Are the devs going to do something about the housing purchase timer?

[Kleeya]

Ideal solution would be a lottery where you opt in to obtaining a house if you don't already have one and the game waits a day and at the end of the day randomly picks one of the players and notifies them that they have won the right to purchase the house, whereby they have maybe 3 days to purchase the house before it is released back to the public.

Except that with this solution you will have way more competitors than you have actually. Like hundreds of them, that's what you will get if everyone can just opt in in a few seconds instead of having the guts to click a placard hours long.

Do you see how hard it is to win the drop you want in some spammable raid against only 7 other players ? Now imagine if trying your luck again will need a way more long delay waiting for a plot to be free again, and that on top of that you have to win against hundreds of other people.

I can already see "Are the devs going to do something about the RNG housing purchase lottery ? It has been 8 months that i opt in for every free plots i see, and i still didn't win anything !" threads poping on the forums XD

Like the actual rng timer, i think that a lottery is a bad solution that will get quickly hated by the players as well if it was put into place.

They can solve this problem by just making the timer appear publicly so everyone knows when it opens up. That way everyone still gets a fair shot at winning the plot, and nobody has to stand there for 12 hours clicking away.

That would mean way more competitors too if trying his luck only needed a few seconds at a know given time. And people being solo being disavantaged against those who will be planning to try to snatch the spot with 10 of their houseless friends at the same time.

In the end instanced housing is the only viable solution so that everybody can get a house without getting mad at something.

[Losara]

Except that with this solution you will have way more competitors than you have actually. Like hundreds of them, that's what you will get if everyone can just opt in in a few seconds instead of having the guts to click a placard hours long.

Do you see how hard it is to win the drop you want in some spammable raid against only 7 other players ? Now imagine if trying your luck again will need a way more long delay waiting for a plot to be free again, and that on top of that you have to win against hundreds of other people.

I can already see "Are the devs going to do something about the RNG housing purchase lottery ? It has been 8 months that i opt in for every free plots i see, and i still didn't win anything !" threads popping on the forums XD

Like the actual rng timer, i think that a lottery is a bad solution that will get quickly hated by the players as well if it was put into place.

In the end its a band aid fix for the current issue but assuming SE would need to redesign everything from scratch (which might not be viable for years) its an improvement on needing to click on a placard for an unknown period of time causing burn out.

Instanced housing would be perfect if it was easily achievable but there must be some serious problems moving the current housing system over to instanced otherwise we would have had a change by now. We'll need to check what they do with the Ishgard housing though I am expecting a lottery system / auction system to be implemented for those houses since they probably don't want to see another Shirogane Extreme occur and the backlash from that.

[Katie_Kitty]

They can solve this problem by just making the timer appear publicly so everyone knows when it opens up. That way everyone still gets a fair shot at winning the plot, and nobody has to stand there for 12 hours clicking away.

[Hyperia]

Originally, SE intended the houses to be for FCs only and not for individuals. They always intended for apartments for individuals and those came with the FC houses. Standalone apartments were in the plan but took more time and eventually were implemented but that was after they allowed for individual purchases. Had they stuck to the original plan and made them FC only with apartment buildings for individuals, we would be in a much better situation.

[TwistedTea]

Originally, SE intended the houses to be for FCs only and not for individuals. They always intended for apartments for individuals and those came with the FC houses. Standalone apartments were in the plan but took more time and eventually were implemented but that was after they allowed for individual purchases. Had they stuck to the original plan and made them FC only with apartment buildings for individuals, we would be in a much better situation.

The problem is a shortage of houses. Not to mention they tied gardening to housing.

If right from the start, SE had gone with the instanced housing route like other MMORPGs, we would not have our present housing situation.

Secondly, this is not on topic:

But I don't see why an FC deserves a house more than an individual.

FCs are kinda irrelevant apart from socialising,buffs,FC rooms, airships/submersibles/workshop etc.

For socialising and content, we have crossworld linkshells etc

FC rooms = have more apartments instead

Buffs can be obtained through the Grand Companies.

That leaves the airships/submersibles/workshop.

From my perspective, usually only the FC leader/inner circle benefit from these.

Sure,many times only the FC leader/officers are doing the actual work of getting these going/maintained. So they 'deserve' the benefits.

Again, SE should have made stuff like airships/submersibles/workshop for personal use so that a greater portion of the playerbase could participate in such content.

[Sylve]

I'd prefer the purchase system changed altogether.
Instead of random rolls on who gets it, put it on a queue/waiting list.

Basically, allow me to select a Plot and put down the Gil to purchase that plot.
You then go onto a Waiting List and given your queue number.
When that PLot becomes available, the system checks the List to see who is at the top, and grants ownership of the Plot to that person.

You could specify a Ward to try and get a specific Plot, or alternatively leave the Ward blank to have the system grant you the selected Plot the next time a new Ward opens up, or becomes available in any Ward.
Make the waiting list semi public, with a Message indicating how many players are currently waiting to purchase that particular plot, but not revealing player names.

Would make reselling to a specific individual much harder, thus reducing the number of plots that are purchased specifically for resell profits.
Housing should not be a 'player market'. If you have the Gil and the desire to own a house, you deserve to own a house.

[Kaethra]

Any system that doesn't allow for anyone to have the house they wish, is a bad system.

This is a game. Not real life. In fact.. it is harder for me to get a house in game than it is for me in real life. I can buy a 2000sqft house... in cash right now and close in a few days in real life. But it could take much longer to get a house.

I'm not even fretting about location at this point.

There is two options:

First one is add an instanced ward. What this does is it has pre built houses all over. These houses are not owned by anyone, but instead are instances that lead inside of a plot. This is very similar to how ESO, EQ2, and other MMORPGs do this. Since the entire plot is an instance, you'd be able to decorate the inside and outside. It would reduce strain on the server substantially as only mini instances would be open (similar to apartments, innrooms, and barracks). If needed put a duty queue on these in times of congestion, but I doubt we have that issue currently.

Second is to simply spawn more wards as the ones we have fill up. If wards begin to empty, then place incentives for people to move to lower numbered wards.


The benefit of the first one is it would allow them to have players KEEP their homes even if they are away from the game. Right now the system punishes people heavily who have to be away from home for months at a time. This includes some first responders to disasters, utility workers who respond to catastrophic weather events like linemen responding to a hurricane, and deployments of national guard to said disasters as well as them and active duty going on deployments.

In addition it would allow for specialty housing including premium housing that could be sold on the mogstation. To put it shortly, SE we have money to spend, do you want it?

[Paladinleeds]

What if they made it so the random timer was anywhere from 1 week to 6 months long. And you only get a limited number of attempts at the placard in a period of time? After a certain amount of views of the placard, it just starts saying "Your eyes are hazy and cannot discern what is on the placard." (and won't show if it's buyable or not). And potentially make it so if you click the placard and get "You cannot discern what is on the placard." enough times within a certain timeframe (make it random though, both the amounts of times and the timeframe), and that should stop it. Since instanced housing won't happen, as SE are being too stubborn about the wards.

[Hasrat]

Seems like it'd be easier to just accept that every possible solution anyone could come up with is going to have some unforeseen consequence, resulting in players ending up right back where we are, here, now, where we've always been, complaining about "the housing situation."

There is no magic fix-all solution. Whether it be infrastructure, time/money/resource investment, bots, trolls, re-sellers, big multi-FC groups, solo FCs, 24/7 players, inactive players, on and on and on, literally nothing will ever satisfy every need of both development and community.

You basically have only two options. Complain about how the system currently is. Or complain about how they changed the system.

[Hash_Browns]

Seems like it'd be easier to just accept that every possible solution anyone could come up with is going to have some unforeseen consequence, resulting in players ending up right back where we are, here, now, where we've always been, complaining about "the housing situation."

There is no magic fix-all solution. Whether it be infrastructure, time/money/resource investment, bots, trolls, re-sellers, big multi-FC groups, solo FCs, 24/7 players, inactive players, on and on and on, literally nothing will ever satisfy every need of both development and community.

You basically have only two options. Complain about how the system currently is. Or complain about how they changed the system.

I unfortunately have to agree.
I personally don't like the housing timer, but the devs are deadset on not being able to snatch + resell houses at a greater price.

The unfortunate truth is that the entire housing system is flawed. Housing at its current state is like pulling teeth.