New lottery info from Live Letter

(think I've caught all the major points now that I watched this part of the Live Letter a second time)

"Each player may only enter the lottery for one plot of land during each lottery period."

Each member of a FC with land purchase permissions will be able to purchase a ticket on behalf of the FC during the same lottery period. This is intentional. With this being a multi-player game, they want the large FCs that have active player communities to have that advantage.

Each entry on behalf of a FC will still require the full purchase price of the plot to be deposited, and the FC will still only be able to purchase a single plot even if more than one member entering for different plots win.

Those who don't win will be refunded in full. Failure to purchase a plot if won will result in loss of the gil (original slide from Nov said it would be half the gil lost so not sure whether they changed their mind or he wasn't being specific about the amount lost).

As of 6.1, there will be 4 ways to purchase: FC lottery, FC first come first serve, individual lottery and individual first come first serve. First come first serve is the same as what we currently have (other than the FC or individual restriction). Each existing ward will be designated as one of these types (subdivisions may be different from the main ward of the same number) but are subject to change each patch based on need. We will be able to confirm what type a ward is in game.

The initial exception: in 6.1, all wards will be using the lottery. If they get feedback indicating strong demand for first come first serve, they will consider designating a few wards as such. They would prefer not to use first come first serve at first because of the potential impact it would create on log in queues. They are looking for players to post their feedback in the forums. Wards would start getting the first come first serve designation when there is more housing available for everyone? I wonder if they're thinking about when new worlds start getting added later this year.

That will really skew the favour towards the bot players. They aready run 3 or 4 clients, each of those with 8 people is 32 times a better chance at winning than your average bunny-boi in 2B bottoms.

32 times the chance for your average botter.

Then of course, sell leadership in the FC and profit.

(Heck, I have 2 service accounts, so could do 16 times the chance of your average bunny-boi in 2B bottoms)

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Originally Posted by Shibi

That will really skew the favour towards the bot players. They aready run 3 or 4 clients, each of those with 8 people is 32 times a better chance at winning than your average bunny-boi in 2B bottoms.

32 times the chance for your average botter.

Then of course, sell leadership in the FC and profit.

(Heck, I have 2 service accounts, so could do 16 times the chance of your average bunny-boi in 2B bottoms)

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That there will be some advantage is undeniable (bots are always at an advantage) but I'm going to hold off with an opinion about just how much of an advantage this will create for the bot resellers until we see the specifics on the new FC leadership rules and more specific on the housing system (there were some other small changes mentioned back in November that weren't mentioned tonight). I imagine we'll get more detail in one of the 6.1 Live Letters (the first will be March 4th).

I still don't see any useful purpose in first come first serve now they're committed to the lottery system. Just for the sake of fairness it would be better to go lottery so those with lots of time to camp don't have a large advantage over those who don't (bots will be a problem in either situation). First come, first serve doesn't make much sense unless we get back to a point where there are plots sitting vacant for weeks at a time because supply has caught up with demand.

Hmm. My question is, and forgive me if I missed it somewhere in there I haven't had coffee yet, is it limited to 1 ticket per *account* or can you basically use all your alts to put in tickets?

One ticket per a character.
This is why they are not too concerning with large FC gaining advantage because each FC member would want to get a try on their own personal house too

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

One ticket per a character.
This is why they are not too concerning with large FC gaining advantage because each FC member would want to get a try on their own personal house too

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Huh. So I could use all 8 of my characters in an FC on another server to buy tickets. Interesting to see how this gets exploited.

I mean lottery is not something you buy more and you get higher chance anyway.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

One ticket per a character.
This is why they are not too concerning with large FC gaining advantage because each FC member would want to get a try on their own personal house too

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Large FCs won't have a problem coming up with members able to donate their entry for the lottery period to the FC. They'll have a lot of members who either already own a personal house (and aren't interested in relocating) or who have no interest in owning a house. If my old FC wanted to relocate their house in a lottery, they'd have no trouble coming up with at least 20 members available to buy an entry.

Coming up with the gil will be a more substantial barrier to multiple entries for the large FCs. They'd still have to come up with the full purchase price for each entry purchased and most FCs just do not have that sort of gil unless they've already got a house with an established workshop. Not every member is going to have gil they're willing to let the FC "borrow" for the lottery period.

The real advantage will be for those running multiple workshops for profit and the flippers. They tend to have multiple service accounts and hundreds of millions (if not billions) of gil. All they need to do is shuffle their characters around so the characters that were the "buyers" for their FCs in the past have either been deleted and replaced, or are in the new FCs trying to buy a house.

There are still plenty of loopholes in the system to take advantage of unless SE is going to tighten the restrictions even further and go to manual review of accounts with multiple FC houses to check for suspicious activity. The only deterrent will be the new waiting period before FC Master can be transferred, and I doubt it will be long enough to be effective.

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Originally Posted by Nepentha

Huh. So I could use all 8 of my characters in an FC on another server to buy tickets. Interesting to see how this gets exploited.

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Players will use it to gain an advantage in obtaining a specific plot for their FC, of course. It still doesn't guarantee the FC will win the plot if there are others who have also entered.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

I mean lottery is not something you buy more and you get higher chance anyway.

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This is more of a raffle than a lottery because there is a guaranteed winner. More entries by a single player/FC for the same plot can translate to a better chance to win as a result. The amount of advantage is going to be dependent on how many other entries there are for the same plot. If there are 500 entries for a plot, having 8 entries won't mean much. If there are only 10, it becomes a large advantage.

Those trying to purchase an Ishgard plot at release will definitely have an advantage using multiple entries considering there will be over 1400 plots per world for players to pick from. If there are 10,000 characters trying to purchase, that's going to be an average of about 7 entries per plot (some plots may only have 1, 2 or even no entries as players compete for more desirable plots). Once the initial supply dries up and the unlucky players are left fighting over a handful of still available plots, the advantage will mostly disappear until the next housing expansion when hundreds of plots are again available at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

That will really skew the favour towards the bot players. They aready run 3 or 4 clients, each of those with 8 people is 32 times a better chance at winning than your average bunny-boi in 2B bottoms.

32 times the chance for your average botter.

Then of course, sell leadership in the FC and profit.

(Heck, I have 2 service accounts, so could do 16 times the chance of your average bunny-boi in 2B bottoms)

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Here's the thing, they're also killing fc sales. So no "new" person to the fc may be transferred leadership or be allowed to make sales via placard.

Here is land pricing chart, if anyone has yet to see it. Considering the gil that would have to be sunk into this method and who will come out on top as usual.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../housing_land/

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Originally Posted by stulticaeruleum

Here's the thing, they're also killing fc sales. So no "new" person to the fc may be transferred leadership or be allowed to make sales via placard.

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Correct will have to wait until the new person can accept leadership. Also opens the door that if you buy from a seller and decorate before gainging leadership. The seller can clean the house out and fc bank and get away with no repircussions for it. As they will have legitimate access to the house.

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Originally Posted by stulticaeruleum

Here's the thing, they're also killing fc sales. So no "new" person to the fc may be transferred leadership or be allowed to make sales via placard.

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Problem is still demand is higher then supply. So FC Selling will still be a thing even under the new rules. It just takes longer. Players are just desperate to hop through every ring of fire to get a property.
So there will still be people to buy an FC even at higher risks now as long the supply provided by Square isnt high enough. And I would bet on it that the Value of Large/Medium will raise to the skies.

Darn so I’m gonna have to choose whether to put in a lottery ticket for my personal or my FC. Wish I could do both. This is a tough decision. Honestly.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Correct will have to wait until the new person can accept leadership. Also opens the door that if you buy from a seller and decorate before gainging leadership. The seller can clean the house out and fc bank and get away with no repircussions for it. As they will have legitimate access to the house.

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A smart buyer won't pay the seller anything until the new member period has passed so FC Master can be transferred. I don't think that's going to end up getting in anyone's way. The seller is at no risk by having the buyer in the FC since they'll control permissions.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Darn so I’m gonna have to choose whether to put in a lottery ticket for my personal or my FC. Wish I could do both. This is a tough decision. Honestly.

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If it's "your" FC, the choice is obvious. The sooner you get a FC house, the sooner you can start building your workshop and charging grade 3 actions.

If it's just a FC you belong to, it likely has other members capable of purchasing entries for the FC so put your personal first.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

A smart buyer won't pay the seller anything until the new member period has passed so FC Master can be transferred. I don't think that's going to end up getting in anyone's way. The seller is at no risk by having the buyer in the FC since they'll control permissions.


If it's "your" FC, the choice is obvious. The sooner you get a FC house, the sooner you can start building your workshop and charging grade 3 actions.

If it's just a FC you belong to, it likely has other members capable of purchasing entries for the FC so put your personal first.

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And a smart seller wont stop trying to sell the house until gil is in their hands even if a buyer is present in the fc. Works both ways..

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Darn so I’m gonna have to choose whether to put in a lottery ticket for my personal or my FC. Wish I could do both. This is a tough decision. Honestly.

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You have time to make an alt to buy the FC house. They made no mention of one ticket per account, just per player.

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Originally Posted by stulticaeruleum

Here's the thing, they're also killing fc sales. So no "new" person to the fc may be transferred leadership or be allowed to make sales via placard.

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They are not killing them. They are adding a wait on new members being granted leadership. Simple to do with either the selling leaving their level 1 in for that period, probably just resigning and leaving the FC leaderless, then letting the existing systems move leadership to the new player who bought it. It just delays ownership, doesnt stop this.

A second exploit for FC sales just came to my mind in the other thread. Selling your winning ticket. Goldseller/Housing collector enters 32 times and before claiming the property puts up an ad in a sellers discord to sell their winning ticket. They join the homeless FC, get their gil, are given buy rights, and buy the FC a property with their winning ticket.

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Originally Posted by Nepentha

Huh. So I could use all 8 of my characters in an FC on another server to buy tickets. Interesting to see how this gets exploited.

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It should be ONE per account…period. Doesn’t matter if you have 1 player or 7 alts. This wouldn’t be fair at all if it was per Alt on an account. <Let’s get 10 accounts with each of us having 8 alts and go bid on it 80 times compared to my once>. Depending on how fair SE makes this, I might have to drop FF. Nothing worst than a game that isn’t fair to everyone.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

A second exploit for FC sales just came to my mind in the other thread. Selling your winning ticket. Goldseller/Housing collector enters 32 times and before claiming the property puts up an ad in a sellers discord to sell their winning ticket. They join the homeless FC, get their gil, are given buy rights, and buy the FC a property with their winning ticket.

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Unless SE is totally dumb, this will not work. They already announced that joining a new FC will place you into a new member period where you can't be granted land acquisition permissions. If you don't have the permission, then you won't be able to make the actual purchase of the plot.

I don't see SE making the new member period shorter than the land acquisition period after a drawing.

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Originally Posted by Fenril7

It should be ONE per account…period. Doesn’t matter if you have 1 player or 7 alts. This wouldn’t be fair at all if it was per Alt on an account. <Let’s get 10 accounts with each of us having 8 alts and go bid on it 80 times compared to my once>. Depending on how fair SE makes this, I might have to drop FF. Nothing worst than a game that isn’t fair to everyone.

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As much as I agree, I don't think SE's programming for FCs is sophisticated enough for this. Alts within a FC get treated like unique members.

I'm sure SE is trying to make it as fair as they can under the limitations of the current system (why someone who already "has as buyer" a FC house cannot enter for another house for another FC on the same world) but they're not going to be able to cover all the possible exploits for the ward system.

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Originally Posted by Fenril7

It should be ONE per account…period. Doesn’t matter if you have 1 player or 7 alts. This wouldn’t be fair at all if it was per Alt on an account. <Let’s get 10 accounts with each of us having 8 alts and go bid on it 80 times compared to my once>. Depending on how fair SE makes this, I might have to drop FF. Nothing worst than a game that isn’t fair to everyone.

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Oh I agree. I definitely agree, cause I know this is going to be exploited. Call me Cassandra I guess.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I'm sure SE is trying to make it as fair as they can under the limitations of the current system (why someone who already "has as buyer" a FC house cannot enter for another house for another FC on the same world) but they're not going to be able to cover all the possible exploits for the ward system.

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Well then, the next best way is to require each “member” to be a certain level (50) and have at least a company rank of Second Lieutenant.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Those who don't win will be refunded in full. Failure to purchase a plot if won will result in loss of the gil (original slide from Nov said it would be half the gil lost so not sure whether they changed their mind or he wasn't being specific about the amount lost).

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Skipped the Q&A and completely missed the housing portion! Fairly sure that's still in place since they mentioned FC members bidding on multiple plots could lead to gil loss. The only scenario I could imagine that being is if multiple members won a plot and all but one had to take the hit for not following through with the purchase.

The so called FC advantage is all fc members bidding on same plot. It makes sense since this FC is capable of getting so many members contribute to a common goal. They deserve a plot than individual player whose goal is merely origin from ego.

If FC send their their members to bid on multiple plots, that is dumbest move ever because they are throwing away their advantage

Its best for FC members to go all in on one plot. Spreading entries across multiple plots juat lessen your odds.

Is that really true mathematically though?

Let's say your FC wants a specific large plot in Empyreum. A subdivision is essentially the same as the main division, and there are 24 wards, so you have 48 plots.

It's unknown how many wards will be personal vs FC lotteries. Let's assume that for the first lottery, half the wards are FC lotteries.

For the sake of mathematical simplicity, your FC has enough gil and members for 24 bids.

The scenarios are:

1. Your FC puts all the bids in one plot when the lotteries open. The benefit here is that the high amount of bids may intimidate other FCs from bidding. Your FC could also camp a placard and discourage other FCs from bidding for your plot.
2. You hold off coordinating until just before the lottery closes, then choose the plot with the lowest amount of bids.
3. You put in one bid on each eligible plot.

People have to visit every plot to see how many entries are in each plot. So it's unlikely that the distribution of bids will be equal across all plots.

It's likely that the optimal strategy will differ based on the total number of bids and distribution of bids across the wards. I get the feeling that generally the first strategy will be the one to follow for Empyreum, but the Goblet on Sephirot in Materia, as the least popular housing area on the least populated new world, may find the other two strategies as more optimal.

Who knows enough about probability and game theory to sort this out?

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Originally Posted by KidHeracles

I get the feeling that generally the first strategy will be the one to follow for Empyreum, but the Goblet on Sephirot in Materia, as the least popular housing area on the least populated new world, may find the other two strategies as more optimal.

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Ravana has less people than Sephirot.

https://i.gyazo.com/d5a6824608a2f10e...4f9a738fcf.png

For 3... what I think we will see are the multi-gil capped players - the housing primals - will do multiple FC bids in on the property they want over all wards. Unlike FCFS they can't only get one, then miss out on the rest. With lottery they can just take their time and bid on all of them. Chances this way are higher for a win over say using this strategy on an aether world.

Number 1 - I believe - will be used for Emperyum on Materia for large and rich FCs, they will try to scare people off by inflating the number as high as they can, hoping people will move on and enter on other wards.

Number 2 - I believe will be used by the smaller FCs. It's wiser for them to wait and see which is the lowest.

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Originally Posted by KidHeracles

Your FC could also camp a placard and discourage other FCs from bidding for your plot.

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Stop advising this. Intimidating others from bidding falls under harassment and is reportable to the GMs.

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Originally Posted by KidHeracles

Who knows enough about probability and game theory to sort this out?

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The probability part is easy. The game theory part is not.

I did some math on an earlier thread. There's roughly 50k unique players per server and only 4,320 plots per server. That leaves ~45,000 homeless players per server. Presumably, all would want to a chance to buy a house without having to camp a placard. Adding 1,440 new plots has competition of about 30 players per plot. Of course, not all plots are created equal. We can imagine larges will have more competition than smalls, but to what extent? So, I'll just say we have roughly 30 players per plot casting a ticket.

If your FC of 50 players puts all their tickets in on one plot, they'd have a 50/80 chance of winning that plot (after you factor in the average 30 players competing on any given plot). That's a 62.5% chance of winning a plot.

Instead, let's say you send out those 50 FC members to 50 different plots. They would have a 1/31 chance at 50 plots. That yields a roughly 80% chance*** of winning at least one plot. The downside, if you win more than one, you lose that gil. However, I think most players would agree that even if you paid double for a plot of land, if you get what you want, it is worth the extra expense.

*** 30/31 chance of not winning the plot spread across 50 plots becomes a ~20% chance of losing ALL 50 plots. Hence, 80% chance to get at least one plot.

Honestly, I think it makes the most sense to not buy your ticket until the last 30 minutes assuming your FC is organized enough to pull that off. Go with the plots with the least competition.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Honestly, I think it makes the most sense to not buy your ticket until the last 30 minutes assuming your FC is organized enough to pull that off. Go with the plots with the least competition.

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I think a lot of people will do just that because you can only bid once and you cannot withdraw your bid and that would apply for personals and FC;s. Personally hoping for a mix of Lotto and FCFS on Sophia where I would like to get a small FC for me and a few friends who have transferred there.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

(think I've caught all the major points now that I watched this part of the Live Letter a second time)

"Each player may only enter the lottery for one plot of land during each lottery period."

Each member of a FC with land purchase permissions will be able to purchase a ticket on behalf of the FC during the same lottery period. This is intentional. With this being a multi-player game, they want the large FCs that have active player communities to have that advantage.

Each entry on behalf of a FC will still require the full purchase price of the plot to be deposited, and the FC will still only be able to purchase a single plot even if more than one member entering for different plots win.

Those who don't win will be refunded in full. Failure to purchase a plot if won will result in loss of the gil (original slide from Nov said it would be half the gil lost so not sure whether they changed their mind or he wasn't being specific about the amount lost).

As of 6.1, there will be 4 ways to purchase: FC lottery, FC first come first serve, individual lottery and individual first come first serve. First come first serve is the same as what we currently have (other than the FC or individual restriction). Each existing ward will be designated as one of these types (subdivisions may be different from the main ward of the same number) but are subject to change each patch based on need. We will be able to confirm what type a ward is in game.

The initial exception: in 6.1, all wards will be using the lottery. If they get feedback indicating strong demand for first come first serve, they will consider designating a few wards as such. They would prefer not to use first come first serve at first because of the potential impact it would create on log in queues. They are looking for players to post their feedback in the forums. Wards would start getting the first come first serve designation when there is more housing available for everyone? I wonder if they're thinking about when new worlds start getting added later this year.

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By first come first serve do they mean how it was originally, i.e. you queue and run faster and the first person who selects the plaquards wins or the current system where plots have a random timer and you have to camp in front of a plaquards for days on end spamming buy? I'd much prefer the OG version. That's how I bought both my Large FC house during Shirogane Savage and my
Medium personal house when they added new wards. The OG system was the best in my opinion because if you were well prepared you had a good chance of getting your dream house. Now the plaquards camping seems like a horror scenario and you can't even use the move option anymore to buy a shitty house and then move into your dream house.

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Originally Posted by not_ya_wify

By first come first serve do they mean how it was originally, i.e. you queue and run faster and the first person who selects the plaquards wins or the current system where plots have a random timer and you have to camp in front of a plaquards for days on end spamming buy? I'd much prefer the OG version. That's how I bought both my Large FC house during Shirogane Savage and my
Medium personal house when they added new wards. The OG system was the best in my opinion because if you were well prepared you had a good chance of getting your dream house. Now the plaquards camping seems like a horror scenario and you can't even use the move option anymore to buy a shitty house and then move into your dream house.

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As of right now, it refers to the current system. Anything FCFS on release will be like the usual rush where you can just run up and purchase/transfer to the plot, but any plots released back into the open after the initial purchase the timers would kick in.

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Originally Posted by not_ya_wify

By first come first serve do they mean how it was originally, i.e. you queue and run faster and the first person who selects the plaquards wins or the current system where plots have a random timer and you have to camp in front of a plaquards for days on end spamming buy?

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They did state in the Live Letter than First Come First Serve means what we're currently used to. I doubt they will ever go back to the old days without the timer because of the RMT issue.