Just Another Housing Complaint

[Fybrile]

It's always a BAD idea to put words in other people's mouths. Don't do it please.

Thanks

Couldn't refute anything I said, so you just went with this, eh?

[Shibi]

Couldn't refute anything I said, so you just went with this, eh?

Go back and read and stop being a fool.

User posted "ALL THERE IS IS A MEDIUM WITH 300 ENTRIES REEEEEEEEE"

I posted some facts. There are more than a medium, some of the plots are even better odds than we saw with FCFS.

I said none of the crap you shoved in my mouth.

[Fybrile]

Go back and read and stop being a fool.

User posted "ALL THERE IS IS A MEDIUM WITH 300 ENTRIES REEEEEEEEE"

I posted some facts. There are more than a medium, some of the plots are even better odds than we saw with FCFS.

I said none of the crap you shoved in my mouth.

Yikes, touchy. I think I'll pass. Sorry for responding to you in the first place.

But, just a helpful hint, you might want to avoid name-calling. I think stuff like that's against the forum rules. And, it just kinda takes away from any point you're trying to make. People aren't going to be apt to listen to someone who leads off with insults and dismissiveness.

[Shibi]

Yikes, touchy

What do you expect when you 100% make up stuff and shove it in other people's mouths?

[Shibi]

Perhaps SE shouldn't refund all of the losing bidder's money. Perhaps they should only refund, say, 95% of it. Anyone who can afford to put down 5, 20, or 50 million for a chance at a house can afford to lose 5% of it.

Thinking up more and more and more punitive measures isn't a solution to this. The solution is for SE to improve the system and give something that personal users can use for the commonly stated needs - a place of their own, a place to garden, a place to put event furniture and the other stuff we really commonly see.

As it stands the system isn't working well. It's straining at the seams.

Some of the recent suggestions here are not going to help;

Taxes on existing homeowners are not a solution.
Refunding 95% of losing bids is not a solution.
Making houses personal only is not a solution.
Limiting FCs to 20 active users or they lose the house is not a solution.
Making personals glorified apartments entered in from FC doors is not a solution.
Even shifting the ward split as it stands is not a long term solution - although it will ease the pain for 2 cycles.

Certainly all of this punitive stuff needs to stop.

The only solution is for SE to sit down and work out what players want for personal housing, then implement it. And honestly, putting ones voice towards that is a lot more productive than working out new creative ways to punish other players.

Housing is a major feature for a lot of players, right now it's seriously over subscribed, and it's given very little time by the developers compared to say ... PVP.

[Silverbane]

Regarding only refunding 95% of losing entrant's money in the housing lottery:

Thinking up more and more and more punitive measures isn't a solution to this.

Nice try at Orwellian Newspeak, comrade, but no.
The money you pay for a lottery ticket is not punishment. It's the cost of entering the lottery.
The proposal to only refund part (in the example, 95%) of people's lottery "deposit" is just adding a cost (e.g. 5%) for the "lottery ticket," which cost is applied to the purchase if you win. The rest of the deposit is basically escrow money to make sure you pay if you win.

Refunding 95% of losing bids is not a solution.

Why not? Because you say it isn't? Excuse me if I don't find that at all convincing.

Housing is a major feature for a lot of players, right now it's seriously over subscribed

Much like many other successful products. Sounds like a win for SE.

Personally I think part of the problem is the pause on the demolition timers.
And this is from someone who had a medium house demolished while on hiatus.
And my spouse lost a large.
We didn't mind: it's just a game, and the rules on demolition where pretty clear.

[Shibi]

Why not? Because you say it isn't? Excuse me if I don't find that at all convincing.

Fairness.

I consider that right now, it will take most people a large number of entries to get lucky at the raffle for a home. And I've said that from the start. Housing will dry up and get to the point that there will be one house for the entire server.

With your proposed 5% losers tax it means that if a person bids for just 6 months they have lost that full 3, 20, 50 million entry price.

That 6 month figure is based on twenty 9 day cycles to make the 5% losers fee into 100%.

Now, it means of course that the richest people can easily keep entering, while most, the ones who struggle for 3 million (and they exist) are locked out.

Quite a number of people who are pro-lottery want fairness, and one of the main arguments used is that the person who has a job and family and can only play occasionally. Your 5% losers tax would mean this person is at a big disadvantage over people who can play all the time and have a good source of income.

A lot of people did, and do, have to scrimp and save for a house. It's wrong to want to take their entire amount over 6 months because the lottery and RNG gods don't like them.

How's that?

[BRVV]

Will a cost to the lottery ticket drive down the amount of bidders? As you said players who have enough gil will probably don't mind loosing a little bit.
It could help scale down the amount of gil in circulation.
Hopefully that island sanctuary feature will gives us much of what we want from housing.

[Fybrile]

Taxes on existing homeowners are not a solution.

I have to agree with this 100%. I don't think making the current demolition system more punitive is going to make the situation any better. Losing the house itself is already a far bigger punishment to most players than losing a few million gil which could be recouped easier than getting another house.

Moreover, it doesn't solve the problem. We don't need solutions that are based on living with the same woefully-insignificant number of plots. It's the lack of plots that's the problem. Having only enough plots for like 5% of the population is never going to be enough, no matter what systems are surrounding it.

As far as I can see, there are only two options: add more plots, or implement instanced housing. The neighborhood system is nice, but I think most players would be happy with giving it up if it meant they could get a house, or upgrade their house, or switch their plot, or change their district on a whim.

Honestly, allowing SE to entertain any solution that's not those two solutions is just allowing them to keep kicking this can further down the road so they can continue to save a buck.

[Shibi]

Will a cost to the lottery ticket drive down the amount of bidders?

Could be 7 years before someone wins a house. So I think a 5% losers tax would indeed drive down bidders over time, and drilling down, this is the root I generally see in these type of suggestions, not just this one, but most of them:

"The system is fair, but that's to our personal detriment. We need to work out ways to increase our chances."

It could help scale down the amount of gil in circulation.

Not by any great amount, certainly not a sink to the sense it goes anywhere near balancing the sources. Taking Balmung again, 4,743 small entries on 17 houses. So, 4726 people lose 150,000g (I've simplistically used a nominal 3,000,000 house price there) - as a sink that's only ~78 million a day being removed. It's really a drop in the bucket gil wise for this huge server.



Ultimately SE need to work out what they are doing here, work out what people want, and improve things more.