Getting Housing is a Problem

[Frizze]

Despite whether we got on then or not, I heard from others that most housing was gone or on a timer anyway and the queue was in the 1000s, so despite what both you and Catstab below say, there was indeed no housing the rest of the day. We checked at 8 am.

Even the lowest population servers saw the most desirable plots scooped up in the first few minutes. The full lot of 500+ smalls took anywhere from 30 mins to several hours to go through on the north american servers(the smaller japanese and euro servers actually still have some houses open even now). But as Catstab points out, its statistically impossible that all 720 new houses on your server were taken by first time buyers. Many were relocated into from less desirable plots in wards 1-21(and some of those plots were relocated into from even less desirable plots). Those timers expiring throughout the rest of the day is what these people refer to when they say housing was available the rest of the day.

But repeating what others have said isnt why i started typing this response. I did so to dispel a misconception. A queue in the 1000s to log on means that the login server was congested. Those players were being distributed to all the various servers. Had you been sitting 2000th in line and taken 20 mins to log in, you still would have found a few hundred houses to choose from. Not the best plots, but plenty of options.

[alpacaurbags]

Honestly could care less about your comments on what is true or not.

The problem is the housing system. You are all saying: "work within the system, you aren't doing enough or trying hard enough, this is what it is."

I am saying: the system needs to be fixed. I shouldn't have to do that. It shouldn't be this hard.

Not here to argue semantics on some patch that didn't add enough houses.

Even if there were houses on a timer (my free company mate checked, so maybe a couple were left, I have no idea, still does not matter), we then what? Sit there all day with 10 other people?

I'm saying that shouldn't be how you get a house. So stop defending the problem?

[alpacaurbags]

I agree with you and it needs to change asap. It's not a fair system and sadly people in this forums will defend it with whatever nonsense.

The timer should be reduced even removed. I rather see no houses than showing me a house to my nose and slap my face to tell me i'll never get it anyway. At least if i'm fast enough and see a house i can get it and not wait like an idiot for hours.

And yeah, people are so selfish having multiple houses on one account and not even sharing. This needs to be adressed too. 1 personal house per account. Fc leader should have priority too.

Boy were you right on your first line... haha!

[Catstab]

Honestly could care less about your comments on what is true or not.

You can be fine with posting things that aren't true. But, you don't get to choose whether or not people who read it say back "hey, that can't possibly be true!"

Is the timer system bad? Yes. Have many people expressed their displeasure? Yes. Has anyone offered a better solution? Unfortunately no. Best we can do for now is educate people about the standing system and encourage them. And when people post blatant falsehoods like "No houses were open 2 hours after the server came up" or "I've been trying to get a house for 7 years with no luck" it only serves to distract from productive conversation.

[alpacaurbags]

I don't know how many houses were on timer, if any, were up. However, all houses that were not on a timer were gone. Even if they were up, we all had to go to work. It's not a falsehood to say all houses from the addition were unobtainable to us. We all had to work that day. By the time we got back on, all were gone.

I also never claimed I've tried for 7 years. Housing on the server was okay a year ago or so, but our server pop has increased and housing is crazy now. We have one ward with a free company that owns half the houses in a subdivision there, uses each property as a different cafe or whatever for RP. Like sheesh. There should be a limit here.

[KadaRemnant]

Boy were you right on your first line... haha!

Yeah, this community makes no sense. I will never defend and agree with the current hidden timer system even if it's because rmt. It's not fair and it shouldn't be there at all.

Seriously this house selling can be avoided by just putting a timer but that we can see like this house can be bought in 5 hours or something. Yes we'll have a crowd but at least people can't sell houses because it doesn't open immediately and we'll know when it's available and don't waste our time and can do something else and have fun. We don't need a hidden timer.

[Catstab]

all houses that were not on a timer were gone.

This statement is a lot clearer now that you've said what you mean, rather than using hyperbole and saying 'no houses were open' when a few hundred were.

Yes, the houses not on timers all sold out by 6:30-7am eastern. If you got on at 8, you were less motivated than the ~400 or so first-time-buyers that did get to skip their camp. You were still free to claim the remaining ~300 houses that were on timers any time between 4pm eastern on patch day and 4am on 10/14.

Have you used the official forums previously? I made a post on these forums and also on reddit/FF14 cautioning players that the new houses would sell out in 20-40 minutes and that anyone who wanted to skip the timer would need to be logging in the second servers went live, with a plan as to where to run. At least now you know for next time, you can't wake up 2 hours after servers go live and hope to claim one of the no-timer houses.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...me_buyers_and/ here it is for reference. There are some general tips for camping at the bottom, and the tips at the top should come in handy next ward release.

[alpacaurbags]

This statement is a lot clearer now that you've said what you mean, rather than using hyperbole and saying 'no houses were open' when a few hundred were.

Yes, the houses not on timers all sold out by 6:30-7am eastern. If you got on at 8, you were less motivated than the ~400 or so first-time-buyers that did get to skip their camp. You were still free to claim the remaining ~300 houses that were on timers any time between 4pm eastern on patch day and 4am on 10/14.

Apologies if it was unclear. No, I have not used the forums previously but figured this was the place to provide feedback to Square about this issue.

There were far less than 300 houses left, for the record. According to my FC mate I checked with about this, there were a handful and they were all heavily camped.

At any rate, speaks to the issue again, which is all I'm trying to express here. I don't have a solution to the problem. I think a lack of a timer and a lottery system all present their own unique problems as well. At any rate, I would never claim to know more than Square about the ins and outs and pros and cons of such a system. I'm sure they've thought through many options, but I hope they listen to feedback on some of the problems.

I do stand firm, however, that FCs should have priority housing to benefit the many rather than the few.

[Catstab]

At any rate, speaks to the issue again, which is all I'm trying to express here.

I do stand firm, however, that FCs should have priority housing to benefit the many rather than the few.

Yeah, housing is for sure in shorter supply than we would prefer as players. Some say this is by design, but SE has also expressed that they want to open more wards, but this is all that current servers would allow.

FCs were prioritized in last year's housing expansion. SE made the decision this time to allow first-time personal buyers to share in the relief, since auto-demo stoppage has affected everyone. It's tough to say if they will continue with that moving forward or not.

[Frizze]

FC priority would have benefited you personally, but in general it causes as many problems as it solves. The best plots will still all be scooped up in the first 10-20 mins. Most of the lots will sit empty until the restriction is lifted, causing players who want personal houses to complain even more. But the bigger problem is the shell FCs. It takes less then a day to form an FC and grind it up to the level to buy a house. So what happens is those people who want to sell houses for RMT purposes(or even just for 5-10 times the board price) are given more time to buy them up. Even if the FC restriction was as short as an hour, if it was announced in advance the resellers would already have their shell FCs primed to go right when the servers came up.

The FC solution is to de-bind some aspects from housing. Mechanically, a house allows an FC to cross-breed plants, charge wheels, run a workshop, and set up airships/subs. Take those out of housing. Every FC is alligned with one of the GCs, so why not turn the GC barracks entrance(where players can manage their squadrons) into an entrance to a command room where you can send out the subs/airships? Wheels and workshop? An instance off the ironworks building in revenants toll. Gardening? They mentioned working on a green-house/farm type instance without giving many details. Finish that, and allow FCs to run some garden plots. If you do those, then the house serves no mechanical function. It becomes just a place to decorate and/or RP. If decorating is all we need(you can RP anywhere), is there no reason an FC could "rent out the 12th floor of an apartment building"? That might require tweaking the rules of apartments to give more options, but more options benefits individual players as much as FCs.