Housing Roulette was an absolute trash idea.

[Stormpeaks]

I really don't get this mentality. I mean yeah, there have been and kind of still are some options to increase your chances of getting a house, but they're all just workarounds for the poorly designed housing system. And all of those 'options' also have draw backs that negatively impact some people more than others, which makes them worse than just going without a house for some people.

I've been playing almost 5 years and still haven't been able to get a house. Yeah there's definitely things I could have done to increase my chances, but all of those options would have left me worse off, and still wouldn't have guaranteed that I'd even have gotten a house.

The artificial scarcity caused by the lack of scalability of wards is the real problem.

I really doubt that in 5 years you couldnt get a small goblet house, if however that is true, then seriously you must be doing something wrong, there is no way that it'd take this long even on NA worlds

[EvieLilou]

Lost to a number 2 again. Just trying to move my small closer to a board after giving up on battling it out on mediums and larges. Such a feels-bad system. Of course I'm lucky to have a small personal as some can't even get that...but it's hard to watch more desirable plots (larger or and/or more conveniently located) go undecorated all too often when myself and fellow house enjoyers are left with crumbs...if that.

The business model clearly works for SE, I get it. Create false scarcity, create competition...it's a mini-game within the game comparable to a random mount drop or something, some might argue. But it's beyond that, really. Some people stay subbed just because they like tinkering with decorating because housing is a unique and time-intensive, creative outlet.

There has to be a better way. Even on Gilgamesh, there are tons of empty FC plots. More wards, more larger lots or an upgradable system or instanced homes are some alternatives, I suppose. I know you can't make everyone happy...but I've gamed for a few decades and feel like this is the most feel-bad system I've run across in gaming.

/endrant

[OvernightSiren]

Your argument is proven wrong by the fact you need a subscription to keep your house or it gets demolished.

Next ?

Auto-demo routinely gets turned off. It was off for like over a year recently even.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

The lottery system is absolute trash. Bought a small house in the goblet on the old system, held off on using the relocate feature because of rumors of ishgard housing and didn't have the funds to relocate multiple times at the time.

Then they removed the relocate feature, fcfs on new wards, and replaced it with such a "great" system.

Failed to upgrade my house five times to a large. My mistake for not creating shell FCs and using alts to bid multiple times on a plot. Truly fair system we have here

In the same boat as you for the most part. I moved to goblet near the end of SB thinking I could move later with the relocation system. Then the firment came out and the odds of getting ishgrad housing went up. So I decided is ShB to save all my gil from that expac to move to a large in ishgrad(a area I wanted to live in since I played HW) in EW. My plan was to wake up an hour before the housing unlocked and try to grab a large or at least a med in ishgrad. I had everything planned and was excited till the LL where they said they were removing the relocation system and making everyone do the "new and better" lottery system. Now here I am still in an area I can't stand anymore with a huge amount of gil. Like if I knew what was going to happen I would had grab a mist or shiro med back in ShB and never saved up so much gil. What a wonderful and fair system we have now...a system that only rewards the lucky... I have tried to move in any non goblet meds since and lost every cycle so far, chances are Ill never win tbh since I never had good luck with rng. Im someone who had to get 99 totems from every EX to get the mounts since my rolls are so bad. Im also the last person who usually BiS in my static since I hardly wins loot rolls.

[Jybril]

I mean, no offense but if you havent gotten a house in 3 years I'd start questioning if I'm not doing something wrong

Housing is turd on a plate. This is the worst housing system I have ever seen and there's no defending this crap.
The fact people are allowed to have 1298o321u39021384132 houses and take entire words is laughable.
If I wanna be strict I'd say ONE house per account but I would also compromise 1 house per DC or maybe server.

Or, make housing like Apartments. I sure am glad I am not forced to sub every month to keep a house in a video game LOL.
If they beefed up apartments to be like super S/M/L apartments I'd even take that. SE can't get housing right for crap and it's sad.
Standing around on a sign for hours was a massive joke. This lottery BS is a huge joke. xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[Vahlnir]

I really doubt that in 5 years you couldnt get a small goblet house, if however that is true, then seriously you must be doing something wrong, there is no way that it'd take this long even on NA worlds

If someone had put in the time when FCFS was a thing, then I'd say their chances were okay as long as they weren't on a super high pop server. It was prior to the placard changes that I got my personal medium. But between the auto demolitions being turned off (not that they do much good anyway even when they are turned on) and players having to resort to placard spamming until recently, on top of the lottery system being a dumpster fire in and of itself, yeah...I can believe it that there are those out there still looking for a house after all of this time, especially on high pop servers.

[Xylira]

I really doubt that in 5 years you couldnt get a small goblet house, if however that is true, then seriously you must be doing something wrong, there is no way that it'd take this long even on NA worlds

I'm on the second most populated RP server, so demand for housing has been cut throat for as long back as I started playing. It's also been a combination of not being able to rearrange my life schedule to constantly camp locations or wake up early to try to get something FCFS, and just general bad luck while competing against multiple people for each and every available plot I've tried to get. And no, I've never considered transferring to a less populated server as a viable option because it would have disconnected me from my friends and FC, especially before server/data center travel was even a thing.

So if that's 'doing it wrong', then yeah I guess I'm 'doing it wrong' by not being able to rearrange my life around the housing system of a game.

[Corvus_V]

People only wanted lottery because they hated placard spamming. It had nothing to do with relocation; but ultimately it's all just awful because of the scarcity. This wasn't a system born out of necessity. It was just a stupid idea in the first place. Wards suck. They should give people an alternative that allows them to do the same things.

Arguing which was better will always be pointless, because they'll likely never go back to placard spamming. The only way forward is an actual solution, and not a band-aid. That's really all there is to it. They need to be confronted about it because it's a tremendous oversight and a relatively large part of the game to overlook and keep people from participating in just because they aren't lucky enough to win a lottery. They should repurpose apartments or make them desirable. Even doing something like allowing you remodel the interior of a small house to be medium or large (because it literally doesn't matter) should be something you can do. All it is now is a deliberately shitty system made to piss people off, and it's a mediocre gil sink as well. It's even worse off now than it was because of the absence of relocation.

I think the hilarious part is, if you could remodel the interior of a small into a medium or large, all those houses would undoubtedly sell out as well, and we'd be back to square-one of realizing how woefully inept the ward system is. It really, really shouldn't surprise anyone that this was going to be the outcome of the lottery system; but saying "I told you so" doesn't really help. It just needs to be addressed by people who have the ability to make a difference.

Auto-demo routinely gets turned off. It was off for like over a year recently even.

The fact that auto-demo is even a thing that doesn't affect apartments should be a clue to everyone. In addition to the fact that we can allegedly destroy the servers by doing something normal in-game as simple as everyone buying 2 apartments and then logging out (because if it didn't, why aren't they better? They've thought of everything, right?)
Auto-demo exists entirely to make up for the scarcity of housing in the Ward system. It isn't there to reclaim server space or do anything that necessarily maintains the health of the game or the servers, it's the equivalent of you losing something you forgot you had in the first place falling into the lap of someone else. It's literally just there to make it so other people have a shot at your plot while they think you won't notice; or to convince you to stay subscribed even if you don't play, just to avoid it. The fact that they turn it on and off for such long periods of time is almost proof that they don't care and it's not at all important for any reason whatsoever.

[Lazuliann]

I have difficulty believing its all equal now, considering I've lost my bid again for the 23rd time. How is consistantly losing equal to people that I know that are on their second or third house.
There should be some sort of failsafe implemented, where consistant loses marginally increase your odds of winning the next time.

[Vahlnir]

I have difficulty believing its all equal now, considering I've lost my bid again for the 23rd time. How is consistantly losing equal to people that I know that are on their second or third house.
There should be some sort of failsafe implemented, where consistant loses marginally increase your odds of winning the next time.

We should have a system readily accessible and available to anyone who wants a house of any size, and without limits on availability. It's pretty sad when games like Warframe (and many other f2p games) have a better housing system than we do here. The player base needs to stop settling for mediocrity, in my opinion. Push, and push hard, for real change.