Gotta love loving a house after 13 hours to blatant third party software

On mobile so cant add this too the post above. Would love to see all players get a house but not holding hope on that. But people spending unhealthy hours at placecards needs to stop. The idea above would stop that while giving everyone a fair chance at a house and a way to monitor it and be notified. Ugh manage to edit that post..pain.

Wouldn’t the easier way to get rid of the long hour clicking is just to have players not click for hours? You are not intended to click for hours in the first place, that is just a byproduct of the community, but do we really want SE to put time and money into bandaid fixes?

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Originally Posted by Awha

Wouldn’t the easier way to get rid of the long hour clicking is just to have players not click for hours? You are not intended to click for hours in the first place, that is just a byproduct of the community, but do we really want SE to put time and money into bandaid fixes?

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Give everyone house problem solved. But it does not seem like SE is going to head that route anytime soon. Placecard clicking issue can be fixed now, wont solve the housing issue. But it will solve players spending unhealthy hours clicking. We can let players continue unhealthy hours of clicking until better housing comes along, or stop the clicking until better housing comes along.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Had to snip all this because of character limit. Didn't even know there was one. Lolwoops.

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As a former business accountant, I actually did use AHK a lot for calling excel macros. The register systems that my province operate on have a bunch of statistic and inventory pages that were a huge PITA to transfer by hand and using software to bridge the gap (I paid someone like, 10$ to make me the script to streamline data transfer). I'd just go take a shower or make some coffee and come back and my problems were solved. It was necessary for me to import the information because the inventory pages the company sent me were in excel, and I could rig the sheets to fill what I needed based off statistics and sales projections. Bliss.

As for product quality of gaming products; I've actually had the opposite experience from you. Mine and a bunch of other people's G600's started to malfunction in the exact same way about a year ago and we received 0 support at all. Because our issues were literally identical (same buttons spamming, IIRC it was F2 14 16 + scroll wheel) and started around the same time, we suspected a firmwire issue but no one could assist us with our issues. Logitech just said send in the device and we'll take a look. Logitech headsets are also way bigger than Razer headsets and my tiny lady head always hated e'm. I'm not jazzed about having a cat ear headset right now but after spending 100s of dollars trying every other brand on the market, I'm quite confident with saying that Razer is the only company whose headsets consistently fit me.

Haven't bothered with trying gaming keyboards because I don't actually need them. I have chronic trouble with my left arm so I really only use WASD, jump, QERF, shift, alt and nothing else. I'm like you in that I just use my gaming mouse and tons of modifiers. Feels like a waste of money to bother with a gaming keyboard at that point (if I could even find a Spanish keyboard, I don't know the location of things as well on them so I actually have to look down).

Anyway, still praying for upgradable apartments. I might not be so jazzed for getting a large for my project if I had a 3floor apartment with a balcony with a static background or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Arielen

As for product quality of gaming products; I've actually had the opposite experience from you. Mine and a bunch of other people's G600's started to malfunction in the exact same way about a year ago and we received 0 support at all. Because our issues were literally identical (same buttons spamming, IIRC it was F2 14 16 + scroll wheel) and started around the same time, we suspected a firmwire issue but no one could assist us with our issues. Logitech just said send in the device and we'll take a look. Logitech headsets are also way bigger than Razer headsets and my tiny lady head always hated e'm. I'm not jazzed about having a cat ear headset right now but after spending 100s of dollars trying every other brand on the market, I'm quite confident with saying that Razer is the only company whose headsets consistently fit me.

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I use a Logitech headset at work, and that's good enough for what it does that it's fine... For gaming I'm using a Steel Series headset and that has worked rather well as Steel Series is another company that I like the build quality on as it just works and doesn't break. As far as the mice goes, I never had that problem but with how manufacturing goes, could have been a bad batch or bad firmware. It happens periodically.

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Originally Posted by Awha

Wouldn’t the easier way to get rid of the long hour clicking is just to have players not click for hours? You are not intended to click for hours in the first place, that is just a byproduct of the community, but do we really want SE to put time and money into bandaid fixes?

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Not a solution for getting a house but would give less stress to players: Display remaining time until it gets available. This RNG part of timer may be over any minute now is the core problem.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

Not a solution for getting a house but would give less stress to players: Display remaining time until it gets available. This RNG part of timer may be over any minute now is the core problem.

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This just makes it easier for resellers, and will 100% result in overloaded plots since camping would not be a thing anymore.

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

This just makes it easier for resellers, and will 100% result in overloaded plots since camping would not be a thing anymore.

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How would it make it easier? It would be same thing as today unless i'm missing something obvious

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

How would it make it easier? It would be same thing as today unless i'm missing something obvious

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If the reseller is planning to sell the house, they can demolish, and then let the buyer know exactly when the plot will be for sale. It carries only the same risk as reselling used to - someone could possibly come up and purchase it in the window it’s become available - which is not much risk if you plan things accordingly.

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

If the reseller is planning to sell the house, they can demolish, and then let the buyer know exactly when the plot will be for sale. It carries only the same risk as reselling used to - someone could possibly come up and purchase it in the window it’s become available - which is not much risk if you plan things accordingly.

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It's no risk to the reseller. They were already paid to relinquish the plot.

The risk is all on the "buyer's" end since they have to compete against all the other players who want the plot. Available plots don't go unnoticed for hours. The housing discords update their lists hourly. The plots only appear to be ignored because few players are interested in camping during the initial hours when the plot is extremely unlikely to have the timer expire.

What displaying the timer would do is make it easier for the reseller to attempt to purchase multiple houses on multiple worlds. They can set up a list of when houses on multiple worlds will be ready for purchase then switch between characters a few minutes before the appropriate time to try their luck against the other players present. One plot gets purchased (regardless of who gets it) and they're able to switch to the next world on their list. Right now they're hobbled by uncertainty on when the right time might be, making it harder to juggle attempts to purchase multiple houses especially across multiple worlds.

It's hard to say whether displaying the timer would result in resellers getting more houses. They'll be able to attempt to purchase a lot more houses but they'll also be competing against a much high number of players at each house.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It's no risk to the reseller. They were already paid to relinquish the plot.

The risk is all on the "buyer's" end since they have to compete against all the other players who want the plot. Available plots don't go unnoticed for hours. The housing discords update their lists hourly. The plots only appear to be ignored because few players are interested in camping during the initial hours when the plot is extremely unlikely to have the timer expire.

What displaying the timer would do is make it easier for the reseller to attempt to purchase multiple houses on multiple worlds. They can set up a list of when houses on multiple worlds will be ready for purchase then switch between characters a few minutes before the appropriate time to try their luck against the other players present. One plot gets purchased (regardless of who gets it) and they're able to switch to the next world on their list. Right now they're hobbled by uncertainty on when the right time might be, making it harder to juggle attempts to purchase multiple houses especially across multiple worlds.

It's hard to say whether displaying the timer would result in resellers getting more houses. They'll be able to attempt to purchase a lot more houses but they'll also be competing against a much high number of players at each house.

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That's still behavior that really shouldn't be encouraged... the person that buys the house should only be the person that's going to use the house... not a house flipper.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

That's still behavior that really shouldn't be encouraged... the person that buys the house should only be the person that's going to use the house... not a house flipper.

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I understand where you're coming from with this but I think it's also wrong to think that everyone selling a house is a flipper. The current housing design has one major flaw when you demo: you don't get your money back. You have to wait for 45 days. So, if you're moving to another DC because your friend group is migrating, you're trapped on the old one just to get your money back from the system. It used to be that if you were moving, you could easily put up a PF or poke a friend, recoup your money from selling the house at placard price (which is still the case with relos on most servers) and then quit the game, move to a new server, whatever.

This isn't to say that there aren't people who snipe housing for resale purposes, but the people who do so are selling FCs with a house for profit, not relos.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

That's still behavior that really shouldn't be encouraged... the person that buys the house should only be the person that's going to use the house... not a house flipper.

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I agree but the number of flippers out there is smaller than some want to assume. Is it genuinely a good idea to penalize the greater player base over the misdeeds of a few?

It's not the purchase system that encourages flippers. It's the ward system itself that encourages flippers. As long as anything considered desirable is only available in a limited quantity, flippers will appear to control that resource for their personal profit.

SE could switch to using the same system that LotRO uses for expanding its Neighborhoods and STILL flippers would exist because the number of mediums and larges are relatively small, because a small facing a wall in Goblet is not a beachfront in Mist or Shirogane.

Without an instanced system that allows players to purchase exactly what they want without impacting the ability of others to purchase the same thing, we will never be rid of flippers.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It's no risk to the reseller. They were already paid to relinquish the plot.

The risk is all on the "buyer's" end since they have to compete against all the other players who want the plot. Available plots don't go unnoticed for hours. The housing discords update their lists hourly. The plots only appear to be ignored because few players are interested in camping during the initial hours when the plot is extremely unlikely to have the timer expire.

What displaying the timer would do is make it easier for the reseller to attempt to purchase multiple houses on multiple worlds. They can set up a list of when houses on multiple worlds will be ready for purchase then switch between characters a few minutes before the appropriate time to try their luck against the other players present. One plot gets purchased (regardless of who gets it) and they're able to switch to the next world on their list. Right now they're hobbled by uncertainty on when the right time might be, making it harder to juggle attempts to purchase multiple houses especially across multiple worlds.

It's hard to say whether displaying the timer would result in resellers getting more houses. They'll be able to attempt to purchase a lot more houses but they'll also be competing against a much high number of players at each house.

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Lordy I wish they would just instance housing. The idea that a 3rd party mod like DC is used to help some get houses is absurd. What a sad sad piece of work SE housing is lol.

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Originally Posted by Arielen

I understand where you're coming from with this but I think it's also wrong to think that everyone selling a house is a flipper. The current housing design has one major flaw when you demo: you don't get your money back. You have to wait for 45 days. So, if you're moving to another DC because your friend group is migrating, you're trapped on the old one just to get your money back from the system. It used to be that if you were moving, you could easily put up a PF or poke a friend, recoup your money from selling the house at placard price (which is still the case with relos on most servers) and then quit the game, move to a new server, whatever.

This isn't to say that there aren't people who snipe housing for resale purposes, but the people who do so are selling FCs with a house for profit, not relos.

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tbh, I see the entire thing as "this is why we can't have anything nice". I'm not disagreeing that there are legitimate reasons someone would want to sell a house (and the real estate market exists IRL for many of those reasons). However; when it's so lucrative to flip houses to the point that the house flippers can inflate the price to more than double of the sticker price (which it before the random timer was introduced IIRC), the system is broken and house flipping needs to be discouraged.

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Originally Posted by Besame

Lordy I wish they would just instance housing. The idea that a 3rd party mod like DC is used to help some get houses is absurd. What a sad sad piece of work SE housing is lol.

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Same and if you want a community your company members can be your neighbors.

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Originally Posted by Verendal

13 hours. The person who won was using an autoclicker. VERY obvious because the character kept targeting things in an easily discernable pattern. You could tell where the mouse was clicking by standing in certain spots, could even work out where their camera was based on it. So far? NOTHING has been done by a GM.

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@Verendal, I feel you on this. I think the best way to keep the bots out is to up the difficulty on the activity. If it's easy enough for a bot to do it, then it's too easy. Right now people aren't training their own ML models to completely mimic their behavior (yet). Botters copy-pasta and perform basic edits on some script they find online and press execute.

Some people in this thread mentioned captchas, and while this is a little more prescriptive than I can contemplate at the moment, I at least agree in principle.

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Originally Posted by sharlim

@Verendal, I feel you on this. I think the best way to keep the bots out is to up the difficulty on the activity. If it's easy enough for a bot to do it, then it's too easy. Right now people aren't training their own ML models to completely mimic their behavior (yet). Botters copy-pasta and perform basic edits on some script they find online and press execute.

Some people in this thread mentioned captchas, and while this is a little more prescriptive than I can contemplate at the moment, I at least agree in principle.

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The problem with throwing more hurdles in front of people is your going to always have someone that figures out how to shortcut it, while the hurdles only frustrate the legitimate users.

Something that may work is once the house goes on sale it does a check at the top of every hour (or however long the window is) where it sees if someone bought a raffle ticket, then holds a raffle for all entries. If no one bought a ticket, the house stays open.

That way you create a limited time window so someone that wants the house is going to be checking it... but once the window opens they just need to pay full price for their house ticket, and hope they get it. By making it a limited time system (where you only have an hour to buy the ticket) it will help cut down on some of shenanigans with the housing mafia... but also stop with the insanity of people needing to be the first clicker for the house. A shorter time window would probably be better as that will help cut down on people bringing in the alt accounts for it.

Either way... the current system, while better overall than the older system, is still not a very good system and needs more adjustments.

What people don't understand here is that having an auto clicker doesn't guarantee a win. At all.

It's still random.

You can still win, if you click at that random second. I've seen over 20 people surrounding a house once. So much so that people culled out from the screen. Were all those people botting? No. Was the winner a botter? Maybe. But those other 20 people still lost.

You can't use your computer while it's running either. So the only difference is the physical effort.

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Originally Posted by Gula

What people don't understand here is that having an auto clicker doesn't guarantee a win. At all.

It's still random.

You can still win, if you click at that random second. I've seen over 20 people surrounding a house once. So much so that people culled out from the screen. Were all those people botting? No. Was the winner a botter? Maybe. But those other 20 people still lost.

You can't use your computer while it's running either. So the only difference is the physical effort.

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I think people understand it isn't an auto-win.

What they do understand is that it's cheating. It's using automation to do something instead of personally putting in the effort to get what you want. The person using the auto-clicker is free to sleep, do chores, run errands, visit friends, etc. all while the auto-clicker is maintaining their chance to get the house. The auto-clicker has nothing to distract it from the task it's been set to do. The player not using one could have their attention taken away by a knock at their door or a phone call. While their attempts to click get interrupted, the auto-clicked is not.

Please stop acting like it's no big deal for someone to use an auto-clicker. Cheating is always wrong. If you can't be bothered to play by the rules to earn the rewards you want, you should not get those rewards. Better yet, don't bother playing the game. Go play a single player game where your need to cheat doesn't impact anyone else.

Some would say using an auto clicker is working smarter not harder. Not saying I approve of the use but it does make sense to use one if one has access to one. The risk reward favors the reward over the risk. Though chance remains.

Thing is people is earning fat money selling 1 person FC's as well as possible earning real life coin on it via selling gold for RMT to RMT places... that is why 3rd party software should not be a thing for this and also why the best way would be to allow x amount of clicks per day or per 8 hours or something, to flush out corruption.... it will be more difficult especially for 3rd party clickers to get a hold, and a more fair game among players.

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Originally Posted by Awha

Some would say using an auto clicker is working smarter not harder.

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Been thinking that piece of wisdom myself lately.

I made new alt on new DC recently to immerse myself into current early game experience. Started in 3.0 so it's been while since I was "noob" without my main DC's FC and friends to turn to for gil and carries.

Two days ago I got enough gil to try for plot and yesterday I got one.

On day before yesterday I clicked 6 hours and found in utterly boring and obviously frustrating, but mostly just boring; I haven't really experiences that before since my main DC's fc houses and priva houses have been bought before the timer time.

No matter how stupid it sounds I wanted to make my "early game/new player" experience project as all encompassing as possible, if that makes sense. Figured that this, trying to get house would be the most unpleasant part, but for me it was not too much so.

That 6 hours of boredom gave me an epiphany and an idea; 1) that clickig madness was not for me and 2) to check free plots before I would go to sleep (there was 4 plots on the server), and check which of those were still free in morning (2 were), and since it was weekend I decided to click only until midday so I would not waste my time quite as horribly as I did the day before.

Ngl, I kept thinking if I should try if my gaming keyboard's macro keys could be set up so that I could hit only one key instead of five on my controller, but before I could even entertain my "do crime" flavoured idea enough to do anything about it I got lucky.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...046/land_2.jpg

The guy clicking with me the same plot kept blindly clicking the placard after losing (and kept blindly trying to interact with my retainer when I put one on my new yard). I reported him but I'm not really expecting anything to come out of it.

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Originally Posted by Burmecia

snip

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Congrats on the new house~

Program like Warden would fix autoclickers.

Course, they won't do it. It'd also fix some bots.

Scans RAM for known about software, and now, multibox software such as keystroke repeaters.

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Originally Posted by Imora

Program like Warden would fix autoclickers.
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Its just a tool that records your mouse movements and replays it in a loop, while your game is in window mode.

Honestly i don't even blame anyone for using an autoclicker, because i find it terribly unfun to stand there for how many hours until it becomes available, although, not a very polite.

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Originally Posted by Imora

Program like Warden would fix autoclickers.

Course, they won't do it. It'd also fix some bots.

Scans RAM for known about software, and now, multibox software such as keystroke repeaters.

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No thanks. I recently got a work-at-home gig in which using an autoclicker is mandatory. I don’t want to sacrifice that just because it’s on a known list of autoclicker/keystroke repeaters.

Also, they’d probably use something like xigncode3 (industry standard with Asian companies, PSO2 uses it I think, as well as BDO, BnS, TERA, AION, etc) which is essentially malware and/or leaves a backdoor for malware because of how they work. Because it constantly scans your computer, it slows it down considerably - unless youre on a highend device youre GOING to notice a severe drop in speed. You cant just uninstall the game to uninstall xigncode3, either, you have to go out of your way to search for it and forcibly remove it (and not just in the uninstall settings).

And even if they didnt, their stance is pretty clear.

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

No thanks. I recently got a work-at-home gig in which using an autoclicker is mandatory. I don’t want to sacrifice that just because it’s on a known list of autoclicker/keystroke repeaters.

Also, they’d probably use something like xigncode3 (industry standard with Asian companies, PSO2 uses it I think, as well as BDO, BnS, TERA, AION, etc) which is essentially malware and/or leaves a backdoor for malware because of how they work. Because it constantly scans your computer, it slows it down considerably - unless youre on a highend device youre GOING to notice a severe drop in speed. You cant just uninstall the game to uninstall xigncode3, either, you have to go out of your way to search for it and forcibly remove it (and not just in the uninstall settings).

And even if they didnt, their stance is pretty clear.

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Blizzard's program is proprietary, and isn't hard to replicate.

And if you're working, the game shouldn't be running.

But yeah they've got a stance that encourages bots.

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Originally Posted by Imora

Blizzard's program is proprietary, and isn't hard to replicate.

And if you're working, the game shouldn't be running.

But yeah they've got a stance that encourages bots.

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If Im off for lunch the game WILL be running simultaneously with the program, as I can stop the program itself while still remaining logged on to the workplace but “on lunch”, and pulling the program back up after fully exiting out is tedious at best (purposefully so.).

Also, I personally find having anticheat software is the lazy way out. What SE should be doing is employing more people to manually fight bots - anticheat software is NEVER 100% accurate, and sure, neither are humans, but rather than rely on anticheat software to do their work, they should be investigating the hundreds of reports being sent in.

They just need to remove the click based interface entirely. Instead of devoting effort to catching people who do it, spend that effort on coming up with a better system that benefits everyone in the long run.

The whole "just keep clicking until you get it" is a lazy way of doing this. It always has been.

What should have been done at the very start when house flipping became an issue, was to start slapping out bans on everyone doing it. That's the only thing people understand. They are always going to abuse the system unless harsh penalties are slapped down on them.

As far as getting a house, you can employ some tactics to help you out.

Look at the price of the house/plot. Compare it to the tables on this page: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Housing
The devaluation timer doesn't start until 1pm EST after the house goes up for sale. So if it is full price as listed on the website linked, and it's after 1pm EST, then the house has only recently come up for sale. DON'T camp it.

If it is 1PM EST or just after, and the house is slightly cheaper than the prices listed on that table, then you know it's had it's first devaluation. This doesn't tell you how long it's been up for sale. However it does tell you that it could have been up for a while.

Every hour, check the Aetheryte's at the hub areas. Limsa, Gridania, Ul'Dah, and Kugane. Go through and note down all the plots for sale currently. Use the pricing to get an idea of how long it might have been up.

Ideally, you don't want to arrive or start clicking until about 7-8 hours. I know people say the timer can be as low as 30 minutes. That's bullcrap. More common by far to have 6-8 hours or longer.

When I was farming plots to grab one, nearly every house went for a 12 hour timer or longer. I spent 6 hours on a plot in Goblet one night, before a guy ran up and relocated into it. His plot freed up and it was 2am EST.

So I went to bed, next morning I was up and around 10:30am I went to his plot and started clicking. So the timer had been up for over 8 hours, and I ended up winning his plot after about an hour of clicking.

Playing the timers is a huge part of this. If you know a house just became available, don't waste your time clicking there. Note down when, come back later.

From reports, don't expect any better when Ishgard housing is a thing. There are quotes about them making it "easier" to move houses.

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There are also apparently plans to make moving to new plots more painless.

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Because we all know just what a hassle it is to run up and instantly get a plot through relocation. I am not going to at all be surprised if they don't add an interface to the Aetheryte so you don't even have to run to the plot anymore to relocate to it. You just do it from the Aetheryte or the NPCs that let you switch Wards.

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Originally Posted by Valfreyja

They just need to remove the click based interface entirely. Instead of devoting effort to catching people who do it, spend that effort on coming up with a better system that benefits everyone in the long run.

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+1. In my earlier post I said “increase the difficulty” but this sentence better captures what I was attempting to say.

I vote to completely replace the banner clicking system. Maybe with one of the alternative housing ideas suggested on this forum. ;)

make only a few clicks on a placecard per hour, per plot.. or per day...

That would flush out alot of corruption from the game, and reduce the spam/flood of the server(s) as well, also you would not be stuck for 13 hours clicking or using against the ToS autoclicking 3rd party software

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Originally Posted by Verendal

13 hours. The person who won was using an autoclicker. VERY obvious because the character kept targeting things in an easily discernable pattern. You could tell where the mouse was clicking by standing in certain spots, could even work out where their camera was based on it. So far? NOTHING has been done by a GM.

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you are mistaken. a reasonably built macro would be indistinguishable from a player who is truly dedicated and does nothing else for 13 hours.

How do people on Playstation buy houses without a autoclicker?

I wonder.

https://i.imgur.com/1OoDmvw.png