House Raffling

[Sairys]

SE have mentioned their stance on how they wanted housing to be difficult to get, as stated in my previous comment. But you probably ignored that like you did the numbers I "pulled out of the air".

An actual quote rather than you just saying such would be more useful. The internet is full of things people repeat that aren't necessarily true.

I JUST showed you that 80% of the player base had little access to housing over the last 4 years. I don't know how much clearer things can be. Yet you keep coming back with phrases like "There were hundreds of houses available on some NA and EU worlds during 2018 and dozens available on most of the rest." with no proof whatsoever. I'm waiting... Go on.

Were there servers where housing was available? Yes some servers did, Goblin in NA was a good example. But again, I have to insist because it really isn't registering with you, for 80% of the player base, this was not the case. Because 80% of the ff14 population resided on higher population servers. And when you build design policies you build them for the players, NOT the servers. If 80% of players are on higher pop servers you upgrade the features for higher population servers.
Again, lets do another round of this because repetition is key. Yes JP servers do ok with housing, that's because currently HALF of those servers don't even count towards that 80% of players. Since the JP servers are so lowly populated compared to the average server. In fact only tonberry has more active players than the average server, ALL other JP servers have bellow average population. Compare that to say NA that has no servers bellow the average population.

Hm, you didn't really though?

Your numbers show an increasing percentage following the Mateus drama along with the rules implemented limit ownership of multiple homes to increase availability as the existing design wasn't working.
The trend would be furthered if the Firmament opens as a full district, (today it would map to 69% using your own numbers). The only real downward movement of the percentages is linked to massive population growth with 4.0/4.1.
Also, there's the other issue with the census site that active is defined by completing the 5.0 storyline and so could include people who haven't played since close to the launch of 5.0 leaving it as a number that can't go down even if half the population of the game unsubbed. It's not unreasonable to suspect the numbers used are inflated which would lead to the trend in availability percentages being higher.

The comments around JP servers more indicate there's a technical limitation, if there wasn't and the devs just wanted to maintain a certain percentage of housing availability they'd add wards where needed even just on a regional level.

You can keep going on about your fantasy explanation about SE's intentions while ignoring everything I've posted if you want. But if you want to convince anyone you'll need more than just vague anecdotal mentions of plot availability pulled from god knows where and that represented god knows what portion of the game population.
At least I posted most of my sources.

The only source I'm seeing is census which, while the only baseline, is flawed in its current implementation and doesn't actually support your stance even with that flaw likely causing inflated numbers?


Also...

• Oct 2014, patch 2.4 > 1440 plots available for an average user count of 3107 per serve(**), 46% availability (no before patch stats as this was the first time housing was open to personals)
• Jun 2016, patch 3.3 > 2160 plots available for an average user count of 4224 per server(*), 51% availability (31% before patch)
• Oct 2017, patch 4.1 > 2880 plots available for an average user count of 10 834 per server(*), 26% availability (20% before patch)
• Feb 2018, patch 4.2 > 4320 plots available for an average user count of 8957 per server(*), 48% availability (32% before patch)
• current > 5760 plots available for an average user count of 10489 per server(*), 54% availability (48% before patch). This patch was sold as compensating for lack of demo timers due to COVID19. So is likely to be outside of normal cycles.

You've skipped over the 5.1 increase and your note on the recent increase is wrong from what I understand. The translation I have is that they were going to add even more but covid is impairing the ability to do so, and the demolition timer note is that it was going to remain stopped.

[NanaWiloh]

Basically, he has nothing to say against a simple restriction to allow each player only able to click placard once every 30 mins
Simple fix, no need to have a non sense lottery system and people can still be free to relocate to a better plot.
People no longer need to stay awake 24 hour straight therefore no health hazard, simple and fair

Just limit clicking the purchase button to 3 attempts in 24 hours. After three attempts the button greys out for 24 hours or until the plot can be purchased whatever comes first.

[Jojoya]

SE have mentioned their stance on how they wanted housing to be difficult to get, as stated in my previous comment.

Citation needed. I've seen you say this before. I have yet to see a link to an official SE source of any sort, let alone a link to such a statement made by SE in recent years.

Whatever might have been SE's original intent before they added housing to the game, it clearly is not their intent now.

I JUST showed you that 80% of the player base had little access to housing over the last 4 years.

Citation needed from a SE source for active player population each year.

Citation needed that 80% of those active players are both eligible to purchase housing and actually want to own a house.

Again, you're working from someone else's guesswork about population instead of looking at the actual housing availability over time.

Yes JP servers do ok with housing, that's because currently HALF of those servers don't even count towards that 80% of players.

Excuse me? Players and houses on the JP servers don't count?

What severely distorted world are you living in?

If SE wanted housing to be a PvP experience, it would apply just as much to the JP world player base as it would the NA and EU player bases.

Now you're desperate and stretching trying to prove your point that has zero basis in reality.

When a game company can't balance content for all players, they should balance content for the top 80% of players affected and SE does just that. Keeping the feature within their tolerance levels for those 80%. Especially since the remaining 20% aren't harmed in any way. They just have easier housing access, which incidentally, can help distribute server load if people migrate because of it, so it's win-win-win.

Hope you reread this to see how little it makes sense.

You can keep going on about your fantasy explanation about SE's intentions

You're the one who has a fantasy that housing is intended to be some sort of grand PvP content.

Sorry you can dismiss what I've talked about as anecdotal fantasy but yours is even more so. At least the Housing Census thread, along with multiple other posts listing player experience, exist in these very forums to back up that there have been times of extensive house availablity that do not support your claim that house ownership is intended to be a PvP activity.

House availability has been a problem because SE chose a system that would provide a neighborhood feeling for players but requires extensive server resources and can't be easily expanded as demand increases, not because SE wants it to be PvP content. That is why there have been times when house availability started becoming a problem, SE then expanded the wards (or added a new housing district as they did with Shiro and likely are doing next year with Ishgard), and we've gone back to periods where house availability has not been a problem.

They've talked about how surprised they were by the rapid growth of the player base in recent years. They've discussed their attempts to increase housing to meet player demand resulting from that unexpected increase in the player base, especially in NA where FF has not generally been a strong franchise when compared to it's popularity in JP. At the end of one of the 2019 live letters before the release of Shadowbringers, Foxclon translated to English a comment from YoshiP stating that the house situation in NA was bad and they were in discussion about what to do to fix it.

If housing is supposed to be PvP, a bad situation would be a good thing since it would promote even more competition. Right? Nothing like making players fight each other even harder to get something. Someone intending the content to be PvP wouldn't bother fixing it because it's not actually broken.

Provide your link to an official recent statement from SE that they intend housing to be PvP content and I will acknowledge you to be correct.

Until then, live in your little dream world that you're extra special because housing is intended to be PvP content and you managed to win where others haven't.

[Mhaeric]

Citation needed that citations are needed.

[Sairys]

Citation needed that citations are needed.

While I assume this is a joke, does this work as a citation of the need of citation? :P

no proof whatsoever. I'm waiting... Go on.

...

But if you want to convince anyone you'll need more than just vague anecdotal mentions of plot availability pulled from god knows where and that represented god knows what portion of the game population.
At least I posted most of my sources.

In fact, to use your words, until you can do better your fantasy isn't true no matter how much you want to think it is.
Maybe we can revisit this after you post a bit of your research on the matter.

[EaMett]

A lot to unpack and honestly I don't feel like doing a full response to both posts above so you'll have to excuse me for cherry picking (I say this but watch me write another wall of text). I will say this:

- The PvP nature of housing is in the design of it. SE's mention of housing was related to them wanting housing to be difficult to obtain (not the pvp directly).
As far as quoting SE on this, I have done so in the past around the time shirogane landed iirc. A couple of weeks ago I tried to find my own post and gave up after an hour or so of sifting through my own years worth of assinign comments on these forums (assuming it was here that I posted that and not on reddit). Again I don't care enough to spent more time looking for this. I had done the legwork back in the day to check it for myself. Maybe today you can too. If I remember correctly, it was a quote from Yoichi Wada in a foreign press interview (either jap or french, I forget). Also if I remember correctly, yoshiP made a similar statement though that was related to the high price of housing. Good hunting, you have more info here than I did when I went looking for it.
In this case there is a reason this has been parotted all these years.

- JoJoya: asking me for quotes and citations needed for 80% mentions when I demonstrated my reasoning above AND you haven't applied half the level of scrutiny to your point as I have mine.. It's the pot calling the kettle black! You might as well just outright discredit your own stance at this rate.
Also, don't be daft, I never said JP servers didn't count, read my post again, specifically the win-win-win section. I'm sorry you couldn't make sense of it, honestly I'm unsure of how I could make it any clearer. Maybe give it another go.

- If you want to discredit my point by using the Housing Census thread (beyond anecdotal mention), you are more than welcome to compile comprehensive data from it, corelate it in time with overall game active population and make your point here. It's going to be a rough ride but I'll be more than happy to listen to what you have to say. Heck, I'd even be happy to overlap my own data with this to get a clearer image. Until then, it's just unquantified speculation.

- In regards to the census data limitations. I'm well aware of some of the limitations. It is worth mentioning that some census data comes from lodestone image updates within a timeframe, which does not suffer from the same limitations. Some other updates are based on mounts/minions close enough to the census data used that those limitations don't express themselves. Feel free to have a look around for yourself. The one I will mention, is the 2017 data has a big dip down. Like I said in that post, this is a blip in census data, the player base dropped significantly for SB launch two months later (ie: a big chunk of players may have been innactive). I opted NOT to use the SB data because it was unclear whether it was due to inactivity or because players hadn't yet purchased the expansion. So I left the Oct/Nov 2017 data instead and left it up to the readers to do their own research if they so desired to pick on it.
As an FYI, if you readjusted the 2017 data for the SB data the plot availability would be closer to 35% availability (27% before patch). Which although on the low end, is still in line with the 30-50%. And despite it being still so low, you've been arguing that housing wasn't an issue.. Weird, why is that? Did we even have account limitations back then?
So, no, it isn't unreasonable to suspect the numbers used are inflated in some cases. However, everything seems to depict a pretty linear and consistent image. So argumenting that this has any significance needs to be backed up pretty significantly. Again, be my guest, as I have already looked through the data and figured that it wasn't game changing. But you're more than welcome to prove me wrong.

- In the same vein I left out the 5.1 data just because it wasn't what we were discussing. We were in agreement that housing was hard to obtain in 5.1, it was prior patches that were in contention. The data for 5.1 is 56% availability (48% before patch). Which is in line with the rest. And this is what we agreed wasn't enough housing.. But somehow before that, things were easier? On the lower pop servers representing the lower 20% of players.. sure? But that subset is not representative of the whole. Also, there would be no reason for SE to consistently add wards if there wasn't a shortage in the first place, which makes the argument odd to say the least.

Likewise, I didn't include the upcoming Ishgard patch because speculating on server population for 6.0 is a bit of a fruitless endeavor. (Technically it would be speculating on SE's speculation of what 6.0 population would be, so even worse)

Lastly I'll close with this :

"If housing is supposed to be PvP, a bad situation would be a good thing since it would promote even more competition. Right?"

If a resource is limited and players are meant to compete for it, then in a way, yes. The inability of some players to get housing (which I assume is what you mean by "bad situation") is part of the feature. And the difficulty is dictated by which percentage of the population has access to the resource (the more have access, the easier it becomes).
As population grows so does the difficulty, so you need to consistently add more resources to keep that percentage, and therefore difficulty, leveled. SE does this by adding wards/districts, limiting accounts, etc. And my point has been that in addition to the design being PvP based (regardless of intent), SE have consistently demonstrated the behavior above, reinforcing that this has been the intended behavior for the feature for a while now.

[KayRadley]

Oh, bully.

This thread.

AGAIN.

[Jojoya]

- The PvP nature of housing is in the design of it. SE's mention of housing was related to them wanting housing to be difficult to obtain (not the pvp directly).
As far as quoting SE on this, I have done so in the past around the time shirogane landed iirc. A couple of weeks ago I tried to find my own post and gave up after an hour or so of sifting through my own years worth of assinign comments on these forums (assuming it was here that I posted that and not on reddit). Again I don't care enough to spent more time looking for this. I had done the legwork back in the day to check it for myself. Maybe today you can too. If I remember correctly, it was a quote from Yoichi Wada in a foreign press interview (either jap or french, I forget). Also if I remember correctly, yoshiP made a similar statement though that was related to the high price of housing. Good hunting, you have more info here than I did when I went looking for it.
.

You're the one that claims that comment exists. Burden of proof is on you to bring forth that link instead of me wasting my time trying to find something that doesn't exist.

[Canadane]

Raffles and lotteries would only serve to lower the chance of getting a house for any single person attempting to buy a house.

[EaMett]

You're the one that claims that comment exists. Burden of proof is on you to bring forth that link instead of me wasting my time trying to find something that doesn't exist.

The reality of the matter is that I don't care enough about an online argument to waste another few hours looking for this. I painstakingly found it once and I'm content knowing it exists. Quite a few people are also aware of this and it's why the whole "housing is an achievement" meme is even a thing being parroted in the first place.
Besides, it's not like you had anything to back your argument anyway. One link isn't going to make a difference. Just knock yourself out and count this as something that doesn't exist. You still don't have anything.