Getting a New House Feels Impossible

[Dizzyteacup]

Thank you all for your responses!

I agree! In general, the housing system does need a big rework. It seems like it was already pretty broken before the crisis, and the new no-demo rule is really just adding to it. Like some others have said, I don’t really expect a big rework. Especially because making a big rework may mean players losing their current house and/or their belongings in it if not done properly. So I could see why this is a big challenge to overcome, especially with the team not able to work under normal circumstances right now. I’m optimistic that Ishgard housing will help some of these issues and won’t just be an additional set of wards to slap a bandaid on the problem again.

I just really hope that SE will be quick to address the no-demo period as soon as people are starting to come back to work again and are able to pay for their subs again. I can see how many inactive plots there are, and it hurts my soul knowing that even though the housing situation would still be bad, it wouldn’t be AS bad if those plots were open. I don’t want people to lose their houses and belongings, so of course I want it to be fair to everyone. But also once the crisis is over I’m really hoping the team won’t let the no-demo period drag out any longer than it has to.

[Gula]

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.

Remember. Doesn't appeal to me/Not what I want means they don't care. Not at all.

[AnimaAnimus]

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..

It's been...checks calendar...7 years. How much time do you want to give them lol

Remember. Doesn't appeal to me/Not what I want means they don't care. Not at all.

Again, see above.

I tell you, the lengths people go to, to make excuses for a company that is not actually doing anything about a situation is genuinely surprising. But you give any criticism or call a spade a spade and your suddenly a troll. lol

[Jojoya]

I tell you, the lengths people go to, to make excuses for a company that is not actually doing anything about a situation is genuinely surprising. But you give any criticism or call a spade a spade and your suddenly a troll. lol

The lengths people go to so they can act like only what they want is correct or matters. But that's not surprising at all. The world is filled with self-centered people not willing to look beyond their own personal self-interest.

Housing has changed over time, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, whether those are changes that you approve of or not, whether they are changes dramatic enough to please you or not. To say the dev team doesn't care has been demonstrated to be untrue many times over.

You don't know they aren't doing anything. All you know is you aren't getting what you want right now and so you're going to resort to mudslinging in a temper tantrum.

If you genuinely believe this dev team still doesn't care 7 years later, what are you even doing here? By continuing to pay a sub, you're saying you support them and their work. Strange thing to be doing if you think they don't care.

[Alyanna_Elingval]

It's not that SE doesn't care, it's that they have bigger priorities. To make the Housing system what people are asking for, they would have to entirely overhaul it. But if you're SE, and you have finite resources to put into the game, is the return on that investment going to be there.

If you're SE, you're putting your resources into two things.

1) Things that will bring in new players.
2) Things that will retain current players

People aren't playing this game for the housing system, and people aren't leaving in droves because they can't get a house. You see new threads on this every day, but all these people are still playing the game.

If they don't add new story content, new dungeons, new raids, new gear, people will start leaving for other games. So that's where they put their resources. Which means they can only band aid it and kick the can down the road until they add new wards every so often, and a new location with an expansion.

Another issue is that I don't think housing was ever meant to be for everyone. If houses cost what they did in the beginning, we wouldn't have this issue. They increased demand by lowering prices, but didn't increase supply. This was bound to happen.

[AnimaAnimus]

The lengths people go to so they can act like only what they want is correct or matters. But that's not surprising at all. The world is filled with self-centered people not willing to look beyond their own personal self-interest.

Housing has changed over time, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, whether those are changes that you approve of or not, whether they are changes dramatic enough to please you or not. To say the dev team doesn't care has been demonstrated to be untrue many times over.

You don't know they aren't doing anything. All you know is you aren't getting what you want right now and so you're going to resort to mudslinging in a temper tantrum.

If you genuinely believe this dev team still doesn't care 7 years later, what are you even doing here? By continuing to pay a sub, you're saying you support them and their work. Strange thing to be doing if you think they don't care.

Legitimate criticism is not a temper tantrum. But accusing ppl of just having a tantrum or being self centered by giving actual criticism is a default to a conversation by someone who does not have a strong argument to begin with.

So tell me what they have done to improve the situation outside of adding a few more wards and a timer that actually made it more difficult to get a house? Apartments? That's at best a quick fix since we already had them in the form of FC rooms. Actual apartments of a decent size and more functionality would have been a better solution than just moving the same broken thing to a new location and calling it a new system.

There could have been plenty of things they could have done, we have been clamoring at the gate for the option to have instanced housing since day 1, which could possibly solve a lot of issues, but they literally said no they are steadfast at communities without explanation beyond "we don't want to". If it was technical, that is more understandable, but that's not the explanation we got.

It's not that I am whining, I am just not making excuses. Like I said, they have had 7 years to improve the system and its still tragically broken. But if you really want, let's have a conversation about this instead of trying to end it with such childish tactics.

[AnimaAnimus]

Another issue is that I don't think housing was ever meant to be for everyone. If houses cost what they did in the beginning, we wouldn't have this issue. They increased demand by lowering prices, but didn't increase supply. This was bound to happen.

The original plan was for housing wards to spawn as they were needed so everyone could get a house if they wanted one. That came straight from Yoshida leading up to housings release. So it was originally meant for everyone who wanted to put in the effort to get one. But they initially released a handful of wards with barely an explanation, which has been par for the course with a lot of things.

The prices were set high originally because they were meant for FCs, personal housing was also supposed to be cheaper and separate. But that was another thing they scrapped with no explanation.

[Jojoya]

Legitimate criticism is not a temper tantrum.

"The devs don't care" is not legitimate criticism. That's a child throwing a temper tantrum because they aren't happy with the toy mommy and daddy gave them. "You don't love me, you don't care or you'd give me what I want instead of what you gave me."

The devs do care. Their vision for housing may not be your vision for housing so their solutions may not be to your liking but they do care.

Adding wards was a solution that worked decently if not well on most worlds up until mid Stormblood. Go back to the Housing Census thread and revisit the posts from 2018. You had a couple of NA and EU worlds, primarily Balmung, complaining about a lack of houses but most worlds had at least a small amount if not a large amount available on a regular basis.

Even when I did a full world census last fall before wards 19-21 were added, it was only NA that was facing a severe shortage. Some EU worlds and most JP worlds had houses available.

The ward system has failed primarily because the player base has exploded in size the last 15 months and exceeded SE's ability to keep up with increasing demand for housies. As simple as adding more wards may be compared to completely overhauling the housing system, it's still something that requires advance planning.

As for other changes to show they care beyond simply adding more wards? Here's a few samples:

3.1 - Private owners can add tenants as players had requested. Demolition was added so house owned by players who had stopped playing could be purchased by active players as players had requested.

3.4 - Apartments added to create more options for personal housing.


4.0 - Interior item limits doubled.

4.1 - an entire new housing district added. Relocation added in response to player request to make it easier to change where their house was located. Storage added to relieve the burden of excess furnishings taking up inventory space.

4.2 - purchase timer added to combat house flipping at player request (yes, players were the ones who suggested the timer as a solution)

4.5 - interactive furnishing limit was removed.

That's not a comprehensive list of all the housing related changes made over the past 7 years. There are other things they've done.

People who don't care don't put this much work into something. When you don't care about something, you ignore it.

If you believe that this is not the path housing should have taken in this game, that's fine. I think they would have been better off with a fully instanced system myself.

But the housing we have is their vision for what they want housing to be. Just because they won't abandon it outright and wave a magic wand to instantly give you the housing you envision doesn't mean they don't care.

[Madbunny]

There could have been plenty of things they could have done, we have been clamoring at the gate for the option to have instanced housing since day 1, which could possibly solve a lot of issues, but they literally said no they are steadfast at communities without explanation beyond "we don't want to". If it was technical, that is more understandable, but that's not the explanation we got.

In the past was many voices asking for instanced housing but frankly i'm opposed to that because instanced translate to absolute solitude. Even now some wards feels empty, with instanced housing would be even worst. How would you navigate trough instanced housing? Some servers would have dozens (or even more) pages of house listing and to find/navigate/visit would be a time consuming nightmare. Last but not least, what would be the purpose of decorating the yard if no one would ever see that. We are talking about huge currency sink feature that become obsolete over night.

Once i played a game with instanced housing and it failed miserably and frankly i dont want same crap here in FFXIV.
Maybe there is no solution for housing when it comes to satisfy huge amount of players without implementing solutions what would make things even worst (or break the game). Maybe housing is just one of many things that is limited in number. Anyone who ever played any decent MMO pretty fast came to conclusion that some items cant be obtained, doesnt matter if we speak about items from old events, one time events, insanely hard to obtain... and the list just goes on.
But one thing i'm 100% sure - if you make instanced housing you removed the reason to have a yard or to decorate a house. Not to mention all people whining will be several times greater as the solution would be even greater problem.

[PennyStormfire]

The invisible timer is ridiculous. I have seen every explanation there is for this atrocity, I have heard from dozens of apologists about "why" it is in place. It wastes hundreds of hours of player time and unfairly favors relocation over new buyers who have already wasted hours and hours in the click wars.

Modifying that timer to be much shorter (8 hours MAX), to have a lockout for relocation after say 4 hours, would require very little effort or resources on the part of SE. This would alleviate some of the toxicity and bad feelings within the community surrounding this issue. This is a resource that people are willing to forgo sleep, and daily functions to camp on. We need some relief for all of these people. It is clearly and demonstrably a breading ground for toxicity.

Housing has become very important to active players and in my view all of the solutions that have come out of SE have been in favor of inactive players. While I have great sympathy for the people who cannot be here due to IRL issues, and I understand maintaining good will with folks who may want to return, stopping the demo timer when subs are up by every measurable standard (https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...0q4_200511.pdf) seems punitive to active players. If SE wants to make a empathetic gesture to those folks refund their purchase price if demo happens or give them a housing voucher item that allows them to relocate when they return.

There are hundreds of better ways to do all this.