Disappointed by last housing rush

[Ravenblade1979]

Once again they dropped the ball. The housing was meant to be for people without since covid and housing timer off. Yoshi p even said they were being brought in cause of increase of players. However, what happened.

The usual. Peolle with established housing taking new prime spots. Then let's add on the people who legit trolled.they would buy a plot in the new wards then relocate or change servers leaving what was supposed to be a easily purchased plot with the random hidden timer.

Once again they fell short of any insight which started back in stormblood.

1) they grandfathered in peoples extras. This itself would have alleviated alot of housing cry. Not enough but would have given more people a chance.

2) even with new rules in place people still sell of plots or even plots attached to free companies. That is another bag of worms. That is easily fixable by making it so a person has to be a member for 6 months to be able to take ownership. This would greatly reduce seeing people selling larges attached to a fc for 300mil. You know the thing they were trying to combat.

3) they should have suspended relocation when the new wards came out but not told anyone they were so people didnt have time to create a new service account to bypass that restriction. This would have given people this housing was meant for a fighting chance to get a house. Then they could have announced relocation would be open 7 days after.

4) housing would probably be better off with fc's in housing wards since players barely use them outside of rp places and personal in instanced which could be included in our sub since we house owners (when the demo timer is on) need to have a active sub anyways and go in once every 45 days to even keep our personal house.

They need to fix this right but I know they wont. It will all fall on deaf ears which is sad. The outcry will continue and they will scratch their heads as to why

[Verendal]

1: I agree with removing grandfathering, but it wouldn't free up that many plots.

2:Entire other bag of worms, yes. They need to make a public and clear announcement stating that it isn't allowed, people still claim 'but but technicality'

3:What about those of us who have waited over a YEAR for a chance to relocate to a plot? Why should a new person have an equal chance with someone who has waited again, over a year for a chance at a specific spot they want?

4:That is something many MANY will disagree with. Why lock housing to 'only groups can have it' resulting in only those with enough people to camp lots of spots getting one, deny those people who don't *want* to share a house with dozens of people, deny people a chance to decorate to their heart's content? Apartments while available are..a joke, in size comparison. The solution is not 'take things away from people'. That doesn't work. Once an option is made available, you cannot simply take it away again without immense outrage, justifiably so. The solution is to give us more housing and a real solution, not take away and deny features without a very very good reason.

[Penthea]

1) they grandfathered in peoples extras. This itself would have alleviated alot of housing cry. Not enough but would have given more people a chance.

On some servers a very noticeable amount of plots would become unclaimed if grandfathering was removed, but on others it would be only a handful of scattered plots. Just as you said it wouldn't be enough to actually fix the availability issue as a whole, but it would make the situation a bit better.

I do agree grandfathering should be removed, but only when all characters on the same server can access the same private home and when players can invite their alts to fcs without needing help from a third party. I don't like the idea of entirely locking characters out of content they used to have access to. And of course grandfathered players should be able to choose what houses they keep and get refunded the cost of the rest.

However I would far prefer a solution that means no one loses anything but that is only possible with instanced housing.

2) even with new rules in place people still sell of plots or even plots attached to free companies. That is another bag of worms. That is easily fixable by making it so a person has to be a member for 6 months to be able to take ownership. This would greatly reduce seeing people selling larges attached to a fc for 300mil. You know the thing they were trying to combat.

I think six months is too much. It would very much hurt fcs that are around six months old or less who happen to have the misfortune of having a fc leader who cannot log in or must step down.

Six months is a pretty big timeframe and unexpected things can happen to people that would make them unable to log in. It sucks if your fc master can't log in and it would suck more if the fc master can't pass on leadership even if they want to. However I think two months would be reasonable. Unexpected things can still happen in that time frame but in general people have an idea of what they're doing for the next two months. Six months? Far more difficult to predict, especially in the interesting time we're living in right now.

It also could be quite difficult to sell a plot with a timeframe longer than a month to wait for fc ownership to be passed on. People are of course be concerned about getting scammed when they buy from another player, and it would be much more difficult to report the scam if the process of the transaction began several weeks before. I don't know if SE's logs even go back that far to be able to check what conversation took place. It's possible that they don't. Having to wait so long to be able to complete the purchase of a house from a player would definitely be a deterrent to some degree.

3) they should have suspended relocation when the new wards came out but not told anyone they were so people didnt have time to create a new service account to bypass that restriction. This would have given people this housing was meant for a fighting chance to get a house. Then they could have announced relocation would be open 7 days after.

I don't agree with suspending relocation. A huge majority have the plot they have because it is what they could get, not what they chose. Especially in the case of fcs having a cottage can feel very limited. New wards are often the only place players can realistically relocate to what they consider a better location, unless their server has a very small population.

However what SE can do is dramatically increase the cd on relocation. I read on Reddit that the cd is a mere five minutes which is ridiculously short. A handful of players with too much gil trolled others by relocating several times the day the new wards launched. The cd should be at least several hours if not more. They could even pair the cd with purchase, and by that I mean when you purchase a house you cannot relocate for X amount of hours.

4) housing would probably be better off with fc's in housing wards since players barely use them outside of rp places and personal in instanced which could be included in our sub since we house owners (when the demo timer is on) need to have a active sub anyways and go in once every 45 days to even keep our personal house.

Honestly I'd prefer if the entire system was instanced. My fc had some very near misses with drama due to unsavoury people hanging around the fc house, one of which was a person who bullied one of our members. Thankfully nothing terrible happened but that doesn't mean nothing ever will. If we had instanced housing these incidents wouldn't be possible.

That said I wouldn't be opposed to a system in which wards were just for fcs and private homes were instanced, provided that private homes continue to have access to outdoor decoration and gardening. I don't want to lose my lovely garden. Not having a garden was one of the main reasons why I wasn't happy in an apartment. If we had a system like this, I do agree it would be far better than what we have now.

They need to fix this right but I know they wont. It will all fall on deaf ears which is sad. The outcry will continue and they will scratch their heads as to why

Well if nothing else we know that SE had planned to add far more wards than the chunk we just got. Covid prevented them from adding more servers for housing so instead they optimised the current servers to fit more wards. So we still got more wards, but less than was intended. How much less exactly we don't know. I guess we won't until 6.0 considering the delays in content releases and having to scrap this year's Halloween in an attempt to keep up. Maybe we'll see them in late 5.4.

I had a tiny hope for Ishgard but from what we can see of the housing now, it looks like a ward layout. I was hoping the WoL would get an instanced house as a reward for helping the city to rebuild but that hope has since shrunk very significantly.

[Almagnus1]

On some servers a very noticeable amount of plots would become unclaimed if grandfathering was removed, but on others it would be only a handful of scattered plots. Just as you said it wouldn't be enough to actually fix the availability issue as a whole, but it would make the situation a bit better.

And that's precisely why I've been advocating for ending the grandfathering and reining in the shell FCs.

[Canadane]

People who wanted to relocate had to run the placard race just like anyone wanting to buy.

[Luna-M]

1) they grandfathered in peoples extras. This itself would have alleviated alot of housing cry. Not enough but would have given more people a chance.

You might think that, but would not saved many plots. Most people who had additional houses on their server was maybe 1-2. There is exceptions of course but far from the normal.

3) they should have suspended relocation when the new wards came out but not told anyone they were so people didnt have time to create a new service account to bypass that restriction. This would have given people this housing was meant for a fighting chance to get a house. Then they could have announced relocation would be open 7 days after.

They should not ban relocation in any wards, not even new ones. Person who relocate will free up a slot. The problem is the timer.

4) housing would probably be better off with fc's in housing wards since players barely use them outside of rp places and personal in instanced which could be included in our sub since we house owners (when the demo timer is on) need to have a active sub anyways and go in once every 45 days to even keep our personal house.

Will never happen. Yoshida have expressed he wants open wards.

[TwistedTea]

2:Entire other bag of worms, yes. They need to make a public and clear announcement stating that it isn't allowed, people still claim 'but but technicality'

Yes, SE should clearly state in the TOS regarding their stance on housing transactions so that people will stop interpreting the TOS for SE or taking a single sentence in a 2016 video out of context to suit their agenda.

Until, then we have screenshots of GMs stepping in 2017 (did these GMs miss Yoshi P's memo?), to rectify a housing transaction with in-game chat discussion gone wrong.

[Penthea]

People who wanted to relocate had to run the placard race just like anyone wanting to buy.

The difference is they already have a house, which is why some people are upset they can relocate to new wards. I don't agree with removing relocation or putting limits on where you can relocate to, but I can understand why people who don't have a house view those who relocate as a problem. The placard timer adds to the issue because even if you know where their old and now empty plot is, the placard timer means your chances of getting that plot are far lower than simply being first to arrive at an unclaimed plot in a new ward.

I'm not sure how this situation can improve without adding a tremendous amount of wards or just having instanced housing.

Also even if relocation is removed or had limits on areas that can be relocated to, many who were against relocation would end up changing their mind if they got a plot that is, for whatever reason, far from the ideal choice.

Again...the problem goes back to a lack of houses. Like most problems with the housing system.

[Infindox]

They really need to go back and have no timer on the plots like they used to. I get WHY they have the timers, but there's still selling of FCs attached to houses so... What's new.

[Seddrinth]

1) they grandfathered in peoples extras. This itself would have alleviated alot of housing cry. Not enough but would have given more people a chance.

2) even with new rules in place people still sell of plots or even plots attached to free companies. That is another bag of worms. That is easily fixable by making it so a person has to be a member for 6 months to be able to take ownership. This would greatly reduce seeing people selling larges attached to a fc for 300mil. You know the thing they were trying to combat.

3) they should have suspended relocation when the new wards came out but not told anyone they were so people didnt have time to create a new service account to bypass that restriction. This would have given people this housing was meant for a fighting chance to get a house. Then they could have announced relocation would be open 7 days after.

4) housing would probably be better off with fc's in housing wards since players barely use them outside of rp places and personal in instanced which could be included in our sub since we house owners (when the demo timer is on) need to have a active sub anyways and go in once every 45 days to even keep our personal house.

1) It's not fair to take housing away from people who were grandfathered. They didn't break any rules when they bought their houses.

2) I agree with this one. FC housing is the most abused housing mechanic in terms of using it to flip/sell plots. If you go to the reddit where they are selling houses, it's usually selling an FC attached or they are selling relocation. Get rid of FC housing and you will see most of the housing market gone.

3) The problem is the relocation. People with a house and instantly relocate while those without have to play the waiting game. That's why so many people on housing day just grabbed the first plot available just so they have one, so when they see a better plot later they can relocate right away. I did this as well. I grabbed the first plot available and later in the day relocated to another plot. It wasn't done on purpose to troll first time buyers. What they should do is make everyone have to deal with timers. Someone with a house should not be able to walk up to a plot and take it right away while others who don't have a house have to wait on that random timer. And I'm speaking as someone with 3 houses that I think it's an unfair advantage to existing home owners.

4) Not sure what you are advocating. You want FC only housing? As I stated above, I prefer the opposite. I prefer personal housing only, and get rid of FC housing to eliminate the house flippers. I don't think we need instanced housing when we already have apartments and FC rooms, plus I really like the physical ward concept where you see everyone's house in your neighborhood.