If we must have the lottery please let us withdraw entries and try another plot

[Jojoya]

Wait until the end of the lottery period to make your entry if you're worried about competition. That way you're not locked into anything until it would be too late to change regardless.

Allowing players to withdraw entries would lead to a lot of trolling by players who just want to mess with others. Better to make entries an irrevocable commitment. Someone might still be trolling but they would be limited to trolling that singular plot for that lottery.

People fear the large FC advantage too much. A FC might have a few wealthy players but are those wealthy players going to trust other members with very large amounts of their gil when such a trade will be honor system since SE won't get involved if someone decides to keep the gil for personal use? Don't forget that making an entry for a FC means not entering for a personal house and few people are going to give up their opportunity to secure their personal house for a FC they may not even belong to a few months later. Smaller FCs composed of close friends are going to be more dangerous competition than large FCs composed of people who barely know one another.

It is no secret that I am a proponent of the lottery. What you propose, I think, might have some merit. If it was tied to people being able to see the number of bids on a plot but not who bid on a plot, it might serve to distribute the bids more evenly. I wonder if you could elaborate more on your idea. Would there be unlimited chances to withdraw bids during a particular bidding period or a limited number of chances to withdraw? Would there be a cut-off period? While I support the Lottery model, there may be ways to improve upon it to make it less painful. You appear to be making an effort to do just that. Thank you.

I've heard many saying that placards will be displaying the number of entries on a plot. I don't know whether this is true and I missed some information that SE released at some point.

It is extremely unlikely that SE would ever display the names of those who have entered because of harassment concerns.

Personal wards only work in Emperyum. They won't work in Lavender Beds, Ul'dah, Mist, Shirogane 1-24.

After Emperyum is over and done with, and we are back to one demo a week, those FC advantages will actually be quite substantial.

Every ward will be getting a designation as a FC purchase ward or an individual purchase ward, not just those in Empyreum. One of the slides from the last live letter made this clear.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...803-03-2022%29 (scroll to the bottom for the housing related info)

I think some players are a bit confused by the new system. The FC/individual designations only affect who may attempt to purchase newly available plots within a ward. It does not affect existing owners in that ward. SE will also change the purchase designations on occasion so the wards stay what they consider a healthy mix of personal and FC to make the neighborhoods feel active, or to make sure that FCs are not having difficulty obtaining a house. Wards will still be mixed in ownership, though it will take Empyreum wards a while to reach that state.

Players seeking a personal house will no longer be competing against FCs seeking a house. They will only be competing against others trying to get a personal house. FCs will only be competing against FCs trying to get a house. FC advantage is going to be dependent on how many entries they can accumulate compared to other FCs entering.

[LunaFancy]

Wait until the end of the lottery period to make your entry if you're worried about competition. That way you're not locked into anything until it would be too late to change regardless.

Allowing players to withdraw entries would lead to a lot of trolling by players who just want to mess with others. Better to make entries an irrevocable commitment. Someone might still be trolling but they would be limited to trolling that singular plot for that lottery.

That's the issue though, anyone with any sense at all will be waiting until the last minute to make a bid lol! It's going to be a mess. I don't see how withdrawing bids can cause an issue with trolling if it is restricted to one withdrawal a day and the numbers are reset once a day. You can only check the numbers after reset so there will be no space to troll others with your single daily withdrawal?

With regards to informing us of the numbers already entered, it was on one of the slides in the Live Letter that announced that the lottery would be happening on all wards.

I agree that OCE should be treated as separate from the other data centres, but apparently the devs do not. If the issue has something to do with coding and doing a release of Ishgard as lottery independent of the other wards being released, then it makes more sense to release the other wards a week or two earlier than it does to inflict a lottery across and entire data centre. I wish i knew how we could bring this sort of thing to their attention outside of these forums as I fear that not having the numbers of NA or the JP presence means we will be utterly overlooked in terms of feedback.

[Shibi]

...The FC/individual designations only affect who may attempt to purchase newly available plots within a ward. It does not affect existing owners in that ward. SE will also change the purchase designations on occasion so the wards stay what they consider a healthy mix of personal and FC to make the neighborhoods feel active, or to make sure that FCs are not having difficulty obtaining a house. Wards will still be mixed in ownership, though it will take Empyreum wards a while to reach that state.....

Thanks for the clear-up.

I wonder if people will post angry threads when they see the one demolished plot for the fortnight appear in a FC ward so they can't enter the raffle for it?

[Jojoya]

Thanks for the clear-up.

I wonder if people will post angry threads when they see the one demolished plot for the fortnight appear in a FC ward so they can't enter the raffle for it?

Of course some players will. As long as they do not have a house and their attempts to get one keep failing, they will continue to be angry that other players have what they can't get. Sadly, they'll blame the other players instead of blaming those really responsible - the developers.

Many of them will resort to making shell FCs to improve their chances of getting a house. It's not hard to get friends to use their alts to help form a new FC, or they could invite new players. The main they want to have a house enters for a personal in a personal purchase ward, use alts to purchase entries for a FC house in the FC purchase wards. Someone prepared in advance could get a FC to rank 6 in less than an hour by spamming Expert Deliveries (lots of cheap level 80 end game gear on the MB to buy to turn in).

I know you and Azuri talked above about removing personal housing but that would be a mistake on SE's part at a time they are actively trying to attract solo players to the game. Having a home for your character can be an important part of a solo game style for many. Remove personal housing and you just encourage more players to make shell FCs for the sake of getting a house. Nothing gets solved and legitimate FCs find it harder to get a house due to increased competition.

SE needs to stop slapping bandaids on the system and fix it. This is getting ridiculous considering other games don't have a problem providing their players with housing. I know the devs have a certain vision in mind but there comes a point when you need to accept that vision is not resonating with or working for most of your paying customers.

Agreed, allowing withdrawals with no penalties will simply allow players to troll bids or rig their bids to help their friends eg. mass bidding on a plot to give the illusion that there's a lot of competition only to withdraw their bids near the end, hence allowing their friend to sneak their win with zero competitors.

As I've said, there has to be some sort of deterrent and I feel that the 20% of plot price is a decent one since it's not a negligible amount but still lower than the 50% penalty if you win a bid but choose not to accept it.

I think you underestimate just how much gil some of the trolls have. A few of the known housing trolls have multiple characters and retainers at gil cap - that's why they could keep relocating over and over just to reset purchase timers and piss off those who had spent hours placard camping.

Loss of a plot's purchase price multiple times meant nothing to them. Losing a few hundred thousand gil would mean even less.

There is no adequate deterrent when it's only gil at stake. Gil is too easy to make.