Please SE, do something about housing

[Tsaranoga]

Please SE, i beg you. Add more wards, more subdivisions, a third, a fourth but please. This housing is a mess. It's very tiring to click for hours and see so many people trying to get the house too.

Just add more please and now. We all want a house!

Housing isn't bad, it's working as intended. Sure, it's bad for the players but that is not the point. The point is to keep some mooks paying for the game only to keep the demolitioner away and considering how most people do anything else than actually play, even in dungeons, it is working perfectly.

[Avidria]

Housing isn't bad, it's working as intended. Sure, it's bad for the players but that is not the point. The point is to keep some mooks paying for the game only to keep the demolitioner away and considering how most people do anything else than actually play, even in dungeons, it is working perfectly.

It's actually kind of frustrating, and slowly having the opposite effect on me. I'd probably have unsubbed these last few months if I didn't have a house, and if I haven't been working towards a large for a couple of years now. But I'm definitely feeling burnt out, and feeling like I can't properly take a break because if I do I'll lose my house just makes it feel even worse.

Dunno how many others feel this way, but the longer I go paying a sub just to hold onto something I won't really be enjoying until the next patch, the less good I feel about having the house in the first place. I've thought more than once about just giving up the house and taking a longer break, but the thought of spending another 14+ hours spam clicking placards is just off-putting enough to drag me back. It's such a miserable, discouraging system that it's becoming a growing dark smudge on a game that I otherwise genuinely enjoy playing. Enough so that I think if I did give up or lose my house, I'd just give up on housing in this game entirely.

[Skivvy]

It's actually kind of frustrating, and slowly having the opposite effect on me. I'd probably have unsubbed these last few months if I didn't have a house, and if I haven't been working towards a large for a couple of years now. But I'm definitely feeling burnt out, and feeling like I can't properly take a break because if I do I'll lose my house just makes it feel even worse.

Dunno how many others feel this way, but the longer I go paying a sub just to hold onto something I won't really be enjoying until the next patch, the less good I feel about having the house in the first place. I've thought more than once about just giving up the house and taking a longer break, but the thought of spending another 14+ hours spam clicking placards is just off-putting enough to drag me back. It's such a miserable, discouraging system that it's becoming a growing dark smudge on a game that I otherwise genuinely enjoy playing. Enough so that I think if I did give up or lose my house, I'd just give up on housing in this game entirely.

Just a quick note - housing demolition is currently suspended due to COVID, so you technically COULD be unsubbed right now...at least for a wee bit. Just be sure to keep a close eye on their announcements for when they turn the demo timers back on.

But I'm with ya - I hate the feeling like I need to stay subbed just to keep a house as it's near impossible to get a new one. I'm always reminded of the live letter from waaay back in the day: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-%2810-30-2013. The relevant bit is:

1:14:22
Q: Will there be any maintenance fees or other costs for housing, besides the cost of the land and house?
A: In older MMOs, such as Ultima Online, there was a house maintenance fee you had to pay weekly, but in FFXIV: ARR we decided against this system. Similarly, these older MMOs also had a system where your house would break down if you didn’t log in after a while in order to have you continue your subscription, but this is a thing of the past and we won't have any system like that.

I'm assuming they just had lofty dreams back then and hadn't yet accounted for their poo-infrastructure (or whatever the limiting factor is). But this is a modern game (albeit aging now), and I feel like they should have been able to make a far more functional housing system than what we have. There are older games that managed to give housing to all, and don't require you to remain subbed . I can't imagine that the devs are entirely thrilled with the situation either, but there isn't much they can do either due to system limitations and/or funding. Probably enough complaining from me for a day. X:

[MsMisato]

J
I'm assuming they just had lofty dreams back then and hadn't yet accounted for their poo-infrastructure (or whatever the limiting factor is). But this is a modern game (albeit aging now), and I feel like they should have been able to make a far more functional housing system than what we have. There are older games that managed to give housing to all, and don't require you to remain subbed . I can't imagine that the devs are entirely thrilled with the situation either, but there isn't much they can do either due to system limitations and/or funding. Probably enough complaining from me for a day. X:

I want to say they actually had some big lofty idea for housing but FC housing simply never took off in the beginning and it really didn't take off until a couple of years down the road so I imagine the idea got pulled and we are stuck with what we have currently.

[Avidria]

Yeah I might just unsub til August after all. Only a month but... I mean hey, that's a quick meal I guess :P

Can only really hope they try something different with Ishgard... or next expansion, maybe (if Ishgard won't actually be in next expansion anyway). The fact that I have a house at all right now feels like sheer dumb luck in just happening to be in the right place at the right time. It's just not a good feeling.

[KadaRemnant]

Thank you guys to understand me how it feels. I gave up on housing because i come online to have fun, not click a house for 24 hours. This system us not right, unhealthy and just ruin the fun i have in the game. I just want it is back to normal or better.

[Jojoya]

Housing isn't bad, it's working as intended. Sure, it's bad for the players but that is not the point. The point is to keep some mooks paying for the game only to keep the demolitioner away and considering how most people do anything else than actually play, even in dungeons, it is working perfectly.

If the point was to keep people paying for the game, the demolition timer would never be suspended.

Considering how often they suspend it, I don't think that's the point.

[Rezef]

Well housing has become something of a limited feature. On larger servers it's it feels prestigious to have a house, on smaller ones nah. SE seems to have this mentality as well that's why they don't want it to be available to everyone (we also have the server restrictions) so I don't see an overhaul on the system anytime soon. What needs to be done now though is restart of the demolition process so that active players can have a chance on getting a house if they wish so.

[Vidu]

Housing isn't bad, it's working as intended. Sure, it's bad for the players but that is not the point. The point is to keep some mooks paying for the game only to keep the demolitioner away and considering how most people do anything else than actually play, even in dungeons, it is working perfectly.

While you're right that housing is "working as intended", the intention isnt to keep us paying, seeing how they started without a demolition timer. Housing was intended to be something special, something rare, something for an FC to work towards together - well... that didnt work out, thanks to opening it up to individuals and inflation (suddenly, everyone has the money for a house - its not something a whole group of friends is saving up for over months).

The demolition timer was eventually added because there were so many houses that belonged to people who stopped playing alltogether - homes that were just sitting there, empty, unused and with little chance that they would get used again in the future. The main intention of the demolition timer is to free up those unused homes - not to keep us paying our subs. You'll notice that just paying them money is not enough to keep your house - you need to enter it once every 45 days aswell. To me that suggests that they actually care more about houses belonging to active people, who care about their house (at least enough to enter it every 45 days...) than just about money. If it were only about money, keeping an active sub would be enough to keep your house.

Housing is working as intended in the sense that it was supposed to be bragging rights and something special - thats not what the community wants, though.

[GeminiReed]

Housing is working as intended in the sense that it was supposed to be bragging rights and something special - thats not what the community wants, though.

I'm doubting that it's working as intended. Well sure somebody thought open world housing was "da bomb" but I'm having a very hard time understanding why locking game features like gardening, workshops, and subs and airships behind a sereverly limited commodity was also intended.

Regardless this experiment has backfired so bad they had to break their word that demolition would not be a thing. Ward expansions do little to mitigate the problem and the laughably small apartments fail on so many counts.

It is not acceptable in its current state. The point of the multitude of threads regarding how bad housing feels is encouragement for Square to make it right.