<MATERIA> First-Come First-Served AND Lottery Plots

[NanaWiloh]

Customers expect businesses to meet their expectations. While customers are important, many times their expectations are unrealistic.

Businesses expect to do what is best for business.

I can't call FCFS unrealistic since it's the system already in use but it is bad for business. It gives an unfair advantage to certain customers over the remaining customers. It helps RMT to flourish in housing along with bot usage (both player and RMT). I doubt SE would lose more than a few dozen players over the absence of FCFS.


Some parts of the word use MM/DD/YY instead of DD/MM/YY. It's a reference to the November Live Letter.

Appologize for confusion on the date. Yes its nov 19 2021

[Duskane]

I am ok with half FFA and Half lottery on materia
if it was only DC with all FFA it would be a super easy target for bots and multi account horders
system is clearly not perfect but its better than waiting 18 hours at a sign just to lose it to a auto clicker or relocater

[Damptoe]

Based on the Live Letter, it looks like we're definitely stuck with the lottery.

The lottery periods are way too long though given OCE is starting from zero with no players grandfathered into owning multiple personal houses. This wouldn't be as awful if the lotteries were done in a day or a shorter time period.

You could get stuck retrying the lottery for weeks on end if you're unlucky and fail multiple times. Then you could get stuck in the same loop trying to get the FC plot after you or a trusted FC member finally get their personal due to the one bid restriction (and as another user mentioned, this benefits the shell FCs and people with alts).

Meanwhile, a lot of plots will sit empty during those lottery periods, when we could have just fallen back to them immediately with FCFS if we didn't get our first choice.
All this ceremony and bureaucracy just seems like a pointless barrier for us for no benefits.

Everyone who wants a house will probably get a house given the low population, but some will just be forced to wait longer than others...
For what?
To appease the players that aren't even on the OCE data centre?
To ensure furniture sales stay near zero longer?
To make sure the Oceanians don't have too much fun too quickly?

if it was only DC with all FFA it would be a super easy target for bots and multi account horders
system is clearly not perfect but its better than waiting 18 hours at a sign just to lose it to a auto clicker or relocater

Every housing district on OCE is a new ward. New wards open up immediately with FCFS and don't have the invisible timer.

Botters would have no advantage with FCFS. In fact, real players are much more likely to reach a housing plot to snap it up before a dumb bot can. The lottery just gives these RMT and bot users equal (or better) odds with a normal player who can only make one bid.

The relocation rules have also changed so home owners can't bypass the restrictions for first home buyers.

I think using the lottery makes a lot of sense for relocations later on when the housing districts are more stable, but FCFS seems to make way more sense for the initial opening of housing districts in a DC starting out with 0 houses and probably the lowest population a new DC will ever have.

[TwistedTea]

Botters would have no advantage with FCFS. In fact, real players are much more likely to reach a housing plot to snap it up before a dumb bot can. The lottery just gives these RMT and bot users equal odds with a normal player.

This is simply untrue. Housing bots come in all flavours. FCFS ward rushes favour botters using 3rd party launchers, some of which can directly teleport to the placard etc

Saying this as someone who volunteered to find open plots and to keep track of when those plots sold, from Jun 2019 - Mar 2022 for the House Alerts Discord.

And when it comes to placard clicking with FCFS wards, bots do not lose focus or have to rest like human players.

The lottery system does not address the fundamental problem of supply, especially on NA servers.

But the FCFS system significantly favours bots/automation.

Unfortunately SE has gone for blanket approach of applying the lottery to all regions.

Ultimately, the solution is fully instanced housing so that every player who wants a house can get one.

The existing ward housing can exist alongside the fully instanced housing for players who want 'exclusive'/'prestige' or whatever houses. Those players can fight it out amongst themselves.

[Damptoe]

This is simply untrue. Housing bots come in all flavours. FCFS ward rushes favour botters using 3rd party launchers, some of which can directly teleport to the placard etc

Saying this as someone who volunteered to find open plots and to keep track of when those plots sold, from Jun 2019 - Mar 2022 for the House Alerts Discord.

And when it comes to placard clicking with FCFS wards, bots do not lose focus or have to rest like human players.

The lottery system does not address the fundamental problem of supply, especially on NA servers.

But the FCFS system significantly favours bots/automation.

Unfortunately SE has gone for blanket approach of applying the lottery to all regions.

The point is that none of the placard clicking or focus is relevant for the grand opening when you just need to click the placard once.

I just don't agree with FCFS favouring bots and automation.
Admittedly, I have no experience with the situation in NA and maybe it's more rampant there than JP where my previous experiences with three ward openings were.

However, the situation in NA and OCE is very different.
If a player or botter wants a house, they will probably get it whether it's lottery or FCFS because there will be plenty of open plots for months after 6.1 releases depending on the world.

The lottery introduces a few barriers for real players on this data centre and prevents nothing.
It's a great solution to the problem the developers introduced when they added the random timer after relocations, but it barely has any purpose for the initial purchases on OCE.

The benefits of the lottery in the context of OCE are obviously that it gives people who can't be online at the exact hour of the 6.1 launch a chance to make a bid for their favourite plot.
Which is why it would be great if OCE got the option of having both purchasing options.

I know there's no point arguing this anymore though because we're already stuck with this silliness as you said.
I'm just extremely disappointed I transferred my main here given how the housing situation turned out, but I'm going to stick with it regardless. Gave up my plot already anyway.

[Nepentha]

The point is that none of the placard clicking or focus is relevant for the grand opening when you just need to click the placard once.

I just don't agree with FCFS favouring bots and automation.
Admittedly, I have no experience with the situation in NA and maybe it's more rampant there than JP where my previous experiences with three ward openings were.

On NA (and EU too I believe) we have an entire underground of bot developers who are actually making money charging players to use their software. These bots are sophisticated enough to auto run to the placard and auto relocate. Including popping speed buffs or mounts as part of the automation.

Some are actually hacking teleporting to the placard. They will get to the placard before you do.

Not to mention all of them are using third party software for their launcher, which is smoother and less clunky than the one SE is using presently. It will give them an advantage logging in faster.

However, the situation in NA and OCE is very different.

That is very true. TBH I don't really have any ideas to offer on that one. I just know that botting is more than placard clicking automation, and absolutely favors those who use bot software in most FCFS situations.

[Kirstie]

What confuses me is parts that go against each other, not very clear information:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5c5bb27b61905c

"Methods of Purchasing Land
Depending on the housing ward, land may be purchased on a first-come, first-served basis, or by lottery.

At the release of Patch 6.1, all land available for purchase will be subject to the lottery system."

I understand the last sentence, but the first one makes it sound like fcfs areas might be coming to some wards/areas (I understand not Ishgard, they want that to be lottery, but the older areas, specially on Materia with 0 taken?)?

Also:
"* Methods of purchasing land and/or purchase availability may vary by World in future updates."

I hope that this might help Materia DC out specifically, we have literally no homes. 7000+ per server will take a fair while to fill up, and waiting 5 days each time you attempt, could be weeks or months depending on the RNG and if anythings even left. FC's will have it a bit easier hopefully, as a lot of people from the FC can be bidding on 1 plot, making their chances go up significantly depending on number of bidders.

[NanaWiloh]

Do people want empty plots to buy or full wards?? Seems to be some contridication going on..

[Jojoya]

What confuses me is parts that go against each other, not very clear information:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5c5bb27b61905c

"Methods of Purchasing Land
Depending on the housing ward, land may be purchased on a first-come, first-served basis, or by lottery.

At the release of Patch 6.1, all land available for purchase will be subject to the lottery system."

I understand the last sentence, but the first one makes it sound like fcfs areas might be coming to some wards/areas (I understand not Ishgard, they want that to be lottery, but the older areas, specially on Materia with 0 taken?)?

Also:
"* Methods of purchasing land and/or purchase availability may vary by World in future updates."

I hope that this might help Materia DC out specifically, we have literally no homes. 7000+ per server will take a fair while to fill up, and waiting 5 days each time you attempt, could be weeks or months depending on the RNG and if anythings even left. FC's will have it a bit easier hopefully, as a lot of people from the FC can be bidding on 1 plot, making their chances go up significantly depending on number of bidders.

They're saying that the system has been programmed to allow FCFS if SE should decide there is a need for it in the future (and probably once they get an idea of whether the FC changes have managed to curb reselling).

If Materia wards do not fill up fairly quickly via the lottery, SE may choose to switch some of them to FCFS. The lottery doesn't serve much purpose if there are not enough players/FCs interested in buying a plot. Might as well set at least some of them to FCFS if there are still lots of vacancies after the first two lottery periods. SE has a good idea of how many characters and FCs on each world are currently purchase eligible. I'm guessing those numbers are high enough that they wanted to go only with lottery for now so they could gauge actual interest.

I doubt very much that the current NA and EU worlds will be seeing any FCFS at any time in the foreseeable worlds. The new worlds being added in July and August might see FCFS depending on what happens with the Materia worlds and how many players transfer/roll new characters on those worlds once opened.

Do people want empty plots to buy or full wards?? Seems to be some contridication going on..

Not really.

Players want empty wards so there's something available when they're ready to buy. Once they've purchased, they want full wards so they aren't staring at a sea of empty plots (I remember that well from 4.2 - it took 10 months for my ward to fill up).

[DeNada]

Yeah, if Yoshi-P is going to allocate more plots for free companies like what he mentioned in the last live letter, empty wards are going to be more of an issue then Materia players not being able to secure a house, provided they aren't picky.

Just for perspective, there are only 1K free companies in Ravana, which is the most populous server and there will be at least half of all available or 3.5K plots reserved for FCs most likely.

The empty wards are going to be even more pronounced on smaller servers like Bismarck or Zurvan.