Final Fantasy XIV received new housing plots with Patch 4.1 “The Legend Returns”. However, due to shortages and massive login issues, many players missed out. Despite promises of improvement, the situation remains critical.
The major content patch 4.1 for Final Fantasy XIV was a significant disappointment for many players. This was less about the content of the new instances and story missions. Rather, 720 new housing spots were introduced, but they were gone shortly after.
Housing prices explode
Due to login issues, not all players could log in at the same time. As an author from VG24/7 reported, it makes no sense to compete for one of the 720 new housing spots when you’re 960th in line.
Meanwhile, absurd scenes were unfolding. People were rushing around like mad to secure a housing spot. Real estate experts largely ignored the UI to avoid mistakenly clicking on other players instead of the desired house, while others resorted to downright dirty tricks:
- Some rogue initiated a trade with a player who was just clicking through the housing menu. This caused the housing menu to be canceled, allowing the disruptive player to snatch the house instead.
- Although there is a “one-house policy” in FF14, you can also rent a place for your guild. Therefore, some players simply register a “one-person guild” to legally acquire a second house.
- Some players even logged in multiple times and snatched more houses with different characters.
Additionally, there were absurd prices for the houses that already existed. According to Reddit, prices have now reportedly reached over a billion Gil (the in-game currency). This is far more than the houses are worth.
Thus, housing in Final Fantasy XIV becomes a luxury rather than a nice feature like in other MMOs such as WildStar or SWTOR.
Developer promises relief, players remain skeptical
The entire housing system in Final Fantasy XIV is, according to many players, quite broken. The announcement by lead developer Naoki Yoshida doesn’t change much about that. The chief developer promised relief in the forums and apologized for the fail.
According to Yoshida, even more houses are planned with the next update. But many players see this as no real solution. Because the problem lies much deeper, for example in the fundamental limitation of houses.
If the plots were instanced, like in other games, then everyone could have a house. The homeless fans simply do not understand why Square Enix insists on this artificial scarcity of housing. More houses in the next patch would likely only lead to the same misery repeating itself next time.
The poor housing situation is a sour note in an otherwise good game. You can read how well the new expansion Stormblood fares in our review.
