Something has to be done about the housing RNG timer...

Today marks the 10th time I've camped out in front of a house for over 4 hours (sometimes in excess of 9 hours) spam clicking hoping that I'll be the person to get the house. I've failed every time. I hate doing this, but it is literally the only way to get housing on my server. I care less about the RNG part of this, and more about the fact that I have to dedicate huge chunks of my time to brainless clicking to even have a shot. Maybe let us just put our names in a hat if we are interested, hold the money in deposit, and randomly pick when the timer is done so that we aren't all just standing staring at a placard all day.

The worst part about the housing timer is that it really only serves to encourage breaking the rules and running a script.

This is where it would be nice to have a slums like area in housing districts, that way everyone could at least have something to call home instead of being a homeless vagabond.

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Originally Posted by TheJarvisMan

Today marks the 10th time I've camped out in front of a house for over 4 hours (sometimes in excess of 9 hours) spam clicking hoping that I'll be the person to get the house. I've failed every time. I hate doing this, but it is literally the only way to get housing on my server. I care less about the RNG part of this, and more about the fact that I have to dedicate huge chunks of my time to brainless clicking to even have a shot. Maybe let us just put our names in a hat if we are interested, hold the money in deposit, and randomly pick when the timer is done so that we aren't all just standing staring at a placard all day.

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There are more efficient ways to get what you want. Stop wasting your free time.

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Originally Posted by dapperfaffer

This is where it would be nice to have a slums like area in housing districts, that way everyone could at least have something to call home instead of being a homeless vagabond.

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It's called apartments.

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

There are more efficient ways to get what you want. Stop wasting your free time.

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I plan to. In the meantime, SE should make this more accessible though.

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Originally Posted by TheJarvisMan

Today marks the 10th time I've camped out in front of a house for over 4 hours (sometimes in excess of 9 hours) spam clicking hoping that I'll be the person to get the house. I've failed every time. I hate doing this, but it is literally the only way to get housing on my server. I care less about the RNG part of this, and more about the fact that I have to dedicate huge chunks of my time to brainless clicking to even have a shot. Maybe let us just put our names in a hat if we are interested, hold the money in deposit, and randomly pick when the timer is done so that we aren't all just standing staring at a placard all day.

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Just yesterday I was giving moral support to a friend over a small plot that opened recently in Mist, him and 4-8 other players were standing there waiting over 12 hours for the timer to open up...I waited with them for like, 4 or so hours, chatting and killing time. Some of the suggestions were putting bids like an auction, or make a global notification that a house is available and let interested players make a run for it a la Black Friday.

PS: Elise, if you read this, I'm really sorry you couldn't get it, best of luck!

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Originally Posted by dapperfaffer

This is where it would be nice to have a slums like area in housing districts, that way everyone could at least have something to call home instead of being a homeless vagabond.

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Funny enough, while we were waiting I joked we might as well make a mini Gatetown around the placard lol

They could just turn it into a live auction. House goes up for sale for 1 mil start price, and increases in a set increment (lets say 200k a bid.) As long as people keep bidding, the price point remains open. The catch, however, is you have to put in your cash on bid. So if you bid for 1.2 million, it takes your 1.2 million and holds it. If the timer on teh bid expires, you win the house. If someone outbids you, it holds your money. Should you choose to take another stab at it, itll take the amount needed to overcome the other bid. So if you bid 1.2 million, the other player bids 1.4, youd need to bid 1.6 million to be high bidder. That means itll extract 400k more and add it to the balance you have already provided. If you decide the amount is to much, then you can withdraw at as long as youre not the highest bidder. Highest bidder's money is locked in and cannot be withdrawn unless they win or are outbid. If the Auction ends and you arent the winner, the money is mailed back you.

Furthermore lets say you have to be highest bidder for 12 hours before you win the plot. If someone outbids you at 11 hours 59 minutes, then the timer restarts. If they want to be super savvy, they could hook up the bidding system to the FFXIV app. So if youre outbid, the app will notify you and you can place a new bid so long as you have the cash on your character (not retainers. Has to be on your actual character). This way you dont have to be logged in to bid on a house that youre already interested in. Mind you, you wouldnt be able to bid on multiple properties. Only one bid at a time.

Should make it more fair. If you have tons of gil, youll have more buying power. So people who craft or gather may have a better time of it. Furthermore, you cant abuse it by putting down 10 million at once. Its a set increment. Perhaps the increment can be different depending on small, medium, or large housing. If its hooked up to the app, youll be aware of how your bid is going and with the timer reset, you'll have time to outbid so no one can ninja it from you last second. On a 12 hour timer, should give most reasonable people time to sleep or work without losing the bid. And for people who want to troll the market, they have to be careful because if they become high bidder, they're stuck. Set that up with ensuring 1 house per character per realm, and you wont have to worry about people with multiple characters taking up housing.

Should help fix the system, and reward players who got the cash and determination to actually get a house to have better opportunity.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

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This would lead to +50mil small houses, houses that barely leave the timer because people keep outbidding each other, and the same experience: people having to put aside hours to assure they get the house.

This potential system isn't better. It would just cost more.

Instead of some convoluted system, they could just make the timer visible on the placard. The simple fact that you can't demo a house and instantly let someone buy it will still serve the desired function of preventing player-to-player housing sales of property not attached to an FC, and it will also eliminate the need to camp the plot for hours, usually in vain.

Wait, what's this about a RNG timer? Isn't it just the first to click after the timer ends gets the house?

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Originally Posted by Akamukai

Wait, what's this about a RNG timer? Isn't it just the first to click after the timer ends gets the house?

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Yeah, but the timer is completely random. It could be an hour, it could be a day. I don't necessarily agree with it but I understand why they added it.

It's meant to be a reward through pvp so I would be surprised if they ever made it a lottery. Although placard clicking is the absolute worse. It at least evens the playing field. It favors people who spend time while not alienating those who don't have that much (because they could get lucky). A lottery system would just remove the pvp nature of it and make it less rewarding and less like what the devs originally envisioned.

Similarly, making it an auction (regardless of currency be it gil, gathering mats, collectables, quests, grinds etc) would completely alienate those who have jobs or school as they are unlikely to be competitive.

There's no simple way of fixing this. I think they should make the placard refresh every 10-20mn or so instead of the current situation where it could happen at any moment.

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Originally Posted by Akamukai

Wait, what's this about a RNG timer? Isn't it just the first to click after the timer ends gets the house?

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Housing has an invisible timer. The timer you see is the timer that drops the price of the house. The invisible timer makes it so the house can't be bought until the timer runs out. Apparently it goes from anywhere from a couple hours to 24 hours.

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Originally Posted by Hash_Browns

This would lead to +50mil small houses, houses that barely leave the timer because people keep outbidding each other, and the same experience: people having to put aside hours to assure they get the house.

This potential system isn't better. It would just cost more.

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2.1 prices or higher would be beneficial as it would actually remove a lot of gil from the game instead of having it simply exchange hands. 50m right now is absolutely nothing because SE has nerfed housing prices into the ground.

Let people fight each other through the devaluation timer, not by using automation or by wasting their free time.

reminder that when shirogane came out people were trying to buy mansions off of others for over a billion gil. You heard that right. You definitely don't want to make housing a bidding war.

After having waited about almost 2 years to get into a house, I was finally able to get one due to the current new raid that came out. 15 houses went up, and I was able to snag one less than an hour into the new raid early in the morning post maintenance. I had to come back a few times during the raid conditions of clearing and then coming back, but managed to snag one. By then, there was still 4 plots left at about 10AM or PDT. Alternatively, I was able to get a house on an alternative account (a second account) just because no one was buying the houses when we were in the stormblood months of no updates (where players take breaks for months), which is usually also the best time to consider looking into and purchasing housing. Sometimes, being patient helps. It's always gonna be luck of the draw otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Hash_Browns

Housing has an invisible timer. The timer you see is the timer that drops the price of the house. The invisible timer makes it so the house can't be bought until the timer runs out. Apparently it goes from anywhere from a couple hours to 24 hours.

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Dang, had no idea. And here I lost my house because I wasn't active enough. Guess I should have held onto it better.

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Originally Posted by Akamukai

Dang, had no idea. And here I lost my house because I wasn't active enough. Guess I should have held onto it better.

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We shouldn't have to be subbed to hold onto houses since we've already paid for them.

If housing was designed the way apartments are we wouldn't have to. At the moment houses are a limited resource so unfortunately we have to deal with it since otherwise we'd end up with even worse deserted wards and no active players having a house.

Can only see this becoming more of an issue the more popular the game becomes.

I don't understand why they don't just do a lottery system. It's essentially the same thing as we have now except people won't be forced to either no-life camp or script.

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Originally Posted by TheLittlestLala

I don't understand why they don't just do a lottery system. It's essentially the same thing as we have now except people won't be forced to either no-life camp or script.

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Replacing RNG with RNG...

/clap

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Originally Posted by Mew_FC

Replacing RNG with RNG...

/clap

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Yeah, one working but dysfunctional system for a straight up terrible one? No thanks. I don't understand why some people seem to think a lottery would be any better.

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Originally Posted by Mew_FC

Replacing RNG with RNG...

/clap

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It's to prevent people from standing at the board praying, or bots spamming it, not really to help with anything else. I know that's a bit counter to the thread (housing RNG timer), but it is a potential solution to spamming the board.

Ultimately the best solution imo would be to replace RNG with all you can eat housing where you want a house then you get a house of whatever size (still need to invest, but the costs could be more gradient). Personally would like my own space like wildstar but there are loads of suggestions out there like phasing individual plots over one to a small handful of wards (such that everyone shares the same outdoor space, it would be more busy than split over the many wards we have now so that's good for the neighborhood vibe) .

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Originally Posted by Akamukai

Wait, what's this about a RNG timer? Isn't it just the first to click after the timer ends gets the house?

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The timer itself is random and invisible to anyone. It also has a range of up to at least 22 hours meaning that to maximize your chance at a getting a house you stand at the placard spam-clicking against everyone else from the time it opens up until the time the random/invisible clock runs up (which again can be at least up to 22 hours).

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Originally Posted by TheJarvisMan

The timer itself is random and invisible to anyone. It also has a range of up to at least 22 hours meaning that to maximize your chance at a getting a house you stand at the placard spam-clicking against everyone else from the time it opens up until the time the random/invisible clock runs up (which again can be at least up to 22 hours).

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There's currently a bot camping the house I want, so I'm not even going to bother.

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Originally Posted by Akamukai

There's currently a bot camping the house I want, so I'm not even going to bother.

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If you know it's a bot, you can report the bot. I've reported several users using key programs (you can tell with how many minutes and seconds per check and look away of the placard). If they're at set times, you'll know each time they check by just hovering over their name and watching the clock. They're not hard to tell who is and isn't a bot lol.

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

Let people fight each other through the devaluation timer, not by using automation or by wasting their free time.

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This only benefits those with lots of gil or omnicrafters. Devaluation timer means nothing to such people who have the gil to buy entire wards.

The fairest system would be instanced housing.

If SE wants to keep the persistent neighbourhood system, I second the idea of a lottery system, where a limited number of people can bid on a specific plot or any random plot which opens up.

For the random plots, players can decide whether they want small,medium or large.

The limit on the number of people for specific plots should be lesser than people who bid on any random plot which opens up.

When they bid on the house, players will have to put down gil as a refundable deposit which they will get back if they are not successful.

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Originally Posted by Hash_Browns

This would lead to +50mil small houses, houses that barely leave the timer because people keep outbidding each other, and the same experience: people having to put aside hours to assure they get the house.

This potential system isn't better. It would just cost more.

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Did you say give people more reasons to buy RMT gold!? Lol

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Originally Posted by TwistedTea

This only benefits those with lots of gil or omnicrafters. Devaluation timer means nothing to such people who have the gil to buy entire wards.

The fairest system would be instanced housing.

If SE wants to keep the persistent neighbourhood system, I second the idea of a lottery system, where a limited number of people can bid on a specific plot or any random plot which opens up.

For the random plots, players can decide whether they want small,medium or large.

The limit on the number of people for specific plots should be lesser than people who bid on any random plot which opens up.

When they bid on the house, players will have to put down gil as a refundable deposit which they will get back if they are not successful.

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No, this benefits anyone who's willing to put in the effort required for something that is limited. There's a very good reason as to why there's a lot of players running with hundred mils, the lack of gil sinks. The more money these players actually spend on house purchases, the better.

You said it yourself, the devaluation timer is meaningless to some players. That is until there's no more gil left to be spent. So bring back the 2.1 price charts and let the wealthy players spend 600m for a mansion. Eventually the plots will drop to half of their maximum value and the proletariat can buy up what's left.

At small servers it is to easy, at big ones to hard.
At Moogle i had a mansion myself in the woods... it was simply there and buyable for multiple hours already.
On Phoenix however you usually are happy to get a small house after many hours of spending in front of plots ;D
Quite happy i managed to get myself a nice small house at the beach, but do have to add that it did take me a good while of standing and clicking. Lost the first 2 houses i went for