Large quantity of gil disappeared.

[Krotoan]

Jojoya is correct, camping is optional, not mandatory. Jenova hasn't been a low pop server for years and yet I've helped several friends get a house for their FC with no camping, it just takes time. Check the ward list for vacancies periodically, click any vacant house for a few minutes then try again a few hours later or wait for another house to pop up.

Camping or not, there's some luck involved with the timer. And nobody is going to say the current system is good but the idea that camping is mandatory is wrong. Its a choice people make because they fear on losing out and because they're impatient to have it now. Being patient and persistent over time gives you just as much of a chance as camping does and a lot less stress.

It's about increasing your chances though. You can rely on luck entirely and hope that the placard is "open" right at the time you choose to check and hope there are no housing bots active and hope that a house opens up when you're active and available.. sure. OR you can maximize your chances and camp. Both options though are circumvented by click spam bots which wouldn't be able to have an advantage in a lottery system.

So to a degree it's not MANDATORY by strict letter, but to maximize chances of getting a house, let alone a house you WANT, camping is the best chance.

So again, while the lottery solution does not, by far, solve all the housing problems, it most definitely solves a few.

[Alien_Gamer]

The only problem the lottery potentially solves is placard clicking but it does so at the cost of increasing the potential buyers and decreasing your odds of getting a house. My view is if a system decreases the odds of you getting a house, then its not a solution to anything, its just an exacerbation of an already bad system.

But the lottery existing is a done deal now. All we can do is wait for more details and see how badly it will blow things up.

[TwistedTea]

No, you don't. I know players who have recently gotten their houses without any camping or purchasing from other players.

Not sure how do you define recently. But currently on Coeurl, every single small plot is camped especially during prime time(10-14hrs after a plot has opened, the most likely time for a plot to sell). The data is from Sadu's House Alerts discord which has tracked open plots nearly hourly for years, especially on servers like Balmung/Mateus.

I'm part of the Sadu's House Alerts Discord which helps players camp for houses on NA servers:
https://discord.gg/saChECt

We sweepers(players who do hourly sweeps to check all the wards for open plots.)

Coeurl is swept nearly every hour on some days with very few sweep gaps.

All small plots on Crystal are camped.

The massive influx of new players for all the different reasons has made camping for houses much worse across all the NA servers.

[Jojoya]

It's about increasing your chances though. You can rely on luck entirely and hope that the placard is "open" right at the time you choose to check and hope there are no housing bots active and hope that a house opens up when you're active and available.. sure. OR you can maximize your chances and camp. Both options though are circumvented by click spam bots which wouldn't be able to have an advantage in a lottery system.

So to a degree it's not MANDATORY by strict letter, but to maximize chances of getting a house, let alone a house you WANT, camping is the best chance.

So again, while the lottery solution does not, by far, solve all the housing problems, it most definitely solves a few.

It's not solving anything. It's exchanging one form of RNG for a new form of RNG that reduces a player's chances of "winning" substantially because it will increase the number of participants a hundredfold if not more.

All the lottery does is force players to stop engaging in one specific form of game activity, something they could have voluntarily chosen to do on their own (but didn't).

It's very bizarre to me that so many players think the lottery will be an improvement.

Not sure how do you define recently. But currently on Coeurl, every single small plot is camped especially during prime time(10-14hrs after a plot has opened, the most likely time for a plot to sell). The data is from Sadu's House Alerts discord which has tracked open plots nearly hourly for years, especially on servers like Balmung/Mateus.

I'm part of the Sadu's House Alerts Discord which helps players camp for houses on NA servers:
https://discord.gg/saChECt

We sweepers(players who do hourly sweeps to check all the wards for open plots.)

Coeurl is swept nearly every hour on some days with very few sweep gaps.

All small plots on Crystal are camped.

The massive influx of new players for all the different reasons has made camping for houses much worse across all the NA servers.

The players I'm think of did it back in May and June of this year. One of them was not on Coeurl, I was helping them check for plots on an Aether world with an alt. Another one managed to get their house despite 3 other players camping the plot when they showed up.

I will admit that with the recent massive influx of new players, the current situation has probably gotten worse. Camping might lower the chances for other players who are randomly checking to get a plot but it still does not remove it. It's the player's choice on which path they want to take. They've always got the option to say "no, this is not worth the time".

[Krotoan]

It's not solving anything. It's exchanging one form of RNG for a new form of RNG that reduces a player's chances of "winning" substantially because it will increase the number of participants a hundredfold if not more.

It solves problems and it does create others, never said it didn't. Yes. now housing will (possibly) be complete RNG for a plot. Eliminating clickbots and removing most inequality from the process, we shall see what other relocation changes they make.

All the lottery does is force players to stop engaging in one specific form of game activity, something they could have voluntarily chosen to do on their own (but didn't).

A game activity that was incredibly frustrating and wasted hours of player time for possibly no gain. Yes .. people COULD have given up and just hoped (like your solution) but like most gamers they picked the activity that would most likely result in achieving their goals. It's very easy to tell people "well dont do that then" .. it's quite another to KNOW that there is a way to increase your chances of getting what you want and NOT do it. Eliminating even the possibility of people choosing this frustrating avenue and possibly souring their experience is , in my opinion, a good choice. Many many players have expressed their displeasure that people with "no lives" and bots were far more likely to get houses then they were. Add to that the fact that housing locks a few substantial blocks of content away behind it and you have people who are now frustrated they can't do content as well.

It's very bizarre to me that so many players think the lottery will be an improvement.

If you haven't participated in camping for a house and have the perception or experience that it's something that is easy to do.. I can imagine you wouldn't see the benefit. As someone whos server has always had housing only open on ward release days and very rarely through demo-timers... I can say I would gladly take a lottery over what we have now.... Though I have hopes that someday they will make the rest of the content locked behind housing available to everyone.

[CaptainLagbeard]

The only way it would really be a scam is if a real player somehow couldn't tell the difference between a house Placard and a retainer.

[Liam_Harper]

I think it just highlights the problems with housing.

The reason the number of participants would increase a hundredfold is because that many players don't own, want and can afford the price of a house. The only thing stopping them right now is the discouragement of having to deal with an unhealthy bot-ridden system. Which is obviously bad design. But the demand is there and exists.

The lottery is a minor improvement because clicking a placard for 12 hours isn't healthy. But if you don't do it you have 0 chance at a house. The lottery gives you a tiny chance. So very minor improvement, that still doesn't fix the main issue at all, just a tweak to a design flaw.

However, the housing itself is in a bad state, created by the developers, because they insist on the open neighborhood system which has natural limitations to supply. There'll never be enough server space. Really they should have been developing instanced housing instead of pouring resources into the Ishgard housing district. They're just cementing the issue further, because they've invested far too much into it to just scrap it now.

[Kes13a]

The only way it would really be a scam is if a real player somehow couldn't tell the difference between a house Placard and a retainer.

well... there are a lot of new players...

if you can click on both... maybe the retainer was... uh...dressed as a placard!

[Mosha]

I wouldn't call this Botting, I think its unfair to tar them in the same vein as Gil bots who run MSQ to get the reward Gil. Most of them are using software that comes bundled with their Keyboard. Plus all what they're doing is taking themselves out of a unhealthy system that encourages RSI.
This system should of been updated with a lottery system years ago and even now the RSI inducing system isn't being fully scraped.

Hate the game not the Player.

[SenseiMaria]

I wouldn't call this Botting, I think its unfair to tar them in the same vein as Gil bots who run MSQ to get the reward Gil. Most of them are using software that comes bundled with their Keyboard. Plus all what they're doing is taking themselves out of a unhealthy system that encourages RSI.
This system should of been updated with a lottery system years ago and even now the RSI inducing system isn't being fully scraped.

Hate the game not the Player.

It is fair to compare it to botting since both are using various automation softwares to achieve a desired goal without being physically present. One is a lot more worse than the other, but at the end of the day the TOS would strike down both for the exact same reason:

2.1 Cheating and Botting. You may not create or use any unauthorized cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software or hardware designed to modify the Game and gameplay.

It also doesn't matter if its a bad system or not. Console players can't even access these kinds of tools, so using them gives any PC player a giant advantage over console players.

It's good that the retainer trick is becoming more widespread. Will give a nice karmic lesson to these people for trying to cheat the system. Or at the very least, force them to stay at their PCs the entire time its running.