Why is this not the solution?

[PredatoryCatgirl]

Lets assume for a moment that instanced housing will never happen. All we'll ever have is the ward system, and a limited number of houses for a much larger playerbase.

Houses' primary function aside from being a feature of the game is to serve as a gil sink, to combat inflation. So why aren't we using a bidding system when a house goes up on the market?

New house goes up for 3M gil. Great, put in your bid. Someone else has 12 hours to put in a bid of 3.3M in order to get the house. If they do, the next bid is 3.63M. Bids are always 110% of the current offer to prevent any auction from being dragged out forever. If no one beats your bid for 12 hours, then you get the house.

Yeah, its not a perfect system, but its better than standing there clicking for 24 hours, or for it being totally random who gets the house. Plus, it removes more gil, and that keeps market prices lower for everyone.

[ItMe]

So why aren't we using a bidding system when a house goes up on the market?

Because that would make housing less accessible.
Instead of an open plot being FFA it would go to the wealthiest player.
Housing would be 100% unattainable for new players, or heck probably even people that started in the last expac or two. There are players with capped gil counters and if it comes to a bidding war only the richest players will enjoy housing.

If the idea is to act as a gil drain, this might accomplish that (though I doubt players will be happy spending millions or billions of gil on something that was thousands before).

If the idea is to "fix housing," it's kinda just replacing the competition problem with another problem, especially considering how few plots are ever open this is most definitely not the way to go.

[Lihtleita]

So why aren't we using a bidding system when a house goes up on the market?

People will outbid everyone else just to resell the houses and make a profit, like the way houses were before the timer was added in but with extra steps

[PredatoryCatgirl]

People will outbid everyone else just to resell the houses and make a profit, like the way houses were before the timer was added in but with extra steps

Flipping only works now because you can get the house for 3M. This eliminates that entirely. Flipping, even if it still happens, will have a severely reduced profit, and therefore less incentive to do it.

[MilkieTea]

Flipping only works now because you can get the house for 3M. This eliminates that entirely. Flipping, even if it still happens, will have a severely reduced profit, and therefore less incentive to do it.

People flipped back when smalls cost upwards of 50mil. Having a house possibly cost 6-7mil now isn't going to stop flipping.

[PredatoryCatgirl]

People flipped back when smalls cost upwards of 50mil. Having a house possibly cost 6-7mil now isn't going to stop flipping.

So if someone is willing to pay a flipper over 50M for it, lets say 100M, why wouldn't they just bid on a house for up to 100M instead? They might get it for less. And you have zero chance of the placard taking your gil and running off.

Flipping only exists in the first place because SE tried to pretend that supply and demand don't affect prices on a limited resource. This would introduce that factor back in. Flipping isn't going to die, but its going to severely drop off.

[MilkieTea]

So if someone is willing to pay a flipper over 50M for it, lets say 100M, why wouldn't they just bid on a house for up to 100M instead? They might get it for less. And you have zero chance of the placard taking your gil and running off.

Flipping only exists in the first place because SE tried to pretend that supply and demand don't affect prices on a limited resource. This would introduce that factor back in. Flipping isn't going to die, but its going to severely drop off.

Because 100mil off a flipper is static - that's the price and it won't change, AND flipping is a nearly solid enterprise within the game, with ways to ensure you get your house as there are dedicated discords for this, with active communities (I'm sure someone who is active in such communities will come in here to pipe up). Whereas having the "potential" to get the house for "less than... or greater than" 100mil is not a solid opportunity, with plenty of chances for failure.

This idea is, honestly, worse than the lottery system we're about to get.

[ItMe]

So if someone is willing to pay a flipper over 50M for it, lets say 100M, why wouldn't they just bid on a house for up to 100M instead?

They could, and they'd be outbid.
Not everyone likes paying flippers, and not just because it's against the ToS.




Another downside to the bidding idea is that you can't just play the game for whatever you think is fun (something the devs try to enable).

If you're in this game for MSQ and running stuff with friends you're no longer getting the gil to buy a house anymore. That's pocket change to what you're gonna be going up against.

If you're a raider, sorry.

Spend your time RPing? Glamour fiend? Those activities don't make Gil hand over fist so you're SoL.

Locking houses behind a bidding wall only serves certain playstyles (mainly people that are always playing the market board, and crafters/gatherers).
So by locking housing behind a bidding war you're also low key locking it behind having to engage in certain content, which is a mega bummer to put it lightly.
(or players could engage with RMT and hoooooo boy let's not do anything to encourage that).

[Nepentha]

People will outbid everyone else just to resell the houses and make a profit, like the way houses were before the timer was added in but with extra steps

Interesting, but I dunno. Say a small house goes up for 3 mill placard base price. People bid on it until finally no one wants to bid higher. Say it sold finally for 300 million. How would you then resell that for more when people aren't interested in paying that much to begin with since that was the highest bid?

[Jojoya]

People will outbid everyone else just to resell the houses and make a profit, like the way houses were before the timer was added in but with extra steps

Might to want to clarify that they wouldn't be reselling the house for gil after purchase in an auction system. They would be selling it for real money. If you've outbid the gil other interested buyers have, there's no one left to sell to that would result in a gil profit.

Curious to what the percentage is of people thinking they have a solution to the housing system, only for it to be as terribly flawed as what we currently have and are getting.

The solution exists and others game use it - a fully instanced system that allows every character (not just every player) to have at least one and frequently multiple houses. No player who wants housing gets left out.

Why SE won't use something proven to work in other games and make their players happy is something only SE can answer. We know they like the idea of neighborhoods but in practice they don't work out. They didn't stop to think what makes real world neighborhoods feel active and populated then incorporate those things into the wards to keep them busy.

Wards don't feel like neighborhoods. They feel like abandoned towns. I'd be happier living in an isolated part of the countryside than living in a suburb where no one else goes.