Housing crisis

[kaynide]

Is it not the developer's job to listen to their customer base and work toward making the kinds of improvements they are asking for?
Blizzard is partially pay for this very issue. Yoshi is paying attention to what works and what doesn't as he always has. I personally believe Yoshi is far more likely to listen to his players than most other developer's.
What do you think?

I mean, they are: YoshiP is great at listening to the community, for better or for worse. For worse, when he opened housing to individuals, but for better as he is adding Ishgard and the lotto system.

Possibly even moreso if we get instanced housing (which is not by any means confirmed).

[Jojoya]

As the owner of multiple houses, my solution is simple:

1) Make the island getaway thing include instanced housing.
2) Remove the option to even buy a house for individuals in wards. From here on out, all ward-houses are for FCs
3) Require some sort of minimum activity level via the FC's accumulated points (the currency we use for submarines, etc). Make that work in a way we spend that currency automatically to "pay rent". Nothing insane, but enough that a small house would require 3-4 people actually playing the game regularly. Maybe as many as 10 for a large. (This would require tweaking as to how that currency is generated).
4) Remove demolition timers entirely, as it'd work on the currency instead.
5) If/when that housing currency hits zero, you get the 45 day notice to demolition.
(I don't really have a good answer on how to have individuals grandfathered in pay "rent")

Do that, and I happily give up everything but my FC house.

Except that just pushes everyone into make their own FCs so they can get a house and we're right back at the same problem.

If you think your point 3 is a meaningful obstacle, it's not. HQ crafting and expert delivery generate crazy amounts of company credits compared to other content. SE would have to completely rework the company credit system just to make it an effective barrier to shell FCs (such as removing all credit generation from crafting and Expert Delivery). Even then, a solo "no life" player would still be generating more credits each week than 3-4 average time players.

Something you neglected to mention in your previous post about original housing prices were that those prices were intended to bleed some of the leftover legacy currency out of the game economy. Not every player had a legacy stash, and not all those who did were willing to give up that gil to FCs they didn't control. That meant the wards were mostly empty because FCs didn't have the gil needed to buy. SE had to drop the prices and add in private ownership because that was the only way to get anyone to buy.

Housing should not be a FC only playground. It should be for every player, just like it is in other MMOs with housing. It should not just target rich players. It should be affordable for any player (within reason). If you want to target the rich players, then create a system where any player can own multiple houses if they want. Again, something that other MMOs with housing have done yet FFXIV will not do.

People like the neighborhoods? Then use the plot placards in the ward as the entry portals to instanced house plots just as the apartment building is the entry portal to our apartments. Wards would feel so much more alive if there were several dozen players always coming and going because the ward was the gateway to a thousand houses instead of just 30.

[kaynide]

If you think your point 3 is a meaningful obstacle, it's not. HQ crafting and expert delivery generate crazy amounts of company credits compared to other content. SE would have to completely rework the company credit system just to make it an effective barrier to shell FCs (such as removing all credit generation from crafting and Expert Delivery). Even then, a solo "no life" player would still be generating more credits each week than 3-4 average time players.

Was addressed; they would need to tweak it and balance it. Probably by removing FC credit entirely from delivery systems. And probably by making some kind of cap per player per week. That would be their job to figure it out.

3) Require some sort of minimum activity level via the FC's accumulated points (the currency we use for submarines, etc). Make that work in a way we spend that currency automatically to "pay rent". Nothing insane, but enough that a small house would require 3-4 people actually playing the game regularly. Maybe as many as 10 for a large. (This would require tweaking as to how that currency is generated).

Something you neglected to mention in your previous post about original housing prices were that those prices were intended to bleed some of the leftover legacy currency out of the game economy.

Fair point, but it was also originally meant that houses would be purchased as a group. Between 4-5 people, 100-200,000,000 has never really been that hard to get.

Housing should not be a FC only playground. It should be for every player, just like it is in other MMOs with housing.

While I agree everyone should have housing, I don't agree to it to the detriment of other systems. Housing is a huge real-world money sink for SE, so spending profits on their upkeep takes away from other things.
Because of this, instanced is ideal. As with many systems, SE often doesn't program as...elegantly... as other professional MMO companies. They are essentially forcing the game engine to do things it was never meant to do.

The devs have to pick where the money goes and while I would like to see more public information or even feedback as to how the Mogstation profits are spent, I don't expect it. (as in, I would like to see something like stretch goals on kickstarter where if X amount of dollars are generated via MS, they promise to add an additional ward or something; or even allowing players to vote on what gets developed with their MS purchase).

Housing is not a core system to the devs, it's a bit of a fluff add on like Ocean Fishing is. As is, if they had to choose between adding even more housing post EW, or another "something to do" like Ocean Fishing or Treasure Maps or whatever, I'd rather the "something to do", because there will never be enough housing to satisfy the player base. I'm still optimistic that the new "fluff" Island thing is instanced housing.

[Izscha]

Listening to it might be good, doing all the stuff they're asked to do by the community not so much.
And i do not believe that it's the players that must shapes the game too, it's the devs first and then the players give opinion on it and if it's real bad they move but nothing more.

[Moerdeth]

Well I for one at least think that Yoshi wants to make the game the best it can be. I see zero reason why these changes would be a bad thing. I think when presented with resolutions to some pain points in game he would be all ears. I may be wrong but I would like to think he actually wants to fix the issue for everyone in a way that hurts no one and helps everyone else. My two cents!

[Snorky]

Well I for one at least think that Yoshi wants to make the game the best it can be. I see zero reason why these changes would be a bad thing. I think when presented with resolutions to some pain points in game he would be all ears. I may be wrong but I would like to think he actually wants to fix the issue for everyone in a way that hurts no one and helps everyone else. My two cents!

I agree with this, I am sure he wants to make everyone happy but knowing that is almost impossible to do realistically. I love the ideas, I love the thought of instance housing. I also love the idea of neighborhoods. I think there is somewhere in between that maybe a good compromise that people can be happy with. Maybe they could instance the interior of a house or FC like apartment's. Maybe a FC house could be like a town hall when you enter you are in a instance that opens into a small town with individuals houses that people could purchase through their FC. I don't know what is possible and what is not. I would rather pay my FC for a house than the money just being wasted. So many possibilities if only the servers were available.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Well I for one at least think that Yoshi wants to make the game the best it can be. I see zero reason why these changes would be a bad thing. I think when presented with resolutions to some pain points in game he would be all ears. I may be wrong but I would like to think he actually wants to fix the issue for everyone in a way that hurts no one and helps everyone else. My two cents!

The problem is a majority of people only look at a few pieces of the puzzle and assume they can see the entire picture and then stop making an effort to fill in the empty areas then choose to either pretend the pieces found by others not supporting their image doesn't exist or they attack the person poking holes in the image they want. Or sometimes both. It's extremely rare to find any meaningful argument on here and the people on SE's end going through all this have to sift through a lot of slag to find anything worthwhile.

[Snorky]

Listening to it might be good, doing all the stuff they're asked to do by the community not so much.
And i do not believe that it's the players that must shapes the game too, it's the devs first and then the players give opinion on it and if it's real bad they move but nothing more.

Izscha you are right, its not always a good idea to listen to the fan base. I think that is where good judgement and diplomacy comes into play. It is not always realistic to ( or rather implement our ideas) listen to us. I have a million ideas in my head for game options but maybe only one is practical. But at least listening doesn't hurt and it makes people feel valued even if the ideas are too extreme or not practical.