Suggestion: relocation should be subject to the same timer as first time buyers.

[Catstab]

This would lengthen the amount of time it takes to fill empty plots.

Under the current system:
1. Players A, B, C, D have been camping a house 8 hours. Player E walks up and relocates.
2. Players A, B, C, D locate player E's old plot and 12 hours later, one of them wins it.
Total time a house stands unoccupied: 20 hours

Under your proposed system:
1. Players A, B, C, D have been camping a house 8 hours. Player E walks up and begins attempting to relocate.
2. After 4 hours, player E wins the house and relocates.
3. Players A, B, C, D locate player E's old plot and 12 hours later, one of them wins it.
Total time a house stands unoccupied: 24 hours

This isn't going to be the story with every timer-blocked relocation, but it will be the story with enough of them. Relocation-trains are frustrating enough to campers without making them take hours longer.

Under the current system, ideal relocations are snapped up in minutes, allowing people to return to the game. If a Mist 35 sat open for 8-22 hours with half the server camping it, the lost play-hours from everyone would be incalculable.

Camping itself is a poor system, and a miserable experience. Making every plot a camp every time seems more like a step backward than a step forward.

[Luna-M]

Then please, elaborate on the reason and benefit of having relocation skip the timer? Right now it mostly serves as a means of players being able to trade houses amongst each other for increasingly inflated gil costs. We can do without that. Folks relocating to a plot already have the benefit of getting a reduced gil cost.

It makes the source plot available to be bought, albeit a timer.
If you were to "punish" re-locators with same timer, it would literally not fix anything. Just make it worse.

This might sound harsh but if housing is a huge deal and you're on such a populated server where this is such a issue as you describe, I would suggest switch server. On my server (in Light) we have plots available on a weekly basis, and while you have to camp for the plot if, unable to re-locate it's not same situation as you describe in OP.

With all that, I agree timer is a crap system and I been on the receiving end of it before both for my personal house and FC house. Spent both 16-20 hours per plot before relocated to better spots and sizes. I'd be pretty pissed if I had to do the timer thing again for a FC house expansion.

[Burmecia]

Hilarious. Do we want more timers or less, again?

[8bitbort]

This would lengthen the amount of time it takes to fill empty plots.

Under the current system:
1. Players A, B, C, D have been camping a house 8 hours. Player E walks up and relocates.
2. Players A, B, C, D locate player E's old plot and 12 hours later, one of them wins it.
Total time a house stands unoccupied: 20 hours

Under your proposed system:
1. Players A, B, C, D have been camping a house 8 hours. Player E walks up and begins attempting to relocate.
2. After 4 hours, player E wins the house and relocates.
3. Players A, B, C, D locate player E's old plot and 12 hours later, one of them wins it.
Total time a house stands unoccupied: 24 hours

This isn't going to be the story with every timer-blocked relocation, but it will be the story with enough of them. Relocation-trains are frustrating enough to campers without making them take hours longer.

Under the current system, ideal relocations are snapped up in minutes, allowing people to return to the game. If a Mist 35 sat open for 8-22 hours with half the server camping it, the lost play-hours from everyone would be incalculable.

Camping itself is a poor system, and a miserable experience. Making every plot a camp every time seems more like a step backward than a step forward.

The problem with the current situation in your example is it suggests the average house-hopeful player can click a placard for 20 hours straight. This is incredibly unreasonable of an expectation. And again, if there wasn't such a MARKET for selling relocation rights, there wouldn't be such a burden on housing as a whole. I think you even said yourself that players would focus on camping the plot they actually want, rather than just trying to get something until they have the gil to talk someone into releasing the plot they actually want. Yes it would suck for players who already bought their "placeholder" house, but it levels the playing field significantly.

It makes the source plot available to be bought, albeit a timer.
If you were to "punish" re-locators

This isn't about punishing anything. This is leveling the playing field so that everyone has the same shot at "desirable" plots, and not just people who already got their foot in the door with a "placeholder" like goblet 22. In addition, this curbs a big segment of the market for selling relocations, which means people would camp the plot they actually want, instead of just camping "lol whatever" until they can hand 150 million gil off to a player to give them their ideal LB medium

[Luna-M]

This isn't about punishing anything. This is leveling the playing field so that everyone has the same shot at "desirable" plots, and not just people who already got their foot in the door with a "placeholder" like goblet 22. In addition, this curbs a big segment of the market for selling relocations, which means people would camp the plot they actually want, instead of just camping "lol whatever" until they can hand 150 million gil off to a player to give them their ideal LB medium

But paying 150M isn't happening on a wide scale. That's just painting the wrong picture.

[Jojoya]

Hilarious. Do we want more timers or less, again?

Personally, I'd like to see all types of housing timers become irrelevant because SE finally implements a system where supply meets demand.

No more purchase timer. No more demolition timer. Every one who wants a house has one.

If SE won't do that, then the purchase timer is still needed to prevent things from going back to when the house flippers ran the housing sales instead of SE.

The only change I'd like to see with respect to relocation is for the cooldown to be changed from 5 minutes to 30 days. Granted it doesn't happen often but there have been players who relocated their house then immediately relocated back to their old plot just to mess with players waiting to buy the available plot. There should be some sort of meaningful decision involved when relocating.

[8bitbort]

But paying 150M isn't happening on a wide scale. That's just painting the wrong picture.

Your claim is now that the number is what's wrong, and not the system that allows for abuse like it, even if the number is only 20-60 million? Am I understanding this, correctly?

[Divinemights]

You thinks it is an abuse only because you are in a desperate state due to “lack of the supply”. Under this mental state, you will see everyone as abuser, cheater, and hacker. Relocation is not an issue because there is no one wants to troll by throwing million of gold. Caim down, clear your mind and just put your effort to 5.35 competition.

Relocation does not happen a lot. It most happens every major house plots release where people move to new ward. don’t over exaggerate it as an issue. It is a decision made by a team after weighted pros and cons.

[8bitbort]

Oh, so now we're moving to gaslighting. If relocation WASN'T such a thing, why are [buy-relo] and [Sell-Relo] such popular tags? Even Catstab says that selling relocation is frowned upon in-game and that it should be kept to the discords where you can't get in trouble.

[EaMett]

Then please, elaborate on the reason and benefit of having relocation skip the timer? Right now it mostly serves as a means of players being able to trade houses amongst each other for increasingly inflated gil costs. We can do without that. Folks relocating to a plot already have the benefit of getting a reduced gil cost.

It serves the purpose of increased comfort as you level up in the housing game. You should only really suffer badly once to get a house, there's no need to keep the suffering going when you want to upgrade your house as well.
Plus like others have said, it changes very little for people trying to buy their first plot. If someone relocates it just opens up a plot somewhere else. There's hardly any time wasted for people placard spamming. I did the math a while back. The difference in the time it takes to get a house between someone staying on the same plot and clicking the placard until the plot unlocks, and someone placard clicking for an hour at a time every day is only about 10%. Clicking the placard and having someone relocate after a few hours is equivalent to that later case.
Plus, that can be further reduced if you use an appropriate house-hunting strategy.

Which while I'm on the topic of strategy. House hunting anywhere where someone relocates is a sign that you aren't doing it right. You should focus your efforts on small goblet plots. Anything else will be a bit of a gamble and you should know that going in.