Naoki Yoshida is Involved in the FFXIV Housing Lottery Investigation

FFXIV Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida offered another statement about the housing lottery problem and investigation. Part of it explains he is involved in attempting to figure out what went wrong. Another looked at the lottery entry conditions from the perspectives of the person and the plot. He also apologized for misspeaking in a previous update. In an earlier statement, he misspoke and made it seem as though the lottery could be manipulated. More importantly, he noted the team hadn’t found the cause of the bugs yet. He did note that database server logs are available to aid in the investigation.

As a reminder, the FFXIV housing lottery problem involved people seeing messages saying nobody bid on a plot or that the winning number for a plot that had bids was “0.” In each case, it meant players were told nobody won, when someone should have.

First, Yoshida noted his role in what’s going on. He mentioned looking at “log data” and is exploring the issue from the perspective of the plots.

I am also participating in the investigation, theorizing, as well as proposing how to analyze the log data and sort through cases. Even with the emergency maintenance which concluded on April 14, I determined whether maintenance should take place after reconfirming the pattern of entry requirements. For this issue, I am looking into if there are any leads in the lottery entry condition patterns from the plots’ perspective, which shouldn’t have any relevance to the process. (Even if it turns out to be in vain, confirming that something is definitely unrelated is important when pinpointing an issue.)

During the investigation, I was in charge of inferring the types of applicants from the plots’ perspective; therefore, in my mind, I was thinking “plot of land = applicants’ perspective” and this resulted in my previous hasty statement which mentioned “many patterns involved for the lottery conditions.” Although I was in a hurry, I should have been more careful with my choice of words, even moreso because there were ongoing issues. I apologize for the confusion caused by my statement.

Yoshida explained how the entry condition patterns work for both sides. From the character perspective, there could be patterns that look at if no land is owned, if one character on an account does and another on the same account doesn’t, and if both own land and one is relocating. As for the plot perspective, the patterns there look at situations like there were no entries, one entry, multiple entries, multiple entries all from one free company, and multiple entries from multiple free companies’ people.

Yoshida also mentioned how the data logs will assist in finding solutions to the FFXIV housing lottery issues. He specifically mentioned a goal is to keep people from being unintentionally penalized.

We still have the lottery data, and it is possible for us to confirm the status of entry applications through our database server logs. These logs will be referenced to ensure that players who have accepted their gil refund from losing the lottery will not be negatively affected by the measures we will be taking afterwards. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by these issues, but please rest assured regarding this point.

As a reminder, the FFXIV housing lottery schedule is paused while the problem is being investigated. This first run was supposed to end on April 20, 2022. Yoshida noted on April 16, 2022 that the second results portion won’t end when it is supposed to while the team attempts to fix the problem.

Final Fantasy XIV is available for the PS4, PS5, and PC.