So, what now? Lotteries with 150+ bids until... when?

[Sheriyana]

snip

Agreed. I see red whenever people start defending the absolute torture the placard spamming was. That system should have been some sort of human rights violation for what it made paying customers go through to enjoy a feature of the game.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

...

Jesus christ, at that point you need to ask yourself why you're choosing to torture youself.

Anyway, instanced housing is the only solution. Stop half-assing it, SE, and just do the right thing.

[Solarra]

The placard clicking sucked and it encouraged botting.
The lottery sucks for different reasons, but it still sucks.

Neither the lottery or the timer did anything to solve the underlying issue. While demand for houses outstrips supply to the extent it does, people will do everything they can to improve their odds, legal or otherwise.
Right now I'm seeing people levelling alts who never ever would have touched an alt before (and it doesn't even cost you extra on your sub now). I'm also noticing a lot of low level FCs with closed recruitment and four or less players who have managed to snag a 'FC' house.

These band-aids the devs have been sticking onto the ward system have done nothing to actually address the problem. They have been tinkering around trying to find ways to make the present system bearable, and I have to say that I am getting increasingly frustrated by this approach. It's a waste of resources that could have been put towards either providing instanced houses or making apartments much more attractive.

[LaylaTsarra]

or making apartments much more attractive.

I really don't get why they haven't done more with this. Seriously not everyone wants to garden and workshops have always been the purview of Free Companies. Apartments as they exist right now are just not that appealing for many.

[Stormpeaks]

Jesus christ, at that point you need to ask yourself why you're choosing to torture youself.

Anyway, instanced housing is the only solution. Stop half-assing it, SE, and just do the right thing.

Anyway, instanced housing is the only solution. Stop half-assing it, SE, and just do the right thing.

No thanks, housing is fine as it is, no need for some instances of houses, there are other games if that's what you're looking after. Housing in FFXIV is perfectly fine, it just needs more wards added.

[Sheriyana]

No thanks, housing is fine as it is, no need for some instances of houses, there are other games if that's what you're looking after. Housing in FFXIV is perfectly fine, it just needs more wards added.

Yeah, no. There will never be enough wards for everyone to be guaranteed a house. That's kind of why people want the instanced housing.

[UkcsAlias]

No thanks, housing is fine as it is

If it was, then there wouldn't be constant complaints about it. Housing is part of the game, and one with a decent demand on it (a lot more than plenty of the raids have where waiting times can be excessively long due to inactivity).

Instanced housing only solves 1 issue, which is the lack of need for a seperate ward. Other than that it generaly still faces similar issues to regular houses and appartments (hence they are also limited).

And other games do not have what im looking after. Sure, i can build a house in plenty of games, but none of these are open toward people in FF, where people from the FF community can join in. And none of these also add anything to a collection spirit to improve your house, which you do by playing FF. That is a completely false argument. Your argument is of the same style of a counter strike player complaining about weapon skins costing money and then just suggesting a diffirent shooter where that isnt the case. It realy doesnt matter what other games provide, since they dont provide the same gameplay anyway.

[Solarra]

housing is fine as it is... Housing in FFXIV is perfectly fine... it just needs more wards added.

Are we playing the same game?
You are ofc entitled to your opinion, but I'd love to know the reasoning behind your statements that it is 'perfectly fine'.
We have hundreds of people competing for houses and no sign of that situation getting better. In fact, with auto-demo off, it would be logical to assume the situation is only going to get worse.

I would definitely support adding more wards if I believed they could add enough to satisfy demand. However, due to wards being persistent, I don't believe the devs would be able to devote sufficient resources.
Another argument against more wards would be that players generally want medium and large houses but will settle for smalls if nothing else is available. Should the game decline in popularity, then you could have wards where the medium and larges are occupied and most of the smalls are empty (rather like Empyreum FC wards now).

Instanced houses added alongside the ward system would be far more flexible and future-proof. I don't think many are arguing against keeping the wards. It's just that adding more wards alone is unlikely to be sufficient to meet demand.

[Shougun]

No thanks, housing is fine as it is, no need for some instances of houses, there are other games if that's what you're looking after. Housing in FFXIV is perfectly fine, it just needs more wards added.

This current system, imo, is really awful for the type of game it is (theme park mmo). That isn't to say I can't see how we got here, but I still believe it is a terrible system for the type of audience it caters to. Even if we 'had to have' this type of system it would be better to at least be like LotR Online was with auto-expanding wards. But given how this game acts, very strongly imo, the best system would have been something akin to Wildstar, Rift, or perhaps ESO.

Limited resource systems fit better for sandboxes and things where players are more expected to be the friction content to each other (like perhaps EVE, where your space station takes up physical world space). Here we are causing each other friction but it certainly isn't content we, vast majority, wanted (that we're causing each other pain, unlike say sandbox where fighting over specific land would be expected content).

The amount of frustration this system has caused has been amazingly consistent, since launch, and the amount of content and freedom it has cost us in opportunity is blaringly obvious. Anyone who has played or seen those other games could imagine insane things we 'could have had' both in terms of awesome set pieces but also actual features*, but rather we're stuck with mostly things you "can't" have or wont get without extreme frustration and compromise.

This system has been a thorn in the playerbase side since release. Every single step has had a huge issue. The issues have changed, SE has tried to patch things as we go along, but it has always been a thorn. And it appears fairly self evident it will always be a thorn until it can officially have some sort of instanced support to it which is able to meet demand 1:1. Though I would prefer it wasn't the ward system (like they could fix it via a LotR situation, or phasing akin to BDO), as I want the huge amount of feature and creative power that comes along with it not having to fit a rigid structure. Like how in ESO there are ~50 different, vastly, different and exciting locations to pick from rather than 4. Or Wildstar/Rift where you could basically make any location you wanted, and in say Wildstar you still had neighborhood features if you wanted.

I am hopeful they will be able to do a lot of really cool things with Island Sanctuary such that we begin to see that lost potential realized. I am also hopeful that the system will quickly, if not at release, contain a very strong homely vibe with many home features- even if via pre-fab options I think this would help satisfy a lot of players (like plopping down a cottage that has inn like features, or just literally connecting an inn room door via magic). Then as possible adding other upgrades like connecting a special apartment room (1:1 availability for all), and then upgrading that apartment room system as possible. So given time and feedback we might see this new content as the start of the end of our thorns.

[Raim]

You guys comparing clicking your mouse/controller for a few hours as "abuse and torture" are just silly. You could easily just visit the placard during primetime and narrow the window down heavily. They should have kept the old system but just lowered the timeframe to 2-4 hours, and made it so you can only apply once a minute.