Worst housing system in history

[SilverSp]

ffxiv just posted an update saying "thanks for your patience as we work on nothing to fix anything we apologize and please wait till may 16th "

[Valfreyja]

It is absolutely 100% luck based now, "get good" is a choice of a take since it involves zero skill to push a button once to submit a bid.

While I won't say it wasn't luck, I will say that you can put a little effort into your bidding. I won a Large Plot in the lottery.

On Wednesday after the patch, I went to Empyreum on my world.
I spent a couple hours going to every Large plot in every single FC ward.
I painstakingly typed out the number of bids for each of those plots into a spreadsheet.
I set conditional formatting to black out any plot with 7+ bids on it already.
This showed me trends on where people were bidding heavily. In this case, plot 30/60 across most of the Wards, and Ward 1 as well.

On Friday, I went back to Empyreum.
I sent several more hours revisiting every plot that wasn't blacked out, and updating bids on my spreadsheet.
I changed the formatting to now color code 0-1 bid plots, 3-4 bid ones, and black out any with 5 bids or more.

For those plots with one bid (there were around 9 left), I calculated the total number of bids for all plots in that entire Ward. I calculated the total number of bids for each plot across all Wards.

Two plots had the lowest on these values. Ward 9, Plot 42 and Ward 2, Plot 52. I went to check both out. #42 picked up a second bidder. So I immediately set my FC to bid on #52. With the result that I won it.

Was it 100% luck? No. I identified a ward with a smaller bid presence, on a plot with less bids overall. Showing a lack of general interest across the nearly 500 bids I calculated. But neither was it 100% skill either.

It was a combination of factors.
First the tactical advantage of knowing when and where to bid. Not rushing in right from the beginning, but instead waiting until others had done so, which gave me an edge and showed me what to avoid.
Second was luck, yes. Nobody else came to bid on plot #52, which means the data I collected held solid. I was worried Friday evening and Saturday morning before the results, that a flood of new bids were coming just before the results, as a number of people were expecting. But it seems as if most did their bidding through the week.
Third was the percentage. My FC placed four bids worth 47,500,000 gil apiece on this plot. Giving an 80% chance for my FC to win the plot vs. the 20% chance of the original bidder.

This isn't something that could have been done with the old placard system, of course. And in terms of Personal housing, it's more hit or miss.
But it can honestly be employed just as well. When a new lottery started for personal plots, you could as easily go in the day before and scout them all, record the same data. See where the majority of bidding is taking place for those plots.

It's time consuming, and it's not easy. But it may also pay off and give anyone the edge to get a personal. By letting them know where and when to bid, to make the odds work in their favor.

[Bunnycake]

ffxiv just posted an update saying "thanks for your patience as we work on nothing to fix anything we apologize and please wait till may 16th "

Before you type something make sure you have proof of what you're saying

Show proof of the devs working on nothing then.

[Rilifane]

This isn't something that could have been done with the old placard system, of course. And in terms of Personal housing, it's more hit or miss.
But it can honestly be employed just as well. When a new lottery started for personal plots, you could as easily go in the day before and scout them all, record the same data. See where the majority of bidding is taking place for those plots.

It's time consuming, and it's not easy. But it may also pay off and give anyone the edge to get a personal. By letting them know where and when to bid, to make the odds work in their favor.

It's exactly what I did.
I sweeped every single ward to get a rough idea about the amount of bidders on different plots and wrote the number of bidders down for each plot and shortly before the deadline I checked all plots with a low number of bidders again and threw my name in. The plot that looked promising at first went up to 12 bidders while the plot I chose last minute had only 4. Had I simply threw my name in for the first plot that looked promising I likely wouldn't have won.
It was still luck but a much higher chance thanks to some legwork.
Nonetheless, you can't increase your odds nearly as much with sheer dedication as you could with the old system, so "get good" is one hell of a stretch, that much is true. You can manipulate your chances but not to the same extend. I'm still glad the incredibly unhealthy placard clicking is gone. Both systems are only bandaid fixes for the true problem and no amount of further bandaid fixes will get rid of it.

[Valfreyja]

It's exactly what I did.
I sweeped every single ward to get a rough idea about the amount of bidders on different plots and wrote the number of bidders down for each plot and shortly before the deadline I checked all plots with a low number of bidders again and threw my name in. The plot that looked promising at first went up to 12 bidders while the plot I chose last minute had only 4. Had I simply threw my name in for the first plot that looked promising I likely wouldn't have won.
It was still luck but a much higher chance thanks to some legwork.
Nonetheless, you can't increase your odds nearly as much with sheer dedication as you could with the old system, so "get good" is one hell of a stretch, that much is true. You can manipulate your chances but not to the same extend. I'm still glad the incredibly unhealthy placard clicking is gone. Both systems are only bandaid fixes for the true problem and no amount of further bandaid fixes will get rid of it.

Yeah, the Placard was more about perseverance then anything else. Being able to sit for hours...and hours...and hours. Clicking endlessly over and over and zzzzzzzzzzzz.

I did that for a while last year around this time when I went for a Small. Ultimately, the one I got, was because someone relocated to where I was currently camped.
So I went to their plot, they were kind enough to ID it to those of us present.
Around 8 hours after I woke up, logged in, clicked for an hour or two, and won the Small. Then I managed to relocate twice, until finally I have #17 in the Beds, a nice little nook.

But this was before the influx of WoW players came into play.
When I was camping placards back then, maybe 4 to 6 at most usually.

I went back checking plots last October. 20+ or more at every plot I went to. It was crazy. I had never seen so many at a placard. And I can only assume it was the sudden rush of WoW players driving up demand.

The placard system was far from perfect. But, let's be honest, the fault there lies entirely with the players. People abused the system pre-Stormblood, and as a result we got the Placard click-bait system, and now the lottery system.

I honestly wish SE would crack down on Housing. Force all those with multiple personal houses to relinquish all but one to the market once more. No more grandfathering veterans, make them follow the same rules as everyone else.

And those "legit paid accounts" that originate from the same player? Force them to give up their plots as well. Doesn't matter if they are paid accounts and perfectly within the ToS to do it. It's unethical and should be stamped out.

Or the same thing is going to happen when they open the new Data Centers.

[Krotoan]

ffxiv just posted an update saying "thanks for your patience as we work on nothing to fix anything we apologize and please wait till may 16th "

.. whiners after the bug: "OMG WHY DIDN'T THEY TEST FOR THIS!?!?"

Those same people when they're fixing it "OMG WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG!!??!?!"


Hey look.. there's that extensive QA you all were clamoring for. ... is it what you wanted or not?

[PharisHanasaki]

While I won't say it wasn't luck, I will say that you can put a little effort into your bidding. I won a Large Plot in the lottery.

Did something similar to you, but based on my previous experiences with new wards.
Eventually decided for plot 60 on ward 10, which was the least contested of all plots 30/60. And we won. There were only 5 bids, compared to 8-18 in other wards.

[Valfreyja]

Did something similar to you, but based on my previous experiences with new wards.
Eventually decided for plot 60 on ward 10, which was the least contested of all plots 30/60. And we won. There were only 5 bids, compared to 8-18 in other wards.

Yeah, everyone ran for 30/60 on Zalera, and seemed like more were after 60 than 30. Everyone was thinking the same thing. We'll go for the subdivision because everyone is going to run for the main ones first.

Honestly, I would have liked it as well. But I'm just up the road from the baths, so I just honestly chose to go for the highest plot at 52 instead. I can look out over the entire ward from there.

But I also hedged my bet with two other FC bids on a Small, that also won. And currently waiting on the 50% refund.

[SilverSp]

.. whiners after the bug: "OMG WHY DIDN'T THEY TEST FOR THIS!?!?"

Those same people when they're fixing it "OMG WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG!!??!?!"


Hey look.. there's that extensive QA you all were clamoring for. ... is it what you wanted or not?

youre making excuses for a multi Billion dollar company not being able to sort out executive programs to make sure all patches are correctly put out and to make sure their customers are satisfied ?

[Pablomaldito]

The placard system was far from perfect. But, let's be honest, the fault there lies entirely with the players. People abused the system pre-Stormblood, and as a result we got the Placard click-bait system, and now the lottery system

This is a disgusting conclusion to come to. The blame lies entirely on the devs for creating a system that excludes the majority of players.

Blaming the players seems to be the devs' approach to solving housing issues. Of course, it completely fails to fix the housing system because the problem has always been supply. Increasing popularity had made this even worse.

Players were selling houses at inflated prices because because of the lack of supply. Obviously the solution is to ensure a system that has adequate supply, right?

Wrong. Instead, put an invisible timer on the placards so that players cannot sell houses to each other outside of transferring FC leadership. Now the only way to get a house is through dysfunctional behavior or botting.

Next is the lottery. I'm going to ignore the current issues with the 0 bidder bug. That is just a distraction from the fact that even if it had worked perfectly, the lottery was never going to be a solution for the severe housing shortage. At the first wave of lottery at the launch of a housing ward, the chance to get a personal house was 10% at best. This drops precipitously after that first round. Thousands of bidders per server will still be left without houses when the wards are full. What do you suppose the bid numbers will be when there are only 0-4 houses per lottery cycle? We're looking at thousand bidder lotteries. You could diligently bid every lottery cycle for 10 years and still have a less than 50% chance of getting a house within those 10 years.

At least the current lottery system is going to expose the magnitude of the housing shortage when those 4 digit bids start showing up. I hope they will finally address the supply issue, but I'm not optimistic. I hope they don't just "fix" the problem by obscuring the number of bidders.