The way to get housing is awful and needs to be fixed

[AbigaleAnthosuia]

So lets start with THE problem, players, Well people in general, people when housing was introduced, bought as much land as they could, whole wards belonged to one person, it was dumb, and bad, and straight up terrible, because these players had all these plots, the would sell them, for real world money, and the system allowed this by having it instantly be purchasable, so the person who paid irl cash would then pay 3mil or more gil and get the house, this was not okay, but the current system, of an invisible server side timer counting down anywhere from 30minutes, to 24hours is awful, for new players, they will have no idea about the invisible timer all together without some research, and they would still be left confused on how it works.

So how to fix it, we need a real solution, not just more wards, or instanced housing, while both are decent fixes, they're band-aids, players will still want housing, and still want ward housing, and instanced housing is a whole other part that is separate from the current system, rather than ignoring it and adding more wards, or just full moving away from this system, lets add a mechanic from other parts of the game.

I propose a "Roll for Housing" system, similar to rolling for loot, you would at a designated NPC, this could be the Resident Caretaker, See a list of plots available in that location, and from this menu, place a "bid" on a single plot, paying the price up front, and after that plot has been up for bid for 24 hours, the player with the highest roll gets the deed to the plot, collecting it at the NPC with the address for that plot, while all other players, retain their gil and get a "Housing token" this token can then be used on a future roll to increase it by 1, meaning you could keep "bidding" every 24 hours, gathering these tokens, then regardless of what you roll, increase it to the cap of 100, note you can only roll between 1 and 99, meaning the only way to get to 100 will be to use a token, so this gives players who have been trying again and again to get a house have a way to grind for one, now with this system transferring seems rather missing, that is, you may only request transfer during the first 12 hours of a house being up for Roll, you cannot request transfer after that, and transferring will now take 12 hours to do so after confirming and paying, this will give the players who "bid" on the house to transfer their current bids on the plot over to the plot you will be leaving vacant, or simply exit the bid all together and retain all tokens used.

This is ultimately, only my basic idea, that Ive thought of over the course of a few days, any feed back would be greatly appreciated, any system that I neglected, or should flesh out more, and should this system even be in the game? please leave message in this thread if you have anything to add, and bring this to Square Enix's Attention, because one way or the other, The housing system of FF14 for getting a house NEEDS to be fixed.

[Vahlnir]

The issue is supply and demand, and more wards/instanced housing would solve it. Preferably instanced housing. A lottery (yes, that is basically what this is and is in no way a unique idea) solves nothing but making the current system worse and RNG dependent, neither of which makes things better. It is just shifting the inconveniences from one place to another. I think anyone who proposes a lottery fails to see the bigger picture.

[ItMe]

OP please use the search feature to pull up threads with lottery or raffle in them.
This idea has actually come up a LOT before and I'd recommend adding your voice to one of those conversations and read up on the discussions thus far.

If you wanna see a lotto adding that desire to already existing threads and making them meatier is more likely to make SQEX take notice than us creating many smaller threads about it.

[Catstab]

<the raffle suggestion again>

So, a housing raffle/lottery is going to greatly benefit people with multiple accounts. Yes the average player now spends less time at a placard, but also the average player is less likely to win a house because people who can enter multiple times are using the "set it and forget it" style system to leave several entries for every open house.

I think everyone everywhere agrees the timer is crap, but unfortunately a raffle would be crap too. And patching crap into crap is a waste of time SE isn't going to undertake.

[Jojoya]

So how to fix it, we need a real solution, not just more wards, or instanced housing, while both are decent fixes, they're band-aids, players will still want housing, and still want ward housing, and instanced housing is a whole other part that is separate from the current system, rather than ignoring it and adding more wards, or just full moving away from this system, lets add a mechanic from other parts of the game.

I'm sorry but I've got to ask.

Is this supposed to be some sort of sarcastic troll post? Because it certainly sounds like one.

The problem with the system is that there are not enough house plots for every player that wishes to own a house.

Reshuffling the nature of the RNG used to try to claim a house does not create more houses. At best it would create more competition for the few houses available and reduce your chances of getting a house even more. The less effort required to do something, the more players who will show up to do it.

Only increasing the number of house plots fixes the problem. When there is enough for everyone, timers and RNG become irrelevant because the player can simply walk up and buy their choice of available plots.

Instanced house plots will accomplish that much better than adding more wards because of how instancing works.

I also think you severely overestimate how many players would pick a ward house over an instanced house given the choice, especially since an instanced house would never be subject to demolition. The wards are effectively abandoned neighborhoods. The houses might be there but your chances of running into another player are extremely small unless your house is right next to the house of a fairly active FC. I've never met my actual neighbors in the ward itself (though I have met one of them in other zones). The most we've done is exchanged messages in our message books.

But then if you don't actually spend any time in the wards because there's no house for you to buy, I guess that's something you wouldn't know.

[Themarvin]

More houses and wards would not solve it, even if there was 1 house per player in game, it would not solve it.

It is as simple as that, FFXIV among most other MMO's is not designed for housing at all, and that is what there is to say about that, and only MMO I have seen where housing actually worked out nicely was Star Wars Galaxies from a time long time ago, but there was a niche designed for that game at that point about that at the point as well, or rather player made cities was a part of the game.

[Vahlnir]

More houses and wards would not solve it, even if there was 1 house per player in game, it would not solve it.

As much as I disagree with you, I always try to give you the benefit of the doubt. Consider that over and done with. You HAVE to be trolling at this point. If there was a house for every player then there wouldn't be an issue at all! Dear lord.

[Themarvin]

As much as I disagree with you, I always try to give you the benefit of the doubt. Consider that over and done with. You HAVE to be trolling at this point. If there was a house for every player then there wouldn't be an issue at all! Dear lord.

Next thing would be why would someone have medium or large... and why is the houses so awfully placed, honestly it is a never ending issue as you have absolutely no choice in where your house can be... what direction it would point and more... and even if there was 1 house for all, some is still going to miss out due to grandfathered players.

[Arielen]

Next thing would be why would someone have medium or large...

cuz i have build ideas that require a different format and/or ceiling height

next question

also there aren't 3000 grandfathered players per server for the love of god

[Penthea]

Next thing would be why would someone have medium or large... and why is the houses so awfully placed, honestly it is a never ending issue as you have absolutely no choice in where your house can be... what direction it would point and more

There will always be complaints. No matter how amazing something is there will be someone who isn't happy about it.

However the complaints about housing are quite unique among other content in this game because players are complaining that they cannot access it despite meeting all the prerequisites. Housing is literally the only content in the game in which you can meet every single requirement and still be denied access.

Housing will be in a significantly better state when most players are criticising the experience of having a house instead of complaining that they can't even get a house due to no fault of their own.

and even if there was 1 house for all, some is still going to miss out due to grandfathered players.

Well the ideal situation would be that no one's housing habits would hinder your chances of getting a house. We will never see complaints about the acquisition of housing stop until this is achieved.