Housing complaints and some ideas.

This is directed at Devs and not other players.

Housing may not be the biggest part of the game but for many it is very important and a goal that most feel is unachievable.

As most can agree the housing system has had little improvement over the years.
The Lottery system is a minor fix to the bigger issue of availability.

Having to server transfer is NOT a Solution. We play on the servers because of our friends and communities.

I have been extremely lucky. From my first apartment to house and move to a Med Plot were all done in the only system and no spam clicking or lotto was required.
But having watch my wife try over and over and over again in this lotto system has driven her to not even want to play with me in game. It is a frustration that was not there before.

So what solutions can be looked at to make things more fair? A system where you can constantly loose a 50/50 to 1st time bidders is not fair.

I propose a system that improves your chance of winning by a small amount each time you bid and loose.

I would also propose that when new wards are added, only non-property owners be allowed to bid during the 1st rounds of auctions.

When this last bunch of wards opened up, so many were taken over by people who just moved.

Lastly the issue of house hogs. This is a problem that really can only be addressed by the Devs and an update to the TOS. Something along the lines of not being allowed to abuse the FC system to grab multiple plots of land. And what is abuse of FC being at the digression of the FFXIV team.

SE has allowed FCs to destroy and game the housing market.

Convert all wards to FC only and allows all individual players to purchase a small/med/large instanced house.

Verifying a single service account per person so only verified accounts can have plots and not one person with multiple accounts to control things

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mr_Happy

SE has allowed FCs to destroy and game the housing market.

Convert all wards to FC only and allows all individual players to purchase a small/med/large instanced house.

---

What about the individual players that earned and already decorated their house?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fable

What about the individual players that earned and already decorated their house?

---

I 100% agree that players that already have a house should be grandfathered and allowed to keep it, but the wording here irks me. Unless they got the house in the age of ten-thousand clicks, nothing was "earned." If you got a house from the lottery, you put down the same gil every other applicant did--your only virtue was luck.

Granted, I agree with you that those who have houses should keep them, but to those of us who have been consistently unlucky, it feels disingenuous, and a bit insulting, frankly, to be told that people with houses "earned" them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KarinaTyrsdottir

I 100% agree that players that already have a house should be grandfathered and allowed to keep it, but the wording here irks me. Unless they got the house in the age of ten-thousand clicks, nothing was "earned." If you got a house from the lottery, you put down the same gil every other applicant did--your only virtue was luck.

Granted, I agree with you that those who have houses should keep them, but to those of us who have been consistently unlucky, it feels disingenuous, and a bit insulting, frankly, to be told that people with houses "earned" them.

---

Forgive my use of the word earn, it was not my intention to insult you or others without a house. Bought would have been suffice a word. I was not thinking anything malicious when I wrote it, I apologize for my wording. Many of us of bought them during the dark dark times of clicks or competition with house resellers but it was mostly luck or chronically online and it was horrible. ;n; Either way, I think most FC houses would become micro FCs/ if they changed to FC-only wards but if people could be grandfathered I would not be personally miffed if they changed future purchases to FC only.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fable

Forgive my use of the word earn, it was not my intention to insult you or others without a house. Bought would have been suffice a word. I was not thinking anything malicious when I wrote it, I apologize for my wording. Many of us of bought them during the dark dark times of clicks or competition with house resellers but it was mostly luck or chronically online and it was horrible. ;n; Either way, I think most FC houses would become micro FCs/ if they changed to FC-only wards but if people could be grandfathered I would not be personally miffed if they changed future purchases to FC only.

---

For sure. Admittedly, the frustration of losing yet another housing bid to arbitrary RNG and no fault of anyone else bled through in the tone of that reply and made it sound harsher than I intended it to. I fully agree with you and didn't mean to come across as jumping down your throat for something so innocent as word choice.

But the fact that there are more people that feel like me today than the people that got lucky and won a house just proves to illustrate the flaws of the system. I apologize if that resulted in me being harsher than I intended in my response to you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KarinaTyrsdottir

For sure. Admittedly, the frustration of losing yet another housing bid to arbitrary RNG and no fault of anyone else bled through in the tone of that reply and made it sound harsher than I intended it to. I fully agree with you and didn't mean to come across as jumping down your throat for something so innocent as word choice.

But the fact that there are more people that feel like me today than the people that got lucky and won a house just proves to illustrate the flaws of the system. I apologize if that resulted in me being harsher than I intended in my response to you.

---

No worries at all, I understand the frustration of this inadequate and disappointing housing system. I hope you get your house soon, I hope everyone does. It saddens me that there still hasn't been instanced housing or apartments overhaul to allow others to enjoy housing. Something needs to be done but until then, I hope your next die roll proves fruitful.

Don't bid on big house = bad chance -> get house small then try and bid for something bigger.

It more looks like the op os complaining about that other people also will bid on medium/large and as for a bonus system, it wont help anything once everyone in the bidding wars has +3 chance to get a house and move the system back to point zero.

If competetion is to fierce and housing is everything for you, move to another server.

Removal of grandfathering and FC master of multiple FC's is something SE need to do, however if someone have or got 10 different paid accounts I see no problem though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

Don't bid on big house = bad chance -> get house small then try and bid for something bigger.

It more looks like the op os complaining about that other people also will bid on medium/large and as for a bonus system, it wont help anything once everyone in the bidding wars has +3 chance to get a house and move the system back to point zero.

If competetion is to fierce and housing is everything for you, move to another server.

Removal of grandfathering and FC master of multiple FC's is something SE need to do, however if someone have or got 10 different paid accounts I see no problem though.

---

I think OP is more proposing a weighted lottery system based on those who have failed multiple times compared to those who are bidding for the first time only.

I don’t see any downsides to this. Actually, the largest Lottery system proposal thread 3 years ago suggested this exact method - increase % chance for losers for the next lottery. You can dig up that thread - it has like 200 pages. Everyone were already predicting situations like this would arise - that there could be unlucky people losing 100 lotteries in a row. Hence the weighted system proposed. But of course SE did not implement that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

Don't bid on big house = bad chance -> get house small then try and bid for something bigger.

It more looks like the op os complaining about that other people also will bid on medium/large and as for a bonus system, it wont help anything once everyone in the bidding wars has +3 chance to get a house and move the system back to point zero.

If competetion is to fierce and housing is everything for you, move to another server.

Removal of grandfathering and FC master of multiple FC's is something SE need to do, however if someone have or got 10 different paid accounts I see no problem though.

---

"Just get a small house" you say like it's that easy. My bids have been 100% exclusively on small plots, still haven't won a single one. Ever.

Moving to another server is a bad take. We have friends, we have FCs, we have attachments. Saying "just move" isn't a feasible answer to a system that could be improved.

Those are lazy and dismissive responses.

These complaints are valid.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KarinaTyrsdottir

"Moving to another server is a bad take. We have friends, we have FCs, we have attachments. Saying "just move" isn't a feasible answer to a system that could be improved.

---

So its a you issue again. Dynamis has still 3k open plots. With 8k open in the pipeline and 4 additional Worlds on the way too. At this point its a player issue not a supply issue. I mean why dont FCs grab a free House first with Alts and then moving. You dont have to move directly with Mains.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yodada

So its a you issue again. Dynamis has still 3k open plots. With 8k open in the pipeline and 4 additional Worlds on the way too. At this point its a player issue not a supply issue. I mean why dont FCs grab a free House first with Alts and then moving. You dont have to move directly with Mains.

---

Do duty roulettes take players from other data centers? I think people are worried of longer queue times if moving to another smaller data center.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Do duty roulettes take players from other data centers? I think people are worried of longer queue times if moving to another smaller data center.

---

No more excuses, DC travel is a thing.

Mao can't speak for other worlds but on Mao's world of Adamantoise, was TONS of houses in Mao's own ward in Goblets that did not gets ANY bids at all when Mao last checked.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hycinthus

I think OP is more proposing a weighted lottery system based on those who have failed multiple times compared to those who are bidding for the first time only.

I don’t see any downsides to this. Actually, the largest Lottery system proposal thread 3 years ago suggested this exact method - increase % chance for losers for the next lottery. You can dig up that thread - it has like 200 pages. Everyone were already predicting situations like this would arise - that there could be unlucky people losing 100 lotteries in a row. Hence the weighted system proposed. But of course SE did not implement that.

---

This seems like it's gonna be gamed hard.

People would purposely lose on plots which they don't desire to increase the "Pity" or whatever you want to call it, so that they can then go on to win the plots they do desire.

Additionally, people gaming the system like this, will further slow down the musical chair distribution of ward houses.

Fully instanced housing is a proper long-term solution when used together with the existing ward housing. It addresses the fundamental problem of supply while using less server resources than the exteriors of ward housing which is always loaded 24/7.

Let fully instanced housing be the baseline for every player.

Ward housing can remain for players who want to fight it out for "exclusive/flex" houses or whatever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TwistedTea

This seems like it's gonna be gamed hard.

People would purposely lose on plots which they don't desire to increase the "Pity" or whatever you want to call it, so that they can then go on to win the plots they do desire.

Additionally, people gaming the system like this, will further slow down the musical chair distribution of ward houses.

Fully instanced housing is a proper long-term solution when used together with the existing ward housing. It addresses the fundamental problem of supply while using less server resources than the exteriors of ward housing which is always loaded 24/7.

Let fully instanced housing be the baseline for every player.

Ward housing can remain for players who want to fight it out for "exclusive/flex" houses or whatever.

---

There will always be some flaws, I mean there are people gaming the system even now.

If those people like to wait 10 weeks to build pity system, more power to them. But I still think it will help more people who really are losing due to bad luck, especially for Small houses. The first timers are just looking for smalls and whatever they can get. I dont think the ones who will game the system for 10 weeks will be gaming for smalls.

But regardless, I also fully support instanced housing and I really thought thats what they were planning to do with Island Sanctuary.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TwistedTea

This seems like it's gonna be gamed hard.

People would purposely lose on plots which they don't desire to increase the "Pity" or whatever you want to call it, so that they can then go on to win the plots they do desire.

Additionally, people gaming the system like this, will further slow down the musical chair distribution of ward houses.

---

The problem that players would have in trying to intentionally lose to build up bad luck protection is that they might find themselves the winner instead. Adios, there goes all that bad luck protection built up even if they don't purchase what they accidentally won.

It's still not a system that's going to work when a player's bad luck protection is effectively competing against many other players who would have the same bad luck protection. The available supply would have to get to the point that there are too few players entering before the bad luck protection would have a noticeable effect and at the point it would no longer be needed.

Like you said, fully instanced housing needs to be a baseline for the game. There's no good reason why any player who wants a house should be unable to get one other than they're too lazy to put in the relatively small effort needed to meet requirements.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Do duty roulettes take players from other data centers? I think people are worried of longer queue times if moving to another smaller data center.

---

You can DC travel until a data center has had time to grow. I'm on Hali with an alt and it works just fine. I play with my Aether friends daily. This leave my FC is a weak excuse people can still play with their friends. There are cross world linkshells, discords, the ability to hang out at the old FC house and so on. It also offers the ability to make new friends in addition to being able to play with your old ones.

If case people haven't noticed SE wants to thin out the populations on over crowded servers. They aren't going to incentivize the overcrowding and have gone to creating new data centers. These older overcrowded servers will be set to congested (witness Crystal at the moment) until those new centers have grown and populations have evened out.

And as it stands right now the lottery gives everyone an equal shot which is as it should be.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yodada

So its a you issue again. Dynamis has still 3k open plots. With 8k open in the pipeline and 4 additional Worlds on the way too. At this point its a player issue not a supply issue. I mean why dont FCs grab a free House first with Alts and then moving. You dont have to move directly with Mains.

---

Ah, yes. The good ol' "it's not a problem for me so it must just only be a problem for you" logic. Thank you for your constructive contribution to this discussion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KarinaTyrsdottir

Ah, yes. The good ol' "it's not a problem for me so it must just only be a problem for you" logic. Thank you for your constructive contribution to this discussion.

---

Correct its not my problem if NA Players on older massively overpopulated Worlds are still having fever dreams of Square is adding even more Wards for them when Squares goal is trying to achieve a equally distributed population on new Worlds with congested status, literally free housing, free transfers etc.

At this point the crying is nothing more then the background of waves rushing in the flood of new available houses on Dynamis.

They absolutely should expand the Apartment system to allow for you to upgrade to larger interior spaces, and add on external spaces too.

But the wards themselves?
Apart from the super congested worlds... like Crystal's, I'm seeing empty wards everywhere. We have enough houses now, we just need a more even distribution of players.

https://i.ibb.co/wcVSrfK/zodiarkemptyward.jpg
Zodiark, so not congested but not an empty ward either.