This new SYSTEM DOESN'T Work

[Toutatis]

I got lucky and now have a personal house and a small fc house with a few friends. This would not have been possible under the old “click the board forever” method. My real life obligations do not allow me for much non interrupted gaming time and quite frankly, it was just mind numbing.

After the lotteries were released and after a failed attempt to get a medium in Ishgard, I didn’t get picky and simply chose the houses with less bids on them. The idea was to get my foot in the door and then bid on other houses that may come up if I like them better. Surprisingly the houses we got are rather close to a MB and not in a dark corner of a ward so I rather like them.

When the new wards will be released in January, I will try to upgrade to mediums. I may get more picky this time as I already have houses that I like. If it was my first house, I’d still go for the small with less bids. Medium is the perfect size for me but why didn’t SE put all the stairs in the same corner? It would have made a nicer ground floor layout with more space. I wish the smalls’ ground floor was the size of their basement.

However, all this doesn’t fix the fact that the FFXIV housing system is flawed with its finite number of houses. All the people I know who went to Dynamis, went there for houses for alts. Some to get extra houses. They don’t even play there much. At some point it is going to end with the same problem as older DCs. I’d be curious to know the proportion of real new players on Dynamis because alts don’t bring in new money to SE.

They should really implement instanced housing (bigger apartments with garden area for example) and allow sharing with alts. I also think some form of demolition should be re-enabled to ensure that it doesn’t become a complete ghost town and to make room for those that play the game, maybe not as it was before but perhaps a purge every year or two.

[WinglessSeraphim]

I swear, complaining about housing is much more fun than owning a house. There are plenty of opportunities to get a pixelated house. One, move to a new world, tons of new houses plus all the bonuses that come with it. Two, pray to the housing gods to give you a house. Or three, complain until you're blue in the face. Guaranteed, option three will not work.

[Themarvin]

This system is fair for all..

[Oizen]

This system is fair for all..

Well no not really, it heavily favors people who can run bot farms and have alts.

[Arohk]

Well no not really, it heavily favors people who can run bot farms and have alts.

whats stoping you from making 8 characters?

[WinglessSeraphim]

whats stoping you from making 8 characters?

$2 extra in sub fees

[Themarvin]

Well no not really, it heavily favors people who can run bot farms and have alts.

The alternative is people clicking on a placecard for 2 days, and it causes an additional expense to multiple bots, as far as I know you need to have an actual paid account to do and further more 30 days of play?

[Ayan_Calvesse]

Well,

I'm not going to rehash my original point in detail; but there is now MORE then enough housing in the data-centers.
+But there is no demolition.
+People own multiple homes.
+People only bid on the "perfect" house

Remove those 2 factors and there is a glut of housing available.
If Square insists on using the lotto system then I would ask that they put in a exponential bid system.
If you lose; your volume of bids "doubles" until it hits a "cap" like say 32 or 64. This protection only applies to 1 character. Once triggered other characters on the same account will not gain this buff. The buff expires after a full housing lotto duration - so if you think "I will only bid when I got a good chance to loose so I can bid on the perfect plot" your SOL.
Lose 1 bid - you now get 2 entrys, again get 4 and so on.
If no plots are available your buff is extended.

This means people who have been trying for a house for months will have a far greater chance at winning then someone who boosted a alt on your server to try and grab up homes to sell.

[Nepentha]

Well,

I'm not going to rehash my original point in detail; but there is now MORE then enough housing in the data-centers.
+But there is no demolition.
+People own multiple homes.
+People only bid on the "perfect" house

Remove those 2 factors and there is a glut of housing available.
If Square insists on using the lotto system then I would ask that they put in a exponential bid system.
If you lose; your volume of bids "doubles" until it hits a "cap" like say 32 or 64. This protection only applies to 1 character. Once triggered other characters on the same account will not gain this buff. The buff expires after a full housing lotto duration - so if you think "I will only bid when I got a good chance to loose so I can bid on the perfect plot" your SOL.
Lose 1 bid - you now get 2 entrys, again get 4 and so on.
If no plots are available your buff is extended.

This means people who have been trying for a house for months will have a far greater chance at winning then someone who boosted a alt on your server to try and grab up homes to sell.

Can't sell personal houses. So that point is moot.

[dspguy]

+But there is no demolition.

That is probably reason #2 for a housing shortage. There probably still wouldn't be enough, but it would make a difference if auto-demo was back on. (Reason #1 is simply not enough plots in general).

+People own multiple homes.

While this is a problem, and it "isn't fair" - it probably isn't tying up as many homes as the first point you made. Yes, there will be that one instance that people talk about - some guy or FC has nearly an entire ward. But that isn't common. There's an FC on my server that has multiple homes... but they literally have thousands of players in their FC. More than the maximum. So they own more than one plot.

+People only bid on the "perfect" house

That right there is the reason why it is so easy to get a small in week #1 of the lottery (new server or new zone or new wards). People with no housing are bidding against people looking to upgrade - on mediums and larges in the "perfect spot." All the while, plenty of other players snatch up smalls with little-to-no competition. Then week #2 comes and we already at 100+ bids on a small since that's all that is left.