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

[Ayan_Calvesse]

Its ok he can be upset. But he wasn't there for when Apts didn't exist and if you didn't have an FC/Personal plot you COULDNT do housing. The demo timer didn't exist, and Wards were just empty plots who's owners had no intention of coming back anytime soon, if at all.

We got the demo timer, and did player complain? No, why would they feel bad for somebody who quit a year ago losing their house?

But it didn't releases houses fast enough and players were still locked out of housing. In come Apartments. Hm..They are smaller but also arnt tied to the demolish timer, fair trade off.. (before BDTH and lofting became a thing 100 slots were reasonable, our standards rose with our knowledge how to exploit the system.)

Then people with not much time to play/slower reflexes/travels alot felt they didn't have a fair shot to get a plot, (especially after shirogane released, anyone who didn't take the day off or disconnected after logging in was SoL and wasn't getting a plot 15 minutes after servers went live)

So they added in a hidden timer. But emergent gameplay became to click a placard for 16 hours a day or set a bot to do it to win a plot under the hidden timer and that wasn't healthy.

So here we are at the lottery. Oh you can only login once a week? Don't worry the game will give you 10 days to bid, Dont have fast reaction times? No need! take your time getting over there to bid. Worried about a bot? Botting has no outcome on a lottery because their input wont change anything.


The housing system is MILES better then what it used to be, tough pill to swallow.

I somewhat disagree; I feel the volume of players with large sums of gil often does not sync with those with desires to use a house. Housing becomes a "nice to have" vs a "want" so people with the disposable income just grab a house and let it rot.

Personally I feel that your house should go back on the market 14 days after you cancel your sub.

[Jojoya]

I somewhat disagree; I feel the volume of players with large sums of gil often does not sync with those with desires to use a house. Housing becomes a "nice to have" vs a "want" so people with the disposable income just grab a house and let it rot.

Personally I feel that your house should go back on the market 14 days after you cancel your sub.

Which would work poorly due to the number of players reliant on game time cards not to mention that canceling a subscription doesn't mean that the player does not still have up to 6 months of game time left, during which time they might resubscribe.

Probably a better way to implement your idea would be to demo after the account has gone 14 days without paid game time.

I still don't really agree with the idea though. Someone could buy up a ton of houses and then never use them at all if demolition is based on paid time and not use. While the number is very small, there are some players so petty as to get things just to be able to say "I have one and you don't" to others. We've seen those types of posts crop up in this subforum on occasion.

There are no good answers to the current system. SE could adopt LotRO's "expand when existing are filled by world" system and players are still going to be unhappy because the mediums and larges will fill quickly so most have to setlle for smalls. Most players have no problem coming up with at least enough for a medium if not a large. If housing is supposed to be a gil sink, it makes more sense to offer more of the larger size plots that players can afford.

If SE wants to stick with the ward system, they need to redesign the wards to reflect the current affluence of the player base. It might sound crazy but I would go 7-16-7 for size division (assuming they stuck to 30 house per ward). That allows the majority to at least get a medium while there are still smalls for those who can't afford a medium. The 7 larges may be enough for current demand or potentially could be too much. All the better if it's too much because then it gives players who see a large as a dream a more realistic chance of getting one if they stick with playing the game and without having to jump to a newly opened world to grab what few are available before they run out.

[Ayan_Calvesse]

Which would work poorly due to the number of players reliant on game time cards not to mention that canceling a subscription doesn't mean that the player does not still have up to 6 months of game time left, during which time they might resubscribe.

Probably a better way to implement your idea would be to demo after the account has gone 14 days without paid game time.

I still don't really agree with the idea though. Someone could buy up a ton of houses and then never use them at all if demolition is based on paid time and not use. While the number is very small, there are some players so petty as to get things just to be able to say "I have one and you don't" to others. We've seen those types of posts crop up in this subforum on occasion.

There are no good answers to the current system. SE could adopt LotRO's "expand when existing are filled by world" system and players are still going to be unhappy because the mediums and larges will fill quickly so most have to setlle for smalls. Most players have no problem coming up with at least enough for a medium if not a large. If housing is supposed to be a gil sink, it makes more sense to offer more of the larger size plots that players can afford.

If SE wants to stick with the ward system, they need to redesign the wards to reflect the current affluence of the player base. It might sound crazy but I would go 7-16-7 for size division (assuming they stuck to 30 house per ward). That allows the majority to at least get a medium while there are still smalls for those who can't afford a medium. The 7 larges may be enough for current demand or potentially could be too much. All the better if it's too much because then it gives players who see a large as a dream a more realistic chance of getting one if they stick with playing the game and without having to jump to a newly opened world to grab what few are available before they run out.

My fault - ESL - Sorry I "meant" to say 14 days of not having a paid sub - my logic being that even gives people a entire paycheque of leeway.

Actually to go with your thoughts and put the 2 together...perhaps they should add "large" and "medium" and "small" wards. As they could use the existing maps and simply reshape the boundries and some relatively minor terrain edits.

I do also feel they probably should just condense workshops and apply the same mechanism that already exists for private homes to FC's as well.

[Solowing]

I somewhat disagree; I feel the volume of players with large sums of gil often does not sync with those with desires to use a house. Housing becomes a "nice to have" vs a "want" so people with the disposable income just grab a house and let it rot.

Personally I feel that your house should go back on the market 14 days after you cancel your sub.

2 weeks feels kinda short. Some people do get paid bi-weekly and if you cant squeeze the 15$ for the sub that pay period, that'll doom you

I kinda agree with you. Its because Plots are limited supply people will snap them up to sit on them, but apartments don't get the same love because they are far easier to come by. As most servers its a given. Balmung players find value in apartments as even those are scarce to come by.

[Zakuyia]

I won my medium off a coin toss i got no problem with the lottery

[NightHour]

Just win the lotttery 4head

[Rinoa_353]

The lottery works as intended, not everyone is going to win right away, that's just the nature of a lotto system. Winning is possible, I won my current personal Shiro P60 mansion out of 45 bids in Seraph in May 2023. Then about two months ago, my OG main on Exodus won her personal LB P28 mansion out of over 250 bids, so keep on bidding and hope you win, that all you can really do at this point.

I've had much better luck in the past two years with the lotto system than the previous 7 years before that trying to win the click wars.

[Merrigan]

I somewhat disagree; I feel the volume of players with large sums of gil often does not sync with those with desires to use a house. Housing becomes a "nice to have" vs a "want" so people with the disposable income just grab a house and let it rot.

Personally I feel that your house should go back on the market 14 days after you cancel your sub.

Excellent idea. This way, you won't be able to take a pause in gaming. OR you will be punished when you have a problem of connection which need some time to be resolved

[LyraShu]

I think the lottery system works as they had intended it to be, but I also think it is time for an update. I did just get a house after months of trying, and only reason how I got the best chance is to walk to every single plot and bid on one I liked with a low amount of other players bidding. I have heard horror stories of how the housing system used to be, so for now, I am ok with giving players a "fair chance" or as much of one as this system can grant you.

Really, I would love there to be a way that we could add wards into different areas or give players more options. It's a dirty idea, but it would be cool if, for the low low price of gil cap (idk, just throwing ideas), you can purchase and build a ward to be the ward's "owner". I don't know how you would manage the settings or what you could "manage" while being an owner, part of the reason why this is a dirty idea, but I could see it working close to a lot of Guild Registries in other games. You make a registry, have enough players sign in, and then you can turn it in for review or approval....build the ward....sell houses...and then you could even make it to where "if there are no houses purchased/occupied for a x day cycle, the ward is removed" to help with congestion.

[NightHour]

I think the lottery system works as they had intended it to be, but I also think it is time for an update. I did just get a house after months of trying, and only reason how I got the best chance is to walk to every single plot and bid on one I liked with a low amount of other players bidding. I have heard horror stories of how the housing system used to be, so for now, I am ok with giving players a "fair chance" or as much of one as this system can grant you.

Really, I would love there to be a way that we could add wards into different areas or give players more options. It's a dirty idea, but it would be cool if, for the low low price of gil cap (idk, just throwing ideas), you can purchase and build a ward to be the ward's "owner". I don't know how you would manage the settings or what you could "manage" while being an owner, part of the reason why this is a dirty idea, but I could see it working close to a lot of Guild Registries in other games. You make a registry, have enough players sign in, and then you can turn it in for review or approval....build the ward....sell houses...and then you could even make it to where "if there are no houses purchased/occupied for a x day cycle, the ward is removed" to help with congestion.

Then the chinese gil sellers start selling housing because they buy wards with their botted gil?

I doubt they'd want that.

Probably a better way to implement your idea would be to demo after the account has gone 14 days without paid game time..

Right, so if my game time runs out early in the month and I don't get paid until the end of the month I should lose the house I bid every week for almost a year to get?

Sorry but that's a terrible take.

45 days is fine, there's room for it to possibly come down to 30 or even 40.