Square Enix seems to be trying to make buying a house fairer in the new Final Fantasy 14 expansion, which will be released later this year.

A short time after the release of Endwalker, players are already bracing themselves for the inevitable disappointment of having their own settlement in Ishgard. The Final Fantasy 14 community has been talking about housing for some time now. Even if you manage to get one, you have to log in regularly to get one.

Essentially, you are paying Square Enix rent for a virtual home (though they temporarily suspended this requirement during the pandemic). Instantiated apartments are essentially unlimited, yet inexpensive, and do not require regular logins.

When a parcel of land is ripped from its previous owner, it is not immediately available for purchase. Instead, a random and arbitrary cooldown timer is applied. The cooldown lasts from 30 minutes to 24 hours, and since it is invisible, there is no way to know when it will actually be released. Therefore, players will be stationed outside the placard of the plot for hours and will keep clicking on the placard to see if the cooldown is over or not. In addition, the increased use of macros and bots has made finding homes even more difficult.

Numerous horror stories have been posted on reddit about how hard players have had to work for their virtual land. However, game director Naoki Yoshida is trying to change that, mentioning housing in a livestream earlier this month, which he translated with the help of Meoni on YouTube. Yoshida revealed that there are two types of living quarters in Ishgard." They are "first-come, first-served" living quarters and "lottery-based" living quarters. The former will probably function the same way it has in the past, but it appears that the lottery districts are trying to make it fair for everyone.

Yoshida says there are some conditions for the lottery districts. Free trial users cannot participate. This is because they cannot purchase a house or condominium. They must also make a down payment on the land they intend to purchase. Yoshida said that more could be shared in the future, but for now it seems clear how it will work.

Of course, this does not solve the biggest problem of the game, which is housing. But while it may not be a solution, it would certainly be better than sitting in front of a plot and clicking placards for 12 hours straight.

Endwalker will be released on November 23, with Ishgard and the new lottery plots coming a little later in patch 6.1.

CORRECTION: The article originally stated that Ishgard would land at the same time as the new Endwalker expansion, but it will not be added until patch 6.1. The article has been updated to reflect this.