Getting a New House Feels Impossible

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Madbunny]

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.

Sorry but if you put ingame things in front of anything in RL then you are toxic to yourself. Sooner the person realize that it will be better for him/her.
First step to solve this problem would be heavy ban-hammer on all bots regardless what they do and implement an algorithm what would put a "red flag" on every character who gain more than X amount of money for a manual (admin) check. Even if they try to transfer that money over MP. If admin finds out that there was a transaction for the sole purpose to sell the house then both players should be banned and the plot free for anyone to grab.

[Dizzyteacup]

Sorry but if you put ingame things in front of anything in RL then you are toxic to yourself. Sooner the person realize that it will be better for him/her.

This is absolutely true. However I don’t think any player truly wants to put their housing purchase on such an ungodly pedestal. That is exactly why we are all crying out. These are not toxic people who don’t value their health coming into the housing market. These are normal every day players who just want a house and are being driven to unhealthy, toxic extremes to get one because of the housing system.

And the system is only rewarding right now to people who are willing to go to those extremes. A normal player who values their health and goes to bed at normal hours or wants to avoid strain on their wrist cannot hope to obtain a house.

[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.