The lotto winner.... number ZERO? Are you serious???

keep buying things in the mogstation maybe that will fix it

Guys, be gentle, they're a small indie company.

... in all seriousness though, while I'm glad I did win a private house today, I'm absolutely livid with the way Square Enix really screwed this up. They've really been knocking it out of the park with the constant let downs.

Most reasonable answer, IMO, is to reroll all zero-result houses (after fixing the bug in the first place, of course). It still displays the number of bids on a house, so likely it still knows who those bids were. If no refund was issued already, no problem.
If a refund was already issued, then treat that person as the only person able to buy the house (be it for an FC or personal, as appropriate based on the district), and ask for the money again as the system used to do when buying a house.

This presumes all those things can be done correctly when the lottery seemed to be including the zero in the array in the first place, but that would be the optimal solution, IMO.

Well that's a big oof. Such a novice mistake and a big fat black mark on their testing team. My sympathy to the bidders. I sat this one out because I have zero interest in Ishgard housing.

My expectation is that people are going to be told to re-enter next cycle. A rollback would probably require rolling back the entire server (everybody's progress). I consider that highly unlikely as the backlash from that would be epic. They might be able to resolve the case where there were single bids or every bid from the same FC but now we're wandering into pointy-hats-and-cauldrons level of DB wizardry and frankly my opinion of their data engineering team is uncomplimentary.

In other words they've earned the "Small Indie Company" meme several times over. Expect nothing but a heartfelt apology.

I wish they just rerun unclaimed plots and let the winners keep their plots. Thats the most peaceful solution right now.

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Originally Posted by Ignessia

I wish they just rerun unclaimed plots and let the winners keep their plots. Thats the most peaceful solution right now.

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The problem is all unclaimed plots will have a much bigger competition now, because those who have lost will roll on remaining plots. And it will be unfair for all first-wave bidders who lost to a bug.

Shameful thats all I can say. :(

What a messed up process.

https://i.imgur.com/TaaK9BD.png

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

The problem is all unclaimed plots will have a much bigger competition now, because those who have lost will roll on remaining plots. And it will be unfair for all first-wave bidders who lost to a bug.

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Not if they only reroll with the bids it had.

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Originally Posted by SnowVix

the money is only lost after 3 months, this is bad advice

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Yeah I went back to read the patch notes- it totally is terrible advice on my part lol

That isn't fair that others win because of a bug, leaving us to compete for less plots. NO ONE should have an advantage because of a programming error.

They should NOT take away plots from the winners, however they should see who rolled on those plots and even if they need to fix it manually : do it one by one. Not sure how many GMS they have but I am sure they would not take more than a few min work per plot. Even if this takes time, if they say it is taken from current bids, that is the most fair solution.

If they need to get more people helping : We pay for customer service and if the product is not functioning, it is a customer service issue. I know people that paid subs to came back and bid as well to ensure they were in the first round.

I do appreciate what they do for us, but it seems they left in the no-bid value, and it muddled the rolls. For people that planned around others and spent time to ensure they could be there for plots etc, For people that came on excited waiting for the results.

Anything else would be unfair and cruel because they have not increased plot availability in a very long time.

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Originally Posted by Bubble_Butt

That isn't fair that others win because of a bug, leaving us to compete for less plots. NO ONE should have an advantage because of a programming error.

They should NOT take away plots from the winners, however they should see who rolled on those plots and even if they need to fix it manually : do it one by one. Not sure how many GMS they have but I am sure they would not take more than a few min work per plot. Even if this takes time, if they say it is taken from current bids, that is the most fair solution.

If they need to get more people helping : We pay for customer service and if the product is not functioning, it is a customer service issue. I know people that paid subs to came back and bid as well to ensure they were in the first round.

I do appreciate what they do for us, but it seems they left in the no-bid value, and it muddled the rolls. For people that planned around others and spent time to ensure they could be there for plots etc, For people that came on excited waiting for the results.

Anything else would be unfair and cruel because they have not increased plot amounts in a very long time.

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Personally I think they should take the plots from winners, as it is just as unfair to win off a bug as to lose off a bug. But it really depends on the cause of the error over all. In the end though, taking plots from winners causes a bigger mess than what is happening currently which would be the real issue. And it is easy to never tell the player base the exact cause and leave it open ended as to how fair it was or was not. Most players don't actually think of this issue it comes out of don't take it away from the winners cause that was me point of view.

I have not read all the thread now, but as far as I can see, my BF and I think that if you are the only person or the only FC on a plot, the damn 0 will win….
That’s quite unforgivable !
(I cannot testimony by myself because I was alone on my plot but lost it to someone coming a few hours before the end, so we were finally two.)

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Personally I think they should take the plots from winners, as it is just as unfair to win off a bug as to lose off a bug. But it really depends on the cause of the error over all. In the end though, taking plots from winners causes a bigger mess than what is happening currently which would be the real issue. And it is easy to never tell the player base the exact cause and leave it open ended as to how fair it was or was not. Most players don't actually think of this issue it comes out of don't take it away from the winners cause that was me point of view.

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Idk, the houses are virtual so the best solution is to see how many people participated in housing and add extra wards to all housing districts, thus finally making everyone happy.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Personally I think they should take the plots from winners, as it is just as unfair to win off a bug as to lose off a bug. But it really depends on the cause of the error over all. In the end though, taking plots from winners causes a bigger mess than what is happening currently which would be the real issue. And it is easy to never tell the player base the exact cause and leave it open ended as to how fair it was or was not. Most players don't actually think of this issue it comes out of don't take it away from the winners cause that was me point of view.

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The last thing they're going to do is start treading on peoples' toes, especially those who weren't even subjected to this abysmal implementation in the first place - I think that's just a PR nightmare waiting to happen, and one in equal measure to this one. My estimation is they'll either do a reroll of all these plots on the next iteration, which I will argue they will momentarily suspend the lottery to prevent a repeat of this issue. I would like to say they'll just rerun the winning numbers for this iteration, but I don't see them doing an emergency patch before the expiry - Not to mention those who already pulled out.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

The problem is all unclaimed plots will have a much bigger competition now, because those who have lost will roll on remaining plots. And it will be unfair for all first-wave bidders who lost to a bug.

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Change all the 0 zero entries to a 1 to make it a first come win situation to clean up all the zeros and go from there. Contact all the people who bid first and tell them they won and go back and claim their lots providing they didn't spend there initial investment

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Personally I think they should take the plots from winners, as it is just as unfair to win off a bug as to lose off a bug.

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Taking plots away from the winners now would cause double the uproar currently happening. They wouldn't do it, and good, because it would be a stupid idea seeing as people have already relo'd and not every plot was broken. Just because it feels unfair to the losers doesn't mean the lottery system didn't halfly work.

As bubble_butt stated this should be done one by one case by case, but they won't do that. Instead maybe they could reroll every "0" plot.

All in all this shitty system is somehow on par with the "let's spam the placard for 18 hours" system gg se

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

The problem is all unclaimed plots will have a much bigger competition now, because those who have lost will roll on remaining plots. And it will be unfair for all first-wave bidders who lost to a bug.

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Not if they only reroll with the bids it had. [2]

I was the first in on my plot and it stated lotto number 8 had won. but i am seeing the lotto number 0 on other plots who one. if that number is not actually a person. it means the entire lotto was horrible skewed crossed the board. for a person that had a 10% chance to drop only and 9% chance is bad enough. but haveing a 9% chance to have NO one win...... if that is the case i have Serious concerns of the fairness of this lottery as it is.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Personally I think they should take the plots from winners, as it is just as unfair to win off a bug as to lose off a bug. But it really depends on the cause of the error over all. In the end though, taking plots from winners causes a bigger mess than what is happening currently which would be the real issue. And it is easy to never tell the player base the exact cause and leave it open ended as to how fair it was or was not. Most players don't actually think of this issue it comes out of don't take it away from the winners cause that was me point of view.

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Take away the houses from the people who have won them, bought the deed and started to buy furniture already and see what happens. I guarantee you, nothing good will happen.

In fact, if all the 0 become 1, all the 2 would become 3 and so on. So in fact it may be fair to take away the homes from the some winners, since they would not win without the bug.

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Originally Posted by sagacious

Change all the 0 zero entries to a 1 to make it a first come win situation to clean up all the zeros and go from there.

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Nope. Reroll the 0-plot's without the 0. That way it's an actual lottery again with fair shots, and not FCFS, because then that's not a lottery.

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Originally Posted by kyzy

Taking plots away from the winners now would cause double the uproar currently happening. They wouldn't do it, and good, because it would be a stupid idea seeing as people have already relo'd and not every plot was broken. Just because it feels unfair to the losers doesn't mean the lottery system didn't halfly work.

As bubble_butt stated this should be done one by one case by case, but they won't do that. Instead maybe they could reroll every "0" plot.

All in all this shitty system is somehow on par with the "let's spam the placard for 18 hours" system gg se

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This is why the roll-back component in necessary. It's really the only "fair" way to do it. The longer they wait the more angry people are going to be, too. But a rollback to before the lottery finished and fixing the bug is the only fair, logical way forward and failing to do it is going to cause a major rift within the playerbase. The fact that this went live at all is insane. But I am already struggling to keep my FC together, most of us were really waiting to see if we got the house and could do gardening and workshop stuff. If this stands and we can't yeah, I think I lost everyone I care about in this game, a second time.

I hope they reroll today and I can get a medium house for my FC. We got a member that didnt even finish Endwalker because she was too busy doing house decorations and taking gpose pictures. I wish to give her something to do lmao.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Personally I think they should take the plots from winners, as it is just as unfair to win off a bug as to lose off a bug. But it really depends on the cause of the error over all. In the end though, taking plots from winners causes a bigger mess than what is happening currently which would be the real issue. And it is easy to never tell the player base the exact cause and leave it open ended as to how fair it was or was not. Most players don't actually think of this issue it comes out of don't take it away from the winners cause that was me point of view.

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That is a fair point... it does depend on the cause of the bug. But if people bought items etc winning, is that fair either? Would they lose them? And how to best respect their time.

I suppose my POV is skewed as my server is fairly quiet and there were still many no-bid plots left : If the RNG was faulted and it is a full server, I could see that being unfair.

Maybe : Retain plots won, give us another ward or two to cover the number of houses lost : We are overdue for at LEAST one more ward by YEARS - why not do it now? Let us gain a positive out of this mess :) Would keep people happy, let others have more housing, let people that already had the bid an honest roll of the bid already entered, let people that already won keep their homes - and we will unlikely ever know if it was 100% fair or not. But if others do not lose from it, I do not see harm in retaining it :

From what I saw, on average one (two at most) plots per ward won :/ the winnings were SUPER low and an extra ward would MORE than cover the amount of winners for us.

But how is it for others out there? Did other servers win a heap? Is it something impossible to cover? I'd rather no one lost their home and had that joy stripped away. I can only speak from what I am seeing on our server.

P.s. I got error Zero too : And all my friends did. I just can't stand the idea that the excitement I had be shattered like it was for me....and the disappointment after doesn't get repeated for others. Here for a good time, not to have others hurt to fix an issue.

P.s.s. Let's all remember that the big part of why this is such a mess is the lack of housing in the first place

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...8c13200da81594

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Originally Posted by Cailae

This is why the roll-back component in necessary. It's really the only "fair" way to do it. The longer they wait the more angry people are going to be, too. But a rollback to before the lottery finished and fixing the bug is the only fair, logical way forward and failing to do it is going to cause a major rift within the playerbase. The fact that this went live at all is insane. But I am already struggling to keep my FC together, most of us were really waiting to see if we got the house and could do gardening and workshop stuff. If this stands and we can't yeah, I think I lost everyone I care about in this game, a second time.

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Not to double post (forum is so fast atm may not)

BUT someone wrote in another thread : All it needed theoretically was a line of code forcing a reroll if it came up with a zero value. I'm a nurse not a programmer but this doesn't sound like an impossible thing to program?

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Originally Posted by HeyMcFly

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...8c13200da81594

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- "The winning number is...0. May you have better luck next time." is displayed as if there are no winners
They say that as if someone won... which isn't true. Had 5 FC members as the only ones to bid, and we all lost to zero.

I think maybe Yoshida doesn’t want us to have a 100% chance of winning, so we absolutely need to have concurrents on the plot to count it as a true lottery.
So at least 2 people for individual houses and 2 FC for FC houses.
So you cannot start at 100%, 50% at best. That’s a terrible management and they could have told us that.
I’m really pissed of.

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Originally Posted by Bubble_Butt

Not to double post (forum is so fast atm may not)

BUT someone wrote in another thread : All it needed theoretically was a line of code forcing a reroll if it came up with a zero value. I'm a nurse not a programmer but this doesn't sound like an impossible thing to program?

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Actually true though. There are multiple ways this could have been avoided. Rerolling if 0. Making sure the number generator had a lower bound of 1. Subtracting 1 from the total "tickets" (knowing there was a Ticket 0) then adding +1. Each of these is just one line of code or a simple addition to a line of code, iirc. It's a rookie mistake.

A lot of houses on Balmung are taken by now. Not all, but a lot

For the FC wards.... That's another story alltogether. Ghosttowns, more not taken than taken.

Lol

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Originally Posted by ValkyriaCrystalis

I think maybe Yoshida doesn’t want us to have a 100% chance of winning, so we absolutely need to have concurrents on the plot to count it as a true lottery.
So at least 2 people for individual houses and 2 FC for FC houses.
So you cannot start at 100%, 50% at best. That’s a terrible management and they could have told us that.
I’m really pissed of.

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This would be ok if there was a shorter time window for lottery stuff. The lottery circle taking more than a week in total would mean empty houses for many weeks.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

Because if I had lost mine to other people, I'd be fine with it. C'est la vie, しょうがない, that's how RNG works.

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Exactly! If there had been multiple people bidding on my plot and I lost to one of them, "meh, that's life". However, since I lost due only to an error in SE's coding, I'm not at all happy about things. They need to make things right, in a way that all people who legitimately entered into the lottery receive the proper results of said lottery and not just "Sorry, enter next time kkthxbai!".

Its already being admitted its a bug.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ValkyriaCrystalis

I think maybe Yoshida doesn’t want us to have a 100% chance of winning, so we absolutely need to have concurrents on the plot to count it as a true lottery.
So at least 2 people for individual houses and 2 FC for FC houses.
So you cannot start at 100%, 50% at best. That’s a terrible management and they could have told us that.
I’m really pissed of.

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How to tell everyone you don't read dev communication without actually saying it.

Honestly the ONLY way they can sort this and people be happy is to freeze the lottery system and reroll EVERY plot lottery that returned winner 0
then and ONLY then after that has been done continue with the lottery system
Not reopening the plots for a new lottery, not better luck next time, find every lottery that ended 0 and reroll it

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Originally Posted by Bubble_Butt

That is a fair point... it does depend on the cause of the bug. But if people bought items etc winning, is that fair either? Would they lose them? And how to best respect their time.

I suppose my POV is skewed as my server is fairly quiet and there were still many no-bid plots left : If the RNG was faulted and it is a full server, I could see that being unfair.

Maybe : Retain plots won, give us another ward or two to cover the number of houses lost : We are overdue for at LEAST one more ward by YEARS - why not do it now? Let us gain a positive out of this mess :) Would keep people happy, let others have more housing, let people that already had the bid an honest roll of the bid already entered, let people that already won keep their homes - and we will unlikely ever know if it was 100% fair or not. But if others do not lose from it, I do not see harm in retaining it :

From what I saw, on average one (two at most) plots per ward won :/ the winnings were SUPER low and an extra ward would MORE than cover the amount of winners for us.

But how is it for others out there? Did other servers win a heap? Is it something impossible to cover? I'd rather no one lost their home and had that joy stripped away. I can only speak from what I am seeing on our server.

P.s. I got error Zero too : And all my friends did. I just can't stand the idea that the excitement I had be shattered like it was for me....and the disappointment after doesn't get repeated for others. Here for a good time, not to have others hurt to fix an issue.

P.s.s. Let's all remember that the big part of why this is such a mess is the lack of housing in the first place

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Like I said it's easier to only address the 0s and not address how fair or unfair the lotto was for those that won. In the end unless they rolled back everything before the lotto finished, it would be a huge nightmare to address relocations and all of that. Bad time for them to screw up, people are still mad about the job changes in 6.1 and now this happens.

I lost my lotto apparently, number 5 won it. Who ever you are.... I don't like you cause I was 1 of 1 last night til all yall found my plot. Oh well I guess I am stuck in the goblet again. I hate it here.

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Originally Posted by SnowVix

How to tell everyone you don't read dev communication without actually saying it.

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It’s a theory, but honestly, I don’t think they can make a big coding mistake like this one ?
I’m on this game since 6 years and I truly want to believe this is a mistake but they are more capable than this, don’t you think ?
I’m lucky to have a small house but this is really crushing for a lot of people. Square knows the community cares about houses so why didn’t they checked their code better before release ?

Sorry if I sounded rude or something, English is not my primary language but if it is a bug, it is quite a BIG one. :(

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Originally Posted by ValkyriaCrystalis

It’s a theory, but honestly, I don’t think they can make a big coding mistake like this one ?
I’m on this game since 6 years and I truly want to believe this is a mistake but they are more capable than this, don’t you think ?
I’m lucky to have a small house but this is really crushing for a lot of people. Square knows the community cares about houses so why didn’t they checked their code better before release ?

Sorry if I sounded rude or something, English is not my primary language but if it is a bug, it is quite a BIG one. :(

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https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...9ca96a154cef76

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Originally Posted by Bubble_Butt

P.s.s. Let's all remember that the big part of why this is such a mess is the lack of housing in the first place

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THIS so much this