SE's housing system doesn't favor anybody...

[Melichoir]

Scarcity increases Value. Plots are not supposed to be given out to anyone who wants one, but rather to people who can play the game and earn the money to have one. Much like Savage Tier gear, you dont get to have it just cause you want it, you gotta work for it (typically). This creates an intrinsic value to having plots. Theyre not a 'dime a dozen' but rather a 'Hey, I got the cash to get this thing, so check it out!"

If everyone can have their own plot at any time for little cost, plots become a bleh thing people dont care about to much. Keeping it limited creates demand and creates an artificial status symbol out of them.

On the flipside, however, It is a system that seems to be gamed against people who are not as wealthy by a disproportionate value. As in the main problem is when people purchase 5-6 plots for themselves to resell.

[Tempest222]

Scarcity increases Value. Plots are not supposed to be given out to anyone who wants one, but rather to people who can play the game and earn the money to have one. Much like Savage Tier gear, you dont get to have it just cause you want it, you gotta work for it (typically). This creates an intrinsic value to having plots. Theyre not a 'dime a dozen' but rather a 'Hey, I got the cash to get this thing, so check it out!"
.

But there are many people who can play the game and earn the money who can't get a house because there aren't any. I don't think anyone is saying houses should be worth some piddling amount like 100k gil or something, just that those who want and can afford one are able to get one. Being locked out of game content due to lack of skill/wealth/desire is one thing, but being locked out because there isn't enough to go around is ridiculous.

[Tridus]

Scarcity increases Value. Plots are not supposed to be given out to anyone who wants one, but rather to people who can login within 45 seconds of the servers going up on house launch day.

FTFY

Much like Savage Tier gear, you dont get to have it just cause you want it, you gotta work for it (typically).

I hardly call going to the house reseller reddit and paying and inflated price "working for it". Quite the opposite. There's a perfect shortcut for anyone who doesn't want to work for it.

On the flipside, however, It is a system that seems to be gamed against people who are not as wealthy by a disproportionate value. As in the main problem is when people purchase 5-6 plots for themselves to resell.

Artificial scarcity creates the very side market and problem you're talking about. Which then inflates prices. Which causes people to simply buy gil to pay said inflated prices. Which encourages more gil seller bots.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Scarcity increases Value. Plots are not supposed to be given out to anyone who wants one, but rather to people who can play the game and earn the money to have one. Much like Savage Tier gear, you dont get to have it just cause you want it, you gotta work for it (typically). This creates an intrinsic value to having plots. Theyre not a 'dime a dozen' but rather a 'Hey, I got the cash to get this thing, so check it out!"

If everyone can have their own plot at any time for little cost, plots become a bleh thing people dont care about to much. Keeping it limited creates demand and creates an artificial status symbol out of them.

On the flipside, however, It is a system that seems to be gamed against people who are not as wealthy by a disproportionate value. As in the main problem is when people purchase 5-6 plots for themselves to resell.

You're being willfully disingenuous. Savage tiers becoming incredibly easy once our ilvl far exceeds them. Brute Justice and Manipulator were two of the most difficult fight this game offered yet now they'll faceroll save for a few mechanics. You cannot just handwave that away by adding "typically."

Regardless, no one cares about plot value. We're technically not even allowed to sell them amongst ourselves, thus the devs didn't intend for small plots to cost more than four million yet many people have paid several times that, myself included, because there just isn't an attractive alternative. As for status symbols. I'll be blunt, if you think owning a house that is acquired on sheer dumb luck is impressive, well, you need better priorities.

[Melichoir]

Snip

People have to earn their gil to get houses, and that isnt easy (short of buying it illegally). I grinded out the cash, and then worked out the best places for me to get a house, and went with that. Is there a little luck to that? Sure. But thats just like Savage drops too. And the only time savage becomes "accessible" to everyone is once it falls out of high tier content, or people PAY for clears. Thats it. Youre not going to see everyone in Savage getting to the end, even in 340 gear. Same with anything such as limited Housing. People who can grind and get the cash, will have the opportunity to get the houses. Sucks for you if you cant get the money to get one, or youre not planning ahead enough to acquire one.

I wanted a Shirogane house, didnt get it, but I had back up places and managed to get one there. And I like what I got, and I worked to get it. So being told I was just "Lucky!" and didnt have a plan is kinda messed.

[NephthysVasudan]

<snip>

The luck factor is landing an open/available plot.....which is random...because people aren't that predictable.
Do you need to plan? Yes....to be able to buy it..and get it built.

But you still need luck....to get there.

[Melichoir]

-Snip snip and Snip-

It's not as random as people tend to think. New wards open up, people tend to move to their ideal location, opening up other spots in other wards. If the place is high demand (Shirogane), expect A LOT of people to be trying toget housing there, expect it to be hypercompetative. Knowing this, Keeping an eye on Gridania, Limsa, and Uldah (with the help of friends too) can make a huge difference in acquiring a plot of land. Making sure teleport to the Housing district entrance is unlocked makes a difference. Knowing what kind of house location youre looking for makes a difference (plot 8 in Limsa as an example) and so forth.

Yes, there is some randomness involved, but the argument put forward is "Its all about the randomness! And cause of that, this system sucks!" rather than "Yeah, randomness isnt great, but its still pretty possible to get a plot somewhere if youre smart about things."

[Skivvy]

People have to earn their gil to get houses, and that isnt easy (short of buying it illegally). I grinded out the cash, and then worked out the best places for me to get a house, and went with that. Is there a little luck to that? Sure. But thats just like Savage drops too. And the only time savage becomes "accessible" to everyone is once it falls out of high tier content, or people PAY for clears. Thats it. Youre not going to see everyone in Savage getting to the end, even in 340 gear. Same with anything such as limited Housing. People who can grind and get the cash, will have the opportunity to get the houses. Sucks for you if you cant get the money to get one, or youre not planning ahead enough to acquire one.

I wanted a Shirogane house, didnt get it, but I had back up places and managed to get one there. And I like what I got, and I worked to get it. So being told I was just "Lucky!" and didnt have a plan is kinda messed.

Getting money is not the issue. Gil is incredibly easy to get in this game, and it serves very little purpose.

Anyway, try and justify it all you want, but there is no decent excuse for not providing housing for all players. SE just implemented a crappy system, and we are paying the price for it. Perhaps it's time they spend some more of their XIV profits on this actual game and find a way to make it work.

[Solarianna]

So being told I was just "Lucky!" and didnt have a plan is kinda messed.

You can be Lucky and Hard-working at the same time. One is not the other's opposite. I personally wouldn't take "Lucky" as an insult to hard work. Especially not in a sort of content that's currently scarce in terms of supply and demand.

People have called me lucky when I got a private house 1 month after 4.1 hit, in Lavender Beds (which is where I wanted my personal one to be if I'd ever get one). I worked just as much as the next guy towards the possibility and got the necessary resources for if the opportunity ever arised. I didn't take that as an insult to the work I put in, because it was a simple acknowledgement of a simple fact.

In the current system, you can be the hardest working player in the world, and you'll still be left houseless if the stars don't align for you.

But as I said before, all of these issues are fathered by a poor marketing strategy of the Housing content.
It's fine that there's some content that is intentionally limited, or even intentionally scarce. A game needs some content that's not easy to get to, regardless of what it is. But if they intended Housing to be part of that "elitist" content, they should've never advertised/ produced/ delivered it as they did. Never ever.

When you have a patch in which there's new story, new dungeons, new raids, BUT the first thing that e-mails, ads, patch notes, etc., shove in your face about it is the Housing additions (people even got e-mails shoving Housing in their face during patch day, waaaay after everything was gone), then you market yourself into a corner where you have to forcefully turn it to a high-supply content, and will have to deliver. And if you don't deliver, you've got a lot of furious people.

If housing was produced and delivered differently, you could have even less wards than you have now, and it wouldn't be one tenth of the issue that is right now. People who tried to get a house and failed would just simply be "meh, it's a pity, but whatever.". And the ones who succeeded would be just as happy for it as they are now.

But after how they managed this, everyone wants a piece of content for themselves. And rightfully so. And they are furious at how things are being managed on that front. And rightfully so.
And this is coming from someone whose interest in Shirogane was for his FC, and not for himself, as I explained a couple of pages ago.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

People have to earn their gil to get houses, and that isnt easy (short of buying it illegally). I grinded out the cash, and then worked out the best places for me to get a house, and went with that. Is there a little luck to that? Sure. But thats just like Savage drops too. And the only time savage becomes "accessible" to everyone is once it falls out of high tier content, or people PAY for clears. Thats it. Youre not going to see everyone in Savage getting to the end, even in 340 gear. Same with anything such as limited Housing. People who can grind and get the cash, will have the opportunity to get the houses. Sucks for you if you cant get the money to get one, or youre not planning ahead enough to acquire one.

I wanted a Shirogane house, didnt get it, but I had back up places and managed to get one there. And I like what I got, and I worked to get it. So being told I was just "Lucky!" and didnt have a plan is kinda messed.

Evidently, I needs repeat myself. A friend and I were up hours before the patch went live, lowered all our setting, closed down every program—even moving discord to our phones to limit any potential hiccups. Furthermore, we not only had planned routes but made macros to immediately spam into the FC chat for easy reference. Our combined gil amount nearly approaches 200M. Suffice it to say we "planned" and "had the money." So what went wrong? The launcher crashed, kicking us both out for several minutes. By the time we were able to get in, both of us had 1,000+ long queues. Meanwhile, a friend of hers who did very little pre-planning except waking up an hour before the patch got in without a hitch. Adding to that still, he plays on PS4 whereas I have a PC capable of playing at 4K.

So when I say sheer dumb luck is the only factor, the above is why. If it were down to just planning and hardware, there is no chance whatsoever someone playing on PS4 would load faster than my PC. So don't presume everyone who couldn't get a house didn't plan accordingly. You got yours because the launcher was nice to you not because you worked harder than I did.