Ishgard Housing No Lottery For Wards

[Krotoan]

Sorry, I fall into the- if you want it, work for it group - rather than the every can get one in 10 years of trying groups.

Engaging in entertainment content should never be "work". Effort? Sure. Work? Nah.

Advocating for the mess that is the mad dash for property every time they release a new ward or area over supporting what would be an at will engagement for a chance for a house (dependent on actual interest), shows a bias toward a system you know you can game VS a system that's objectively fair.

Housing right now is the actual PVP of FFXIV. People are trying to one up each other or beat each other for rewards that skew towards those with more time and guile to dedicate to the cause. Click bot, stripped down client w/ teleportation, sitting up patch nights and hammering the login. These should not figure into a limited resource.

You keep talking about how it's an astronomical chance.. but right now it's wayyy worse of a chance to get a house unless you're willing to game the everliving heck out of the system. I have a medium house right now because I had to lug a gaming laptop along on a vacation, wake up at 3am at the local time to login and join the mad dash for new properties. I didn't even get one in the new ward, i was just lucky enough to be searching the after-releases for movers and I already had a small house to upgrade from. I would trade that in a second for just being able to login whenever weekly, check the listings and drop my bid. Nuts to living my life around the patch schedule of a game or being a slave to RNG house releases, gimme the lottery any day.


It's hard to imagine someone dropping money on a house just "cause lol" when they now are committed to logging in every month and a half or so to keep it. If they care so little the house will go back on the market and someone who actually wants it will get a chance.

And as so many others have said the chances aren't "Jumbo cactpot" they are only against whomever has also put in a bid. You want a small house that nobody else really does? Probably 1:50 chance. Also keep in mind that on opening day the entire population (20k?) cannot all bid on every house. Chances are you're going against 200-300 people at best with most focused on medium or large houses. Also remove the people who already have houses and aren't looking to swap and those who ARE are likely only looking to upgrade. You want a small house? Probably a pretty good chance compared to winning the cactpot.

[OniRyo]

I personally think it should be 50/50 to have both sides happy, and there's a huge amount of wards coming anyways. I mean i do understand the reason for it all being lottery because it would remove the queue issue and server issues when a lot of people try to login at once. If it's only 1 ward being first come first serve, that would not be worth it i think, because then it's just entirely RNG too (on errors, and avoiding queue as much as possible).

If it's all lottery it's fine too, it's all a equal chance on a RNG system and it would remove a lot of stress from people not trying to be as quick as possible.

[Drass]

See here's the thing. We're just gonna dismiss the fact that an FC can have multiple entries in the plot where as personals can only have 1. If the lottery is going to be "A Fair System For All" as you are consistently saying then the bid for an FC house needs to be the same as the personals. An FC of say 20 vs and FC of 100 if both had the gil for majority members to bid for said plot the FC of 100 is going to have a much higher chance of getting said plot in the first place. So how is that fair for all? Not to mention if you are bidding in a OPEN ward for both FC's AND Personal's like they currently are who do you think is going to end up winning. You with you one bid or the FC with lets say 20 bids?

[Eraden]

See here's the thing. We're just gonna dismiss the fact that an FC can have multiple entries in the plot where as personals can only have 1. If the lottery is going to be "A Fair System For All" as you are consistently saying then the bid for an FC house needs to be the same as the personals. An FC of say 20 vs and FC of 100 if both had the gil for majority members to bid for said plot the FC of 100 is going to have a much higher chance of getting said plot in the first place. So how is that fair for all? Not to mention if you are bidding in a OPEN ward for both FC's AND Personal's like they currently are who do you think is going to end up winning. You with you one bid or the FC with lets say 20 bids?

My understanding of this is that yes, each member of an FC can place a bid for the same property but then they tie their bid to that property. They will NOT be allowed to place more than one bid at a time. Therefore, if a huge FC gets all of its members to bid on a single property, they take themselves out of the running for anything else until that property is decided upon. I would also like to state that I am under no illusion that I will be able to get a plot when Ishgard opens up. In fact, I believe my chances are dismal and I will be left homeless still. However, that having been said, I STILL support the lottery system because for me, fair play for all trumps my chances of getting a house.

[Shibi]

My understanding of this is that yes, each member of an FC can place a bid for the same property but then they tie their bid to that property. They will NOT be allowed to place more than one bid at a time. Therefore, if a huge FC gets all of its members to bid on a single property, they take themselves out of the running for anything else until that property is decided upon.

Once we are past the few day rush on Emperyum housing, and back into the normal 1 demo every few days situation, then that is less of an issue. All the FCs can have their members bid on the one small that pops up every few days. As it's a drip feed situation, there is little risk of members being out of the running on other properties.

[Puksi]

I'm less concerned of the lottery as I am for actually keeping the house after its won. We're encouraged to take breaks to avoid burnout, but not so much it would let our subs run out for too long. It's a cheap tactic to keep active subs which they once swore they would never do in this game. That's not "respecting the player's time". If FFXIV is so successful, why does a demo timer even still exist?

[DeNada]

See here's the thing. We're just gonna dismiss the fact that an FC can have multiple entries in the plot where as personals can only have 1. If the lottery is going to be "A Fair System For All" as you are consistently saying then the bid for an FC house needs to be the same as the personals. An FC of say 20 vs and FC of 100 if both had the gil for majority members to bid for said plot the FC of 100 is going to have a much higher chance of getting said plot in the first place. So how is that fair for all? Not to mention if you are bidding in a OPEN ward for both FC's AND Personal's like they currently are who do you think is going to end up winning. You with you one bid or the FC with lets say 20 bids?

You will NOT be competing with FC as a personal owner. There will be designated separate wards for both FCs and personal housing hence the situation of your one bid versus that of several bids from a FC will never come to pass.

As for the FC with more members and gil having more lottery bids against that of a smaller FC, that is precisely the intention of SE to increase the chances of a larger FC. If you don't agree with their intention, please feel free to leave your feedback on that.

I'm less concerned of the lottery as I am for actually keeping the house after its won. We're encouraged to take breaks to avoid burnout, but not so much it would let our subs run out for too long. It's a cheap tactic to keep active subs which they once swore they would never do in this game. That's not "respecting the player's time". If FFXIV is so successful, why does a demo timer even still exist?

Are we beating this dead horse again? The demolition timer exists because there is not enough houses for players who want a house. I agree that this is an imperfect solution but until more houses are made available either via increased server resources or a revamp of the entire housing system such as instanced housing), it will be here to stay to allow active players a decent shot at housing.

If you are not sure if you will be staying with the game consistently or are willing to login at lease once every 45 days to reset the demolition timer, I would suggest not trying for a house and get an apartment instead to meet your decoration needs.

[Puksi]

Are we beating this dead horse again? The demolition timer exists because there is not enough houses for players who want a house.

GCBTW

The question is still relevant. They knew it was a cheap tactic back when housing was going to happen, said they wouldn't use the cheap tactic, yet their only "solutions" to the housing problems all revolve around the cheap tactic. They've even used housing as a sales point for the game before--without a word on how difficult it would be to get or the demo timer, of course. So yeah, I will still beat that dead horse, because they sold me a nag but promised me it was a thoroughbred.

I agree that this is an imperfect solution

But we're not allowed to voice concerns about their inability to come up with a better one because why, again?

If you are not sure if you will be staying with the game consistently or are willing to login at lease once every 45 days to reset the demolition timer, I would suggest not trying for a house and get an apartment instead to meet your decoration needs.

Things happen, especially these days, thanks. It's odd how even a worse cashgrabber like Elder Scrolls Online, a F2P game no less, keeps a better housing system that never takes your houses or demos even your cash shop furniture.

Apartments also don't allow crafters garden access for mats we can't get any other way short of exorbitant MB prices. Until apartments are equal to houses, I'll keep beating the dead horse, ty.

[Nyxn607]

why does a demo timer even still exist?

It exists for this reason; If someone quits the game for 3 years (substitute what ever time you would like), and a demo timer never exists, that house will never be available to anyone else. That is a big problem.

Just want to clarify, this issue would be a non issue if they would be able to implement instanced housing or had enough housing for everyone to obtain one if wanted.

[Puksi]

It exists for this reason; If someone quits the game for 3 years (substitute what ever time you would like), and a demo timer never exists, that house will never be available to anyone else. That is a big problem.

It's an underhanded method to keep people subbed, they said it themselves when they wanted to claim "we aren't like those other MMOs". "Take a break for burnout" but only so long as the $$$ keeps rolling in, I feel so valued as a player, lmao.

Whichever player owns a plot, they invested time farming the gil, camping the site, and furnishing it, sometimes with mogstation items involved. I'm not going to hover around it like a vulture thinking "that should be mine". I'm going to wonder why this company and this successful game can't solve a problem that smaller "indie companies" have solved, no "please understand" required.