Lottery Screenshot Speaks for Itself...

[Canadane]

I watched it happen on Balmung. Out of 10 homes that unlocked, a certain RTMer won 9 of them. Over hundreds of players also standing there placard clicking. And sold all of them for anywhere from 250 to 1000 euros. The only reason he's stopped is the lotto + FC master wait periods. So yes, it was definitely happening.

I didn't say it never happens. Though how do you know when and where he was selling it and for how much? Did you report your findings?
How were they selling them when you could only reasonably so such with FC houses, not personal plots?

There's so many questions.

[Nepentha]

I didn't say it never happens. Though how do you know when and where he was selling it and for how much? Did you report your findings?
How were they selling them when you could only reasonably so such with FC houses, not personal plots?

There's so many questions.

I'm talking about FC houses, of course personals can't be resold (except I hear rumor of them selling entire accounts witwh the house but I haven't been able to verify that).

And it's rather simple to track these people. They use and reuse the same characters. You just follow them over the lodestone, and can easily see not only how many FCs they create, bot their way to houses on, and who suddenly joins the FC and is made FC master after. Match it all up to their sales page on a certain RMT website and there you go.

And of course I have. SE has never once acted on the hundreds of reports of housing botting/RMT reselling that's gone on for years.

[Themarvin]

It would be the same with clicking the placecard, just over time as people fall getting tired, also everyone got a fair chance no matter how you look at it.

[MaeveHatesHousing]

You keep calling this a bandaid solution. This is not a bandaid. It was designed to fix ONE problem and it did just that. You keep conflating the issue of equal access to housing with having enough housing to meet demand. They are SEPERATE ISSUES. By all means, call out SE for not addressing the larger issue but stop calling the Lottery a bandaid. You are actually giving SE CREDIT for addressing the larger issue by doing this. SE has not actually addressed the larger issue yet (they haven't even publicly acknowledged it).

fixing a small problem is exactly what a band-aid does?
if anything this is a perfect example of a band-aid fix. it fixes one tiny issue that wouldn't be a problem if housing was done properly to begin with.

[Eraden]

fixing a small problem is exactly what a band-aid does?
if anything this is a perfect example of a band-aid fix. it fixes one tiny issue that wouldn't be a problem if housing was done properly to begin with.

As long as supply can not meet demand, ensuring equal access to housing is important. It is an issue that did exist and would have continued to exist into the foreseeable future if not corrected, even if more housing was introduced. Only if housing was made so plentiful that there would be supply for all, would a lottery no longer be needed. It is quite possible that such a massive supply might not be financially or technically possible by SE. I'd rather see SE deal with the access issue first while work is being done on supply. I have yet to see them even acknowledge there is a problem with supply. They may not actually see the limited supply as an issue. It is conceivable that SE and/or the developers WANT housing to be in limited supply.

[Eleynora]

So I wonder if those of us wanting a house could ban together and stop all subscriptions for a month. I bet they would change things quickly. I doubt these Forums are ever looked at but a loss of subscriptions might get noticed. It did for WOW

[Jojoya]

Can you imagine being a new player and not even being able to participate because the prices are so ludicrous. Most sprouts are already locked out of ever getting a house simply due to the timing of these bids and the impossiblity of having the gil necessary in time while being a newbie. Gil making is garbage until you are at least level cap. There is no way a sprout is going to have the gil to even take part in these bids. Why the hell is a medium 20 million gil at a minimum? What in the hell are these prices and who is setting them?9

Why would a new player being trying to jump right into a medium instead of setting a small as a goal? 4 million gil is easy to obtain even as a new player. I had over 5 million at level 60 on one of my old self-sufficient alts that never unlocked crafting or gathering. I made it mostly from selling unneeded quest rewards and retainer venture loot.

Claiming this was not yet another band-aid solution is making excuses. They've had years to address the larger issue but have stubbornly refused to acknowledge it. Remember when Apartments were their big fix to housing shortage? They were legitimately stunned players weren't happy with glorified FC rooms with 100 item limitations.

Apartments had a limit of 50 items when added in 3.4. At the time, house items limits were 200 for large, 150 for medium and 100 for small. Item limits weren't doubled until 4.0.

As much as we complain about item limits now, it was much worse when things were being introduced. Of course players weren't interested in apartments. We also hadn't discovered most of the glitching tricks and were lacking items like lofts that now allow us to make better use of space.

So I wonder if those of us wanting a house could ban together and stop all subscriptions for a month. I bet they would change things quickly. I doubt these Forums are ever looked at but a loss of subscriptions might get noticed. It did for WOW

You're overestimating how effective loss of subscriptions was at influencing WoW. They've been losing subscriptions steadily since Cataclysm.

It's only when many of their high profile content creators also started jumping ship in Shadowlands for other games (including but not limited to FFXIV) that they announced they would start changing some of the things that players have been complaining about in Dragonflight.

[ForteNightshade]

You keep calling this a bandaid solution. This is not a bandaid. It was designed to fix ONE problem and it did just that. You keep conflating the issue of equal access to housing with having enough housing to meet demand. They are SEPERATE ISSUES. By all means, call out SE for not addressing the larger issue but stop calling the Lottery a bandaid. You are actually giving SE CREDIT for addressing the larger issue by doing this. SE has not actually addressed the larger issue yet (they haven't even publicly acknowledged it).

I am doing no such thing. That is quite the enormous reach on your part. Nonetheless, the whole lottery system exists entirely due to the lack of supply. If they addressed that larger issue sooner, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Hence why everything they're doing in yet another band-aid in the grand scheme of things. The lottery itself never needed to exist if housing as a whole wasn't a terribly designed system they've clung to for the better half of nearly a decade.

Apartments had a limit of 50 items when added in 3.4. At the time, house items limits were 200 for large, 150 for medium and 100 for small. Item limits weren't doubled until 4.0.

As much as we complain about item limits now, it was much worse when things were being introduced. Of course players weren't interested in apartments. We also hadn't discovered most of the glitching tricks and were lacking items like lofts that now allow us to make better use of space.

Oh, I remember. Apartments being better now than their awful implementation doesn't change the fact they're a glorified FC room and little else. Which is why people weren't satisfied, and still aren't.

[Arohk]

Oh, I remember. Apartments being better now than their awful implementation doesn't change the fact they're a glorified FC room and little else. Which is why people weren't satisfied, and still aren't.

I think apartments are decent enough to start with, it is quite challenging to build something amazing with only 100 itemslots though, i have a really nice FC room and an Apartment decorated at the moment, but i have to redo the FC house now and got so little time :|

[Bobby66]

I have been able to get more plots on alts with the old system than new system.

Sure I had to click for 8 hours at one point but at the very least I was able to impact my chances.