We need another Housing purge

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I saw something like this just last night, but didn't get a screenie to document it. I was looking at a ward of the Goblet on Matteus, and a great number of them all had the same <guild-tag> and it seemed like each one was owned by a 1-person FC. The FCs were all similarly named, in addition to having the same tag. E.G. "The Fool's Paradise" "The Fool's Court" "Fool's Inn" etc. (I don't remember the -exact- name, but it was clear that they were all variations on a theme.)

It's two people who own the entire ward. There was an article about it on Kotaku a while back.

They really should've just imposed a "One house per account period" restriction instead of allowing for FCs to be used as a loophole.

House hording is enough of an issue just with alt accounts involved.

This means FC leaders are arbitrarily punished. A friend and I jointly run a FC. Your proposal means one of us will be locked out of keeping our individual personal houses. Why is that fair?

[illgot]

No it wasn't. If wards were turned into a ghost town, people would buy those houses gladly once they were reclaimed. SE didn't change the rules regarding this, other than a freeze on reclamation due to natural disasters effecting a large number of players.

The change in rules was regarding specifically the issue addressed, that each players can have one personal house, and that each FC can have one house, while supplies last. It specifically states that any attempts to skirt around these rules are also against the rules, which we can see here. Further changes are being made to make personal houses available for the entire account, further cementing that a personal house is for 1 player, and not for 1 character.

Additional changes were so that FC housing would be reclaimed if the FC had not enough members to consider it legitimate. What we see however is that these FC's are made up of the same people with alternate characters. You only need 4 players to own 16 houses.

What we see here is an obviously violation of the rules, and SE should crack down on it.

you are making up rules.

The rules state that each character can only have one personal house and own one FC house.

Character, not player. You keep insisting it is player based but the housing rules are character based.

It is impossible for a character to now acquire more than 1 personal house and own one FC house. There is no "skirting" the rule because it is impossible to now bypass that rule. The characters who were grandfathered in are also not breaking any rules... because they were grandfathered in to the new system intentionally.

[m1saka]

Of course it's gonna be hard to get a house in a really populated server, also it's not against the rules to own multiple FC houses, as said by people above if you are willing to pay for more then one service account go on, from a business perspective this is a wet dream for SE. And i'm sure they would love for everyone to have 2 subs instead of one.

[Solarra]

I can see why people are annoyed by what appears to be one FC owning almost an entire ward but at the same time I don't want the rules tightened further because those proposals are going to hit innocent players far harder than the people you want to target. We already have reclamation, most worlds have empty properties and the people who were grandfathered need to stay active to keep their houses. If the people who own multiple properties did not break any rules at the time they purchased them, then they should be allowed to keep them.

Instanced housing I can get behind far more for the following reasons:
- No need for reclamation
- It should be possible to have a much larger outdoor furniture limit
- It would provide a much needed gil sink
- Potential to put housing in desired areas like Ishgard or the Sea of Clouds which are not suitable for wards due to lore or story-locked access

FFXIV housing is something that has the potential to be great, instanced houses would let players get really creative. I'd happily swap my personal in Mist for a private island in the Sea of Clouds or even one off-shore from Mist.
I'd like to see more people enjoying housing rather than trying to punish players who have a house and making them jump through hoops if they want to keep it.

[NessaWyvern]

They really should've just imposed a "One house per account period" restriction instead of allowing for FCs to be used as a loophole.

House hording is enough of an issue just with alt accounts involved.

That gets iffy though, since I inherited an FC (the leader stopped playing) while I owned a personal house. It wouldn't be right for the fc house to be destroyed, just because I already had one, other people still use the FC house.

[Jojoya]

Make no mistake, it's clearly against the rules, and the efforts made here are in clear violation of the rules. Just because you've circumvented the hard coded rules doesn't mean you haven't broken them.

So submit your evidence to SE that they broke the rules instead of benefiting from the grandfather clause for those who had owned multiple houses prior to 4.2's release. It easily could have been someone who had already owned multiple houses across scattered wards and then took advantage of relocation when the new wards were opened to move them all to the same ward.

SE is still the final arbitrator when it comes to who is breaking the rules and who isn't. Report for cheating if you feel the need but you'd better be certain that you know more than one of those FCs is owned by the same account and that those houses were new purchases after 4.2.

you are making up rules.

The rules state that each character can only have one personal house and own one FC house.

Character, not player. You keep insisting it is player based but the housing rules are character based.

It is impossible for a character to now acquire more than 1 personal house and own one FC house. There is no "skirting" the rule because it is impossible to now bypass that rule. The characters who were grandfathered in are also not breaking any rules... because they were grandfathered in to the new system intentionally.

Read the policy page again.

Each service account may only possess one free company estate hall and one private estate per World.

If it was only per character, then I could be buying my alt a house since there are hundreds of houses available on Coeurl right now but I can't.

It does not prevent a player from having multiple active service accounts so they can have multiple houses per world spread across those service accounts.

[LaylaTsarra]

Is it ok OP if a service account owns a house on multiple servers. Can I own a house on 8 different servers and be within the rules and would that be fine with you? Just checking before i do that with my alts. I want to be sure you approve.

Edit: Oh and how about if I create a small FC on each of them as well and get two, one FC and one personal?

[Frizze]

The mistake SE made was announcing the change in rules before the patch went live. On a few servers this caused FCs to "break up". They made LSs to stay in contact, and the individual members started their own FCs with similar names. They used the 2-ish weeks the new rules were known to level their new FCs up to house buying levels, and then when new wards went live they swarmed in and bought FC houses for their new 1-member dummy FCs. Every member willing to put in the work could now have their own airships(and later subs) - which personal housing doesnt allow for.

[OliverB]

Mew is my FC, ask me anything.

[Abelfei]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what they are doing, nor is it against the rules.