The housing system is trash!

[Seraphor]

you want to know that absolute worse thing about this system and its the same thing they have been doing for years. people who already have houses can keep bidding. its like WTF!!!!!!! i have been trying to get a house for 8 years, 8 YEARS!!! 2490 days subbed. I quit for a year because of housing. this time i bid on a house far away from the mb and aetherite, was the only bidder. was so excited standing by it though finally, then this A ho come buy and bids on it as 8:58, they win, laugh at me and don't even buy the house. same thing this week, was 1 of 2 and lost and they still haven't even bought that house. its horrible, if you already own a house, you shouldn't be able to bid on other plots period. if you want to move, then you should be required to abandon the plot. prior to the entry time slot.

1. If they win the lottery, and don't claim the house, they lose half the Gil. No one is doing this just as a prank.
2. If someone relocates, they haven't taken any extra houses, their old house is now available.
3. If you forced players to relinquish their old house first, before gambling on a new one, then people simply wouldn't do it. This would mean you're permanently locked into the first plot you win. This is just going to make people even more picky about the plots they bid on, so you'll get hundreds of bids on the popular plots, and 0 bids on the unpopular plots, and people will still be complaining about a lack of plots despite half the plots sitting empty because no one wants to commit to an ugly plot forever. People wouldn't be able to upsize from a Small to a Medium to a Large. Nobody would like this system.

[Khryseis_Astra]

The relos are opening up another house when they move though. That’s why they used to be instant. How many threads are telling everyone to just go for that small in the Goblet that no one wants, you can upgrade later when something better comes along. Now we want to stop relos? Heck I’m trying to downgrade and I’m still losing every week.

I think the issue is that this lotto cycle is too damn long, and that house the relo frees up doesn’t become available til the next cycle. You’re not getting the instant chance on the freed up house like you used to be able to, because it sits on hold til the next bidding cycle. I understand wanting to stagger the days so more people get a chance, but do we really need a 9-day cycle? 3 to enter, 2 to claim would be a modest scale-back, and it would still stagger to be different days every week.

Also I thought there was still a cooldown on relocation of like 30 days or something, but I can’t seem to find that info anywhere anymore. So if they’re relocating, they shouldn’t be able to do it like every cycle afaik.

[Seraphor]

The relos are opening up another house when they move though. That’s why they used to be instant. How many threads are telling everyone to just go for that small in the Goblet that no one wants, you can upgrade later when something better comes along. Now we want to stop relos? Heck I’m trying to downgrade and I’m still losing every week.

I think the issue is that this lotto cycle is too damn long, and that house the relo frees up doesn’t become available til the next cycle. You’re not getting the instant chance on the freed up house like you used to be able to, because it sits on hold til the next bidding cycle. I understand wanting to stagger the days so more people get a chance, but do we really need a 9-day cycle? 3 to enter, 2 to claim would be a modest scale-back, and it would still stagger to be different days every week.

Also I thought there was still a cooldown on relocation of like 30 days or something, but I can’t seem to find that info anywhere anymore. So if they’re relocating, they shouldn’t be able to do it like every cycle afaik.

I think a 7 day cycle could work with 4 days to bid and 3 to claim, but the problem is this could screw over people who might say be working the same four days every week, and thus always miss the bidding phase, or always miss the claim phase.

For relocation, personally I think relinquished plots in a claim cycle should be free to relocate to.
Currently, if someone relocates, their old plot sits vacant for 4 days before it even re-enters the lottery cycle. 4 days of complete lockout, can't even be bid on.
These plots that would otherwise be locked out, should be have a 'relocation exemption', so that those who want to move, and shuffle about in those 4 days of the claim period, and like a real life housing chain could just keep relinquishing and relocating along. This would speed up the process for those who are relocating, while not impacting the lottery process for those who placed bids in the bidding phase.

[Boldprint]

1. If they win the lottery, and don't claim the house, they lose half the Gil. No one is doing this just as a prank.
2. If someone relocates, they haven't taken any extra houses, their old house is now available.
3. If you forced players to relinquish their old house first, before gambling on a new one, then people simply wouldn't do it. This would mean you're permanently locked into the first plot you win. This is just going to make people even more picky about the plots they bid on, so you'll get hundreds of bids on the popular plots, and 0 bids on the unpopular plots, and people will still be complaining about a lack of plots despite half the plots sitting empty because no one wants to commit to an ugly plot forever. People wouldn't be able to upsize from a Small to a Medium to a Large. Nobody would like this system.

1. yes people will bid on small plots as a prank with no intention of buying it.
2. opening the old plot to have to go with a lottery yet again, is not a selling point.
3. your wrong, many people who want a house will buy ugly slots, that's literally what i tried to get a house. this system has been so unfair for so long that i don't care if you want a upgrade. you say people wont like it, well people don't like the current system now.

[Fandele]

Yeah, this happened to a fellow FC member last week. She was the only bidder, someone else bid last minute and won, then declined to purchase.

I don't know how many do it as a joke. I'm sure some do. With a little practice, you can pull enough for a small house in 2-3 days just playing the marketboard. But I think a large portion are probably people who changed their mind for whatever reason.

A good friend of mine was sweating all week, because she accidentally bid on a medium in an FC only ward. She was just praying she didn't win. (First time I was congratulating someone for losing their bid).

[Elevin]

I think there should be a bad luck protection system with the lottery. For every plot you lose, you get an extra ticket for next time. This rewards players who will literally bid on every plot and punishes newcomers and people that will only select a specific house. So, your chances will increase of winning the more persistent you are. Granted, it won't work well for certain worlds that are overpopulated, but as long as there is a steady supply of housing weekly with auto demolition and new wards opening up once in a while, this should see people that genuinely want a house getting a house.

[Jojoya]

1. If they win the lottery, and don't claim the house, they lose half the Gil. No one is doing this just as a prank.

Of course there are players doing it as a prank. They like to watch the world burn, gil is too easy to get and there's too little in the game to spend gil on other than houses.

There's only 40 lottery periods in a year. That means someone could relocate from small to small to small each lottery period and it would only cost them about 130 million gil to do it for a year straight. Considering the number of players buying gold reskin mounts that cost 50 million gil, there are plenty of players with more than enough gil to be doing this.

Fortunately, the number of players doing it is a lot smaller than some fear.

Also I thought there was still a cooldown on relocation of like 30 days or something, but I can’t seem to find that info anywhere anymore. So if they’re relocating, they shouldn’t be able to do it like every cycle afaik.

Relocation cooldown was never more than 5 minutes. Certainly players had suggested the cooldown be increased prior to the lottery but SE never made a change.

The lottery itself makes the cooldown pointless since the relocator still has to beat the lottery to be able to relocate. That's not a guarantee as relocation no longer has any sort of priority in the system.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

What I have to say has probably been said before in different ways. Nevertheless I shall add my voice to the chorus and make the message louder until something is done.

First, let me be clear, I have no complaints about the rest of the game. It works pretty well as I was playing through it and farming up the gil to buy a house.

But the housing system itself is still trash, still utter garbage.

Getting a home, decorating it nice and using it to have people over and host RP is the only end game content I truly care about. But when I finally get there I find it's only a *chance* to buy one, once every few days.

I ran roulettes to earn gil in anticipation of the new wards opening up in 6.3, bid on a medium house, waited, and lost.

During this process I have experienced a variety of negative emotions. Anxiety, nervousness, animosity, jealousy, resentment, disappointment, and frustration. Those are not fun emotions.

This is not fun, so why am I paying monthly for this? My inability to just earn the gil and buy a house outright is killing my motivation and draining all the fun out of the game for me.

I do not understand why there aren't 100 wards or more already. But in my opinion, the *ONLY* way to fix the housing system is to remove the ridiculous artificial scarcity. Simply allow all wards to be open to any buyer and as wards fill up, dynamically spawn more wards and remove / consolidate them if they are becoming empty.

I don't know why this hasn't been done already, probably some nonsense about old coding they can't chance and server space and blah blah blah. They are super popular now, they have the money to do it, there is no excuse. LOTRO did it that way and that's an older game. You could buy a house and if a ward was getting full, more would appear. If they could do it, then FFXIV sure as heck should be able to.

It should not take a major content patch to release a paltry 6 wards or whatever. The game should spawn more wards as they fill up and I can just go to the plot I want and buy the house instantly, no waiting, no competing against other bid, and until that happens the housing system will remain broken trash.

Is this another my DESIRED plot is not available so there's no houses thread? Yep Ward 25 in Goblet yet again loads of houses available no bids.

[Carin-Eri]

Is this another my DESIRED plot is not available so there's no houses thread? Yep Ward 25 in Goblet yet again loads of houses available no bids.

Ward 25 is an FC only Ward.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Ward 25 is an FC only Ward.

Yes realised that on another post. Just checked the personals and I stopped counting at 30 smalls and at least 5 mediums showing and of the two random (m and s) ones I checked both have no bids