The Real Problem with Housing

[Valfreyja]

Voting with your wallet is meaningless.

Unless you've got about 20,000 to 30,000 players doing it, if not more.

A handful of players doing it, won't even be noticed, at this point.

[Jojoya]

I personally cancelled my sub for the time being. If my gameplay consists solely of running alliance raids or normal raids (depending on the patch cycle) and the one thing I want besides that is my own space large enough to decorate how I want is gated behind a luck based system, then why should I give them my money on a monthly basis? especially if they incentivize keeping a persistent sub to prevent you from losing said house.

Why have you been continuing to give them money until now if you feel the game isn't worth it without a house?

Certainly you should make the best choice for yourself as a consumer. If you will get more entertainment value spending your $15/mo elsewhere, then do it. Part of the problem in the game industry is they're used to players throwing money at games without actually looking into the game play to see if the game is any good and they'll like it. As long as people keep throwing money around like that, game developers have no reason to change.

Personally I'm satisfied with what I get for my money here. Even if I didn't have a house, there's still a lot of other content in the game I enjoy (crafting, hunts, etc.). I'd still be getting my money's worth and so I continue to play. On the other hand if content underwent major changes and I stopped enjoying the rest of the game, not even housing would keep me subscribed. RIFT Dimensions are a lot of fun as housing but the rest of the game is meh is best so I quit playing it.

And to correct the common perception that you need a persistent sub to keep a house in this game, you do not. Sub for a month, unsub for 6 weeks. Repeat. As long as you remember to enter your house at the start and end of your subscription period so the demo timer resets, you're not going to lose it. That's only 40% of the year you need to be subscribed, and lucky time with their free log in campaigns can reduce it even more.

[Sythex]

Even if I didn't have a house

It's funny how people who are the privileged few try to diminish the issue.

[Valfreyja]

It is an issue, yes. But if your only reason for playing is just to have a house to show off, well, sounds like you're playing for the wrong reasons.

You've got the MSQ, relic weapons, the adventure foray areas, the EX trials, Unreal Trials, Ultimates, just many things to do and see in this game, that aren't related to housing at all.

[Sythex]

You've got the MSQ, relic weapons, the adventure foray areas, the EX trials, Unreal Trials, Ultimates, just many things to do and see in this game, that aren't related to housing at all.

1: I've already done all the MSQs that are available up to this point, I could new game + sure, but the mood has to strike.
2: I have all the current relic weapons I want until the EW relics are released, and adventuring forays (to my understanding) are for relics.
3: I can barely get through EX fights with my sanity intact, and savage PF content has left a bad taste in my mouth with ShB and the elitism I've faced, do you really think I can mentally handle unreals or ultimates? even if I joined a static I'd still probably suffer a lot of stress from the PTSD alone.

unless you have other suggestions?

[Masenko]

There's honestly no good or valid argument against "all players should have access to housing"
I'd say, prove me wrong, but it can't be done, so...

[YuzuyuVolanti]

I think what continues to elude me about the housing issues as a whole is the lack of willingness to change ward layouts, expand wards, or add different types of ward. And I'm not meaning like "FC only" vs "Personal only".

If they see a huge variety of people want medium/large houses (both personal and FC), why not create wards where there's more of these, and less smalls? Expand the currents wards to add more space for these plots, etc.

I'm positive it would be time consuming, of course, because it means reworking a map, possibly in it's entirety, but it would go at least some ways to helping.

All the housing districts we've seen follow the same approximate (or exact?) plot distributions, even if the positions are different. 'X' smalls, 'y' mediums, 'z' larges. IF they continue with the ward-based housing, I feel like it would be more diverse and real if there were different layouts and plot allocations in different areas, then each ward wouldn't necessarily feel cookie-cutter and more people can feasibly get the house they want. It won't, obviously, fix the entire issue. I'm not sure they ever can without instanced housing.

It feels weird to me for them to see how high demand specific plots are, but continue to insist on over-peppering wards with smalls people now avoid bidding on if they can help it (since they no longer need to even bother with that as a first step to bigger homes). If they added more mediums and larges, they would get more substantial gil sinks for people, because the house itself is one, not to mention the potential buying of items (e.g. vendor permits and vendor housing items, the 400k+ item to place your home, etc) for these houses. In turn, they would also get more diverse neighbourhoods and more people into homes they actually want.

Edit: Also thinking this over, it sometimes seems like smalls are basically pointless to continue producing. I don't hate them, mind, and I know some like the smaller size, but it feels like the lotto system rendered them almost obsolete, because you no longer need to get a house to try to transfer to your desired size/area. It feels at this point like we might as well just have M/L. Maybe that's a silly thought, but it's here now.

[ShadowyZero]

old janky system just needs to die off imo let players finally have an instance to themselves to decorate and share with others no more of these nonsense first come first serve, or get lucky or wait 4+ years til they decide they can imp0lement more wards spilt.
its time they give up on neighborhoods that only appeal to a measly 30% when the remaining all want to just have their own house of any size they choose it to be.

[tsuchii]

Exactly all of this. This is literally the only feature in the game that you cannot work on. You want that one achievement? Grind for it. You want that ultimate weapon? Grind for it. You want that mount? Grind for it.

You want a house? Grind for it? No. Doesn't matter if you have millions. Fuck you if you're not one of the lucky ones.

It. Doesn't. Make. Sense. Every other aspect in this game is done so well. Housing here is just garbage.

For someone to make a counter-argument that it is optional - what makes the ones who have it special? We pay for the same subscription fee. Hell, if this was locked in paywall, I'd take it. People just want to experience it. Locking it to a miniscule few just doesn't make sense.

[Big_Bap]

Locking it to a minuscule few just doesn't make sense.

rofl

More than 2 million characters have access to FC housing. This game has been out for nearly a decade and despite FCs dying every single day, 65% of all characters in a Free Company have access to housing. You might want to open a dictionary.