Housing Roulette was an absolute trash idea.

[Seraphor]

Pretty much this.

We can add as many wards as we want. That's still 30 more wards that will fill up in an instant because of just how much demand there is for it.

I blame the devs' insistence on wards and a sense of community within housing districts like they were "neighbourhoods". Sorry Yoshida, but that's just not going to happen. It rarely ever happens; most people just stick to their house and don't socialize. My FC's ward is full. And it was full since it was meant to be an FC-only ward. You want to know how many people I see around the place? NONE. The ward is always bleeding empty! And whenever I happen to somehow catch one person out there, there's no interaction. Nothing. And that's how it's always been on Zodiark since 2016. Rarely ever do you actually interact, and at most it's just "hi" and move on with your business.

Because these wards force a limit on how many houses are available. And while I know there are detriments to instanced housing, the way this is made just breeds salt.

I'd say there's a little more to it than just player-player interaction. The lack of that is really just a wider symptom of the game. Players don't generally like to interact unless they have to.
No, as well as that, there's also simply the ability to see your neighbours garden designs, and interact with their garden and enter their house. Being able to do so in a physical ward is 100% better than selecting from a menu. How many people check out other peoples apartments?

There IS merit to having this sort of housing system, even if it comes with downsides. And as I eluded to previously, there is a healthy supply that could meet demand, and reduce the amount of salt.

Adding more wards does make a difference. There might still be 'losers' (not derogatory, but simply people who lose the bid) to complain and supply the salt, but meeting 90% of demand is better than meeting 50% of demand.
Not least, there are less populated servers in which demands have been 100% met and resulted in empty wards. This poses a conundrum, because they can't just go adding 30 wards to every server if server A will then end up at 130% supply, with tons of empty wards, while server B's demands still aren't met, and they can't dish out wards unevenly in case the situation changes, these are permanent additions. Part of the problem is that people are so reluctant to move to different servers.

I do think that a few (maybe 30, maybe even just 20) wards added to each server, plus as significant expansion to the Apartment system, adding outside terraces as an option, would probably be the best solution outside of overhauling the entire thing. Which is obviously not an option because then everyone who does already have a house gets screwed over.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

...

Well, you be happy to know I'm done. I may be entitled but to be honest I really don't care what a bunch of faceless internet ppl think of me. I don't know any of you and you don't know me. You don't know the BS I have gone through in life(not in the game). I just say this, tho I have a large I am willing to give it up bc I'm unhappy with it. I want a place I want to actually live in and be happy with. I hate the area I'm in so much that I don't want to make my house look nice. If that makes me entitled so be it. I'm the biggest entitled person in this thread but unlike yall I do want everyone to have a house they are happy with. That is why I want an instance housing system and not this outdated ward system we have now. This why I say the lottery system is just as bad as the old system bc it doesn't fix the main issue that 14 has, which is a supply issue. There will never be enough houses in this game and ppl going to continue to stress over not having a house or not living in the area they want till this issue is solved. The only way I see that happen is if they add an instance housing system. So many other games out there have that and I don't see why we can't have that. I think personal housing should be instanced and FC housing should be wards. Yeah, I got heated just now but that's because Im really upset by this past lottery system. I have tried and tried to find a new place to move to(not all larges either, I have bidded on meds also) and lost every time. I'm mentally tired of looking every week for a large or med in any of the other housing areas just to be disappointed again and again. That is why I say this system isn't any better for one health. Again Im sorry for getting heated with the one dude. Im just really upset is all. Yall have a nice day.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

No? 30 wards is thousands of houses.

The housing shortage is NOT as drastic as people make it out to be, it's just that any shortage at all feels unfair, because there end up being losers.

As I stated in my previous post, there have been many occasions where wards have been empty, and plots have not been taken up. the supply has beaten out the demand before.

What would be the point in adding 100 new wards if 60 of them ended up being 90% empty?

They've just added 60 wards and on busy servers it's still a massive issue. So how do u think 30 is going to fix it lol

[Seraphor]

They've just added 60 wards and on busy servers it's still a massive issue. So how do u think 30 is going to fix it lol

I thought they added 5 wards.

[Midareyukki]

snip

Yeah I agree with that. I mean, in the sense that there's the charm of it, which... yeah, it is what makes this housing system stand out. When I say "I blame them on insisting on this", I obviously can acknowledge the good things that can come out of it.

I will say though, on "How many people visit apartments"? Honestly very rarely xD I haven't seen that many people do it, I'll be frank with you. And if they do, rarely ever do they interact with the welcome book!

Otherwise yeah, I agree. Especially in the personal expression bit, as someone who's decorated a few houses himself. It is a robust system for sure. But a robust system implies other things will have to be brought down. Because what I meant was less so in the impact it has on its playerbase's chance to express themselves, but more on the technical aspect. Because the fact that we have these instances and the robust system means that we're adding to the server that's meant to handle them greatly. And this was fine back in the day when there wasn't as much of a demand (though one can very much argue that there WAS a demand even early on, just not one as big as this), but now it's becoming cumbersome.

I don't think adding new wards will meet 90% of the demand. I feel like the amount of people searching for a house alone will fill up a considerable amount. Nevermind the amount of people that want one but aren't actively searching. And the thing I said about the server makes adding 30 new wards per datacenter very unlikely. When I say "the devs wanted a sense of neighbourhood but aren't getting it", I'm talking about interacting with other people as well. Which is infrequent, in my experience. Again, as pretty as others leave my ward, I never see them around. And that was just in my FC ward. I do see people a bit more actively in my personal house's ward, but even then they don't interact with you at all. I see them in the Market Board, then they scurry over back to their house, and the street becomes empty again. And while it's true that it's fun to see how other people decorated their stuff, it does make me wonder whether it was a good option to go for when it's consuming so much of the servers.

Though do keep in mind that what I'm saying is based on what other people said in past threads on this topic. Take with a grain of salt, because... I don't know how servers work xD All I know is, whenever this topic comes around, this is what people explain. That adding more wards isn't that easy, because servers are expensive and hard to maintain. And that instances can't always be kept open unlike our housing districts, which come with hard caps on how many houses are available.

An expansion of the Apartment thing would be interesting tho, if anything because it gives me more space to work with *w*

[Masekase_Hurricane]

I thought they added 5 wards.

12 wards per housing district 60 wards.

[Midareyukki]

Well, you be happy to know I'm done.

I'm not happy, nor sad, nor angry. This isn't something I relish in caring about. You're just firing shots for the sake of firing them, and frankly are making a scene for no reason.

You need time off to cool down. That's all there is to it.

No one is coming for your throat. Nor does anyone have any interest in doing so. So please stop acting like it.

[Seraphor]

12 wards per housing district 60 wards.

Well that's the format I meant. If this update added 12 per district, I'm saying 30 more per district should meet demands.

(and for the record, I was including subdivisions, while I'm sure this 12 is counting them as separate wards, so I said 5, in reality it's 6)

[Zsolen]

It's 5 per residential district or 25 wards total. It is also 50 divisions (maps) total.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Well, you be happy to know I'm done. I may be entitled but to be honest I really don't care what a bunch of faceless internet ppl think of me. I don't know any of you and you don't know me. You don't know the BS I have gone through in life(not in the game). I just say this, tho I have a large I am willing to give it up bc I'm unhappy with it. I want a place I want to actually live in and be happy with. I hate the area I'm in so much that I don't want to make my house look nice. If that makes me entitled so be it. I'm the biggest entitled person in this thread but unlike yall I do want everyone to have a house they are happy with. That is why I want an instance housing system and not this outdated ward system we have now. This why I say the lottery system is just as bad as the old system bc it doesn't fix the main issue that 14 has, which is a supply issue. There will never be enough houses in this game and ppl going to continue to stress over not having a house or not living in the area they want till this issue is solved. The only way I see that happen is if they add an instance housing system. So many other games out there have that and I don't see why we can't have that. I think personal housing should be instanced and FC housing should be wards. Yeah, I got heated just now but that's because Im really upset by this past lottery system. I have tried and tried to find a new place to move to(not all larges either, I have bidded on meds also) and lost every time. I'm mentally tired of looking every week for a large or med in any of the other housing areas just to be disappointed again and again. That is why I say this system isn't any better for one health. Again Im sorry for getting heated with the one dude. Im just really upset is all. Yall have a nice day.

lol a large amount of people have houses in places we dont want, as originally it was easier to transfer to your desired plot than purchase it. We started with Goblet and then finally moved to Mist.

It's 5 per residential district or 25 wards total. It is also 50 divisions (maps) total.

Additional Housing
Wards 25 through 30 will be added to each of the five residential districts proper as well as their subdivisions. Plots in all 60 new wards will be available for purchase via the lottery system. Apartments will also be added to all wards.

You're not counting Ward 25 (25,26,27,28,29,30)