Some Suggestions for the Never-ending Struggle of Buying a House

[ShadRyker]

With very limited amount of housing plots for a large game population, this creates a lot of competition for plots that happen to open up. For it to be balanced, invisible timers are put in place that let the plot be purchasable at a random time. The issue this creates is players that resort to scripts that allow them to continuously attempt to buy the plot without needing to physically be there. This is often how players end up winning houses as well, by breaking the ToS they agreed to by cheating because they feel that's the only way to win.

I have a few suggestions that I hope might offer a fix for the issues we have with this current system, with pros and cons for each.

Suggestions

Add More Housing (wards/plots)
Pro(s): This would lots of new plots for players to grab when readily available and would hopefully greatly decrease the amount of bots as there would be less competition for plots. More plots means more players get incentivized to buy a house, removing more gil from the economy.
Con(s): This is currently limited given the status of the pandemic limiting physical installation of new servers so this may take much longer than expected. This also does not guarantee that bots will disappear and not attempt to take every house that gets added, further measure would need to be taken to solve this particular issue.

Reduce the Plot Timer to about 2-4 Hours
Pro(s): Lessens the amount of time players have to wait for a house to become available to prevent possible physical or mental strain for having to wait. Still allows players to become aware of a newly available plot's presence.
Con(s): Does not fix the botting problem

Standard Housing Lottery System
Each player who wants to buy a house makes an inquiry on an open plot and obtains a ticket similar to a cactpot ticket which can then be turned in to acquire the plot if the numbers match up when the random housing timer expires. Winning numbers last for approx 8 hours to allow winner to claim their house, otherwise it is rerolled for the next person.
Pro(s): Allows multiple players to inquire on more than one plot without needing to "camp" placards. Allows for more flexible housing purchasing. Possibly prevents bots from winning by not giving them the winning number
Con(s): Much higher amount of players competing for the same plot makes winning much harder.

Anti-cheat/Anti-botting System
Pro(s): Curbs the botting problem immediately with a system that checks background applications/extra files in the game's folder. Conversely add an anti-botting system that requires players to complete a CAPTCHA or similar style problem when they do not move for 1-2 minutes, yet continue to make repetitive button presses like how a bot would.
Con(s): Disables player freedom to use external programs like parsers, texture mods, and anything else that isn't used to gain an advantage in-game. Anti-botting can probably be worked around/hacked.

[ERMITANYO]

Housing in ffxiv is sadly a limited resource. The devs. surely know about this, evidenced by their attempt to fill-in the lack of housing by adding new wards. I believe they are trying to come up with a more lasting solution unfortunately that might have been delayed due to the global pandemic, a lot of things have been delayed this year. Let's hope for the best this coming 2021.

[ShadRyker]

Aye I believe they want to fix the issues that have been created by this system permanently, but are currently limited because of the global pandemic. I'm hoping some kind of long lasting measures are made to make housing easier to obtain for everyone this upcoming year. Alas we can only hope and wait for what they can and will do

[tdb]

Pro(s): Curbs the botting problem immediately with a system that checks background applications/extra files in the game's folder. Conversely add an anti-botting system that requires players to complete a CAPTCHA or similar style problem when they do not move for 1-2 minutes, yet continue to make repetitive button presses like how a bot would.
Con(s): Disables player freedom to use external programs like parsers, texture mods, and anything else that isn't used to gain an advantage in-game. Anti-botting can probably be worked around/hacked.

Just want to note here that there are ways to hide the botting program from easy detection. And making the anticheat measures too strict would step on the toes of some legitimate users too.

The captcha suggestion would be easy to circumvent by having the bot jump or move a bit every now and then. Computers have become pretty good at solving captchas as well. Maybe it would stop some casual botting with autohotkey and similar keyboard macro programs.

Personally I think the lottery suggestion would be most the fair.

[Catstab]

Standard Housing Lottery System
Each player who wants to buy a house makes an inquiry on an open plot and obtains a ticket similar to a cactpot ticket which can then be turned in to acquire the plot if the numbers match up when the random housing timer expires. Winning numbers last for approx 8 hours to allow winner to claim their house, otherwise it is rerolled for the next person.
Pro: Allows multiple players to inquire on more than one plot without needing to "camp" placards. Allows for more flexible housing purchasing. Possibly prevents bots from winning by not giving them the winning number
Con: Much higher amount of players competing for the same plot makes winning much harder.

This can't happen just because it's bot-friendly. It's also alt-friendly. If you have to be online at the placard open at the moment a house is available to get one, then SE is limiting a single account to 1 chance at the house, and a single machine 2 chances at a house. If you can win a house while offline, suddenly any account can enter the lottery 8 times and people running multiple accounts on one system can enter with every one. Lottery gets suggested frequently, and unfortunately it would only make getting a house harder - though it would do away with camping.

Anti-cheat System
Pro: Curbs the botting problem immediately with a system that checks background applications/extra files in the game's folder. Conversely add an anti-botting system that requires players to complete a CAPTCHA or similar style problem when they do not move for 1-2 minutes, yet continue to make repetitive button presses like how a bot would.
Con: Disables player freedom to use external programs like parsers, texture mods, and anything else that isn't used to gain an advantage in-game. Anti-botting can probably be worked around/hacked.

SE won't do this because no one wants their games spying on their computer. Would it cost them many customers? It might, and might not even stop the bots in the process. It seems like kind of a gamble with their resources. As well as general spyware concerns, the ToS doesn't allow modding but people do it. It exists in sort of a 'dont ask, dont tell' space but a lot of people run reshade, texture, or data mods. If SE ran anticheat, they'd likely bar modding through the same means, and upset a lot of their customers. SE doesn't like to rock the boat and wouldn't implement this tool.

Your other ideas are decent. Though I think the timer should just be gone, rather than reduced. I think the price should be what it was in ARR: 40 million or so, closer to a house's genuine value. Supply will be increased just because fewer people will be shopping for houses if the price is increased. Right now you earn enough gil doing the storyline to afford a house, so many of the 20,000+ players per server want their share of the ~4300 houses left per world after FCs fill their spots in. As for 'more/instanced houses' we can only hope. The announcement of new wards back in August made it sound like more were coming once they had servers in place (not til travel is normal) but no one can say when or how many wards might be added. Instanced housing is a maybe, especially with ishgard on the horizon. But they've gone this long without it, it seems an unlikely turn to make right now. It's not impossible but I remain skeptical. I've heard that Yoshi P really loves the neighborhood feel.

[ShadRyker]

Just want to note here that there are ways to hide the botting program from easy detection. And making the anticheat measures too strict would step on the toes of some legitimate users too.

The captcha suggestion would be easy to circumvent by having the bot jump or move a bit every now and then. Computers have become pretty good at solving captchas as well. Maybe it would stop some casual botting with autohotkey and similar keyboard macro programs.

Personally I think the lottery suggestion would be most the fair.

This makes a lot of sense hence why I included it as a con on the anticheat/botting system. It is not difficult to circumvent a botting system with more complex macros even if it would snuff out most basic macros like AHK. Not to mention I believe SE does not want a super strict anticheat system in place essentially spying on their players' computers and whatnot, it would drive away a lot of them that share a mentality of "our games should not spy on us" and cost them lost of money as a result. I'd imagine the plans SE has for "fixing" housing is to add more plots in the future, but with the current state of the COVID pandemic they are not planning any travelling to see new servers installed which means the waiting game for all of us.

[ShadRyker]

This can't happen just because it's bot-friendly. It's also alt-friendly. If you have to be online at the placard open at the moment a house is available to get one, then SE is limiting a single account to 1 chance at the house, and a single machine 2 chances at a house. If you can win a house while offline, suddenly any account can enter the lottery 8 times and people running multiple accounts on one system can enter with every one. Lottery gets suggested frequently, and unfortunately it would only make getting a house harder - though it would do away with camping.

My current suggestion to circumvent these issues would be one inquiry per service account, to prevent extra characters/alts on one account to make inquiries on the same plot. Another idea that comes to mind is to require the player/character that made the initial inquiry remain online or forfeit their ticket on the plot, preventing players with multiple service accounts switching between them in order to flood the auction placard with their own inquiries.

Your other ideas are decent. Though I think the timer should just be gone, rather than reduced. I think the price should be what it was in ARR: 40 million or so, closer to a house's genuine value. Supply will be increased just because fewer people will be shopping for houses if the price is increased. Right now you earn enough gil doing the storyline to afford a house, so many of the 20,000+ players per server want their share of the ~4300 houses left per world after FCs fill their spots in. As for 'more/instanced houses' we can only hope.

Yes I 100% agree that the timer is a stupid mechanic, and either needs to be shortened, made visible, or removed entirely. Especially with it going up to 22 hours it does not do any good for players that wish to manually click on the placard, almost necessitating the use of scripts to navigate the menus for them to avoid physical and mental strain. Conversely, vastly driving the prices up on housing would make obtaining a house much more of a commodity and akin to purchasing a real house. I however only see this inflating the value of gil up to disproportionate amounts as players will find a way to drive the economy up so high that 40 million gil is nothing to them. It's not a bad idea in its own to make it less available by driving the price way up, but I believe it's something that SE and Yoshi P are not going to do as a "fix" to the housing market. I believe their current plans are to to add more plots with the ishgard housing and then probably add more down the line when they further optimize their current housing servers as well as physically adding more when travelling is much safer to accomplish. I believe they want to do what's best for us players that want to obtain a house but their options are limited as to what they can reasonably accomplish without upsetting the current "balance" they currently have.

[Voidle]

Penthouse suites in apartments would help. Not everybody needs a garden, some people just want more space.

[Daniolaut]

Housing in ffxiv is sadly a limited resource. The devs. surely know about this, evidenced by their attempt to fill-in the lack of housing by adding new wards. I believe they are trying to come up with a more lasting solution unfortunately that might have been delayed due to the global pandemic, a lot of things have been delayed this year. Let's hope for the best this coming 2021.

Housing was released in 2013, the pandemic only started this year. They have had more than enough time to fix housing.

Also, FFXI, a game that is 8 years older, or 11 years older, depending how you look at it, than this game, and has free instanced housing, with a personal private mog garden to top it off.

The XIV team has all the answers on how to fix housing, they simply are choosing not to do it.

[Greyhawk]

Did everyone who makes these posts just completely skip the part about them adding servers specific for housing? They have the servers, the pandemic is slowing the implementation process to address the housing. Hardware is in their possession, it's just not in yet. Like everything else in the world, this isn't the end of it.