Apartments need Rent

[Catstab]

I don't see anyone being less than civil. If by chance you mean my asking if OP intends to change this suggestion to a joke, my reason for asking is that they have done it before.

Either way, the relo housing mechanic needs to go.

Edit:
And because we have some posters on the forum that can't figure this out, I'm playing devil's advocate to start a discussion in this post.

That meaning-changing edit coming a week later. So this post would have different timing, but could likewise be non-serious.

[Almagnus1]

1) they aggressively attack people who worked to get what they got and

With how housing work before the housing markets were killed off, it was extremely easy for someone to just throw millions of gil at the problem and get a house. I'm wondering if it would be possible for SE to run the housing market and fix that.

Oh, and if you have more than one personal house, or are using shell FCs to have additional houses, you are part of the problem here. Whether you want to admit it or not, people that do have exploited SE's loose rules and they should release their ill gotten gains so that others can join in... as that would definitely help make the system more new player friendly by increasing supply on the market.

2) they'd be extremely punishing to new players and fcs which is sort of going against the idea of what you're trying to help propose solutions for.

The only way for this system to become new player friendly is to either increase the number of wards by a multiple of at least 10 (if not higher) or add in instanced housing. Until either happens, new players into this system are going to be greatly punished.

Well in all honesty, you all are enabling their folly be it trollishness or serious lol.

I mean, they keep trying to "kill the troll" when the reality is they're keeping the discussion going even if all they are doing is adding white noise to the conversation. The funny part is that this particular Karen is realizing that their worst nightmare is coming true... I'm actually being serious with exploring ideas and while some of them may be hyperbolic... a lot of the productive conversation that occurs when they aren't here is generally interesting.

Provided someone doesn't start dredging up the past because that never ends well >.>

[Catstab]

they should release their ill gotten gains

You've got to drop the idea that legitimately gained in-game rewards are "ill gotten."

Your own personal problem with multi house owners doesn't make their gameplay against the rules. Their gains are simply gotten. There is no "ill" about it, that is your false perception.

[Almagnus1]

You've got to drop the idea that legitimately gained in-game rewards are "ill gotten."

Your own personal problem with multi house owners doesn't make their gameplay against the rules. Their gains are simply gotten. There is no "ill" about it, that is your false perception.

And you've got to accept that I have opinions you don't like... or perhaps you're one of these players with ill gotten gains and don't like the truth being pointed out?

[Kenky]

And you've got to accept that I have opinions you don't like... or perhaps you're one of these players with ill gotten gains and don't like the truth being pointed out?

The problem here between you and Catstab is complicated.

While Catstab is correct and nothing was obtained through "ill-gotten" means and is entirely by the rules at the time, that doesn't mean it's okay to own multiples of a limited resource. But none of us are in the right position to judge and condemn others for what they choose to do. So long as they use what they have then we can't complain about them having it.

it could certainly be made better with certain choices, but making players have to pay "rent" on an apartment only makes apartments less desirable, completely invalidating the point to the gil-sink mentality. Adding rent to houses would kill the desire for plenty of house-owners and all of the people that have houses probably are pretty well-off gil-wise, so it would need to be a large "rent sum" in order to make them consider relinquishing. Which has one of two end results. Either only the super-wealthy (and bots) own the houses, or every ward becomes a ghost town because nobody wants to pay 3M+ on a small, only to be charged an extra 50K+ every month to keep it.

(Exaggerated numbers, but you get the point)

[Catstab]

And you've got to accept that I have opinions you don't like... or perhaps you're one of these players with ill gotten gains and don't like the truth being pointed out?

You can have opinions. Frame them as opinions, then. "I feel they should release their gains that I find to be ill gotten" instead of "they should release their ill gotten gains." The second one sounds like you're quoting facts, when you are not.

And I have a small house on one alt for RP purposes, yes. I took two of my servers 5,760 houses and did it well within the rules. For SE to come and delete my alt house would make as much sense as SE coming to de-level my combat classes, or to strip me of my mounts and minions. It's earned rewards, and SE is smart enough to know that, which is why they grandfathered in their players.

I get that you personally care nothing for the players' experience on this game, but SE quite literally makes caring about players their business.

[Mimilu]

You're opening statement was that you were thinking of a way to make apartments a "more attractive option compared to housing" and while making them cheaper and accessible earlier is a small start, how does adding a rent do that?
Is it just a counter-balance to your proposed price and earlier access?
Are those two points really going to make apartments more attractive compared to houses, which allow for more furnishing items, outdoor furnishing, cross-breeding gardening, have multiple floors (that allow for easier glitching when decorating without the aid of a third-party tool), and can be bought by FCs?
And where do FC private chambers fit into this?

[Almagnus1]

You're opening statement was that you were thinking of a way to make apartments a "more attractive option compared to housing" and while making them cheaper and accessible earlier is a small start, how does adding a rent do that?

If everything (but the FC rooms) have rent attached to them, and the rent is easily doable, the apartments would become cheaper and easier to move into, and since there's rent on everything, it gives players an opportunity to do housing stuff without necessarily being in a house. That said, the apartments should definitely have more features to them (and not basically be another instance of an FC room) so there's actual incentive to do so beyond a cheaper price.

Is it just a counter-balance to your proposed price and earlier access?

Partially, but 10k gil/week is peanuts, especially if anyone can pay for the apartment by walking up to the NPC that sells them and extending your rent.

Are those two points really going to make apartments more attractive compared to houses, which allow for more furnishing items, outdoor furnishing, cross-breeding gardening, have multiple floors (that allow for easier glitching when decorating without the aid of a third-party tool), and can be bought by FCs?

With the anticipation that we're seeing gardening moving away from housing (or having a system that's superior to it with Endwalkers), hopefully the gardening stuff changes enough that it's not as heavily associated with housing as is. I would also be OK with SE increasing the size and capabilities of the apartments as they should be more distinct from FC rooms.

And where do FC private chambers fit into this?

FC private chambers would be attached to the FC house, so they should remain unchanged. The FC house, on the other hand, should get rent and at a higher rate than a personal house because FCs need a minimum of four characters to found, so they should have the resources of at least four people to help fund them.

[Mimilu]

While I don't agree with the idea, wouldn't a more streamlined version of this be to just give houses a rent and let apartments be rent-free? Then, they would still have the appeal of being the free, eternal option, versus homes being costly and having the time requirement.
Like you said, 10k gil is easy to get, so why bother charging it?

[Almagnus1]

While I don't agree with the idea, wouldn't a more streamlined version of this be to just give houses a rent and let apartments be rent-free? Then, they would still have the appeal of being the free, eternal option, versus homes being costly and having the time requirement.
Like you said, 10k gil is easy to get, so why bother charging it?

Eh.... part of the problem with a live service is that you've got to do some form of cleanup, especially if you have something that isn't designed from the ground up to be always available to the player... so by factoring in a way for the system to remove unused resources (in this case, a long forgotten apartment) it helps make sure that people are actively using or are at least willing to continue to pay for the resource and it better frees up resources for others that want to use them.

AFAIK, SE never actually promised that a player would be able to keep their apartment for forever.