PSA: Purchasing a Personal Room can result in being unable to leave a Free Company

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Originally Posted by Reinha

A player can be kicked from the fc even if they have a personal room, right? Then why can't they leave on their own... So stupid.

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That had been another problem when personal rooms were initially introduced. A player couldn't (at the time) be kicked out of an FC if they had a personal room. SE fixed that corresponding issue, and I really thought they had fixed it in both directions at the time. Apparently not. So an abusive member can no longer use their personal room to prevent their FC leader from kicking them out, but an abusive FC leader can still use it to prevent members from being able to leave.
:(
This should have been fixed a long time ago.

SE realized people didn't want to be stuck in dead FCs (just because lead left) so they put an inactivity timer in. They've added the ability for leaders to kick members out even with personal rooms.

People should be able to leave FCs if they have personal rooms.

I can just imagine the debacle if there was someone considered "popular" in an FC whose leader turns out to be a petty egomaniac who wants to hold the popular a prisoner.

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Originally Posted by ExKage

SE realized people didn't want to be stuck in dead FCs (just because lead left) so they put an inactivity timer in. They've added the ability for leaders to kick members out even with personal rooms.

People should be able to leave FCs if they have personal rooms.


I can just imagine the debacle if there was someone considered "popular" in an FC whose leader turns out to be a petty egomaniac who wants to hold the popular a prisoner.

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thats less a matter of if and more a matter of when.

Just as people should be allowed to kick their FC members for whatever reason, whenever, and wherever; FC members should be allowed to leave exactly the same way. Whenever, wherever, and for whatever reason! I know this was probably not SE intention to do this, but seeming some people abuse the feature, I do think it should be addressed to avoid further complications.

Thank you for posting this thread. I will NEVER buy a room at my FC until this is fixed I'll just save up for a house no one can use against me instead (even though I will probably never be able to afford one).

Simple fix, remove the restriction.

If you're in an FC that has a House, the FC House should be accessible to ALL members at ALL times. This should not be something that can be toggled.

And I was not actually aware it was something that could be.

Good thing I actually know my FC offline. Having actual friends ingame solves A LOT of FC BS issues.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

That had been another problem when personal rooms were initially introduced. A player couldn't (at the time) be kicked out of an FC if they had a personal room. SE fixed that corresponding issue, and I really thought they had fixed it in both directions at the time. Apparently not. So an abusive member can no longer use their personal room to prevent their FC leader from kicking them out, but an abusive FC leader can still use it to prevent members from being able to leave.
:(
This should have been fixed a long time ago.

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Come to think of it, isn't that a ToS violation?

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Originally Posted by Kaiser-Ace

Come to think of it, isn't that a ToS violation?

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Pretty sure holding someone in an FC against their will is a way to disrupt someone else's gameplay.

Unfortunately, I suppose the GMs didn't see it that way.

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Originally Posted by Arrelaine

Unfortunately, I suppose the GMs didn't see it that way.

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It's be on YOU to provide the GMs of Malevolent Intent and/or Harassment.

I personally don't even want to know how many BS reports are filled with zero grounds to file them.

Proof trumps hear say just like IRL.

I've seen the screenshots, they most certainly did. I mean I don't know how you can convey 'our FC leader is holding our rooms hostage and demanding housing items before she releases us from the FC' as any more malevolent or more harassing. Not to mention they have access to chat logs (which is why you give them a timeframe for when things happen) so they absolutely knew what was going on. Most GMs don't accept screenshots because they can be altered, they look at their own chat logs.

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Originally Posted by Kaiser-Ace

It's be on YOU to provide the GMs of Malevolent Intent and/or Harassment.

I personally don't even want to know how many BS reports are filled with zero grounds to file them.

Proof trumps hear say just like IRL.

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there's multiple accounts of the gms failing to help in this situation, it seems unlikely that all of them failed to explain the problem properly.

Particularly when it is not very difficult to explain.

also bear in mind they're alledgedly not supposed to take player screenshots as evidence (could a CM clarify this?)

As far as I know GMs are supposed to go by in-game chat logs. I know that S-E wont take action on cheating even if the cheater records it and puts it on YouTube, because it is a second-hand source (this is why you can only get into trouble for parsing if you mention it in-game, for example).

But even so, this should be considered harassment on a pretty bad level since not only is the FC leader keeping the characters hostage, but they also are keeping the money (this is a B2P, P2P with a cash shop game. Lets say that one of those characters is new, only brought Sleipnir, one month of sub, and the expansion. That's about 76€ being held hostage from one member alone, however it is more likely that most of the characters held hostage have had more than 200€ invested in them, just in pure money) and time (want to catch up and run Raids and Diadem? Not only do you have to abandon the Cash Shop items, Limited Items such as Lightning hairstyle and so on, but you now also must spend at least a month running the ARR/Hw questline to level your new character. Oh, and of course, level any side-class for cross class skills and those gathering and crafting classes to participate in the economy. Oh, and level your new retainers as well...) the members invested in said characters hostage. Keep in mind that we have Fantasia and Renaming Services in a game in which we can make many characters across the servers precisely because we don't want to have to do all that crap each time we change our minds.

As far as I know they will only investigate through in-game chat logs since they can actually access those. They just need world/location/time/time zone.

Screenshots of chat logs can be doctored. Changing the text color of /echo you can pretty much pretend to be anyone sending tells when it's just that.

I'm bummed by the lack of communication there is over this. Some acknowledgement would be nice as this is terrifying for a casual player. Thinking of all the FC dramas I've heard of and even had to experience, I'm glad that none of this happened to me. I'd have gotten quite frustrated, as I'm sure those who have (and may even will) experienced it felt.

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Originally Posted by ExKage

Screenshots of chat logs can be doctored.

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Screenshots can still be a useful way of saying "this is the conversation I'm talking about" but then the GMs will still need to look up their official version of it. Quoting a message or two of the conversation in the description section of your report accomplishes the same thing. They'll need to look it up for themselves from their own copy of the chat system, but that's easier when they know what to look for.

But back to the main topic, the GMs really should have taken action on this. That FC leader holding members against their will and demanding payment for letting them go should be banned from the game. And the FC leadership should be taken from them and given to whomever is next in line for it. That much the GMs can and should do. Then the devs need to fix the problem so no other scumbag leaders can repeat the offence.

*Kicks thread back to first page*

Btw, anyone else in big FCs noticing that members are demolishing rooms left and right regardless whether or not the FC shows any troublesome signs? It seems that with leaving this exploit in the game instead of rolling out a hotfix (just remove the ability to lock out FC members from the house from the permissions tab! The coding can remain until there's time for a better fix, but remove the ticky box and reset all to FCs permissions to "allowed"), players are now avoiding the band-aid on the personal housing fiasco as well.

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Originally Posted by Norna

Btw, anyone else in big FCs noticing that members are demolishing rooms left and right regardless whether or not the FC shows any troublesome signs?

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I haven't seen that personally, but honestly it does not surprise me in the slightest. 300k isn't that much money to raise, if you decide you want to re-buy the room later after the issue is (hopefully) fixed.

If I weren't my FC's leader (I didn't 100% know and trust my GL), I'd probably demolish my room just as a safety precaution, so I can see it. :/

Well, it could also be people preparing to move to the EU data center or smaller FCs, but it certainly feels like I've seen the "[name] demolished room #" notification more often this past week or so than I usually do. Of course, that could be confirmation bias as well, and I'm simply noting the notifications more since seeing this thread...

I hope this gets fixed soon because I doubt only one FC will be affected through the life of the game, if they intend to support it for the next 6 years or so. And I hope that those affected will get better customer support, because it is incredibly frustrating to get canned replies ignoring your initial problem (reminds me of the time my laptop wouldn't turn on a few years ago; "have you tried restarting?" "no, because it's impossible" "try restarting first and get back to us later!" insert another phone queue).

There's already a thread on reddit discussing the exact same issue and it happened nearly a year ago, and nothing was done then, either.

More awareness needs to be raised so this can hopefully get dealt with before it becomes a serious problem for a lot of folks. Hopefully no one else gets impacted, but I doubt it.

This will probably happen again in the future if it doesn't get fixed. The cases we know of now were made known of because of social media - but I can imagine there have been other cases where they weren't posted on a place like reddit or tumblr to catch more wide-spread attention.

It is sad that people are more upset about the /sundrop dance than they are this. Or, I guess people are so very secure in their FCs. I guess that is a good thing.

I'm glad people are so very secure about their places in FCs.

History has shown me that while I may be secure, another person may not be. I would like to help prevent another such occurrence.

Apparently this needs to be necro'd because it hasn't been fixed. I do not have the housing privileges and people to show off the events. But here is a post from 2018 where someone is trapped in an FC. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...apped-in-my-fc.

Free Company private chambers were released almost 4 years ago and they still haven't solved the issue? Choosing not to fix such a huge oversight for this long is an embarrassment to the people in charge of the game.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Free Company private chambers were released almost 4 years ago and they still haven't solved the issue? Choosing not to fix such a huge oversight for this long is an embarrassment to the people in charge of the game.

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Everything about housing is an embarrassment to the people in charge of this game. I guess it doesn't happen often enough so they just choose to ignore it. I wouldn't have known the issue even existed where it not for this 3 year old post.

Housing is not exactly well done, but I'd say they should just disable the option to take away access to the FC Estate, specially from FC members.

Jeez, 2015 thread on a vital design flaw and there still isn't a fix in 2018?

Just because it hasn't been an issue that often doesn't mean it won't be in the future either. What's to stop a FC leader from locking everyone out the house and casually hinting that members who donate enough gil to the guild would get a special rank for their contribution (which just so happens to have house access). Techincally they'd be breaking no rules. The system gives them the right to deny house access and giving special ranks for "recognition of helpful members" doesn't break tos. You can't prove otherwise.

It's a huge mess just waiting to happen... the devs are extremely lucky it hasn't been noticed enough to abuse more frequently yet.

As others have said, it's pretty asinine that there is even the option to block FC members from entering a FC house. I don't get how that's a thing.

Hard to believe I first posted in this thread 3 years ago and this is still an issue. I really feel for the person presently stuck in their FC and basically being trolled by their new FC Master.
Someone made the suggestion of letting us access our private rooms or the FC workshop from the front door, so even if you couldn't access the house you'd still be able to clear and demolish your room. That would be a fix for this situation and a QoL improvement for everyone.
However, I still feel access to the FC house should be treated as a right rather than a privilege.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

As others have said, it's pretty asinine that there is even the option to block FC members from entering a FC house. I don't get how that's a thing.

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This is one of the most puzzling things I have encountered in the game. I fail to see how this would be remotely useful in a healthy fc.

I do wish SE would somehow fix this option. I'm not entirely for the option for removing the lock option since from time to time my FC likes to redecorate the house and will lock it while redecorating to keep it a surprise, but its only locked for a few hours once every few months. But if the option to lock FC has to be removed, then that's fine. Would much prefer an option for players to go straight to their private chambers from the FC entrance. But ANYTHING to fix this issue would be best.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Free Company private chambers were released almost 4 years ago and they still haven't solved the issue? Choosing not to fix such a huge oversight for this long is an embarrassment to the people in charge of the game.

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At the very least the GMs could've helped those people stuck in FCs they can't leave, instead they are hold hostages and GMs don't do anything

This could be solved very easily by, having the "Demolish Chambers" option work outside of the estate, and just give at the lest an second option under demolish to vacate and lose all furniture.


Actually what happens if, a member has a room with furniture in it, and the leader wants them to leave, they can just kick the member out i'm sure, but what happens to the members furniture then?

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Originally Posted by Final-Fantasy

This could be solved very easily by, having the "Demolish Chambers" option work outside of the estate, and just give at the lest an second option under demolish to vacate and lose all furniture.


Actually what happens if, a member has a room with furniture in it, and the leader wants them to leave, they can just kick the member out i'm sure, but what happens to the members furniture then?

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Before it was sent to an NPC vendor in the housing area. I believe it now goes to the storeroom? It might have stayed the same

Three years and this spaghetti code incident still isn't fixed. The least the GM's could do is force change the permissions so he can go in and remove his furnishings, but it seems like they can't even do that or punish the harasser.

I had thought they added an option to teleport directly to your personal room from the housing menu. I looked today and was surprised it wasn't there. They could add this and it would solve the problem.

It is seriously mess up.

Edit: Created a PSA about this on the french forum, it need to be know.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

This is one of the most puzzling things I have encountered in the game. I fail to see how this would be remotely useful in a healthy fc.

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^ This!
FC Leaders should never have been given this much power. It should have been obvious when the permissions were drawn up that there was potential for abuse.

I cannot understand why this isn't counted as harassment. Denying another player access to something that they have purchased with their own gil and thereby forcing them to stay in your FC is surely in breach of the ToS? If this isn't a punishable offence it really should be.

This is still a thing? Holy crap, SE. If this isn't seen as harassment and willful intent on breaking 3.2 of the ToS and nothing's being done to free the trapped players, that's bad. Why is this not fixed?

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Originally Posted by alimdia

At the very least the GMs could've helped those people stuck in FCs they can't leave, instead they are hold hostages and GMs don't do anything

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Exactly, I don't get why SE's GM won't remove the player from the FC oO

The guy should, at least, be abble to get in his instanced room from the FC door, even if he has no access to the FC' house (or by a back window if you want to make it RP ^^")