Yoshi's words: "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."
Let's take "process is very complex and there are many patterns involved for the lottery conditions" part.
It's transparency time, SE. What is the complexity of choosing a random number between 1 and foo? More importantly, what "patterns" could possibly involved?
I admit I only recently graduated with my programming degree, but I'm also 46 and I have a brain. This statement ticks me off to no end. Here's why:
If the lottery is fair, the drawing is simply a random pick from those who were allowed entry. Rules for allowing entry may be a bit picky and complicated, but since you allow bidding on infinite plots until a bidder goes broke, I highly doubt it's all that complex of a system. If there are other criteria involved, they need to be spelled out in no uncertain terms in a very public and easy-to-find place.They are not. They are being kept secret.
My personal opinion: there is no complicated set of circumstances at all, and this is straight PR to cover up someone's ineptitude or mistakes. But let's assume for a moment that Yoshi's statement is true.
In a nutshell, it means the lottery system is not fair at all and is coded to favor some, while omitting others.
Positive side possibilities: This could be a preventative measure to keep an individual or FC from winning more than one plot a week and making plots remain empty another cycle. I don't think this is the case, but it's a possibility.
Negative side possibilities: These are more likely and more numerous if complex patterns are being used. Again, these are possibilities, not accusations.
1. Older FCs and FCs with more members are being favored.
2. Players with less gaps in subscription and/or long-term players are being favored over casuals and come-and-goers.
3. Some other favoritism is being enabled.
4. Players with a history of coming here and complaining could be excluded from ever winning.
That's just a few possibilities, but I feel they are the most likely scenarios if there is some hidden, complex algorithm at work in picking a simple random number out of a pool of consecutive numbers. This is shady af.
We need those algorithms if they want to keep our trust, or they need to just come out and say they screwed up on something simple. It happens. Apologies are old, and solve nothing. I'm sick of apologies. I want fixes and transparency, not excuses and more long waits. We waited ten years, and you've had more than enough time. As I stated in an earlier post, from now on this company will be forever be known by me as the company that couldn't deliver it's promises. From the diminishing content all the way to needless nerfs and changes. SE screwed up first semester code. That's all I see.
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04-25-2022, 04:54 AMGomezAddamsLottery "conditions" need to be posted for all to see, we need more transparency.
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04-25-2022, 04:58 AMSeraphor
Did you even bother to read the updates? I'm not sure how it can be more transparent without actually giving us the code. There's so much wrong with your post.
The lottery was bog standard random number between 1 and the highest bid, and it worked. No one had any better chance than anyone else.
What didn't work was communicating the results of the lottery to the housing servers, which messed up when they didn't receive the data, and produced the 0 error. Those plots still had legitimate winners, and that data is still saved on the backend where the lottery was run.
The housing servers which deal with actually allocating the plots are the complicated part, they need to be able to tell if the player is a new buyer, if they're relocating, in they're in an FC, if their FC already has a house, if other members in their FC have placed bids on other plots, etc.
The main complicated part is working out how to correct the mistake. Some players have already reclaimed their refund, even though they actually won their plot. Some haven't, and some that did have already spent their gil. How they reclaim that gil is the issue and they need to design, test and implement a system for doing that.
"but since you allow bidding on infinite plots until a bidder goes broke" they don't, you can only make one bid, regardless of how much gil you have.
"Players with a history of coming here and complaining could be excluded from ever winning." ...what?
"they need to just come out and say they screwed up on something simple" they did.
"I'm sick of apologies." but you just said....
"I want fixes and transparency, not excuses and more long waits." the fixes take time dude...
"We waited ten years, and you've had more than enough time." how petulant is this?
You're 46, it's about time you grew up Karen. -
04-25-2022, 05:03 AMMika_Zahard
Its obvious OP didnt read the follow ups, else he wouldnt have made the post..
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04-25-2022, 05:04 AMValkyrie_Lenneth
Considering I have been subbed constantly since release, with no breaks in said sub ever, and I didn't win my lotto, I'ma call BS on your "assumptions" lol.
And my account is legacy. So there's 0 favoritism. Just get over your loss. I did. And I've wanted an Ishgard plot for 8 years. -
04-25-2022, 05:12 AMKaurhz
Your 'possibilities' are laughable conspiracies at best.
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04-25-2022, 05:19 AMRoehann
As someone much older than you with a BS in Computer Engineering, graduate of 1992, I look forward to the grey hairs you find yourself with thinking that programing anything on this scale is always such a simple matter.
I for one believe that SE does their very best to be above board and honest with it's users, more so than some people in real life surrounded by real life events. If you choose to distrust them, please just leave. To attempt to 'call them out and demand such an answer' make you look silly. -
04-25-2022, 05:43 AMsagacioushahahah I love this responseQuote:
Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth
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04-25-2022, 05:44 AMGomezAddams
Actually, I DID read the follow up, and I found nothing in it that actually explains what happened. Hence the "I don't believe this crap for a second" attitude in my post. Yes, he did elaborate on how the plots look at the lottery system, and it blatantly displayed room for coercion on their end. Why does it matter how many people in the same FC bid on a plot? Or how many from separate FCs? To quote Yoshi again:
Lottery entry condition patterns for “Plot A,” which is being lotted on
There were no entry applications for Plot A.
There was only one lottery application for Plot A.
There were multiple lottery applications for Plot A.
There were multiple lottery applications for Plot A, but all belonged to the same free company.
There were multiple lottery applications for Plot A, but the applicants vary.
Various other cases
I will point out again that a fair and uninfluenced lottery looks ONLY at the balls in the drawing. The criteria of whoever bought the ball was checked at the time of the bid (says so in this ridiculous follow up), and should have absolutely zero influence on the outcome of the drawing. Same if there was only one entrant. A random number between 1 and 1 is ALWAYS 1. Stating that there are criteria made at the drawing time is, quite literally, verifying my fears that certain people and FCs are being favored.
I have a 3000 character limit, there's not even room for me to go into this in any detail. Which I'm sure is intentional. I simply left this follow up out of the OP because I find it irrelevant and simply more PR. But there's my take on that as well. The follow up came right out and said they are doing more than simply drawing a number in the quote above, even though he had already stated they weren't doing just that. Inconsistency is just another way of blowing smoke up our butts. -
04-25-2022, 05:50 AMSeraphorBecause each of those scenarios results in that plot behaving in a different way.Quote:
Originally Posted by GomezAddams
No applications: There were no participants
1 entry: a winner, and no losers.
Multiple entries: a winner, and the losers get to reclaim their entry fee.
Multiple entries same FC: no matter who wins, the house is allocated to the same FC.
etc.
Again this is about the housings servers and how the plot is managed after the fact. It's not about the weight of the RNG used in the lottery.
Nowhere does it say that these checks had any influence on the lottery, just on the plot management.
"I have a 3000 character limit, there's not even room for me to go into this in any detail. Which I'm sure is intentional." LMAO, how much tinfoil did you buy?
You can bypass the character limit by editing your post. -
04-25-2022, 05:55 AMLianaThorne
Can't we just accept that someone made a mistake and they're working to fix it? Are we really gonna tinfoil hat this? There's no "priority system".
They have the winners of all the lotteries, it was a display issue. They don't have any obligation to go into more detail on what. I'm someone who got hit with the bug too and will accept the results whether or not I lose. It's literally no different to if everything had worked smoothly on launch and I still lost the plot to someone else. You should probably practice patience or do the same. -
04-25-2022, 06:01 AMHyoMinPark
I think someone’s tin foil hat is on way too tight. No developer is going to just hand the public their code. If that’s what you are after, you will be waiting for a very long time. Possibly forever, given the way SE is with their products.
While the Ishgard release was disastrous, you need to let go of these conspiracy theories on why you didn’t get a plot. They aren’t helping you at all.
You can edit posts to bypass the archaic 3,000 character limit.Quote:
Originally Posted by GomezAddams
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04-25-2022, 06:22 AMGomezAddamsPlot behavior? Are you joking? What does a plot actually do to "behave?" It's just a plot, it doesn't have any "behavior" at all. It's an object that holds data. The follow up is nothing more than a cover up. It's naive and shows a total lack of business sense to think a corporation won't lie to cover it's own ass. That's what we're seeing. No, I don't believe Yoshi's initial statement was a "mistake." Yes, I completely believe at this point that there was intent to favor certain player's over others, and seeing it backfire so wonderfully makes me smile. As for your tin-foil statements, just say conspiracy theorist like you were taught to do in school. The term no longer bothers those of us with critical thinking skills, because we know where the term came from and why.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
There is literally no reason for a plot to look at the entrants before the drawing occurs unless the lottery is being influenced. The plot knows what it needs to know about itself at all times. It was retarded, and obvious distraction, to include something like this in the follow up at all, because you can look at Yoshi's own admission of guilt. He says they're not influencing the drawing, and then goes on to say that the plot looks at the entrants prior to the drawing. Why? What other possible purpose is there for reexamining entries? Again, plot behavior is a freaking cop out. Plots don't have behavior. But by all means, get back up on your soap box and stroke Yoshi's ego some more. The only part of the post that wasn't PR nonsense was the explanation of how the entries work. Everything else was dead end lists that offer no explanations, and only add more fuel to the fire SE started themselves. Plot behavior indeed. -
04-25-2022, 06:31 AMMilkieTea
i ain't reading all that
i'm happy for u tho
or sorry that happened -
04-25-2022, 06:46 AMJeeqbitYoshi-P explained them in one of the posts. The complexity has nothing to do with choosing a number, but the checks that have to be performed, such as whether they own a house on that account already, whether they are getting their first house or relocating and whether it's an FC or personal house. What adds to the complexity is that instead of the ward server handling it directly, it's all handled by a central housing server which performs the RNG and then returns the result for display.Quote:
Originally Posted by GomezAddams
The nature of the problem was that it didn't return the results for display fast enough so it displayed them as 0 for some people, even if it had the result ready shortly after that.
Obviously, but as someone who does programming, I assume you understand that mistakes are common and debugging is a part of it.Quote:
My personal opinion: there is no complicated set of circumstances at all, and this is straight PR to cover up someone's ineptitude or mistakes.
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04-25-2022, 07:31 AMVailanWhat.Quote:
Originally Posted by GomezAddams
I can't really understand your argument at all; people have already explained why the system would need to look at the entrants before the drawing (locating the actual plots, registering the player to that specific plot, etc). Since you've just denied this, do you know more about the programming behind this process? I'll admit to not being that technically minded when it comes to coding mmos, so feel free to correct me on the assumption that a process with as many variables as housing might have a few points where it can go wrong.
Also YoshiP saying they don't influence winners isn't "admitting fault", what? It'd take him saying the literal opposite thing for that to be true. -
04-25-2022, 07:40 AMTaleraRistainThis and also I'm a little afraid for OP's future company if they code in such a shoddy way without considering all the involved factors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roehann
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04-25-2022, 07:48 AMBig_Bap
lmaooooooooooooooooooo
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04-25-2022, 09:58 AMKrotoanI'm going to take that "qualification" they're flashing with the same reverence I give someone who says "I'm a vet with 30 confirmed kills and special forces training". Internet experts very rarely are anything close to as qualified as they'd like you to think. I bet he built something in unity once.Quote:
Originally Posted by TaleraRistain
Known drama baiter and pot stirrer. I think we should all probably stop playing into the madness. -
04-25-2022, 01:44 PMNanaWiloh
They said the lottery server failed to communicate its results to the housing server and that they are fixing the problem. Thats all you need to know!!
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04-25-2022, 03:21 PMAtelier-Bagur
I bet you if OP was one of the winners in the first lottery run, he/she wouldnt be making such a pointless thread.
Keep asking to see that manager Karen. -
04-25-2022, 04:36 PMPacketdancer
Very quick breakdown of things, based on the Lodestone posts:
- People enter the lottery for the plot, more or less "putting money into the placard" as their bid.
- Lottery closes.
- Lottery server rolls for each plot, and picks a winner for each plot out of the list. These are all valid, real results.
- Lottery server attempts to tell the housing servers who the winners for each plot are. Due to some factor -- potentially the massive amount of data suddenly being horked out of the lottery server all at once -- some chunks of the data don't get through. It's the equivalent of you not getting a letter, because the postman accidentally left it in the bag or it got stuck to someone else's mail or whatever. The mail exists, the content of the mail is known (by the sender, anyway), but it just never arrived.
- Placards that never received their mail go "Welp, I got no data." Because the winning number is an integer, and in many systems, integers treat "I have no value" and "My value is 0" the same way, the placards metaphorically shrug and show 0. However, there is still a winner for that plot; since the mail never arrived, only the lottery server knows who that is, not the placard.
- Here begins the current problem: some people, disappointed that they seem to have lost, withdraw their gil from the placards.
- SQEX goes "this is a problem" and freezes the lottery so that they can re-issue the results -- in essence, sending another copy of the mail that got lost.
- SQEX realizes that some people who withdrew gil from the placards were, in fact, the winners of those plots. (Or even the only entrant.) However, the system is written with the assumption that "The winner has gil in the placard. When the winner claims the plot, their specific gil amount is eaten and they get the plot." The system thus has no way to award the plot without the gil in the placard... nor does it have any way to take the gil from someone without it being in the placard in the first place. (And they -- quite rightly -- don't want to just invalidate the results on those plots and invalidate someone's win simply because that person took the gil out due to a problem that SQEX introduced.)
- SQEX now has to figure out how to get the winner's gil back into the placard without also turning the lottery on. Of course, you can write code to solve this! But... that's writing new code. And moreover, it's writing new code that one imagines that SQEX wants to test really super thoroughly this time, to ensure there's no weird edge cases that, like, slurp all your gil down into a vortex or whatever.
- [ "You Are Here" label on this timeline. ]
- At some point, SQEX solves the above problem. They re-issue all the results and the people who won (but the placard didn't tell them) and still want the house get to pay the gil -- even the people who refunded their bid, not knowing they'd won -- and everything is good.
- Presumably the next lottery goes more smoothly, because that code has probably now been gone over line by line by multiple people at this point.
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04-25-2022, 04:48 PMMarkfreshThats sir/madam is one of the best posts and explanations i have seen on here , good job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Packetdancer
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04-27-2022, 03:04 AMPablomaldito
There is no problem with transparency in this lottery. They've been plenty transparent about the lottery is supposed to work, what went wrong with it, and what they are doing about it.
The problem is that the lottery is not the solution for the ridiculously low supply of houses.
The lottery as planned is like a band aid on a gaping bullet wound. The lottery as implemented is like a defective band aid on that bullet wound. They're fixing the band aid. -
04-27-2022, 03:37 AMLeonKeyhI wouldn't assume that. People like this won't let facts get in the way of their "righteous anger." They champ at the bit to make posts like this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mika_Zahard