Just Another Housing Complaint

[ijuakos_xqwzts]

3/3

At the very least, allow us to purchase a house for real money. We can purchase a high level character with all jobs nearly-maxed for money. We can purchase weddings. I can expand my inventory space with real money. I can buy the rewards from one-time festivals I've missed with real money. Why can't I buy a house with money? If you're saying we can't have a house because of server costs, why not let the whales in this game offset those costs by making housing available for real money? Or, larger plots available for real money? You don't seem to have a problem taking my money to solve your other problems? Why's this one special?

As you can tell, I'm frustrated. I'm sure no one even read to this part of the post anyways, so I'll just step off my soapbox now. I just needed to say what I wanted to say. I just wanted to put my hand up and say that this isn't right.

I have bought all the Store items that came with in-game items (even some that haven't), bought at least 3/4 of the items in the cash shop - not counting housing items since I have nowhere to put them. I regularly subscribe to all the extras - saddles, retainers, etc. I just scraped the housing districts and there are, assuming the houses available today aren't claimed by the current claim cycle, 11 houses left (all small). I'd happily pay for a medium and maybe even a large house. SquareEnix hasn't even said they'd address other considerations to fix the housing problem; they don't see it as a problem and even doubling down on the "neighborhoods" thing despite the only people I see running around here are people looking for and bidding on open plots, people running to laim their money from losses, and people running to vendors to buy stuff for their newly acquired houses.

I wonder how many of the "I have a house already because some arbitrary luck or condition (such as more available plots, lower player base, etc) that doesn't exist now so f--- your complaint" people would feel if SquareEnix demolished every house in the game, refunded everyone the money they spent to buy it and gave everyone back the items inside their house, then made everyone play the current system to re-acquire their houses.

[Divinemights]

As someone who is also has legacy characters, it is rather difficult to believe for someone who claims to be legacy will missing every plot release because of "insufficient fund"
For someone who want a house so bad will missing every single one of these plot release dates, it is rather hard to believe?
Especially every single legacy players either sitting on gils or already have a craft to making gils from 1.0

Patch Date Districts Wards Divisions Total Plots
2.1 14 Dec 2013 3 5 1 450
2.3 7 Jul 2014 3 6 1 540
2.38 16 Sep 2014 3 8 1 720
2.4 27 Oct 2014 3 8 2 1440
3.3 6 Jun 2016 3 12 2 2160
4.1 10 Oct 2017 4 12 2 2880
4.2 5 Feb 2018 4 18 2 4320

I didn't even count wards 19 - 24 that add after 5.0
I will give it to you that you don't have gils at 2.0, but after you miss 4 releases in 2.0, you would start to save some gils and I am sure by 3.0 you will be sitting on 5 to 6 mils for a small.
This is also a period will relocation is fairly easy.
If you grab a Goblet small and you are free to move anywhere else at later release.
Getting house before 5.0 population spike was pretty easy if you set your alarm clock on release date, especially your target is a goblet small.
Why you didn't do that?

It is fair for new players to complain because they didn't have same change because of the lol lottery, but a legacy player?
If it is your decision not to put into effort of getting a house, at least be responsible for your own decision

[Shibi]

I just scraped the housing districts and there are, assuming the houses available today aren't claimed by the current claim cycle, 11 houses left (all small).

Go back and check Mist, Ward 22, Plot 2 which is a large that will be available on your server in the next round.

I wonder how many of the "I have a house already because some arbitrary luck or condition (such as more available plots, lower player base, etc) that doesn't exist now so f--- your complaint" people would feel if SquareEnix demolished every house in the game, refunded everyone the money they spent to buy it and gave everyone back the items inside their house, then made everyone play the current system to re-acquire their houses.

I wonder why people keep wanting to punish other players to increase the odds to get their own house instead of directing that energy at SE instead to look at what players want and address it?

Why does the first choice always have to be "let's demolish someone else home so I can have it" instead of "SE YOUR SYSTEM IS REALLY BROKEN, FIX IT!"

It's really time to stop this wrongthink of demolishing other people's homes, and instead direct that energy at SE. Because the system clearly ain't working - lottery being so effortless has really exposed the wart that placard clickers have known about for years.

[Jojoya]

Why does the first choice always have to be "let's demolish someone else home so I can have it" instead of "SE YOUR SYSTEM IS REALLY BROKEN, FIX IT!"

Imagine how angry they'll be when the house is demolished and another player ends up winning the lottery because they had only one out of 300 entries.

[Archaell]

Why does the first choice always have to be "let's demolish someone else home so I can have it" instead of "SE YOUR SYSTEM IS REALLY BROKEN, FIX IT!"

Demolitions are already in-game and proven to work. We could dream about there being enough plots for everyone, but that's at the moment just day-dreaming. Yoshida is adding more wards, more housing zones, slowly increasing supply, which helps but clearly it's not enough on its own, so additional systems are needed to redistribute the limited supply. Removing houses from inactive players is the first partial solution in the line. Losing a plot is not end of the world, you can always get a new plot eventually - as long as there are features like the demolition. It seems harsh that inactive players lose their houses, but that also makes it easier for them to replace said houses if they decide to return to the game.

[Fybrile]

As someone who is also has legacy characters,

I've already covered the myopic points in this post. Please feel encouraged to read a thread before jumping in on page 7.

[Shibi]

Demolitions are already in-game and proven to work.

I think you missed my point, as in I wasn't talking about the demolition system, but instead about players wanting to take away other people's things so they can have it instead.

We shouldn't direct our frustrations at other players and think up plans to take their stuff. We should be lobbying SE with requests to improve the system, and that doesn't mean lobbying SE to make it harder to get and keep a house.

[Fybrile]

I 100% agree.

If another player wins a house over me, I don't feel frustrated at that player for getting lucky. I feel frustrated at Yoshi-P and team for making housing a cutthroat PVP event in the first place by being too stubborn to let a bad idea (personal housing neighborhoods) die. If I don't see the plot I want available during a lottery period, I don't think some players should lose what they have. I think the developers should add a reasonable amount of houses.

SE brought a Halloween toddler-sized bag of chips to the party, and our anger should be focused on them for not doing their fair share, not on the few players that got a chip.

[ElysiumDragon]

I see 3 main problems:

Sunk cost fallacy (and the risk of angry in-game landlords) means they can't just scrap everything and start again.

Instanced Housing is already in-game and unpopular as is (apartments), so the devs won't see it as a viable answer, as much as people complain that it's the 'perfect solution with absolutely zero flaws'. (This is why I encourage and celebrate apartments).

Issues with the Ward System mean that adding more wards/districts is likely to become increasingly difficult going forwards, and adding more players servers, whilst a good idea, would also only mitigate the current issues, not undo past failures.


Realistically, this is what I'd do:

Open up a LOT more player servers/data centres, and offer far bigger incentives for people to move servers.

Demolish any homes currently owned by low-level (sub 50) characters, an d give no notice of this policy coming into effect (clears out the shell FC's and what's left of the RMT'ers).

Change FC requirements to 4 characters of Level 50 or above with ARR completion up to 2.55, not 4 characters of any level.

Permanently enable the demolition timer, and promise never to disable it again, no matter the circumstance.

Implement apartment and FC room upgrade options, and overall make them a more attractive housing option for players.

Increasing the item limit for furnishings in every type of house, 50 at a time.

(likely already a thing) Have Island Sanctuary function as personal gardening and a place to put outdoor furnishings.

Add in a workshop facility for EVERY FC that can meet requirements, regardless of home ownership or not.

Make Level 3 FC buffs vastly easier to obtain, and simplify the systems behind this.

(big-brain idea) Lock Large plots behind sealed-bid auctions, with the explicit intention of extracting as much gil from the economy as possible.

(bigger brain idea) Personal Workshops for players, that allow them to craft fancy versions of existing weapons (maybe even armor), could become a long-term gil sink if updated regularly, an idea in progress)

[Silverbane]

Imagine how angry they'll be when the house is demolished ...

Every player that acquired a house agreed to it being demolished if it wasn't being used.
So no one has any reason to be angry over it.

I certainly wasn't angry when they demolished mine, when I took a break from the game.