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

[TR_RA]

Everyone keeps wanting more wards, but what needs to happen is SE should apologize for the housing problem, COMPLETELY REVAMP THE SYSTEM altogether, and make instanced housing a thing, kind of like how apartments work, rather than looking like a neighborhood. You choose your ward, then you choose a plot. When choosing a plot, you can determine the size of the house you want. Having a specific number of S, M, and L houses is totally stupid as SE is limiting options for those who may want something different. We all pay a monthly sub, most of us want housing, and some of us are greedy enough to want multiple housing - which screws other players. Housing shouldn't be a battle between players - it should be an option that will always be there, regardless of sub or no sub, which is why I say instanced housing would allow this. I wasn't a FFXI player, but I did have friends that played it and wasn't it instanced housing in FFXI? Why change the system?

[Mwynn]

Ahem

What if you want want to do Gardenin.... oh right, there is no Outside anymore as it is Instanced.
What about the Furniture on the outsi... nvm, it's gone aswell...
What about the Housing Desig.... nvm, it's gone all to oblivion.

[Claviusnex]

What if you want want to do Gardenin.... oh right, there is no Outside anymore as it is Instanced.
What about the Furniture on the outsi... nvm, it's gone aswell...
What about the Housing Desig.... nvm, it's gone all to oblivion.

No it isn't. With instanced housing you make the exterior part of the instance. In fact moving to fully instanced housing would allow the 20 exterior item restriction to be lifted. It only exists to limit server resources for the always loaded wards.

[Mwynn]

No it isn't. With instanced housing you make the exterior part of the instance. In fact moving to fully instanced housing would allow the 20 exterior item restriction to be lifted. It only exists to limit server resources for the always loaded wards.

So you basically say for each Player they had to load a single entire Ward.

Can you imagine how many Instances that would be? We don't speak about 50.000, we speak about over 200.000 - 400.000 as every Player had the Option for a actual House.
Not with those Servers, let alone they cannot handle 300 Players in a single Instance before the Servers on Square Enix's Side start to crumble and disconnect everyone.

I just say 300 Players in the Lochs is a good Stress Test on their Server, now do that with over 50.000 Instances loading.
You can kiss the Server Goodbye or you need to cut out a lot of Gameplay Options (Such as Inventory) just to make it enjoyable.
People always think they snip their Fingers and the Magic is done flawlessly, ya sadly not in Reality.

Let alone their Reasoning not to give us Au Ra the Option to seperate our Horns due of Issues coming from the Data.
Maybe in 10 or 20 Years we're rid of those Issues but not in the near Future, not with the Way SE is working currently.

[Enla]

,

Except instances don't have to be loaded if they aren't currently in use, which let's face it - most people don't hang out in their houses to begin with. The only time the housing server is ever stressed at present is when new wards get added and everyone is, you guessed it, inside the existing housing instances. After a week it goes back to being a once a year issue and even that can be solved with smarter use of their limited server capacity at present.

[Mwynn]

Except instances don't have to be loaded if they aren't currently in use

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

~ Cities
~ Fields
~ Dungeons

It's just a Map that is entirely active all the time (You can see in Field Zones as example when FATEs are still active while nobody is in that "Instance" actually)
"in some cases they're entirely active"

Now for the Dungeon case, it is true that they completely start working / get loaded once you enter them from the beginning.
Basically we do right now play in Instances, hence we had 3x Instances at start of Stormblood, such as having 3x times "The Loch" Zones in their Database.
By choosing 1 ~ 3 we got put in one of the three Copies that were around then, giving us even Triple Hunts and such.

I mean I'm in no Way against any Housing related Suggestions or in this case, giving us more Instances, by doing so tho this Way, or well let's say Square Enix's Way.
We basically had a bazillion Warding Instances that would work just as it would do right now, putting even more load off as they don't de-load if there is nobody around.

(Of course if SE is finally clever in this case, they did it that Way, but knowing SE... they pull something half-a**'d off *eyerolls*)

I see the misuse of the Word "Instance" here basically. Why not apply the Word "Channel" instead, it does the same as it does right now.

[Tridus]

SI just say 300 Players in the Lochs is a good Stress Test on their Server, now do that with over 50.000 Instances loading.

The Lochs is 300 people in a single instance, rather than 300 people in 300 instances. The communication is far less in the latter case because you don't have to tell 300 clients what 299 other clients are doing. And the housing instances only load if someone is actually in it, which is exactly how it works now except there's also a bigger instance for the ward that is shared, always running, and usually empty. A better comparison is to Raubhan's Wall, because that was a pile of solo instances. (But house interiors are ALREADY instances, so the only change is to make them big enough to also have an outside.)

Wildstar managed to do it, and they don't have anywhere near the budget SE does.

You can kiss the Server Goodbye or you need to cut out a lot of Gameplay Options (Such as Inventory) just to make it enjoyable.

Or they could upgrade to something that isn't hamster wheel powered? At some point, "the servers can't handle it" ceases to be a reasonable explanation and is simply incompetence. The absurd server limitations they claim to be under are not even remotely justifiable in a subscription (aka: premium) product. Someone needs to tell them that it's not 1995 anymore. Server capacity is cheaper and more readily deployed than ever before, and it's getting cheaper all the time.

People always think they snip their Fingers and the Magic is done flawlessly, ya sadly not in Reality.

If you're running a modern cloud infrastructure, you can bring storage online in minutes by clicking a few buttons. If SE is still caught in 1999 server management practices, that's their problem to fix. Storage is the easiest and cheapest thing to deploy aside from extra compute.

Let alone their Reasoning not to give us Au Ra the Option to seperate our Horns due of Issues coming from the Data.
Maybe in 10 or 20 Years we're rid of those Issues but not in the near Future, not with the Way SE is working currently.

It does seem that way. But that's not a justification to just throw our hands up and pretend that it's fine. Generic F2P MMOs have fewer server constraints, it's indefensible. Either they need to not siphon off so much of the sub money and give the team the budget it needs to not run on a shoestring server budget, or they need to go hire some talent from the ops side of other MMO companies that actually can do this.

[Ophelie]

Or they could upgrade to something that isn't hamster wheel powered? At some point, "the servers can't handle it" ceases to be a reasonable explanation and is simply incompetence. The absurd server limitations they claim to be under are not even remotely justifiable in a subscription (aka: premium) product. Someone needs to tell them that it's not 1995 anymore. Server capacity is cheaper and more readily deployed than ever before, and it's getting cheaper all the time.

The problem there isn't the servers, it's that the version of FFXIV that we know right now is mostly built on the framework of 1.0, which everyone knows was a disaster. They most likely put duct tape and spit on the glaring issues for the 2.0 launch and beyond, but for the most part it's still running on the bones of 1.0. There comes a point where you'll "max out" the server no matter how much money you throw at it if you're running a shoddily optimized game.

I've a feeling that with the larger budget, they've begun re-writing the framework to bring it up to more modern coding standards. I've got no proof of this and it's purely speculation, but it does help to explain how they were able to increase inventory size (which was said to be taxing the system immensely at the launch of 4.0) and then release a sizeable glamour system rework in the relatively short time since the launch of 4.0.

[Moonlite]

So you basically say for each Player they had to load a single entire Ward.

You need to check out how some other skilled developers have housing. Then you will understand what they are talking about. You seem to be looking at it through the system of the poor design skills.

But to the point they are going to fix this. Not until current team has a change over. They are sold on this system and keep doubling down. If they left it now it would be admitting that they were wrong on so many levels for five plus years.

Am I the only one who feels like OP is being a little extreme and the current housing issue is mostly going to addressed in 4.2? Just me? Ok I'll leave.

You mean like it was fixed for those people on full servers in 3.3. Defending this system is (looking for a non offensive word). It is a permanently flawed system and all you will only think its fixed because you a) don't want one or b) have one. The system puts strain on smaller servers by forcing them to have more house zones then needed and large servers by not having enough for players and FCs. Those are simple facts right at the top.

[Soupa]

You mean like it was fixed for those people on full servers in 3.3. Defending this system is (looking for a non offensive word). It is a permanently flawed system and all you will only think its fixed because you a) don't want one or b) have one. The system puts strain on smaller servers by forcing them to have more house zones then needed and large servers by not having enough for players and FCs.

I think defending the current system is really logical given how we know how instanced servers work in this game. I don't wanna be denied entry to housing instance because its full (heres to you Rhaubhan ex) I really think whatever system they have planned will help alleviate some of the housing pains. The auto demolish feature being reimplemented will help as well. Still think all OP and some of the people here are offering overly simplified/extreme solutions to a complex problem that we don't even know all the inter workings of but alright, good luck.