House Raffling

[Almagnus1]

Oh, and as a general rule I don't respond to thirsty fanboys, nor people begging for a response.

I will do as I please, when I please.

[EaMett]

It's not. if they wanted it to be PvP housing, they would never have expanded the number of wards to the point we've had periods where most worlds had surplus housing available for the taking. In 2018, there were dozens if not hundreds of houses available on all but a handful of worlds. It was only when the player population exploded at the start of 2019 that all those available houses started disappearing.

This is simply incorrect. Just outright so.

• Oct 2014, patch 2.4 > 1440 plots available for an average user count of 3107 per serve(**), 46% availability (no before patch stats as this was the first time housing was open to personals)
• Jun 2016, patch 3.3 > 2160 plots available for an average user count of 4224 per server(*), 51% availability (31% before patch)
• Oct 2017, patch 4.1 > 2880 plots available for an average user count of 10 834 per server(*), 26% availability (20% before patch)
• Feb 2018, patch 4.2 > 4320 plots available for an average user count of 8957 per server(*), 48% availability (32% before patch)
• current > 5760 plots available for an average user count of 10489 per server(*), 54% availability (48% before patch). This patch was sold as compensating for lack of demo timers due to COVID19. So is likely to be outside of normal cycles.

* Average users per server follow the 80/20 rule. This means that 80% of the player base reside on servers with this average active user count. I am conflating character and user count to make up for the purchase of FC housing. (as per FFXIV Census)
** The information exists on LuckyBancho but is a pain to compile. If anyone wants to take a jab at it be my guest. Instead, I took a few deltas for specific servers which gave me a base population increase % and applied that to the other servers

As you can see this has been a thing for a long time. They have always tried to maintain housing around the 30-50% mark of the active server population. 2017 was the worst of it (though this may be due to a blip in census data) and current times are one of the best times for housing.

It's always been a limited resource as far back as the feature has been open to personal housing. The initial dev who designed housing (who's name I can't remember for the life of me right now) stated that they wanted housing to be difficult to get in order to get a sense of accomplishment from obtaining one.

Yes, plots were open on some servers years ago but that's just human psychology. If something is easy to get there's no value, no status. When something becomes hard to get suddenly everyone wants a piece of it for those same reasons. That's the entire point of limited availability design. Infomercials use this all the time "buy now, we only have 5 left", "only available for a limited time", etc.. etc..

The availability of housing hasn't changed over the years, it's just that housing became more desirable as it became harder to obtain. And this shift happened years ago for most of the playerbase.

If they intended it to be PvP housing, the demolition timer would never get suspended. It would remain on constantly to force players to stay active to retain their house.

This does not even make sense. They block timers because of natural disasters. As a form of relief to players who may be affected by them. They do this specifically because of the PvP nature of housing.

the concept of PvP with housing, while emergent behavior

As demonstrated above, there is nothing "emergent" about this.

People want houses because they're hard to get (normal human psychology, even if they don't realize it). People also complain about houses being hard to get, what you gonna do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Almagnus1]

As demonstrated above, there is nothing "emergent" about this.

There is and you should go read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence as I'm specifically reffering to behavioral patterns, and what patterns emerge from the playerbase, and how to deal with the ones that are undesireable.

People want houses because they're hard to get (normal human psychology, even if they don't realize it). People also complain about houses being hard to get.

And we're basically saying the same thing, just differently.

[EaMett]

And we're basically saying the same thing, just differently.

This is not an emerging behavior by any means, it's just more widespread. People were finding it hard to get a house back in 2016 too, just on a limited number of servers. It took me 2 years to get mine on faerie which wasn't even a populated server. Albeit I took my time with it and wasn't thorough by any means, but still. Most ward additions were made with these servers in mind. And again, like I said, 80% of players resided on these servers.

Also, if you refer to my above post. I state that this is the very point of such designs. It's meant to make something appealing by making it limited. What goal is accomplished by making the resource easy to get? Nothing, it devalues the resource and breaks the design. Hence why I made my original post in this thread stating that a raffle would be very unlikely to get adopted. And why I made suggestions of my own that would most likely work well.

[k99]

ToS List

Once again whenever ToS is in question, that is when I appear. I know it's annoying and I apologize.

I may not need to remind you for the nth time, but those rules apply to everyone and you too. You have engaged in a very long and negative war on housing. So much that you do not qualify to cite the ToS to halt discussion. Below are some examples of your behavior relative to ToS:

• Posting a number of posts with the same content.
  You have many threads/posts that repeat the theme of "take away houses", "autodestroy fcs", and "liquidate grandfathered houses". Links in #3.
  
  
• Posting that constitutes discrimination against another forum member or group (also including forming groups for the purpose of discrimination), insults, slander, libel, harassment of a group or individual.
  You have participated numerous times in posts that single out individual players (click) owning many homes. Instead of denouncing the original poster, you have chosen to actively participate very vocally for 14 bitter pages.
  
  
  

  ...All I want is for SE to enforce the housing restrictions on the thieves they grandfathered into the housing system. ...The same should go for the FC houses - ending the ability for these thieves to own more than two houses per server per account.
  People who own multiple houses are not 'thieves'. You constantly choose to portray these people in a negative light and feed the tension and anger surrounding lack of available housing by taking advantage of and directing people's emotions towards them.
  
  
  
• Posting aimed to create a negative impact on the community or its members.
  Your posts always require a negative result for a certain group/people. Most suggestions seek to seize assets using a broadly cast net based on your personal criteria with no regard for players with varying circumstances which would force them to be non-compliant:
  
  1. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...p-Restrictions
  2. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ng-Suggestions
  3. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...to-disband-FCs

Many have patiently tried to reason with you, addressing every angle despite your habit to change rules mid conversation. Now when people have legitimately asked you questions, you have chosen to ignore. This is a real cop out. My personal opinion, your "contributions" have had negative impact to the subject of housing, deliberately targeting people and emotions. The anger we observe now is a result of one of your suggestions actually being implemented. Your ongoing suggestions will result similarly.

If you do genuinely care about the housing situation, please stop with this posting behavior.

[Almagnus1]

You have engaged in a very long and negative war on housing.

So assuming this is true (which it isn't), why am I not banned?

If you feel I have violated TOS, then please report me, put me on the ignore list, and move on.

[Divinemights]

Basically, he has nothing to say against a simple restriction to allow each player only able to click placard once every 30 mins
Simple fix, no need to have a non sense lottery system and people can still be free to relocate to a better plot.
People no longer need to stay awake 24 hour straight therefore no health hazard, simple and fair

[Jojoya]

This is simply incorrect. Just outright so.
snip the rest

Your problem is you're assuming that every player wants a house and that SE believes the same thing.

You're wrong. There's a large segment of the player population with no interest in owning house. SE understands that even if you don't. They've been adding housing as the available housing across worlds disappears, not to keep housing at a certain percentage of the player base to force housing PvP.

Pull numbers out of the air all you want but the real story in the number of houses that have been available at times, not the number of total houses versus total players.

If housing was intended to be PvP, there would never have been times the majority of worlds had houses available not just days but months.

Players on JP worlds (outside of Tonberry and a couple of the legacy worlds) never had problems getting a house once the wards were expanded to 12 until this expansion.

Players on NA and EU worlds had no problem getting houses the latter half of HW or in 2018 as long as they weren't on one of the congested worlds. Variety of what was available may not have been great at the end of HW but there was still no problem getting a house if you wanted one. That's how I got my first house. No PvP. No having to buy from a flipper.

There were hundreds of houses available on some NA and EU worlds during 2018 and dozens available on most of the rest. They didn't disappear until other MMOs died or had serious content issues at the start of 2019. Explain why that would be in your PvP housing theory.

I'm guessing you're one of those who only value housing if it's something others can't have which is why you're pushing your PvP theory.

Most players aren't like that, fortunately, and neither is SE.

[ADVSS]

Lottery is probably the worst way to deal with housing issue altogether. Its just bad math. Why not push for instance housing?

[EaMett]

Your problem is you're assuming that every player wants a house and that SE believes the same thing.

You're wrong. There's a large segment of the player population with no interest in owning house. SE understands that even if you don't. They've been adding housing as the available housing across worlds disappears, not to keep housing at a certain percentage of the player base to force housing PvP.

Pull numbers out of the air all you want but the real story in the number of houses that have been available at times, not the number of total houses versus total players.

If housing was intended to be PvP, there would never have been times the majority of worlds had houses available not just days but months.

Players on JP worlds (outside of Tonberry and a couple of the legacy worlds) never had problems getting a house once the wards were expanded to 12 until this expansion.

Players on NA and EU worlds had no problem getting houses the latter half of HW or in 2018 as long as they weren't on one of the congested worlds. Variety of what was available may not have been great at the end of HW but there was still no problem getting a house if you wanted one. That's how I got my first house. No PvP. No having to buy from a flipper.

There were hundreds of houses available on some NA and EU worlds during 2018 and dozens available on most of the rest. They didn't disappear until other MMOs died or had serious content issues at the start of 2019. Explain why that would be in your PvP housing theory.

I'm guessing you're one of those who only value housing if it's something others can't have which is why you're pushing your PvP theory.

Most players aren't like that, fortunately, and neither is SE.

SE have mentioned their stance on how they wanted housing to be difficult to get, as stated in my previous comment. But you probably ignored that like you did the numbers I "pulled out of the air".

I JUST showed you that 80% of the player base had little access to housing over the last 4 years. I don't know how much clearer things can be. Yet you keep coming back with phrases like "There were hundreds of houses available on some NA and EU worlds during 2018 and dozens available on most of the rest." with no proof whatsoever. I'm waiting... Go on.

Were there servers where housing was available? Yes some servers did, Goblin in NA was a good example. But again, I have to insist because it really isn't registering with you, for 80% of the player base, this was not the case. Because 80% of the ff14 population resided on higher population servers. And when you build design policies you build them for the players, NOT the servers. If 80% of players are on higher pop servers you upgrade the features for higher population servers.
Again, lets do another round of this because repetition is key. Yes JP servers do ok with housing, that's because currently HALF of those servers don't even count towards that 80% of players. Since the JP servers are so lowly populated compared to the average server. In fact only tonberry has more active players than the average server, ALL other JP servers have bellow average population. Compare that to say NA that has no servers bellow the average population.

When a game company can't balance content for all players, they should balance content for the top 80% of players affected and SE does just that. Keeping the feature within their tolerance levels for those 80%. Especially since the remaining 20% aren't harmed in any way. They just have easier housing access, which incidentally, can help distribute server load if people migrate because of it, so it's win-win-win.

You can keep going on about your fantasy explanation about SE's intentions while ignoring everything I've posted if you want. But if you want to convince anyone you'll need more than just vague anecdotal mentions of plot availability pulled from god knows where and that represented god knows what portion of the game population.
At least I posted most of my sources.

In fact, to use your words, until you can do better your fantasy isn't true no matter how much you want to think it is.
Maybe we can revisit this after you post a bit of your research on the matter.

PS: I also find it a little amusing that you'll argue against using plot availability vs active characters as a metric because and I quote "There's a large segment of the player population with no interest in owning house". I mean... For one, you have nothing to back this argument up. But in addition to this, the logic of this statement is pretty loopy.

If in 2016 a large percentage of the active population wasn't interested in housing and 50% plot availability allowed everyone to get a house. Then today with 50% plot availability the situation should be roughly the same and we should have enough plots. Aka you shouldn't be complaining about the system.
Or is it that the population of people with no interest in housing is, contrary to what you said, not large. In which case you were wrong to argue against using plot availability vs active characters as a metric?
Conversely, if that portion of players is large today and housing is still a problem (which you say it is) then you acknowledge that it was also a problem 4 years ago, as I've been saying.
Yes? No? Which is it? What's the narrative here?