Housing Lotto - New Plot Acquisition Method

[Divinemights]

I find that most people who suggest lottery are only thinking about how much they hate spamming a placard. Yes that is an issue that needs to be fixed but that issue stems from others which need to be addressed to truly fix things. Only tackling the symptom will not work.

Lottery is a terrible idea. It would merely be swapping one set of problems for another. That's not a fix.

To put it simply, when is their last time won the Grand Prize when bought a lotto?
That is right, zero.
It can be anyone but you, that is what lottery is.

[Linkager8921]

Could really fix the system in two ways.

1. Any player owning a house beyond a limit of one personal house and one FC house should pay a tax that escalates in rate for every house beyond. Ie 1 house beyond the free limit at 5%, two houses @10%, etc.
2. Lottery would not be randomized for all, but give stat boosts to player with no houses, that increase with every failed attempt to win the lottery. For those that already own homes, have stat defects for the number of houses owned. Ie. -5% if you own 2 homes, -10% if you own 3 homes.

This would see a number of those people hoarding homes give them up to avoid the heavier taxes, making more homes available, and provide those without, a better chance to own. Would also eliminate the system that EVERYONE is so frustrated with. Staying up hours on end with no idea if someone is going to steal it away bc your thumb got sore after 10 hours is just absurd.

[NanaWiloh]

Could really fix the system in two ways.

1. Any player owning a house beyond a limit of one personal house and one FC house should pay a tax that escalates in rate for every house beyond. Ie 1 house beyond the free limit at 5%, two houses @10%, etc.
2. Lottery would not be randomized for all, but give stat boosts to player with no houses, that increase with every failed attempt to win the lottery. For those that already own homes, have stat defects for the number of houses owned. Ie. -5% if you own 2 homes, -10% if you own 3 homes.

This would see a number of those people hoarding homes give them up to avoid the heavier taxes, making more homes available, and provide those without, a better chance to own. Would also eliminate the system that EVERYONE is so frustrated with. Staying up hours on end with no idea if someone is going to steal it away bc your thumb got sore after 10 hours is just absurd.

Stat boost would be abused as losing would happen more often then winning and people will exploit it. Punishing players with Multiple homes making it harder for them to do other content like Savage is wrong.

[Jojoya]

Could really fix the system in two ways.

1. Any player owning a house beyond a limit of one personal house and one FC house should pay a tax that escalates in rate for every house beyond. Ie 1 house beyond the free limit at 5%, two houses @10%, etc.
2. Lottery would not be randomized for all, but give stat boosts to player with no houses, that increase with every failed attempt to win the lottery. For those that already own homes, have stat defects for the number of houses owned. Ie. -5% if you own 2 homes, -10% if you own 3 homes.

This would see a number of those people hoarding homes give them up to avoid the heavier taxes, making more homes available, and provide those without, a better chance to own. Would also eliminate the system that EVERYONE is so frustrated with. Staying up hours on end with no idea if someone is going to steal it away bc your thumb got sore after 10 hours is just absurd.

Those don't fix anything.

What needs to be fixed is the supply. If the supply is sufficient on every world so every player on that world who wants a house can get one, the problem goes away.

[ItMe]

For those that already own homes, have stat defects for the number of houses owned. Ie. -5% if you own 2 homes, -10% if you own 3 homes.

This would see a number of those people hoarding homes give them up to avoid the heavier taxes, making more homes available, and provide those without, a better chance to own.

People trying to get more homes?
Like... someone trying to get both a personal and an FC house?
Why should those people be punished?
Because they've long since removed the ability for one to just own all the houses they want, so who else is this designed to target?

[MegaMage]

No to lottery. The timer is the problem. They need to lower the maximum time to something between 5-8hrs instead of 20. Still have a random chance of it being much sooner.

SE constantly states they want people to spend a healthy amount of time outside the game, yet this current system(timer) is directly the antithesis of that.

[geminipestdeath]

Those don't fix anything.

What needs to be fixed is the supply. If the supply is sufficient on every world so every player on that world who wants a house can get one, the problem goes away.

That will literally never happen with the amount of players this game has and the amount of houses required to make it happen.

To others:
I keep seeing people saying "Lottery will just increase bots" and "lottery will just trade problems" but the brass tacks is that -any system that is more healthy for the player is better than what we currently have-. You can tell me that 99 bots put in lotto tickets for a plot and if I even have a 1/100 chance of getting it, that is still better than sitting for hours at a placard and not getting it anyway. Like, I really don't know what's going on in people's lives that they think that spending -literal days- of their lives clicking a placard is better than doing anything else, but saying that a lottery is worse than that just... Boggles my mind. I would rather play my state's lottery than keep my hand on a car in the hopes that I'm conveniently the one stubborn enough (and lucky enough) to get it.

[LaylaTsarra]

I keep seeing people saying "Lottery will just increase bots" and "lottery will just trade problems" but the brass tacks is that -any system that is more healthy for the player is better than what we currently have-. .

Lottery isn't the answer. And you don't have to sit at a placard for hours. Boggles my mind that people think this would be better. No thank you. Lets fix the timer and not give RNG the decision in who gets a plot. And by the way let us know when you win your state lotto.

[Jojoya]

That will literally never happen with the amount of players this game has and the amount of houses required to make it happen.

To others:
I keep seeing people saying "Lottery will just increase bots" and "lottery will just trade problems" but the brass tacks is that -any system that is more healthy for the player is better than what we currently have-. You can tell me that 99 bots put in lotto tickets for a plot and if I even have a 1/100 chance of getting it, that is still better than sitting for hours at a placard and not getting it anyway. Like, I really don't know what's going on in people's lives that they think that spending -literal days- of their lives clicking a placard is better than doing anything else, but saying that a lottery is worse than that just... Boggles my mind. I would rather play my state's lottery than keep my hand on a car in the hopes that I'm conveniently the one stubborn enough (and lucky enough) to get it.

So then wouldn't it be better to get rid of housing altogether rather than keep dangling it in front of players who have no better chance of getting the house than they have of winning a lottery in real life?

At least with the current system, there will be a player who has the house within a day of it becoming available. With a lottery, houses would sit empty for weeks or months before someone finally got the same number the system randomly cranks out as the winning number. You'd have a massively pissed off player base because of all the houses sitting there empty without any owner at all.

[geminipestdeath]

Lottery isn't the answer. And you don't have to sit at a placard for hours. Boggles my mind that people think this would be better. No thank you. Lets fix the timer and not give RNG the decision in who gets a plot. And by the way let us know when you win your state lotto.

"Lottery isn't the answer" isn't an actual argument as to why it's better/worse - you realize this, yes? Then, neither is "let us know when you win the lottery". Like, it's just rehashing the statement without providing anything of value, up to and including constructive criticism. And yeah, I've never won my state lottery. I've also never won a car by keeping my hand on it for 24+ hours. Neither of those are valid arguments as to why a lottery isn't a better system than keeping one's hands on the car and yet more people play the lottery (and consequently win the lottery) than silly car games.

You cannot fix the timer or remove RNG from the system without people exploiting it. The more solid foundational rules go into the system, the easier it is to game, and if RNG is a necessity to have a working, fair-ish system, then you might as well go with the one that is the most pragmatic toward overall player enjoyment. You can say "you don't have to sit at a placard for hours" but fundamentally, yes you do, because you cannot win if you don't play. The only way you would get a house otherwise is through extraordinary amounts of luck.

Speaking of luck: Implement a lottery system. So people can just put in their ticket and move on with life and the game. If you can give me any reason at all why sitting at a placard to get a house is better than playing the game whilst getting a house, I'll concede. Otherwise I'm just going to default to the lotto proposal every time. Not even sorry.

At least with the current system, there will be a player who has the house within a day of it becoming available. With a lottery, houses would sit empty for weeks or months before someone finally got the same number the system randomly cranks out as the winning number. You'd have a massively pissed off player base because of all the houses sitting there empty without any owner at all.

Weeks or months? Why would a lottery system need to go on that long? The length of time doesn't need to be exorbitant - 36 hours seems to be adequate enough for people willing to sit there and click on a placard, apparently. Adequate enough that people think that's a better system than click interface, buy ticket, and then go do anything else. And it'd give people that aren't around when the servers open a chance to get a house on patch day, in regard to Ishgard housing. It would reduce the necessity for people to have to be around and beat the massive queue times and likely take stress off the servers in doing so. I think the amount of people pissed off by that would be significantly less than the amount who never even had a chance because they had to work or were asleep when the servers came back up.

EDIT: Actually, I think I know exactly why people are against a lotto system: They're hoping that they'll be one of the lucky 1,260 people to be able to log in early enough, beat the queue, and buy an Ishgard house without competition. News flash: If there's this much competition over the one or two plots that come up to stand around for entire days hoping to get it - you ain't going to be one of the tens of thousands of people who miraculously get in on patch day and beat the queues.