Some Suggestions for the Never-ending Struggle of Buying a House

[Jojoya]

Did everyone who makes these posts just completely skip the part about them adding servers specific for housing? They have the servers, the pandemic is slowing the implementation process to address the housing. Hardware is in their possession, it's just not in yet. Like everything else in the world, this isn't the end of it.

I think somewhere along the way, someone took what was said the wrong way and blew it up into something it was never going to be then that started getting spread as fact.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...8d38461c5ae127

All they had planned was to add some more wards once the servers were installed. I suspect a good chunk of that new server space, if not all of it, was originally reserved for Ishgard housing. With COVID delays and the increasing demand for houses from the increasing player population, perhaps they felt they could shift more of that server space toward expanding the existing wards early instead of holding it for Isghard?

If someone has a link to a SE source that says the servers were going to be for something more than just a normal ward expansion or Ishgard's release, I'd appreciate seeing it.

[tdb]

I think somewhere along the way, someone took what was said the wrong way and blew it up into something it was never going to be then that started getting spread as fact.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...8d38461c5ae127

All they had planned was to add some more wards once the servers were installed. I suspect a good chunk of that new server space, if not all of it, was originally reserved for Ishgard housing. With COVID delays and the increasing demand for houses from the increasing player population, perhaps they felt they could shift more of that server space toward expanding the existing wards early instead of holding it for Isghard?

If someone has a link to a SE source that says the servers were going to be for something more than just a normal ward expansion or Ishgard's release, I'd appreciate seeing it.

Yeah, I posted essentially the same thing to another thread where someone was talking about "dedicated housing servers". The official post implies that they'd need to install new servers to add more wards than they did. But it's not clear at all if those servers would be used exclusively for housing or if they would dynamically serve any game zones as needed. And indeed there isn't even a hint that it would be some new kind of housing.

The timeframe is a little early for Ishgard housing anyway. There's going to be at least one more stage of Ishgard restoration, so the housing is at least four months off (and that announcement was made half a year ago). It's possible some of that server capacity would be in preparation for Ishgard, but it does seem like they wanted to add more wards to the existing housing districts too. It wouldn't really make sense to make an announcement of something which would only cause a delay to something that hasn't even been officially announced yet.

[Themarvin]

Don't add more wards, it is Ghost Towns already.

[Kenky]

Add More Housing (wards/plots)

Reduce the Plot Timer to about 2-4 Hours

Standard Housing Lottery System

Anti-cheat/Anti-botting System

More Housing will not fix the issues present with the current system. It will only delay it and (to some people) make it worse. Personally, the foundation needs to be changed or reinforced before adding more 'floors' to the house, if you get the metaphor.

SE doesn't expect -any- player to sit at the Placard for its entire wait-time, nor do they enforce it or make it seem like that is the only way to do things. That's an issue that stems from players own obsessions (And if you get upset by that, then you know what I mean.) and, while SE certainly isn't doing anything to STOP said obsessive placard-camping, they aren't encouraging it either. Could probably do with a bit of a firmer hand in that department, but that is up to how 'restrictive' SE wants to become.

Again with the Lottery system? Jeez, that point has been 'discussed' to death and people have almost unanimously said it would be worse than the system we already have! Having more RNG on top of RNG will only take away the feeling of actual control you would have in getting the house. Instead of your own actions, you give the entire choice to a number-generator that could easily be swayed in the botters / cheaters favor through otherwise legitimate means. (Purchasing more tickets, being the prime example. Or filling the lottery)

Anti-cheat and Anti-botting would be great. But the way you word it violates Privacy Laws in several countries, as it would require Square Enix to officially state they are requesting permission to scan your computers files for any modified files, which can result in false positives and unfair suspensions, if not terminations. Not to mention a "Captcha" system in XIV would be laughably easy to program and brute-force through, given enough time.

[tdb]

Again with the Lottery system? Jeez, that point has been 'discussed' to death and people have almost unanimously said it would be worse than the system we already have! Having more RNG on top of RNG will only take away the feeling of actual control you would have in getting the house. Instead of your own actions, you give the entire choice to a number-generator that could easily be swayed in the botters / cheaters favor through otherwise legitimate means. (Purchasing more tickets, being the prime example. Or filling the lottery)

I've already explained in one of these threads how the technical issues can be solved. It's easy to limit it to a single ticket per player and botters will have no advantage because there's nothing to automate (unlike the current timer system where botting provides a singificant advantage). Besides the misconception that a lottery system would not be possible to implement fairly, the opposition seems to be centered on the argument "but in a lottery system all the lazy people get a shot at a house too". Well yes, that's kind of the idea. Despite SE not intending it, players do camp the placards, and it happens to the extent that camping for several hours and incessantly clicking is basically a requirement for getting a house. Does it seem like a fair requirement to you? Would it truly be so bad if it took less effort to get a chance at a house?

If you're dead-set against a lottery system and want to instead fix the timer system, it needs a cooldown which prevents clicking the placard (at least the same placard, maybe even any placard) too often. That should encourage players not to camp. I think it should be at least 15 minutes, but maybe as long as 60 minutes to really give a hint that you should do something else in the meanwhile.

Edit: And since several people have also pointed out that a lottery system doesn't solve the deeper problem of availability, it bears repeating that I'm suggesting it on the assumption that the real solution (i.e. instanced housing) takes a lot of time and effort to implement. If we could have instanced housing next month, we absolutely should. But it's likely it will take years, if we're getting it at all, so an interim solution seems necessary.

[Kenky]

I've already explained in one of these threads how the technical issues can be solved. It's easy to limit it to a single ticket per player and botters will have no advantage because there's nothing to automate (unlike the current timer system where botting provides a singificant advantage). Besides the misconception that a lottery system would not be possible to implement fairly, the opposition seems to be centered on the argument "but in a lottery system all the lazy people get a shot at a house too". Well yes, that's kind of the idea. Despite SE not intending it, players do camp the placards, and it happens to the extent that camping for several hours and incessantly clicking is basically a requirement for getting a house. Does it seem like a fair requirement to you? Would it truly be so bad if it took less effort to get a chance at a house?

The "single ticker per player" thing wouldn't really stop the Botters and cheaters, as they have several service accounts (assuming that's what you mean by 'per player'. Not 'per character') and still could relatively easily flood the system with illegitimate requests. While yes, it would certainly be great for people to not have to sit in front of a placard for HOURS at a time, that isn't an issue that SE can genuinely 'fix' without serious backlash. Mostly because it's not SE's fault that people are obsessed with housing to the point of neglecting physical and medical needs.

Add a cooldown timer on the Placard? You'd get plenty of people pissed off that the house didn't sell during 'their' attempt. Make it so you put your name down? People will be pissed that someone who was offline at the time won it.

It's a rather uncomfortable minefield SE is in, yet they weren't the ones who put the mines down. 'Twas us.

[ItMe]

[snip]

That's... interesting.
I never thought of it like that before.
No wonder SQEX is mainly keeping their head down and trying to add wards whenever they can.

[tdb]

The "single ticker per player" thing wouldn't really stop the Botters and cheaters, as they have several service accounts (assuming that's what you mean by 'per player'. Not 'per character') and still could relatively easily flood the system with illegitimate requests.

There's unfortunately no 100% reliable way to determine that multiple accounts belong to the same person. Email addresses are free, and a shared IP address could indicate any number of other things as well. From SE's perspective each service account is a separate player and has the same right to get a house as anyone else.

It's not like the timer system prevents botters from benefiting from multiple accounts either. Having multiple bots click at the placard increases the chance that one of them gets the plot. So I don't really see how a raffle system would be worse. If anything it would decrease the botters' chance of winning and/or tie up more of their resources since there'd be more real players in the running.

Add a cooldown timer on the Placard? You'd get plenty of people pissed off that the house didn't sell during 'their' attempt.

Is it really worse to click once and not get it, as opposed to spend six hours clicking and still not get it? Or does this come back to the "I can't tip the scales in my favor" argument?

[Daniolaut]

Unhide the hidden timer.

Problem solved.

Anyone who would disagree with this is either uses a botting program or is a scalper, who also likely uses a botting program.

Unidding the timer would literally change nothing, except discourage botting and increase the chance of owning a house for honest players.

[Daniolaut]

To solve the rest of the problems:

Restrict one private house and one FC house per account. Period. No one needs a house on multiple servers except people abusing the system.

Restrict relocation to a set number of days, 30, 60, 90, which ever Square-Enix would deem feasible.

Or, better yet, create instanced housing like in FFXI where you have a mog garden, except expand upon this nearly 20 year old games system, and allow players who have more gil to upgrade the size, and to customize their exterior mog garden/yard. Then restrict "districts" to Free Company's so that there are literally people in the housing districts instead of it being an empty void of lifeless houses.

Literally all problems solved. If FFXI can have unlimited instanced housing and is 20 years old, with a mog garden FFXIV can create a slightly better version of this for its players. I believe in them, its not hard.