Turn Housing Demolition on

[TwistedTea]

This is not a solution, instanced housing is terrible. And it would put even more pressure on their already "crumbling" servers anytime there is anything out of the ordinary and a lot of people log in

Limited ward housing is a terrible system which consumes more server resources than fully instanced housing. The exterior of houses/wards are always loaded.

Adding more ward only increases the consumption of server resources

There's a reason why other major MMO with housing choose to go the fully instanced route; to avoid FFXIV's limited ward housing and all its associated problems.

There would be no reason for things like auto-demolition to exist, if every player had a fully instanced house.

SE has had nearly 10 years with this housing experiment. It's time for SE to acknowledge that limited ward housing is a colossal failure, in terms of access for the majority of players.

[Nixxy]

instanced housing is terrible

Instanced housing is great! WildStar had the best housing ever. Everybody got a skyplot and you could build whatever your little heart desired.

[Jennah]

You'd think they could at least, say, only pause it on the EU servers, and not the NA/JP ones.

[novamare]

Auto-demolition allows for a trickle of empty plots over time because some players will leave the game for whatever reason. Given the current housing situation, it's wasteful to leave those abandoned houses empty. And with the new lottery system, I imagine it feels better for homeless players to at least be able to bid on a plot every cycle (or as frequently as possible), even if there's stiff competition, rather than never even have the opportunity to bid because some abandoned plots are still taken.

The original suspension of auto-demolition made sense: it was difficult to even log into the servers. That wasn't the player's fault, it was SE's. (Sure, we can have the discussion about their realistic ability to weather a spike in traffic, considering pandemic-related supply chain issues, but even then, SE's response was primarily reactive rather than proactive.)

The extension of the suspension due to the "current world situation" was extremely gracious on SE's part. They recognized that reinstating auto-demolition at the same time as a portion of their playerbase would be unable to react would be a PR misstep. So they extended it. (And I think that was the right choice!)

But what I'm curious about is this: had the auto-demolish already been reinstated pre-war, would SE really have paused it again? I honestly don't think so. (And I think that would be a dangerous precedent to set, primarily because war and other world events are not SE's fault in the same way the bungling of the Endwalker release was.)

So I'm very sympathetic to those individuals who want to continue their subscriptions but cannot through no fault of their own, but that goes for so many more people than just those affected by the war. And in the meantime, thousands of active players are denied the ability to interact with a core (according to ads) game system.

(And yes, of course, the ideal answer is for SE to fix housing point blank period. But we see how that's going XD)

[Colt47]

This entire time I forgot it was even turned off. I'm not sure why they don't just have a monthly land tax or something that people have to pay to keep the house. The gil inflation is kind of nuts and I think a lot of people would quickly reconsider owning multiple houses if they had to pay a tax on each property they owned.

Seriously though, the only lesson to be learned about housing is that it is kind of a busted system done for PR mostly and the majority of players will never own a house.

[Doc_Seraph]

Kupo, this reminds me of that movie Demolition Man when the highest food in the land came from Taco Bell. Too much demolition and we will all eat at taco bell kupo ...which will demolish our systems later <3 kupo jk jk

[Alleo]

Even if they turn it back on again I doubt this would free many houses. Which means that most will be out of luck again.
As long as there is no instanced solution, the timer will just be another bandaid.

[Batbrat]

Even if they turn it back on again I doubt this would free many houses. Which means that most will be out of luck again.
As long as there is no instanced solution, the timer will just be another bandaid.

This is true and you're right, BUT! But.

If it's on, that means there's a steady and UNPREDICTABLE! trickle of houses that come up for sale. Right now, we're all on the same clock. We're getting houses that are springing up over someone moving to another house during the housing reclaim period. With demolition turned on, one could appear at any moment. Which means-maybe anyway, in theory!! That maybe...people could all rush to bid on one house, right..and then another opens the next day, and those who bid on that have an easier chance. You know?? Maybe, its a maybe! Not quite sure yet exactly how that works-

Either way though! It's unfair that people have gotten to hoard houses for almost an entire year now without having to be subbed for it. I personally know someone myself, who hasnt been subbed because "lul, my house is safe, I dont have to". Which means all this time, he's had this house that he isnt even playing the game anymore for. A big giant empty house. For months on months. That someone could be using and enjoying every day. But it's just sitting all because he doesnt have to pay to keep it. and this is why demolition is needed to begin with. Because its bad enough when someone wins a house and doesnt use it while they're actively playing-at least you could still say "well, they're around but they're just doing other things". Its even worse when someone wins a house and doesnt use it and doesnt even play for almost an entire year. That shouldnt be allowed to happen.

I already have a house. So I'm not hurting as bad as others, but it's just a little bit unacceptable to keep seeing friends disappointed time after time again. That's hard to keep watching. That's hard to see and know that there's at least one thing that could be done that might help that's just still not on the table for whatever reason. Please, turn housing demolition back on.

[KuroMaboroshi]

If it's on, that means there's a steady and UNPREDICTABLE! trickle of houses that come up for sale. Right now, we're all on the same clock. We're getting houses that are springing up over someone moving to another house during the housing reclaim period. With demolition turned on, one could appear at any moment. Which means-maybe anyway, in theory!! That maybe...people could all rush to bid on one house, right..and then another opens the next day, and those who bid on that have an easier chance. You know?? Maybe, its a maybe! Not quite sure yet exactly how that works-

If it does work that way, then in theory by relinquishing a plot just before the sign-up period for the lottery ends, then having someone place their bid at the last second before anyone else can, you could still flip houses, which would be the height of irony, since no matter how horrible placard spamming was, it at least fixed that part.

However, I don't agree with the conclusion in the rest of the post. "Some people are abusing the system" isn't a good enough excuse to screw over those who are not abusing it, yet now have to rely on the demolition suspension to not loose their houses because of all the external circumstances that warrant demolition suspension that have been listed in this thread up until now.

[Batbrat]

"Some people are abusing the system" isn't a good enough excuse to screw over those who are not abusing it

Who's getting screwed over? For the majority of the time housing has been available, we all had it under the rule that if you stopped playing the game, you would lose the house. Was everyone during all those times getting screwed over then? I would understand that, right..I know that it must suck. However, if its now a situation where its cruel that anyone loses a house ever, then it needs to be put out in writing that everyone gets to have their house and no longer has to subbed to keep it.

Again. They can be honest and let us all know that hey, housing demolition is a thing of the past! You can all stop paying us and we wont get rid of it. (which they wont want to do, because money). Or they can just turn it back on and continue to collect their money that way. Either way, we as players do have the right to know how its going to work. Can we win a house and then unsub until expansions only? or if we win a house, will we be tied to this payment? If we're trying to get a house, will there be this steady stream of houses available or are we just out of houses until the next ward update? If you think players shouldnt know any of this, why? Do you think SE can never do wrong and players should keep their mouths shut?

Also, are we going to keep it off until the next natural disaster? Afghanistan's still at war, is it off for them too? Saudi Arabia? There's more than one war going on. What's going to be the time that its turned back on? When all of these wars end? Why do we care so much about one, but not the others? Were you even aware of these wars? Whew, too many questions-

Let's just go ahead and turn that housing demolition back on please!