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

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Originally Posted by PharisHanasaki

I think you probably spend more time in the forums than actually playing if you think like this. Fine. Go fight for your plot, as I said.

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playing since 1.0 in 2011 with less than 150 posts.... youre right, I spend all my time here.

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Originally Posted by Norwynn

You know there's this thing called alts, right? It's literally pay to win.

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If i'm not mistaken, alts have enough restriction not to be an hindrance to other players : basically you can only have 1 personal plot per account.
Furthermore, regarding the lottery, there can only be 1 bid per account, either for a FC plot, or a personal one.

Unless I read things wrong

I think you some of you are getting way too technical and some of the posts are convoluted when they need not be. A lot of people make great points, but regardless of what they did, the RNG code is created by a person, and they inputted 0 as one of the possible choices for output. I have coded in Python and Mathematica before, and if you import random, and then you list the parameters, e.g. list=1,2,3,4,5... It is pretty easy to see, that when they listed their parameters for the housing lottery system, they included 0 (zero) in the list of possible choices that could be rolled. If they did in fact did put zero into their list, as in: listhousing or list1 (whatever you want to call it) = 0,1,2,3,4,5..., when as stated earlier, it should have been list1=1,2,3,4,5...

If what I stated is correct, then in all fairness, they should roll back EVERYONE's bids, because if 0 (zero) was counted as a possible RNG choice, then EVERY roll is invalidated and needs to be done again. I know it sucks for some people, but in all fairness, if zero (0) was included, then redoing it is the most fair solution.

quick reminder that square enix currently has a networth of $5.9 BILLION dollars.

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Originally Posted by nekobie

quick reminder that square enix currently has a networth of $5.9 BILLION dollars.

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So Elon can buy us with twitter :o?!

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Originally Posted by S0lara

I think you some of you are getting way too technical and some of the posts are convoluted when they need not be. A lot of people make great points, but regardless of what they did, the RNG code is created by a person, and they inputted 0 as one of the possible choices for output. I have coded in Python and Mathematica before, and if you import random, and then you list the parameters, e.g. list=1,2,3,4,5... It is pretty easy to see, that when they listed their parameters for the housing lottery system, they included 0 (zero) in the list of possible choices that could be rolled. If they did in fact did put zero into their list, as in: listhousing or list1 (whatever you want to call it) = 0,1,2,3,4,5..., when as stated earlier, it should have been list1=1,2,3,4,5...

If what I stated is correct, then in all fairness, they should roll back EVERYONE's bids, because if 0 (zero) was counted as a possible RNG choice, then EVERY roll is invalidated and needs to be done again. I know it sucks for some people, but in all fairness, if zero (0) was included, then redoing it is the most fair solution.

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I only see one thing bugging me in your example here : hidden rule.
When you play a game where rules are given, you can expect some outcomes to happen. but if some unexpected outcomes happen, then we have a problem : either the rules were not clear enough (there were room for interpretation), or there were hidden rules.

As far as I remember, they didn't say anywhere that "there's a chance that there will be no winning ticket".

I hope we'll have some explanation of sorts, I must say that seeing the number of 0 occurences, it doesn't feel like a "0 was added to a list of possible tickets". The odds of it happening are slim, unless the RNG drawing is "mutualized".

I had in mind the fact that the emergency maintenance done on Thursday may have "broken" already done biding, but some testimonies are just ruling out this aspect apparently

SE needs to fix this honestly. My lotto loss was fair, but it's really messed up for players who had 0 in their lotto ticket. Jesus.

What this Mia wishes to understand is, how does multi billion dollar corporation spend ages creating system then not even bother testing it once.

How did you not Q&A solo bids? How did you not identify coding error this amateurish?

Fire the interns and higher someone capable of writing actual code for the love of the twelve what the actual heck. All of my friends lost their houses to no one. They were the exclusive bidder. They have been waiting several months or longer attempting to own a house for their fcs you dinguses.

Do not give us a "well when little Timmy figures out how not to round down and include fricken zero as actual bidder you can just bet again! He he he he". You respond to these people who earned their house and you give them the fricken house. Actual full on trogs working at this company. No respect at'all, cannot code their way out of wet tissue paper prison. What a fricken joke.

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Originally Posted by Aeika

Having alts doesn't make it easy to make 19-49 million gil, unless youre literally paying.... and they ban RMT accounts near weekly

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Excuse me? alts make a huge difference if I have 5 retainers my alt has 5 retainers that is an extra 100 sell slots. If the alt is also I high level they can do roulettes and use the poetics to buy mats and pass those along to you via company chest. If my alt is a gatherer I can log into her/him and do the timing node twice per run.

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Originally Posted by Ardyvald

Furthermore, regarding the lottery, there can only be 1 bid per account, either for a FC plot, or a personal one.

Unless I read things wrong

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You are mistaken. Its 1 personal + 1 fc house (with you as leader) per server. So someone can win a personal (or fc house) on every server on your DC if they had gil and luck. You can only enter either or per server, but there is no restriction on how many servers you can enter on.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

How did you not Q&A solo bids? How did you not identify coding error this amateurish?

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What my guess would be, and it's just a guess, is that they likely tested the results for a very large number of entries. The odds of ending up with a 0 when there's only 2 entries is relatively high (that being even odds of getting a 0, 1 or 2). If, however, you test with 2000 entries the ends up ending up with a 0 result are tiny. You could run simulations a very large number of times and not end up with a 0 response. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have caught the issue beforehand but I can see a world in which the error was missed, especially if there were essentially rushing the system out the door.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

What my guess would be, and it's just a guess, is that they likely tested the results for a very large number of entries. The odds of ending up with a 0 when there's only 2 entries is relatively high (that being even odds of getting a 0, 1 or 2). If, however, you test with 2000 entries the ends up ending up with a 0 result are tiny. You could run simulations a very large number of times and not end up with a 0 response. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have caught the issue beforehand but I can see a world in which the error was missed, especially if there were essentially rushing the system out the door.

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It could be rushing. I could be something overlooked. It could be the system is more complex than we think and it was a corner case they didn't test. None of us can really say what they should or shouldn't have known because we aren't looking at and working with their code.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

What my guess would be, and it's just a guess, is that they likely tested the results for a very large number of entries. The odds of ending up with a 0 when there's only 2 entries is relatively high (that being even odds of getting a 0, 1 or 2). If, however, you test with 2000 entries the ends up ending up with a 0 result are tiny. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have caught the issue beforehand but I can see a world in which the error was missed, especially if there were essentially rushing the system out the door.

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The last part of the post seems to be precisely what hath occurred. How do you even miss the eventuality that there will be only one bidder on the house? That.. that is the easiest possible thing to test for and one of first things I personally would have tested against because of how fricken common it might be.

One quick glance at the code could have told you zero was possible outcome because why the heck would it not be?

Five minutes of reading your debug statements would have caused realizing to occur.

I do not believe they do any Q&A testing at'all over there. Twenty four hours of maintenance to release catastrophically broken system? Would fully expect to lose my job if I did this - be demoted - or spend substantial time being reamed by my boss and rightfully so. You are yelled at for more insignificant things in this industry. How half of these people managed to maintain a job and have not been blacklisted by nearly every tech company in field boggles the mind.

Main expac launch? Bork the login system to point sales must be suspended now this..

Am sick if paying these corporations to be their Q&A team. I assisted in solving their little audio bug and it took me ten minutes of thinking about it before had working solution. They claimed to be incapable of re-producing the issue yet after post is translated they somehow understand how to fix it.

How about they start paying me? Pretty sure the solution is not "complex because many variables" and is just "oopsie poopsie we forgot number start as zero". I firmly believe this because of the number of amateurish issues within their codebase. I could see them being this dumb.

Heck! Still waiting for NTT nodes on hop 3 - 4 to be fixed.

Wondering how the lead manager of mmo project doth not understand how latency works yet is even allowed to release statements like that.

I am wondering many things about this company and can state this. If my friends are told to re-enter the lottery they rightfully won they will no longer subscribe. Without them (my reason for even playing) I too shall unsub. Sure sure I am just one lala but there are limits for all. Keep screwing up and you will kill your game, simple. This is one big screw up of many recently.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

It could be rushing. I could be something overlooked. It could be the system is more complex than we think and it was a corner case they didn't test. None of us can really say what they should or shouldn't have known because we aren't looking at and working with their code.

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It is simple pseudo RNG function that selects number then writes number to database then compares against your entry number. Why would it be any more complex then this? How would it be more complex then this?

Have personally written thousands of similar functions they are not complicated. Probably lifted code from the system that selects Cactpot winners because why re invent the wheel.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Probably lifted code from the system that selects Cactpot winners because why re invent the wheel.

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But the Jumbo Cacpot is not a lottery. It draws a four-digit number, and people have to had bought a ticket with exactly those numbers to win.

It's like Powerball, numbers are drawn, if you bought a ticket with said numbers you win. This is why there can be zero, one, or multiple winners.

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Originally Posted by PharisHanasaki

But the Jumbo Cacpot is not a lottery. It draws a four-digit number, and people have to had bought a ticket with exactly those numbers to win.

It's like Powerball, numbers are drawn, if you bought a ticket with said numbers you win. This is why there can be zero, one, or multiple winners.

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There is still pseudo random function deciding those initial four numbers. RNG function for /roll (which could also return zero pffffff). RNG function for deciding drop chance. RNG function for calculating success rate for gathering. All likely lifted from same code because why would you not re use old code if it is functional. Key part being if functional.

It is precisely a lottery. Did you pick the correct numbers that the function selected? Then you win.

Were you entrant ten when the rng function selected ten? Then you get the house.

Function can include zero (many do) as valid outcome but if default entrant begins at one then zero should be ignored. It seems based on other poster that there is inherent flaw with their random number generator. I could have told everyone that because of how hard the fricken thing streaks.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

It is simple pseudo RNG function that selects number then writes number to database then compares against your entry number. Why would it be any more complex then this? How would it be more complex then this?

Have personally written thousands of similar functions they are not complicated. Probably lifted code from the system that selects Cactpot winners because why re invent the wheel.

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Have you seen their code? They did make this comment in the statement.

"We are working to identify the issue in the corresponding program; however, as the process is very complex and there are many patterns involved for the lottery conditions, it will require some time to pinpoint the problem."

I'm using that to say it may be more complex or implemented a different way than any of us with coding experience might predict and since we aren't the ones working with their code, maybe cut them a little slack.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Have you seen their code? They did make this comment in the statement.

"We are working to identify the issue in the corresponding program; however, as the process is very complex and there are many patterns involved for the lottery conditions, it will require some time to pinpoint the problem."

I'm using that to say it may be more complex or implemented a different way than any of us with coding experience might predict and since we aren't the ones working with their code, maybe cut them a little slack.

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Welp they said it and there is nooooo way they are lying because they would never do that. Right? Right??

I do not require seeing their code to postulate how it likely works because how it works is how it has always worked. Seriously doubt they are using radiometric decay (possible by the way) for their random number function. Probably simple weighted numbers function we have all seen and written ourselves. Again, why would it be more complex and how could it even be more complex?

I. Do. Not. Trust. Them. If they would stop writing sloppy as heck code perhaps I might. Worked with plenty of amateur coders. Have fired amateur coders before for doing less damage then this has done and this was on little side projects.

What patterns? You forgot to ignore zero, how is that complex? if == 0 too hard or something? Honestly. Will not convince me that they were not being big dumb here. They can use alllllll the buzzwords and pr they wish. Anyone else who works in software development knows how to recognize inefficient and sloppy code without having to actually see the code. It allows us to begin formulating debugging solution as early as possible. Can we still be wrong? Yup yup! But goal is to be as close to mark as possible with as little information as possible.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Have you seen their code? They did make this comment in the statement.

"We are working to identify the issue in the corresponding program; however, as the process is very complex and there are many patterns involved for the lottery conditions, it will require some time to pinpoint the problem."

I'm using that to say it may be more complex or implemented a different way than any of us with coding experience might predict and since we aren't the ones working with their code, maybe cut them a little slack.

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They're not getting any slack from me. This was one of the first things they announced for ew. It was one of the things I was looking forward to the most, to finally getting my fc a med. End result? I lose to 0. If it was a person, I can say, “fuck”, but move on. Losing because one of the most famous video game companies in Japan, nay the world, don't know how to test for bugs is not a good feeling. They announced ishgard housing like a year ago now, you're telling me they couldn't work out the kinks in that time? Shoddy workmanship. I pay for product, I like product to work. I'm a traditionalist in that sense.

If in the followup statement when they fix it (if they can fix it) and they use the same excuse of blaming 1.0 spaghetti code, me and many players are gonna lose it. To a layman like me, if you can't manage a simple lottery system, you are incompetent. This isn't rocket science. Lotteries have been held since time immemorial. Gachas are literally just lotteries, square enix has lot of gachas, lotteries isnt new to them or this field. This kind of a mess up is embarrassing.

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Originally Posted by Manofpassion

Gachas are literally just lotteries, square enix has lot of gachas, lotteries isnt new to them or this field. This kind of a mess up is embarrassing.

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You must cut the billion dollar corporation some slack though.. How dare we hold them accountable for the thing we are paying for? That is just sillyness!

420 million (nice)? Smol indie dev have hard time working on simple pseudo random function you are big meanie pants!

Wonder if there would be anyone saying to cut EA some slack if the publishers were different?

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Anyone else who works in software development knows how to recognize inefficient and sloppy code without having to actually see the code. It allows us to begin formulating debugging solution as early as possible.

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I do work in software development and that's why I'm saying we don't know what they did if we don't see their code. I get plenty of users at work who have some manner of coding experience and try to wax poetic on "Well all you have to do is blah" and when I say "no" it's "well why not" and the answer is "because it doesn't work that way".

If all the code was always written exactly the same way everywhere, we could just have computers write it for us and we'd be out of jobs. You need a human programmer because there's variation in code, in how databases are set up, in how everything communicates, etc.

I think the only fair solution now should actually be technically easy:

1- Search the database for lots that had 1 or more real entrants, but were won by empty entrant #0
2- Re-roll and assign the winner from the saved closing-time list of entrants for each of those lots only, but correctly exclude entrant #0 this time (and from now on)

Simple. Unless records aren't being kept correctly, in which case the devs should go through and do this by hand in response to reports. But that shouldn't be necessary.

Plots that had a proper winner are fine. The human entrants competed with entrant #0, but evenly, so those were fair and don't need to be changed.

Only fixing the lotto system, giving a gil refund to those who lost to entrant #0, and saying "better luck next time" would not be good enough. It's not fair to make those who should have won compete in the next lotto cycle with other people. So I think this solution is the best. Quick, easy, and fair. I hope the devs take this path.

Edit: rightful winners who already claimed the refund is a complication, but one I think they owe it to us to sort out.

went to the placard and got a refund . lost to 0 . i was the only one that placed a bid on the placard for my FC house. i hope a GM take's this gil back and give me my house I have waited for all week.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I do work in software development and that's why I'm saying we don't know what they did if we don't see their code. I get plenty of users at work who have some manner of coding experience and try to wax poetic on "Well all you have to do is blah" and when I say "no" it's "well why not" and the answer is "because it doesn't work that way".

If all the code was always written exactly the same way everywhere, we could just have computers write it for us and we'd be out of jobs. You need a human programmer because there's variation in code, in how databases are set up, in how everything communicates, etc.

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It is a pseudo random number generator.. a fricken computer probably could easily write one. We are not talking about restructuring entire databases here or deving the texture stitching functions of entire rendering engine.

I do not need see the code for parsing text in some SQL backend because it is so fricken similarly written to understand where it broke.

Much like I did not need to see the code of their audio engine to understand that having over 128 audio channels capable of spatial audio is big dumb.

If this were something else I may agree with you, believe me. Have gotten many many questions that come from place of ignorance. No I cannot just move the item tables to other database no matter how frequently you ask; Actual answer I had given for WoW emulator in response to item lookup generating too many IO requests.

Being though that we are quite literally dealing with one of most simple pieces of code one can write I can make reasonable assumptions about how it works and how it could be fixed without actually seeing it. Ignoring zero is incredibly common. Dice do not have zero side so when rolling fake dice zero must be ignored. Many many instances of rng function spitting out zero but needing to ignore it. Many times I have seen someone forget this then get exceptions because of it. Most of them were ten years old in middle school Java.

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Originally Posted by lennit

went to the placard and got a refund . lost to 0 . i was the only one that placed a bid on the placard for my FC house. i hope a GM take's this gil back and give me my house I have waited for all week.

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Aye I hope they do this as well for a friend on Hyperion. They clicked through the prompts to fast and didn't realize they were refunding. They are hoping the game just takes the gil and gives them the house. Apparently I didn't see this message in game and overlooked it in my blind rage.

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We have received several reports that the following message appears when checking the placard after the result announcement period for the housing lottery sales, indicating that there are no winners.

- Although there were applicants, it appears with "There were no participants in this lottery."
- "The winning number is...0. May you have better luck next time." is displayed as if there are no winners

We are investigating and responding to this issue as soon as possible while checking the entries in our database.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

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I don't need to work heavily in a field to know that they were counting 0 as a player instead of omitting 0 as an entry within the lottery. hopefully they could edit their database to fix this and award a winner instead of the ghost that is 0. I can only postulate, but being 0 won a heck of a lot, feels a bit like a weighted dice to me.

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Originally Posted by Faafetai

Aye I hope they do this as well for a friend on Hyperion. They clicked through the prompts to fast and didn't realize they were refunding. They are hoping the game just takes the gil and gives them the house. Apparently I didn't see this message in game and overlooked it in my blind rage.



I don't need to work heavily in a field to know that they were counting 0 as a player instead of omitting 0 as an entry within the lottery. hopefully they could edit their database to fix this and award a winner instead of the ghost that is 0. I can only postulate, but being 0 won a heck of a lot, feels a bit like a weighted dice to me.

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Hmm, most interesting. Zero appears to have been used as catch possibly so that plots with no bidders resolved properly before next lotto reset.

Hopes gil can be refunded and plot given to rightful owner. Square is notorious for struggling to refund players without performing character reset..

Amazing :D

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Hmm, most interesting. Zero appears to have been used as catch possibly so that plots with no bidders resolved properly before next lotto reset.

Hopes gil can be refunded and plot given to rightful owner. Square is notorious for struggling to refund players without performing character reset..

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They shouldn't have to refund anyone. But might have to collect the bid price from any rightful winners who already clicked the loss refund.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

yay!

https://i.gyazo.com/96f1f7f7dcbdb99c...5296b394ac.png

I lost

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I would have shot myself

Don't stop posting on this thread. Don't give them ANY hope that the community has calmed down to any degree for those that SHOULD have won a plot that came up 0 bids when there were clear participants. Or for the people who's money hasn't been given back. Literally keep this going. It's time we start changing the "Well they tried" attitude back to "Wow, this is great">

Also. As an added opinion. Ever since Yoshi started producing XVI, quality control has gone down hill. ANybody else notice this

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Originally Posted by Rokke

You are mistaken. Its 1 personal + 1 fc house (with you as leader) per server. So someone can win a personal (or fc house) on every server on your DC if they had gil and luck. You can only enter either or per server, but there is no restriction on how many servers you can enter on.

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Uh, Indeed, just checked the dedicated page, and it says per worldper service account , not per service account only : https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../housing_land/

My bad then.

Please, look forward to it ™

Wanted to share it to show that I'm still upset and I won't stop talking about it. Link below to my thread and also my tweets about the issue.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...till-lost-to-0

https://twitter.com/xGamingRose/stat...93342675005441

:mad:

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Originally Posted by Alunary

Wanted to share it to show that I'm still upset and I won't stop talking about it. Link below to my thread and also my tweets about the issue.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...till-lost-to-0

https://twitter.com/xGamingRose/stat...93342675005441

:mad:

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I mean we SHOULDN'T stop talking about it. This system was supposed to be better for everyone. Except you know those who got 0 as a winner on plots where they would have won flat out. If there is any other response after this investigation other than "We'll be rerolling winners on plots that came up with 0 in the lottery even though there were participants" They are going to not only lose a ton of subs. It's going to look terrible to the community and is going to make even more people question their moves going forward. Peopel are already scared and talking about whether or not Ultimate is properly tested at this point

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Originally Posted by Ardyvald

Uh, Indeed, just checked the dedicated page, and it says per worldper service account , not per service account only : https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../housing_land/

My bad then.

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This is an interesting one as I know of many people with more houses than you can count on a hand and of at least one instance where a person owns a ward

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Originally Posted by Aoi_Futaba

This is an interesting one as I know of many people with more houses than you can count on a hand and of at least one instance where a person owns a ward

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Yes, because they come from the old first system and are grandfathered in. SE won't take houses from people. They just fixed it so it won't happen again

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Originally Posted by Lecru

Yes, because they come from the old first system and are grandfathered in. SE won't take houses from people. They just fixed it so it won't happen again

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OCE says hi!

Zurvan
https://i.gyazo.com/733c73032ad5d8a8...9055bdd278.png

Bismarck
https://i.gyazo.com/3a0b821f53a25ae9...32dc82561b.png

Ravana
https://i.gyazo.com/04bc424c85cd112f...5b69ae296c.png

Sophia
https://i.gyazo.com/4ef419f28f0e27a5...dde590a60b.png

Sephirot
https://i.gyazo.com/c14b5da49d883a51...2da7e61d77.png

Please do notice they are all Goblet 2. Please do notice how similar the wins are. Please do know that this is after 1 day of housing.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

OCE says hi!

Zurvan
https://i.gyazo.com/733c73032ad5d8a8...9055bdd278.png

Bismarck
https://i.gyazo.com/3a0b821f53a25ae9...32dc82561b.png

Ravana
https://i.gyazo.com/04bc424c85cd112f...5b69ae296c.png

Sophia
https://i.gyazo.com/4ef419f28f0e27a5...dde590a60b.png

Sephirot
https://i.gyazo.com/c14b5da49d883a51...2da7e61d77.png

Please do notice they are all Goblet 2. Please do notice how similar the wins are. Please do know that this is after 1 day of housing.

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Okay. Now check each and every FC. Because you can create Multiple FC's (which I warned about for this new system and not allowing sprout to enter) however more than one FC can use the same tag. Like ours is UwU and there are like 5 other FC's that use UwU as their tag. They probably worked the system. As was warned.

Also let me point out that this is probably the case. If you look at each ward on the different servers. It's all the SAME plots. Every one of them.

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Originally Posted by Lecru

Okay. Now check each and every FC..

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They all follow the form... (Obviously forum rules stop me from naming them)

FCNAME I
FCNAME II
FCNAME III
FCNAME IV
FCNAME V
FCNAME VI
FCNAME VII
FCNAME VIII

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Originally Posted by Shibi

They all follow the form... (Obviously forum rules stop me from naming them)

FCNAME I
FCNAME II
FCNAME III
FCNAME IV
FCNAME V
FCNAME VI
FCNAME VII
FCNAME VIII

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I've already seen it. My GF is on OCE. And yep. I called this. IT's what I said. And hey guess what. That doesn't break ToS. Isn't that great? And yes. IT's all the same houses on different servers and shit.

I really think housing was a mistake, I know that is a really hot take from me but this thing has caused drama for so many years.

And yet

There is other MMOs that done better, so what the hell going on here? lol