SE's housing system doesn't favor anybody...

[Cylla]

I was VERY fortunate to get one recently...and that was due to the generosity of a friend. Cause I expected exact same outcome of the next rush to be disastrous as before. I'm content with my 1 little small house in lavender beds....not where I wanted it...but I should be so fortunate to have one.

Same here. I have a house in the Goblet. Not where I wanted it but it is a nice plot and it a house and I was lucky enough to have a player contact me and willing to sell at a decent price. Which was still well above the plot price but, beggars can't be choosers when it comes to Balmung.

I did wake up for the opening of shirogane to try and upgrade to a large house and was met with the same slap in the face as nearly everyone else and met with people who had not just 1 but 2 houses. I have fiber internet, a decent computer. It not high end but XIV is installed on SSD and runs everything at max settings. I even turned down everything the night before just to avoid any trouble. Nope. Got kicked from the lobby server, then the client wouldn't light up the play button for nearly 5 mins. Came back up, hit with a lobby server error. By this time a friend on discord had gotten on and she said, "Cylla... everything gone." and I'm sitting in a 1k+ que like... "I don't even know why I wasted sleep over this." I knew the out come, but I tried anyway and failed like so many others who were met with the servers bottle necking.

Even with me already having a house, I was frustrated beyond belief. I can only imagine how people without a house at all felt.

I'm just hoping with 4.2, SE does something right. That it actually does become fair to everyone who wants a house and doesn't have to go through this chaos on every patch that has housing added. Just the same though, I do hope they keep the housing transfer system so that if people like me do want to upgrade to a larger house or even downgrade, can.

[Solarianna]

Not peoples fault if they are too slow or think they are special.

Oh my, oh my, such a philosophically rich and knowledgeable argument. How can I, a mere mortal, even dare hope to contest it?

Here's my story. Patch day, our FC had voted FOR trying to get into a Shirogane plot. Two officers were available to try and succeed in this. Me, who's unemployed currently, and another officer (whose name is Max, for practicality purposes), who managed to change his shift that day SPECIFICALLY to be able to give it a shot. We each took 50 mil from the FC chest, so we could have two people trying the same thing, so we could have better chances at one of us succeeding.
So here's what happened. I took the decision of staying up all night, just so I could download the patch as soon as it was available. Max didn't stay up all night, but woke up very early indeed, for the same reasons.
The night before, we wrote down aethernet names, test-drove optimal running routes, did various kinds of tests to ascertain if certain routes were more efficient by sprinting or taking the time to mount-up and then go, etc.
We were on different platforms, me on PC, Max on PS. We both were constantly re-launching, just so we wouldn't miss a second.
As you may remember (or not), the servers went up way later than usual. I started having a strong urge to use the toilet, but I didn't move an inch, because the server could go up anytime. Max ignored at least 5 phone calls, for the same reason.
So... at some point, finally, there was life. We started up the game as soon as humanly possible and... login queue of above 3000. For both of us. Around 3 minutes after, me and Max finally were in! Time to use the ferry skipper and put to use our previously-practiced routes and... oh... every single plot on every single ward has a name already.

So, o' sapient and exceptional one, I, very humbly indeed, inquire thee: How are we special, or slow?

Also, I generally don't like to bring ad hominem points to this kind of argument, but on this case, I have to bring this up.
It's not the first time I read your posts, and it seems to me that, in your opinion, the only kind of content that is problematic enough to warrant the need for changes is the content you don't enjoy/ haven't achieved access to. You've gone as far as brushing off the issues with someone with a neurological condition, saying that they should just turn off game sounds altogether, when the solutions that could be implemented to help the person wouldn't even affect YOUR game in the slightest.

You see, I'm usually fine with a healthy bit of elitism. But the good kind of elitism. As in, the one that defends that "there should be content that not everyone should achieve and that's okay, because that's what generates objectives and interest. And if you get there, well done, you deserve it".
You, on the other hand, seem to be specifically focused on not only you achieving content, but make sure that as little people as possible achieve it and enjoy the game, so you can keep your sense of superiority, I'll assume.
Now, I could be totally off the mark on this, but if I am indeed wrong, you're a damn good actor.

My opinion as to if housing should fall into " intentionally scarce content" is that no, it shouldn't. But not because it's housing. Keeping it scarce would've been absolutely fine, until the moment they advertised it and marketed it as they did. SE advertised it in such a way that now they have to make it more accessible forcefully. Hadn't they done it, housing wouldn't have become such a big thing, and in that case, it would've been perfectly fine to have it as "intended elitism" content.
But that'd be another talk, for another time.

When in a discussion, I usually like to do my best to put myself on the other side's shoes. I believe that's step one to keep any sort of argument as civil as possible.
Because that's how people reach conclusions and move forward, while enriching themselves on the way.
But I have a SEVERE difficulty putting myself in the shoes of someone with a mindset such as yours, as you've probably noticed from what I wrote up until now.

And, as a last note, before you throw the "loln00b U'r3 Jus7 s4lty y0u d1dn't g3t 4 h0us3 l1k3 I d1d hehexd git guuuuud, and in the meantime I'll get myself off at how I'm enjoying content that I hope you'll never get your hands on because I need others to know that my e-peen is exponentially bigger than theirs through my virtual status-badges, because my mommy didn't tuck me into bed when I was a child enough" card...
I have a personal house.

Unlike you though, just because I achieved x content, I don't instantly assume everything's fine, and I certainly don't go full "IT'S MINE, GET OUT" because "F*** everyone else".

[Awol]

I'm just baffled that people are up in arms. SE handling of this game in general has been bad for a while now. They should make houses individual instances and be done with it.

[NephthysVasudan]

<snip>

If you ever end up on admantoise....I want to give you a big hug. <3

[Tridus]

I'm just baffled that people are up in arms. SE handling of this game in general has been bad for a while now. They should make houses individual instances and be done with it.

It's a psychological thing. Anyone who joined late (as I did) basically never had access to housing. It was a thing that simply didn't exist because there weren't any. So I grabbed an apartment and forgot about it.

Then SE made a big deal of advertising Shirogane as a major feature of Stormblood. They put it front and center. They got people excited about it. Then they failed to deliver in spectacular fashion. Hyping people up and then disappointing them leads to a far larger backlash than the thing simply never being available in the first place from their perspective. Raising expectations and failing to deliver them is far worse than lowering expectations and then meeting them, even if you're delivering exactly the same thing. That's why when I'm on a software project at work, we always give conservative estimates about both timeline and features. SE went the other way and it blew up in their faces.

Yes, they do seem overly budget constrained in general, and it's reaching absurd levels with some of this stuff. But this one is different because they made a big deal out of it and its a thing a lot of people want.

[Tridus]

So... at some point, finally, there was life. We started up the game as soon as humanly possible and... login queue of above 3000. For both of us. Around 3 minutes after, me and Max finally were in! Time to use the ferry skipper and put to use our previously-practiced routes and... oh... every single plot on every single ward has a name already.

That's what happened to my best friend. I got into the queue two minutes earlier than he did and that made a queue difference of thousands. I was the only one who got in while anything was still available. I had planned to camp Lavender Beds and get one of the houses when someone moved out becauase I'm not actually interested in Shirogane, but he was so upset... so I ported over, bought a house there, then relinquished it that evening so he could buy it. You've never seen someone flip back and forth between joy and rage so fast. He'd have cancelled on the spot if not for how things worked out.

I saw all these other people teleporting around frantically trying to find something, and it was frankly depressing when there's no technological reason why the issue has to exist. I know some of them cancelled over how it was handled. SE has those statistics, I bet the about face was due to a manager looking at the numbers and realizing that being a cheapskate on server capacity has revenue consequences.

He had absolutely no chance because by time the game even let him log in, the entire server was sold out again. Heaven help someone who has to work or take care of a family. I'd have been SOL if my four year old wasn't content eating breakfast for a few minutes to let me log in at the right time, and that's hardly what people want out of a game.

[Tridus]

Call me crazy but... are we all not playing in Instances such as :

~ Cities
~ Fields

Those are always active, shared instances. They take server capacity even if nobody is using them, and there are fixed numbers of them. The housing wards are the same thing. Adding more wards means more server load even if zero players are using any of them. These can go over capacity (as we saw in The Lochs at launch) because communication between cilents is an exponential progression: If there's one person in the area, the server has to tell 1 client about the NPCs (Fates, mobs, gatherer nodes, etc). Cost: 1
- If there's 2 people nearby, the server has to tell 2 people what 1 other person is doing in addition to the NPCs. Cost: 4
- If there's 5 people nearby, the server has to tell 5 people what 4 other people are doing in addition to the NPCs. Cost: 25
- If there's 100 people nearby, the server has to tell 100 people what 99 other people are doing in addition to the NPCs. Cost: 10,000
- If there's 200 people nearby, the server has to tell 200 people what 199 other people are doing in addition to the NPCs. Cost: 40,000

That's why the shared instances have an effective cap on how many people can go in. Getting past a certain point will demand massively increasing communications requirements to the clients, which taxes both the server and the clients. But they're also not free even when they're idle, since they have to remain in memory.

Housing interiors and apartments are on demand. They can be turned on and turned off as people enter and leave, meaning a house with nobody inside it isn't using anything except storage (which is comparatively cheap). Dungeons are the same thing. If the server can support 500 dungeon instances at once, it doesn't matter if all 500 are doing Sirensong Sea or if they're in 500 different houses. Although I don't know what SE's backend looks like, in a standard n-tier backend, this part is the easiest to scale. You can effectively open up more capacity for on demand instances by adding another server, provided your backend storage and communications links can handle it. Since it doesn't matter what people are using that capacity for, it gets allocated effeciently based on whatever the playerbase feels like doing at the time, as compared to a shared zone like a ward which is always active even when nobody is using it.

Really, if they're so heavily constrained by server limits, shared wards are not the way to go. Fully meeting demand is going to require at least doubling if not tripling the existing ward count, and that's all dead server capacity a lot of the time.

[NephthysVasudan]

<snip>

The problem with instanced housing that everyone ignores/forgets/overlooks - is when it goes live for first time...your going to have a hell of a time getting things stabilized server wise - then you got storage capacity issues.

Then you got the factor in visitors/public/non-public....when people want to show up.when they don't.
Then the big one.....how many will be there? Available so to speak? There has to be a limit..a cap...it wont be endless.

Multiply that for each-and-every-bloody-server on the network right now....in all worlds....

This exponentially can get out of hand very fast/very quickly. In technology terms it adds up rapidly in terms of cost. - Trust me...I know these things working in a Data-center myself.
In terms of an idea its simple - but in deployment terms and hardware requirements? That's a whole different pandora's box.

And while other games have done this....SE has to deal with a model that's already in operation..already deployed....square peg...meet round hole.
Bigger hammer may not be the appropriate answer..let alone a nuclear bomb.

This is the pro's con's thing I alluded too. housing isn't the same as over-world in terms of functionality and how it behaves.

And for the record - its not a bad idea...it a good idea...but launching said idea....is a bit of a headache.
Which requires a lot of labor...a lot of time...and a lot of debugging....on the level of a full blown patch or more I'd wager based on recent track record.
Can it be done? Yes.
Will it be done? Not likely in the next patch or two...but i could be wrong.

PS: Sorry if i reiterated what you said....sometimes my brain has to play catch up to get what your getting at...my point here...is its not an easy puzzle to sort out...on an already active model.

[Mwynn]

And while other games have done this....SE has to deal with a model that's already in operation..already deployed....square peg...meet round hole.
Bigger hammer may not be the appropriate answer..let alone a nuclear bomb.

Can it be done? Yes.
Will it be done? Not likely in the next patch or two...but i could be wrong.

This is the Point where the Problem lies, if they do something wrong.
Espescially with Housing and we know when it comes to Housing they do something Wrong as usual.

If we take the Korea Version of FFXIV (I believe it was Korea, might be the Chinese Version if I'm wrong now) ...


What they basically did was to merge two Servers into one without thinking of the consequences that both Servers had the same Plot Assignements (Ward 1, Plot 1).
Both Plots owned, they merged, Plots were bugging out, they lost the Plot.

You can imagine how the Community reacted to that, now imagine with ours if something like this or something else happens in regards of the Housing Situation.

One Attempt and a Community that is about to explode about a Issue that is going on for Years.
I assume this will, sadly, not be resolved until in another 5 Years, as the Community tends to grow and the next new Wards will be taken aswell.

[HyoMinPark]

Snip

I...freaking love you.



A friend and I, like you, were both up all night waiting to download the patch, which was having a lot of issues for PC users (not so much PS4 users) when it was finally available. We had turned down all our settings to low, disabled any unwanted background processes on our PCs, made sure our connection was as stable and as fast as we could possibly make it... and we were met with: a faulty launcher (PLAY button was completely unresponsive for about 30 seconds), a 2002 Lobby Server error (for both of us; I got hit twice), and a 1,000+ queue. Literally in the span of minutes—when we finally got into the game, and about 10-15 minutes after it went live, all the plots on Cactuar were gone, Shirogane and the relinquished ones in older housing areas.

I feel like people like the person you quoted (which I have been in many debates with them over the state of housing in this game) fail to place themselves in other’s shoes. I feel like anyone (them included) who blame people who were unable to get a house on being “too slow” were obviously one of the lucky few who weren’t hit with server-side errors or faulty launchers (both of which are NOT the fault of the user/player, but the server/launcher, i.e., SE). Shame on them for not being more empathetic while they preach their nonsense. And I feel like anyone who thinks housing should be some elite-only status symbol are kidding themselves.