Personal Housing Thread 2.0

[Melkire]

Chart should read "20 are small plots". Seems a typo, as the rest of the math is correct. 

Just thought I'd point that out.

[Zyrusticae]

That infographic needs to be fixed. It's not 10 small houses per zone, it's 20.

 

Other than that, yeah, pretty damn sad.

 

Playing Devil's Advocate for a second: Note that some of the capacity issues could be due to having to send housing exterior data to every individual player in a ward, which is an exponentially increasing load with every single house that gets its exterior decorated. Every variable gets sent to ten, twenty, fifty, etc. other players every time they load in and every time a change occurs.

 

That being said... wow, that is a really poor excuse of a system if it can't handle that low amount of load. Everquest 2 was already mentioned, but there's no exterior decorating there so it's not really a great counterpoint. AION, on the other hand, has even larger housing zones and the housing interiors are NOT instanced (you can literally walk into the front door of any publically open house), meaning every object and their positions are sent to players constantly as they move throughout the zone, which is a far larger server workload than anything FFXIV has demonstrated thus far. Why Aion can handle it and FFXIV cannot is a complete mystery to me.

 

Speaking of Aion, the upkeep system and the townhouse rooms that everybody gets are far better implementations than what we got in FFXIV, as is the fact that they don't section off gameplay-affecting features like gardening and chocobo raising behind house ownership, so only RPers, interior decorators, and people just looking to own something actually buy houses. Gardening in particular was a really boneheaded move as looooaaads of players are getting in on housing just to make bank from it.

 

After such an uproar, I really wonder what their next move is gonna be. They're pretty much required to do something to appease the playerbase besides simply ineffectually doubling what is an unreasonably tiny number of wards.

[Dravus]

I suspect and hope that they'll make significant changes that allow for the majority of players to make use of player housing. The current system is pretty flawed in that it locks away desirable in-game activities such as gardening and chocobo raising behind a very artificial time and money sink. 

 

If they're going to constantly add new features to housing such as the ability to build airships as has been stated then they're going to piss off a lot of fans if they don't make it reasonably accessible.

[Kellach Woods]

I suspect and hope that they'll make significant changes that allow for the majority of players to make use of player housing. The current system is pretty flawed in that it locks away desirable in-game activities such as gardening and chocobo raising behind a very artificial time and money sink. 

 

If they're going to constantly add new features to housing such as the ability to build airships as has been stated then they're going to piss off a lot of fans if they don't make it reasonably accessible.

Also forces people into FCs they may not actually want to join just to access these features. I'm sorry, person who keeps spamming my alt with FC invites and tells for that purpose, but no I do not want to associate with you.

[Clover]

FFXIV has more than 2million of subscribers, but...

-How many people are actually active?

-Out of the people who are active, how many people actually want houses?

-Out of the people who want houses, how many have more than 1kk to pay for them?

Also, the graphic doesn't mention that a single FC house can hold around 500 instanced rooms for people who can't get personal houses.

 

I believe that Yoshida's intention isn't to bother his players; he's doing what he can. Give it time and see how it develops; the housing system is not finished yet, and no one has said that the next wards will be the last either. And just for the record, I will cry many girly tears if I can't finally get a home on time for the next patch, but I sure won't blame Yoshida for it @x@ In fact, I'll have faith that he'll offer more solutions.

[Kellach Woods]

Also doesn't take into account the server disparity between players.

 

I'd wager, say, a lower pop realm compared to Balmung/Gilgamesh will have more plots available due to less people wanting them.

[Naunet]

Even if you throw out an entire half of the playerbase completely arbitrarily, there will still only be enough houses to service 4%. And I'm willing to bet far more than half of the 2 million subscribers are active players and want a house, which means that percent is an overestimation.

 

The fact is, creating a system that is in such high demand amongst players, has been established in many other MMOs as something available to everyone, and that contains a number of other highly desired game features (chocobo raising, gardening, airships in the future) is just not a good decision. SE was lazy. They spent 9 months doing... what, exactly? 9 months to wait for personal housing, and all they've done is edit some code so that individuals can purchase FC houses also. The minimal effort put into this demonstrates a disappointing lack of caring on SE's part, and Yoshi's responses to player concerns have so far been equally lacking in care.

[Dravus]

I suspect and hope that they'll make significant changes that allow for the majority of players to make use of player housing. The current system is pretty flawed in that it locks away desirable in-game activities such as gardening and chocobo raising behind a very artificial time and money sink. 

 

If they're going to constantly add new features to housing such as the ability to build airships as has been stated then they're going to piss off a lot of fans if they don't make it reasonably accessible.

Also forces people into FCs they may not actually want to join just to access these features. I'm sorry, person who keeps spamming my alt with FC invites and tells for that purpose, but no I do not want to associate with you.

 

Yeah, that's something that bothers me as well. I'll be honest and say outright that I'm not the biggest fan of guilds in MMO's. They're often full of drama and given the way FFXIV works they often favour the approach of bloating the roster with anyone and everyone to the point where you never really get to feel part of a tight knit community.

 

Then there's the risk of being kicked for inactivity if you decide to take a break or petty drama due to the volatile role-players that exist in every MMO causing strife. So that's 300,000 gil down the drain if you invest in a Free Company room and a lot more if you fill it with rare and valuable furniture.

[Aldotsk]

 SE was lazy. They spent 9 months doing... what, exactly? 9 months to wait for personal housing, and all they've done is edit some code so that individuals can purchase FC houses also. The minimal effort put into this demonstrates a disappointing lack of caring on SE's part, and Yoshi's responses to player concerns have so far been equally lacking in care.

 

:'C

 

You know, this game doesn't primarily focus only on housing they are working on new classes, new dungeons and new stories every patch so they are trying to put everything. It's just that they just didn't see housing to be such an issue as they expected because they voted for new job/class demands than personal housing. They can only go so far for what they can do for players. Also mostly the housing is nice but it's purpose is for role playing purpose aside from crafting, gardening, and storaging. But balmung and Gilgamesh are the only servers that role play than other server so to the devs, they probably don't want to only look at two servers over all other servers when they asked for something else at that time. If you look at the Q&A for all live letter, there were like barely any people asking about personal housing and most of the people who asked those questions were really from balmung or Gilgamesh. Most of them asked about new jobs and new dungeons and new coil.

[Flickering Ember]

 SE was lazy. They spent 9 months doing... what, exactly? 9 months to wait for personal housing, and all they've done is edit some code so that individuals can purchase FC houses also. The minimal effort put into this demonstrates a disappointing lack of caring on SE's part, and Yoshi's responses to player concerns have so far been equally lacking in care.

 

:'C

 

You know, this game doesn't primarily focus only on housing they are working on new classes, new dungeons and new stories every patch so they are trying to put everything. It's just that they just didn't see housing to be such an issue as they expected because they voted for new job/class demands than personal housing. They can only go so far for what they can do for players. Also mostly the housing is nice but it's purpose is for role playing purpose aside from crafting, gardening, and storaging. But balmung and Gilgamesh are the only servers that role play than other server so to the devs, they probably don't want to only look at two servers over all other servers when they asked for something else at that time. If you look at the Q&A for all live letter, there were like barely any people asking about personal housing and most of the people who asked those questions were really from balmung or Gilgamesh. Most of them asked about new jobs and new dungeons and new coil.

 

It is a misconception that only mostly roleplayers are interested in housing. If only roleplayers liked housing in MMOs, it would never be implemented in modern, mainstream MMOs. Players have been asking for this feature in modern MMOs for the past decade and most of them have been foregoing that option. Now developers are finally listening to what fans want and so many MMOs these days seem to be getting housing or a housing equivalent. 

 

They pick and choose what questions to address in the Q&A so it's very possible that they didn't want to address something that fans have been so distressed about at an event that should help generate hype.

[ArmachiA]

Them working on other things isn't really the point. They promised the player base they were working on personal housing for 9 months, and because they never gave an update like that should have, everyone assumed that meant it's own area - not flipping a little switch.

 

What else they were working on is irrelevant. They promised something and didn't come close to delivering. At BEST they were disingenuous, at WORST they flat out lied.

[Aldotsk]

Again, it is not something to strangle about. 

 

If housing or creating castle is such a deal for any terms, Archeage has better option for that. But I played Archeage since Korean open beta and also through this NA version, I don't really like it.

 

So Yoshida lied. But how long are we going to drag this down and get mad about it? He said he'll double the wards from current ones. Just wait. Also he is right 100% about one thing: why should people have cheaper personal house when it's obvious that people will never go to free company house should everyone can afford large ones and invite their friends to hang out?

 

And no matter how angry we maybe , there are things that won't change. So ranting a lot about it in this forum especially won't give attention to square Enix. It's a waste of breath. In the end , it just comes down to playing other games, like ArcheAge. Heck, even blade and soul doesn't even have personal room or housing. Or even PSO2 has housing. It has a terrible room customization. 

 

I feel that paying for small plot for 4-6 m and 30m for medium is perfectly fair in my opinion.

[Aya]

I don't know, honestly.  Although the game was released with an apparent focus on making it more accessible and less demanding on players, since that time every trend, and every hint toward what they believe their players want, is more time investment, making things more difficult to get, and ultimately the establishment of this concept that for something to be valuable it must be rare.  Whether we're talking about relic weapons, augmented armor, or housing the entire premise of the game is to make things that players really want rare, ostensibly so that those who have it feel more value in their "accomplishment".

 

The way housing has been handled seems, to me, to be entirely in line with this sort of thinking.  I would not count on it being unintended, or the consequence of necessary system limitations.

 

This game is not about making anything fun or desirable easily accessible to the player base.

 

Just a note, I'm not really complaining, I've made my peace with the nature of FF and find that I love the game for the role-players here, and the community we've made I'm just adding an observation that I've made before about the design philosophy that's gone into FF since the first major patches of Realm Reborn. I'm not really interested in housing one way or another, but I do hope that they find a solution that makes more people happy.

[Warren Castille]

It's still my opinion that they tried to come up with a workable solution and just fell short on the R&D components. Think about it, they said they'd work on personal housing nine months ago? Back in the end of 2013 when their greatest concerns were making sure people could log in and server stability was, well, stable? I think Yoshi got caught by the common MMO-crowd issue: He mentioned a feature would exist. Can we make furniture? What are the houses like? How much will they cost? Can I have a chocobo in my house? Can I invite people? What about wallpaper? Will there be a feng shui mechanic?

 

Seriously, go back and read the live letter here and look at the bulk of the questions. This is prior to 2.1, back when Warrior was useless, DRG's Jump was still a DPS loss and a liability, and people were unable to log in because of queues and crashes.

 

Somewhere between 40 and 70 minutes into the letter, they begin to talk about housing. They keep talking about housing until the end of the letter, which is nearly 150 minutes long.

 

Q: When will individual housing be implemented?

A: It will be around half a year after patch 2.1's release. Currently, we are split between implementing a personal room within a free company house or personal housing. Since the decision will have a huge impact on how many additional servers we'll need to prepare, we have to carefully consider the balance of the housing system. We believe it will take roughly six months to have everything planned out and prepared.

 

They implemented FC rooms on time, and then people bitched anyway. Hard to say they lied when they delivered exactly what they said they would, it just wasn't enough to placate people.

[Kage]

It's not directly quotable but someone mentioned talking to Yoshi-P during TGS. They asked about personal housing and the insinuation or gist of the comments were that housing are achievements of sorts.

 

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/193890-Latest-comment-from-Yoshida-regarding-Housing-Inventory-space-issue?p=2453083&viewfull=1#post2453083

[Dravus]

'Go and play Archeage' isn't a viable option, especially when the MMO itself is completely different to the style of FFXIV. As others have also outlined player housing isn't some weird desire exclusive to role-players. There's a very high demand for it outside of the role-playing community and that is precisely why many modern MMO's launch with it as a feature right away or one intended to be added at some point in the game's future.

[Aldotsk]

It's not directly quotable but someone mentioned talking to Yoshi-P during TGS. They asked about personal housing and the insinuation or gist of the comments were that housing are achievements of sorts.

 

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/193890-Latest-comment-from-Yoshida-regarding-Housing-Inventory-space-issue?p=2453083&viewfull=1#post2453083

 

 

F: Before 2.4 comes out, you released 2.38… “I canot buy a house!! Lend me some money Yoshida!!”

Y: Sorry about that… There’s a lot of people who think the pricing is too high. At first we made it so they cost roughly the same as free company housing. To people for whom this was a big problem, we are very sorry. People have been asking we we put the FC housing and private housing in the same place. To explain, we didn’t want FC housing to be completely replaced with private housing. We thought if we introduced totally separate (uninstanced) private housing, we would end up with people totally abandoning the FC houses and never interacting with one another. In 2.4 we’ll be doubling the available wards. And moving forward we will continue to increase the number of wards. One more point: A lot of people wanted instanced housing. Since there are limited amounts of instance servers it would be impossible for people to save their personal houses if they were all instanced. (???) If it’s instanced it ends up being something entirely unlike housing. Please wait a bit longer for more options.

 

 

Kage, this was from your other link for TGS where I found to be pretty interesting information to at least let fans know that he isn't literally ignoring people but is trying his best. This personal housing thing JUST came out. 

 

But yeah what that statement said above, I agree with him a lot.

[Aldotsk]

'Go and play Archeage' isn't a viable option, especially when the MMO itself is completely different to the style of FFXIV. As others have also outlined player housing isn't some weird desire exclusive to role-players. There's a very high demand for it outside of the role-playing community and that is precisely why many modern MMO's launch with it as a feature right away or one intended to be added at some point in the game's future.

 

While I agree with you, but the patch -just- came out. It was small and it was gone within 2 hours. But why can't we just be patient for everything? Do you need the housing really that bad right away? This is like iPhone 6 thing too. Do you REALLY need it right away for first day of launch? 

 

Everything will eventually come up as time passes by, the housing prices will go down and there will be plenty of plots available in the future. It requires patience and time, this is just like 1st phase of personalxFC housing wards. It was estimated to be limited.

 

Edit: At LEAST he isn't making excuses like saying "We didn't see this coming" like many games out there. (One of them was Archeage NA where they have server issues now) and SimShitty 2013, and D3 etc. His excuse is legit and true enough that it's unavoidable to counter his argument. Too much personal housing can give FC houses gain cobwebs and dusts in the future.

[Warren Castille]

 

While I agree with you, but the patch -just- came out. It was small and it was gone within 2 hours. But why can't we just be patient for everything? Do you need the housing really that bad right away? This is like iPhone 6 thing too. Do you REALLY need it right away for first day of launch? 

 

 

I wanted to agree with you, but I will flat-out murder someone if I'm not playing Smash on Oct3.

 

Disclaimer: Not really gonna murder anybody. Probably.

[Aldotsk]

 

While I agree with you, but the patch -just- came out. It was small and it was gone within 2 hours. But why can't we just be patient for everything? Do you need the housing really that bad right away? This is like iPhone 6 thing too. Do you REALLY need it right away for first day of launch? 

 

 

I wanted to agree with you, but I will flat-out murder someone if I'm not playing Smash on Oct3.

 

Disclaimer: Not really gonna murder anybody. Probably.

 

Imagine I was the one who took that last copy from you D:

 

.... Though I won't play Smash until like later time. I have too many games to get and play.

[Kage]

 

While I agree with you, but the patch -just- came out. It was small and it was gone within 2 hours. But why can't we just be patient for everything? Do you need the housing really that bad right away? This is like iPhone 6 thing too. Do you REALLY need it right away for first day of launch? 

 

 

I wanted to agree with you, but I will flat-out murder someone if I'm not playing Smash on Oct3.

 

Disclaimer: Not really gonna murder anybody. Probably.

I wanted to smash things if I didn't get things Day 1 too even though I had no reasonable expectation to play them that day.

 

Since getting FFXIV I have preordered games much less now. However, if I am not playing Type-0 HD on March 17th I will break something. Maybe.

[Kellach Woods]

and i thought i needed help.

 

Really though, I just don't like that they locked certain cool game features behind it, and I think spreading these features out to non-housing would probably make housing much more of the status symbol they seek without making it feel necessary.

[Berrod Armstrong]

How do people even play more than one game...?

 

Anywho, I've accepted the housing situation for what it is. I will work toward getting one in time, whenever that may be. In the meantime I think I'll enjoy everything else the game has to offer.

[Warren Castille]

and i thought i needed help.

 

Really though, I just don't like that they locked certain cool game features behind it, and I think spreading these features out to non-housing would probably make housing much more of the status symbol they seek without making it feel necessary.

 

I'd only agree if the things locked were more than vanity. Chocobo raising is hardly a fast way to level them, colors are strictly vanity, and while there's some gil to be made by gardening...

 

There'd be no money in gardening if everyone was gardening. I'm on board with the people playing content and saving their money getting a kickback for it.

[Clover]

We'll have to agree to disagree here, as I still don't think Yoshida has lied, and neither do I think that the current house system is bad.

 

As a side note, Archeage has limited land as well. Also, people can plant their freaking gardens just at the entrance of your house (call it first hand experience). So I'll take FFXIV's house system any day. I'm in love with the neighbourhoods and I love how we get our own space. They just need to add many more wards and I'll be fully happy.