Relo mechanics are Cancer

[Jojoya]

So why should already having a house give you an absurdly significant advantage over someone that doesn't when it comes to Ishgard housing solely because of the relocation mechanic?

Why not level the playing field?

What advantage? It doesn't take any longer to purchase than it does to relocate. There is no purchase timer at release. The purchase timer only goes into play once the plot has been purchased for the first time then relinquished.

It's only an advantage if SE implements the person purchase moratorium, which they didn't do for the 5.35 ward addition and may not do for Ishgard. We won't know until a few weeks before 6.1's release on whether there will be one.

Here's another interesting tidbit to consider: not everyone wants a house in Ishgard. I only know of a couple who do. Everyone else I know - whether they currently have a house or are looking to buy - want their house in one of the other districts because the see the Firmament as dull and depressing, and the player housing area is going to carry the same aesthetic.

Houses in Ishgard aren't going to quickly disappear because of relocators. Houses in Ishgard are going to quickly disappear because of demand in general.

It's the timer that needs to go. Re-think the whole system.

"Camping is so fun that people should each get to do it several times over, instead of once" is NOT the answer.

The timer is okay. It's the length of the timer that needs to be adjusted. A timer that only runs 2-4 hours would accomplish the same thing the current timer does - give other players a chance to find out the plot is available and prepare to compete to get it.

I agree with OP. If you want to buy a house, you need to buy the plot. If you want to relocate your house, you need to buy the plot. Why do the former need to wait until a invisible timer runs out to buy the plot, while the latter can buy the plot at any point? This system doesn't make sense and it is completly unfair.

It even gets worse on medium or large plots as it is basically impossible for someone to buy those plots without already owning another plot so they can relocate.

Because relocation does not change the number of available plots, only the location of the available plot.

You're going to have the same chance as someone relocating to buy a medium or large plot in Ishgard when it opens (again assuming there is no personal purchase moratorium) because there will be no purchase timer until a plot has been purchased and relinquished.

[Themarvin]

It's the timer that needs to go. Re-think the whole system.

"Camping is so fun that people should each get to do it several times over, instead of once" is NOT the answer.

The timer on buying a new house or an available plot is not good, it was removed because it was exploited severe for RMT, and over priced sales of Housing Plots, the timer should stay, if you want to resolve auto-clickers and botting at these houses, suggest putting in a max 1 click per hour per plot, that would flush out all the bots, also... the amount of 1 person FC's people ending selling those get fat in real life £££$$$€€€ out of it or often insane amounts of gil that they either keep or sell to gold sellers... and now and then ending falling in trap for that stuff themself, getting their account hi-jacked and then later on you get weird URL's in text messages from people you don't even know.

Remove camping by reducing the ability to spam/flood the server, is the best start, but keep the timers, so it is next to impossible to get into real estate business, as it is, is technically at some levels even in conflict with the terms of use.

[azura84]

The timer on buying a new house or an available plot is not good, it was removed because it was exploited severe for RMT, and over priced sales of Housing Plots, the timer should stay, if you want to resolve auto-clickers and botting at these houses, suggest putting in a max 1 click per hour per plot, that would flush out all the bots, also... the amount of 1 person FC's people ending selling those get fat in real life £££$$$€€€ out of it or often insane amounts of gil that they either keep or sell to gold sellers... and now and then ending falling in trap for that stuff themself, getting their account hi-jacked and then later on you get weird URL's in text messages from people you don't even know.

Remove camping by reducing the ability to spam/flood the server, is the best start, but keep the timers, so it is next to impossible to get into real estate business, as it is, is technically at some levels even in conflict with the terms of use.

What is so wrong about a real estate business? Most players would WELCOME solid prices and guarantees if land deeds were tradable on the market board, it would demonstrate the actual value of the houses. Even the guy who owns an entire ward can't prevent houses from having a stable value on a free/black market and the main reason prices got so high originally was because SE didn't refund any of the plot purchase gil, which urged players selling and relinquishing to charge increasingly inflated prices as time went on, particularly with Large and Medium houses. ALL of these issues stem from free market being ideal but not always plausible in a small world with limited resources, if only SE had designed housing less around dick measuring and more around the equality they wanted then we would have instanced housing less data usage and more accessibility. Instead they waited until housing was in such high demand they couldn't give the instanced apartments more than a small house, much less the space and outdoor freedom to garden because it would destroy the value of the houses that people already paid for.

[Almagnus1]

What is so wrong about a real estate business?

It's because it's was a driving force behind a lot of RMT and all the problems that comes with it (namely the gilspammers and botters)

This is something that should be suppressed until SE gives us some way to exchange gil for game time (and then a token that's tradeable on the market like what we've seen in several other MMOs at this point).

[Themarvin]

What is so wrong about a real estate business? Most players would WELCOME solid prices and guarantees if land deeds were tradable on the market board, it would demonstrate the actual value of the houses. Even the guy who owns an entire ward can't prevent houses from having a stable value on a free/black market and the main reason prices got so high originally was because SE didn't refund any of the plot purchase gil, which urged players selling and relinquishing to charge increasingly inflated prices as time went on, particularly with Large and Medium houses. ALL of these issues stem from free market being ideal but not always plausible in a small world with limited resources, if only SE had designed housing less around dick measuring and more around the equality they wanted then we would have instanced housing less data usage and more accessibility. Instead they waited until housing was in such high demand they couldn't give the instanced apartments more than a small house, much less the space and outdoor freedom to garden because it would destroy the value of the houses that people already paid for.

It is simple, even if you are supposed to be an ancient account, it would involve in over RMT and bots will always win over players when trying to buy a house for knowing that the price of resale value could be a tonnes of gil... or 100 dollars in real life money on some shady site.

[Catstab]

It's kind of funny that you've edited (quotes of) my posts to contain random unsaid statements like "I want everyone to suffer" but your suggestion is to literally make camping an inescapable hell that one must stay in forever, rather than a one and done hellish experience.

This feels very much like a suggestion made in jest. I guess it could just be a very shortsighted one, though.

[Almagnus1]

It's the timer that needs to go. Re-think the whole system.

"Camping is so fun that people should each get to do it several times over, instead of once" is NOT the answer.

So what does that rethink look like?

[Catstab]

So what does that rethink look like?

Above either of our pay grades, to be quite frank.

Everyone is highly aware the only real fix is instanced housing for all. But we're also aware it flies in the face of Yoshi's vision, and that makes it unlikely.

If limited supply is a must, there's gotta be some way to nuke demand. Hard-cap on server populations would be necessary, since you couldnt prevent people from crowding housing markets on worlds like Balmung otherwise. The only way to make it so ~4350 personal houses will be enough, is ensure that no more than 4350 people are playing on any given server. The only other way to do it is make the houses 40 million gil again. But that won't make people not interested, only not eligible.

But here's the thing, SE isn't going to hobble the game with something like a 4500 person cap on servers to make housing work. Housing isn't a core feature of the game to them. It's vanity and fun feature.

But yeah, this suggestion is basically sadistic. A lot of people spend 20-100 hours camping their first house. You suggest relocators should repeat that process? So someone on their third house will have sunk up to 300 hours into housing? Wow.

[Almagnus1]

About the only serious thing that would make sense (instead of a raffle that the relos have to participate in) is auctioning off the house with the bid paid in full when you make it (relos get a credit for their existing house and the bid is refunded via moogle mail with a delete timer on it if someone gets outbid).

Either way, the relos and first time buyers need to be put on the same playing field so some of the first time buyers have a realistic shot of getting at Ishgard house, otherwise we are going to see history repeat itself yet again.

On the bright side, at least an auction would help to delete a lot of gil from the economy... which wouldn't be a bad thing.