Will lottery destroy or fix housing?

I think it will equally suck, less auto clickers will win, but more bid bots will win.

The new system will probably get flooded by bots to ensure whoever wants whatever house(s) they're after they will have a much higher chance of getting.

It's kind of a stress relief for me since it means I can pretty much give up on the idea of ever getting a house.

The whole housing system in this game is such a dumpster fire I don't know how anyone can defend it.

Its better for participation fairness. Everyone with a sub and gil can just get a chance, instead of chance only for people that can stay online up to 72 hours straight or use illegal ways xD

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Originally Posted by dspguy

In other words, when the odds are so low and it is something that you only really get 1 crack at... it doesn't really matter if it is 1/50 or in 1/10000.

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Well if it's FCFS and odds of 1 in 50 or more realistically 1 in 30, your chance of winning is 2% to 3% and you can spend your 2 to 4 hours of prime time before immediately moving on to the next vacant plot. No nine day delay. If you do this once a day, chances are good you will have a house inside a month.

In lottery the odds could be 1 in 300 or more, so your chance of winning is drops to 0.33% from 3% but then you have to wait 9 days for the next. So 5.7 years for a 75% chance, 3.75 years for a 50% chance. That's assuming only 300 people (~1% of the active server) enter for the single demo plot up in that period. If 5% of the active server enter on that single demo plot in nine days, then your 50% chance of a house is at 18.6 years.

It will accomplish absolutely nothing.

I don't think it's really fixable, but for me personally I very much doubt the lottery system will improve my experience. In the past I waited for maintenance to end and ran to the placard I'd picked out and bought my house, first for the initial small and later on to upgrade to medium. No issues. This time around, I'll be surprised if I'm able to upgrade our FC to a larger plot. It may still happen eventually, though.

One thing I do hope that they do is reveal the number of overall buy-ins to the lotto (per plot size would be more interesting). Even if they do(probably will) keep it internal, maybe it will help or expedite with whatever they do next.

The new system is weird and I wonder how it will work out, given that you need to enter lottery for one plot you want (per faq "You may only apply for a single plot per character.").
So if you want to get a small house and you are a new player with only money for one you will pick random one from the 960 available? The RNG of how many would complete for your specific chosen plot is impossible to predict, given that 30% of active playing population has a house.
Since there is no reliable data, lets just assume on Zodiark which has 15k max level characters those represent constantly playing players. So each such plot could have like 10 people competing for one. Looks grim...

At this point, instanced housing for non FC players should be a thing. Let the housing wards be for just FCs only, with the apartments being for individual players who like hanging out in the wards regardless if they are a part of an FC or not. Problem solved!

And also a HEAVY crack down on bots...

A way to store housing items could relax the market a bit.

I just own a house to not lose all the unique event item's I've gathered during my time playing.

Atm I'm not motivated to do much with is, so it is just a house with stuff in the garden to not look empty.

If I could store all items away without sacrificing inventory space, then I would just sell my plot.

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

Its better for participation fairness. Everyone with a sub and gil can just get a chance, instead of chance only for people that can stay online up to 72 hours straight or use illegal ways xD

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It'll be good for the first few weeks IMHO. Then everyone will want to stay steadfast to their plot more than ever because winning one will mean a big jackpot. Relocation is also going to be under the lottery so fewer people will look to hunt a new one. IDK, that's how I predict it'll end.

I'm glad I never cared about housing because I can see how frustrating that system is and now it get's even worse. Good luck with big housing cactpot.

It'll be about the same.

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Originally Posted by Somnolence

...Since there is no reliable data, lets just assume on Zodiark which has 15k max level characters those represent constantly playing players. So each such plot could have like 10 people competing for one. Looks grim...

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After 9 days when all of those are gone, and a further 9 days for the relocations to sell - so about 1st May - a fair chunk of those 15,000+ active players - 2%, 5%, 10%, 20% - will all be entering for the one or two rare houses that come up.

the fact that 18 wards are FC locked just killed the entire housing part of the game, and incentivizing everyone to have a solo FC instead of being part of one.. what a disaster of a joke..

add this Q: What happens if multiple free company members apply for one plot and win?
A: Every member holds a unique lottery number and only the member who has the winning number can proceed with the purchase. Other members will not be selected and will receive a 100% refund of the deposit paid at entry.

this on top massively favours massive and bot FC's.

The FC system needs to be abolished.

The fact 18 Wards are for FC at launch (this will get adjusted at some point down the line)
So we have 6 player wards split into first come first serve, first serve leaning and lottery. I'm just left with the question what was the point of the new system if a small percentage of a player bought plots will use it?
I just feel this going to leave people more bitter in the long run and at this point, we need instanced housing because a huge selling point of this game is unavailable to a good chunk of the player base with some of those people playing for a long time.

The lottery imo is just another band-aid fix. It wont destroy housing but also wont save it. Yes the timer was bad (I thankfully got through the house race before that was introduced...I worked my way up from a small to a medium to a large one thanks to relocations) but this is imo not much better.

Yes everyone has a chance now without the need to be there. Which in turn means that even those that barely have any interest in housing might just give it a try because they simply can. So with that the competition might have increased a lot. Good luck getting a house that way, especially if you are unlucky and the one you choose has a lot of other names up too.

Also FC members being able to vote on different plots really gives an advantage to big FCs. Leaving the smaller ones behind.

So its imo still a huge mess...a mess that can only be solved by instanced housing.

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Originally Posted by Sorimachi87

Instead of speculating, how about we wait to see how it unfolds?

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Because it's patch day and we're all antsy as heck?

It's all relative, clearly the lottery is an improvement but going from 1/10 to 2/10 isn't awesome. However, going from 3/10 to 8+/10 just isn't happening because they haven't rebuilt the entire housing structure, so while we can be disappointed in not getting a full rebuild there is no point being a lunatic and pretending the lottery is not an objective improvement.

I think they should have luxury apartments
Allow players to choose from a couple different layouts (one of which has a garden area for crossbreeding if they choose)

Not as desirable as houses, yet more attractive then the current apartments

The lottery only keeps people from sniping
It doesn't solve any other problems, if anything adds more frustration due to empty FC plots that will be available for bots to seize with their hoards of gold

It certainly won't destroy housing but it won't fix it, either.
This system is slightly fairer than what we have right now, but without a significant increase in the actual number of houses I think a lot of people are going to remain frustrated and disappointed.

Being a pessimist, I expect to see a huge upswing in FC dramas as multiple members are given gil to buy tickets for their FC, because there seems to be ample room for people to make honest mistakes. e.g. I can imagine people doing silly things like accidentally buying a private plot or changing Grand Company during the lottery period and not realising that failing to rank up again will invalidate their ticket.
As well as that, of course, there will always be people who see an opportunity to scam a FC and will take it.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

As well as that, of course, there will always be people who see an opportunity to scam a FC and will take it.

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This one is easy to avoid or at least mitigate. Require the recipient of funds to state in FC chat that they will use the funds to place a bid on the agreed upon FC plot and will return the proceeds if the bid was not successful. Because it's logged in-game it's something the GM's can act on and have done so in the past.

The one silver lining in the whole ward 1-18 mess is that it's impossible to place a Private bid there.

It won't fix it. All it will fix is people standing outside of a placard for 16-18 hours straight making themselves sick spamming it.

Reminds me of the old Pandemonium Warden fiasco in FFXI. The boss may or may not have been bugged, or the people trying to kill it may or or may not have been doing it wrong, but the first kill attempt took 18 hours. SE then patched it to despawn after 2 hours.

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Originally Posted by Droxybrobotnik

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The community have actually put a lot of effort into making the awful click placard system work, the aforementioned script, housing alert servers, charts displaying peak chance times on a case to case basis [...]

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Some of the community have put effort into a system that isn't inherently visible to players who simply log into the game. The fact that some people had better odds with the player-made system relied on the fact that the entire player-base wasn't aware of it or willing to go to such extremes to get a house.

That system wouldn't have been necessary if the upcoming lottery system had been in place in the first place. Until they find a way (or the will) to fix the bigger issue altogether, any in-game replacement of a "meta" community solution was always going to make the odds worse for those "in the know" by increasing the accessibility and the number of players who are "in the know".

Yes, they nerfed Housing Extreme and made it easier for "casuals" (even if only a little).

Lottery will not destroy housing as it was doomed to fail without any proper fix like instancing. More people want housing than SE can supply houses for. Even those who do not actually want houses get housing things thrown at them for rewards and end up looking for a house just to put the damn things in.

It was failed from the start and this could have been a chance for them to fix it by having instanced (and infinite) housing but they chose to recycle more of the same old.

Best housing solution in an MMORPG is probably that seen in SW:TOR - many options for budgets. No supply issues and no silly resale market.

No difference, there won't be any more houses to go around, just different people getting lucky.

It cant get any worse, but it will not fix it.
Applying yet another band-aid will only hide the problem as it continues to fester underneath.


There's only a solution when everyone can have a home, anytime they wish,.. with no shady demolitions for actual subscribers (lol)

Lottery will change nothing for the better. It was always a roll of the dice just getting logged in when the servers came up from patch. Now, you aren't just competing with the few hundred people that got up early to try to get in ASAP and be the first to click the placard. Instead you're competing with 5 days worth of casual players throwing their gil at the lottery as well.

IMHO housing should just be FC only period, and apartments or private rooms in FC house for individuals.

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Originally Posted by Doki

Lottery will change nothing for the better. It was always a roll of the dice just getting logged in when the servers came up from patch. Now, you aren't just competing with the few hundred people that got up early to try to get in ASAP and be the first to click the placard. Instead you're competing with 5 days worth of casual players throwing their gil at the lottery as well.

IMHO housing should just be FC only period, and apartments or private rooms in FC house for individuals.

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And why do individuals not deserve to have a garden and a house to decorate as they wish ? What gives ? Is having a large house with an empty FC with 1 player, and an empty inside and garden better than a personal ?

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

And why do individuals not deserve to have a garden and a house to decorate as they wish ? What gives ? Is having a large house with an empty FC with 1 player, and an empty inside and garden better than a personal ?

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There are gameplay benefits to having a house, and to having a FC house
That means a lot of owners arent interested in decorating

Two changes could help this:
As I stated early, apartments with an option to have a garden
Have a general FC workshop instance instead of making it so you need to own a FC house

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Originally Posted by Broken_Wind

There are gameplay benefits to having a house, and to having a FC house
That means a lot of owners arent interested in decorating

Two changes could help this:
As I stated early, apartments with an option to have a garden
Have a general FC workshop instance instead of making it so you need to own a FC house

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Apartments with a garden would have been my suggestion too, however island sanctuaries will likely come with gardening, so that could be the alternative to those who want a house just for gardening.

I get the hatred of the new system but would you rather sit there and fight scripts. Not to mention card clicking constantly?

The real issue is that these restrictions are in place because the supply will never meet the demand with how they designed housing.

The only other way for the them to give everyone a house is literally deleting the old one and implementing instanced housing–something that a lot of other games do.

I've seen some resistance instanced housing because there's a perceived notion that the novelty of you owning a house and someone else can't is supposedly good feeling.

Even if they added 100x the houses and wards, the supply will never keep up, especially with the game's popularity boon.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

I get the hatred of the new system but would you rather sit there and fight scripts. Not to mention card clicking constantly?

The real issue is that these restrictions are in place because the supply will never meet the demand with how they designed housing.

The only other way for the them to give everyone a house is literally deleting the old one and implementing instanced housing–something that a lot of other games do.

I've seen some resistance instanced housing because there's a perceived notion that the novelty of you owning a house and someone else can't is supposedly good feeling.

Even if they added 100x the houses and wards, the supply will never keep up, especially with the game's popularity boon.

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The lottery is absolutely better for day one ward releases, so that you aren't fighting for the lowest ping.

My only issue is that none of the houses I've claimed over the years have involved any competition. Each one has been a vacant plot, outside of it's timer, with no one else nearby. They were entirely free houses that I was fortunate enough to stumble upon at the right time. (This isn't a freak accident, anyone can do it if they settle for the Goblet, although I did get one in Shirogane in 2018)
That will never happen now, because even if I were to stumble upon a house like that again, there would be 5 days for other players to do the same and I'd then be fighting against other players for a chance at that house. I'd also have no freedom to leave and try for another plot, because I'd be locked into that lottery for 9 days, so if another plot did become available, I'd 100% miss out on it.

It's "fairer" for most cases where you are competing, but it's not without it's considerable downsides in some less common situations.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

I get the hatred of the new system but would you rather sit there and fight scripts. Not to mention card clicking constantly?

The real issue is that these restrictions are in place because the supply will never meet the demand with how they designed housing.

The only other way for the them to give everyone a house is literally deleting the old one and implementing instanced housing–something that a lot of other games do.

I've seen some resistance instanced housing because there's a perceived notion that the novelty of you owning a house and someone else can't is supposedly good feeling.

Even if they added 100x the houses and wards, the supply will never keep up, especially with the game's popularity boon.

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You are comparing being agaisnt 20 or so possible scripters and 200 or more people with a ticket for the lottery, the answer to this is pretty easy to figure out.

I don't think it will fix it or destroy it.. I think it is just going to allow people to not have to sit and click for hours upon hours in hopes to be the one that clicks buy first.. It isn't a solution to the housing problem in terms of availability or fairness.. I think it is more of a solution in terms of the cost of players sanity time..

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

That will never happen now, because even if I were to stumble upon a house like that again, there would be 5 days for other players to do the same and I'd then be fighting against other players for a chance at that house. I'd also have no freedom to leave and try for another plot, because I'd be locked into that lottery for 9 days, so if another plot did become available, I'd 100% miss out on it.

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Plots won't suddenly appear within the cycle though. The plot is either available to bid on at the start of the cycle or is withheld until the next cycle.