Please remove random purchase timer!

The concept of having a random hidden timer after a house is demolished is asinine. All this does is encourage players to camp out at a plot and continuously spam the purchase button. Then with the wide range that the timer can vary from will also just encourage the use of bots to bypass this mechanism.

I have personally been trying to purchase a home for several days now across several different plots. I've personally spent absurd amounts of hours just sitting here spamming the purchase button only to lose out to someone else or have someone "relocate" their home to the spot that we were trying to buy. This also drives extreme animosity toward that individual as we were there going on 12+ hours.

One suggestion that I could give as a potential redesign is to treat buying a house like loot in a dungeon/raid. After a house is demolished have a fixed time limit that allows players to cast a lot on the house. Then after the timer expires, whomever has the highest roll wins the house. If the player fails to claim the house after a period of time it gets forfeited to the next highest winner; so on and so forth.

This will allow for the players to feel they have an equal opportunity to purchase a home and not be forced to sit in front of the plot for absurd amounts of time just in the hopes that they get "lucky" enough to click buy at just the right time. You have to remember that not everyone has an equal opportunity when it comes to internet connection quality and ping.

I completely understand that there needs to be a mechanism to prevent house flipping, but the current implementation is not the right solution. Please redesign this!

Any system that requires players to be lucky to get a house is a bad system. And yes that includes the current one, and the ones from before. Lets not ask for a different type of bad system. We should instead demand something that gives equal opportunity to all with zero rng. Which is how housing should be.

I would also like to see an implementation that does not involved any form of RNG. I would hope that it would not just turn into an auction type system though. As all that would do is allow the super rich players to control the housing market. Would you have any ideas for a non-rng solution Penthea?

Since I'm still new to FFXIV, perhaps I'm not understanding why it's not possible for a person to just walk up and buy a house if they see an empty plot. If it were that way, would it not mean that even if gold were exchanged for the plot, the seller would have no control over someone just walking up and purchasing the plot if it's available - so it wouldn't be something that any buyer would do? Thus, there wouldn't be flipping because there won't be people willing to risk giving their gil to someone when they wouldn't have a guarantee of getting the plot. Perhaps I'm just naive.

Barring just being able to purchase a plot outright, I do support the lottery system, but only if it collects a certain number of people's entries and is within a certain time frame if the limit isn't reached. As an example, if a plot were to come open, it would accept the first _X_ people's entries who try to buy the house, or it would only stay available to accept entries for 12 hours - whichever comes first. That way, people who are actively trying for homes won't have to sit there for days praying for RNG to bless them, and those who get to it early will have a better chance at getting a try because the entry limit may not have been reached yet . (And they won't have to wait forever to find out if they won or not if they do get an entry.)

The number of entries to buy each housing plot could be determined as a percentage of the world population so that there is an equal chance for everyone on every world.

Only characters with the correct amount of gil on them to purchase the home can enter. The winners and losers could be notified by mail - or if that's too difficult to implement - the placard would show the winner's name. A 12-hour timer for entering, and then another 12 for being notified, would allow for people to keep trying for a home if they didn't win without having to wait for too long. (I'd say that a 24-hour window each should be the longest that should be considered because then it would be 2 days total.)

The winner would have 12 or 24 hours from the time of winning to complete the transaction. If they don't complete it in time, then the plot would be available again for another round. Just my suggestion.

But without this system, people buy plots and resell at a huge mark up.

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Originally Posted by Talacocheta

Since I'm still new to FFXIV, perhaps I'm not understanding why it's not possible for a person to just walk up and buy a house if they see an empty plot. If it were that way, would it not mean that even if gold were exchanged for the plot, the seller would have no control over someone just walking up and purchasing the plot if it's available - so it wouldn't be something that any buyer would do? Thus, there wouldn't be flipping because there won't be people willing to risk giving their gil to someone when they wouldn't have a guarantee of getting the plot. Perhaps I'm just naive.

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This is how house selling used to work and made flipping really easy. At the end of the day, if you're selling a house you can just not start the process if you can see any player nearby other than the buyer.

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Originally Posted by Talacocheta

Barring just being able to purchase a plot outright, I do support the lottery system, but only if it collects a certain number of people's entries and is within a certain time frame if the limit isn't reached. As an example, if a plot were to come open, it would accept the first _X_ people's entries who try to buy the house, or it would only stay available to accept entries for 12 hours - whichever comes first. That way, people who are actively trying for homes won't have to sit there for days praying for RNG to bless them, and those who get to it early will have a better chance at getting a try because the entry limit may not have been reached yet . (And they won't have to wait forever to find out if they won or not if they do get an entry.)

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There's no real reason to limit the number of entries to anything less than everyone or make the time for entries less than 24 hours.

All that really achieves is pushing people to constantly check the boards because it's still a form RNG to be waiting for decay timers to pop, then on top of that you're praying RNG works out in your favour at the end of the auction.

If you doubled down on this with a 12 hour time limit for the winner to complete the transaction then you're also introducing the joy of hoping the 12 hours to claim actually falls in a window you can actually play in.
Combined with a limited number of entries this would mean you'd probably need to avoid bidding on stuff until later in your normal play time. Otherwise you're either bidding on stuff you'd need to pay for when you can't be online, or you're running the risk of delays in you being online the next day causing you to miss the deadline.


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Personally I'd rather wait til the auto-demo timers are back up, then look at the impact of people who got grandfathered into the new ownership rules (i.e people with more than 1 personal and 1 fc house), and then have another look at the acquisition method.
If we get housing to the point that there's more plots than people interested in housing the timers shouldn't be an issue because we'd likely start seeing plots going for reduced prices.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

But without this system, people buy plots and resell at a huge mark up.

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Ah yes, magically people stopped trading houses at their respective server value. Just because the game is titled Final Fantasy doesn't mean you can live in your very own fantasy.

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Originally Posted by Sairys

This is how house selling used to work and made flipping really easy. At the end of the day, if you're selling a house you can just not start the process if you can see any player nearby other than the buyer.

Personally I'd rather wait til the auto-demo timers are back up, then look at the impact of people who got grandfathered into the new ownership rules (i.e people with more than 1 personal and 1 fc house), and then have another look at the acquisition method.
If we get housing to the point that there's more plots than people interested in housing the timers shouldn't be an issue because we'd likely start seeing plots going for reduced prices.

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Used to? Nothing's changed. Literally nothing has changed for sellers.

The % of houses that are grandfathered to this day is so negligible that it could fall under the margin of error if we were to make an actual poll on how many players own more than 1 personal house. Speaking of error, the actual housing rules are 1 personal per server and up to 8 FC houses per server. Know what you're talking about before spreading false information.

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

Used to? Nothing's changed. Literally nothing has changed for sellers.

The % of houses that are grandfathered to this day is so negligible that it could fall under the margin of error if we were to make an actual poll on how many players own more than 1 personal house. Speaking of error, the actual housing rules are 1 personal per server and up to 8 FC houses per server. Know what you're talking about before spreading false information.

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The random timer changed things significantly. Buying outside relocation now has the risk of the timer being really long which means sellers can't ensure their buyer will even be able to be online when the house becomes available, compared to the previous system.

I'd be interested in where you get the data to make the assertion that it's negligible, of course that would be covered under looking at the impact of them... you know... what I suggested.

Actually, the rules are that you can own 1 personal per server and can only buy an FC house if you are not part of an FC that owns housing on any of your other characters.

Similarly, there is an expectation that FCs should have at least four members to buy a house. The hoops you need to jump through to personally own the full 8 FC houses on a single account make it rather clear it's outside the intention of the rules and is ultimately taking advantage of things such as the game not punishing FCs that fall below the minimums

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

Ah yes, magically people stopped trading houses at their respective server value. Just because the game is titled Final Fantasy doesn't mean you can live in your very own fantasy.

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That pretty much did happen, yes. The one exception is selling to people who already own a home, and so can bypass the timer. But that's a much, much smaller market.

The one living in a fantasy seems to be you, my friend ~.^

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Originally Posted by Sairys

The random timer changed things significantly. Buying outside relocation now has the risk of the timer being really long which means sellers can't ensure their buyer will even be able to be online when the house becomes available, compared to the previous system.

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Nothing stops players from trading FC houses. It's been that way since 2.2. And since 4.2, nothing stops players with personal houses to sell their house through relocation. Literally nothing has changed for sellers.

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Originally Posted by Sairys

I'd be interested in where you get the data to make the assertion that it's negligible, of course that would be covered under looking at the impact of them... you know... what I suggested.

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If you think you can challenge these generous numbers, go ahead. You still won't be able to make it look like grandfathered personal houses are remotely common.

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

Love how you miss the point every single time. Why do you care about grandfathered houses when you don't even need to be grandfathered in order to own more than 1 house? You've been barking at the wrong tree this entire thread. Now you're just all over the place trying to tell me that the actual amount of grandfathered houses doesn't go down.

I know housing way better than you do, just look a few posts up. I can tell you that I own more non grandfathered houses in the Mist than the amount of grandfathered houses left in that specific housing area on my server at this point. The % of players with more than 1 personal houses before 4.2 was already low and let's argue that half of those were intended for resell. Well guess what, these plots have been sold since then. Now you're left with the other half of an already small % of houses that are grandfathered. It's been nearly a year since 4.2. Players have move to different servers, stopped playing, got rid of their extra home because of X reason. Chop that number in half and you end up with a handful of people left with more than 1 personal houses.

There was 2 880 plots per server before 4.2. Let's say a very generous 10% of the houses were owned by players that already had a personal house. So 288 houses. Patch 4.2 increased the amount of plots by 50% and now sits at 4 320. Remove half of the 288 grandfathered plots that were only kept for resell purposes. 144. Remove the other half that have let go of their plots for various other reasons, 72. Barely a full ward... out of the 72 wards available. You're getting pretty close to 1% of houses being owned by grandfathered players.

More houses are auto-demolished every month on Gilgamesh compared to the total amount of grandfathered personal houses. But hey, I don't see you complain about all those people who do absolutely nothing with their house for 45 days. Do you think it's okay to have more than an entire ward in limbo all year long on a populated server?

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Originally Posted by Sairys

Actually, the rules are that you can own 1 personal per server and can only buy an FC house if you are not part of an FC that owns housing on any of your other characters.

Similarly, there is an expectation that FCs should have at least four members to buy a house. The hoops you need to jump through to personally own the full 8 FC houses on a single account make it rather clear it's outside the intention of the rules and is ultimately taking advantage of things such as the game not punishing FCs that fall below the minimums

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

You are clueless. Here are the current requirements for a free company

https://i.imgur.com/KcW6YOr.png


What you are all overlooking is the temporary changes to purchasing land. Some are still ongoing, some are not. How do I know? I wasn't able to purchase more FC houses on the same account when the new wards were only available to FCs or personal houses reolcation.


https://i.imgur.com/jIbAiav.png

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Originally Posted by Frizze

Timing wise, when 4.2 went live there was a 2 week window where only FCs could buy new houses(though people with personal houses could still transfer plots). After 2 weeks they opened up new purchases to players again. During those 2 weeks the restrictions in place prevented someone from picking up an extra FC house, after the 2 weeks passed anyone could purchase normally again. On the busier servers those 2 weeks saw a ton of FCs finally get their housing and most(or all) of the plots getting bought up before individuals could make purchases again. On the medium and smaller servers some of those plots have yet to be purchased 11 months later.

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Originally Posted by Brynne

It's true that the limitation on FC houses per account was quietly lifted (probably when personal housing could be bought again), and I actually agree that this is a good thing. SE needs to make up their mind about how to deal with alts, and the housing situation has kind of forced their hand but they're still waffling over it, probably because it goes against their original stance.

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Originally Posted by MizArai

It was listed as a temporary change. They never said when it was lifted, but you can now buy FC houses on an account where other characters are in an FC that already owns a house.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

That pretty much did happen, yes. The one exception is selling to people who already own a home, and so can bypass the timer. But that's a much, much smaller market.

The one living in a fantasy seems to be you, my friend ~.^

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Much smaller market? You have your first time house owners fight in the goblet to acquire their first plot and the they end up paying an other player to get out of that hell hole all the time. Once again, nothing's changed for sellers. And as I said above, FC house trading as been a thing since 2.2...

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Originally Posted by kellyvs

I would also like to see an implementation that does not involved any form of RNG. I would hope that it would not just turn into an auction type system though. As all that would do is allow the super rich players to control the housing market. Would you have any ideas for a non-rng solution Penthea?

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Instanced housing. Currently only the interior of houses are instanced. If the outside was as well we would have no need for wards, which would mean there would be no limitation on the amount of houses in the game. This is how most mmorpgs tackle housing. But I think if SE were interested in doing that we would have it by now. There are of course a multitude of ways to make the ward system better, but better does not mean ideal. As long as there are a limited amount of plots, someone will always be unfairly left out.

Personally I'd love to see something I like to call micro-wards. You buy a little instance that has a huge plot of land and in it you can build as many houses as the land will fit. That way you can create your own little neighbourhood whether you like to hoard houses, want your characters to live together, live near a bunch of friends, or make a neighbourhood with your fc. I feel this would be the best of both worlds. We would have what people like about wards, but with the benefits of instanced housing.

I don't know if you're aware, but there will be data centre splits along with the introduction of world visiting sometime between now and Shadowbringers. World visiting means you will be able to visit any server on your data centre as much as you like. What this means for someone like you is you could change your home server to a lower population server, buy a house, but still visit your old server and hang out with any friends you left behind as long as they're on the same data centre. You can only buy houses on your home server. There will be free transfers when this feature is launched. This is how the NA data centres will be split.

If anyone plans on doing the above I advise that you start preparing now. Figure out what servers are most likely to have plots available, make note of wards or subdivisions you think you would have a good chance, and have enough gil to buy any class of plot of your desired house size so you won't be blocked by being short something small like 200k gil.

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Originally Posted by Sairys

I'd be interested in where you get the data to make the assertion that it's negligible, of course that would be covered under looking at the impact of them... you know... what I suggested.

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Take what that poster says with a grain of salt. He often makes very bold claims that he cannot back up. He has a strong distaste for changing the current system because he currently benefits from how broken it is. If his claim of having 27 ungrandfathered plots is true.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Personally I'd love to see something I like to call micro-wards. You buy a little instance that has a huge plot of land and in it you can build as many houses as the land will fit. That way you can create your own little neighbourhood whether you like to hoard houses, want your characters to live together, live near a bunch of friends, or make a neighbourhood with your fc. I feel this would be the best of both worlds. We would have what people like about wards, but with the benefits of instanced housing.

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I've thought about this kind of idea a few times and really like it as it offers the best of both worlds. I'm guessing it's outside of the scope of what SE is willing to do with housing considering how little they seem to want to throw at the current problem, but it would be amazing if they offered something like this. I'm still holding out hope for something instanced and unlimited with the hinted-at Ishgard housing, but I'm kind of doubting we'll get it at this point. It'd be nice if SE made some indication that they were aware that housing has major issues and were looking into the problem, but their silence seems to indicate that it's not high on their priority list.

As far as the 4.2 temporary restrictions went, even BALMUNG still had plenty of empty plots when it opeened up for player housing. Sure, I think they were probably all small plots, but myself and several others were able to pick up plots when they opened up to private purchases.

As far as the system, I wouldn't mind if a new system was added, but I can understand if SE doesn't want people selling plots directly. THey can't 100% kill this because you can still trade/sell fc houses, but not allowing new purchases at least cuts down on that. You can also sell a plot for someone to xfer into, but at least this has the benefit of the old plot being openeed up for someone to buy as a silver lining.

Yes it's luck based, but honestly, so is getting a plot at all. If they removed the timer, you would have to be lucky to scoop up a house after one gets demolished before someone else swings by. If there was a lottery system you'd have to be lucky to win it, etc.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Take what that poster says with a grain of salt. He often makes very bold claims that he cannot back up. He has a strong distaste for changing the current system because he currently benefits from how broken it is. If his claim of having 27 ungrandfathered plots is true.

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Struck a cord haven't I? Funny how you're still reading despite publicly mentioning that you blocked me to avoid digging your hole deeper than it already was.

Let me remind fellow members that you're the one that had no idea about the housing rules here:

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Originally Posted by Penthea

It appears :rolleyes: that I had outdated info, and that SE have not publicly stated that the limitation on the purchasing of fc houses was lifted, if the information you have provided is to be believed. I bow down on this particular argument. You are correct. You can buy multiple fc plots without loopholes. I am more informed about this now. Thank you

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That you got caught trying to back one of your post with false information here:

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I can't even begin to count how many times in this thread I have been told about people who lovingly decorated their 3/7/15/etc houses.

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

Show me the posts in this thread where players have come out to talk about their 3/7/15 decorated houses. They don't seem to exist ;) ;)

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Not to mention you refused to even challenge my numbers regarding grandfathered houses on multiple occasions. Not surprising when you don't know what you're talking about.

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Originally Posted by Brynne

I've thought about this kind of idea a few times and really like it as it offers the best of both worlds. I'm guessing it's outside of the scope of what SE is willing to do with housing considering how little they seem to want to throw at the current problem, but it would be amazing if they offered something like this. I'm still holding out hope for something instanced and unlimited with the hinted-at Ishgard housing, but I'm kind of doubting we'll get it at this point. It'd be nice if SE made some indication that they were aware that housing has major issues and were looking into the problem, but their silence seems to indicate that it's not high on their priority list.

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Yea I'm holding out for hope that Ishgard will have at least something new going on with it other than just housing skins and a new zone. Maybe SE will surprise us with an improved ward system. Maybe the reward for completing the rebuilding of Ishgard will be an instanced player house. Or maybe not. I'm expecting more of the same but I'm hoping for better.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Yea I'm holding out for hope that Ishgard will have at least something new going on with it other than just housing skins and a new zone. Maybe SE will surprise us with an improved ward system. Maybe the reward for completing the rebuilding of Ishgard will be an instanced player house. Or maybe not. I'm expecting more of the same but I'm hoping for better.

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I'm expecting another housing ward but I'd love it if anyone who finished the ishgard doh/dol endgame stuff could get their own instanced house separate from a ward system. It's just a question I suppose of how people would visit it, the nice thing about wards is it's easy for people to just pop in if you're holding RP events etc, if they had a system where only party members or friends could visit your ishgard house it would cut into that.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I'm expecting another housing ward but I'd love it if anyone who finished the ishgard doh/dol endgame stuff could get their own instanced house separate from a ward system. It's just a question I suppose of how people would visit it, the nice thing about wards is it's easy for people to just pop in if you're holding RP events etc, if they had a system where only party members or friends could visit your ishgard house it would cut into that.

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I am pretty sure that he said it wouldn't be a housing ward, but that they were "planning something different." It was in one of the more recent live letters or interviews since the North American fan fest. So I guess we'll see?

I'm watching people camp the plot next to my FC home and it's a special kind of suffering. And I know for a fact several people are using macros/programs to spam it.

It's a not good system. Controller/console users don't begin to stand a chance.

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Originally Posted by InkstainedGwyn

I am pretty sure that he said it wouldn't be a housing ward, but that they were "planning something different." It was in one of the more recent live letters or interviews since the North American fan fest. So I guess we'll see?

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I don't recall them saying anything specific. In fact, I don't recall them even confirming ishgard housing directly, just Yoshi P saying 'I wan to LIVE in Ishgard!' during the segment about the restoration of ishgard content. Was there an interview or something where they went into more detail?

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

Much smaller market? You have your first time house owners fight in the goblet to acquire their first plot and the they end up paying an other player to get out of that hell hole all the time. Once again, nothing's changed for sellers. And as I said above, FC house trading as been a thing since 2.2...

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So first you claim first time buyers are paying other buyers to go away, and then you claim nothing's changed for sellers. You've sunk your own argument.

And that's assuming I believe you about people paying others to leave, which I don't particularly.

The timer system killed off a lot of house selling, as you can no longer effectively sell to first time buyers. Ideally housing would be unlimited, but it's not, so simply deleting measures that discourage house flipping isn't a good idea.

Yeah. You can't sell to first time buyers, unless the guyer is gullable or willing to take a gamble I suppose.

You can still sell for transfers. I have a small plot so in theory I could pay someone to abandon a medium plot and move up. Or I could pay someone in a Shirogane plot to abandon and move out of the Goblet. (Though it works out well for me because the Goblet is my favorite housing area anyway.)

Also, free companies. Someone can still sell a free company with a plot to another person, first time housing or not.

So while you can't reliably sell plots to first time buyers anymore, cutting down on the customer pool on realms without available plots, house selling isn't gone enitrely.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

So first you claim first time buyers are paying other buyers to go away, and then you claim nothing's changed for sellers. You've sunk your own argument.

And that's assuming I believe you about people paying others to leave, which I don't particularly.

The timer system killed off a lot of house selling, as you can no longer effectively sell to first time buyers. Ideally housing would be unlimited, but it's not, so simply deleting measures that discourage house flipping isn't a good idea.

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Hilarious. You missed the point by a mile. Let me clarify what was already obvious.

The plots no one wants to relocate to are in the Goblet. Therefore, players that desire a house only really have a shot at the plots that are available in the Goblet. These players do not typically desire a plot in the goblet because it's arguably the worst housing area to be in. Therefore, players who manage to get their first house in the Goblet sometimes (often) pay another player with a more desirable plot so they can get out of the ghetto that is the goblet.

I've never said anything about buyers paying other buyers to leave a placard alone or anything remotely similar. If you still want to believe that players don't pay other players in order to relocate to a more desirable plot, then you probably think players don't get involved in RMT or content sales.

Anyway, lemme say it again for the record.

Sellers are no affected by the new rules, because they can still sell FC houses just like they always did and they can still sell a personal plot to a player that wants to relocate out of the terrible plot they got due to the new system.

I'm curious, why do people not like the Goblet? Is it the layout? The general aesthetic? The interior layout stuff you can't change?

I guess it works out well for me being my favorite housing area if everyone else hates it.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I'm curious, why do people not like the Goblet? Is it the layout? The general aesthetic? The interior layout stuff you can't change?

I guess it works out well for me being my favorite housing area if everyone else hates it.

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Unless you get a house right by the pools, it's canyons, rocks, and fog. Mist has a really simple to navigate layout plus the beach, Beds is full of flower power and streams, and Shiro is weeb town. It's aesthetically harder to compete and the pillars may be undesirable as well.

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Originally Posted by Gula

Unless you get a house right by the pools, it's canyons, rocks, and fog. Mist has a really simple to navigate layout plus the beach, Beds is full of flower power and streams, and Shiro is weeb town. It's aesthetically harder to compete and the pillars may be undesirable as well.

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I would xfer to Ishgard in a heartbeat if I could.

I guess it's just a matter of taste then, I just happen to like the canyons and the layout of the Goblet itself with its tunnels and levels etc.

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Originally Posted by Gula

Unless you get a house right by the pools, it's canyons, rocks, and fog. Mist has a really simple to navigate layout plus the beach, Beds is full of flower power and streams, and Shiro is weeb town. It's aesthetically harder to compete and the pillars may be undesirable as well.

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Personally I like the canyon views in Goblet better than the plots by the Brimming Heart. For me, the layout in Goblet is the problem. Most of the houses are staring squarely at other houses and it's usually the backs or sides, not the fronts.

I like the earth tone aesthetics and I created an autumn forest for outside our FC house that doesn't look all that out of place. I do wish that SE would have used xeriscape design for decoration instead of dumping a bunch of huge ugly swimming pools into the middle of Goblet and thinking that improves the look because it doesn't.

I like the pool personally, though maybe that's just me. The pool was added because they wanted to give all four housing wards an area to swim in. I think the goblet used to have a shallow little pool area before, but not deep enough to swim, I think that got removed when they revamped it for the new pool area though.

If the goblet is unpopular though that's good news for me, maybe it'll make it easier to eventually snag a medium plot there than it would be in the other areas. Though if we get Ishgard housing, depending on what they do I may be tempted into that...