Quote Originally Posted by Jojoya View Post
It's not a bid system. It's a raffle system. Having more entries doesn't "outbid" other FCs though it does shift the chance of winning depending on how many total entries there are. Having 10 entries out of 20 would be a significant advantage but having 10 out of 200 won't.

This system will actually work better for medium to large FCs that can have multiple members entering on the FC's behalf for the same plot. The RMT FCs usually only have the minimum 4 members. The house buying process becomes significantly easier for legitimate FCs because members no longer need to camp a placard against the click bots. As long as the FC isn't going after a medium or large, most members should have sufficient gil to buy an entry then get reimbursed after the drawing (by the game if the entry doesn't win, by the FC if the entry is the winner).

They are adding a waiting period before new members can be granted land acquisition permissions or given FC Master rank. That will serve equally as well as what you mention.

In the end, the only thing that will address the rampant RMT in housing is to either remove FC housing or go to a fully instanced system where every player and every FC can get a house just by telling the game "I want to buy". As long as it's a limited resource system with the ability to transfer ownership player to player, RMT will always exist.
I don't think you really understand the scope of RMT operations. They have billions of gil on hand and operate with multiple accounts. One operation I've been tracking for the last ten months has to have, bare minimum, 9 accounts they use to move around. That's potentially 72 ticket purchases. 10 out of 200 might not be significant, but 72 out of 200 increases the odds sharply. The other advantage they have is they don't have to worry about trusting members with the gil, it's all the same operation. They can balloon their target FC to 72 people and have them all bid on whatever large just demolished. Have a decent chance of winning it, and if they do sell it a pretty penny in whatever currency they deal in.

Will they clean up when Ishgard housing releases? Maybe, maybe not. But after that, when the housing situation is full again and there's just he occasional house demo'ing and everyone bidding on it, this is when they'll dominate all over again.

The only way to stop that is for the devs to finally realize this isn't tenable and figure out a way for all players to have housing without this system even being necessary.