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

[Ayan_Calvesse]

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.

I'm ok with it, its not for everyone and reminds me of LOTRO and DAOC.

[Jojoya]

I'm ok with it, its not for everyone and reminds me of LOTRO and DAOC.

I never played DAOC but I did play LotRO for a while.

Man, their housing sucked. The automatic addition of new Neighborhoods when the old had certain types of plots filled? That was good since it meant there was always a house to buy but that's as far as good went. Their Neighborhoods were just as empty of other players as the wards are here if not more so.

As good as the idea sounds on paper, it just does not work because it doesn't take into account that players spend more of their time doing other things (including being inside of their house) than they spend outside of their houses.

Players could do a better job of making the extremely large Dimensions in RIFT feel like neighborhoods because it was possible to build multiple houses within the same instance. The individual player sharing the instance with their friends or guildmates might end up with a smaller item limit to work with because every had to share the 2500-3000 total item limit but the result of everyone working together created a real neighborhood feeling. All the Dimension owner had to do was make it available for the public to visit and a good Dimension would have a steady stream of players going in and out even if the players that built the Dimension were taking a long break from the game.

[lennit]

(house clicking option 365+ chances a year to get a house) (lotto option 51 chances a year to get a house) (instant housing 1 patch)

[Ayan_Calvesse]

I never played DAOC but I did play LotRO for a while.

Man, their housing sucked. The automatic addition of new Neighborhoods when the old had certain types of plots filled? That was good since it meant there was always a house to buy but that's as far as good went. Their Neighborhoods were just as empty of other players as the wards are here if not more so.

As good as the idea sounds on paper, it just does not work because it doesn't take into account that players spend more of their time doing other things (including being inside of their house) than they spend outside of their houses.

Players could do a better job of making the extremely large Dimensions in RIFT feel like neighborhoods because it was possible to build multiple houses within the same instance. The individual player sharing the instance with their friends or guildmates might end up with a smaller item limit to work with because every had to share the 2500-3000 total item limit but the result of everyone working together created a real neighborhood feeling. All the Dimension owner had to do was make it available for the public to visit and a good Dimension would have a steady stream of players going in and out even if the players that built the Dimension were taking a long break from the game.

I honestly think perhaps we can split the difference here. Your a strong proponent of Instanced housing; I am a strong proponent of ward housing.
So why not make Ward instances that are tied to a FC? You don't really need to mess with too much either - your simply making a neighborhood that is a instance and has 60 plots for the FC to use. This removes FC's from the ward system entirely but also allows people to get the plot they want within a FC without having the excessive creation of instances and ideally encourages community as FC members would get plots within their ward to make things lively. Include a consistant population requirement to maintain (like 4 accounts be active for 45 days otherwise the ward is locked out until the FC returns to green status - a locked instance ward cannot be accessed by non FC members). Also there is only 1 workshop in the ACTUAL FC house; granting 1 deployable per active FC member per account (so your 7 alts do not also get subs)

I enjoyed the self storage aspect of LOTRO and the idea that they were close to the main cities - I agree that the problem was no one hung out there because all the needed amenities' were in the cities and I think that's my biggest beef. MMO's want the capital cities to seem busy so they put everything there - just adding a inn and world travel from housing wards would likely encourage more players to exist in the popular ones.

[Solowing]

(house clicking option 365+ chances a year to get a house) (lotto option 51 chances a year to get a house) (instant housing 1 patch)

Friend List restricted.

Would kill off player made events with that.

Its not a magic bullet, there WILL be concessions made to make that happen.

Just like every single change done to housing that the players requested. It simply brought up a new problem.

Players not getting to partake in housing that didn't have a plot? Apts

Players cant get a plot because of inactive players? Demolish Timer

Players don't have time to login all the time and placard click or get lucky walking into a empty plot? Lottery System

Everyone wants a house? Friend List limited instance housing (Sure it'll kill off the Player made community housing events, but as long as players have a plot that rarely anyone will ever visit its worth the trade off)


Everything action has ramifications, but people don't see it until things like the lottery system which they thought was going to fix everything, worked against them because it became more accessible outside of the lucky or dedicated few. Now people here are asking for things like "extra rolls for lost bids" to give themselves a leg up against competition because its "too fair"

If instance houses are in conjunction with ward housing, sure! But I'm not a fan of replacing the current system.

[NovaStella]

Just make Island Sanctuary into instanced housing. One system doesn't have to replace the other, have it so you can make an instanced house and participate in the housing wards.
Sure, that wont make the "If I can't have it no one can" people happy, but it would give everyone an opportunity to use the housing system and invite people over to their house.

[Rinoa_353]

This one week between each lottery means 4 attempts a month. The system needs to be reworked, terribly. In 2024 this is absolutely unacceptable. They make it pathetically difficult to get a house at all and I find that to be on purpose but I won't lie, its the reason I am already considering quitting after only a month and a half. Ultima Online was a game from 1999 with a far better housing a decorating system and its freaking ancient compared to this. Just sad that a company this big would come out and say this is their best idea. With the amount of server space these use its minimal as all hell, absolutely no excuse. Just beyond aggravating and annoying.

The solution is already there for your housing woes, just move to one of the four new worlds in Dynamis. There are many empty mansion plots still after a month but they are slowly being purchased, you still have time to buy a mansion as we speak. Transferring to Dynamis is free and you also get the Road to 90 buff too. I did that when the first four worlds of Dynamis opened nearly two years ago and I bought a mansion and won it with my solo bid before winning a relocation to Shiro. Or you could just keep being mad and hope you get a small in your crowded world when data center travel is a thing too. Sure it's restricted atm but once that's lifted, you'll be able to travel to the other data centers. Dynamis lately has been popping too, Seraph is actually very full especially xD.

[Solowing]

Just make Island Sanctuary into instanced housing. One system doesn't have to replace the other, have it so you can make an instanced house and participate in the housing wards.
Sure, that wont make the "If I can't have it no one can" people happy, but it would give everyone an opportunity to use the housing system and invite people over to their house.

Everybody, except those on the full of servers has access to be housing system. You're referring to a plot. That is a distinction that needs to be made.

[Jojoya]

I honestly think perhaps we can split the difference here. Your a strong proponent of Instanced housing; I am a strong proponent of ward housing.
So why not make Ward instances that are tied to a FC? You don't really need to mess with too much either - your simply making a neighborhood that is a instance and has 60 plots for the FC to use. This removes FC's from the ward system entirely but also allows people to get the plot they want within a FC without having the excessive creation of instances and ideally encourages community as FC members would get plots within their ward to make things lively. Include a consistant population requirement to maintain (like 4 accounts be active for 45 days otherwise the ward is locked out until the FC returns to green status - a locked instance ward cannot be accessed by non FC members). Also there is only 1 workshop in the ACTUAL FC house; granting 1 deployable per active FC member per account (so your 7 alts do not also get subs)

I enjoyed the self storage aspect of LOTRO and the idea that they were close to the main cities - I agree that the problem was no one hung out there because all the needed amenities' were in the cities and I think that's my biggest beef. MMO's want the capital cities to seem busy so they put everything there - just adding a inn and world travel from housing wards would likely encourage more players to exist in the popular ones.

FC politics can make that annoying. There would still be a limit on how many members could have a house in the ward, which would be fine for the small FCs but a problem for larger ones. If someone gets kicked from the FC by accident or as a joke, they would potentially lose everything. And there are players that have no desire to join a FC because of bad previous experiences. Should they be denied the chance to have a house for their character.

I'd still prefer making the wards a common area that the player passes through to get to their personal instanced housing. Perhaps the houses "on display" with the wards would only be FC owned but there would be no requirement for a player to belong to one of those FCs to have their personal housing there.

To make the wards feel alive, the number of players with housing tied to an individual ward needs to increase greatly. Even the current FC only wards (that aren't monopolized by the sub farms) feel empty much of the time because players are naturally doing other things in the game, including visiting their personal housing located elsewhere.

Friend List restricted.

Would kill off player made events with that.

Its not a magic bullet, there WILL be concessions made to make that happen.

Just like every single change done to housing that the players requested. It simply brought up a new problem.

Players not getting to partake in housing that didn't have a plot? Apts

Players cant get a plot because of inactive players? Demolish Timer

Players don't have time to login all the time and placard click or get lucky walking into a empty plot? Lottery System

Everyone wants a house? Friend List limited instance housing (Sure it'll kill off the Player made community housing events, but as long as players have a plot that rarely anyone will ever visit its worth the trade off)


Everything action has ramifications, but people don't see it until things like the lottery system which they thought was going to fix everything, worked against them because it became more accessible outside of the lucky or dedicated few. Now people here are asking for things like "extra rolls for lost bids" to give themselves a leg up against competition because its "too fair"

If instance houses are in conjunction with ward housing, sure! But I'm not a fan of replacing the current system.

Would not have to be restricted to friends list anymore than apartments are.

There's no reason why player made events would be killed off anymore than they are by current instance limits.

The only concession I can think of that would have to be made would be not having garden or chocobo stable within instanced housing.

If there are new problems, would those problems be considered lesser or greater than the existing problems with the housing system.

Apartments aren't popular because they're a small space when much larger spaces are available to the lucky few.

Instanced housing will not require demolition because it's not loaded until a player is ready to enter it and it despawns when the last player leaves it.

Won't need a lottery system for instanced housing.

Again, nothing says instanced housing has to be limited to friend's list (though that could be made an option for those that don't want random players going in).

We've seen other games running good instanced housing systems. We do not know that SE is incapable of doing the same. We've only seen what they've decided to implement in their attempts to offer a different type of system.

Very few players are asking for wards to be removed entirely. Wards and instanced housing can co-exist.

[Acesfool]

The solution is already there for your housing woes, just move to one of the four new worlds in Dynamis. There are many empty mansion plots still after a month but they are slowly being purchased, you still have time to buy a mansion as we speak. Transferring to Dynamis is free and you also get the Road to 90 buff too. I did that when the first four worlds of Dynamis opened nearly two years ago and I bought a mansion and won it with my solo bid before winning a relocation to Shiro. Or you could just keep being mad and hope you get a small in your crowded world when data center travel is a thing too. Sure it's restricted atm but once that's lifted, you'll be able to travel to the other data centers. Dynamis lately has been popping too, Seraph is actually very full especially xD.

Some minor details left out. Many of the districts are "on hold" meaning the competition for housing is about the same as it is everywhere else. And many people start playing this game with friends who are already on the most popular servers. They shouldn't have to give up an important aspect of the game, playing with friends, in order to experience a piece of the content. And yes there is DC travel which is mostly disabled right now, not to mention DC travel can glitch on you and lock you out of the game for days. I know because it happened to me the first time I tried it. And SE's response is just "Yeah, that happens sometimes, you just have to wait it out."

Moving to a new server isn't the solution. The solution is for housing districts to become dynamic. When demand exceeds the number of available plots then a new district is added. And make at least the interior of houses upgradable to a larger size.