An idea for obtaining houses.

[Hamada]

You realize a bidding system would lead to the same thing we had before. Only those with mounds of gil will have housing while everyone else will be left with the scraps.

Even with the broken house limiting feature they introduced, it doesnt stop people from bypassing it.

When you have a limited amount of resource how do you distribute it most fairly? the top that can pay for it. Bidding system or have SE fix their house mess is the only 2 logical solutions, there should be NO REASON to encourage no life camping for 15 hrs straight just in hope of getting a house.

The limit feature was also half baked, and them not taking action on people that are clearly going above and beyond to bypass it like that one FC I remember reading about, and I do not mean the 2 that bought out a ward when people had no gil, I mean the recent one where that big name fc had its members all make fcs to buy out a ward because that act does technically break the ToS:
2.1 Cheating and Botting. You may not create or use any unauthorized cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software or hardware designed to modify the Game and gameplay. In addition, you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay.

Do you have 50M+ for a small house? Because a bidding war will lead to rich players completely dominating the competition. Not to mention, such a system heavily encourages RMT. Considering my old FC leader was apparently offered $700 for vacant her house way back in 3.3, I don't doubt for a moment people won't resort to RMT.

see above to the other person I replied to, if that what it has to come to because of SE's shortcomings so be it, its the most fair way to settle it. Guess what? no matter how you try to spin the current systems, there will always be "heavily encourages RMT" when SE refuses to fix the situation and give an appropriate supply number. People can RMT the FC, the account itself, there will always be work arounds to a "limiting system".

SE's housing since released was "heavily encourages RMT" a lotto system does not fix this broken system, a bidding system does not fix it. What will fix it would be them fixing their "1.0 spaghetti code" while putting some true instanced housing, as in you enter your private zone with a lawn. For whatever reason if SE still refuses to do that bidding system is the next "compromise" to be most fair. To be clear, I have a house I have no horse in this race, what I think is barbaric is having a system making people no lifing a game for 15+ hrs in hoping to get a house and from what some say, seemed bugged on top of things.

Isn't literally one of the big complaints in this game the lack of gil sinks?

Imagine a 50m gil sink for a cottage because someone actually got to 50m and wanted a house. If they earned that legitly, they probably deserve a house.

exactly

[KisaiTenshi]

while putting some true instanced housing, as in you enter your private zone with a lawn.

What you're describing is literately Mabinogi's "Homestead"'s from 2011 Which ironically only introduced the ability to build a house last month.

http://mabinogi.nexon.net/News/All/2...housing-update

Take note:

Click on the house once it's built to lease it.
You must have a house or mansion to lease it. Igloos and Tents do not count.
Leasing a house costs 500,000 gold and lasts 30 days.
If you have Premium or VIP service, you can lease the house for free!
You can extend your lease anytime within 7 days of your lease expiry for only 200,000 gold.
If the lease expires before you extend it, you will be required to pay the 500,000 gold to lease the house again.
Once leased, an option will appear to enter the house when you click on it.
Decorate your house by going inside and clicking the "hammer" button.
The "Installation" option allows you to create furniture, change the design of the interior of your house, and paint your walls, columns, and floors.
These options will require gold or pon.

Pon's are the "homestead" premium currency. Mabinogi has a lot of these things. Anyways take note of the freemium micromanagement. You only get the house if you pay for service or burn 500K g per month. Also you have to pay every time you want to change anything in the house.

That is what instanced housing is. It has to spin up an instance every time your house/homestead is accessed. There will be an upper limit to this.

There is no ward. There is only a private instance that is essentially a private garden, and maybe rent a house on. The players of that game are losing their mind over having to pay to have the house. Just like having to pay to have additional bank storage, or even have a shop at all.

You do NOT want only-instanced housing. It's something you will be forced to pay for if it's not confined to apartments/FC rooms. Square-Enix/Yoshi-P clearly wanted something that is more like a player-community living city per ward, and even having these wards is something that is broken. Those wards are all their own instance. This is the lesser of two evils, where the other option is creating sprawling large (think V1.0 maps) maps with a whole lot of nothing just because the largest server has 18000 players and the smallest ones have 5000. A small server has enough space for 95% of the players to have one, Balmung has enough for less than 20%.

In fact, when you enter your house, you're actually switched between three instances. The ward's instance, a handler instance (probably how the server decides who's house/room you entered), and then an individual instance. Every time you enter or exit your house when nobody is in it, you're in a new instance. You can see this from the loading delays.

[Paladinleeds]

I mean the recent one where that big name fc had its members all make fcs to buy out a ward because that act does technically break the ToS:
2.1 Cheating and Botting. You may not create or use any unauthorized cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software or hardware designed to modify the Game and gameplay. In addition, you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay.

You highlight the exploit, but I disagree. Each FC is counted as its own individual FC for the purposes of the game. As far as can be told, it'd be seen as a group of FC's working together. And that's not inherently against the rules. And even if they did state it in-game, I doubt the GMs will see that as breaking ToS. Everyone took the time to forge their own FC and rank it up, so GMs will see it as "Working as intended".

[KageTokage]

I feel like there should've been a minimum membership requirement for FCs to own houses so we wouldn't have ended up with people running solo FCs to own multiple houses.

[Hamada]

You highlight the exploit, but I disagree. Each FC is counted as its own individual FC for the purposes of the game. As far as can be told, it'd be seen as a group of FC's working together. And that's not inherently against the rules. And even if they did state it in-game, I doubt the GMs will see that as breaking ToS. Everyone took the time to forge their own FC and rank it up, so GMs will see it as "Working as intended".

Then the development had no reason to put those "limitations" if they clearly do not work to begin with. Yeah it is an exploit, that action lies outside the intended use of those limitations in the first place. The player base that did that acted in this manner knowing full what they where doing to go that far with this, even naming the houses/mini fc names after the main one. With their bragging on top of things it would fit "disruption" as well.

[Dustytome]

Instanced housing removes the entire "ward" and thus there is only ever an "apartment". A glorified Inn room.

If done right though it could provide outdoor space (more than we have now), additional furniture slots outside, the ability to upgrade to the housing size you best want with the locale you desire without waiting months/years and even allow for additional features to be implemented on the land itself without an idea being shot down because you can't put something like a barn in because the other houses can't be shuffled around. The ward system is extremely limiting and when resources aren't being used (empty plots), that can cause stagnation of further district development because it's essentially burnt money to the company.

[Paladinleeds]

Then the development had no reason to put those "limitations" if they clearly do not work to begin with. Yeah it is an exploit, that action lies outside the intended use of those limitations in the first place. The player base that did that acted in this manner knowing full what they where doing to go that far with this, even naming the houses/mini fc names after the main one. With their bragging on top of things it would fit "disruption" as well.

If you feel you can produce enough irrefutable evidence to SE for this claim, then my advice is simple: REPORT IT. If it's reported to SE and they take action, then by all means yeah they see it as an exploit. Until then, and I'm gonna be brutally honest here, we can't tell whether or not you're just blowing hot air saying it's against ToS.

[Melichoir]

IF they wanted to cut down on the mad scramble, itd probably be more pragmatic to hold a bidding system.

How it may work would be:

House goes up on the market. It has a minimum bid of its lowest price point. Players can then bid up on the house. House stay son the market for 48 hours before the auction closes and highest bidder wins.

Some rules might be:

- You may only bid on one house at a time per account per server (maybe).
- Bidding on a new house will cancel your old bid (with a warning of course).
- There is a minimum upbid (meaning you cant outbid someone by 1 gil, it maybe be in increments of 100k or something there of). There is no maximum
- Old housing rules apply: you cant on a house unless your wishing to transfer. You will be notified that your bid is for a transfer of residence. As a perk though, if you did this system, the base value of your current house could be added to your bid (maybe on small and medium housing though, also not for FCs).
- Bidding takes your money then and there. Youll be refunded your money if your bid is beat. The auctioneer will give you your money back from teh auction. Should the auction close, Itll be automatically deposited to a retainer (Youll need 1 retainer to bid and you cant cancel a retainer if you have active bids).
- Bids happen at an auctioneer near the front of the housing district, not at the individual houses. Youll be able to see all current bids on all residences from this auctioneer. Going to a specific house though and looking at its signpost will tell you its current bid.
- Once you bid, you cannot withdraw the bid unless you were outbid.
- Bidders must be lvl 50 or higher.
- When the 48 Hour period is about to expires, there will be a 3 minute grace period. During this time, the 3 minute timer is reset every time a new bid is placed. However, the minimum bid will start to climb for every new placed bid. 100k-> 200k->400k, etc as an example. Should the 3 minute period expire with no new bids, the highest bid wins.
- Should you win a bid, you may not bid on a new house for 48 hours.

[Jijifli]

What you're describing is literately Mabinogi's "Homestead"'s from 2011 Which ironically only introduced the ability to build a house last month.

http://mabinogi.nexon.net/News/All/2...housing-update

Mabi's homestead was also a mess. I play the game. I got to have lots of fun when my inventory filled with the item needed to make one, which you can't destroy or drop.

But difference here is that, Mabi's free, and run by a company that has a reputation of being extremely greedy. I mean... It took them over 10 years to change the font that was causing everyone's game to lag. I think Square, a company with more money, for a game that gets a constant in money, can handle it.

[kamenkuro]

Houses are fine as is on MOST servers. Most servers have plenty of houses. If you're worried about the timer on a medium or large house buy a small one and transfer over. Most servers have plenty open. Housing shortage is an issue only heavily populated servers have. Transfer out, accept your homelessness, or work REALLY hard to get a house.

I feel like there should've been a minimum membership requirement for FCs to own houses so we wouldn't have ended up with people running solo FCs to own multiple houses.

This. There's a large house next to my apartment with nothing in it owned by an FC with 2 people. It's atrocious