The solution to Final Fantasy XIV‘s struggling housing system may have introduced a new set of problems instead of fixes. As the first set of winning lottery numbers rolled out earlier today, some players reported bugged results — including an error showing “0” as the winning lottery number. Director and producer Naoki Yoshida has since issued a statement, announcing the lottery system will not enter a new cycle until the problem is resolved.
Square Enix first responded via the Lodestone acknowledging reports of two lottery errors preventing the sale of housing, but didn’t point to anything confirming the cause, possible fixes, or plans to remediate the issue for those impacted. Yoshida followed up with a statement of his own, apologizing for the problem and explaining the next steps for the development team.
UPDATE: Square Enix has since released another statement, now officially translated into English, providing an in-depth technical explanation of what went wrong. The developer also explained that it still has players’ lottery data. This means that “it is possible for us to confirm the status of entry applications through our database server logs.” Anyone that accepted a gil refund for their lottery ticket, not knowing about the bug, “will not be negatively affected by the measures we will be taking afterwards.” Fingers crossed! The original story follows.
“Firstly, we understand that this is a major issue, and are prioritizing our investigation into the matter, ” said Yoshida. “We are working to identify the issue in the corresponding program; however, as the process is very complex and there are many patterns involved for the lottery conditions, it will require some time to pinpoint the problem.”
Until it’s all figured out, the FFXIV housing lottery is on pause. Current participants had their deadline to claim plots and view lottery results extended to Wednesday, April 20 at 7:59 am PDT.
Apparently, Ishgard’s housing district, The Empyreum, is not the fair and equitable solution to player housing folks anticipated. With the launch of Patch 6.1, Square Enix laid out its plans to overhaul the old housing system and introduced a lottery as new wards in Ishgard went live. For the last five days, Free Companies and private buyers have perused the new wards and placed bids on their dream plots, putting anywhere from three million Gil to 50 million Gil down as a deposit and hoping they draw the winning lotto number.
The Empyreum lottery’s winning bids went live this morning. Some sales went off without a hitch, while others encountered bugged results like, “The winning number is…0. May you have better luck next time,” and “There were no participants in this lottery.” The problem is you can’t pull ‘0’ as a winning lottery number, and the plots that claimed to have no entries did have participants register for the drawing.
If you’ve been chasing a home for your Free Company or private use, it’s a pretty frustrating hiccup in a system already notorious for being limited and obtuse. Reddit, Twitter, and even the in-game chat are all buzzing with memes, breakdowns, frustrated rants, and the occasional boast of elation from someone who snagged a plot. There’s a megathread from the FFXIV subreddit chronicling tales of woe from around the realm, and it appears even older wards are seeing the same problems.
new housing lotto update! the ffxiv dev team made the most colossal housing fuck up and people are losing bids on houses with only 1 entry because…….. #0 is somehow coded in as a valid winning number, and some houses recorded no entries at all pic.twitter.com/ny8bcA8VZJ
— 琳 ✦ SMASH! B10 (@EENlX) April 16, 2022
Even as the only bidder, it’s still possible to lose to a zero roll or no entries error. So, if you are someone who managed to score a plot as the only player who placed a bid, it seems you may have beat the 50-percent odds with your winning number one over the ominous zero. There were some murmurs speculating the last entry placed couldn’t win, so if you were entry ten of ten, the system only registered zero through nine. It seems the studious housing community has ruled that theory out, though. The Reddit thread documents instances of final entries with winning numbers.
You know you have bad luck when…
-You're the only bidder and still lose
-You lose so bad the game forgets you entered.????♀️#FFXIV #FinalFantasyXIV pic.twitter.com/VVlZFo1qag
— ???? Allarae ???? (@AllarinDawnglow) April 16, 2022
While the FFXIV housing community is often in the spotlight for inspiring player talent and creativity, the system itself has long been the subject of ire since its A Realm Reborn launch. Prior to Patch 6.0, Square Enix opened new housing wards to a rush of players scrambling to be the first in line to buy a plot. The frantic dash often sent log-in queues into the thousands, crashed server instances, and left a lot of people pissed. Back in Stormblood‘s Kugane housing launch, I documented my own experience trying to buy a home for my Free Company. It didn’t go well.
The lottery was meant to resolve that messy process, giving players with limited time a chance to bid. But, for now, it seems to only further frustrations voiced for years. After striking out so much, I’m putting my hopes into FFXIV‘s Island Sanctuary update, a mode bringing new ways to experience the housing and gardening systems in Eorzea. Here’s to hoping that goes over better than shopping in Ser Aymeric’s neighborhood.
