Housing Lottery Idea

[Krojack]

What's stupid is the housing setup DOES NOT FAVOR NEW OWNERS. The fact that current house owners can move their house to an open plot and have priority over some new person wanting their very first house it pathetic needless to say.

[Beckett]

What's stupid is the housing setup DOES NOT FAVOR NEW OWNERS. The fact that current house owners can move their house to an open plot and have priority over some new person wanting their very first house it pathetic needless to say.

What's the problem with this system? In the long run, it ensures that you have a better chance of getting the plot you want.

Right now you have to struggle with the RNG timers once. As long as you manage to grab literally any plot in the game, you never have to worry about RNG timers again, and can move into your dream plot if it becomes available. Can you imagine how mad you would be if you managed to snag a small plot in Goblet, then your dream Medium plot opened up in Shirogane and you had to deal with the RNG bullshit all over again?

Virtually no one who currently owns a plot is going to bother Relocating to a Small plot, so you're only ever going to be competing against other non-home owners for any Smalls that open up. I'll say it again: You are not competing with current homeowners to get Small plots. Once you do manage to get a Small plot, you're done with RNG timers forever.

The only major downside to the current system is that you essentially have to buy a house twice, however most players are more than willing to pay this price to get their preferred plots.

[Penthea]

Virtually no one who currently owns a plot is going to bother Relocating to a Small plot, so you're only ever going to be competing against other non-home owners for any Smalls that open up. I'll say it again: You are not competing with current homeowners to get Small plots. Once you do manage to get a Small plot, you're done with RNG timers forever.

That isn't true. There are a lot of small plots in the game that are very highly sought. Especially those at the beach in Mist and Shirogane. I know several people who relocated their cottage to other cottage plots because they preferred the location due to reasons like scenery, being in the same subdivision as a friend/fc or closer proximity to the mb.

[Jandor]

I've wanted to see uldah from up high for a while now, would be very cool to be able to own a place in the upper areas. Not important to me that they scrap personal housing per say but I'd love for the radical overhaul to apartments . Imo the name too, dunno about others but the name is in the way of feeling ownership because you can't own what you rent, minor gripe for a system with larger issues I know but yeah lol.

Yeah, I'd love it if a third "area" was added to city states. 'Apartment complex' or something, clicking it brings up a wards list, inside the area has a plaza with a MB and maybe a pool, the entrance to peoples apartments, maybe an entrance to an instanced gardening area.
And once you're in your apartment, it starts small with a tiny balcony with a view of the city state, can upgrade to much bigger area and much bigger balcony, and a final large upgrade to a multi-story giant penthouse suite with a large outdoor balcony area.

Plus they're easier to add, Ishgard housing proving a pain? Add an apartment complex to Ishgard itself. Some weird folk wanting to live in Mor Dhona? Add an apartment complex to the edge of the mini-town. etc.

Excuse the crappy paint job, something like this. The pool goes under the bridges, some seats around the edges. Should hopefully give apartment owners something a bit social too, an area to hang out in, a bit like a mini housing ward.
Maybe just retainer bells? MB's might empty out the cities.
Either way, I'd just like apartments to be better, ideally so much better that personal house ownership isn't really a big thing.

I just want to live in a giant windmill type building in the Ul'dah city centre

[Shougun]

Dunno about other people but I don't want it to be harder to get in line. I want there to be no lines. We should all have equal access to housing. Wishful thinking I know, considering how SE have handled housing so far. Even if SE won't give us proper instanced housing there are better ways to mitigate the placard rng without replacing one form of lottery with another.

More wards, different ward designs that allow any size house to be built on a plot, apartment expansion for more space and proper gardening (why don't we have balconies? ><), allowing fcs to use apartments, adding more tenant slots to private homes, adding tenant slots to apartments...all of these and more would reduce the problems of placard spam. Increasing accessibility to housing is how to combat it. Not by replacing one form of rng with another.

If anyone translates my discontent they probably feel like I've become some sort of necromancer just to beat a horse even more XD but yes.. This is the single factor of the game that brings me down the most (easily, over any other issue).

I mean let me say it another way..

• If they add more wards it will most likely not be enough to fit all players that could possible have means to have one even when filling up all slots and player settling, especially in the future (pretty much guaranteed on large servers).
• If they add more wards they WILL NOT be able to offer enough large houses for any demand, FC or player. They'd need to add 500 wards at that point, at least.
• If they add more wards they will most likely not be able to produce enough mediums for any demand.
• If they add more wards they will make many undesirable houses for people who wanted something in a different district or size, like Goblet seems to be the "if I have to..". You should really question your the system if people are "settling" for content.
• If they add a new housing area there will NOT be enough for the new demand - leaving many disapointed, clearly see Shirogane as a live example. This means people excited for new content, many, will not get to be part of that even though they want to be.
• Because not everyone, FC or player, can experience this content they are limited in some aspects on what content they can put into the area. Imagine if everyone was given a small free room that they could upgrade (to sizes like large, with garden areas) - they could make many more systems that people could take part on. Especially important for FC, where it's pretty silly to join a house-less FC (except under very tight friend/family, or RP situations).
• Because it's not instanced you have to share burden on limitations on the outdoor objects, both appearances and quantity. Imagine if you had a large area (even if the same number of items to place), you could have towers, barns, and other large structures that are impossible with the current system because they can't make zones massive to fit all houses (at least they haven't).
• Because it's not instanced you will also have stronger limits on location, take for example the Azim Steppe floating platform. If the system was in your own area you could change the backdrop to that area once you've unlocked. Next you could switch it to a floating island, then to an area deep in the Gridania Forests. (Backdrop/skybox control = massive theme control).
• Because it's not instanced you also cannot have unlocked rotation/scaling/position because it would destroy other people's experience. But if it was your own area you could make incredible statues that were otherwise insanely impractical or impossible (not just statues, of course).

In effect adding to what we already have will never, very unlikely at least, ever fix the issues. If they can find how to make their instanced content better (and unlimited) we could very well solve all of the above and add to it. Though I'm not saying it's easy or cheap lol.

I also believe SE might be able to recoup some development costs, or more, if they let players buy extra instances. For example every account gets one instance* they unlock through the main story quest, once unlocked on one character it's so for the whole account. *Per data center, unless they can make it cross that too. Acting as massive upgrade-able hub for your characters, well massive when you put in the effort (for example in Wild Star you had upwards of 1000 items to store, 1000 items to place inside house and 1000 outside). Now some people may want to build multiple areas, I think they could let players buy an extra instance for a monthly fee - on RP servers you might see some accounts with many such that they can run their own mini-city, inn, battle area, and what have you. On top of that of course there are more people buying mogshop housing items since /everyone/ would have a place.

Also they can leave the current housing system in place, for those who like the neighborhood system because that'd be the real con of an instanced system but give players who own a house the ability to move into the instance with all their furnishings and house size unlocked (saving them time upgrading it through the instanced system). Imo instanced and for everyone >>> some people get a limited neighbor system (although if both could exist at once, win win for everyone).

Yeah, I'd love it if a third "area" was added to city states. 'Apartment complex' or something, clicking it brings up a wards list, inside the area has a plaza with a MB and maybe a pool, the entrance to peoples apartments, maybe an entrance to an instanced gardening area.
And once you're in your apartment, it starts small with a tiny balcony with a view of the city state, can upgrade to much bigger area and much bigger balcony, and a final large upgrade to a multi-story giant penthouse suite with a large outdoor balcony area.

Plus they're easier to add, Ishgard housing proving a pain? Add an apartment complex to Ishgard itself. Some weird folk wanting to live in Mor Dhona? Add an apartment complex to the edge of the mini-town. etc.

Excuse the crappy paint job, something like this. The pool goes under the bridges, some seats around the edges. Should hopefully give apartment owners something a bit social too, an area to hang out in, a bit like a mini housing ward.
Maybe just retainer bells? MB's might empty out the cities.
Either way, I'd just like apartments to be better, ideally so much better that personal house ownership isn't really a big thing.

I just want to live in a giant windmill type building in the Ul'dah city centre

Cute drawing , have a like. I've wanted to see those main areas be used as well (the main far off areas in the housing areas). Definitely would be cool to let players purchase an apartment (FFXI mog room, free/easy to start) and upgrade it to have more rooms, storage, features, and location options. Some beast tribe quests could have really expensive (via token) special apartment areas as well, could be a neat encouragement to revisit an area. Get a house apartment thing in a small sylph village for example.

[Sakuraluna]

I’m still not a fan of it because I’d rather be able to be sure that I’m getting what I want, not that I miiiiiight have a chance at it against five or ten other people, because that rarely works out in my favor. Housing would still be a pain for new players to get into. Nothing solved.

The way you skip placard spamming is very simple: Just check your pride, and buy a house in the Goblet. Can even be a small. From there, wait until one you want opens up elsewhere and relocate to it. That way, you’re not wasting your time standing around spamming the sign until a relocater wanders up and takes it from under your nose. Only time-intensive in how long it takes your favored plot to open up, and you still play the game in the meantime.

[Ittapupu_Berry]

Still have to spam in the Goblet On the Levi server, it's very populated so getting a Goblet house takes just as much spam as a Kugane house.
Nothing might be solved, but at least a person wouldn't have to go thru 22 hours of clicking a sign

[Penthea]

but at least a person wouldn't have to go thru 22 hours of clicking a sign

Yea instead you would have to go through potentially several months or more of entering a lottery and losing. If entering is as easy as you say, then it would mean more people would enter than you have clicking on a placard. The placard spam takes time, effort and patience. Entering a lottery is near zero effort. It will attract more competition for plots.

Lottery isn't a fix. It's just replacing a problem with a different problem.

[DeaconMoore]

No lotteries please.

Dynamically added wards instead. Ward fills up, new empty ward becomes available for purchase.

We shouldn't have to compete to get a house...

[Jojoya]

No lotteries please.

Dynamically added wards instead. Ward fills up, new empty ward becomes available for purchase.

We shouldn't have to compete to get a house...

Then you get people complaining that the plot they want still isn't available even if others are and so SE should just make more wards so they can get their preferred plot. If SE does that, then existing wards end up half empty as everyone goes to a ward that has their desired plot.

I'll stick with what I proposed a while back - go with a dual system where there's instanced housing that guarantees every FC and character who meets the level/rank requirements one house and the ward system for those who consider housing their end game and are willing to compete for the "luxury" plots.

Instanced housing wouldn't be subject to auto-demo and would cost less to purchase compare to ward plots of comparable size.

Retain limits on per account ward plots along with auto-demolition on the ward housing to ensure new players have an opportunity to get into the housing end game if they want (most probably would care less as long as they had their guaranteed instanced house). Make relocation subject to the same timer that new buyers have to deal with to end the flipping.