Player Purchase Priorty

[Jojoya]

So that's nice for the EU players. They can transfer to whichever of the 2 worlds is in their current data center, get a house and continue to play with their friends without having their game performance change from what it currently is. I'll make certain to point any EU players to those 2 worlds.

It doesn't help the players on the NA worlds. We have no worlds here with houses available. Players would have to transfer to different regions. They would have to give up playing with their friends. They would need to struggle with poor connectivity trying to play through basic content (drove me nuts when I made my EU and JP data center characters last year).

You can nitpick about Balmung players wanting to play on an overpopulated world but the truth is they're not the only overpopulated NA world. Balmung's been a Standard world since April. The only NA worlds getting marked as Congested in recent months have been on Aether and Primal. If we use the average population on the JP worlds as a standard, every NA world is overpopulated.

SE controls how many worlds there are for players to chose from in a region and the number of worlds controls the housing supply for that region. The current problem is not one that NA players created.

[TwistedTea]

SE controls how many worlds there are for players to chose from in a region and the number of worlds controls the housing supply for that region. The current problem is not one that NA players created.

Agreed. Although currently in NA it's mostly because of autodemo freeze and the increase in player populations. The freeze highlights why the persistent ward system is terrible for access to housing.

SE has doubled down on the persistent ward system for years. So not expecting SE to drastically change how the persistent ward system works. But when autodemo resumes, players who prioritize housing should consider transferring to one of the low pop worlds in NA.

[Penthea]

So that's nice for the EU players. They can transfer to whichever of the 2 worlds is in their current data center, get a house and continue to play with their friends without having their game performance change from what it currently is. I'll make certain to point any EU players to those 2 worlds.

It doesn't help the players on the NA worlds. We have no worlds here with houses available. Players would have to transfer to different regions. They would have to give up playing with their friends. They would need to struggle with poor connectivity trying to play through basic content (drove me nuts when I made my EU and JP data center characters last year).

Yea I don't think telling people to move to a different data centre is providing a good solution. Yea sure they can get a house but they also have to leave all their friends behind. There is no cross data centre visit, no cross data centre party invite system, and you can't even hope to bump into your friends from another data centre in DF. Even worse for players who would be going to a data centre for a different region because that can mean noticeable lag, depending on their location and the internet that is available to them. Certainly that would often be the case when dealing with distances as large as North America and Europe.

As an aside I think partially why EU has less population issues is because the population is more evenly distributed due to languages. In NA the majority of people there are North American, which means English is their native language most of the time. In Europe this is not the case due to the large amount of languages spoken there. For example it is well known among EU players that French speaking people tend to play on Moogle and Louisoix. SE said when they were selecting servers to put into Chaos and Light they thought about the language groups the communities made on the EU servers. So what ended up happening is the servers with large French speaking communities ended up in Chaos, and those with large German speaking communities ended up in Light. Basically what I'm saying is due to the nature of how Europe is as a region linguistically speaking, servers naturally get more even population distribution. There are of course some population issues on some servers, some related to housing, but none anywhere near as bad as the likes of Balmung.

Also as far as I'm aware NA has less breathing room than EU and JP when it comes to the amount of servers available for the size of the overall region's player population. So even if there was a more even distribution of population, there would still be a very noticeable shortage of houses.

[TwistedTea]

Yea I don't think telling people to move to a different data centre is providing a good solution. Yea sure they can get a house but they also have to leave all their friends behind. There is no cross data centre visit, no cross data centre party invite system, and you can't even hope to bump into your friends from another data centre in DF.

Even when autodemo was running, many people refused to move off the high pop NA servers to low pop NA servers.

The reality of the situation doesn't look like it's gonna change anytime soon. Hoping for new wards/new NA servers is not very productive given that SE keeps doubling down on the persistent ward system.

If housing is a high priority then NA players need to consider moving to a low pop NA server when autodemo resumes. Otherwise housing is not a priority for them.

[Penthea]

Even when autodemo was running, many people refused to move off the high pop NA servers to low pop NA servers.

I don't really blame them.

For some people it's not worth the cost of a transfer to only get a bit of a better chance to get a house while also leaving a fc behind, or even friends too if the move is to a different data centre. Increasing your odds by a small amount in exchange for leaving your buddies behind isn't what I consider a good trade. And it seems many others don't either.

If housing is a high priority then NA players need to consider moving to a low pop NA server when autodemo resumes. Otherwise housing is not a priority for them.

I don't agree with the sentiment that "if you don't transfer then you clearly don't want a house enough" because saying that conveniently ignores that many things keep players in the game and the servers they're on.

I didn't transfer when I was looking for a house not because I didn't want a house enough, but because I liked my fc enough to stay on Moogle. If I didn't want a house enough I would have given up on getting one after a short time. It took me over a year to get my house.

Also transferring costs real money. I think it's ridiculous that anyone expects players to pay additional real money to only MAYBE get access to certain content, especially when we already pay a sub.

[Seddrinth]

I don't agree with the sentiment that "if you don't transfer then you clearly don't want a house enough" because saying that conveniently ignores that many things keep players in the game and the servers they're on.

I didn't transfer when I was looking for a house not because I didn't want a house enough, but because I liked my fc enough to stay on Moogle. If I didn't want a house enough I would have given up on getting one after a short time. It took me over a year to get my house.

You prioritized your fc over increased possibility to obtain housing. Some players have left their fcs and transferred worlds just for housing. So different players have different priority when it comes to housing.

[Penthea]

You prioritized your fc over increased possibility to obtain housing. Some players have left their fcs and transferred worlds just for housing. So different players have different priority when it comes to housing.

I know. My point is that just because I didn't transfer to get a house doesn't mean housing wasn't something I really badly wanted. Which is something many people here tend to say. It seems very black and white for some. When the reality is that is rarely the case.

[Jojoya]

You prioritized your fc over increased possibility to obtain housing. Some players have left their fcs and transferred worlds just for housing. So different players have different priority when it comes to housing.

Players in other MMOs with housing aren't forced into choose one or the other.

Why are we?

[Greyhawk]

Players in other MMOs with housing aren't forced into choose one or the other.

Why are we?

Well, one thing is this isn't other MMOs, FFXIV stands on its own two feet. It's handled differently and we really may have a cultural difference of opinion when it comes to the management of this game.

Another thing is SE has always had their stance on housing as this - they want it to not be available to every player because it's considered an elite commodity.

Not defending them on this, because I think housing should be available to everyone in an MMO that has it, but they haven't ever changed their stance on it and I don't think they will in the near future. It is a funky, broken system. People with multiple plots aren't doing us any favors in that aspect either, and SE hasn't fixed that yet to date as well. That leads us to believe nothing really will change on this, so it's unfortunately 'eat or be eaten'.