So what happens when 90% of Bidders Luck out on a House?

[YukikoKurosawa]

Currently there are only 4 private wards per server per district. Of those districts, only Empyrium is actually open for bidding.

Right now on my server, there are only a few houses actually available. Bid on one this morning as soon as it 10:59 rolled up. Just checked and now there are over 20 other bidders. On that one house alone. There are not even private 20 houses available.

So what happens what 99% of those bidders lose out? Just eat shit and go back to your lousy apartments? The devs wont come out and say it but as it stands housing is exclusive content for a very tiny minority of the playerbase, a content they advertise as being for everyone however. Clearly this isn't working and even this bidding system still just means a small minority will actually get a house at all.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the spaces in the 20 free company wards are empty. Why? Why have they made it this way? Why do FCs need so much space when the ratio of FC to private buyers is so heavily skewed towards private? What were they thinking?

Either open up far more spaces to private buyers, add instanced housing like you should've all along, or stop advertising housing as a feature because it functionally is not for the vast majority of the playerbase.

[DiaDeem]

I don't wanna spam the housing topics too much, but I'd like to just say a couple things.

First: I do hope they open the Only-FC wards to personal houses in the near future. Even if they were gonna split the wards in the first place, I believe it was a bit disproportionate. I hope everyone can get their place.

Second: Through the lottery frustrations, I'd like to remind people that FCFS was just as bad if not worse. I think my most vocal posts in the Forums have been on my distain for the FCFS system, and I just hope people don't start acting as if FCFS was any better than lottery. Housing needs a lot of work, but so long as we don't start glorifying FCFS, because between the bots, the 8 hour marathons during "prime time" and not being able to do anything else other than clicking a placard isn't how it should ever be done.

[DixieBellOCE]

I don't wanna spam the housing topics too much, but I'd like to just say a couple things.

First: I do hope they open the Only-FC wards to personal houses in the near future. Even if they were gonna split the wards in the first place, I believe it was a bit disproportionate. I hope everyone can get their place.

Second: Through the lottery frustrations, I'd like to remind people that FCFS was just as bad if not worse. I think my most vocal posts in the Forums have been on my distain for the FCFS system, and I just hope people don't start acting as if FCFS was any better than lottery. Housing needs a lot of work, but so long as we don't start glorifying FCFS, because between the bots, the 8 hour marathons during "prime time" and not being able to do anything else other than clicking a placard isn't how it should ever be done.

FCFS was great, the morons using scripts that forgot to turn on /busy funded my gameplay for years just by trading them. Walked away with about 50m in 1 night from trading the scripters.

[Skivvy]

Currently there are only 4 private wards per server per district. Of those districts, only Empyrium is actually open for bidding.

Right now on my server, there are only a few houses actually available. Bid on one this morning as soon as it 10:59 rolled up. Just checked and now there are over 20 other bidders. On that one house alone. There are not even private 20 houses available.

So what happens what 99% of those bidders lose out? Just eat shit and go back to your lousy apartments? The devs wont come out and say it but as it stands housing is exclusive content for a very tiny minority of the playerbase, a content they advertise as being for everyone however. Clearly this isn't working and even this bidding system still just means a small minority will actually get a house at all.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the spaces in the 20 free company wards are empty. Why? Why have they made it this way? Why do FCs need so much space when the ratio of FC to private buyers is so heavily skewed towards private? What were they thinking?

Either open up far more spaces to private buyers, add instanced housing like you should've all along, or stop advertising housing as a feature because it functionally is not for the vast majority of the playerbase.

I am assuming they feel FCs are a greater priority as they will typically accommodate a larger number of players in the form of FC rooms. Then you have the fact that FCs are locked out of additional FConly features by not having a house (subs, higher tier buffs, etc).

People have been saying the plan is the monitor the wards for a few cycles, then possibly open them up if the FC need dies off (I haven't been following live letters, so can't speak to whether or not this is actually true).

But yeah, the housing system blows. Nothing new there though.

[Krotoan]

Theoretically they will notice the FC smalls aren't filling up and they'll choose to swap them over to Private. it's been all of 1 cycle completed though with some major bumps, so I don't expect they'll make the decision soon. Give it a few weeks of normal cycles.

[Rolder50]

Currently there are only 4 private wards per server per district. Of those districts, only Empyrium is actually open for bidding.

Pardon? It's 6 wards per district, 19 through 24, and all districts are available for bidding. Mists, Lavender Beds, Goblet, Shirogane, Empyrium, all open. That said, there still aren't NEARLY enough, especially on busier servers. I'm on Siren. Bidding has only been open for a day and I'm seeing 5-10 on smalls, 10-40 on mediums depending on location, and the rare large is at 80+ bids. Lotta people gonna be sad.

[ameliaw]

There are way more than 20 personals available in Lamia though, even if you don't count smalls(and its 6 personal wards, not 4)
I don't disagree that its a terrible situation and that those who don't get a house in this round probably will never get one, however. They'd be better trying to add instanced housing to Island Sanctuaries because people are going to be saltier than the Lochs.

[YukikoKurosawa]

There are way more than 20 personals available in Lamia though, even if you don't count smalls(and its 6 personal wards, not 4)
I don't disagree that its a terrible situation and that those who don't get a house in this round probably will never get one, however. They'd be better trying to add instanced housing to Island Sanctuaries because people are going to be saltier than the Lochs.

Ok but why is it advertised as a major feature when only a tiny sliver of the population will ever be able to have it?

[ameliaw]

Ok but why is it advertised as a major feature when only a tiny sliver of the population will ever be able to have it?

I don't know? The system is terrible, SE should be embarassed over this(and the Viera/Hroth situation), but it seems that they don't care.

[Jojoya]

Ok but why is it advertised as a major feature when only a tiny sliver of the population will ever be able to have it?

Because apartments are still housing and there's currently no lack of apartments on any world.

I'm not saying that I agree with SE that apartments are the answer to demand (players want houses for reasons apartments don't accommodate) but they are housing.

The game's problem is it doesn't give players a proper introduction to apartments or promote them adequately. We still have the original "Where the Heart Is..." quests that only talk about houses and so that's what players look forward to getting. Occasionally I run into players that don't realize apartments even exist.