Housing Roulette was an absolute trash idea.

[Amenara]

Really feels like housing has become this resource black hole for the devs lol

I wonder if they regret adding it in the first place

I would hope their regret would be making a system that had no future-proofing at all, though I imagine a lot of that came from not expecting anywhere near the growth that they have had.

[Midareyukki]

I would hope their regret would be making a system that had no future-proofing at all, though I imagine a lot of that came from not expecting anywhere near the growth that they have had.

That's the thing. I don't think the devs at all even dreamed that their game could reach these numbers.

They made a game to compete against WoW. But they were expecting to just be kept afloat, around numbers that would make their game appear "successful". You know, at least in stark contrast to 1.0, in a genre that was kinda dying for a while. Even at its relative heights before the boom in popularity from SB and beyond, they were counting themselves alongside games like GW2 or PSO2.

Suddenly, this game became all the rage. It not only crashed the servers so hard that instances died on Stormblood, it led to sales being suspended in late Shadowbringers. The massive exodus waves from World of Warcraft made people experiment with the game and come to enjoy it. No one expected WoW to crash as hard as it did, and certainly no one expected FF14 to grow as much as it did because of it.

But here's the rub.

Even before, we had issues with supply. Sure, it was just "a matter of time" until you had a house*, but... it certainly wasn't this bad. Then the influx came, and they needed to put in restrictions and systems to try and alleviate things, like relocation or the 1-house limit. And it just... didn't work as great as they wanted it to. And now we have this. It doesn't matter what system you're in. If you can't solve the supply numbers, your systems will always generate salt.

*of course it's not as clear-cut anyway because some people bought ENTIRE DISTRICTS worth of houses at the time... so that's just a matter of speaking really.

[Xuled]

Yeah, agreed. Stated this when they first announced the change that it would be worse overall for everyone. Looks like some are realizing the truth. Was placard spamming fun? No but it was better than this.

(BTW I have two mansions so I have no horse in this race either way but I do care about my friends that don't have a house yet)

[Takamorisan]

Like there is no other better system, you can fix the FC stack bid by only allowing the FC leader to bid per plot.

The other options would be what? Actual gil bid? It would be a glorious circus to watch, see people bidding max gil cap for small plots but it would be a disaster for the community and the game image.
And the other was rolling back to the previous system where everyone already vented their frustrations with.

The actual fix would require SE to stop doing stupid investments in NFTs and flopped Live Service Games and actually assembling a team to update the engine in a state where it isn't a damn nightmare to work with and be able to introduce features where it won't cause a datacenter crash and be able to compete with the current MMOs in the market. But for this one its easier to win the lottery bid instead of waiting their ceo to remove his head from the place where the sun don't shine.

[Amenara]

Yeah, agreed. Stated this when they first announced the change that it would be worse overall for everyone. Looks like some are realizing the truth. Was placard spamming fun? No but it was better than this.

(BTW I have two mansions so I have no horse in this race either way but I do care about my friends that don't have a house yet)

Hard disagree, I would rather go bid on something then go play the game instead of sitting at a placard for hours to have a relocator pop in and take it from me or leave to go to the restroom and have someone else win the plot while I was gone. It was a toxic system that almost incentivized people to bot and should never come back.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Hard disagree, I would rather go bid on something then go play the game instead of sitting at a placard for hours to have a relocator pop in and take it from me or leave to go to the restroom and have someone else win the plot while I was gone. It was a toxic system that almost incentivized people to bot and should never come back.

People who keep saying the older system was better literally have turned off their brains and lost any form of sanity. Where were they when people kept complaining how bs the placard system was for how stupid and unfair it is.

Face it, lottery system is equal and fair for all parties involved. But it was never going to solve the housing system. If youre going to criticize the housing system, criticize the limited plots, not the method of acquirement for them which is objectively better.

[Poporito_Popoto]

Yeah, agreed. Stated this when they first announced the change that it would be worse overall for everyone. Looks like some are realizing the truth. Was placard spamming fun? No but it was better than this.

(BTW I have two mansions so I have no horse in this race either way but I do care about my friends that don't have a house yet)

Nope. You can plan ahead with the lottery, scouting out locations and which houses have the fewest bids. By waiting until near the deadline, you can find the best odds of getting a house. You also don't have to fight against bots.

[Deveryn]

Limited lots were an unfortunate decision, but it's clear there's nothing more to be done but try to find space. We're well past half a million houses across the worlds. There's no converting anything to purely instanced because there's no way to guarantee anything wouldn't go wrong, so we're stuck with things as they are.

Nope. You can plan ahead with the lottery, scouting out locations and which houses have the fewest bids. By waiting until near the deadline, you can find the best odds of getting a house. You also don't have to fight against bots.

This ^ We have empty lots in the new wards because people tended to favor a location over trying to scout any old spot.

[rainichan]

I don't know anyone who likes the goblet and the ones who are in the goblet want out badly including myself.

I specifically chose the Goblet because I liked the area down in Brimming Heart more than the other areas. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have the small right next to the waterfall, and love it. I'm not a fan of Lav Beds, and my FC house is in Mist. I have no interest in Snow Hell or Weeb City. Unless they introduce an area I care about for housing (Sharlayan would be one) and would like the designs of the base houses, I don't see myself wanting to move or get out. There's not really much you can do with a desert clime either to make it "prettier," and I say this as someone who lives about an hour away from the non-developed desert in my state: the Goblet/Thanalan looks exactly like the desert outside of the developed cities near my own home. (...maybe that's why I enjoy the area, reminds me of home lmao)

So, now you know one person who likes the Goblet and doesn't want to move. :P

[Renathras]

As said before that is server based.

Oh, this is absolutely true, though so you know, my server is a high pop one. I'm not sitting on Materia or...Dynamis...? Whatever the new DATAcenter is. I'm on Primal on a pretty full server, all the houses were sold out before the expansion, etc etc. I'm just pointing out a lot of issue comes from people having something available, just not what they want.

Also: Goblet is one of the better cities. Most people I know want to move TO the Goblet. I honestly don't get why people like Mist as it's my least favorite of the OG housing areas. The only one I like less is Ishgard, mostly because I hate snow and ice and cold and it has all three. XD

People can be picky. I never said people couldn't be.

But just like irl, if you're too picky, sometimes you go to bed without supper. That's kind of how life...works. I guess I'm "fortunate" in that I'm the type of person that isn't too terribly particular and am contented easily. I just get slightly annoyed when people say "I can't get a house" but mean "I can't get a LARGE house." There's a pretty big distinction irl between someone saying "I can't get a trailer house on a quarter acre plot" and "I can't get that 27 bedroom mansion I've been eyeing", and I see it the same way in-game. Not EVERYone, but quite a few people, are complaining because they want a specific location or the larger sized houses, not because they bid on a small in an open plot that no one really cared for and lost it. There are a few, but most are not that.

I can't imagine being a person so into housing that not having an in-game house is make or break...but then, despite having a Large, hating it and wanting to give it up for something else (not to give it up outright, ONLY if they can get something else), where said something else is AT LEAST A MEDIUM in another area.

I mean, be picky, by all means...but I can't wrap my brain around that one...

EDIT:

(...maybe that's why I enjoy the area, reminds me of home lmao)

I think this is me with Gridania. Where I live is a bit less forest and a bit more interface between the piney woods of the South and the grasslands of the prairie that then transitions into desert in the western half of my state here (and south into Mexico, obviously), but since there isn't really a piney woods/grassland housing area (we coastal bluffs in Limsa, desert in Ul'Dah, tropical coast in Kugane, and frozen tundra in Scandinavia Ishgard, so Gridania is "close enough"), and it was my starting city as a CNJ in 2014, so I guess I have a fondness for it.

If I had started as an Arcanist instead, I'd probably have done the same thing just in the Goblet. Reminds me of where I grew up on the border and driving out into west Texas some, so I'd be fine with that as well, honestly. I like both in about equal measure.

...though if they ever made an Azem Steppe housing, I'd be all over that. Well, I WOULD be...except I suspect everyone else would as well, lol Beautiful sweeping open plain and hill country. I've always loved that kind of land, even if I've only seen pictures of Kansas/Nebraska type areas. Mulgore and Nagarnd in WoW were two of my favorite areas for basically that reason as well (well, and Negrand because it just seemed so mystical and mysterious beautiful AS WELL AS aesthetically so.)

Yeah, agreed. Stated this when they first announced the change that it would be worse overall for everyone. Looks like some are realizing the truth. Was placard spamming fun? No but it was better than this.

Respectfully: Hard disagree.

Placard spamming was WAY worse than this.