Allow cancelling personal housing lottery bid - here's why

[LailaTov]

I've been saving up for months to purchase a house in the game. I am a newish player and haven't even finished MSQ. However, private housing as part of gameplay begins relatively early in progression, and the benefits to having an estate, even a small one, are not just cosmetic (though there is nothing wrong with that). I do not own or really want an apartment, but it looks like that may be my only option. I don't want to join a FC right now, a choice I've decided to make which I know limits my gameplay a bit, but one that the Game Developers want to support (as they introduce more ways to solo-play).

I believe that with limited housing plots, a lottery system for private housing is the only fair way. HOWEVER, I FINALLY got the opportunity to enter a lottery when it went live again today, clicking on a plot that only had 1 other participant at the time. A few hours later it has 10 already. By the time the lottery ends, who knows how many it will have? Suddenly that shady plot up in the corner is looking pretty attractive to me with 1 bid on it - I wish I could pull out of the original bid and switch to a plot I have a better chance of getting. I've emptied my gil coffers, have to wait 5 days to see that I've likely lost, and will have to try all over again with no hints beforehand as to the plots I am MORE LIKELY to win the lottery on. So allowing cancellation of a bid seems only fair. It would reduce the pool for the high-demand plot, so its not like I'm gaming the system. I bet there are many solo players out there who would rather have a less-desirable plot than no plot at all - give us that choice is all I ask.

I believe that the ultimate solution is to have more housing. Somehow. Not saying it would be easy from a server standpoint, but I believe that there are minds out there that could figure out the tech challenges.

[Hasrat]

There will be more housing. NA and EU have entire new worlds coming online later this year.

[Corvus_V]

There will be more housing. NA and EU have entire new worlds coming online later this year.

It's been essentially mathematically proven that this isn't going to solve the issue. They need to make instanced homesteads that are isolated plots

[Divinemights]

It's been essentially mathematically proven that this isn't going to solve the issue. They need to make instanced homesteads that are isolated plots

Get apartment and get over with it.
They are not going that route.
Apartment is the so called instanced housing in this game, whether you like it or not.

[OniKimoto]

There will be more housing. NA and EU have entire new worlds coming online later this year.

So people are just suppose to give up their friends and families on a data center because housing is available in new worlds? No, they need to fix this housing fiasco once and for all. It's been an issue since 2.0 and increasingly has become worse every expansion as FFXIV has grown a lot. I feel a lot of problems can be resolved if they swapped to instanced housing for personals and let FC's have wards since personal are typically used for private use if y'know what I mean... Anyways, that's just my take on it.

[Yodada]

So people are just suppose to give up their friends and families on a data center because housing is available in new worlds? No, they need to fix this housing fiasco once and for all. It's been an issue since 2.0 and increasingly has become worse every expansion as FFXIV has grown a lot. I feel a lot of problems can be resolved if they swapped to instanced housing for personals and let FC's have wards since personal are typically used for private use if y'know what I mean... Anyways, that's just my take on it.

*nudge* *nudge*
Crossworld Travel, Crossworld Linkshells, Crossworld Groups. DC Travel in a few weeks.

[Jojoya]

*nudge* *nudge*
Crossworld Travel, Crossworld Linkshells, Crossworld Groups. DC Travel in a few weeks.

What's the point of having a house on a dead world on a dead data center because everyone is using data center travel to be on a populated data center?

Can't visit your house when you're on the other data center. Can't check your retainers when you're on the other data center. Can't use FC chat when you're on another data center. Can't use linkshells when you're on another data center unless it's a cross world linkshell created on that data center. Can't sell items on another data center's marketboard.

On the flip side, can't talk to your friends on another data center when you're on your home world. Difficult to sell items on your home worlds because everyone is using data center travel to get to a world that has more supply and cheaper prices. Difficult to get a group together in party finder on your home world because everyone is using data center travel to get access to a more active party finder. Queue times for Duty Finder on your home world are long because everyone is going to another data center for faster queue times.

SE is making a mistake by not mixing new worlds with existing worlds when the new NA data center opens. I know many Materia players are unhappy with the state of Materia but they've got one advantage - lack of data center travel means they have incentive to work together and rely on each other to build up their community. Those players going to the new NA data center have no such incentive when they can use data center travel to get to the worlds that have the communities they already belong to.

What's the point of having a house on a world you almost never see because you're always playing on a different data center?

[Sindele]

Assuming a dead server - or data center - will stay dead forever is an assumption that has burned people countless times before in this game alone, and it appears that it's going to burn people yet again.

We know what queues look like during a highly popular expansion release. We know what DC travel looks like under high-load situations. We know SE will gladly leave servers locked for years if it meets their load balancing needs. And we know that the people who blink late during these scenarios tend to wind up with the least.

So envision the plausible worst-case scenarios: another year+ of the server being locked, another year+ of autodemo trickles being the only housing supply and even smalls being triple-digit bids - or even being frozen again!, the 6+ hour queues on your server when 7.0 hits potentially rising towards 12+ hours as people discover new tricks to stay connected, DC travel functionally impossible in *or* out for a month+ due to local load.

Are all your friends already with you on your server, much less your DC? Do you intend to bring anyone new to the game? Does any one of those worst case scenarios sound like something you don't really want to deal with or make you second-guess your decision to sit in place, especially with the lure of potentially owning a house uncontested on the table? Because the history of this game has shown one thing to hold true: if you think you're going to blink at all, it's in your personal interest to blink early.

[Themarvin]

So people are just suppose to give up their friends and families on a data center because housing is available in new worlds? No, they need to fix this housing fiasco once and for all. It's been an issue since 2.0 and increasingly has become worse every expansion as FFXIV has grown a lot. I feel a lot of problems can be resolved if they swapped to instanced housing for personals and let FC's have wards since personal are typically used for private use if y'know what I mean... Anyways, that's just my take on it.

Having a house will or not will not affect your gaming quality and if your family and friends got one, why not become a tenant in theres and be allowed to decorate or whatever.

[Brygd]

There will be more housing. NA and EU have entire new worlds coming online later this year.

Which is a drop in the bucket. My server alone could claim every single house on the new NA data center, and we’re not the largest server on Aether.