Remove timer SE

[KadaRemnant]

There will be no camping if the timer is removed because there will be no plots to camp. Before the timer was brought in houses were snapped up within minutes or even less. It was so rare to see an open plot.

I got my house from demolition before the placard timer existed, but it wasn't the first house I tried to get. For over a year I saw only four houses available for purchase. The fourth house is the one I got.

For the first three I witnessed them either change their icon to a purchased plot on the map or saw someone who got to the placard seconds before I did and get the house. It felt horrible. It felt hopeless. It was so rare to even see a plot for sale and I was never the first person to reach the plot. Not even the time I got my house was I the first person to reach the plot. Someone else was already standing at the placard when the house came in view but they must not have had enough gil and/or were waiting for someone who had. The nearest aetheryte is quite far from the plot (plot 60 Lavender Beds) so they had plenty of time to buy it before I could even get there. I took my chances, clicked on the placard and got the house. I couldn't believe my luck.

The placard timer sucks but the above is not better. I think both situations are as bad as each other just bad in different ways.

With the timer you're far more likely to see open plots but you could spend hours camping it with a lot of competition around you. Without the timer the plot can be purchased so fast you wouldn't even have gotten the chance to even see it in the house listings before it was bought. Both situations are horrible. The era before the placard timer isn't the wonderful thing you think it is, and the placard timer isn't any better.

The absence or presence of a timer doesn't make it easier to get a house. You know what does? More houses. The more houses there are the less competition there will be. Removing or having a timer doesn't solve availability issues because these do not create more houses.

I got a house before the timer. I lost it because i took a break. It was easier before.

[Penthea]

I got a house before the timer. I lost it because i took a break. It was easier before.

Having kept some buddies company while they were spam clicking I disagree. I think they're both equally terrible just for different reasons.

However I will admit that the timer does put ps4 players at a disadvantage because they cannot use bots. I suppose that tips it over in being slightly worse.

[Almagnus1]

Having kept some buddies company while they were spam clicking I disagree. I think they're both equally terrible just for different reasons.

However I will admit that the timer does put ps4 players at a disadvantage because they cannot use bots. I suppose that tips it over in being slightly worse.

The other reason PS4 is at a disadvantage is the PC can use faster storage like SSD and NVME drives, which means that the average PC player will load faster provided they aren't on HDD.

[Penthea]

The other reason PS4 is at a disadvantage is the PC can use faster storage like SSD and NVME drives, which means that the average PC player will load faster provided they aren't on HDD.

I didn't mention this because I don't think it has any impact on interacting with the placard. But it does have impact on loading in to zones during the race to get plots without a timer.

[Almagnus1]

I didn't mention this because I don't think it has any impact on interacting with the placard. But it does have impact on loading in to zones during the race to get plots without a timer.

I'd bet that my current desktop (NVidia 2080, i9 9900K, 64GB RAM, NVME SSD) and connection (1Gbit up/down fiber) are going to load far faster and better cope with crowds than a PS4 will, which puts any PS4 at a disadvantage to me with housing simply because I'm on a gaming PC with a fiber internet connection.

In an ideal world, the entire housing system should be hardware agnostic... but I have no idea how the current system can be tweaked to factor out the player hardware and connection without making it worse for all involved.

[Penthea]

I'd bet that my current desktop (NVidia 2080, i9 9900K, 64GB RAM, NVME SSD) and connection (1Gbit up/down fiber) are going to load far faster and better cope with crowds than a PS4 will, which puts any PS4 at a disadvantage to me with housing simply because I'm on a gaming PC with a fiber internet connection.

Can crowds get large enough at a placard that it would affect performance on ps4? This isn't sarcasm, it's a genuine question.

In an ideal world, the entire housing system should be hardware agnostic... but I have no idea how the current system can be tweaked to factor out the player hardware and connection without making it worse for all involved.

I don't think it can be done. Even if SE manage to even the playing field between ps4 and pcs of a similar spec with a SSD, there are still far more powerful and far weaker pcs than the ps4. There is always going to be some disparity somewhere.

We need instanced housing : /

[MsMisato]

Can crowds get large enough at a placard that it would affect performance on ps4? This isn't sarcasm, it's a genuine question.

There is an actual hard cap on how many characters can be displayed. Personally I never seen it get to that point at a plot. Yesterday I went ot a plot near my home and it was camped by 14 people. YOu can see the hard cap easily during hunts and when the fate for restoration pops.

I don't think it can be done. Even if SE manage to even the playing field between ps4 and pcs of a similar spec with a SSD, there are still far more powerful and far weaker pcs than the ps4. There is always going to be some disparity somewhere.

We need instanced housing :

I don't think people realize that instant housing isn't as simple to implement as everyone thinks it is. Sure other MMOs have it. Personally I like BDOs approach but its completely different engine with a completely different coding scheme and even different server infrastructure. FFXIV is a mash up of coding from 1.0 and what iti is now and the problem with it is every little thing from housing, to the armor, to the head gear being hidden, to even a majority of the UI parts which all require a server call. This is one reason why they can't do glamour chest for housing as it would crash the server. Even the UI guy during the live letter stated even though they want and probably could add certain things, it would bog down the server with the sheer number of requests and cause issues.

Even though there is 3rd party tools that do what what was requested if they implemented every player would be pinging the servers vs the ones using the third party tool. WE have to face facts, this is a bastardize version of the original FFXIV that has a crap ton of band aid fixes to get it where it as it today. It would more and likely require them taking the game offline again for a long period time to make it happen and SE doesn't want that unfortunately. I think the best they can do is and I really don't get why is improve the apartment system by making it attractive to people who are unable to et a plot at this time if SE is so hell bent on making actually housing scarce.

[Almagnus1]

Can crowds get large enough at a placard that it would affect performance on ps4? This isn't sarcasm, it's a genuine question.

You'll likely see it in the loading and rendering before you hit the char limit.

The biggest thing the PS4 has against it is that it's old technology, and it's stuck behind USB3 for it's storage rather than using something faster like a SATA SSD or M.2 NVME drive. And may Hydaelyn have mercy on your poor soul if you are still using an HDD as those things are slow (they work similar to a vinyl record playing back a song). If someone is trying to do this over WiFi (rather than a wired ethernet connection) they may as well throw in the towell because wired internet generally tends to be faster (and more reliable) than WiFi.

There's other technical stuff too, but I really don't think me nerding out about that would be beneficial >.>

I don't think it can be done. Even if SE manage to even the playing field between ps4 and pcs of a similar spec with a SSD, there are still far more powerful and far weaker pcs than the ps4. There is always going to be some disparity somewhere.

I'd still rather try to figure something out than throw in the towel... but then again I seem good at finding Sisyphean things to get behind >.>

[Jojoya]

I got a house before the timer. I lost it because i took a break. It was easier before.

It was easier before because the lower pop worlds had a sufficient supply of houses compared to player demand. Even in 2018 after the timer was added, most worlds had several if not hundreds of houses available at all times. The timer was irrelevant because there was always a plot ready to be purchased.

That's not true anymore. The player base exploded in size thanks to the failure of some MMOs and problems in others. The supply no longer comes close to meeting demand even on the lower population worlds. It's a problem even on the JP worlds now where in the past most of the JP worlds had a decent number of houses available even when none of the NA servers did.

I cruised by many of the JP worlds yesterday. I can't visit Shiro with my JP data center alts but I can visit the rest of the housing districts. I only found 2 worlds with more than 30 houses still available. Most were down to 15-20 and it wouldn't surprise me if those were filled by now. A couple had none.

The housing situation is not a timer issue. It is a supply issue. Removing the timer doesn't not increase the supply.