Housing Items

[ZattanaWen]

watch and then a player driven system opens up to make extra gil by flipping houses when the system is already overflowing with gil. houses would change hands between a select few so many times it would be ridiculous.

How would that work though?

First, I'm not saying eliminate the random lock/timer after vacating. I hate that too, but it's there to prevent exactly the kind of abuse you describe. This prevents flipping to first-time owners. Flipping to relocators can already exist in this game, really.
Second, the idea that the system is overflowing with gil is quickly losing relevance with the still-increasing number of bots taking over every money-making aspect of the game. SE has already written off the economy entirely, and told human players they're out of luck if they want to make and sell end-game gear. The bots own those markets now, and they can obviously all be traced back to RMTs anyway.

What I'm saying is we need to not punish players who want to relinquish their house back to the game to allow another player to buy it.

And honestly, the root of my argument isn't even necessarily that I think people who proactively demolish SHOULD be compensated, it's more that it's nonsense that players who just leave the game for a while are compensated for abandoning their house (eventually) while players who stay active and keep paying their subscription but want to put their house back out there are punished.

If the answer was just that NOBODY gets compensated for their house, so be it. I think that would still be preferable to the current state.

[Jojoya]

watch and then a player driven system opens up to make extra gil by flipping houses when the system is already overflowing with gil. houses would change hands between a select few so many times it would be ridiculous.

Another 20-50 million gil getting added back to the economy won't make much of a difference when there are already hundreds of billions floating around.

The flippers still have to get their hands on a plot before they can flip it. The purchase timer makes that difficult. Someone who wants to buy the plot to actually use the house has the same chance of getting as the flipper.

At this point, there's a need to either give players an incentive to give up a house they aren't actively using and/or make it less desirable to own an unused house in the form of recurring fees. It could always been done as a limited time amnesty - relinquish your house before X date and get 100% of the purchase price back, similar to what players were given if they chose to transfer during the data center shuffle.

[ZattanaWen]

Another 20-50 million gil getting added back to the economy won't make much of a difference when there are already hundreds of billions floating around.

The flippers still have to get their hands on a plot before they can flip it. The purchase timer makes that difficult. Someone who wants to buy the plot to actually use the house has the same chance of getting as the flipper.

At this point, there's a need to either give players an incentive to give up a house they aren't actively using and/or make it less desirable to own an unused house in the form of recurring fees. It could always been done as a limited time amnesty - relinquish your house before X date and get 100% of the purchase price back, similar to what players were given if they chose to transfer during the data center shuffle.

I don't hate these ideas (though I'm not sure you'll ever sell the "recurring fees" idea to the fanbase, and you'd have to define what constitutes an "unused house").

But a limited time amnesty, especially during this pause on auto-demo, would have been a brilliant idea if they had instituted when it became clear they weren't reactivating it any time soon. I don't even need 100%. I think I got 11-13M last time I let the game reclaim a medium, and I was fine with that, and I was planning on doing that again before they shut off the timer.

Now I'm effectively stuck with a house I don't really want, on a server I've been wanting to transfer from, for who knows how long before they restart the timer, because rampant bots have devastated the economy so badly that now I really would like to have that 11-13M gil back.

[Jojoya]

I don't hate these ideas (though I'm not sure you'll ever sell the "recurring fees" idea to the fanbase, and you'd have to define what constitutes an "unused house").

But a limited time amnesty, especially during this pause on auto-demo, would have been a brilliant idea if they had instituted when it became clear they weren't reactivating it any time soon. I don't even need 100%. I think I got 11-13M last time I let the game reclaim a medium, and I was fine with that, and I was planning on doing that again before they shut off the timer.

Now I'm effectively stuck with a house I don't really want, on a server I've been wanting to transfer from, for who knows how long before they restart the timer, because rampant bots have devastated the economy so badly that now I really would like to have that 11-13M gil back.

They could always add a 50-80% refund for any transfer while keeping the 100% return for the players moving from Congested to Preferred worlds.

And yes, the idea of a recurring fee meets heavy resistance every time it's mentioned. As for unused, that would be up to the current owner on whether or not they're using their house. A lot of players buy just because they have the gil and found an available house, not because they actually use it in any way. Set a recurring fee (does not have to be a huge amount, say 50k a month for a small) and people start thinking twice on whether it's worth buying the house if they'll have to keep paying for it over time.

[ZattanaWen]

They could always add a 50-80% refund for any transfer while keeping the 100% return for the players moving from Congested to Preferred worlds.

And yes, the idea of a recurring fee meets heavy resistance every time it's mentioned. As for unused, that would be up to the current owner on whether or not they're using their house. A lot of players buy just because they have the gil and found an available house, not because they actually use it in any way. Set a recurring fee (does not have to be a huge amount, say 50k a month for a small) and people start thinking twice on whether it's worth buying the house if they'll have to keep paying for it over time.

Ohh, you're saying the recurring fee is for everyone who owns a house. (I thought you were just suggesting the fee for unused houses).

Yeah I don't know that I can get on board with that. If you buy a house and use it, there shouldn't be any extra fees. And yes I realize the irony of that statement as a player of a game with an up front cost AND a monthly subscription price.