Cure the disease, don't treat the symptom

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

So, I'm just going to point this out.

Even if housing was instanced, they would still need more servers to support those instances.


Many of you may not remember, but there was a time where you could be locked out of your house if too many people were using them at once. This includes being locked inside your personal room in the fc house (bar teleporting out).

So, either way, more servers would be needed.
And if they made enough houses for everyone to have one, they would also need to have enough servers to support everyone who is online at once being inside them, even if it doesn't happen often.


I feel like people vastly underestimate how much work is needed to do housing.

[frostmagemari]

So, I'm just going to point this out.
Even if housing was instanced, they would still need more servers to support those instances.
Many of you may not remember, but there was a time where you could be locked out of your house if too many people were using them at once. This includes being locked inside your personal room in the fc house (bar teleporting out).
So, either way, more servers would be needed.
And if they made enough houses for everyone to have one, they would also need to have enough servers to support everyone who is online at once being inside them, even if it doesn't happen often.
I feel like people vastly underestimate how much work is needed to do housing.

No one is underestimating anything. There have been better housing systems, and they're all tied to them being instanced housing; the biggest problem with the current housing is that every housing ward is a static instance, that means it is always running whether people are in it or not.
Running those kind of instances is much more taxing than running instances on an on-demand basis (ie. apartments) and that is what's causing this problem.

[MariaArvana]

No one is underestimating anything. There have been better housing systems, and they're all tied to them being instanced housing; the biggest problem with the current housing is that every housing ward is a static instance, that means it is always running whether people are in it or not.
Running those kind of instances is much more taxing than running instances on an on-demand basis (ie. apartments) and that is what's causing this problem.

Their point is still valid though, they're not arguing whether wards or instanced is better. Sure the wards are more taxing over time due to the outside bit, but instanced housing is irrelevant unless you have the server power to potentially handle everyone being in their instanced house at the same time; a problem we saw in the past of this game that they pointed out where you'd be locked out of your house if too many people were inside theirs in the past. Only the outside of the homes is loaded at any given time, the interior of houses is only loaded when someone is within them (this is why you get removed from your home if you log out inside of it, since the game has to assume the instance closes). Whether instanced housing or wards, they'd still need to buy this extra server hardware.

Whether wards or instanced is better is a person's opinion. They were simply pointing out that this situation of buying extra server power would have happened with instanced housing or with wards, thus its not inherently a ward issue, and they're treating the 'disease' of too little server power to handle the housing system in general. Remember Raubahn EX? that's what happens when you have everyone trying to access a system and not enough server power to handle the load request. Even if the housing wards were changed to an single player instanced system, they would have had to buy more servers anyway, lest we get Instanced Housing (Ultimate)

[frostmagemari]

Their point is still valid though, they're not arguing whether wards or instanced is better. Sure the wards are more taxing over time due to the outside bit, but instanced housing is irrelevant unless you have the server power to potentially handle everyone being in their instanced house at the same time; a problem we saw in the past of this game that they pointed out where you'd be locked out of your house if too many people were inside theirs in the past. Only the outside of the homes is loaded at any given time, the interior of houses is only loaded when someone is within them (this is why you get removed from your home if you log out inside of it, since the game has to assume the instance closes). Whether instanced housing or wards, they'd still need to buy this extra server hardware.

Whether wards or instanced is better is a person's opinion. They were simply pointing out that this situation of buying extra server power would have happened with instanced housing or with wards, thus its not inherently a ward issue, and they're treating the 'disease' of too little server power to handle the housing system in general. Remember Raubahn EX? that's what happens when you have everyone trying to access a system and not enough server power to handle the load request. Even if the housing wards were changed to an single player instanced system, they would have had to buy more servers anyway, lest we get Instanced Housing (Ultimate)

Yes, XIV's servers need upgrading in general since they have the collective power of a room full of hamsters; but an instanced housing system is fundamentally a better system as the instances are only loaded on demand and not kept constantly running.
Also, no one would design a housing system with every one of them active at once.. Doing that would be bad design as well. You design a system like that to be able to handle a few steps above of your average active player base because you are never going to run into a situation where your entire server population is going to be even online at the same time, let alone doing the same activity.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Yes, XIV's servers need upgrading in general since they have the collective power of a room full of hamsters; but an instanced housing system is fundamentally a better system as the instances are only loaded on demand and not kept constantly running.
Also, no one would design a housing system with every one of them active at once.. Doing that would be bad design as well. You design a system like that to be able to handle a few steps above of your average active player base because you are never going to run into a situation where your entire server population is going to be even online at the same time, let alone doing the same activity.

That's literally what I said. Online characters.

Also, the wards themselves are likely not that intensive to run. Housing tho, has many more spaces for items, and much more customization.

[frostmagemari]

That's literally what I said. Online characters.

Wasn't talking to you.

Also, the wards themselves are likely not that intensive to run. Housing tho, has many more spaces for items, and much more customization.

Then you would be wrong. Static instances are much more intensive to run, especially when each city has forty-two static instances of dynamic content (player yards and house designs) that has to remain persistently loaded.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Wasn't talking to you.

Then you would be wrong. Static instances are much more intensive to run, especially when each city has forty-two static instances of dynamic content (player yards and house designs) that has to remain persistently loaded.

Well, it was in my original response which you quoted so yes, you were.


And it's still less intensive than the servers required for housing. Zones have fates, and way more characters in cities than the housing wards.

[MariaArvana]

Yes, XIV's servers need upgrading in general since they have the collective power of a room full of hamsters; but an instanced housing system is fundamentally a better system as the instances are only loaded on demand and not kept constantly running.
Also, no one would design a housing system with every one of them active at once.. Doing that would be bad design as well. You design a system like that to be able to handle a few steps above of your average active player base because you are never going to run into a situation where your entire server population is going to be even online at the same time, let alone doing the same activity.

Hey, it happened with raubahn EX, Cid EX, etc to the point they specifically had to buy more server power for the beginning of SHB to prevent the same situation, and they had to do it in the past because the playerbase hit the limit of their housing instances because they undershot the amount of power they needed, hence housing lockout.

Also as I said, the current wards don't perpetually load the inside of homes; they're all instanced only when someone's inside of them. Our current system is 'instanced', the only thing perpetually running is the exterior which is only slightly more taxing than a standard zone due to outside furniture items. If they need to buy more server hardware because their current server power won't be able to handle more than the 5040 interior instances per server, they'd 10000000% need to buy more server power to handle the potentially 20k+ instances some of the big servers like Gilgamesh/Balmung/Mateus would need.

Again, neither me or Valkyrie is arguing instanced vs wards is better; only that this extra server buying is in fact treating the 'disease' that their housing system needs more server power to handle more interior instances. That's all. It's not a ward issue; its a lack of server power issue, regardless of their housing system. This 'symptom' would have popped up even if it was solo instanced.

[Vahlnir]

Again, neither or or Valkyrie is arguing instanced vs wards is better; only that this extra server buying is in fact treating the 'disease' that their housing system needs more server power to handle more interior instances. That's all. It's not a ward issue; its a lack of server power issue, regardless of their housing system.

Yeah, server power is definitely THE issue, but they sort of designed themselves into a corner. Short of a complete overhaul this is the system we have and probably will have for a long time. SE is probably trying to make the best of it. I just don't think the game gets enough funding to give the housing system (or any system really) what it needs more than once or twice a year, so even when new wards and plots are added it is really just too little way too late.

[Jojoya]

So, I'm just going to point this out.

Even if housing was instanced, they would still need more servers to support those instances.


Many of you may not remember, but there was a time where you could be locked out of your house if too many people were using them at once. This includes being locked inside your personal room in the fc house (bar teleporting out).

So, either way, more servers would be needed.
And if they made enough houses for everyone to have one, they would also need to have enough servers to support everyone who is online at once being inside them, even if it doesn't happen often.


I feel like people vastly underestimate how much work is needed to do housing.

If strain on instance servers was that much of an issue, the Trust system would never have been added, undersized parties wouldn't be allowed in Duty Finder and we would have no solo instanced duties.

It's just as wasteful for a duty instance to be created for the sake of a single player as it is for a housing instance to be created for the sake of one player - and a player can only be in one of those places at a time. Someone in a duty, or wandering around in one of the world zones, isn't going to be in housing. That reduces the strain on the housing servers as it increases the strain on one of the others.

Agreed that people underestimate the amount of work involved not just in housing but in every part of game development. It's why we don't always get quick fixes when problems become apparent. SE needs time to find, develop and test possible solutions before they are finally able to implement them.