So, a lottery system and a divide between FC and solo wards, eh?

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Originally Posted by Canadane

No actually I wouldn't mind it if you could drop a deposit on multiple plots.
Just make the deposit non-refundable if you don't get picked.

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Why? That's basically punishing players twice. Not only do they not get the house but could be out 100M gil.

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Originally Posted by Imora

If all you gotta do is walk up to a sign and drop a deposit, the ultra rich get to drop cash at everything to increase their chances.

Nope, should be one entry, pick your plot wisely.

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This defeats the entire purpose of making houses easier to get, assuming Ishgard releases with this lotto system. Instead of being to run to another plot if someone beats you there. You now cross your fingers on a single plot and if you don't get it, well, hope you enjoy waiting a good year or two for another shot. Why shouldn't people who have worked to build up a lot of gil have a chance to lotto on multiple houses?

I'm only happy with a lottery system for demo'd plots.... I have been working years for my ishgard mansion saving and almost killing myself during the ishgard restoration. I know which plot I want...so if its lottery I can go there, get there first, put my gil down and not get it? which means I have lost out the possibility of going to another ward and getting the plot I want... Me and my in game partner have be prepping and planning and I worry I won't get my house with this.

You can deem me selfish i guess but i agree this won't fix the issue supply is the issue.

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Originally Posted by Strywin

Awesome, I like the idea of a lottery system instead of living at a placard. FC only wards sound good, great even because I miss the days when it was FC only because the wards had life in them back then but solo player FCs exist so eh..

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the wards were dead and empty when they were FC only that's the whole reason they opened them up to personal housing in the frst place to populate them all because they were wastelands.

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Originally Posted by Rae88

A lottery system is amazing. You're still not guaranteed a house but you don't have to spend all day clicking a placard, and I think so many people will appreciate it :)

RNG isn't perfect but why not I guess. I feel it's a decent solution :)

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honestly this will back fire hard. people might think it sounds cool at first but you can all but guarantee that it wont take long before people are crying at the fact they never win.. seeing threads crop up like i bought lotto tickets on 50 plots and have lost every time this suxxxx

i honestly think its a stupid idea becasue the reality is it doesnt do anything.. and ets be real it SE.

people are going pickfault with the implementation no matter how they do it...

the super rich people can buy 50 tickets.... i can barely afford one..
the super rich people can bid on 50 different plots. i can barely afford one...

or if your only allowed 1 bid. it'll be i put a bid in on this small plot but this medium plot became available and now i cant bidon that plot..

no matter how they do it it won'tfix anything

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Originally Posted by Dzian

the wards were dead and empty when they were FC only that's the whole reason they opened them up to personal housing in the frst place to populate them all because they were wastelands.



honestly this will back fire hard. people might think it sounds cool at first but you can all but guarantee that it wont take long before people are crying at the fact they never win.. seeing threads crop up like i bought lotto tickets on 50 plots and have lost every time this suxxxx

i honestly think its a stupid idea becasue the reality is it doesnt do anything.

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No actually, they opened it up existing wards for personal because they gave a timeline for when personal will be released. They did not match the proposed patch so they just made it possible for the wards to sell for personal usage even though they teased early on that it would be "different & affordable " not because they were wastelands, not on balmung anyways.

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Originally Posted by Strywin

No actually, they opened it up existing wards for personal because they gave a timeline for when personal will be released. They did not match the proposed patch so they just made it possible for the wards to sell for personal usage even though they teased early on that it would be "different & affordable " not because they were wastelands, not on balmung anyways.

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no the personal houses were originally going to be seperate wards. but they decided to compbine them because the fc wards were so dead and empty.. gotta rememeber housing was super pricey back then which was also a contributing factor. very few fcs lasted very long and of those that did even fewer could actually afford a house.

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Originally Posted by NyannCat

The problem isn't that they don't want to supply, is that they can't. There are data issues.
People keep asking for the same thing, but it's just not doable.

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This is incorrect. There's many ways SE could implement enough housing to satisfy demands but they choose not to because it would mean admitting their current design isn't working well. But even if you don't change how housing works, if they put enough servers in to handle the load then there's no reason they couldn't have the supply; in the end that just comes down to money, not data.

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Originally Posted by NyannCat

Also, supply isn't an issue, to be honest. The biggest problem is that every ward is filled with empty abandoned houses. Because there is no cost to keep them.
Housing needs a weekly/monthly fee for rent cost or something, so people will have to be active enough to keep their houses. I see so many houses in my ward that haven't been touched in months, and I never see my neighbors. Meanwhile people keep wanting more wards, more plots. Why?
Why do you need more plots and wards if those are also going to be filled by empty abandoned houses?

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You have 2 separate issues here and you treat them as if they're the same and they aren't.
1. A house is either used or its not. If its not then it will be demolished; if it is then it won't. That is all. How its being used is irrelevant; how its being decorated (or lack of) is also irrelevant. Nobody should have the right of dictating how a player uses what they have. You also never seeing your neighbors is irrelevant; people play at all times of the day, not just when you choose to play.
2. Rent doesn't solve anything; either rent is low enough that nobody is going to care or its too high for most people to deal with. If you place it high then people are going to say its another artificial barrier to entry and prevents them from participating in housing; which functionally makes it the same as not enough houses. And worse, you could end up with both not enough houses and a high barrier to maintain it which only makes it worse for those that don't focus their time on making gil. If you place rent low then its pointless as a means of moderating housing usage. You'd be better off trying to claim rent as a gil sink.

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Originally Posted by NyannCat

All the time I see people saying "Oh my god I want a house so much!!!" and then they finally get one just to find out how hard it is to decorate one. And even when they do decorate them, they become bored of it and never touch them ever again.

Seriously. Farming 3-4m gil isn't even that hard. It's absurd that you only have to pay that amount once and now you can keep your empty house forever. Meanwhile SE spends millions in servers to be able to add more wards.

Seriously, if they add a rent cost, you'll see the housing supply and ward activity improve a lot. It won't solve it 100%, but it will improve.

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Rent does not equal activity. Rent would not change how people use their houses or what times they use their houses, you would not see your neighbors any more than you do now and it does not guarantee any future owners would be more visible to you or have more of an interest in decorating.

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Originally Posted by NyannCat

(As for gardening issues, I really wish they fix this by allowing people to plant stuff in island sanctuaries. It is so dumb that you need a house to do gardening.)

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There will be some form of gardening in island sanctuaries but they haven't released specifics. We know there will be some form of trading and items unique to island sanctuaries and some form of minion interaction but that's about it.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

no the personal houses were originally going to be seperate wards. but they decided to compbine them because the fc wards were so dead and empty.. gotta rememeber housing was super pricey back then which was also a contributing factor. very few fcs lasted very long and of those that did even fewer could actually afford a house.

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my first FC house back in 2014 was in a pretty populated ward, even on a tiny server. Sure, all the plots never filled, but enough filled that it wasn't like they were the ghost towns I see today filled with neighbors I never see. The big issue (I think) was that a lot of FCs would end up going inactive, and without auto demo back then it led to a lot of ghost wards as smaller FCs ended up dying while still holding plots.

Also, prices back then were cheaper on smaller servers. It was pretty easy to save for a plot outside of the big and mid population servers.

I'm reserving judgement for now. That reveal raised more questions than it answered. No mention of how relocation would be handled, if at all. And I'm certain the resellers and botters are already figuring out how to profit off this change, too. Tbh SE is putting the cart before the horse again. As others have said, it's not the system of procurement (though let's face it, placard clicking was the worst idea ever to combat the previous issues we had with resellers), it's the scarcity of housing.

They're still clinging to this idea of neighborhoods. And seem more to be throwing things at the wall to see what sticks rather than presenting any real thought into a solution. So we'll see on down the line what they're thinking of actually implementing and how it will work.

They really should just change to instanced housing with optional customizable world-facing exteriors like what Free Realms and Maplestory 2 had. Mostly Free Realms so you can still have that instanced outdoor space though (Toontown Online also had instanced housing with outdoor space).

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Originally Posted by Nepentha

And seem more to be throwing things at the wall to see what sticks rather than presenting any real thought into a solution.

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This is pretty much what I thought when I read the translated comments. They're just throwing a lot of different ideas into the system and then waiting to see what happens. They're complicating things without fixing them.

They will not change anything unless the core problem is fixed - supply. A player who wants a house but cannot get one because there are not enough is still an unhappy player.

As long as a world has fewer houses than that world has active accounts with characters on that world, supply will be a problem. As long as players are allowed to own multiple houses when the number of houses game-wide is less than the total number of active players game-wide, supply will be a problem. As long as there's no deterrent to owning a house the player is not using, supply will be problem.

There are so many questions about how these changes will work and I hope SE has already thought of them all plus more we haven't mentioned yet.

What about the existing wards? Do they get their FCFS/Lottery and FC/Private designations or will the designations be limited to Ishgard and any future wards added?

If all wards get the FC or private designation, what happens to existing owners in those wards? Will those who have a private house in what gets designated as a FC ward be forced to relocate (and most likely have to settle for a less desirable plot than what they currently have) or will they be grandfathered into that specific plot until relinquished/demo'd at which time it can only be purchased by a FC? And of course the same must be asked about FC houses that are in wards that end up designated for private ownership.

What about the tight knit FCs where members try to get their private houses in the same ward as their FCs because it's fun to be able to freely run between the houses of different members? Is their housing going to get broken up?

What about apartment buildings in the FC wards - will those be removed since FCs can't own apartments? That reduces the number of apartments available for characters who can't have a house because either there aren't enough available or another character on the same account already owns one but they're not allowed to share tenancy in that house.

(Which brings up - whatever happened to making alts on the same account automatic tenants of houses owned by the same account on the same world?)

What about relocation? Will relocation be limited to the FCFS wards or will it also be allowed in the lottery wards either through a special timer reserved for relocation or by participating in the lottery? In either case it would make it harder for first time buyers to get a house as they would be forced to rely more on the FCFS wards.

Does a switch to FCFS and lottery mean the purchase timer is being removed altogether, or will it still be used in the FCFS wards? No timer means the house flippers are back in business with a vengeance, especially if they can freely locate into the lottery wards. Buy in FCFS, immediately relocate to lottery and buy the plot they just left with a character on a separate account. Then they can relocate again to another lottery ward as they switch to a different character on the first account to purchase the original plot a third time, and so on until all FCFS plots have been purchased (along with most if not all the lottery plots if you can bypass the lottery to relocate). Lottery ward houses would be used to sell to other relocators, FCFS ward houses would be used to sell to first time buyers and relocators.

Will players be able to buy multiple tickets for a specific plot's lottery (i.e. work like Jumbo Cactpot) or be limited to one per plot drawing?

What happens when there are multiple winners of the lottery because multiple players picked the winning number, or when no one wins the lottery because no one picked the winning number?

Will the deposit for the lottery be the plot purchase price or some other amount? What happens to the "deposit" players paid for their lottery tickets? I assume the winner's deposit would be applied to the purchase price but what happens to it for those who lose and how do they recover it if it's to be refunded? I would assume that various regional laws around the world would push this firmly into the category of gambling if the deposit fee was not 100% refundable.

Is it a smart thing to be implementing a system into a MMORPG where one player get to be the winner while everyone loses? We're not talking Jumbo Cactpot where everyone "wins" since they get back more than they spend on their tickets. To keep entering drawing after drawing trying to get something you want very much only to keep losing is a very depressing experiencing. It casts a pall over the enjoyment the player otherwise would be getting from the game.

To be honest, it's idiocy to be considering a lottery at all. If they feel they have no option but to go the random draw route, they should be at least be using a raffle so there will always be one winner and only one winner per draw. Maybe that's a translation error? I don't know if Japanese has the distinct words for different types of random draw systems like English does.

Hopefully they chose to share this information now so they can get player feedback as a way to identify potential problems with whatever new system is implemented and make adjustments to account for some of them.

I still wish they would accept that the ward system does not work when you've got a growing player base and start putting their efforts into building a better housing system instead. At the rate the game is growing as word of mouth spreads and popular WoW content creators are going "gee, FFXIV isn't what I thought after all, I'm having fun", player population for Endwalker likely will be double what it was this expansion. That means SE is going to need to more than double the number of plots currently available to play catch up on demand. Just adding Ishgard is not going to be sufficient.