Housing: Purchase Timer - Alternative Idea

[Fluffle]

Straightforward, what if SE used a lottery system rather than an invisible timer (which seems to be set to at max of 22 hours) to buy a house (maybe only for post-addition of residential districts)?

Based on my searches, the main concern that I understand that SE has about the purchasing system is that people can sell the houses for (ridiculous) amounts of prices.

So rather, why not use a lottery system where:

1. A house is closed for the initial 24 hours.

2. During those 24 hours, people may go to the placard and enter into a lottery.
- It will take the amount of gil from a player.
- A player will be assigned a number.
- A player can only enter the lottery once.
- Relocating is still instant bypass.
- (At the end, it will just cast a random number generator based on those who entered)

3. After the 24 hours have passed:
- If the player wins, they will be mailed a letter saying so.
- If the player does not win, the gil will be mailed back to the player.
- If nobody enters the lottery, the house will be open [FIFO]
- (Devaluation timer will start)

From the past few days, my friends have been house hunting non-stop. Of course it is our fault for doing so, but it has interfered with our gameplay (and I'm concerned for my friend's physical and mental health at this point lol).

Feedback appreciated for why this might work / might not work, just no toxicity please. Also if somebody else has already posted this idea or anything, links are appreciated because I did fairly minimal research on this topic.

[Potart]

I totally support this idea!

[Hoboshoes]

I sat at a plot for 16hours spamming when a lottery system could've given me the exact same rng outcome... luck.

[Fluffle]

I sat at a plot for 16hours spamming when a lottery system could've given me the exact same rng outcome... luck.

I don't know if it would be the same RNG outcome but what I do know is that you would definitely have a higher chance of getting RSI.

[Penthea]

A lot of people don't want to or are unable to do placard spamming. However entering a lottery is near zero effort. This means that on highly populated servers the competition would drastically spike upwards due to the sheer ease of competing for a plot. It's not difficult to afford a cottage these days. Almost anyone without a house could enter the draw if it's a cottage.

And as I already said in another similar thread, players with multiple accounts or groups of people who want to share a house will have a higher chance of winning with a lottery system.

The current system needs serious improvement but expanding the influence of rng is not the way to do it. We need more houses. Not more dice rolls.

[Fluffle]

We need more houses. Not more dice rolls.

True, this is very critical to the overall health of the game.

[Themarvin]

Would suggest keeping current system, get a small house anywhere when one opens up then from there on... you can relocate to any size as it is now, no lottery would ever work out, nor auction system where people could outbid each other either.

Gotta be fair to rich and poor in any way possible as it is, and maybe convince some of the multi owner houses out there to give up 1-3 of what they already got as it is the greater good.

[AriesMouse]

A lot of people don't want to or are unable to do placard spamming. However entering a lottery is near zero effort. This means that on highly populated servers the competition would drastically spike upwards due to the sheer ease of competing for a plot.

And as I already said in another similar thread, players with multiple accounts or groups of people who want to share a house will have a higher chance of winning with a lottery system.

The current system needs serious improvement but expanding the influence of rng is not the way to do it. We need more houses. Not more dice rolls.

I agree we need more houses. Ideally instanced housing.

But I feel like a lottery system could be a much better choice than what is going on now. People say there will be more competition, which while true, isn't completely a bad thing. Rather than begrudging people for also getting a fair shot, maybe be happy that people with jobs/families/not a lot of time now have a fair shot at getting a plot. Not everyone has the luxury of having 20hours to kill at a placard. Housing shouldn't only be for people with excess free time to kill. Also, there is something to be said about the fact that people should probably be actively playing the game, not just sitting at a placard spamming buy, or using a bot.

There are some very simple things that could be put into place to make things balanced out:

• Check the account history. If that account has never owned a home/never been FC leader(and owned a house through those means), they get a boost/bonus in the lottery.
• Losing out on a lottery gives a bonus if you're applying for a plot in the same housing area (So if you're sticking to only the Shirogane, you'll get a bonus to getting a house there, while others apply to all housing areas will not).
• Put bonus buff on people the more times they apply. So someone that keeps missing out will eventually have a higher chance of winning if they hit up every house they can when they are not already locked into a lottery, while people that maybe only poke at it once in a while will be lower on the list.
• Give FCs with a player count of 10 or more a priority bonus.
• If someone relocates to the plot you have your money on, maybe bring up a window asking if you want to place your money down for the plot they left (if it is a house of the same size). Apply a bonus if they apply to that plot rather than a new one.
• Place a veteran buff on long time players that are first time buyers to up their chances.
• When someone applies for the lottery, give them a warning ahead of time that shows how many other people have applied. Possibly show (anonymously) how many people with bonuses are on that plot, and what bonuses you as a player might have. This could encourage people to pick and chose more carefully, if there are multiple plots to pick from, so people will divide themselves up more evenly.

Mind you, these bonuses and the like would apply in a fashion very similar to trying to get a HQ craft. Just because the number goes up doesn't mean you are 100% going to get what you're after, unless the number itself says 100% (which personally I don't think should be achievable for this system. 50% would be a good cut off I think)

[Penthea]

I agree we need more houses. Ideally instanced housing.

But I feel like a lottery system could be a much better choice than what is going on now. People say there will be more competition, which while true, isn't completely a bad thing. Rather than begrudging people for also getting a fair shot

Lottery is not fair. People complain all the time about not winning loot despite killing the boss so many times, and losing it to people who killed it once. You'll end up with people who were trying to get a house for a long time losing to a new player, and then going mad over it. Even with bonuses that possibility exists.

The other side of bonuses is they would be extremely demoralising to a new player. The housing situation is depressing enough as it is without a system that has a form of favouritism that punishes new players for simply being new.

The fc member bonus could be abused. Players could invite alts or pay people to join their fc to increase their chances of getting a house.

Lottery would favour those with several accounts. Yes you can get several accounts to bot spam the placard now, but that is against the terms of use, so it comes with its own risks and that can discourage players from doing it. With the lottery system there would be no need for bots so players could use several accounts to target the same house without breaking the terms of use. They would have nothing to lose by pooling their resources.

Not everyone has the luxury of having 20hours to kill at a placard. Housing shouldn't only be for people with excess free time to kill. Also, there is something to be said about the fact that people should probably be actively playing the game, not just sitting at a placard spamming buy, or using a bot.

The placard spam is bloody awful. I completely agree. But all that lottery will do is eliminate placard spam. It does not even remotely fix the actual problem which is housing availability, and it would introduce new problems of its own. We need more houses or a different housing system. Not rng that is riddled with intended and unintended favouritism.

[Serret]

A lot of people don't want to or are unable to do placard spamming. However entering a lottery is near zero effort. This means that on highly populated servers the competition would drastically spike upwards due to the sheer ease of competing for a plot. It's not difficult to afford a cottage these days. Almost anyone without a house could enter the draw if it's a cottage.

And as I already said in another similar thread, players with multiple accounts or groups of people who want to share a house will have a higher chance of winning with a lottery system.

The current system needs serious improvement but expanding the influence of rng is not the way to do it. We need more houses. Not more dice rolls.

You are absolutely right.
But at the lack of a better solution (more houses) I believe the current system is too painful. I've seen people sitting over 24h camping places only to miss them when they have to go to the bathroom... this repeated several times.
Their effort was not rewarded.
A lottery system while not ideal would be a considerable improvement over the current solution.
There's no question, we need MORE houses. But therein lies another question, there are people hoarding houses over several FCs in separate chars either to resell or whatnot, presuming more houses are added, shouldn't there be an additional system to prevent this? Otherwise more houses will not be sufficient as people will hoard "villages" just because they can...


What needs to be done in my opinion:
- More houses needs to be added
- Scalability, add more wards depending on server population
- Abuse prevention system needs to be readjusted (1 house per account/server limitation is not sufficient, people are still hoarding abusing FCs to do so)

Even with these 3 suggestions there might be cases where housing is still difficult to get.
As such either an RNG lottery system or a BID system would be better than the current: sitting for 24h for a house only to miss it cause they blinked their eyes. (in any case at this point it's never fair, but I would say either of the first 2 options I suggested are better than what we have now)