Housing: 5 Things You Would Like Changed

[Jacqora]

My five:

1. Add 15 new wards to each district and add more apartments, need to desperately increase the amount of space to have enough room for the growing player population. (On an off note, instanced housing is a good idea as I've played ESO for years so I agree wholeheartedly, but not sure if it will work since ffxiv uses this style of housing system. I feel it would be much more work to scrap the current housing system to change it than it would be just to add more wards and districts)

2. Add a long relocation timer (Ok 20 days is more reasonable than 45, anything less than 2 days is too short in my opinion) so homeowners can't move for a while after getting a new house. Gives new players a better shot at getting a home by getting rid of the majority of relocator competition. Relocators have a hugely unfair advantage against first-time homeowners so I stand by this 100%

3. Don't add the lotto, it will not solve the problem. XIt will create a new problem where players will use multiple alts to enter to unfairly increase their chances of winning a house.X Ok didn't know that alts can't be tenants, let's keep it that way then so we don't have to worry about multiple lotto entries. As for the lotto itself, it is 100% not going to solve the housing crisis it will only add some relief to campers but if they still keep the original system along with the lotto that kindof makes it moot in my opinion since you probably would have better chances of getting a home camping than the lotto, if you prefer to gamble tho that's your decision.

4. Shorten the amount of time before a house is demolished for inactivity, cut it down to 20 days instead of 45 or shorter. This will drastically free up space for those who are active and will actually use those houses (and honestly deserve housing for being active players). I stand by this because it's basically the equivalent of holding a home for no other reason than to hold it. As for people taking breaks, may be heartless but if you can't read an email and log in to enter your house within a shorter time period you really shouldn't have one, that's my opinion. On the community standpoint, there is no community of having houses lie empty in a neighborhood where others could be putting them to good use. A neighborhood of empty houses makes it dead and lifeless and I'm fairly sure this is not what SE intended when they created the neighborhood system. If it were instanced that's different, you can be offline as long as you want or you can just get an apartment if you want something to be there when you get back.

5. Last but not least, cut down the invisible timer wait. Players waiting 12+ hours to get a house is extremely unhealthy and damaging. 30 minutes to 3 hours is far more reasonable and reduces raging and harassment of players who waltz up an buy a house out from under players who've been waiting for a long time. Please take care of your players <3

[ItMe]

3. Don't add the lotto, it will not solve the problem. It will create a new problem where players will use multiple alts to enter to unfairly increase their chances of winning a house.

Wait, do we know we'll be able to enter on multiple characters?
I didn't think they'd released info on how the upcoming lotto system will work.
Can you link me up?

[Misutoraru]

Wait, do we know we'll be able to enter on multiple characters?
I didn't think they'd released info on how the upcoming lotto system will work.
Can you link me up?

even if multiple character per account is allowed
i would still prefer lotto
Placard camping open benefit a small group of players who could spend countless hours to camp
Lotto might have less chance for each players but more players would have been able to join

[Rathmir]

even if multiple character per account is allowed
i would still prefer lotto
Placard camping open benefit a small group of players who could spend countless hours to camp
Lotto might have less chance for each players but more players would have been able to join

Wouldn't sign that at all, or at least being thaaat dramatically different.

Let's use some amateur's view. Of course you can make a very complex mathematical formular out of everything, but overall, the topic isn't world moving enough to really do so...

Let's start with someone being busy for 16 hours per day (sleeping, work, travels), which lowers the overall chances down to 25%, that the spot unlock right in their active moments.

Now we usually have 5-10 people camping a placard, which turns the own chances to 20 down to 10%. Of that remaining 25% from above already, as we don't even take the people in who are already camping during our offline times.

Now let a third of them using a bot, full automated keyboard macros or whatever possible stuff, giving them double to quadruple of chances against someone who does all manually.

So in my opinion, you'd need 100-200, maybe even more interested people to really lower the chances for a person with a regular schedule without more free time during free days or what so ever.
The biggest plus of the lottery is, we have to participate the click once and hope for luck. The luck that is already incredible low at the moment.
That's the only real thing speaking for the lottery. From all possible solutions it's the most stupid, but at least... well... it's something.


I'm trying my luck with a house on Lich for far over a month, with peaks of over 12 hours of camping per day if possible, and it indeed turned into really unhealthy moments.
As I like to spend my time better, and really love to decorate around, I'd take every solution that is coming around. But for the actual situation with the absolute minimum to no chance, I simply gave up.

[Illmaeran]

I'm in favor of a much shorter random timer, on the order of 2-4 hours or so. Because I'm no longer in Japan 99.9% of the time I'm asleep when plots actually become available rather than uninhabited and on the timer. I've spent between 4 and 8+ hours here and there camping placards to no avail. For me, and likely many others, a reduced timer will do one of two things:

1. The plot sells before you even know it's available, therefore causing no stress since it's "Business As Usual".

2. The plot is available but will release for sale in a reasonable amount of time, reducing the physical and mental strain of camping. You'll either get it quickly or lose it quickly. I only use reasonable when describing hours of time because of the extreme duration of the timers as they currently are. 4 hours is still an insane amount of time to sit and repeatedly click something, but at least it's not 18.


DEFINITELY add more wards (triple the number) and make 2/3 of all the total wards player housing with 1/3 FC housing, exclusively and permanently. If this means designing new FC only wards with a higher percentage of M and L plots, do it. We desperately need more plots available for the individual player. Force FCs to relocate to the FC only wards. Give them 100% free, zero penalty, relocations first to the equivalent plot in the district they're in. If that fails, let the FC leader choose which other available plot to relocate to and give it to them. Make sure to give existing FCs a two week to one month window to relocate, after which newly formed FCs or those without houses can then come in and purchase a plot.

Each player is allowed a single private house plot *per account*.

[Jojoya]

snip

1 - adding static wards is not a long term solution if the player base keeps growing and demand for houses continues. SE not only has to procure the hardware for those wards, there has to be physical base in the locations that house the data centers for that hardware to be installed. They are not going to be able to keep that up indefinitely. An instanced housing system like other MMORPGs use is a much better solution, especially as there's no need for demolition with an instanced system if handled properly.

This isn't to say that SE should entirely remove the current ward system, only that they should stop pouring more resources into it. The wards can remain for those players who are willing to compete for the limited resource.

2 - 45 days is rather excessive, and really not necessary. Extremely few house owners are relocating that frequently (generally just the ones trying to profit off auto-clickers before quickly moving back to their original plot) since you still have to pay close to full price to relocate. A 2 day cooldown would be sufficient to prevent those random relocations as the owner would not be able to return to their old plot.

3 - agree that the lottery is not going to solve anything but we don't know the details of it yet. Players are pretty unlikely to use multiple characters to enter since they're usually going to want the house for a specific character and we can't make alts tenants. Even if they do, they don't gain a huge advantage. If there are 1000 characters entering, someone buying tickets with 8 characters still has 992 chances to lose. That's not much of an advantage.

4- No. People do have lives that require them to take breaks occasionally to attend to personal matters or for business reasons. 20 days would be too restrictive. The current 45 day timer works.

5. Here we can agree. Switching the timer to be a random 2-6 hours is going to be just as effective. Two hours is plenty of time for other players to become aware a plot is available so the flipping activity the timer is intended to counter is still hindered.

[Misutoraru]

The biggest plus of the lottery is, we have to participate the click once and hope for luck. The luck that is already incredible low at the moment.
That's the only real thing speaking for the lottery. From all possible solutions it's the most stupid, but at least... well... it's something.

As I like to spend my time better, and really love to decorate around, I'd take every solution that is coming around. But for the actual situation with the absolute minimum to no chance, I simply gave up.

I had a plot once, it was my 4th plot I camp, it is roughly 17 hours of game time camping at Placard and I know there are players spending way more than that to get a plot. I think this is a very poor design.

Placard have to spend all your playtime just sitting outside the plot and gamble, while lotto you buy a lucky dip and go on for anything you want, even just running around and chat with friends...

Lotto will not fix the shortage issue but at least players could spend game time doing other content, and given everyone a chance

[Besame]

1. Leave FC as they are in neighborhoods if players wish.

2. Change all regular housing to personal instances with options to allow visitors. (No more camping)

3. Allow alts to share personal houses.

4. Fix the wonky stairs to make upper levels.

5. Increase item amounts within personal housing instances.

[Rathmir]

I had a plot once, it was my 4th plot I camp, it is roughly 17 hours of game time camping at Placard and I know there are players spending way more than that to get a plot. I think this is a very poor design.

Placard have to spend all your playtime just sitting outside the plot and gamble, while lotto you buy a lucky dip and go on for anything you want, even just running around and chat with friends...

Lotto will not fix the shortage issue but at least players could spend game time doing other content, and given everyone a chance

M-hmm, pretty much my point. Also met people who got their plot at the second day.

Best thing about the camping is:
You also meet nice people, get into talks and all, letting the FL grow. And the opinion about the actual system is: Worst one possible

[Almagnus1]

1. New Neighborhoods
2. New Datacenters
3. New Wards
4. More Apartments/ward
5. Restrictions of one house (or apartment) per account per server, enforced retroactively so there's no haves or have nots.