The New Housing System is Terrible

[Cagi]

I'm putting this out here because of the recent patch causing another rush of players charging the houses to each other's despair, and I would like to say this:

The random timer should be removed.

I understand players may have been frustrated in the past with people forming a monopoly on the housing market to resell them at a substantial profit but this is not the way Squeenix should resolve it.
With housing transfers freeing up homes, players are back to looming in front of a board praying for a chance at a feature that should be available to everyone as opposed to being available to those who sweat hard enough.
This is meant to be a game played for fun, one where we get along and communicate, set up a social aspect that shapes the world around us through our personal connections. The markets, the housing, groups, raiding, crafting, FATEs, roleplay, it was ALL in the hands of the players. As such, the random timer removes player agency from the equation, and creates a hostile environment.

Here's why we need a return to houses becoming available the moment they're freed up:
1. Players will be able to free up spots for each other through communication and coordination. Is there a potential bias to this? Of course. MMOs are about making friends, so what's stopping you?
2. Buying from someone who supposedly 'gouges prices' actually gives you value for your money, as you are acquiring the plot without the added anxiety of this toxic competition for what should be a feature for everyone.
3. Reporting players has always been a feature, and if someone is going in with this kind of transaction, they can prepare screenshots to make sure the seller remains true to their word, or report if they are charging well more than is necessary (which can always be established as a rule, ToS changes often).
4. Meritocracy has never worked. The random timer has forced people to suffer just for a chance at a home. The moment a game causes you genuine distress just to use a basic feature, you know it needs reworking.
5. A player housing market for all its flaws allowed players to have a degree of control. The beauty of FFXIV is that it doesn't resemble the real world entirely in its economy, as the game doesn't account for inflation in the player economy. Anyone can get the money needed to buy from a seller, and in a much shorter span of time than we'd expect.


This might very well just be me shouting into the wind, but this new system is nothing short of a communist fantasy that leaves people wanting, distressed, confused and worst of all, hostile. That's not healthy for an MMO community. We shouldn't have to see the player behind the screen of another character as an enemy. The vitriol that's being witnessed, the depressed states that are being created and the genuine malice that's forming is horrifying to look at. Whomever pushed this new system should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

[Seraphor]

This "New" housing system has been around for at least 3 years.

This might very well just be me shouting into the wind, but this new system is nothing short of a communist fantasy that leaves people wanting, distressed, confused and worst of all, hostile.

As opposed to a lopsided class divide in an unregulated inelastic economy whereby only players who have either been here for 5+ years or who Bot and manipulate the marketplace have a chance at buying the houses that inevitably cost >500 million gil? Leaving any players newer than the games first expansion feeling utterly hopeless and feeling totally locked out of content that they will never get to engage with?

Then what happens when they add new wards? The market crashes, house prices drop for a short period of time and suddenly "my house that I paid 500 million gil for and took 5 years of my life to earn is now only worth 100 million gil! I've been totally ripped off!!! I QUIT THIS STUPID GAME!"

Yet in spite of your cries of "communism!" you want them to uphold a report system to police other players market activity, and to hold your hand to prevent you feeling "genuine distress".


The system isn't ideal, but if you're feeling "genuine distress" you need to take responsibility for that and do something else. It's just a game, no, it's just a SIMS-like decorating minigame within a game.
New ward additions and the 2 minute server rush that comes with them are not your only way of acquiring a house. People have been buying houses for years without having to rely on these brief windows of chaos.

[Dogemon]

imagine caring so much about virtual pixels in a party game for children

[Calixis]

Removing the timer would make the housing situation even worse. New wards would be competing with both first-time buyers, Relocators and anybody who knew people would spend hundreds of millions for just a Small. Hell, there's already plenty of people selling 'solo' FCs with a House. Plenty of houses were lost today just by people buying and relocating them as a JOKE, so can you imagine how many would be lost because people want to directly flip them for hundreds of millions? You'd be inviting hundreds if not thousands of people who genuinely could not care less about housing, but would like a cash injection, into the already cramped housing race.

I don't think anybody disagrees the Relocation Timer is horrid, but straight up removing it would make the whole situation much, much, worse.

I'm sure that straight up buying one off somebody for an inflated price sounds good, up until the price inflates to the point almost none can actually afford one save the biggest FCs pooling money and then you'll be right back here complaining that something needs to be done about price-gouging house-sellers.

[Cagi]

Acquiring gil isn't a problem in this game, even if you're not a crafter, which I'm not. MMOs are designed for the grind, something everyone seems to forget quite flagrantly, yet despite this, I'd sooner trade hundreds of millions of gil to avoid eye strain, standing in front of a board, being bored out of my skull and having to contest with other people who are just as stressed out about this as everyone else.
To be honest, we actually need the ability to acquire private instances instead, something that can be done on an invitee basis through things like friends, FC members, party members, etc., but we don't.

An MMO is meant to have a strong social aspect, and the timer makes things the opposite.
Sure, price-gougers were terrible, but people were also able to acquire assured housing through communicating with another human being. Crazy right? Houses were exchanged off as people and FCs moved up in size and location, people who were leaving the game could pass their houses off to friends who are staying on board and want a new place, you could actually find more reputable people selling their place for a reasonable price, since not every seller was the devil incarnate.

This whole thing feels antisocial and frankly, counterproductive to how an MMO should be functioning.
Are price-gougers good? No, but I see them as a superior alternative to the consistent chaos that is housing that is god-awful unless you want to give everything up in your server to go to the smallest.

[Darkmoonrise]

A solution to this problem could come from Bozja registration system. As soon as a plot opens for sale, you can register to it. To do so, you need to pay the price of the plot. 1 week after the first registration, the system randomly selects one appliant. This person now owns the plot, all the others get their gils back.

[Cagi]

A solution to this problem could come from Bozja registration system. As soon as a plot opens for sale, you can register to it. To do so, you need to pay the price of the plot. 1 week after the first registration, the system randomly selects one appliant. This person now owns the plot, all the others get their gils back.

Not gonna lie, that's not a terrible idea.

[Dyvid]

Honestly SE should have offered free World transfers with in the Data center before new housing plots so people could have moved to less popular world. Today there is no reason to be on a heavy pop world since you can free travel within the data center.

SE should really focus on redesigning Apartments to make them more appealing to average players so everyone doesn't feel the need to own a house.

[Warkupo]

Terrible proposal OP; There are real legitimate concerns and reasons with why the system was changed to the horror show that it is now. It used to be EVEN WORSE, somehow.

Just implement the lottery idea posted by hundreds of players at this point.

[Snowflake_McFluffy]

The whole housing system is crappy, but it's not because of the timer.

IMO there should be some restrictions on who can buy which house.
imagine the following: in each sector, 1/3 or 1/2 of the plots would be restricted to FC, the rest to players; FC couldn't buy a house without a minimum number of members and if the FC isn't more than X weeks old (to limit those a*sholes creating empty FCs to buy a whole sector).