Disallow Relocation, At Least Temporarily

[Austere]

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I disagree that relocation should remain in its current form.

I believe that the housing system needs to be as available to people who don't have a house as much as possible. The housing system needs to expand horizontally, not vertically. Also that price hike is waaay too steep.

If I had the power to make a change, I'd make it so that people who own a small house cannot relocate to another small house. Medium and large houses can enjoy the same system that they do now.
If the FC house situation you mentioned is a problem, then allow FC's to relocate their small to a small but not individuals. This means that FC spaces (that are catering to multiple people (thus allowing multiple people enjoy some form of housing) can remain as good social systems. Sure this might seem like a targeted change against individuals, but it would introduce a greater improvement than what is "lost".

[Catstab]

I'd make it so that people who own a small house cannot relocate to another small house

This is perhaps not the worst thought. It would cause people to think long and hard before selecting a small house to camp. It's a lot more nuanced that OP's suggestion, for certain. And the fact that it applies only to individuals and not FC's is a must.

[Greyhawk]

I disagree that relocation should remain in its current form.

I believe that the housing system needs to be as available to people who don't have a house as much as possible. The housing system needs to expand horizontally, not vertically. Also that price hike is waaay too steep.

If I had the power to make a change, I'd make it so that people who own a small house cannot relocate to another small house. Medium and large houses can enjoy the same system that they do now.
If the FC house situation you mentioned is a problem, then allow FC's to relocate their small to a small but not individuals. This means that FC spaces (that are catering to multiple people (thus allowing multiple people enjoy some form of housing) can remain as good social systems. Sure this might seem like a targeted change against individuals, but it would introduce a greater improvement than what is "lost".

There is no gain/loss of a housing plot, just location - although the timer sucks because of this, it's still not necessarily a bad thing. We all agree that the housing system just sucks overall, and it needs to be changed to make it available to to everyone. Tearing apart the existing housing system isn't going to get us anywhere with obtaining the ultimate goal of them to redo housing, it just causes arguments and animosity directed at the wrong people, when it should be directed at who is making this dumb decision to keep housing as it is.

[Penthea]

Relocation was an improvement. The process of 'Empty, Demolish, Re-purchase' you describe was how housing worked before 2018. It was horrible. An FC can't let go of it's house if there are FC private chambers inside. So FCs that wanted to move would boot all of their members to demolish their rooms, then empty the house, then demolish it, then purchase the new house, then re-invite all FC members who would each pay 300k gil to re-purchase their FC private chambers, and then each member would collect their room's contents from Resident Caretaker. They have only 30 days to collect, if not their items are wiped permanently, including seasonal decorations and mog station cash shop items. Mind you, if you lost anyone's name or they don't log back on in the next couple days, they're gone for good. It's an FC killer, in some cases. It's really bad for a social game. You're asking for this to come back??! With relocation, members can stay in the FC and their private chamber decorations even stay intact each move.

The first time my fc relocated its house was before the relocation mechanic was brought to the game. Even though two of us were online to do the process it was still stressful. We had to unfurnish the house super fast and we found that we could not remove the chocobo stable because an offline member had left a chocobo inside. We had to kick the player from the fc so we could remove the stable. That small extra step made us so concerned that the medium we found would be taken by the time we went to buy it. Fortunately it was not and we relocated successfully, and of course we invited that member back to the fc when they came online.

I'm very glad relocation is in the game now. I do not want any fc to go through what we did.

My personal suggestion is that we take the timer away, and boost placard pricing to 40 million gil small, 200 million medium, 500 million large. Then only players who actually craft/farm/play will be house shopping, and people who are still just getting into the game are out there playing it. edit: This would also add a gil sink of more than 30 billion gil per year per server to the game, and boy do we need one.

These prices would just be a new way of alienating players. It would be swapping one unpleasant situation for another. This would enrage any player who missed out on getting a house for a much cheaper price because of the placard or availability. A price hike that massive would make them feel like they're getting punished for a broken system preventing them from accessing content earlier. The backlash from this would be insane. I would be shocked if this ever happened because I think even SE realise how this would be a direct ticket to controversy. Never mind how this would encourage RMT, which is likely one of the reasons why SE brought in the placard timer to hinder house flippers asking for a price ten times the value of the plot.

The only way I can see that SE could alleviate the placard issues without alienating a huge amount of players, aside from introducing a proper instanced housing system, is to upgrade apartments very considerably. As they are now they are very small to the point that some furnishings completely dominate the one room they provide. Allow players to buy upgrades to make them bigger and/or add new floors, and a balcony for outdoor furnishing. Also add tenancy and allow fcs to use them. This won't make everyone stop wanting a house, but it would make a lot of players be happier with what they have and even some happy enough that not having a house would no longer be a big deal. Additionally this would provide a gil sink. Similar upgrade options for houses would also provide that.

IIf I had the power to make a change, I'd make it so that people who own a small house cannot relocate to another small house. Medium and large houses can enjoy the same system that they do now.
If the FC house situation you mentioned is a problem, then allow FC's to relocate their small to a small but not individuals. This means that FC spaces (that are catering to multiple people (thus allowing multiple people enjoy some form of housing) can remain as good social systems. Sure this might seem like a targeted change against individuals, but it would introduce a greater improvement than what is "lost".

Instead I would propose that the price of relocation gets increased by a lot. Make the decision to relocate be something that a player would have to weigh carefully instead of something they can do on a whim because it's so cheap. Unlike the aforementioned price hikes on the purchases of houses, increasing the price of relocation does not lock anyone out of content because the player already has a house.

Also the cooldown on relocation is ludicrously low right now. It's a mere 5 minutes. Some players with too much gil have used this to troll players by hopping plots several times in a day. The cooldown should be a week. Very few players could argue that they would need to relocate more than once in a week. The 5 minute cd is simply not needed for any legitimate reason.