Questions about housing on OCE servers

[Elysidelphi]

Hello everyone, I have some questions about housing on the new OCE servers.

So I'm an Australian who's been playing FFXIV for a long time on NA servers and on Tonberry, struggling with latency issues, especially in raiding content. I'm excited about finally having servers located in Australia, having much better latency, and playing with people in my timezone. I also look forward to housing as I love decorating. So this brings me to my questions:

- as I understand the new housing lottery system, for individual plots, players can only apply once, with one ticket, on one single plot, and they cannot change their minds, select other plots or pull out of the lottery; is that correct?

- this one single lottery ticket, how exactly does it work? is it one single lottery ticket per character? or is it per server? or per data centre? or per whole account? from what I read so far, it said one single lottery ticket per character, but then I have to ask this next:

- if it is indeed one single lottery ticket per character, then does that mean that people could use multiple characters, buying one lottery ticket with each of those characters that meet the conditions? because we are allowed 8 characters per server, so theoretically, could people use all 8 characters on a given server getting one lottery ticket for each of their 8 characters? and given that the data centre Materia currently has 5 servers, if we can make 8 characters on each server, then is it possible, in theory, for some people to have as many as 40 different characters and get one single lottery ticket on each of their 40 characters in the hopes that they will manage to get one plot on whichever server? in theory is that possible? and if yes, do you think that most people will use more than one character to buy tickets?

- also, since we will have 5 earth days to apply for one plot on a/each character, do you think that most people will just wait until late in the 4th day or until the last hours of the 5th day to actually put in their tickets so they can choose the plots with the fewest applicants?

- and finally, if people use multiple characters in the lottery and they end up winning 2 or more plots on the same server, I assume, they will have to choose 1 single plot and give up the rest, correct? but what if they use multiple characters across multiple servers, say they have 5 characters, one on each Materia server, and they enter the lottery with all those 5 characters and 2 characters from 2 different servers end up winning the lottery, then is it possible for that person to keep both plots?

I'm just trying to understand what this all means, especially for us on Materia. I think that SE was a bit vague when they said we could only buy one single ticket on a character. Any clarifications would be very welcome. Thank you for your time.

[Serious-Cat]

- players can only apply once, with one ticket, on one single plot, and they cannot change their minds, select other plots or pull out of the lottery; is that correct?

Yes

- if it is indeed one single lottery ticket per character, then does that mean that people could use multiple characters, buying one lottery ticket with each of those characters that meet the conditions? because we are allowed 8 characters per server, so theoretically, could people use all 8 characters on a given server getting one lottery ticket for each of their 8 characters? and given that the data centre Materia currently has 5 servers, if we can make 8 characters on each server, then is it possible, in theory, for some people to have as many as 40 different characters and get one single lottery ticket on each of their 40 characters in the hopes that they will manage to get one plot on whichever server? in theory is that possible? and if yes, do you think that most people will use more than one character to buy tickets?

Yes. since you can make 8 characters per server, that's the most chances you will get unless someone is using multiple subs. I don't think you can buy houses on non homeworld server tho. The sad state about OCE DC right now is yes a lot of people are rushing as much alts as possible in hopes of getting good odds for plots but I am not sure if there's a population for coming content. There's hardly any content past 60 I've been trying to complete Weeping City of Mhach for a week now during prime time and queue got to timeout. I am fearful there might not be people doing 6.1 and beyond stuff even . So that's something you might want to consider too other than housing on playing in oce servers

- also, since we will have 5 earth days to apply for one plot on a/each character, do you think that most people will just wait until late in the 4th day or until the last hours of the 5th day to actually put in their tickets so they can choose the plots with the fewest applicants?

That would probably what most people would be doing in general, trying to get the odds in their favor but its all luck in the end

- and finally, if people use multiple characters in the lottery and they end up winning 2 or more plots on the same server, I assume, they will have to choose 1 single plot and give up the rest, correct? but what if they use multiple characters across multiple servers, say they have 5 characters, one on each Materia server, and they enter the lottery with all those 5 characters and 2 characters from 2 different servers end up winning the lottery, then is it possible for that person to keep both plots?

Yes, I think home ownership is limited to one per character/fc in every server.

[Elysidelphi]

Thank you for your reply, that helps clarify things much better.

However, I do not currently have 8 characters/alts (main + alts) that are ready/eligible for housing lottery on any particular Materia server. I have fewer than that.
And I definitely do not have 40 eligible for housing lottery characters/alts spread across all the Materia servers.
Does this mean I'm ill-prepared for what's to come?

Do you think that most people have/will have 8 characters/alts that are already eligible for housing on their preferred server? Plus potentially even more alts eligible for housing spread across all the other Materia servers? Are there actually people out there who have 40 eligible alts, spread across all of the Materia servers that they will then use for the housing lottery?

Or will most people just use one single character for their preferred plot?

I'm just trying to gauge what I'm up against at this point. To me it seems not only excessive but also difficult to have 40 alts, all lvl 50+, all Second Lieutenant or above, all with enough gil on them. Talking about a normal player here, not about bots and the like.

For some context, housing is pretty important to me, I love decorating a lot. I've been decorating houses for 15+ years, even all the way back in FF11 where all we had were those small instanced apartments/rooms. I'm definitely not joining the housing lottery on a whim, housing is actually a pretty big deal to me. I live in Sydney, Australia, and for all these years I've been playing FFXIV either on Tonberry or on NA servers, always struggling with latency issues, especially in raiding, and with timezone incompatibility. Since I've been playing FFXIV since when it first came out in 2013, and the devs never seriously said anything about Oceanic servers, I never ever expected we would ever get them. I'm really happy that we did finally get them, but now I worry about other things, such as housing. And of course, population issues in terms of actually running content.

Regarding the housing lottery, I really don't know what's best/wisest to do right now. There is no way in hell I have/can have/create 40 alts, all of them eligible for housing. I simply do not have the time for that. Again, I can't help but wonder how many people (not bots) will actually have/be able to have 40 alts, all eligible for housing, and all in time for the launch of patch 6.1

Though I may have/work on having 8 characters/alts eligible for housing that I could all put on the same server, my preferred server. Should I do this? Is it worth it?
Should I even try to go above 8 eligible alts and spread more of them over more servers?

What are your guys' strategies for this upcoming housing lottery?

On a side note, do people on the OCE servers actually share which plots they will go after (and maybe why those specific plots) or is that best to be kept under wraps for now?

I also wonder about the popularity of each housing zone on the OCE servers. Will Ishgard be the most popular because it'll be the newest housing area? And will it be followed by Shirogane, Mist, The Lavender Beds and The Goblet, in that order?

[DeNada]

No, there's no point creating so many alts.

You can only buy 1 personal house and 1 FC house max per world and even before doing that, ask yourself if you really need that many houses. While it's not a problem now since Materia is a new data center, eventually it will get populated. If everyone creates several alts to claim houses for their own, what kind of impression will it give new players who would face insurmountable difficulties in getting just one house which is the problem facing several new players in established servers.

Do you really want to be part of those creating these problems?

[Jojoya]

The rules aren't any different for Materia than any other world. The only difference is that all the housing on Materia is going to become available when 6.1 is released.

-One entry per character that meets the relevant purchase requirements. The entry can only be placed for a plot on the character's home world. It's possible to get multiple houses on multiple worlds if you have characters spread across those worlds, though the lottery will make that difficult to achieve in most cases.

-Players who are up to date with the lottery details will likely wait until close to the end of the entry period to make an entry for a personal house. For FC houses, it could vary. A FC that wants a specific plot may choose to coordinate its entries and get them early to try to discourage other FCs from also entering for that plot. FCs trying to get any plot at all will wait until closer to the end of the purchase period and enter on a plot with a very low entry count (or at least as low as possible).

-Players are still allowed to own one personal house and one FC house "owned as buyer" per world. It's impossible to purchase a second personal house on the same world with the same account if one has already been purchased so a choice would have to be made if 2 or more entries for a personal house ended up winning. It's still theoretically possible to get up to 8 FC houses on the same world in a single lottery period on a single service account with extras service accounts or other players helping you, advance planning and a good dose of luck in actually winning (always the chance that SE has an additional requirement they forgot to disclose or haven't sufficiently explained what they mean by "owned as buyer"). Players who want to own houses are multiple worlds are free to do that - restrictions are per world per account, not worldwide per account.

Do you really want to be part of those creating these problems?

Not trying to say the OP is such a player, but there truly are players that just do not care about anything other than getting as much of what they want as possible and SE has left plenty of doors open for them to do just that if multiple house ownership is their goal.

Asking such a player to reconsider would be futile.

[LaylaTsarra]

I have two characters who can purchase a house on Sophia. I'm undecided as to whether or not i want to use my alt to bid on a FC house for my members and use my main to bid on a personal house or simply use both characters to bid on the FC house. Relative to the availability I'm going to wait until the last hour or so to see how many entries there are on a house of my choice. I might also forgo bidding on a prime location if there are two many entries and try and find one in a less desirable locations with few or no entries.

Sophia is the most populated server on OCE and I've got my doubts if there will be any left for a second round.

Relative to multiple server ownership SE had the ability to limit housing to one house per account this go around and chose not to do so. As such one can continue to own houses on multiple servers with alts they have resident there.

[Elysidelphi]

No, there's no point creating so many alts.

You can only buy 1 personal house and 1 FC house max per world and even before doing that, ask yourself if you really need that many houses. While it's not a problem now since Materia is a new data center, eventually it will get populated. If everyone creates several alts to claim houses for their own, what kind of impression will it give new players who would face insurmountable difficulties in getting just one house which is the problem facing several new players in established servers.

Do you really want to be part of those creating these problems?

Thank you for your reply. Just to clarify, I'm only interested in buying personal housing at the moment. I don't have a FC on Materia at the moment so I'll be focusing only on getting a personal house. Also, I'm not interested in owning/winning several plots and keeping them all. I just want one plot, I do have a particular plot in mind, it's not one of the "unicorn plots" either so I hope I will get it, but who knows.
The reason why I wonder about joining the lottery with multiple alts is because I'd like to increase my chances of getting a plot. A single one. As I understand it, some people will use multiple alts, I just wonder how many people will do it, whether it will be the majority of them or not. If it's the majority of people that will do it, I feel that I should do it too in order to increase my chances. If I win two or more plots on the same server, I can only keep one anyway based on the rules, so I'd have to give up the rest of them (which I'd be happy to do as I only want one plot). In the unlikely event I win two or more plots on different servers, I'd only choose the server I like the most and claim it there, and I'd let all the other plots go so others can get them. I am fully aware of the struggle and pain that housing is in FFXIV, so I'd consider myself extremely lucky to just get the one plot I want; if I got more than that, I'd be 100% happy to let them go so other people can have them too.

[Serious-Cat]

Does this mean I'm ill-prepared for what's to come?

Mathematically those with 8 alts technically have a higher chance but most people wouldn't have the time or willpower to do so.

Or will most people just use one single character for their preferred plot?
What are your guys' strategies for this upcoming housing lottery?

I got a little over 3m from finishing Shadowbringers msq and I'm just going to try putting my one lot on the last day with the least people xD

Should I even try to go above 8 eligible alts and spread more of them over more servers?

Sounds like a chore tbh but I guess it's the standard when competing prime real estate :/

[Shibi]

....Just to clarify, I'm only interested in buying personal housing at the moment....
The reason why I wonder about joining the lottery with multiple alts is because I'd like to increase my chances of getting a plot. A single one....

You can't share housing between your alts. So it would seem unwise to use an alt for a house, unless you were then planning to scrap your current lvl 90 main, and make the winning alt your new main instead.

People who want to use alts to maximise chance do it with solo FCs, then no matter which alt wins, your main still gets a home. But the 30 day requirement and housing being available on 13/04 means this is no longer possible with new alts/new FCs.

[Damptoe]

Don't worry about it. Almost everyone going for a personal will want it for their main as the dominant playstyle in this game is doing everything on one character. There's no point in getting a personal house for a character you don't play that much.

Alts placing bids will mostly affect FC housing.