<MATERIA> First-Come First-Served AND Lottery Plots

[Shibi]

... on 11/19/2021 states...

What's the 19th month?

[NanaWiloh]

There was a deception they didn't expect this to be a lottery only DC and I'd be willing to bet the decision to go full lotto was known before. That wasn't made clear before people gave up their homes and in Luna's case a large. He was simply expecting along with a lot of others who gave up houses to be in a FCFS environment just like they did when they opened servers in the EU. Very unfair for SE to put out housing rules after people made those decisions to transfer. They should have known what to expect up front

Easy for lotto proponents to poo poo their expectations but most I'm sure expected FCFS and a split in FCFS and LOTTO for Ishgard.

And if I'm not mistaken you are awarded the devalued price of the plot plus 3 million which is probably less than the price he paid but be that as it may the gil isn't sufficient compensation given you can't simply walk up to a plot and purchase a large at will. I don't think he was initially proposing that he was owed a large plot as a replacement but only expected to be able to complete for one outside of the Lottery. He appears now to be somewhat bitter at this point and I don't blame him given that should have been clearly stated before people made their transfers.

He's not in a better place he gave up a significant house to help populate a DC which i might add has only 5 servers. Try and get stuff to queue here when it comes to raids like Rab, Lighthouse and so on. Housing was a significant factor for many when making that transfer along with the better ping.

SE is not obligiated to meet your expections or temper them. Not meeting them does not make SE deceptive it makes you fool hearted. As posted above in the 11/19/2021 live letter. No final decision had been made. People made the choice to move without a final answer, should have held off on moving until a answer was given.

[XiXiQ]

SE is not obligiated to meet your expections or temper them.

Of course business are expected to meet customer expectations. This is just getting silly now.

[Jojoya]

Of course business are expected to meet customer expectations. This is just getting silly now.

Customers expect businesses to meet their expectations. While customers are important, many times their expectations are unrealistic.

Businesses expect to do what is best for business.

I can't call FCFS unrealistic since it's the system already in use but it is bad for business. It gives an unfair advantage to certain customers over the remaining customers. It helps RMT to flourish in housing along with bot usage (both player and RMT). I doubt SE would lose more than a few dozen players over the absence of FCFS.

What's the 19th month?

Some parts of the word use MM/DD/YY instead of DD/MM/YY. It's a reference to the November Live Letter.

[HuaTuo]

This lottery malarkey is a total BS

[NanaWiloh]

Customers expect businesses to meet their expectations. While customers are important, many times their expectations are unrealistic.

Businesses expect to do what is best for business.

I can't call FCFS unrealistic since it's the system already in use but it is bad for business. It gives an unfair advantage to certain customers over the remaining customers. It helps RMT to flourish in housing along with bot usage (both player and RMT). I doubt SE would lose more than a few dozen players over the absence of FCFS.


Some parts of the word use MM/DD/YY instead of DD/MM/YY. It's a reference to the November Live Letter.

Appologize for confusion on the date. Yes its nov 19 2021

[Duskane]

I am ok with half FFA and Half lottery on materia
if it was only DC with all FFA it would be a super easy target for bots and multi account horders
system is clearly not perfect but its better than waiting 18 hours at a sign just to lose it to a auto clicker or relocater

[Damptoe]

Based on the Live Letter, it looks like we're definitely stuck with the lottery.

The lottery periods are way too long though given OCE is starting from zero with no players grandfathered into owning multiple personal houses. This wouldn't be as awful if the lotteries were done in a day or a shorter time period.

You could get stuck retrying the lottery for weeks on end if you're unlucky and fail multiple times. Then you could get stuck in the same loop trying to get the FC plot after you or a trusted FC member finally get their personal due to the one bid restriction (and as another user mentioned, this benefits the shell FCs and people with alts).

Meanwhile, a lot of plots will sit empty during those lottery periods, when we could have just fallen back to them immediately with FCFS if we didn't get our first choice.
All this ceremony and bureaucracy just seems like a pointless barrier for us for no benefits.

Everyone who wants a house will probably get a house given the low population, but some will just be forced to wait longer than others...
For what?
To appease the players that aren't even on the OCE data centre?
To ensure furniture sales stay near zero longer?
To make sure the Oceanians don't have too much fun too quickly?

if it was only DC with all FFA it would be a super easy target for bots and multi account horders
system is clearly not perfect but its better than waiting 18 hours at a sign just to lose it to a auto clicker or relocater

Every housing district on OCE is a new ward. New wards open up immediately with FCFS and don't have the invisible timer.

Botters would have no advantage with FCFS. In fact, real players are much more likely to reach a housing plot to snap it up before a dumb bot can. The lottery just gives these RMT and bot users equal (or better) odds with a normal player who can only make one bid.

The relocation rules have also changed so home owners can't bypass the restrictions for first home buyers.

I think using the lottery makes a lot of sense for relocations later on when the housing districts are more stable, but FCFS seems to make way more sense for the initial opening of housing districts in a DC starting out with 0 houses and probably the lowest population a new DC will ever have.

[TwistedTea]

Botters would have no advantage with FCFS. In fact, real players are much more likely to reach a housing plot to snap it up before a dumb bot can. The lottery just gives these RMT and bot users equal odds with a normal player.

This is simply untrue. Housing bots come in all flavours. FCFS ward rushes favour botters using 3rd party launchers, some of which can directly teleport to the placard etc

Saying this as someone who volunteered to find open plots and to keep track of when those plots sold, from Jun 2019 - Mar 2022 for the House Alerts Discord.

And when it comes to placard clicking with FCFS wards, bots do not lose focus or have to rest like human players.

The lottery system does not address the fundamental problem of supply, especially on NA servers.

But the FCFS system significantly favours bots/automation.

Unfortunately SE has gone for blanket approach of applying the lottery to all regions.

Ultimately, the solution is fully instanced housing so that every player who wants a house can get one.

The existing ward housing can exist alongside the fully instanced housing for players who want 'exclusive'/'prestige' or whatever houses. Those players can fight it out amongst themselves.

[Damptoe]

This is simply untrue. Housing bots come in all flavours. FCFS ward rushes favour botters using 3rd party launchers, some of which can directly teleport to the placard etc

Saying this as someone who volunteered to find open plots and to keep track of when those plots sold, from Jun 2019 - Mar 2022 for the House Alerts Discord.

And when it comes to placard clicking with FCFS wards, bots do not lose focus or have to rest like human players.

The lottery system does not address the fundamental problem of supply, especially on NA servers.

But the FCFS system significantly favours bots/automation.

Unfortunately SE has gone for blanket approach of applying the lottery to all regions.

The point is that none of the placard clicking or focus is relevant for the grand opening when you just need to click the placard once.

I just don't agree with FCFS favouring bots and automation.
Admittedly, I have no experience with the situation in NA and maybe it's more rampant there than JP where my previous experiences with three ward openings were.

However, the situation in NA and OCE is very different.
If a player or botter wants a house, they will probably get it whether it's lottery or FCFS because there will be plenty of open plots for months after 6.1 releases depending on the world.

The lottery introduces a few barriers for real players on this data centre and prevents nothing.
It's a great solution to the problem the developers introduced when they added the random timer after relocations, but it barely has any purpose for the initial purchases on OCE.

The benefits of the lottery in the context of OCE are obviously that it gives people who can't be online at the exact hour of the 6.1 launch a chance to make a bid for their favourite plot.
Which is why it would be great if OCE got the option of having both purchasing options.

I know there's no point arguing this anymore though because we're already stuck with this silliness as you said.
I'm just extremely disappointed I transferred my main here given how the housing situation turned out, but I'm going to stick with it regardless. Gave up my plot already anyway.