My own thoughts about this housing system.

[Penthea]

Now, you might have noticed I didn't discuss availability. Yes that is also an issue. Instanced housing would resolve this issue, as would an auction system on the current houses (Highest bidder wins).

How would an auction system solve availability? Putting in an auction system doesn't magically create new houses. That would just keep houses in the hands of wealthy players, and make the rest far more tempted to engage in RMT. An auction system is definitely not a fix. We need more houses, not different ways to purchase in the same bad system.

I completely agree that the current acquisition process is awful and that the best way to succeed is to cheat, whether that's botting the placard spam, RMT or both. The vast majority of threads and posts in this forum are about the same thing; being unable to get a house due to a system that punishes players who don't violate the ToS. Instead of fixing the heart of the issue, which is availability, SE adjusted the acquisition process...so now we have this horrendous situation. What we had before wasn't better either. We literally got a swap from one bad situation to another.

We need instanced housing. Extra wards have shown to only be temporary fixes, again and again. Band-aid fixes on acquisition only replace one problem with another, so we still have the same amount of complaints. If this keeps going in this direction it will eventually get to a point in which the server strain from having so many wards will exceed that of having instanced housing. The ward system is unsustainable from a player and dev point of view.

I really hope SE's tease about Ishgard housing will present something that isn't just an addition to the ward system.

[Brynne]

I really hope SE's tease about Ishgard housing will present something that isn't just an addition to the ward system.

Me too. They really need to stop doubling down on this ward system and provide some form of instanced housing on top of it. If Ishgard housing is just another set of wards, I'm predicting a LOT more salt when all the available plots are snatched up.

I also agree that a lottery or auction system would just create a new brand of salt and not solve anything. If they're going to implement a quick fix to ease the suffering, I'd rather they reduced the maximum time on the random timer so it's not encouraging players to sit and click for 24 hours or more. 7-8 hours is more than enough.

[ERMITANYO]

Yup apartments.

SE should definitely look into improving apartments, to include, better designed apartment buildings, amenities, more rooms, indoor gardening, and possibly an instanced balcony which follows in game weather and day/night cycle.