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  1. #1
    Player
    frostmagemari's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    568
    Character
    U'tabia Aisibhirwyn
    World
    Mateus
    Main Class
    Armorer Lv 90

    Cure the disease, don't treat the symptom

    To all of our players, especially those who have newly begun their adventures in FFXIV, I apologize for the present lack of housing.

    Improving Data Centers to Allow for Additional Plots

    To support the addition of housing plots, all data centers will require additional servers.

    We are making preparations to account for the cost of these additional servers, but due to restrictions on shipments from Japan to other countries due to COVID-19, as well as the potential necessity of quarantine upon entry and re-entry to different countries, work to ready the servers is slow-going.
    I feel while it is a nice gesture, but i think this perfectly exemplifies why continuing with their current housing system is untenable.
    Instead of locking the current housing system in place and then creating a new and better housing method to go forward with, they continue to put bandaids over bandaids and its starting to show that it simply won't continue to work.

    There's paths they can go down to build a better housing system (even if some are more painful than others), but they seem content with throwing money at housing to treat a symptom of their real problem (ie. Bad Design).
    (20)
    Last edited by frostmagemari; 08-20-2020 at 04:07 AM.

  2. #2
    Player
    Enla's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Location
    Gridania
    Posts
    2,748
    Character
    Crushing Fatigue
    World
    Balmung
    Main Class
    Scholar Lv 70
    Honestly I have to wonder how much of a strain on the servers Wards have gotten to be, versus say apartments. I'm not a tech person but I do recall a few of my tech friends mentioning that instances like apartments can basically be made dormant to consume less resources when not in use, but that since all it takes is one person to be in a Ward for the server to be actively interacting with it that it ends up being a bigger resource drain in the long run. If that is the case, and they're at the point where only additional servers will solve this issue, then it's absolutely time to scrap further wards and look into instanced based housing for the future. Though if I am wrong please by all means correct me!
    (10)

  3. #3
    Player
    Valkyrie_Lenneth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Limsa Lominsa
    Posts
    8,038
    Character
    Lynne Asteria
    World
    Jenova
    Main Class
    Viper Lv 100
    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.
    (25)
    Last edited by Valkyrie_Lenneth; 08-20-2020 at 04:59 AM.

  4. #4
    Player
    Cetek14's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Location
    Ul'Dah
    Posts
    385
    Character
    Claire Oreiro
    World
    Lich
    Main Class
    Red Mage Lv 90
    We just need instanced housing. I'm not saying we have to remove current system, but add another one. It's inevitable if we want to have healthy housing.
    (5)

  5. #5
    Player
    Stepjam's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Posts
    1,203
    Character
    Gabriel Morgan
    World
    Adamantoise
    Main Class
    Dark Knight Lv 100
    Yeah, that's basically correct. And to add to that, each ward has 30 unique pretty customizable spaces which requires more resources to maintain compared to a static instance where everything is the same. So housing wards can be pretty intensive, and since there only has to be one person AFKing in a ward for it to be required to remain active, they can't just add wards willy nilly without preparation.

    Presumably we are going to be getting 21 wards whenever the Ishgard wards drop, and since each ward is has 2 subwards, and each subward has 30 houses, that's 1260 unique houses that they are getting ready for.

    Personally I wish they had gone with instanced houses. I get the appeal of having neighbors, I really do (I got a small house right next to my FC, it's nice), but they would be able to provide so much more space if each house was an individual instance. That way any house that doesn't have anyone in it can be put into an inactive state, as opposed to the current way where the outside of 30 houses are active as long as theres a single person afk in the ward.

    Alternately, I'd be pretty happy if they looked into making apartments upgradeable. Add the ability to add extra rooms to your apartment. I'd be happy with an apartment if I could make it larger, one room is just not enough. I don't even necessarily need an outside area to customize.
    (3)

  6. #6
    Player
    frostmagemari's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    568
    Character
    U'tabia Aisibhirwyn
    World
    Mateus
    Main Class
    Armorer Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth View Post
    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.
    (16)

  7. #7
    Player
    MariaArvana's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2018
    Posts
    347
    Character
    Maria Rubrum
    World
    Gilgamesh
    Main Class
    Summoner Lv 80
    Quote Originally Posted by frostmagemari View Post
    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)
    (8)
    Last edited by MariaArvana; 08-20-2020 at 05:04 AM.

  8. #8
    Player
    frostmagemari's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    568
    Character
    U'tabia Aisibhirwyn
    World
    Mateus
    Main Class
    Armorer Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by MariaArvana View Post
    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.
    (5)

  9. #9
    Player
    Valkyrie_Lenneth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Limsa Lominsa
    Posts
    8,038
    Character
    Lynne Asteria
    World
    Jenova
    Main Class
    Viper Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by frostmagemari View Post
    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.
    (5)

  10. #10
    Player
    MariaArvana's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2018
    Posts
    347
    Character
    Maria Rubrum
    World
    Gilgamesh
    Main Class
    Summoner Lv 80
    Quote Originally Posted by frostmagemari View Post
    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.
    (3)
    Last edited by MariaArvana; 08-20-2020 at 05:27 AM.

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