Plots everywhere demolished and open!

[Shougun]

I totally get it, if I'd been standing there for God knows how many hours I would've kept going until I had one too.

I never really wanted a house either as I didn't want to be shackled to the game indefinitely, I actually bought mine "on accident" sometime last year (saw an empty plot and wanted to see the dreaded placard message I always hear about, and then it was suddenly my plot.)

I suppose realistically I will lose it at some point because I refuse to pay a sub when I'm not playing, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

I believe that actually further dissuades house use.

Buy something, that for most casual players, very expensive that you can very readily lose if you decide to take a break for whatever reason (besides wanting to take a break because maybe you were burnt out or playing something else at the time there is of course just life being life, covid, job, natural disaster, etc - which SE tries to help with but they can't fully because it would mean locking houses).

Added with other reasons of course like the system doesn't flow very smoothly. like if the system started you out either massively tiny but free but then pointed you towards upgrading that to apartment scale, then to small, etc, etc (location theme also being like this in terms of smoother far friendlier transitions)- meanwhile the game wont threaten to remove progress either. I strongly believe people would more eagerly interact with the system then. At first maybe just because they can store seasonals, but each time you get in it would be like "how about that extra space.. eh? you want a garden don't you, it's right here just press upgrade ;3".

Instead we have situations where people are actively told to buy houses they don't want just so they can then later pay more to get the house they actually did want. Freaking what? It actually works, but seriously that's the way that is a "good way" to interact with the system? It's awful.

[Yencat]

Instead we have situations where people are actively told to buy houses they don't want just so they can then later pay more to get the house they actually did want. Freaking what? It actually works, but seriously that's the way that is a "good way" to interact with the system? It's awful.

You're right. You either don't buy one, or you buy one and hang onto it for dear life. (if you get the chance)

If they ever decide to do something instanced beyond apartments that will always be there even when you unsub and resub I will gladly relinquish my house and plot and just have that, the neighbourhood thing doesn't mean anything to me because no one ever seems to be in there anyway.

When housing first launched and my FC eventually managed to get a house the areas were bustling with people that were either looking to buy, were just curious and having a look, or wanted to socialize. Back then I could see what they were going for with the neighbourhood-feel. Now though? Maybe there's still wards like that but mine sure isn't, not where the FC house is and not where my personal house is.

I lucked out randomly so while I did enjoy crafting all my own decorations and I still use and visit my house daily, I'm not that invested. But if the alternative was possibly standing at a placard again clicking for 7+ hours because I really wanted a house I might also be more inclined to just pay the sub to keep it.

Aside from the fact that it encourages unhealthy behaviour it also pits players against each other rather than against the system itself, because people know SE is stubborn about how they designed it so it's little use getting mad at them. Of course they're gonna get mad at the person that relocated right under their nose or got it before them, even though that person didn't necessarily do anything wrong either. Provided they're not botting, of course.

Call me soft but if there had been several people standing at the plot I ended up relocating to I wouldn't have had the heart to relocate and snatch it out from under their noses, not because they might get mad but I'd just feel bad because they may have been there for hours.

It's just not fun for either side.

[Colt47]

Housing in this game feels like it isn't well implemented, but it also is critical to having value in crafts besides combat. The three pillars of crafting are savage, housing, and personal glamour. However, if I were a betting man people who actually own houses are likely already crafting their own furnishings. It's just getting one of these houses is a feat in itself and probably requires a really dedicated player to even accomplish, especially with the RNG.

If they can't make housing more widely available I can see the whole market eventually just dying out on the furnishings.

[van_arn]

I believe that actually further dissuades house use.

Buy something, that for most casual players, very expensive that you can very readily lose if you decide to take a break for whatever reason (besides wanting to take a break because maybe you were burnt out or playing something else at the time there is of course just life being life, covid, job, natural disaster, etc - which SE tries to help with but they can't fully because it would mean locking houses).

Added with other reasons of course like the system doesn't flow very smoothly. like if the system started you out either massively tiny but free but then pointed you towards upgrading that to apartment scale, then to small, etc, etc (location theme also being like this in terms of smoother far friendlier transitions)- meanwhile the game wont threaten to remove progress either. I strongly believe people would more eagerly interact with the system then. At first maybe just because they can store seasonals, but each time you get in it would be like "how about that extra space.. eh? you want a garden don't you, it's right here just press upgrade ;3".

Instead we have situations where people are actively told to buy houses they don't want just so they can then later pay more to get the house they actually did want. Freaking what? It actually works, but seriously that's the way that is a "good way" to interact with the system? It's awful.

Square clearly doesn’t want every player to own a house. The systems in place actively discourage players from easily buying one. Placard camping is intentionally awful to do; they want you to give up.

Even if someone buys a house in a bad location and relocates to a better location, they’re still paying less than the house is worth. Demand for these should be high as a mark of an aspirational goal, is high, and will continue to be high. The problem is Square hasn’t matched the price of these to the demand; one or two good map runs can “buy” an estate, but that doesn’t even come close to their actual value on a congested server.

Perhaps they don’t increase the cost to discourage gil buying, but that only opens the market for rmt housing which will only become more pervasive as more and more players want an estate. Additional wards help in the short term, but that’s only putting off the problem until later.

Either Square embraces the “everyone can have a house” pricing they’ve established by adding enough wards for every player to own an estate OR they open an actual limitless auction system that can reflect the actual value of an estate and price people out of the content we’ll never see an effective solution.

There are real-money service costs associated with adding that much housing, so they may not be able to offer everyone a house. The problem is they’re trying to have this system both ways, and it can’t function both ways.

[Shougun]

Square clearly doesn’t want every player to own a house. The systems in place actively discourage players from easily buying one. Placard camping is intentionally awful to do; they want you to give up.

Even if someone buys a house in a bad location and relocates to a better location, they’re still paying less than the house is worth. Demand for these should be high as a mark of an aspirational goal, is high, and will continue to be high. The problem is Square hasn’t matched the price of these to the demand; one or two good map runs can “buy” an estate, but that doesn’t even come close to their actual value on a congested server.

Perhaps they don’t increase the cost to discourage gil buying, but that only opens the market for rmt housing which will only become more pervasive as more and more players want an estate. Additional wards help in the short term, but that’s only putting off the problem until later.

Either Square embraces the “everyone can have a house” pricing they’ve established by adding enough wards for every player to own an estate OR they open an actual limitless auction system that can reflect the actual value of an estate and price people out of the content we’ll never see an effective solution.

There are real-money service costs associated with adding that much housing, so they may not be able to offer everyone a house. The problem is they’re trying to have this system both ways, and it can’t function both ways.

I will fundamentally disagree with concepts of housing (houses) be just for the few or more older school thoughts that introduce weird system finagling and scarcity due to memory issues (not all old school stuff I think is bad but this would be one of them, I don't care for that scarcity mindset). For example this system is clearly inspired by systems like Dark Age of Camelot (very old mmo), I think literally, since Yoshi said he liked that game (enjoyed playing and the pvp experience if I recall correctly).

Although I would absolutely agree that the thoughts like "if it was only FC still" or "if it cost significantly more than it did now" would pull back on many of what people experience (but I think would still make people upset, just less 'immediately so', no placard issues, etc- and this lack of upset is if we assume they did it from the beginning vs now.. if they did it now I still think people would be absolutely pissed lol).

If only FC could buy houses and they costed 5 to 10 times as much, there would be massively less wards needed and probably far more likely to see people (FCs) use the house they invested huge amounts of gil (better neighborhoods). Yet they did try to get player housing and make it more accessible (as was the demand for it), as you said (they're using one system to do something it shouldn't do and are damaging things in general because of it). Another example of the system doing something it shouldn't is that each time they add wards, particularly as they add them equally, they increase the amount of dead / ghost town vibes - so the basically only major benefit to the system is compromised by trying to get a significant amount of people in at a lower bar.

Some people hear that and might think "so raise the bar" and that's fair in the sense it would do a ..thing.. lol, but to me that just says "the system picked was bad, fix up /other/ systems" (like making apartments upgrade-able into instanced houses).

So we might disagree on the ultimate functional goal, not sure lol, going towards that all get to experience it sort of concept, but I would agree that one possible way that we didn't have all the huge problems we have now is if they had kept housing out of many players hands. I don't think that is a good thing... but clearly their system is having massive troubles accommodating (having both is clearly failing all over the place lol). So I definitely agree in some of your premises, just want it to be clear that to me the end goal is every single person would and could get a home of ANY size or theme (and more, since I think instanced systems offer far more potential customization/power) and I don't fancy any sort of obtuse old school systems that require thoughts like "buy a house you don't want to get a house you do". Definitely of the crowd that if I buy something I get to keep it, like the house if I took a break, or even if I bought a theme'd area and changed I'd not lose the other theme (like a wildstar system).

[SturmChurro]

So, because I am obsessive. I went back to The Goblet, been at a random plot for over 5 hours, and I am actively competing with 5 other people, at 1 am. Just lovely. Unless there aren't any plot at a given time, I doubt I will stop doing this until I get one.

I can't stand being left out with this exclusivity. I have to own a plot. Nothing I can do about it. I can't go to sleep, because as soon as I log off it will definitely sell - then I will have wasted almost 6 hours and just miss it again.

Got my Guardian Angel title earlier, when I came back to the other plot in the goblet from bozja, it sold.

Scratch all that whiny trash of mine. I just got it JUST NOW at random. 5 and a half hours, of near non-stop clicking. I got it. I am a home(yard)owner! Now, the next step is checking the desirable wards constantly until I get a plot I actually want! Knew it was worth it! Knew if I logged off it'd sell!

My beautiful orange grass and just a tiny portion of my chat log:

[NanaWiloh]

Gratz on the house SturmChurro

[Vahlnir]

So, because I am obsessive. I went back to The Goblet, been at a random plot for over 5 hours, and I am actively competing with 5 other people, at 1 am. Just lovely. Unless there aren't any plot at a given time, I doubt I will stop doing this until I get one.

I can't stand being left out with this exclusivity. I have to own a plot. Nothing I can do about it. I can't go to sleep, because as soon as I log off it will definitely sell - then I will have wasted almost 6 hours and just miss it again.

Got my Guardian Angel title earlier, when I came back to the other plot in the goblet from bozja, it sold.

Scratch all that whiny trash of mine. I just got it JUST NOW at random. 5 and a half hours, of near non-stop clicking. I got it. I am a home(yard)owner! Now, the next step is checking the desirable wards constantly until I get a plot I actually want! Knew it was worth it! Knew if I logged off it'd sell!

My beautiful orange grass and just a tiny portion of my chat log:

Congratulations! You definitely earned it. lol I'm glad such determination wasn't for nothing.

[Shougun]

Congratulations SturmChurro, you beat placard (savage)!



Now time to garden and organize all your seasonal event items :3

[van_arn]

So, because I am obsessive. I went back to The Goblet, been at a random plot for over 5 hours, and I am actively competing with 5 other people, at 1 am. Just lovely. Unless there aren't any plot at a given time, I doubt I will stop doing this until I get one.

I can't stand being left out with this exclusivity. I have to own a plot. Nothing I can do about it. I can't go to sleep, because as soon as I log off it will definitely sell - then I will have wasted almost 6 hours and just miss it again.

Got my Guardian Angel title earlier, when I came back to the other plot in the goblet from bozja, it sold.

Scratch all that whiny trash of mine. I just got it JUST NOW at random. 5 and a half hours, of near non-stop clicking. I got it. I am a home(yard)owner! Now, the next step is checking the desirable wards constantly until I get a plot I actually want! Knew it was worth it! Knew if I logged off it'd sell!

My beautiful orange grass and just a tiny portion of my chat log:

Welcome to the club. Don't feel even a little guilt when you move your estate to a camped placard; you're a high roller now.

That said, while I'm glad it just so happened to work out for you, the crossed-through text is a good example why I'm really not comfortable with the system as it is; it's some of the worst design mentality since pandemonium warden. Borderline abusive to the playerbase.