Would a raffle system be that hard?

[Catstab]

So what would you put in as the requirement for getting a house? Would one of my suggestions above work (I guess you replied while I was editing the message) or do you have other ideas?

I know it's not me you're asking, but my suggestion is still sack the whole timer, and start the house off at the ARR price of 40 million. Want it right away? Pay the 40, no camping. Want it for 3 million? Come back in 222 hours after 37 devaluations , no camping.

[tdb]

I’m also not sure that I’m jiving with the core philosophy here. I don't think you need a requirement to get a house. Housing should be available to everyone, so instead of restricting players from getting a house I think they should just focus on making housing more available. The majority of the problems with HOW to get a house will absolutely wither in the face of adequate supply.

How many times do I need to repeat this? I'm making these suggestions on the assumption that housing quantity can't be significantly increased. Maybe I should put it in my every post, bolded, so no one can possibly miss it?

I've said multiple times that I consider instanced or otherwise "infinite" housing supply to be the superior solution. But if housing is going to stay limited, and players don't want to compete against everyone else for houses, then some kind of "qualification" is necessary.

We know it's not hard to implement. House interiors and apartments are already instanced. The only hard thing would be getting weather to work if they intended to add gardening to instanced housing areas (why we can't intercross inside a house or apartment - weather doesn't exist in them).

Their vision of active neighborhoods was probably the obstacle but I don't think they've even mentioned that since the disaster that was Shirogane's opening. Hopefully they've given up on the idea and moved onto creating a system that serves all the players instead of a lucky few.

Perhaps I worded myself poorly there. I know it's not technically difficult to implement instanced houses. Other games do it. Private instances already exist in FFXIV too, and I bet they could implement indoor garden patches and chocobo stables by just copying the items and changing their category.

But player housing has existed in this game for what, six years? Seven? And I think the supply issues have existed almost as long. So something is in the way of getting instanced housing. I have no idea what it is, but if there were no obstacles we would have it already.

We'll know when Ishgard housing gets released, I guess.

If Ishgard is not going to be an enhanced version of instanced housing removing the need for a new purchase system, that would likely be the time they would implement one (if they're going to). I don't see it happening "while we wait".

The Firmament looks very much like a standard housing ward, with 30 plots and an apartment building. Maybe they will add bigger apartments or something, but I don't really see how the houses would be instanced with this setup.

[ItMe]

How many times do I need to repeat this? I'm making these suggestions on the assumption that housing quantity can't be significantly increased. Maybe I should put it in my every post, bolded, so no one can possibly miss it?

No, I get that.
But I don't think additional restrictions can mitigate or replace the placard in any meaningful way.

[Themarvin]

No, I get that.
But I don't think additional restrictions can mitigate or replace the placard in any meaningful way.

Additional restrictions in form of an UPKEEP, so you have to pay taxes off your house(s) thats the best way, there is no downsides by having a house today, having to pay for the plot per month would be a good one, would additionally add to inactive housing being available to people alongside with Auto Demolition.

[Vahlnir]

Additional restrictions in form of an UPKEEP, so you have to pay taxes off your house(s) thats the best way, there is no downsides by having a house today, having to pay for the plot per month would be a good one, would additionally add to inactive housing being available to people alongside with Auto Demolition.

And yet it still doesn't address the issue of supply and demand, and is unnecessary otherwise. I really wish you would stop promoting such terrible ideas, because that is all they are. Paying a sub and logging in is more than enough of a price to own a house.

[Jojoya]

And yet it still doesn't address the issue of supply and demand, and is unnecessary otherwise. I really wish you would stop promoting such terrible ideas, because that is all they are. Paying a sub and logging in is more than enough of a price to own a house.

Paying a sub gives you access to the game servers. It's not a guarantee you get to have specific items in the game.

It's not a terrible idea when it would make players stop and think whether or not they really want that house. It's easy to buy and keep something you don't use when you only have to pay once and it's yours forever. If you have to keep paying over and over, you're going to think twice about buying if you're not going to use it.

I know players who do nothing more than step inside their house to reset the demo timer occasionally. Ask they why don't they give up their house? "I might decide to do something with it some day and it doesn't cost me anything to keep it."

What do you think they'd do if it suddenly cost them something to keep it? Most of them would give it up because they don't want to have to keep spending the gil when they aren't using it. That would make more houses available to those who would use them.

No one with a house, even a small house, needs to worry about a recurring fee when 3 minutes of effort a day at their house will yield 700,000 gil a month or more. The fee would never be that high on a small (could be on a medium or large but they can also make 2-3 times that amount for just a few minutes more each day). It's really surprising how many house owners don't bother to take advantage of it.

[ItMe]

No one with a house, even a small house, needs to worry about a recurring fee when 3 minutes of effort a day at their house will yield 700,000 gil a month or more.

Is this through, like, gardening?
Or are you also talking about submersibles and other FC house things?

[Wrestlefire769]

In short answer to the original question: YES.

Because these gilseller outfits could easily have enough gil to overrun any lottery system and remove legitimate players from the entire player-housing situation at any time they so chose to elect if this kind of a system were inplemented.

Frankly, if the solution I proposed doesn't work, then it's going to be RMT one way or the other, and, at that point, I have two words for you: Mog Station.

[Jojoya]

Is this through, like, gardening?
Or are you also talking about submersibles and other FC house things?

Gardening. Actual amount varies by server, of course.

But for Coeurl at least, shards are currently selling for 60-110 gil each. Deluxe Garden Patch has 8 beds for planting. The shard seeds (Firelight, Levinlight, etc) yield 50 each if you're using normal Potting Soil. Using Grade 1 Shroud Topsoil will increase yield by +15, Grade 2 by +25 and Grade 3 (which you can get through tomestone exchange in Idyllshire) by +50 (so 100 total). The seeds take 18 hours to grow so if you're logging in at the same time every day, they'll always be ready for harvest when you log on the next day.

That means you get anywhere from 400 to 800 shards a day. If you've got 400 shards at 60 gil a shard, that's 24,000 gil. Multiply that by 30 and you've got over 700,000 gil in a month.

If you sell them in small lots of 200-400, you can usually get more than the lowest going rate because newer players who need the shards generally can't afford to buy the stacks of 2000-5000 you typically see listed (that's 120k to 300k gil) but could afford to pay for 200 shards at 100 gil each (that's only 20k gil).

I know these amounts are pocket change for some players but for those who feel like they struggle to make gil, it's a solid amount for little effort if they've managed to get a house. It even works to a lesser degree if all the player has is an apartment. You can still have 2 flowerpots that will yield the same 50-100 shards each for 180k or more a month (again depending on your server's shard prices).

[Madbunny]

Additional restrictions in form of an UPKEEP, so you have to pay taxes...

Oh the joy of every RMT in the game. Then you will have people who have RL money just buying GIL for the rent instead of farming.


In short:
- for anyone who doesnt have RL money but have a job he is pretty much f*ed
- for players who have RL money to spend on a game it will change nothing
- the ones with no job and a lot of time (usually kids) they will farm
... and RMT will probably start buying RL houses with the earned money.


So how do you see this system as fair?