Please shorten the lottery cycle period.

Currently, we have a 9 day lottery cycle, which I think most players would collectively agree is way too long.

Five days for bidding: Although we have had only two lottery cycles so far, I observed that, generally, most people wait until the last day or the very last minute of the bidding period to put in their bids. This makes the total five days wasteful, as players are simply just waiting around seeing who will bid first and go for the one with the less bids. I believe most players want this time frame shortened. I believe a 2-day (48 hour) period is more than sufficient for bidding.

Four day claim period: While I understand the need to provide time for players to claim their plots, four days seems excessive. From my observations, most plots are claimed within 24 to 48 hours. For plots that winners intend to not claim for whatever reason, it is just more time wasted with a plot sitting for four whole days. I don’t believe we need to have a claim period longer than 2 days (48 hours).

Because housing is such a finite resource in this game, having this long 9-day lottery cycle makes the process extremely sluggish. And because for most players on active servers, we have a less than 1% chance of winning a house, so it would take an extremely long time to win a house. The sting of losing a lottery wouldn’t hurt so bad if we didn’t have to wait 9 whole days to try again.

I think the game developers need to understand that people in this game are really motivated to have their house! Most do not need five days to pick their house and certainly do not need four days to claim their house that they won. Please leave feedback below if you agree. Thank you !

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Originally Posted by cinnamonlatte

...I think most players would collectively agree is way too long...

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Originally Posted by cinnamonlatte

...I believe most players want this time frame shortened...

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I seem to see the opposite. Most people seem to be defending the 9 day cycle, well to my eyes they are. Only a minority seem to want it to progress faster as it suits them personally.

The argument against yours is "As 9 days staggers the entry window over the week each round, it's fairer on people who can only play occasionally, shorter windows give them less of a chance of entering - especially as houses become more and more rare".

I think there isn’t just a minority who wants the cycle to progress faster, and if it seems that way, perhaps it is a bubble in the official forums because every single person I’ve spoken to about this, in linkshells, FC chats, and discord channels - everybody feels that the cycle is just too long.

And to your last point, yes I agree that the longer entry period is more fair to those who only play occasionally. I’m highly in favor of keeping the lottery entry period at least for a few days.

But, if the game devs insist on keeping housing as a strictly finite resource that will never meet the demand, extensively catering to those casual players that don’t log in frequently and maybe is the type of player who will eventually unsub/let their house auto-demo when there is a content lull is an odd choice to me. Do I think even casual players deserve a house? Of course. But it’s hard to deny that the current lottery system is very much in the favor of these casual players and does not give consideration to the players who are highly motivated to obtain a house. So I would say, right now, the lottery system is imbalanced.

Shortening the lottery period can help with that.

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Originally Posted by cinnamonlatte

But it’s hard to deny that the current lottery system is very much in the favor of these casual players and does not give consideration to the players who are highly motivated to obtain a house.

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This is correct and intended. We used to have a better system where you just walked up to a house in a new ward and bought it, which rewarded players who bothered to login on patch day. The ultra casual players asked for a lottery despite not even knowing the difference between a new ward release and a demolished house and whined about the random timer and placard clicking which would not have applied in Ishgard under the old rules. Those players are being catered to with the 9 day cycle and it's by design, so I doubt there will be any changes.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

This is correct and intended. We used to have a better system where you just walked up to a house in a new ward and bought it, which rewarded players who bothered to login on patch day. The ultra casual players asked for a lottery despite not even knowing the difference between a new ward release and a demolished house and whined about the random timer and placard clicking which would not have applied in Ishgard under the old rules. Those players are being catered to with the 9 day cycle and it's by design, so I doubt there will be any changes.

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It rewarded he who had the fastest SSD, could beat the dodgy logins (some people get to log in on the hour and others had to wait several minutes) and THEN beat the queue to log on and buy the plot. Better pray you can beat someone else running a script to buy the plot too.
It didn't reward dedicated people in the least because you were screwed over by factors outside your control. Lottery is better, 9 day cycle is fine.

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

Lottery is better, 9 day cycle is fine.

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Better? No. Fine? Also no. More fair? Can't really argue that. But we really shouldn't have gotten to the point where they felt a lottery was needed.

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Originally Posted by cinnamonlatte

I think there isn’t just a minority who wants the cycle to progress faster, and if it seems that way, perhaps it is a bubble in the official forums because every single person I’ve spoken to about this, in linkshells, FC chats, and discord channels - everybody feels that the cycle is just too long.

And to your last point, yes I agree that the longer entry period is more fair to those who only play occasionally. I’m highly in favor of keeping the lottery entry period at least for a few days.

But, if the game devs insist on keeping housing as a strictly finite resource that will never meet the demand, extensively catering to those casual players that don’t log in frequently and maybe is the type of player who will eventually unsub/let their house auto-demo when there is a content lull is an odd choice to me. Do I think even casual players deserve a house? Of course. But it’s hard to deny that the current lottery system is very much in the favor of these casual players and does not give consideration to the players who are highly motivated to obtain a house. So I would say, right now, the lottery system is imbalanced.

Shortening the lottery period can help with that.

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I hope you learn by now that 99% of so called player suggestions, feedbacks, recommendations. are basically short sighted and lack of in depth analyze of existing data.
9 days cycle exist for a reason when North American alone there are three time zones.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

This is correct and intended. We used to have a better system where you just walked up to a house in a new ward and bought it, which rewarded players who bothered to login on patch day. The ultra casual players asked for a lottery despite not even knowing the difference between a new ward release and a demolished house and whined about the random timer and placard clicking which would not have applied in Ishgard under the old rules. Those players are being catered to with the 9 day cycle and it's by design, so I doubt there will be any changes.

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"Bothered to log in" Thanks for that laugh. Sorry I have to work to pay for my apartment, food, car, etc. I am a casual but I definitely played more than a casual would. First come first serve let botters and the lucky few who got in without a queue have free reign in the new wards while people who weren't the first in line because of everyone trying to log in at once were left with either nothing or, if they were lucky, a couple open plots. Even with placard clicking it incentivized botting and using scripts to auto click the placard and disincentivized people from trying to get a house knowing what they were competing with. Even worse before the relocation change you could spam click a placard for hours and hours and some rando could relocate on top of you wasting all that time and causing their previous plot to enter the random 24 hour timer.

First come first serve was terrible and deserves to die and never come back. The current lottery timer is fine as was said earlier it allows everyone the opportunity to interact with the system and get a house, regardless of your real life responsibilities.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

This is correct and intended. We used to have a better system where you just walked up to a house in a new ward and bought it, which rewarded players who bothered to login on patch day. The ultra casual players asked for a lottery despite not even knowing the difference between a new ward release and a demolished house and whined about the random timer and placard clicking which would not have applied in Ishgard under the old rules. Those players are being catered to with the 9 day cycle and it's by design, so I doubt there will be any changes.

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Ah yes, when people en masse stood in front of a house and wasted 4-16 hours of their life (depending on whether a player knew about primetime, whether a house sold DURING primetime--usually wasn't always--I camped one of those outliers), and most of them lost with a feeling they wasted their time. Truly superior.

Now that we have that out of the way, I do agree that a 7 day period would have been better--if for no other reason that you could far more easily keep track of when housing lottos began and ended. But that has nothing to do with whether I feel it's too long or two short. If we magically started having 10 day weeks, I'd advocate to make it a day longer.

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Originally Posted by Basteala

Ah yes, when people en masse stood in front of a house and wasted 4-16 hours of their life (depending on whether a player knew about primetime, whether a house sold DURING primetime--usually wasn't always--I camped one of those outliers), and most of them lost with a feeling they wasted their time. Truly superior.

Now that we have that out of the way, I do agree that a 7 day period would have been better--if for no other reason that you could far more easily keep track of when housing lottos began and ended. But that has nothing to do with whether I feel it's too long or two short. If we magically started having 10 day weeks, I'd advocate to make it a day longer.

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Mister, if people smart enough, they would wait for each major plot release to get their first plot
That is how 90% of current owners got theirs
Under old method, I pick a non prime target, practice repeated to travel there
I spark my character outside of the housing ward entrance instead of main city
Set up my alarm clock
Maintenance is over, my line is 1800 on Levithan but I still able to get my house

Lottery is only ideal for relocation plot, not fresh release, if you don’t understand that, too bad

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

Mister, if people smart enough, they would wait for each major plot release to get their first plot
That is how 90% of current owners got theirs
Under old method, I pick a non prime target, practice repeated to travel there
I spark my character outside of the housing ward entrance instead of main city
Set up my alarm clock
Maintenance is over, my line is 1800 on Levithan but I still able to get my house

Lottery is only ideal for relocation plot, not fresh release, if you don’t understand that, too bad

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This method worked for me multiple times and I had a bad computer and internet connection at the time. Queue was not an excuse because there were still houses left a couple of hours after launch. If one didn't get a house it was simply because they didn't log in. Lottery could have improved the way demolished plots are handled but that's it. Just as I called it, people chime in with their irrelevant comments about placard clicking which was never in place for new ward releases.

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Originally Posted by Basteala

Ah yes, when people en masse stood in front of a house and wasted 4-16 hours of their life

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Originally Posted by Amenara

Even with placard clicking it incentivized botting and using scripts to auto click the placard

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The lottery cycle really doesn't matter. There won't be any plots to bid on regardless of how long or short the cycle is lol

The length of a lottery cycle is the least of the concerns right now. I'd much rather they focus on making more stuff available than on shortening the time we have to get it. I'm perfectly okay with the length of the cycle - gives everyone time to both enter and to check the placard.

Supply is low right now due to auto-demolition being off for such a long time. Under normal circumstances, new plots are popping up fairly regularly, so the length of the lottery time will matter in the *long-term*. For example, on Faerie, pre-auto demolition halt, between 30-50 small plots were open *every week*.

And yes, SE should focus on how they may increase supply of housing, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t tweak the lottery system to make it better.

It should be one day entry and next day drawing for it.

Hi, just jumping in to agree with this! And maybe find a way to just mail people their money if they lost? This way you could shorten the after-buying process without worrying about people missing the deadline to pick up their gil because they had work or something.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

...maybe find a way to just mail people their money if they lost? This way you could shorten the after-buying process without worrying about people missing the deadline to pick up their gil because they had work or something.

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The 4 day end window is for people to claim a won property, not to collect the refund.

On mailing a refund, Yoshi covered that in the live letter they announced lottery and clearly ruled it out due to system load.

To collect a refund you have 90 days. I am sure that even the most busy person can find time from their work to log in during those 3 months and go back to the placard to collect.

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Originally Posted by cinnamonlatte

Supply is low right now due to auto-demolition being off for such a long time. Under normal circumstances, new plots are popping up fairly regularly, so the length of the lottery time will matter in the *long-term*. For example, on Faerie, pre-auto demolition halt, between 30-50 small plots were open *every week*.

And yes, SE should focus on how they may increase supply of housing, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t tweak the lottery system to make it better.

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Even if the demo timer was back on, the competition is too fierce for what is already an extremely limited supply. All in all it wouldn't accomplish anything. Timer or no timer, there's still not enough houses and there's too many people that want one. I say leave it off.