FCFS Housing in Empyreum

[StarKorg]

Regarding the latest live letter I have some feedback based on the lottery system being in place for all wards for Empyreum.

As a relatively new player I have been used to housing being quite difficult to obtain and the FCFS system being in place for past housing has prompted me to plan ahead for Empyreum housing (i.e scoping out the plot I wanted and making sure I had the funds months in advance) on the basis that it would be FCFS.

I would ask that Empyreum were half FCFS and half lottery. This enables the developers to trial their lottery system and allow people who are comfortable with the lottery system to use that system and those that want either instant gratification or instant disappointment to use the FCFS system.

Personally, I would rather instantly know if I can get my desired plot or not rather than dragging it out over multiple days and find out that with so many people entering for a specific plot over time that I did not get the plot. I understand that it is refundable but the time spent waiting is not. Especially when such time could be spent scoping out another plot or looking through the various different wards.

I hope the developers take this into consideration and at least let a few of the many wards be first-come-first-serve.

[Fenril7]

They asked us if enough people where interested in FCFS. Even if they put half of the 1,440 plots in Ishgard up as FCFS, they would all be taking in less than a day.

Is that enough interest in FCFS Yoshi-P?

Simply put there is not enough housing even with 1,440 new Ishgard plots.

[Misutoraru]

They asked us if enough people where interested in FCFS. Even if they put half of the 1,440 plots in Ishgard up as FCFS, they would all be taking in less than a day.

Is that enough interest in FCFS Yoshi-P?

Simply put there is not enough housing even with 1,440 new Ishgard plots.

Isn’t this proof why FCFS is such a poor system.
it show the demand are high and need a system that allow more players to have a chance to take part

[DeNada]

I'm not sure if anyone remembers but when Shirogane housing is released in 4.2 with full FCFS wards, all houses were gone in 15-20 minutes for some servers.

And that was 4 years ago. The player base has greatly increased in numbers since then, especially during the last two years due to CoViD, WOW players exodus among other factors. If FCFS wards are allowed in 6.1, I guarantee the same situation will occur and the majority of the player base will be out of luck.

For example as a simplified breakdown:

Full lottery:
10,000 players entering for 1,000 personal houses, assuming the rest are allocated for FCs.

Chance for a house is 1 out of 10.

Half lottery half FCFS
1,000 players entering for 500 FCFS houses (excluding the majority of the player base who can't login at the exact hour of release due to a myriad of factors)
Chance for a house is 1 out of 2.
9,500 players entering for 500 lottery houses (I included the 500 FCFS players who are unable to get a house as well)
Chance for house is 1 out of 20.

So basically, the minority of players (10%) who are clamoring for FCFS just wanted an unfair opportunity to greatly increase their odds at procuring a house, to the detriment of the majority of the player base (90%) as their odds at a lottery if FCFS is implemented would basically drop by half.

[Voidedge_Ragna]

Free for all plots are proven to not work we've been seeing it for year on end. There are tools that help the queueing process and SE has never cared about that. On Ragnarok 95% of the houses were gone in 10-15 minutes when Shirogane released and not only that. The Server was so busy that it did not show the sale it said "please wait" when you selected buy ... so you waited, and then someone elses house would eventually load in and that point you busted enough time to ensure you get nothing.

Free for FC only: as much as i would love them, do not work either because of parasite FC's, half of those FC's could be got rid of if we had workshop access somewhere else.

Theres now 10 layers of ductape wrapped around the housing system the easy fix is instanced housing ... but if they did that they would likely have to ease the rules of auto demolish ... which makes players keep paying because noone wants to go through the absolute hell of getting a house again.

[Jojoya]

I'm not sure if anyone remembers but when Shirogane housing is released in 4.2 with full FCFS wards, all houses were gone in 15-20 minutes for some servers.

And that was 4 years ago. The player base has greatly increased in numbers since then, especially during the last two years due to CoViD, WOW players exodus among other factors. If FCFS wards are allowed in 6.1, I guarantee the same situation will occur and the majority of the player base will be out of luck.

For example as a simplified breakdown:

Full lottery:
10,000 players entering for 1,000 personal houses, assuming the rest are allocated for FCs.

Chance for a house is 1 out of 10.

Half lottery half FCFS
1,000 players entering for 500 FCFS houses (excluding the majority of the player base who can't login at the exact hour of release due to a myriad of factors)
Chance for a house is 1 out of 2.
9,500 players entering for 500 lottery houses (I included the 500 FCFS players who are unable to get a house as well)
Chance for house is 1 out of 20.

So basically, the minority of players (10%) who are clamoring for FCFS just wanted an unfair opportunity to greatly increase their odds at procuring a house, to the detriment of the majority of the player base (90%) as their odds at a lottery if FCFS is implemented would basically drop by half.

We really don't even need to go back to Shirogane's opening (which was 4.1, not 4.2) to see a good example of why FCFS is bad.

The 5.3 ward release demonstrates it perfectly. That was 720 houses per world added - only half of what Empyreum will have but also at a time the player base was quite a bit smaller (the WoW exodus and resulting publicity causing the player population to surge came several months later). There was no personal purchase moratorium so some worlds sold out 10 minutes after the servers went online and all were sold out after an hour. Many of those houses went straight into the hands of RMT.

FCFS simply is not a good system to use when supply is limited. Players should not be left at a disadvantage because real life will not allow them to be online the moment the servers come up or when a purchase timer ends, nor at the whims of RMT because RMT has the resources to stack odds in its favor.

If SE will not take concrete steps that adequately address the supply issue so that every player and FC that want a house can get a house, then they need to go with the system that gives all players and FCs trying to obtain a house a fair chance to do so. Lottery adds in a measure of fairness that FCFS lacks.

[Kyssa]

So basically, the minority of players (10%) who are clamoring for FCFS just wanted an unfair opportunity to greatly increase their odds at procuring a house, to the detriment of the majority of the player base (90%) as their odds at a lottery if FCFS is implemented would basically drop by half.

The craziest part of this is, many of these players own MULTIPLE homes already or have wonderful plots, with perfectly directional lighting (������) but they just won't be satisfied unless they get what they want, when they want it. I read most posts by people like that with the scene of Veruca Salt in Willy Wonky having a tantrum, "DON'T CARE HOW, I WANT IT NOW!"

[Fenril7]

This whole issue, being FCFS, lottery, raffle is only for one reason. SE making a lack of housing and/or Wards. I can understand why Ishgard housing took so long, because we had to rebuild the ward. But come on, the ward was build by 5.4 I believe, there was no reason why we should have waited so long for more housing, and after 6.1, we are looking at least another year if not two for the next opening of any housing.

Also I know people who were grandfathered in owning multiple houses if not whole wards. That needs to go away. Pay them the Gil for what they paid and wipe the property clean for the raffle.