So, a lottery system and a divide between FC and solo wards, eh?

[StriderShinryu]

Well, in today's live letter they've confirmed two things:
1.) They will institute a lottery system in addition to the current first come first serve option
2.) There will be a divide between FC only wards and solo only wards in the future

Happy about the lottery system for sure, but I'm unsure exactly how the ward divide will work out.

Thoughts?

[MilkieTea]

I don’t really appreciate the lotto system. The problem isn’t procurement, it’s supply. A lotto system doesn’t fix that - they need to somehow up the supply or lower demand by allowing gardening in apartments.

[Strywin]

Awesome, I like the idea of a lottery system instead of living at a placard. FC only wards sound good, great even because I miss the days when it was FC only because the wards had life in them back then but solo player FCs exist so eh..

[Rae88]

A lottery system is amazing. You're still not guaranteed a house but you don't have to spend all day clicking a placard, and I think so many people will appreciate it

RNG isn't perfect but why not I guess. I feel it's a decent solution

[Vahlnir]

I don’t really appreciate the lotto system. The problem isn’t procurement, it’s supply. A lotto system doesn’t fix that - they need to somehow up the supply or lower demand by allowing gardening in apartments.

Yep, exactly. This solves absolutely nothing.

[Alien_Gamer]

I think this actually makes buying a house worse. He's described 4 different groups for buying a house with wards to accommodate each: FC Lottery, FC Purchase, Solo Lottery, and Solo Purchase. This means no matter which group you're in, you have 1/4th the available houses to pick from. If you want to buy, instead of running to a ward and getting one, you now have the extra step of figuring out which wards you're even allowed to buy a house in.

So we end up with less houses to pick from, more hoops to jump through to buy and it doesn't fix the fundamental issue of NOT ENOUGH SUPPLY. I get that some people like the Lottery idea but this just makes it a worse mess.

[StriderShinryu]

I agree that the lacking supply is an underlying issue that this doesn't fix but that would likely take a complete rework of the housing system as a whole. The lottery system is at least a major improvement over the current acquisition method so hopefully those who do still want a house can get one without fighting bots at clicking a placard for hours on end.

[Strywin]

Exactly, highly unlikely SE is ever going to fix the supply issue, if they could they would have by now. People have complained for years about wanting something different or fixes but now they are adding a new housing zone like the others which of course will raise the supply by just a little. They have not made any announcements about apartment fixes, last time was probably when they got into that mess with Shirogane. The lottery is not a fix but is still better than placard camping.

[Almagnus1]

Gonna hold judgement on this until we see the patch notes and see what the actual fallout is. That said, I'm optimistic that this is going to be a net positive.

[PangTong]

I'm all for a lottery system for as long as housing remains a limited resource, but I think the idea of maintaining first-come, first-serve wards is pointless. If only one person enters the lottery for a plot, they are going to get it anyway. If NO ONE enters the lottery for a plot, then they can make it first-come, first-serve after some time has passed, say 24-48 hours.

Having wards that just keep the current system where players are forced to camp signs makes no sense unless they remove the timer, but removing the timer also makes no sense because the timer was added to stop plot flipping and RMT. If the timer is removed that stuff will just start happening again right away unless they add such a huge amount of wards that everyone can get a house (doubtful). I don't think the devs are suddenly cool with the idea of players trading plots.

I'm also not really sure of the point of FC/solo wards. I suppose the idea is to at least guarantee some plots for FCs, but I feel the current system works fine since house ownership is restricted per account/world anyway. There's also plenty of housing hoarders who use 1-man FCs on alts just to have more housing, so FC wards doesn't help a lot with that.

I'm also curious if these ward restrictions will apply retroactively to existing wards or only new ones. Obviously they won't strip people of their existing houses, but they could add the restrictions for new sales.

What I wish they'd do is finally close the loophole that allows one account to have more than 1 FC house in a world, and also strip ownership from players grandfathered in from the old system where you could just buy as many plots as you wanted, forcing them to pick one house instead.

tl;dr lottery system good, having special wards for FCFS and FC/Solo meh