Open Up FC Housing Zones for Individuals

[DiaDeem]

We got our FC house in Empyreum with no issue (once the whole 0 Lottery debacle was solved) and I'd like to see the ward fill up. The demand for personals definitely seems higher than for FCs. I visited some of the Personal wards and all houses had at least three to five bids. I wanna see our neighborhood full! I love visiting people and enjoying the ways in which many decorate their places.

[PharisHanasaki]

We got our FC house in Empyreum with no issue (once the whole 0 Lottery debacle was solved) and I'd like to see the ward fill up. The demand for personals definitely seems higher than for FCs. I visited some of the Personal wards and all houses had at least three to five bids. I wanna see our neighborhood full! I love visiting people and enjoying the ways in which many decorate their places.

The demand for personal housing is indeed higher, but the probability of it getting abandoned and deserted is just as high.

The only neighbours I ever saw around were those from real FCs. I think I saw one of my non FC neighbors maybe twice in the nearly 3 years we lived in Shirogane.
They will open the wards for personal housing once the FC housing demand drops. FC can do more stuff in their homes as well.

[dspguy]

They probably will, eventually. I think they'll let it go a few more lottery cycles. On my server, maybe 20% of the FC plots are bought up. Maybe less. A few more cycles, only smalls will be left. Then maybe they'll consider opening it up.

[Shougun]

Given the lottery system I don't think immediately unlocking stuff entirely makes sense since certain plots being empty doesn't exactly equate to their lack of interest. Also, said in another thread, but I believe the ward system works best with clustered density of FC like situations.. so if we really care about the whole 'neighborhood' then FC does it best. That said I'm not discounting the annoyances involved with the system in general... I'm very much in the "I wish we had powerful 1:1 demand instanced housing" camp.

Given the current system's mechanics you'll be at least guaranteed salt, salt in every action lol. Just need to pick the best ones, because it'll never fix the issues so long as it is the only system that exists. Like I get some people don't like the idea of competing against bots in a lottery but I strongly feel the whole 8 hour pound your head against a placard (that also has bots) is a worse factory of salt, and so this is the lesser of evils.

[Hasrat]

We're literally only on the second round of lottery draws for housing. Maybe have some patience for supply/demand to shake out. Or do you want them to just swing wildly in the other direction so that FCs start complaining and we just see-saw every month?

[Domdalom]

We're literally only on the second round of lottery draws for housing. Maybe have some patience for supply/demand to shake out. Or do you want them to just swing wildly in the other direction so that FCs start complaining and we just see-saw every month?

We have seen "Supply and demand" play out already in the first round. There is MORE supply than demand for FC lots and LESS supply than demand for personal plots. We don't need multiple cycles to figure out this simple dynamic. Also another poster has literally spelled out in raw numbers how bad the problem is.

[Cach]

Its funny how I just found out today that only a very limited amount of wards has houses for "private" players. Me and the other 50 people fighting for one of the last medium plots are gonna have a fun time.
I'm gonna go OD on Island Sanctuary copium now.

[Espon]

There's so many open plots in Empyreum that still have 0 bids, yet personal wards have tons bids on most plots. I still don't understand why other other 4 districts were changed to follow Empyreum's rules when it wasn't like this prior to the lottery. Poor coding, I guess?

One problem I'm seeing with having so many FC plots available is it's allowing those with multiple accounts to snatch up entire wards, especially on less populated servers.

[JanVanding]

We're literally only on the second round of lottery draws for housing. Maybe have some patience for supply/demand to shake out. Or do you want them to just swing wildly in the other direction so that FCs start complaining and we just see-saw every month?

They greatly overestimated FC plot demand and underestimated Private plot demand..

They could easily open 5 of the wards to private buyers and it would allievate much of the issue.

Instead we gonna get hundreds of people fighting over a single small every time a demo timer comes up while there will be loads of smalls going unbought in FC only plots because there isn't enough FCs per server to quantify it.

Let me put this perspective.

Under the current system (which has been retroactively applied to the older wards as well)

5400 plots are available to free companies per server
1800 plots are available to private buyers per server

Of the 1800 available the majority are filled retroactively by FCs and private buyers

The new wards available to private only started at 360 per server

To FCs 1080 plots

The FC plots in reality will never, ever fill without going to private buyers because quite simply put.

There are not 5,400 Free Companies per server

There are not 1080 Free companies without a house.

They absolutely dropped the ball with this.

[JanVanding]

To put this in further perspective I mathed this entirely out for Data Center. group and per Datacenter as a whole.

60 plots per ward, 18 wards allocated FC only, 5 housing districts = 60 x 18 x 5 = 5400
8 servers per datacenter group = 5400 x 8 = 43,200 plots across one DC group allocated FC only.

3 groups per datacenter (taking US for this one) 43,200 x 3 = 129,600 plots across the entire US Datacenter allocated to FC only

Now same math, this time for private.

60 plots per ward, 6 wards allocated private only, 5 housing districts = 60 x 6 x 5 = 1800
8 servers per DC group = 1800 x 8 = 14,400 plots across one DC group allocated private only

3 groups per DC. 14,400 x 3 = 43,200 plots allocated private across the entire US Datacenter.

Now...there is a great deal of variance to account for.

4 of the housings districts' wards 1-20 were on the old system prior to 6.0 allowing any buyer so several houses in wards 1-20 are likely privately owned

Wards 21-24 of the 4 Districts were released with a 2 week only first come first serve FC only lock meaning that several properties in W21-24 of the old districts are likely FC owned.

However there was a retroactive lock applied at 6.0 which over time will reduce the variance of the old districts.

But the math I feel speaks for itself.

There are not 129,600 Active Free companies across the entire US datacenter

There are more than 43,200 active players however.