Most of the buildings at Marriott's Newport Coast Villas are 3 or 4 stories. They're built across a hillside at various elevations. Generally, the higher floors have better views because they have views over the roof of the next building below.
My guess is that everyone requests a great ocean view, or a specific building with a great ocean view. Unfortunately, there's only one room category, but the quality of the views ranges from chain-link fence views to magnificent 180° ocean views. In the summer, the best views go to mega-multiple-week owners, who are staying for the whole summer. Other owners are supposed to get a priority too, but may wind up with partial ocean views rather than full ocean views. Most exchange guests are likely to get rooms with not even a sliver of ocean view.
I'm a two-week NCV owner. When we checked in for our two-week stay this past summer, we ended up settling for a room with a partial ocean view. It's a long story, but the point is we were not assigned a desirable location, even though we were multiple-week NCV owners staying multiple weeks. We could have moved to a better room after one week, but we didn't want to move.
It doesn't hurt to ask for an ocean view, but any exchange guest needs to have realistic expectations. It's better to be delighted if you get a reasonably nice view than to be disappointed because you didn't get a great view.
Personally, if I were an exchange guest who planned to spend time on the balcony, my primary request would be for a room that's not directly by Newport Coast Drive (because that road can get very noisy with trucks and motorcycles accelerating uphill in an attempt to reach the 60 m.p.h. speed limit). And I might ask for a view of the pool by the 1000-series buildings (which is a lovely, uncrowded pool).
