Questions about FC Lotto and FC/FS wards.

[Nepentha]

FC Housing Lotto:

How many people in an FC can enter into a lottery in FC only/Lotto only wards?
If more than one can enter (provided they meet requirements listed), is gil returned to FC members whose ticket didn't win?
Are brand new FCs allowed to buy tickets (provided they meet requirements)?

First come/first serve wards:

Will SE be monitoring housing sales to weed out people who purchase them far too frequently?
Will SE be able to handle the influx of click bots that are about to become worse than it is now?
Is FC Master unchanging? Can be handed off to a new member who just joined immediately?

[Jojoya]

They didn't state an answer to your first question but I imagine it will be mentioned when housing is discussed again prior to 6.1.

It would make no sense for purchase refunds to go to someone other than the player who purchases the entry, even if it's on behalf of a FC. There's always had to be some level of trust between a FC and the members allowed to purchase land when it comes to the gil.

Why wouldn't brand new FCs be allowed to purchase as long as all other requirements are met?

YoshiP specifically stated they will have systems in the background monitoring house purchases and player accounts with unusual housing related activity might be deemed in violation of the ToS (obstruction of others' game play).

Why do you think these changes will result in a flood of clickbots? The vast majority of wards are expected to be lottery, making a clickbot useless. Unless you're talking about clickbots in the period leading up to 6.1, not after. And I doubt SE is going to care about those anymore than they care about them right now since it will only be a temporary problem.

New members of a FC will no longer be eligible to become FC leader until a certain period of time has passed. The period was not specified but I imagine it would be a minimum of 35 days to line up with the auto-dethrone. It could also be they're quietly watching player feedback to see what players feel would be a fair period.

The changes still will not prevent completely prevent flippping but they're going to make it harder than it is currently.

[Nepentha]

They didn't state an answer to your first question but I imagine it will be mentioned when housing is discussed again prior to 6.1.

It would make no sense for purchase refunds to go to someone other than the player who purchases the entry, even if it's on behalf of a FC. There's always had to be some level of trust between a FC and the members allowed to purchase land when it comes to the gil.

That's not what I meant. I meant is the extra gil they put in refunded, or is it simply the price of adding extra tickets for the FC.

Why wouldn't brand new FCs be allowed to purchase as long as all other requirements are met?

When you track these resellers the way I do, you see very clear patterns. Too many times I've seen an FC created on a Monday already have a house on Tuesday, passed off to a lvl 1 alt (if they haven't already sold it), and have created a new FC they are either in the process of leveling up to 6, or have already done so and are prepared for the next placard clickwar.

These operations count on fast sales, they want to unload their houses asap and move on to the next one. It's the opposite of the medium/large plot snipers, who hold onto their plots to sell to the highest bidder. The only way to hamper these operations is to force them to slow down. If they have to wait for their FC to be so many days old rather than run to placard click soon as it hits lvl 6 (which, btw, takes literally half an hour or less if you know what you're doing and they do), it'll definitely make them have to rethink how they do things. Put the FC master restrictions on top of that and it won't entirely stop them, but it will definitely throw a monkey wrench into their current dynamic.

YoshiP specifically stated they will have systems in the background monitoring house purchases and player accounts with unusual housing related activity might be deemed in violation of the ToS (obstruction of others' game play).

I read your reply last night and rather than kneejerk, I decided to sleep on it. Basically, SE has lost my faith and my trust in their ability to handle problem players. After years of reports filed by hundreds of people, these same botters and resellers have been operating with impunity. While all these measures are nice, it would have been nicer if they'd actually read our reports and taken them seriously and handled players who were clearly violating the rules.

If you swear at someone in game, a GM will be in your grill within a few hours if not sooner. If you abuse housing for years by using a bot program, nothing is going to happen to you.

I don't believe they will hold this up on their end of things. They will have to earn back my trust on this front, by showing the playerbase that violating the ToS actually has consequences. Because right now? It doesn't.

Why do you think these changes will result in a flood of clickbots? The vast majority of wards are expected to be lottery, making a clickbot useless. Unless you're talking about clickbots in the period leading up to 6.1, not after. And I doubt SE is going to care about those anymore than they care about them right now since it will only be a temporary problem.

Where did they say the vast majority of wards will be lotto only? Far as I could see, they didn't really talk about the split.

[Jojoya]

Where did they say the vast majority of wards will be lotto only? Far as I could see, they didn't really talk about the split.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75AzYm0soM

5:46:27 for start of purchase change announcements.

5:53:44 (translation starting at 5:54:10): "So right now, a majority of the lands that will be available will probably implement this lottery system but we do want to keep an eye out to see if there is a need to have even a limited area available for first come, first serve and we are still in the midst of debate for pros and cons on that matter. So I would like to actually get your feedback as well if you want to bring your input/insight on the lottery or first come, first serve basis. We would also like to take that into consideration with our continued discussion on this topic."

To me, that very much sounds like they're leaning heavily toward lottery only though they're willing to keep first come, first serve open as a limited option if players can present good arguments for why it is still needed. At the very least, they intend for the majority of wards to be lottery.

Considering all the rule changes planned, they might as well go full lottery. Existence of FCFS wards would perpetuate the botting, giving resellers an advantage in getting more plots to sell since they no doubt account for most of the botting. FCFS would also continue to leave players feeling compelled to placard camp. After, FCFS wards would potentially represent multiple purchase opportunities per lottery period while entering the lottery is a single opportunity per lottery period, and there would be nothing to prevent players from doing both. If someone got lucky on a FCFS purchase then also won the lottery, they're probably not going to regret losing 50% of their entry fee when it means they got a house in the end..

[Nepentha]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75AzYm0soM

5:46:27 for start of purchase change announcements.

5:53:44 (translation starting at 5:54:10): "So right now, a majority of the lands that will be available will probably implement this lottery system but we do want to keep an eye out to see if there is a need to have even a limited area available for first come, first serve and we are still in the midst of debate for pros and cons on that matter. So I would like to actually get your feedback as well if you want to bring your input/insight on the lottery or first come, first serve basis. We would also like to take that into consideration with our continued discussion on this topic."

To me, that very much sounds like they're leaning heavily toward lottery only though they're willing to keep first come, first serve open as a limited option if players can present good arguments for why it is still needed. At the very least, they intend for the majority of wards to be lottery.

Considering all the rule changes planned, they might as well go full lottery. Existence of FCFS wards would perpetuate the botting, giving resellers an advantage in getting more plots to sell since they no doubt account for most of the botting. FCFS would also continue to leave players feeling compelled to placard camp. After, FCFS wards would potentially represent multiple purchase opportunities per lottery period while entering the lottery is a single opportunity per lottery period, and there would be nothing to prevent players from doing both. If someone got lucky on a FCFS purchase then also won the lottery, they're probably not going to regret losing 50% of their entry fee when it means they got a house in the end..

Thank the Fury. I'm glad to see this, thank you for showing it to me.

I actually hope they do go full lotto. It's got its downsides, but it definitely ruins reseller operations and kills the need for bot software. Since SE is reluctant to handle problem players who abuse the system, this will have to do.

[Nepentha]

Update: Apparently all you need to do to bypass the wait period to make someone FC master is to simply delete the current FC master and it will pass to whoever is next in line.

So, people are already figuring out how to adjust to the new rules before they are even in place.

[Jojoya]

Update: Apparently all you need to do to bypass the wait period to make someone FC master is to simply delete the current FC master and it will pass to whoever is next in line.

So, people are already figuring out how to adjust to the new rules before they are even in place.

That's awkward. I thought the system would prevent a character that is a FC master from being deleted, similar to how a character in a FC cannot be transferred to another world.

Considering 6.1 is good 4 months away at this point, perhaps that's something SE can add to their to do list.

[Nepentha]

That's awkward. I thought the system would prevent a character that is a FC master from being deleted, similar to how a character in a FC cannot be transferred to another world.

Considering 6.1 is good 4 months away at this point, perhaps that's something SE can add to their to do list.

Yeah, it's been tested by several people now. So either SE is going to have to make it so FC leaders can't be deleted while still being FC master or this isn't going to be any kind of deterrent.

[NanaWiloh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75AzYm0soM

5:46:27 for start of purchase change announcements.

5:53:44 (translation starting at 5:54:10): "So right now, a majority of the lands that will be available will probably implement this lottery system but we do want to keep an eye out to see if there is a need to have even a limited area available for first come, first serve and we are still in the midst of debate for pros and cons on that matter. So I would like to actually get your feedback as well if you want to bring your input/insight on the lottery or first come, first serve basis. We would also like to take that into consideration with our continued discussion on this topic."

To me, that very much sounds like they're leaning heavily toward lottery only though they're willing to keep first come, first serve open as a limited option if players can present good arguments for why it is still needed. At the very least, they intend for the majority of wards to be lottery.

Considering all the rule changes planned, they might as well go full lottery. Existence of FCFS wards would perpetuate the botting, giving resellers an advantage in getting more plots to sell since they no doubt account for most of the botting. FCFS would also continue to leave players feeling compelled to placard camp. After, FCFS wards would potentially represent multiple purchase opportunities per lottery period while entering the lottery is a single opportunity per lottery period, and there would be nothing to prevent players from doing both. If someone got lucky on a FCFS purchase then also won the lottery, they're probably not going to regret losing 50% of their entry fee when it means they got a house in the end..

Keeping this short as I am on mobile. I am not fan of the lottery system, but agree they should just go full lottery.