I bought a house for my FC, but housing Savage was a nightmare!

[PMSJordan]

I finally managed to snag a small plot for FC. However, this whole process is a literal nightmare! I started my FC a month ago, and it has been picking up a lot of traction from my Twitter buddies. I gained 22 members in a month and felt a lot of pressure personally and from a few of my members to secure us a house. So, I started house hunting…

I spent a decent chunk of my play time over the last few weeks trying to look for open plots and camp them. I failed several times in the Housing Savage click wars and each time wasted hours of time and felt so defeated each time. Luckily my most recent attempt was successful, but its cost me a lot more than just the Gil. I was non-stop clicking on it for almost 7 hours straight. My wrist, hands, and arm felt like they were on FIRE! This is seriously the most ridiculous process I ever went through in a game.

I really hope once the Ishgard Wards open up that people will have an easier time getting housing. No one should have to suffer through the current process of getting a fricken house. There’s so much unneeded stress and sometimes pressure when you have a FC to get a house. I would not wish this struggle even on my worst enemies to go through! Something seriously needs to be done.

[Divinemights]

Again, it is your choice and you need to get over with it if you choose to do that.
The original idea is that you are only suppose to check it every once in a while.
The fact is, it will be physically impossible for house ward supply to meet player demand and that is the only way that is pro over con in dealing private house trade

[Arkevorkhat]

The housing system in this game was designed to be a status symbol; the lack of sufficient housing is not a mistake, it is intentional.

The goal was always for people to have something to say "I got this thing, look at me, I'm cool". That's why Relocation exists, so people who already have status as a member of the landed gentry are able to upgrade at will, ignoring the restrictions us serfs and peons must contend with.

Free Company housing contributes to this in a really pernicious way, creating a massive source of extra demand, while there are no plans to increase supply, thus making the status symbol even more sought after.

[Wasselin]

I thought it was due to server limitations.

[ryouma17]

I thought it was due to server limitations.

just an excuse, if blizz can give everyone a garrison then square can give everyone a house

[Jojoya]

The housing system in this game was designed to be a status symbol; the lack of sufficient housing is not a mistake, it is intentional.

The goal was always for people to have something to say "I got this thing, look at me, I'm cool". That's why Relocation exists, so people who already have status as a member of the landed gentry are able to upgrade at will, ignoring the restrictions us serfs and peons must contend with.

Free Company housing contributes to this in a really pernicious way, creating a massive source of extra demand, while there are no plans to increase supply, thus making the status symbol even more sought after.

SE wouldn't bother adding more wards if it was intended solely as a status symbol. We'd still be back at the original 5 wards (and no subdivisions) per district. Instead they kept adding wards and there are periods in the game's history where many plots were left unsold on the majority of worlds. Many JP worlds almost always have some available houses because their populations are so much lower than the populations on the NA and EU worlds.

If you're thinking of the original house prices, SE has said multiple times the original prices were intended to help drain the remaining massive amounts of legacy gil from the game.

No, the sticking point has been SE never anticipated the massive growth of the player base and the resulting demand for housing. They haven't been able to keep up with adding the needed hardware to operate enough wards. It doesn't help that world populations vary wildly but they designed the system so the number of wards has to be the same on every world.

If people want a house badly enough, they can transfer to one of several JP worlds to get one for minimum price but honestly no one should be expected to give up playing with friends to get access to game content that's supposed to be available to all. It would be better if SE did something to meet demand at the regional level.

[linayar]

If you're thinking of the original house prices, SE has said multiple times the original prices were intended to help drain the remaining massive amounts of legacy gil from the game.

I wonder why they have a system of price reduction, especially when supply is much lower than demand (maybe not in Japan, but elsewhere).

Talking about gil sink, not only should the price stay at the maximum, but they could even have a monthly "tax" to keep the plot.

[Penthea]

The original idea is that you are only suppose to check it every once in a while.

We both know that while SE intended this, this isn't how players typically act. Everyone knows your best chance at getting a house is never leaving the plot until it has been bought. So of course many people are going to do that. So then to compete with that other players do the same.

Being a fc leader you're under even more pressure to do what is best for your fc, and having a fc house is an excellent tool for community building.

Sure OP had the choice to not spam click but the fact remains that if they did not they might not have gotten a house at all. That botting is frequently done to purchase a house shows how incredibly flawed the acquisition system is. If an acquisition system is so punishing that players often opt to have a bot do it for them, which literally risks the status of their account, then something is very very wrong.

At the very least the placard timer should be significantly reduced. There is no need for it to be as long as up to a full day. After an hour the plot will have already caught someone's attention. I think the timer should be at a max of three hours. Still a very long time to be spam clicking, but it would reduce the incentive to bot and would not make players feel they have to sink most of a day just to be able to compete. Never mind how it would further level the playing field between pc and console users given that console users cannot use bots.

[Bsrking5]

The solution to the housing problem is simple but SE won't do it. Upgrade apartments to small houses utility and make houses FC only while kicking all the personal houses out. The housing areas were never meant for personal housing. Then they could even make the houses cost even more or have active subscription quota for each house size to limit/prevent one person FC houses. Anything less is a bandaid thats just going to lead to the same problem later on. Thats why additional housing hasnt solved anything.

[Theodric]

The solution to the housing problem is simple but SE won't do it. Upgrade apartments to small houses utility and make houses FC only while kicking all the personal houses out. The housing areas were never meant for personal housing. Then they could even make the houses cost even more or have active subscription quota for each house size to limit/prevent one person FC houses. Anything less is a bandaid thats just going to lead to the same problem later on. Thats why additional housing hasnt solved anything.

I'd argue that such an approach isn't really a 'simple' solution and would draw a significant amount of contempt towards the development team from people who worked hard to acquire a personal house for their own use.

They've decided to have both Free Company and personal housing be something exclusive with a lot of prestige. It's not a perfect system and there's ways in which it could be improved...but taking things away from existing players is a recipe for disaster.