Suggestion: Nerf Airships/Workshops

[Risvertasashi]

The lotto is a stop gap. A Band-Aid. Something to use in the interim while they re-evaluate housing and figure out how to make it available to everyone. I don't care if this is building a new housing system from the ground up (that's instanced), re-thinking Island Sanctuaries to make them personal housing, or something else. But they absolutely cannot continue like this. The wards take too much by way of resources, and the game is too popular to continue with the housing situation as it is.

Putting up barriers, restricting how many one can own, etc and are not a permanent solution and shouldn't be thought of as such.

I'd love to believe this but I haven't seen any indication from SE that they ever plan to provide sufficient housing...

[TakumiHarada]

The assumption is flawed and OP doesn't seem to understand how much effort needs to be made when people create their airships and submarines and how much time needs to be spent until they finally break even.
Sounds like sour grapes to me. If you're this obsessed with this content, get a small house in Empyreum to do it. You'll see how it's not the easiest way to earn money.

[katthekat]

The fact that airships and submarines are attached to housing is something that bugs me and is something that seems to contribute to the large amount of houses that go basically unused.

I think the best solution is to just take the workshop and put it in the FC's Grand Company. Use the same door Squadron bases use. Detach it from housing entirely. This'd probably take reworking code-wise so I doubt they'd ever do it, but it'd get the people who hoard houses just for the workshops to stop. Nothing else needs to be changed because then everyone'd have access to it with an FC, which is quite easy to make. Maybe give it the same Rank 6 requirement that houses have, just to keep that consistent.

Not only would moving the workshops mean that workshops are more accessible, it means that FC members could potentially actually have a tie to an FC's Grand Company. Because currently the only people who have anything to do with the Grand Company directly are high-ranking members. It would flesh that connection out a bit more. There is no reason for workshops to be locked behind housing. If it's a gil thing, make adding the workshop to the Grand Company area require gil. But other than that I have no idea why they did this.

Note: I'm a pretty new player. Maybe I'm missing something here.

[Shibi]

...OP doesn't seem to understand how much effort needs to be made when people create their airships and submarines and how much time needs to be spent until they finally break even...

Yeah, most people also desire gardens to grow Thav Onions and Jute, dreaming of gil showering from the heavens, like scrooge McDuck with $ signs in his eyes. Then after they get a house and start they realise that it's complex and not at all fun, so they drop it faster than a hot potato. Just wander around any housing district and look at the empty - or dead - garden plots.

Same with the workshop, it IS a lot of work, time, and gil to get started - it's complex - and it's something you need to keep at every day, like gardens, or you remain low level and abandoned.

... There is no reason for workshops to be locked behind housing ...

It's historical. Originally you needed to have 4 people in the workshop when you advanced a stage.

I'd be wary that anything they did to it to change it would end up with a zero-like-bug and FCs already at max would lose actual years of progress.

[katthekat]

It's historical. Originally you needed to have 4 people in the workshop when you advanced a stage.

I'd be wary that anything they did to it to change it would end up with a zero-like-bug and FCs already at max would lose actual years of progress.

Definitely would take a lot of reworking and would more than likely risk a lot. Why I doubt it'd ever happen. It's disappointing because currently it doesn't seem necessary to be locked behind housing and is causing more harm than good to the housing system as a whole by being attached to it. But I guess this is what we're stuck with unless they figure out some way to fix it.

[Shibi]

...It's disappointing because currently it doesn't seem necessary to be locked behind housing and is causing more harm than good to the housing system as a whole by being attached to it...

The problem really is overstated. It might seem like there are a lot, but that doesn't hold much water when you drill into the numbers.

Here is Aether, and it's about 20 to 50 houses per server there. So only about 0.5% of housing. And in the grand scheme of things, that's a drop in the ocean.



The larger point people have is "I don't want to miss out on this easy gil", and it's said above, it's far from easy in the preparation. Gardening proves that most people will give up before spending the many millions of gil, many many days of real time, and a year or so grinding airships and subs up to level 95.

And for those people who really want to, and understand the initial outlay in gil and time, and that they won't see anything for up to a year (depending on RNG) it's possible to form a rank 6 FC and do it too right now. There is literally nothing stopping anyone doing this, and it's likely more possible now, than before with the 18 FC wards.

There is nothing stopping people from getting their feet wet - outside of the tenacity to sit down and do it, every single day, for about a year.

[Hasrat]

I'd love to believe this but I haven't seen any indication from SE that they ever plan to provide sufficient housing...

Not necessarily sufficient, and naturally will only suffice temporarily, if at all, but do keep in mind we've got entire new data centers coming down the pipeline to spread out populations and ease up the pressure for NA and EU.

[Joint]

As it stands, Airships are part of the biggest issues with housing. They are a motivation for people to hoard multiple free company houses on alts, and buy up wards for their airships. Airships need to be nerfed.

Start by making it so that people can have their own airship workshop in and out of free companies. Giving every single player the ability to have a custom airshop would go a long way at evening the market.

Two, make it so that you can only own ONE free company house per account. I know its tricky because of the systems in place. I get it, some of you might have alts in different companies, and if you have housing rights on those characters, it could get messy, but Square Enix needs to devise a way to fix this. Also make it so that you can't use multiple free company characters to buy out a house. Make it so that each free company only buy bid on one house at a time.

Three, Instanced airship workshops that are separate from housing, and maybe even workshops for personal houses would do a lot for nerfing these. Making it accessible for all would go a long way. Every player should be entitled to have their own airship. We are the hero of the world for mog sake. We should all get a stake in the content.

Suggestion -- NO

[Jojoya]

Not necessarily sufficient, and naturally will only suffice temporarily, if at all, but do keep in mind we've got entire new data centers coming down the pipeline to spread out populations and ease up the pressure for NA and EU.

That's assuming players are willing to transfer to those worlds.

EU might work out since the new worlds this summer will be going to the existing data centers.

NA is going to be a hard sell with the new worlds going to a new data center. Materia was a harsh lesson and NA players will lack some of the incentives the OCE players had (lower ping, creating a local community).

With housing likely to be withheld for months as we saw with Materia and Spriggan/Twintania, what's the point of transferring?

[Hasrat]

That's assuming players are willing to transfer to those worlds.

EU might work out since the new worlds this summer will be going to the existing data centers.

NA is going to be a hard sell with the new worlds going to a new data center. Materia was a harsh lesson and NA players will lack some of the incentives the OCE players had (lower ping, creating a local community).

With housing likely to be withheld for months as we saw with Materia and Spriggan/Twintania, what's the point of transferring?

It'll see a huge population boom by 7.0 at the latest when folks realize they won't have to sit in queue for hours.

Besides, all devs have to do is arbitrarily designate more NA worlds as congested to further funnel players over.

The only lesson Materia teaches is what sensible folks already knew: you can't expect a viable population overnight. Shit takes time. But nobody has the patience for that.