Housing Lotto - New Plot Acquisition Method

Both ideas are workable, as is the current system. The problem is the implementation. Timers on houses to fight botting and flipping? Sure, but don't make the timer such an utter mystery. Lotto for housing? Sure, but add in increasing returns so your chances of getting a house increase with time. Both ideas could work and reduce player strain.

The real problem is SE's inflexible attitude: this is what we have and that's how it'll remain, hell or high water.

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Originally Posted by geminipestdeath

Good lord the condescension here... Yes. I would say yes. I would absolutely say yes, I've been saying yes, and I will keep saying yes. I will be that "fool" you so snootily regard me as. So I'll respond in kind:

I don't understand why it is so fundamentally difficult for you to grasp the value of finite time. Maybe you've nothing going on in your life that demands your attention. Maybe you've super powers - you don't require sleep, or food, or have real human needs, and can just sit there clicking on a placard ad nauseum. Maybe you aren't bothered by humdrum grinds with no guarantees because you have nothing else to occupy your mind. Maybe this is the source of your inability to grasp, relate, and sympathize with those who do have those needs, so you feel the need to denigrate them for disagreeing with you and advocate things in their own best interests. I genuinely do not know - I do not much care, either. All I know is that calling me a fool for wanting something in a game that is respectful of my very real, human needs because you apparently do not have these issues is so confoundingly absurd that it isn't worth further response.

We're done here.

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Why are you wasting part of your finite time chasing pixels in a fantasy world to possess when you could be spending that finite time taking care of your very real, human needs instead?

You said it yourself, the house is something you want. A want is not a need. Prioritize your time accordingly.

The game does respect your time by giving you choices on how you use it. If you decide to use it camping a placard, that's on you. The game isn't forcing you to do it.

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Originally Posted by geminipestdeath

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Is this a troll?

Naw, just a frustrated housing fan.

Lottery isn't as bad an idea as people here are making it out to be, it isn't perfect but it IS still better than Placard Camping.

No matter how you slice it, there is no version where leaving the timer as it is would be a good scenario. You could stop flippers by setting a 2hrs fixed timers on the house. Because that is on average how long it takes for the first wanderers to find the plots and start clicking like maniacs. It did NOT need to be THIS long and entirely random to acomplish this objective.

And there are still houses out there entirely empty save a pair of Deluxe Gardens on the Yard and an Aetheryte, wielded by a single-person FC with !!!!!! for a name. (I can prove it.) So there is still an enormous waste of resources by people exploiting the system as hard as they can. You didn't stopped those people with the timer. If anything, botters now got it easier since they can just set their bots on a house and forget it there. You know you've seen them, I know I have.

As for lottery, there would still be issues. For one, it can't just be the same chance forever, I'd probably say every lottery you fail would give you another cast for the next one, so you'd more and more tries until eventually you're up. Second, you'd probably enter your name on every lotto you could see instread of a house you actually like... Maybe you probably should be limited to only one attempt a day, maybe keep track of that on the Timer tab. Among other possible incremental ideas. It would probably make people more picky about which plots they would place their daily lotto.

But seriously "People can bot it" is meaningless because people will be able to bot this process LESS, and not more. And "Add more servers to increase supply" is just like asking them to increase server costs indefinitely until everyone has a house they want. Every time they increased Wards it just made people rush for houses for a couple of hours and the problem was back to where it was.

But the bottom line is that a week or more of wrist-busting mind-numbing clicking should be a part of Cookie Clickers and no other game in existance. We shouldn't go back to where it was, but we NEED to move forward with SOMETHING instead of leaving THIS as it is.

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Originally Posted by ReiganCross

Lottery isn't as bad an idea as people here are making it out to be, it isn't perfect but it IS still better than Placard Camping.

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Originally Posted by ReiganCross

No matter how you slice it, there is no version where leaving the timer as it is would be a good scenario.

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I disagree 100%. I think many first buyers would love to see when a plot is available vs clicking a placard for hours on end. I spent like 16 hours on my FC house and 14 hours on my personal, so had I known which hour it goes up for grabs, I could taken a nap.. do something else but being stressed out cause of competition/bots.

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Originally Posted by ReiganCross

And there are still houses out there entirely empty save a pair of Deluxe Gardens on the Yard and an Aetheryte, wielded by a single-person FC with !!!!!! for a name.

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And? What is your point here? If the houses is still staying up the person/s are using them.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

I disagree 100%. I think many first buyers would love to see when a plot is available vs clicking a placard for hours on end. I spent like 16 hours on my FC house and 14 hours on my personal, so had I known which hour it goes up for grabs, I could taken a nap.. do something else but being stressed out cause of competition/bots.

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Erm... Yes... That is awful. That's why I'm saying we should change that. Precisely that. Also that is a remarkably short time to spend on house acquisition, congratz there. It took me a week of clicking Placards to get my house. What are you disagreeing with? I'm saying that the random hidden timer is bad and should change...

As for the second point, that is normally the signs of a shell FC, which is essentially a cheap way that someone uses to get around the one-house per account limit by having both a private house and a "private FC" house. You think people should just be allowed to own one-man FC Medium or Large houses?

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Originally Posted by ReiganCross

What are you disagreeing with? I'm saying that the random hidden timer is bad and should change...

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We agree it should change.
We disagree that a lotto / raffle is the solution.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

We agree it should change.
We disagree that a lotto / raffle is the solution.

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Yeah, after a spell I agree that straight up lottery isn't the best of ideas. But randomness IS the ultimately fair distribution method because it doesn't discrimimate a lot so an element of RNG makes itself necessary. Maybe not straight up Jumbo Cactpot levels of RNG (Because only a single winner a week per server is kind of depressive).

So I'd suggest something along those lines, pulling literal names out of a hat.

Or go absolutely crazy and make a GW2 Legendary Weapon levels of insanely hard craft to get a token that you can then redeem for a plot. I'm talking like playing the game for months on a bunch of Untradable things that would make Relic Farming seem like smelting Iron Ingots. But given that seems like a LOT of work for devs, I'd go with lottos.

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Originally Posted by ReiganCross

As for the second point, that is normally the signs of a shell FC, which is essentially a cheap way that someone uses to get around the one-house per account limit by having both a private house and a "private FC" house. You think people should just be allowed to own one-man FC Medium or Large houses?

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If they are using the houses, I don't really have a problem. Someone who owns a handful and do use them is fair game to me. What they do with their sub is not my place to argue.

I seen so many smaller fc gets a medium and large and they are maybe 10 people in total (who knows how many is active). They don't need a medium or large more than a personal. It comes to down to why do you want x size to me.

Myself for example, I own a personal large and my fc has a large. Both me and my FC is into gardening and decoration so we actually use these features a lot. As you may be aware, gardening is extreamly limited so large is only way if you want to cross-breed efficiently