Housing lottery system takes entirely too long and is poorly designed.

[Jojoya]

I firmly believe the housing system is made with the intention to shackle players who actually care about that system, forcing you to remain subbed and 'tend' to your house or you'll lose it.

If this is true (and frequent suspension of auto-demolition puts that into doubt), then the dumbest thing for players to do is allow themselves to get shackled to the system. That gives Square Enix control over them.

Do I care about the system? Yes, it's why I spend a lot of time in this subforum discussing the ways it could be improved.

Am I shackled to it? Not at all. If I need to take a break from the game and lose my houses, then I lose my houses. They are just virtual items in an online game.

Having things in a game is fun but they're never so important that we should allow ourselves to make stupid decisions over them.

[Sida]

When the system was implemented there was no auto-demolition. Nor account wide ownership restrictions. Both were added as an attempt to stretch the existing plots to cater more active players. The week long period keeps the same round available to all players even if they can only play around couple days a week (such as weekend, most commonly). And no, you wouldn't want to return to the plot camping, or resales.

[Solowing]

snip

It didn't start out that way, they added demo timer in (I started prior to apts) People would quit and houses would go unused and untouched and given its a limited supply, eventually noone would be able to buy one as all wards would be filled up with inactive houses.

The solution was to demo houses if players didn't go inside of them after an extended period of time. Players have no issue with this. It frees up a limited resource and allows other people to have access to that plot. The double edged sword is the very people who asked for them are now subjected to the rules they asked for themselves. If you go inactive, your plot will be demolished if you don't return after a certain period. Yes it does benefit S.E, since anyone heavily invested will likely keep their sub active to retain their plot. And if you grow tired of playing this game, you wont need the plot anyway.

The lotto was a player requested feature, it wasn't the magic bullet people thought, making it more accessible and considering people ability to login fewer times of week would be better for everyone and is a noble ask. But in reality that just made competition FAR stiffer for themselves if they already didnt have a plot prior to getting the change they asked for. But is infact the most fair version of a system you could ask for within this version of housing.

You have a permanent instance housing, and youre not happy with that...Yall want a plot without a demo timer...Be honest about it. Ive had my plot for the last 8 years without a sub lapse knowing what will happen if i leave for a extended period, and you seem to understand the reason why they dont change it clear as day. Its a business first and foremost and if this keeps them from adding anything more invasive revenue generating aspects to the game. I will take the devil i know to the one i dont.

You think they want you to leave indefinitely and come back whenever just like that? You arnt going to leave if you have something invested that you care about that you may not get back for a very long time if you leave. All you need to do is give them the price of a Big Mac meal once a month and you wont have to worry about your creative investment getting deleted.

They wont respond on this topic because they are well aware its a 3rd rail, and their solution is add more wards and add a higher item limit but don't directly address it. But also going instanced housing is going to have some trade-off that'll be good for the individual but will likely kill off the player generated content.

[Solowing]

If this is true (and frequent suspension of auto-demolition puts that into doubt), then the dumbest thing for players to do is allow themselves to get shackled to the system. That gives Square Enix control over them.

Do I care about the system? Yes, it's why I spend a lot of time in this subforum discussing the ways it could be improved.

Am I shackled to it? Not at all. If I need to take a break from the game and lose my houses, then I lose my houses. They are just virtual items in an online game.

Having things in a game is fun but they're never so important that we should allow ourselves to make stupid decisions over them.

Like paying for a game that will one day shut down leaving us all empty handed after investing thousands of dollars into it?

[JimCasey_RF6]

Like paying for a game that will one day shut down leaving us all empty handed after investing thousands of dollars into it?

We all know when getting into an online game that it will come to an end one day. Have you made some good memories during your time playing so far? I know I have. The interactions and memories I've created because of this game are worth every penny, to me.

[Divinemights]

I firmly believe the housing system is made with the intention to shackle players who actually care about that system, forcing you to remain subbed and 'tend' to your house or you'll lose it. There's no instanced alternative that comes close to being 'decent' in my opinion this is by design. The housing is scarce by design, after all, if plots were readily available and plenty, you could just unsub and come back to claim a house (imo the healthy way).

The lottery and changes to wards made it even harder now. You can also blame people who buy plots and resell em, it's harder now but I'm sure it happens. The system is still very much exploitable, just not as easy as before.

I think anyone who is paying a sub to this game should be entitled to some kind of permanent instanced housing that's not as pitiful as apartments with such low furniture limit. At least spice it up by adding some upgrades or unique traits.

I doubt they'd listen to us, but I think people should keep asking.

I'd say the lottery is more forgiving in a sense 'set it and forget it'. I once spent 14 hours straight spamming the placcard on the old system and in the last 30mins 5-6 people showed up out of the blue...I was lucky to have been on controller spamming that placcard.

I firmly confirmed you joined this game late and do not know the history housing devleopment
Everything you see in game right now, it is this same forum that is responsible
From auto demo to lottery, everything is origin from this forum (or housing form from other languages)

[Jojoya]

Like paying for a game that will one day shut down leaving us all empty handed after investing thousands of dollars into it?

There's your problem. You see it as an investment. It's not.

It's a service. You pay to have access for the stated period of time. If your service provider goes out of business or you are no longer happy with the quality of the service they provide, you either change providers or decide you no longer have need for that type of service. It doesn't matter the hundreds or thousands of dollars paid to the service in the past. That was paid for the past access, not future.

[Solowing]

There's your problem. You see it as an investment. It's not.

It's a service. You pay to have access for the stated period of time. If your service provider goes out of business or you are no longer happy with the quality of the service they provide, you either change providers or decide you no longer have need for that type of service. It doesn't matter the hundreds or thousands of dollars paid to the service in the past. That was paid for the past access, not future.

Its both, I agree with the poster above, its the experience that makes it worth it. Like for me I enjoyed my time with world of warcraft during the WotLK-Cataclysm Era, and after the game changed I didn't care for the direction. I didn't ask for a refund. I enjoyed my time with it and I moved on.

But given I've found a creative hobby out of the carrd site using the games housing system. And if I lost access to it, well that makes the site somewhat more difficult to build on since it no longer would exist in-game and the story around it has to be reworked/ retired. It is a creative investment, and whats 15 dollars a month to maintain it, when I can spend 20 dollars on lunch?

[SillyCrow]

The main thing that's bad about the new system is that you can't take advantage of people with bad bots/macros to sell your items using your retainer after you won the lot from them.

[ApolloGenX]

Housing in this game is bad.

You can defend it, make excuses for it, or attack people for pointing it out.

None of that changes the fact it is a bad system in an otherwise great game.