Housing update 3 is up.

[Krotoan]

Forgive this lala for pressing X to doubt the extensive Q&A done by US telecoms. Can hardly tie a set of Velcro shoes let alone deliver a stable service. Am hardly surprised a frequent failure to establish connection for certification bug slipped through that could likely have been handled by if failed to certify attempt again > reset > attempt again.

No. I will not forgive ignorance feeding into a superiority complex from someone who compares last mile service for individual customers troubles to testing to determine stability or validity of a potential upgrade or addition to a service providing software server-side.

Am happy this is being addressed if that makes everyone else happy to hear. I can tell the friends who were thinking of quitting over this that they will receive their FC houses.

Perhaps in future times Square can perform most complicated tests such as;
"What if server A fails to communicate with server B?"

and

"What if account/character is falsely flagged as unable to purchase?" Can they still place a bet?"

Please continue to show ignorance about how testing can only pick so many variables to test and certain situations simply aren't replicatable in a timely manner for testing.

Nah! Am only armchair coder with expectations most lofty who has not a clue what they are talking about.

You seem to be joking.. but your post is very much showing this over and over. Anyone who does this stuff for a living is either facepalming reading your response or laughing at you.

Thankfully this is not EA/Activision or we would be justified in frustration! May have to express that feist if it were not Square and the FFXIV dev team. Phew thank the twelve it is the FFXIV dev team, I can go back to being complacent now.

Carry on everyone! Is fix!

It seems you'd rather continue to try and say there was justification in being excessively mad for a problem that likely wasn't possible to test in a timely manner than acknowledge that this was a big problem that they then apologized for and are in the process of fixing fairly and expediently.

[Manofpassion]

It seems you'd rather continue to try and say there was justification in being excessively mad for a problem that likely wasn't possible to test in a timely manner than acknowledge that this was a big problem that they then apologized for and are in the process of fixing fairly and expediently.

Honestly, if they can't test it in a timely manner, I rather they just delay it to 6.2. Or a slow rolling out as previously suggested. While these two methods will inevitably still create frustration and draw criticism, I can tell you with 100% certainty it wouldn't have drawn as much criticism than this. Another alternative option was to introduce lottery earlier, before ishgard housing is put in the game, and see if it works in earlier wards. That would be good testing on a smaller sample size that wouldn't have created as much grief.

I believe we have shown that we are able to deal with delays. We were able to handle ew being delayed, as disappointing that was. When there has been around a half a decade wait for new housing, and they shit the bed, people are gonna be mad.

At the end of the day, this is the lottery system's first impression on the playerbase, and they messed up big time. First impressions are everything. It's possible to recover from bad first impressions, like 1.0. But are the housing team gonna learn from this and try to making housing less frustrating to make up for this mistake. I doubt it. To me, an apology and a fix will not suffice. I want to see actual improvements to make up for it. Perhaps I am too idealistic.

[SnakeWeasel]

Looks like they are doing the right things to resolve the issue. From my past experience there are often issues that get missed in testing only to show up once a change goes live. The true test is how the problem is resolved in the end and this is better than I expected.

[Krotoan]

Honestly, if they can't test it in a timely manner, I rather they just delay it to 6.2. Or a slow rolling out as previously suggested.

There was likely a reasonable amount of testing done and the bug didn't arise. You can't triple-quadruple-pentuple check every single update you do, it's not financially feasible or justifiable just to catch the ONE time something messes up.

While these two methods will inevitably still create frustration and draw criticism, I can tell you with 100% certainty it wouldn't have drawn as much criticism than this.

Then you'd be wrong, because the decision to delay endwalker as you so cited later was met with MORE criticism. People lost their minds because they scheduled their lives around the release date and because they felt they could no longer wait for content.

Another alternative option was to introduce lottery earlier, before ishgard housing is put in the game, and see if it works in earlier wards. That would be good testing on a smaller sample size that wouldn't have created as much grief.

Hindsight is 20/20 always. If they were to swap systems, they couldn't have done it arbitrarily on one patch and just suddenly everything is lottery. It's likely the system is all or nothing per ward as well, so if someone was playing click wars for a plot that was up for sale and placard sitting.. then after patch day came back and poof.. lottery now they would have "wasted" their time up till then clicking. The only reasonable choice would have been to do it during a ward upgrade, and the last one was quite a while ago. There's also considerations for plot squatters who then have all the time in the world to plan for the new housing district release and how to game it... Lots of factors to consider.

I believe we have shown that we are able to deal with delays.

.. you're funning right? Cause what this forum shows is people absolutely cannot wait for ANYTHING. They have been MADE to wait for things and it became a cavalcade of whining, there was no "dealing".

We were able to handle ew being delayed, as disappointing that was. When there has been around a half a decade wait for new housing, and they shit the bed, people are gonna be mad.

People being mad is understandable. People continuing to try and justify all the absolutely ignorant things they said while being mad is not.

At the end of the day, this is the lottery system's first impression on the playerbase, and they messed up big time. First impressions are everything. It's possible to recover from bad first impressions, like 1.0. But are the housing team gonna learn from this and try to making housing less frustrating to make up for this mistake. I doubt it.

You mean by like.. implementing a system wherein it removes the need to sit at a placard for hours and hours a day mindlessly clicking on something only to be beat out by people who are using scripts instead? Like that? Yeah yeah, y'all want instanced housing and that would solve every single problem until it doesn't. Would I mind instanced housing? No. Everything about "neighborhood feel" is bull puckey. Nobody walks around wards like "HI NEIGHBOR!". But when the server limitations make it so the instanced housing limits the amount of stuff you can put in your house or when you can't get to all your important house stuff because the servers are constantly overloaded by squatters who won't logout because of server capacity problems, I expect to hear the same complaints out of different mouths.

To me, an apology and a fix will not suffice. I want to see actual improvements to make up for it. Perhaps I am too idealistic.

.. this is one of the Karen-est things I've read all day, and I have to talk to Karens.

[Manofpassion]

You can't triple-quadruple-pentuple check every single update you do, it's not financially feasible or justifiable just to catch the ONE time something messes up.

Cause what this forum shows is people absolutely cannot wait for ANYTHING.

People continuing to try and justify all the absolutely ignorant things they said while being mad is not.

You mean by like.. implementing a system wherein it removes the need to sit at a placard for hours and hours a day mindlessly clicking on something only to be beat out by people who are using scripts instead? Like that? Yeah yeah, y'all want instanced housing and that would solve every single problem until it doesn't.

.. this is one of the Karen-est things I've read all day, and I have to talk to Karens.

Fair enough if that's what you think, but you are taking the frustrations towards the housing team very personally.

Just to refute some of your points however:
True, you can't quadruple check everything. But it's apparent it isn't the one time something acted up, the problem is widespread. What's done is done now, if they have QA after this, then people will forget in like 6 years.

Thinking people are just mad it took new housing 4 years to be honest. If you make people wait 4 years, shit the bed, then make them wait some more, customers aren't gonna be happy. I don't think it's unnreasonable to see the playerbase's patience wearing thin. 4 years since shadowbringers and hroths just get jellybean hair. The whining is warranted when your race is is consistently treated as secondclass imo. We are assured things will be improved, but it took seven years for living dead to be improved. I don't even know if I'll be alive in 7 years to be frank. I would like hosuing fixes to happen sooner than those two things, and currently I have my doubts.

I'm not sure how much praise to give to the housing team for removing the mashing at placard night after night to be honest. How that got greenlit at all i don't understand. Should have been like that from the start, but it's easy to just point fingers. While the change is appreciated, I don't think a lot of people will feel overly grateful. Still good, but if someone makes a mess and cleans it up later, I'm not gonna lavish them with praise. Seems like something that should be expected, to me personally.

The last point you made I find curious. I myself grew up in East Asia, in Hong Kong. It is very much the norm here when a mistake is made, extra lengths are taken to ensure things are done to compensate people who are affected. I have had to do it myself multiple times when I worked there since I fuck up all the time kek. Is it uncommon in the west to expect mistakes be improved upon and customer service to that length? I find it interesting that in the west that people don't expect anything of the such from companies, and often defend the companies bottom line.

Apologies for shoddy formatting, am on mobile.

[Krotoan]

Fair enough if that's what you think, but you are taking the frustrations towards the housing team very personally.

I'm not sure how you got that. I'm pointing out that even though the team has not only apologized and given a valid reason AND explanation for the problem, people are continuing to shove their ignorant takes out as if they're some sort of justification for continued salt.

Just to refute some of your points however:
True, you can't quadruple check everything. But it's apparent it isn't the one time something acted up, the problem is widespread. What's done is done now, if they have QA after this, then people will forget in like 6 years.

Which refutes what? The problem happened on live servers. We are not privy as to the factor that caused it. It could be that the problem only happens when people of a certain data cluster on the disk have a bid combined with the differing lag between servers and verification ONLY present on the live servers. The fact stands you cannot conceivably test every single eventuality and remain competitive and viable as a company.

Thinking people are just mad it took new housing 4 years to be honest. If you make people wait 4 years, shit the bed, then make them wait some more, customers aren't gonna be happy. I don't think it's unnreasonable to see the playerbase's patience wearing thin. 4 years since shadowbringers and hroths just get jellybean hair. The whining is warranted when your race is is consistently treated as secondclass imo. We are assured things will be improved, but it took seven years for living dead to be improved. I don't even know if I'll be alive in 7 years to be frank. I would like hosuing fixes to happen sooner than those two things, and currently I have my doubts.

Again this doesn't refute what I said. People are understandably mad for whatever reason their thing didn't get the attention they wanted. This isn't an excuse to try and defend mad takes, especially when the company is in the process of fixing their mistake. Mistakes happen and will continue to happen, this isn't in any way a validation for being irrationally mad about things.

I'm not sure how much praise to give to the housing team for removing the mashing at placard night after night to be honest. How that got greenlit at all i don't understand. Should have been like that from the start, but it's easy to just point fingers. While the change is appreciated, I don't think a lot of people will feel overly grateful. Still good, but if someone makes a mess and cleans it up later, I'm not gonna lavish them with praise. Seems like something that should be expected, to me personally.

You're not even giving praise, you were saying they're doing nothing to improve it when they demonstrably are. The IDEA behind the housing system FFXIV has was pretty unique. It turned into a mess in implementation because of the demand and continues to be a mess because it's built on a system that cannot scale. What they SHOULD do, in my opinion is to at least add other avenues for people to participate in outside decoration and gardening (say instanced gardens via something like a "greenhouse" attached to apartments.)... good ideas or not, the current system, when a player can participate, is fun.. the problem is there's just not enough seats for everyone on the ride.

The last point you made I find curious. I myself grew up in East Asia, in Hong Kong. It is very much the norm here when a mistake is made, extra lengths are taken to ensure things are done to compensate people who are affected. I have had to do it myself multiple times when I worked there since I fuck up all the time kek. Is it uncommon in the west to expect mistakes be improved upon and customer service to that length? I find it interesting that in the west that people don't expect anything of the such from companies, and often defend the companies bottom line.

I expect when someone makes a mistake that the problem be fixed and the amount of inconvenience to be minimized for that fix. It's NICE to have extra recompense for heavy inconvenience but I don't EXPECT it and my future business only depends on whether the company in question gets me what I payed for or should be entitled to in whatever transaction happened in the first place. Saying that them fixing the problem and apologizing for the inconvenience AND explaining what happened (which is a layer of transparency lacking in a lot of live-service games), isn't enough sounds incredibly over-entitled to me. The actual amount of anything lost as far as time or gil is exceedingly minimal. You are now being asked to wait for them to make sure the fix doesn't make things worse. That should be plenty enough. You don't need kowtowing on top of apologizing and resolution of the problem.

Apologies for shoddy formatting, am on mobile.

It looks fine. Thank you for using paragraphs.