerless to buy the plot.

If the crisis doesn’t end in the next few months, please consider making small changes to mitigate how damaging this is to the market in mid-high pop servers.

[Missbone]

...

Im in a similar situation but i really think about a server change and maybe you should to. As long you stay in the same datacenter your friendlist, linkshell and all that stuff remains. Of course you had to leave your FC but you could make a crossworld linkshell where all your friends and important ppl from your FC are gathered (thats what i plan to do).

On ragnarok the situation is the same, its very rare that a plot shows up (and than only in goblet) and the unlock time is at my place always in the middle of the night, between around 4:00 and 6:00. I cant even participate long enough myself (because of normal life) before the timer unlocks.

Also the housing crap needs more than just small changes. Even if there would add 3 or more wards to every zone for our server there plots would be all sold in less than an hour and you would have still a lot of ppl and FCs that couldn't get a house.

[Jojoya]

Im in a similar situation but i really think about a server change and maybe you should to. As long you stay in the same datacenter your friendlist, linkshell and all that stuff remains. Of course you had to leave your FC but you could make a crossworld linkshell where all your friends and important ppl from your FC are gathered (thats what i plan to do).

Not going to work for players on NA servers. Here's a quick census I just did for Crystal. Keep in mind that Crystal has most of the lowest pop NA servers with the exception of Siren,

Balmung - no houses available

Brynhildr - no houses available

Coeurl - no houses available

Diabolos - One newly relinquished small plot in Goblet

Goblin - no houses available

Malboro - no houses available

Mateus - One newly relinquished small plot in Goblet

Zalera - no houses available

Keep in mind it's 5am Eastern and 2am Pacific in NA right now. One person was camping the Diabolos house and a second person showed up as I finished typing this post (good luck!). The Mateus house has 11 players camping it, nine of them with status set to Busy so other players can't screw with their placard spam (maybe the other two are just trying to screw with them?).

You'll see this repeated across all NA data centers. This isn't EU or JP where average population per server is smaller and houses are available on at least one if not more worlds in a data center. Here houses have been at a premium since June of last year. The addition of new wards in 5.1 helped a little but those were essentially filled even before the personal purchase moratorium was removed in 5.2 and completely filled the day it was removed.

People can't just switch to a different world in the same NA data center here to get a house.

[AnimaAnimus]

I think at this point we can all agree. SE just doesn't care.

I mean its been what...6, 7 years since patch 2.1 when housing came out and nothing has really changed. All that's has happened is they will occasionally toss us a few new wards and made changes that made it even more difficult to get a house.

And I doubt anything will change in the future, SE seems to be putting consistently less effort into the game and completely ignoring the player base on things we have been begging for, for years, so may as well get an apt and try to be satisfied, or find a new game. ESO has some amazing housing systems btw, SE could really learn a thing or two from them.

Where the FF brand had me sold on FFXI and FFXI had me sold on XIV the moment was announced, XIV is making me super skeptical on whether or not I will play the next FF mmo do to the way they have handled things, just like the 3 FFXIII games + FFXV and its dlc has made me more doubtful of the FFXVI and beyond. It's like SE has lost that thing that made the games special.

[Alyanna_Elingval]

I think at this point we can all agree. SE just doesn't care.

I mean its been what...6, 7 years since patch 2.1 when housing came out and nothing has really changed. All that's has happened is they will occasionally toss us a few new wards and made changes that made it even more difficult to get a house.

And I doubt anything will change in the future, SE seems to be putting consistently less effort into the game and completely ignoring the player base on things we have been begging for, for years, so may as well get an apt and try to be satisfied, or find a new game. ESO has some amazing housing systems btw, SE could really learn a thing or two from them.

You can buy houses with real-world currency in ESO. Which means that they have to make the system very good so that people will spend money. Then they take some of that money and put it back in maintaining it. So basically the people paying in the store are subsidizing the houses of the people who get them naturally without spending real-world currency.

Someone mentioned the idea of this a couple of weeks ago, and people came out with pitchforks.

[Madbunny]

Someone mentioned the idea of this a couple of weeks ago, and people came out with pitchforks.

Of course they will because FFXIV is not P-2-W game but with a monthly subscription and doesnt feel right to have things like housing based on RL money. I mean, no game with subscription should have anything what could be purchased with RL money to take advantage over other players. In case housing doesnt offer in-game advantage and could be sold for RL money then this whole rage&endless arguing is pointless over something what is considered irrelevant for gaming (aside of some sort of prestige glamour on grand scale).
In case housing is deal-breaking for the game then you can make same argument for almost anything what is offered in the game and you, i or anyone else cant get it for any reason.
But there are games with monthly subscription who decided to make things available for everyone with little to no effort (yes, i'm looking at you WoW my old friend). First it was just few things what could make life easier to lazy people but then the demand and appetites of (some) players start to increase... until the game reached absolute levels of insanity. Even the legendary gear what long time ago was reserved for just few(!!!) people per server now became available to literally everyone. Hell, there was items you can get only once and few per server what usually ended in 1-2 players to posses them - like Qiraji battle tank mount. The only mount you could summon and ride while in combat - and it got nerfed because a few dozen mounts between 10 million players was a game-breaking thing.
My point is - there will always be some entitled players who are complaining because for one reason or another feel the game (or entire world?) owes them something. It does not...

[Missbone]

Holly shit, that sounds indeed even more worse than on my Datacenter Chaos. At least there are on the lower populated servers still some plots left.

But i agree, i have also the impression since a long time that SE doesn't really care about the housing stuff. Everything they do in this direction feels more like a bandaid fix than anything else. Also some kind of storage for housing items would be nice so that we don't need to the space on our retainers if we currently don't own a house. Maybe something like the armory or glamour dresser where you could store all your stuff (especially event stuff) so you don't lose it.

I think most other MMOs did their job far better than FFXIV when it comes to housing. Sure ours maybe looks really nice if not the best, but the way this stuff is handled is just garbage. Also if you are into crafting and want to enjoy the sub and airship feature you are basically forced to make your own FC, because in nearly every exsisting FC this stuff is handelt by some selected members like officers and lead and the regular folks dont even really have the chance to try out this feature.

[Madbunny]

I think most other MMOs did their job far better than FFXIV when it comes to housing.

The only thing i miss from other MMOs (more precisely WoW) is storage. Frankly when it comes to storage/retainers this is probably the most expensive game based on monthly subscription. I dont know anyone who play this game and is paying 14EUR/mo as everyone have extra retainers. So to put it simple - average monthly subscription for FFXIV is more likely to be close to 20EUR than 14EUR.

[Jojoya]

I think at this point we can all agree. SE just doesn't care.

I mean its been what...6, 7 years since patch 2.1 when housing came out and nothing has really changed. All that's has happened is they will occasionally toss us a few new wards and made changes that made it even more difficult to get a house.

And I doubt anything will change in the future, SE seems to be putting consistently less effort into the game and completely ignoring the player base on things we have been begging for, for years, so may as well get an apt and try to be satisfied, or find a new game. ESO has some amazing housing systems btw, SE could really learn a thing or two from them.

Where the FF brand had me sold on FFXI and FFXI had me sold on XIV the moment was announced, XIV is making me super skeptical on whether or not I will play the next FF mmo do to the way they have handled things, just like the 3 FFXIII games + FFXV and its dlc has made me more doubtful of the FFXVI and beyond. It's like SE has lost that thing that made the games special.

They do care. They've added more wards at times. They've made some changes in response to player feedback, as controversial as some of those changes may be.

The problem is players are wanting solutions now and SE may not have them ready yet. It's not just coming up with a solution (simply adding more wards is not one, it's a bandaid). They have to program it, test it then test again to make sure the solution doesn't break other parts of the game. With Ishgard housing in the works, we're unlikely to see any additional housing changes until Ishgard finally opens as housing and not just crafting/gathering content.

edit: I think another piece of the puzzle is SE didn't expect so much growth in the player base. More players equals more demand for housing, even if not every player wants one, and they weren't prepared to meet that increased demand.

[TR_RA]

They haven't done anything about this in a while, nor do I think they will. All they ever do is add more wards, but with the exact same layouts and restriction on items in the smaller plots. It's 100% fucking ridiculous.