Solution to housing crisis

[Cortawraith]

So far I don't see many viable solutions to this so-called crisis (aside from the making apartments great (again?))
The only real solution that would solve the housing problem is for SE to start supplying sufficient housing plots. That's the real problem, not the lack of "taxes" or other witchhunting fantasies that appear more often in this Forum. Those often are suggested out of spite only with the goal to get ppl evicted, instead of having SE fix the situation properly.
I also can imagine that quite a number of those withhunters would be among the first to complain in the forum, when it's suddenly their turn to loose their estate for whatever reason (i.e. no taxes paid, haven't cleared Potd-Solo 200, getting evicted coz not all ultimates have been cleared etc. etc. etc.) ^^

If SE can't really afford to supply more plots, then maybe they should start removing the exclusivity-statuses that are bound to housing (Chocobo-Stable, Gardening, Workshop) and make it available for companies AND ppl who otherwise don't have access to those things. That way the demand for personal plots should significantly go down, too.
It also might not hurt if SE would put in some effort to check if those estates are being used, at all. I know a few ppl/companies that have been maintaining an empty Mansion or M-House over months ^^

[Rolder50]

Instanced housing would fix the problem real easy. Put it in alongside the wards, so people who want neighborhoods can have them, while people who just want a house to decorate can also have them.

[Avoidy]

I have a solution to the housing crisis .... Lower the requirement for making a FC to one so that anyone can make a FC immediately, after the requirements are met they can bid on the small FC houses and fill them up. You're thoughts?

This only incentivizes people to leave their active FCs and start up empty solo-FCs so they can get a house. It's literally happening right now. Cool people are just sort of in their own little guild by themselves forever so they can get a house, and the whole system is just kinda dumb imo. Rather than revamp the FC system, I think all Square needed to do was look at the results of the first lotto and adjust the ward situation accordingly on a world by world basis. They even had a month where no one could bid because of the 0 glitch. An entire month to look at balmung and see how wards 1-17 were straight up devoid of life and go "oh maybe we should let everyone bid on these" and they couldn't do it. Even with just 6 wards available for individuals, on Balmung, a server where everyone wants a home to do their RP stuff in or whatever, I'd see smalls with like 5 bids. That's it. If we'd just had more wards open from the start, there would've never been an issue to begin with. Why on earth would you have more fc wards than individual wards. FCs can have hundreds of members each. Any one of those members, maybe even all of them, might want their own private house. The ratio should have been flipped. It takes like an ounce of common sense but they still did it in this weird way that everyone acknowledges was awful, and they never fixed it.

They even had downtime last night, right before bidding opens up again, but instead of looking into things and changing wards up, they used it to boost some jobs in pvp instead. Like, I just give up with this housing stuff man. In a few weeks it'll be exactly as you've described, and all these solo FCs people made will gobble up the wards designed for actual FCs, and square will probably look at those metrics and think things are working as intended. I'm fine not owning a home with this as context. I don't want to feel anchored to a game whose devs are so hopelessly out of touch on something so basic. I am glad that I can leave whenever I want and not lose anything.

[DeNada]

We really need more personal wards to be opened up. There's just not enough demand by FCs from the results of the first round of lottery where almost all smalls and some mediums are left unbid in FC wards in almost every server.

And please don't come up with the excuse that SE need to give priority to FCs to get a house especially when 80% of FC wards are practically empty. Even a 50/50 split at the start of lottery would still ensure that FCs are given free realm to pick a plot with zero competition if they are not going for a large plot.

[sagacious]

This already happens. People got around the timer by joining a fake FC, purchasing the house, with the seller then leaving the FC.

The main culprits are a: not enough housing overall and b: not enough non-FC housing at the moment, though that's expected to increase after another round or two once FCs have bought theirs.

I can only see what's going on in the OCE server and none of the small cottage FC plots have been taken and only a few mediums in the whole of Materia

[sagacious]

We really need more personal wards to be opened up. There's just not enough demand by FCs from the results of the first round of lottery where almost all smalls and some mediums are left unbid in FC wards in almost every server.

And please don't come up with the excuse that SE need to give priority to FCs to get a house especially when 80% of FC wards are practically empty. Even a 50/50 split at the start of lottery would still ensure that FCs are given free realm to pick a plot with zero competition if they are not going for a large plot.

This is true but why does square want so many FCs?

[sagacious]

Instanced housing would fix the problem real easy. Put it in alongside the wards, so people who want neighborhoods can have them, while people who just want a house to decorate can also have them.

why suggest a solution that will never be implemented?

[sagacious]

This only incentivizes people to leave their active FCs and start up empty solo-FCs so they can get a house. It's literally happening right now. Cool people are just sort of in their own little guild by themselves forever so they can get a house, and the whole system is just kinda dumb imo. Rather than revamp the FC system, I think all Square needed to do was look at the results of the first lotto and adjust the ward situation accordingly on a world by world basis. They even had a month where no one could bid because of the 0 glitch. An entire month to look at balmung and see how wards 1-17 were straight up devoid of life and go "oh maybe we should let everyone bid on these" and they couldn't do it. Even with just 6 wards available for individuals, on Balmung, a server where everyone wants a home to do their RP stuff in or whatever, I'd see smalls with like 5 bids. That's it. If we'd just had more wards open from the start, there would've never been an issue to begin with. Why on earth would you have more fc wards than individual wards. FCs can have hundreds of members each. Any one of those members, maybe even all of them, might want their own private house. The ratio should have been flipped. It takes like an ounce of common sense but they still did it in this weird way that everyone acknowledges was awful, and they never fixed it.

They even had downtime last night, right before bidding opens up again, but instead of looking into things and changing wards up, they used it to boost some jobs in pvp instead. Like, I just give up with this housing stuff man. In a few weeks it'll be exactly as you've described, and all these solo FCs people made will gobble up the wards designed for actual FCs, and square will probably look at those metrics and think things are working as intended. I'm fine not owning a home with this as context. I don't want to feel anchored to a game whose devs are so hopelessly out of touch on something so basic. I am glad that I can leave whenever I want and not lose anything.

Active FCs suck. Only the elite have access to the airships and gardening. I was in a large FC in NA and I ask to use the garden and i needed airshp mats and they said no you haven't been in the FC long enough. I ask how long do I need to be and they said a year so I started my own FC. Everyone should start their own FC and break apart these large centralized FCs

[DeNada]

Active FCs suck. Only the elite have access to the airships and gardening. I was in a large FC in NA and I ask to use the garden and i needed airshp mats and they said no you haven't been in the FC long enough. I ask how long do I need to be and they said a year so I started my own FC. Everyone should start their own FC and break apart these large centralized FCs

I'm so sorry you had such a terrible experience with your previous FC. Not all large FCs are like this as I am in a large FC and as long as you passed a one month probation, you are allowed access to gardening and workshop which is honestly quite fair. A year is simply ridiculous.

[sagacious]

I'm so sorry you had such a terrible experience with your previous FC. Not all large FCs are like this as I am in a large FC and as long as you passed a one month probation, you are allowed access to gardening and workshop which is honestly quite fair. A year is simply ridiculous.

Before I started my FC I was in large FC everyone told me I could not use the garden and workshop it was for the leadership only. You say not all FCs are like that I say most are and a few are like what you describe.