3.3 & 3.4 Housing Updates

[Aldotsk]

This is probably going to come off as bragging, but it's really not. I just wanted to share this pretty silver lining with everyone. I know what it feels like to miss the chance to get a house. Two years ago I basically stopped playing anything else in FFXIV to do nothing but craft to make the money and get my FC a nice home fitting our IC purposes.

 

I had no high level crafts to sell Star recipes. I had no raid parties with whom to sell wins. I had not the bravery to do fundraising RP events. I had absolutely no other means to make money. All I did was craft lv1-40ish HQ gear everyday. It took me and my FC mates two years to get to 70M gil.

 

Yesterday, at last we were able to get the house everyone wanted (we actually went to check all plots and put a poll to decide). Without paying anyone to relinquish. Without exploiting debatable features of the game. Without donations. Without RMT. It took far longer than it should have, but we made it.

 

 

We are currently in the process to give it the appearance of an abandoned house, because we plan to set up a big "Raise This Barn" style of event before we make it our home IC. It was something we all looked forward to for a long time and at last it's there.

 

Being homeless in this game sucks, as a roleplayer more than anything. But with patience, hard work and yes, some luck, you will eventually get what you want. Do not give in to other players wishing to exploit your despair.

 

 

Grats on your FC house, but I'll say I actually died laughing by that house name and the description.

[Blue]

This is probably going to come off as bragging, but it's really not. I just wanted to share this pretty silver lining with everyone. I know what it feels like to miss the chance to get a house. Two years ago I basically stopped playing anything else in FFXIV to do nothing but craft to make the money and get my FC a nice home fitting our IC purposes.

 

I had no high level crafts to sell Star recipes. I had no raid parties with whom to sell wins. I had not the bravery to do fundraising RP events. I had absolutely no other means to make money. All I did was craft lv1-40ish HQ gear everyday. It took me and my FC mates two years to get to 70M gil.

 

Yesterday, at last we were able to get the house everyone wanted (we actually went to check all plots and put a poll to decide). Without paying anyone to relinquish. Without exploiting debatable features of the game. Without donations. Without RMT. It took far longer than it should have, but we made it.

 

 

We are currently in the process to give it the appearance of an abandoned house, because we plan to set up a big "Raise This Barn" style of event before we make it our home IC. It was something we all looked forward to for a long time and at last it's there.

 

Being homeless in this game sucks, as a roleplayer more than anything. But with patience, hard work and yes, some luck, you will eventually get what you want. Do not give in to other players wishing to exploit your despair.

 

 

Grats on your FC house, but I'll say I actually died laughing by that house name and the description.

 

Thank you It's going to have an actual name when it is eventually claimed IC. Right now it's just a nameless abandoned thing in the distance, not even a real part of the residential area (that's why we chose this plot in particular: it's the furthest away from any other house).

 

And I would agree on the 1 house per server limit, though I feel all alts on that server should be made automatic tenants to it.

 

As far as I am concerned, I am boicotting Personal Housing the way it currently is. Neither I nor any of my FC members have any housing other than our FC home and as far as I've heard, we've pretty content with it. Though, I understand that some other FCs have stricter restrictions to what the members can or can't do with the house, so I'm not surprised that some of them may want their own place.

 

Let us hope we get word of that instanced housing feature soon.

[Valence]

So, for those still wondering what exactly is allowed and not for housing resale, and various other housing related stuff (like apartments)...:

 

In the producer letter, you mentioned players should stop the resale of land. Do you intend this restriction to include players who want to sell to their friends when they are moving servers?

 

Yoshida: The idea is that buying land with the intent to resell is not acceptable. This is an act which inhibits the ability of other players to enjoy the game. If we receive reports, we will investigate with log data, and if we determine that the motive was profit, then we will release the land. Of course, if you purchased the land for yourself and later decided to transfer worlds, there's no problem with handing the land over to FC members or friends because the intent wasn't to earn gil through resale.

 

What will happen to the price of land if it would have dropped by the time the resale happened?

 

Yoshida: It will return to its initial value.

 

For housing in general, one of the reasons resale is a problem is because the land gets sold out even when land is added. What is your ideal image for housing?

 

Yoshida: It's a bit difficult to be sure, but I think the ideal would be if about 80% of all land was sold to meet the demand, which would leave a bit more that new players would be able to purchase if they could afford it. In most worlds, the additional land added achieved this state, but in some of the more crowded worlds, it still sold out. We are considering managing this by adding additional land to the more crowded worlds.

 

First, I'd like to completely cover the demand for individual housing with the implementation of apartments in patch 3.4. After that, we'll do some careful consideration and follow up by addressing the demand for FC housing in overcrowded worlds in the next major update.

 

There are also two kinds of play styles where some players want to have a house for their FC, but some players also want to have their own house and land for their character. In the case of a FC, you can collect gil from multiple people, but for an individual, all the gil comes from one person. We want to be able to accommodate both FC and personal desires, so this is a tough problem to tackle.

 

Do you think land sold out immediately due to high resale demand or just due to population?

 

Yoshida: The higher the population, the higher the demand for land, and the higher the demand for land, the more people who want to use it to make gil. I think it's like that.

 

You said that selling out and resale is a problem on a small fraction of the worlds, so do you mean to say that housing is already in an ideal state in most cases?

 

Yoshida: Well, with the shortages and resale issues in overcrowded worlds, I wouldn't say its ideal, but I think it's good in about 80% of the worlds. New players can level up, earn gil, and by then they should be able to afford the houses as the prices continue to decrease.

 

Did you put any thought into regulating the resale systematically?

 

Yoshida: Once bought, the system already has conditions where the land cannot be sold through the system and is automatically removed after a certain period of disuse, to make it difficult for players to resell through the system. However, a MMORPG is made to be "played," and there are mechanisms available to allow players to abandon land of their own will. The system doesn't have the ability to determine whether players had malicious intent when they decide to use that mechanism, so combining that mechanism with the ability to trade you end up with resale. It would be possible to stop it entirely if we want to take a view that everyone has bad intent, and there'd be less time and effort involved with that as well. But by doing that, we would destroy some of the good intentions of the community like players handing over land before they take a break or transfer worlds.

 

On the other hand, we heard opinions like limiting the number of houses to one per account, but for players who have multiple characters on one account and want to role play on each, this still creates a problem. Furthermore, for FFXIV, since the requirement to buy land is to be level 50 on one job and to save enough gil, there is quite a high hurdle to be able to purchase land. So we should respect those players who have done enough to satisfy the conditions to purchase land on alternate characters.

 

If these things continue, the housing system will become very overcrowded. Rather than viewing everyone as inherently bad, we'd rather allow as much freedom as possible to remain in the system. Additionally, after speaking with players and getting feedback from a majority, we can make provisions if we decide that certain things should not be allowed. So first, let's talk about it. I think there wouldn't be any problems if everyone would act ethically.

 

 

Taken from here

[LiadansWhisper]

"I think there wouldn't be any problems if everyone would act ethically."

 

Nope, there really wouldn't be, Yoshi-P. There wouldn't be problems anywhere. :cry:

 

...but anyway, perhaps this means that they're planning on coming up with some specific housing for FCs?

[Valence]

Well, he says apartments for 3.4, and more housing plots in 3.5 for overcrowded servers so... As far as I see it they intend to just fix the lack of housing by brute forcing and even more plots.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

The current housing wards had never been intended to be released for size Glenn players. Even private rooms were hacked in. So when Yoshi-P says he thinks apartments are going to fix it, he probably honestly believes that. (Maybe on the JP servers, it's mostly FCs?)

 

But it does sound like they might actually be considering allocating more wards to only the busy servers. That would be nice. Especially if Balmung gets to maintain a ~80% housing full one day.

[Kage]

I mean, Balmung's active population is reported to be somewhere close to a little less than double most of the 'ok populated' servers and even triple to quintuple the size of the 'empty' servers.

 

I don't think Balmung will really get to the state where everyone is happy with a house etc.

[Swanmay]

Unfortunately I think Kage is right. For all the Gil I have saved on my Balmung character, there are no houses and quite frankly people are charging way too much to relinquish their house.

[Yssen]

Unfortunately I think Kage is right. For all the Gil I have saved on my Balmung character, there are no houses and quite frankly people are charging way too much to relinquish their house.

 

This may seem relatively unpopular, but... report them. They have made it clear even in a live letter that letting go a plot for profit is not what they want and against the ToS. If someone is sitting on a plot to sell it for a profit, report them.

[Branson Thorne]

Unfortunately I think Kage is right. For all the Gil I have saved on my Balmung character, there are no houses and quite frankly people are charging way too much to relinquish their house.

 

This may seem relatively unpopular, but... report them. They have made it clear even in a live letter that letting go a plot for profit is not what they want and against the ToS. If someone is sitting on a plot to sell it for a profit, report them.

 

That would be a good idea, disregarding the fact that nobody will sell their house back to the game, and thus rendering another players chances of obtaining a house to almost nill.

 

So either way, the player is still screwed. To report the players actually selling houses, albeit way over priced, you make it harder for ANYONE to obtain a house.

 

For that reason I never report sellers. Because someone somewhere wants that house and if they are willing to buy it, good for them!

 

Of course that's just my opinion on the matter.

[Kilieit]

I don't report sellers either. Not because I don't want to, but because the report system in this game is horribly complicated. I care, but I don't care enough to take 20 minutes out of my day every time I want to report one. :I

 

Because people sell, my chance of obtaining a plot is actually nill. I don't have any decent way of making money in this game and I've only just got the price for a plot+permit after 6mo (and the plot price being dropped, lmao). Saving up for an indeterminate amount of time, for an indeterminate amount of gil, and still being at the mercy of scalpers who can literally say "oh, nope, sorry, someone else just came in with 10mil more than you, thanks for the offer though" and be done with it isn't something that seems like fun to me.

 

And camping plots is a pain as well, that's true. But at least it's not that - which is still basically camping plots (you still need to wait for someone to be ready to relinquish their house) with a shittonne of cash added on top.

 

(And I don't have any intention to report buyers. My lack of sympathy is for the people who openly advertise that they're selling for profit something that should be gifted (either to a friend or back to the system); not for people who want a house and can't find one, and are getting increasingly willing to do ridiculous things to make it happen.)

[Valence]

Unfortunately I think Kage is right. For all the Gil I have saved on my Balmung character, there are no houses and quite frankly people are charging way too much to relinquish their house.

 

This may seem relatively unpopular, but... report them. They have made it clear even in a live letter that letting go a plot for profit is not what they want and against the ToS. If someone is sitting on a plot to sell it for a profit, report them.

 

That would be a good idea, disregarding the fact that nobody will sell their house back to the game, and thus rendering another players chances of obtaining a house to almost nill.

 

So either way, the player is still screwed. To report the players actually selling houses, albeit way over priced, you make it harder for ANYONE to obtain a house.

 

For that reason I never report sellers. Because someone somewhere wants that house and if they are willing to buy it, good for them!

 

Of course that's just my opinion on the matter.

 

And at the same time you promote abuse... tough choice.

[Gegenji]

But if they can't resell the house for a profit, would they then even bother to buy it in the first place?  I mean, I'm assuming the reason they're buying the houses BECAUSE they can get their gil back plus loads extra on the resale. It's an investment for payout - buying the houses for the express purpose of reselling them rather than use them. So, if they're not able to sell the houses anymore, that means no profit to be had from the purchase and thus it's a "waste of gil" unless they're going to actually use the house.

 

... Or hold the houses hostage out of spite until the ruling is overturned or something.

[Yssen]

But if they can't resell the house for a profit, would they then even bother to buy it in the first place?  I mean, I'm assuming the reason they're buying the houses BECAUSE they can get their gil back plus loads extra on the resale. It's an investment for payout - buying the houses for the express purpose of reselling them rather than use them. So, if they're not able to sell the houses anymore, that means no profit to be had from the purchase and thus it's a "waste of gil" unless they're going to actually use the house.

 

... Or hold the houses hostage out of spite until the ruling is overturned or something.

The first part of this. Because lets face it, the ruling is not going to get overturned. This is not fluffy gray area anymore, it really never was. This isn't and investment, it is extortion. This isn't a legitimate way to make money in the game, it is a shitty one that abuses housing system as it presently stands. The people buying houses to hold the plot and sell back at a ridiculous rate are doing something wrong. The wrong has gotten so out of hand that SE and Yoshi-P himself addressed this in a live letter and gave a clear stance. They made it pretty clear they don't like people doing this and will take action against those players. By not reporting the abuse of the system you enable the scam and extortion to continue. When players abusing the system get reported, the plots come back up eventually to be sold at the regular price. Either when the GMs free up the plot, or lack of using of the house due to banning cause it to do so. 

 

You are not making it any more or less harde for other people to buy a house by reporting people for plot sitting for fun and profit. The people that are plot sitting for fun and profit already made it harder for you by doing the wrong thing and breaking the ToS. As described above, if anything you are freeing up the land to be sold at a reasonable rated down the road. And as Gegenji pointed out, you remove the reason they bought the land in the first place, which was to extort people for an ridiculous profit. If you are 1. paying their gigantic amounts of ransom money to get them to move out of a plot (and THEN paying the housing costs on top of that), or 2. not reporting their breach of the ToS. You are almost part of the problem, you have given your tacit approval to a vulture player's actions. You also kinda have zero room to complain about any of the costs for getting housing right now.

[Kage]

Balmung is officially "not everyone will be happy with housing" as apartments are limited to 1536 per world (512 in each city state: Limsa, Ul'dah and Grid)

[Michaux]

Balmung is officially "not everyone will be happy with housing" as apartments are limited to 1536 per world (512 in each city state: Limsa, Ul'dah and Grid)

 

I lost my shit when I heard the number. That's just ridiculous and insulting.

[Gabineaux]

I am really going to laugh if they let people have a personal house AND an apartment. I didn't see anything saying they couldn't or could. I mean, if the apartment is nice enough I could see some people selling their houses to get one. Why not? Not a lot of people who have personal houses even use the chocobo stables/garden and they cannot use the airships unless they have an FC.

 

 

....But wait, can an FC buy an apartment? But they would not be able to dye a chocobo there, or garden. But could they have an airship workshop? :lol: Probably not. I am guessing it's just personal rooms but a little bit bigger.

[Valence]

What if someone, say, started to put up PF ads asking to buy a house 'please contact me yadayada'. And then systematically reported the sellers showing up, mh?

 

Just a thought.

[Melkire]

1536 is going to go so fast, when you factor in alts. I'm really disappointed in Square. Guaranteed personal housing is something that many MMOs are managing these days.

[Aurou]

Has SE confirmed that there will be only one Apartment per city?

 

Looking at the screenshots of where they are located, it's the blocked off road in each housing area. As long as they have the server capacity, SE could be putting one in each ward (and subdivision).

 

 

 

I couldn't replicate the angle... but that is definitely the same spot in the Mist.

 

 

 

Goblet

 

 

 

 

Lavender Beds

[Kilieit]

Balmung is officially "not everyone will be happy with housing" as apartments are limited to 1536 per world (512 in each city state: Limsa, Ul'dah and Grid)

 

Are you kidding =_=

 

There goes that solution, then, lmao.

 

Just make them instanced and 1/character with a demolishment schedule... please..........

[Aaron]

Don't worry, if you're lucky you'll either have a bit more than ten minutes to snag one OR you can buy one off the capitalism fuckers who probably bought twenty of them for an 100% inflation price resell.

[Kilieit]

I'd rather not, lmao. I'll just wait until they bring out something proper to address the problem... again.

[Valence]

Balmung is officially "not everyone will be happy with housing" as apartments are limited to 1536 per world (512 in each city state: Limsa, Ul'dah and Grid)

 

Are you kidding =_=

 

There goes that solution, then, lmao.

 

Just make them instanced and 1/character with a demolishment schedule... please..........

 

Every single instance is also linked to server nodes dedicated to them. Dungeons or just quest instances. They have dedicated and limited server slots running at the same time.

 

This is also why when they released Stone Sky Sea, so many players tried to accessed it at once that there was a server congestion and most people couldn't access.

 

You will run in the exact same issue. System wise, there is absolutely zero difference.

[Ruran]

Urgh. I was looking forward to getting apartments for my alts, since I'm tired of FC rooms and wanted something more permanent. Here's to hoping that more apartments will be released in further patches, especially in the new expansion.

 

But...at least the apartments aren't just limited to Ishgard like we originally thought? The locations/structures themselves seem really cool, it's just a shame that not everyone will be able to enjoy them.