Remove timer SE

[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.

[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.

[KadaRemnant]

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.

I'm on ps4

[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 >.>

[Penthea]

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.

Yea I was thinking the same thing. I think only pcs very much below the spec of a ps4 would noticeably chug long before the cap on characters displayed is reached.

I don't think people realize that instant housing isn't as simple to implement as everyone thinks it is.

I understand it isn't easy. However...

Sure other MMOs have it.

This is precisely what makes the situation infuriating. The tech is there, SE can well afford to do this. And everyone knows this. But having the money and wanting to spend it on housing are not the same thing.

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

Yes this is certainly a problem and not an easy one to fix but keeping things as they are now is leading to other big problems.

Every single release of wards has been very controversial. People are supposed to be looking forward to new housing content, not be worried, stressed out or being at each other's throats about it. And it's not getting better. The game is becoming more popular at a rate faster than houses are being added. I know SE had planned to add even more wards than what we recently got and covid got in the way of that, but the fact is the system is unsustainable. By not having a proper instanced housing system SE have doomed themselves to constantly struggle to keep up with the demand, and they never get anywhere close to satisfying it. As long as all we have is wards I seriously doubt they ever will.

That said there are ways for SE to improve the ward system that would alleviate the demand for houses. And by this I mean apartments. They're better than nothing but they do leave many players just end up feeling like they get something too basic. I would never expect them to be as good as houses, but I don't think anyone expected them to be simply just fc rooms with a chocobo stable. Just a handful of upgrades would drastically improve them.

Of course another way to improve it is to allow all characters on the same server access the same private home. However SE already expressed interest in doing this a few times so I think it's only a matter of time before it comes. I suppose the soonest we can expect is with the release of Ishgard wards, which is starting to look like will come in 6.0.

I just want the housing system to no longer rely on luck. I understand if SE want houses to feel like a long term goal to aim for but this can instead be done with quest chains and rep grinds. Having players directly compete with each other just creates animosity which isn't healthy for any gaming community. SE have frequently said one of the reasons why they don't have an in-game parser is because they want to avoid the drama that can come from them. Well their current stance with housing goes directly against this ideology.

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 >.>

Ugh some of the comments you have gotten about that timer thread have been awful. You're not directly responsible for it. The most likely thing is that you and SE had the same idea. The timer does definitely hinder most house flipping but because the housing system is so flawed it ended up replacing that issue with another issue. That's not your fault. To me it just shows that tweaks won't ever be enough. However a good tweak would be to dramatically reduce the max time. Having it potentially has high as 24 hours isn't helping anyone and we have seen it creates a lot of unhappiness. I think a max of five hours would be enough for it to still function as intended without players doing something as unhealthy as camp for more hours than a work shift.