Suggestion to avoid botting houses! 3 attempts per day system!

Permit only 3 clicks per soft reset, per plot.

That means, allow only 3 clicks per day in trying to get a house plot, you can of and will of course get 3 clicks on any other house plot as well, it will flush out botting, auto clicker tools and more.

It would also be 100 times better than a raffle, and it will have people going around trying to get plots, the one that is lucky getting the house once timer is off, get a house.

Problem solved, no toxic players camping at houses, and can as well spend the day of a changing enviroment as well, it also would make it less painfull.

You need to just basically remove all ability to advertise an open plot of land before the plot of land can actually be purchased. If the gil price is up there, it can be bought instantaneously. If not, it cannot.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

You need to just basically remove all ability to advertise an open plot of land before the plot of land can actually be purchased. If the gil price is up there, it can be bought instantaneously. If not, it cannot.

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This system suggested will work, you can't bot something efficient in any way that you have a massive cooldown on.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

This system suggested will work, you can't bot something efficient in any way that you have a massive cooldown on.

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They don't care about efficiency. They can just have a script sitting there for 12-24-more hours, more than any human can deal with, to spam the spot.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

They don't care about efficiency. They can just have a script sitting there for 12-24-more hours, more than any human can deal with, to spam the spot.

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If you can only click something 3 times in 24hrs, it doesn't matter what the script is designed to do. Removing the price does NOTHING to alleviate the issue because as was pointed out to you elsewhere, the big empty piece of land gives it away. Restricting the number of times you can click a set placard is a great way to stop the bots.

Only issue is that for people looking to buy their first house (rather than transfer), they're likely to be negatively impacted as well.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

They don't care about efficiency. They can just have a script sitting there for 12-24-more hours, more than any human can deal with, to spam the spot.

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Thing is if trying to bot the house the click would be in 8 hour intervals, meaning, it can drop free at any point, making it insane hard for botting self to a house.... a sprout with the requirements and coin in hand could be getting it in between.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Thing is if trying to bot the house the click would be in 8 hour intervals, meaning, it can drop free at any point, making it insane hard for botting self to a house.... a sprout with the requirements and coin in hand could be getting it in between.

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What do you think the gilsellers are doing? Basically, they're botting and scripting the entire process so that, if you are a legitimate player and want a house, you cannot get it through the legitimate means and MUST either go through them or go without.

Which is obstruction in the first place. You could even have certain scripts that if anyone even so much as reacts to the fact that it is clear that every house is being camped continuously, they can counter-react as part of the script to try to throw you off.

An interesting suggestion. I wonder if SE could successfully program the system to work that way, though. Attempts to purchase would have to be tracked server side or PC users who cheat could just log out, change the code on their local client so their attempts are reset to 0 and log back in to try again. Still opens small windows where others could potentially get the plot while the cheater is resetting their attempts.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

What do you think the gilsellers are doing? Basically, they're botting and scripting the entire process so that, if you are a legitimate player and want a house, you cannot get it through the legitimate means and MUST either go through them or go without.

Which is obstruction in the first place. You could even have certain scripts that if anyone even so much as reacts to the fact that it is clear that every house is being camped continuously, they can counter-react as part of the script to try to throw you off.

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I think you're missing the point of his proposal.

Someone running a bot or script could sit at the placard clicking over and over and over but only the first 3 attempts in a 24 hours period would be acknowledged by the game. All their attempts after that would be useless. Someone else could walk by 10 minutes after the third attempt, or 45 minutes or 3 hours or however long, and if the purchase timer has since come off cooldown, they would be the owners and not the bot/script user that was still mindlessly clicking away.

It's still not a perfect solution to house flipping but as long as the purchaser timer remains hidden, there is no advantage to be using automation at the placard.

Im not sure if there would be an easy way to set a daily limit for this sort of thing. I wonder if it would be easier just to set an absurdly long cooldown(one try per hour+) on it instead. Achieves the same result. Its an interesting idea, but my gut tells me this would probly be harder to implement then we would give it credit for.

This topic again... Well a wise player (what do you mean I'm narcissistic?) once said :

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Originally Posted by Darkmoonrise

A solution to this problem could come from Bozja registration system. As soon as a plot opens for sale, you can register to it. To do so, you need to pay the price of the plot. 1 week after the first registration, the system randomly selects one applicant. This person now owns the plot, all the others get their gils back.

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Originally Posted by Darkmoonrise

This topic again... Well a wise player (what do you mean I'm narcissistic?) once said :

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Except that these gil outfits have billions of gil and many disposable characters -- they would overrun such a lottery system almost instantaneously.

yeah, you're right.

And if we add the rule : "1 registration at any given time per account?" This should resolve some problem, no? Not the multiple account kind of problem, sure.

But those will never be solved as they are considerate separate "person" even if one single person own them.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

An interesting suggestion. I wonder if SE could successfully program the system to work that way, though. Attempts to purchase would have to be tracked server side or PC users who cheat could just log out, change the code on their local client so their attempts are reset to 0 and log back in to try again. Still opens small windows where others could potentially get the plot while the cheater is resetting their attempts.

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Of course it would be tracked on the server side. Why would that be even remotely a problem? There's plenty of other state tracked server side already, including various kinds of timers. The leve allowance timer is actually pretty close to what's needed here; just add another timer like that but change the parameters so it charges by 1 attempt every 8 hours, up to 3 stored attempts max.

I know bashing SE is a popular pastime on the forums, but really, the developers can't possibly be that inept.

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Originally Posted by tdb

I know bashing SE is a popular pastime on the forums, but really, the developers can't possibly be that inept.

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Not a matter of them being inept. There's just so much weird stuff we see in the game due to code limitations that it can be hard to tell what is or isn't possible.

If the 3 chances were on a per character basis, then I wouldn't have doubts about their ability to do it. That's the Timers menu in a nutshell.

It's when things are intended to apply account wide that I run into doubts. The game seems to struggle with how to handle issues for characters on the same account. My alts can't have a house because this character on the same account owns one. My alts can't also be tenants of the house because they're on the same account.

Other players are able to have multiple shell FCs own houses on the same world while their character is the only FC member and the game evidently can't figure that.

Some things don't make sense and it's hard to tell where design decisions leave off and code limitations begin.

One thing to keep in mind - let's say the Firmament is Ishgard housing; giving us five residential districts to consider.

Each district contains 60 houses, times what are we at now, 24 wards? So that's 5 x 60 x 24 = 7200 houses.

So basically, you'd need the server to now track which plots a player has clicked on, and how many times they have clicked it, for every single character in the game.

You'd need the data for every single plot even if only a few plots are currently open.

Granted, the game might only have to LOAD the data for the housing district the player is in, but the data for all five has to be physically STORED somewhere.

That's not a small amount of data to be added to the player databases.

Kudos for coming up with what might be the worst proposed solution yet, I guess.

The timer is not a problem, if you fail to try a third time with the next server soft reset, you forfeit that chance, it is the best system of all, and people don't sit and click all day long... it also eliminates botting/macroing and auto clickers.

It flushes out the corruption almost all in one... likewise getting rid of people being toxic to each other at the spot of the house.

Just put a Wait list in each ward that people can sign up on. No rng, no clicking etc. You go to the ward you want put yourself on the list, game goes down the list offering open plots to those at the top of the list. End of the day if you are on the list you assured a plot some time in the future. Only caveat being you would have 24-48 hrs once your turn is up too go buy a open plot.

So many other games do housing better. Not sure why this is a struggle for SE considering this is one of the most lucrative MMORPGs on the market. I feel like the rules should be; 1 house per account, all alts share the same house, I love the put your name on a list and wait system with a 48 hour notice timer till forfeit, timer for relinquished or demolished houses till you can buy. The only other thing I could think of is generating a new ward after reaching capacity. I feel SE has the resources to do so.

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Originally Posted by Kalitzo

So many other games do housing better. Not sure why this is a struggle for SE considering this is one of the most lucrative MMORPGs on the market. I feel like the rules should be; 1 house per account, all alts share the same house, I love the put your name on a list and wait system with a 48 hour notice timer till forfeit, timer for relinquished or demolished houses till you can buy. The only other thing I could think of is generating a new ward after reaching capacity. I feel SE has the resources to do so.

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Wait system will still need a few restrictions. Like relocators will have to join the list on wards that full to relocate. But would be free to relocate like normal on new wards. There would also be no wait list on a ward until it fills up.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Wait system will still need a few restrictions. Like relocators will have to join the list on wards that full to relocate. But would be free to relocate like normal on new wards. There would also be no wait list on a ward until it fills up.

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Actually, the relocation system work flawless... as when doing it... you may take a new location, but you still free up another location on another ward doing such though, with the 3 click per plot per day system, then those would go easy hand in hand, and in time give a better and more fair way for all.

I wouldn't say the relocation system is flawless. It certainly needs a CD longer than 5 minutes. Relocation should be a considered decision, not something done on a whim where a player can immediately change their mind and move again.

*laugh* no, you sweet summer child, no.
limit to X attempts just means there would be more bots, so that after every X attempts a new bot can show up and work on it.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

*laugh* no, you sweet summer child, no.
limit to X attempts just means there would be more bots, so that after every X attempts a new bot can show up and work on it.

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And how many paid accounts with land purchase privileges do you think any sane person is going to buy to get a single house?

Do a little math and get back to us.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

*laugh* no, you sweet summer child, no.
limit to X attempts just means there would be more bots, so that after every X attempts a new bot can show up and work on it.

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You forget, the land plot could become available, 10 minutes after used last daily attempt on mentioned plot, likewise, if you are going to bot this constantly, you would need several subscribed accounts to be able to bot it effective, maybe you can afford to pay 1500 dollars per month for 100 accounts, to be any near efficient and then only still maybe as a potential bot.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

And how many paid accounts with land purchase privileges do you think any sane person is going to buy to get a single house?

Do a little math and get back to us.

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The same number who are spamming RMT tells and getting killed every time -- infinite.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

The same number who are spamming RMT tells and getting killed every time -- infinite.

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You still need to pass the requirements to buy a house plot as well, it is not something you just get because am a subscriber.... if rmt bots does this.. you may end in a higher flow of houses becoming available all the time due to terminated accounts.

They take the bots to 60 anyway, to get all the GIL they can from the quests, and sell it as well. Having to do one or two more quests won't slow them down and will only make more gil along the way.

The number of bots able to be thrown at the problem is infinity.

Why not a simple caption box like most webpages do? Before you can click buy enter the text in the box... I know it's old school and this isn't some F2P Korean mmo but still you gotta admit it would be effective to limit bot activity in a lot of places..

Wanna do a shout enter the caption or be muted for x amount of time.. passing the caption removes the prompt for an hour or so..

Updating prices on a retainer.. enter the caption or you can't sell anything for a day or so.. would prevent the mass crashing of new items..

Something with crafting, gathering and maybe even combat..

Captions boxes work on most bots from what I've seen.. sure real players hate them but they are effective at controlling bots

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Originally Posted by Baxcel

Why not a simple caption box like most webpages do? Before you can click buy enter the text in the box... I know it's old school and this isn't some F2P Korean mmo but still you gotta admit it would be effective to limit bot activity in a lot of places..

Wanna do a shout enter the caption or be muted for x amount of time.. passing the caption removes the prompt for an hour or so..

Updating prices on a retainer.. enter the caption or you can't sell anything for a day or so.. would prevent the mass crashing of new items..

Something with crafting, gathering and maybe even combat..

Captions boxes work on most bots from what I've seen.. sure real players hate them but they are effective at controlling bots

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If they were a great solution, they would have been getting used by games years ago. It's not like it's new technology.

A caption box is effective against a bot only if the bot's programmer didn't have enough incentive to bother breaking the code then programming the bot to solve it.

Add them to a game and the bot programmers will happily figure out the code then program their bots to solve them, just as they've figured out how to get the bot to solve all the other parts of game play. Nothing gained except annoying the real players who will probably end up quitting over the frequent disruptions to their game play.

If you want to be rid of bots, then you need to get rid of the cheaters who use them and/or their services. Once the bots no longer have customers, they will disappear from the game. As long as there customers for them, they aren't going anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Baxcel

Why not a simple caption box like most webpages do? Before you can click buy enter the text in the box... I know it's old school and this isn't some F2P Korean mmo but still you gotta admit it would be effective to limit bot activity in a lot of places..

Wanna do a shout enter the caption or be muted for x amount of time.. passing the caption removes the prompt for an hour or so..

Updating prices on a retainer.. enter the caption or you can't sell anything for a day or so.. would prevent the mass crashing of new items..

Something with crafting, gathering and maybe even combat..

Captions boxes work on most bots from what I've seen.. sure real players hate them but they are effective at controlling bots

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It wont work to well with a caption box, people has suggested a rafle, but but bots then from outside of the playerbase will join that rafle, knowing that, they can get people to pay massive amounts of gil for a house when it become a shortage, limitations to how many times you can click PER plot per day, flushes out people camping, using 3rd party tools and botting tools to keep on clicking the plot, and yes people are definately using them.

This makes it fair for all, time your daily clicks well, if you lose one plot, go to the next one, eventually would be the first one to hit it spot on and be getting a house plot for use, no ones gain any advantages using a system like this, and it puts all in the same box, but in a manner where all interested will be getting a fair chance.

They really need to make it so their isn't a targeting button for the placard...I can probably make a macro on my mouse to run that 0040 button combo to click a placard for me for hours if I wanted (which i do not!)

I am sure it would be easy though, any one with mouse software could make a combo 0040 on their keypad to auto click the sign....just remove the targeting button from being able to target placards...done. Make it need to be a physical click.

A physical click doesnt work for people who play on controller. Which is some PC players, and most PS4/5 players.

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Originally Posted by jakers127

They really need to make it so their isn't a targeting button for the placard...I can probably make a macro on my mouse to run that 0040 button combo to click a placard for me for hours if I wanted (which i do not!)

I am sure it would be easy though, any one with mouse software could make a combo 0040 on their keypad to auto click the sign....just remove the targeting button from being able to target placards...done. Make it need to be a physical click.

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You could just program that click in the same mouse, though, couldn't you?

Unless you're suggesting that the Placard position should be ever changing? Hell, the fact that the standard response to "Do you want to buy plot" is No instead of the obvious Yed is EXACTLY so people couldn't jusy press Num0 over and over to keep clicking such things. It's the reason why that 4 is on that combination. Breaking an essential targeting system that works for everything else in the game just so people have to maybe click a mouse they might not even have, that they can then program to just "Mouse 1" > "Numkey 0" > "Numkey 4" > "Numkey 0" seems... Excessive...

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

Except that these gil outfits have billions of gil and many disposable characters -- they would overrun such a lottery system almost instantaneously.

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That, and the chances of getting a house just went from "probably not, but it's still possible" to "l've got a better chance of being struck by lightning 5 times in a row on a clear, sunny day". I'd argue the system proposed by the OP would achieve the same result though. I've gone through this a lot with them, unfortunately, in regards to multiple housing ideas. What people are asking for lately are NOT real solutions. They are just advocating for shifting the inconveniences from one place to another.