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

[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

[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.

[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.

[Besame]

Materia likely won't have the same problems with housing supply that other data centres have, so I don't think the lottery serves much of a purpose here.
At best, it should just be an option for those people who might prefer it, even though I think majority FCFS makes more sense for a new DC like ours.

Making all plots lottery-based just delays opening up an entire section of the game that is currently closed off to OCE players.

Other than it taking longer to be able to play a large part of the game, this delays starting up our already slow economy where an entire category of items is unsellable. It delays our ability to build a new community. There is no supply for certain glamour items that come from submarines and airships too.

As a personal side note, crafting without housing merchants is unpleasant and I can't wait to get out of Limsa.

Limsa aka: Woke town Erpville? Yeah that Limsa hehe. hate that place.

[Meowsalotte]

Only 5 personal estate wards.

Square enix is so out of touch that my sides are burning. Ravana doesnt even have enough FCs to fill half of the entire wards.

[Shibi]

Only 5 personal estate wards.

Six for personals. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 - 1800 plots in total over all housing districts.

Ravana doesnt even have enough FCs to fill half of the entire wards.

It will be a sea of empty plots 1-18 and packed to the gills for 19-24.