Why Housing Was Doomed To Fail

[Avenger]

In all the years I've played the game, I can't think of a single time where housing produced feelings of joy or happiness.

That's too bad! My own housing experience has been pretty positive; overall I've really enjoyed having a house as well as the neighborhood system. I like being able to see other houses (except for ugly Moogle monstrosities) and running into other people in the housing area. We even used to have a neighborhood linkshell. Decorating the house inside and out (we currently have Hatching-Tide decorations up) has been fun as well. We made indoor and outdoor jump puzzles. It has definitely been a focal point for our FC. And we got lucky and won the lottery! So for us it has been pretty good.

[Colt47]

That's too bad! My own housing experience has been pretty positive; overall I've really enjoyed having a house as well as the neighborhood system. I like being able to see other houses (except for ugly Moogle monstrosities) and running into other people in the housing area. We even used to have a neighborhood linkshell. Decorating the house inside and out (we currently have Hatching-Tide decorations up) has been fun as well. We made indoor and outdoor jump puzzles. It has definitely been a focal point for our FC. And we got lucky and won the lottery! So for us it has been pretty good.

My statement is not a personal one. This is a community wide issue and while you may have found something in it, it is far outweighed by the pains that everyone has gone through because of this system. That and this is the same kind of sentiment and strawman situation that has shown up in gachapon games, where the few people who win in the system and are rewarded would obviously support or say good things about it.

In fact, turning this into a lotto essentially put housing one step closer to digital gambling with in-game currency. That's some food for thought.

[StarkeRegulus]

My statement is not a personal one. This is a community wide issue and while you may have found something in it, it is far outweighed by the pains that everyone has gone through because of this system. That and this is the same kind of sentiment and strawman situation that has shown up in gachapon games, where the few people who win in the system and are rewarded would obviously support or say good things about it.

In fact, turning this into a lotto essentially put housing one step closer to digital gambling with in-game currency. That's some food for thought.

"In game currency".

Homie, I know for a fact most of my acquaintances that ran for big houses bought money outside the game. I've been playing for 7 months, heavily manipulating the market, buying from other servers to sell at mine, using the materia system and what not and I'm at 32M. I can only imagine the stuff people have to go through to make big bucks in this game. Just 24/7 crafting or something.

[Corvus_V]

"In game currency".

Homie, I know for a fact most of my acquaintances that ran for big houses bought money outside the game. I've been playing for 7 months, heavily manipulating the market, buying from other servers to sell at mine, using the materia system and what not and I'm at 32M. I can only imagine the stuff people have to go through to make big bucks in this game. Just 24/7 crafting or something.

Im trying to compute why you would post this idea, like, what?
Are you trying to say simply "ingame? Theyre gambling with real money!"
Or like "no one got gil whos bidding on a large legitimately"

Ive been anticipating ishgard housing since well before the firmament and ive been saving gil for it for a long time. Ive left the money for a house on one of my retainers so i could never touch it or go under that amount. Selling desired stuff on patch days or days when people acquire housing typically gets you alot of gil

Its what i would be doing if i didnt basically just quit.

[Jojoya]

In all the years I've played the game, I can't think of a single time where housing produced feelings of joy or happiness. The only memories I have of people interacting with the housing system that was introduced was a mix of anxiety, anger, disbelief, and cynicism. When someone makes an MMO like this and generates a system that can only be participated or experienced by those that break TOS or commit great amounts of sacrifice on their own part while still being beholden to the roll of a dice, there is no happiness.

The only fate someone has who succeeds in buying is to be beholden to a timer to keep the house alive after spending millions of gil and probably gameplay hours decorating it, with minimal gameplay functionality on top of it all.

Patch 4.2 was a good time for housing once they lifted the personal moratorium. Not even Balmung sold out immediately (though it didn't last long). Most worlds had available plots for several months. But that was probably the only good time for players.

But worlds like Balmung and the present ward distribution demonstrate problems with the system. Not every world has the same needs because populations are different along with the player focus on game play. "One size fits all" is a terrible at making customers with diverse needs happy.

What is not game play to you is game play for others. Don't mistake what you want as being what everyone wants. Housing is a completely optional system so you don't need to participate. If it doesn't offer what you want, don't engage with the system. Do the content that you do enjoy and leave housing to others.

[Dzian]

The entire issue is a lack of supply. There is not a system that SE could put in that makes such a low supply feel good to people. It just isn't going to happen. Far more people don't own a house than do own one, and while we don't have numbers on that, I could only assume that is pretty significant considering the sheer amount of bids.

The system was doomed to fail because of the direction the developers took with the game.. housing was meant to be this multiplayer component that free companies could all work together and build. And it was originally going g to be supported by vast amounts of free company centric content to build bonds and promote team work. And community. You know like an actual MMO.

The direction the devs have taken with the game basically says screw all of that and let's make it a single player game. We'll do everything we can to make socialising and building strong connections between players as difficult as possible..

Drove massive wedges between free companies and groups of players and essentially separated them all into much smaller almost individual groups. How many 1 man FCs are there.

Had they stayed on the path of an MMO and not some single player game. There would honestly not be a housing crisis. Because the game would have actual fc based content and be focused around building bonds between players and playing together instead of playing alone..

TLDR. Housing was doomed to fail because its an MMO design in a single player game..

[ElysiumDragon]

The devs won't listen to the player base in any meaningful capacity whilst there's tens, if not hundreds of thousands of free apartments still in the game. Not every server is Balmung or Mateus, and whilst apartments aren't perfect, they're a perfectly acceptable compromise, even if only temporarily (they're also super cheap, permanent, and not tied to a subscription). More Wards means more sets of empty apartments, and that's a sizable waste of resources for the developers to waste because the wider player base refuses to spend the bare minimum of 500k to own an apartment.

Tl;DR actually buy apartments, and the devs will be more likely to take housing shortage concerns seriously.

[Corvus_V]

The devs won't listen to the player base in any meaningful capacity whilst there's tens, if not hundreds of thousands of free apartments still in the game. Not every server is Balmung or Mateus, and whilst apartments aren't perfect, they're a perfectly acceptable compromise, even if only temporarily (they're also super cheap, permanent, and not tied to a subscription). More Wards means more sets of empty apartments, and that's a sizable waste of resources for the developers to waste because the wider player base refuses to spend the bare minimum of 500k to own an apartment.

Tl;DR actually buy apartments, and the devs will be more likely to take housing shortage concerns seriously.

I just wanted to make sure this is satire because if you think people want apartments I have some bad news about small houses for you

[BellBixbite]

The devs won't listen to the player base in any meaningful capacity whilst there's tens, if not hundreds of thousands of free apartments still in the game. Not every server is Balmung or Mateus, and whilst apartments aren't perfect, they're a perfectly acceptable compromise, even if only temporarily (they're also super cheap, permanent, and not tied to a subscription). More Wards means more sets of empty apartments, and that's a sizable waste of resources for the developers to waste because the wider player base refuses to spend the bare minimum of 500k to own an apartment.

Tl;DR actually buy apartments, and the devs will be more likely to take housing shortage concerns seriously.

Apartments are nice and cozy and hopefully island will fix the gardening monopoly on houses. Devs have listened but no matter what they do people will still be angry. They added more wards prior, changed the housing system several times to prevent monopolies but there isn't a solid fix for having in game housing not instanced. The luxury of the houses is the fact that you can walk around and visit others. Instancing them will kill a huge part of the housing community.

[BellBixbite]

I just wanted to make sure this is satire because if you think people want apartments I have some bad news about small houses for you

Once someone had a small they will theb complaine about not having a medium and so forth. That's just how it is. If you want property it's either you get an appartment or keep up the grind for a house. Adventually you will get it. To me the lottery system makes it more fair but also harder to get a house. Least when I spammed placards I saw the competition and earned the house by out doing the other clickers. Lottery is no work on your behalf for the same reward. Just gotta fish out the coding bug