Fake FCs' Housing Abuse

Hi!

I know it's many people's plight to purchase a home in a game, and that takes hours upon hours. and even then it boils down to luck. I know... 'Cause I am also stuck playing the housing RNG slots. This is for Framfrit server mainly but might apply to other words too. And as well as I do acknowledge housing in this game is broken but I think this a valid complaint if you bear with me, and I am open to debate after you read.


I find it quite frustrating that they put requirements in place to purchase an FC plot (4+ members, FC level 6, or higher.) and not enforce it after. Once the plot is created for the FC, these requirements no longer matter so you can have a proxy FC hold a plot for you.

This is a link to 23 Free Style Free Companies

Each one of these individual FC has 1 or 2 members (most likely bots) all created around the same time during the last housing boom. They currently take away 23 plots from actual potential solo players or FC members, who are all actively trying to purchase a house.

Sure there are 23 potential players paying for a sub so why would SE do anything, its money in their pocket. But fixing things like this would be for the better of the community as a whole.

In closing, I feel that if there are requirements to first purchase a plot for an FC, the requirements should remain the same to maintain the title to the plot as an FC.

/endrant

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravy9

there are requirements to first purchase a plot for an FC, the requirements should remain the same to maintain the title to the plot as an FC

---

So how does this proposed system work?

Option A) Member number 4 leaves. The house demolishes immediately. This means that regular members can destroy the FC house by leaving in the right circumstances. Any officer who can boot members now also has permission to destroy the FC house. FC splits would commonly result in the house being demolished, and both leftover FCs having to re-purchase.

Option B) Member number 4 attempts to leave the FC. The game says "You may not leave <Free Company> until more members have joined."

Option C) something else

That's a good point I neglected.

I would say once you have fallen under the minimum threshold. You, as FC master you would get a warning for X amount of time ( 30 - 60 days ) to recruit new members or have the house auto demolish. Similar to having absent player auto demolition.

-OR-

Maintain an active FC group and obtain a minimal monthly Company Credits

But I agree that having to enforce minimum player count like that does open a can of worms for the potential of griefing legitimate FCs

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravy9

You, as FC master you would get a warning for X amount of time ( 30 - 60 days )

---

So if you have 3 alts and invite them to your first FC, it resets the timer to 60 days, then? Then you kick them and invite them to fc #2. Repeat 21 more times. Now the demolition process is stopped and your 23 1-man FCs operate as normal until day #59 comes back.

Not trying to tear down your solution, just saying that you have to think about two things:
1) "How can this hurt players experiences?" - With situation A above, people could lose their housing as social FCs
2) "What is the first thing someone who wanted to break this rule would try?" - And if its too easy, then the solution won't help.

Now your FC credit idea, I kind of like. People do keep suggesting "house rent." Maybe an FC with a house decays by 1,000 FC credits a week. 0 fc credits = house deleted. Problem is, that's only 3 green items a week turned in to the GC counter. Kinda easily solved. And again, if an officer decides "lol I buy morning glory x2000" then he burns the FC house down doing it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Catstab

Not trying to tear down your solution,

---

That's quite all right! I did say I was open to debate! My solutions are by no means perfect and are mainly brought on by my frustrations with the current condition of the housing market. It's a nightmare for a lot of players and even if it wasn't, the rules and regs will never please everyone.

I feel however that there should be some implications put in place to prevent quite an obvious Shell FCs from owning a substantial amount of a limited resource


And to boot on SEs' side you have 23 accounts paying for an active subscription as well..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Catstab

So if you have 3 alts and invite them to your first FC, it resets the timer to 60 days, then? Then you kick them and invite them to fc #2. Repeat 21 more times. Now the demolition process is stopped and your 23 1-man FCs operate as normal until day #59 comes back.

---

This also came to mind as well after I wrote that. So let us say you are the mastermind of the 23 shell FC, you can potentially prevent anyone from purchasing a house by relocating your FC during the 'plot not ready for sale' period indefinitely (if they have the funds to do so.) provided of course that the RNG timer is reset when the relocation is activated but that is something I don't think anyone other than Devs would know AFAIK

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravy9

Maintain an active FC group and obtain a minimal monthly Company Credits

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Catstab

Now your FC credit idea, I kind of like. People do keep suggesting "house rent." Maybe an FC with a house decays by 1,000 FC credits a week. 0 fc credits = house deleted. Problem is, that's only 3 green items a week turned in to the GC counter. Kinda easily solved. And again, if an officer decides "lol I buy morning glory x2000" then he burns the FC house down doing it.

---

I don't know how many credits the average 4 man fc would make with normal regular play, but whatever that amount is would be a good baseline as a payment requirement for a fc to keep its house. Especially considering that upon reaching rank 6 (when you can buy a house) you would already have more than you need assuming you are very active so it would be easy to stay on top as long as you play. This is actually a good idea, and significantly better than a gil tax many players seem to love throwing around. You gain fc credits just from playing the game so a fc credit "tax" won't force players to do content they have no interest in just to keep the fc house, unlike forking out large amounts of gil.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Penthea

I don't know how many credits the average 4 man fc would make with normal regular play, but whatever that amount is would be a good baseline as a payment requirement for a fc to keep its house. Especially considering that upon reaching rank 6 (when you can buy a house) you would already have more than you need assuming you are very active so it would be easy to stay on top as long as you play. This is actually a good idea, and significantly better than a gil tax many players seem to love throwing around. You gain fc credits just from playing the game so a fc credit "tax" won't force players to do content they have no interest in just to keep the fc house, unlike forking out large amounts of gil.

---

The 2 problems I see with using company credits generated through "normal gameplay" is that there really isn't such a thing (different players enjoy different aspects of the game) and not all forms of game play are equally rewarding for the time invested. Some forms of game play don't reward any at all (such as spending time decorating or touring houses, which is still playing the game).

I might spend one hours crafting HQ Exarchic and possibly end up generating more company credits than a standard 4-6 member doing their "normal game play" that doesn't include crafting.

I probably also play more hours in a week than a small family FC would, especially if they're limited to playing on days they don't have work/school. If I were running a shell FC for the sake of having additional houses, I'd be in less danger of losing the houses than the family would.

It would take a major overhaul of the company credit system to turn it into a fair way to determine if a FC could retain a house. SE would have to cap the number of credits a single account could generate for a specific FC in a weekly or monthly period then adjust credit rewards for all types of content that players engage in. I don't see SE going to that effort and I'm not certain it would really solve the problem even if they did.

Membership seems the better way to go but it's still a matter of figuring out what method could be used that wouldn't be overly restrictive or controlling on how those members need to play the game while also not being subject to exploits.

I think it should be fixed so no 1 person FC's is permitted and have to have 6 active accounts in it, meaning if someone stops playing... the FC will be getting an auto demolition warning after 45 days, however with ships and everything added will be saved to a special storage, if it end going boom boom, evicted for not being able to fullfill the basic requirement.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

if someone stops playing... the FC will be getting an auto demolition warning after 45 days

---

Again, won't work:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Catstab

So if you have 3 alts and invite them to your first FC, it resets the timer to 60 days, then? Then you kick them and invite them to fc #2. Repeat 21 more times. Now the demolition process is stopped and your 23 1-man FCs operate as normal until day #59 comes back.

---

If the solution is "have an alt in the FC once every month or two" then the measure isn't worth taking, because the loophole couldn't be easier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jojoya

The 2 problems I see with using company credits generated through "normal gameplay" is that there really isn't such a thing (different players enjoy different aspects of the game) and not all forms of game play are equally rewarding for the time invested. Some forms of game play don't reward any at all (such as spending time decorating or touring houses, which is still playing the game).

---

I agree so I since thought about this. Maybe SE could do something as simple as calculate how many credits a player earns from capping tomes weekly and use that as a baseline to calculate fc credit tax. It's not an incredible amount of activity but I think it's enough to deem a player as active. Players who do other activities instead could easily reach the same amount. Those who play religiously could earn more than is needed, which would make up for anyone who isn't online often.

If the fc is very active from early ranks, by the time they reach rank 6 they will have more than enough to keep their house without stress. And if they continue to be somewhat active they could easily stay afloat.

It's not a perfect plan yet but it's a start, and like I said before it's significantly less punishing than paying a huge amount of gil because only specific activities generate large amounts of that. Almost all activity generates credits. I think only fcs who do little other than rp or afk would have to worry about not generating enough credits.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jojoya

Membership seems the better way to go but it's still a matter of figuring out what method could be used that wouldn't be overly restrictive or controlling on how those members need to play the game while also not being subject to exploits.

---

I think the only way for it to not be too restrictive is to have the minimum at four, which is the required amount of people to make a fc. Anything more than would very easily punish small fcs for simply being small and not inactive. Four is also the minimum amount required to do almost all group content (PoTD and HoH being the exceptions). I want to clarify that I mean a minimum of four to keep a house, not to keep the fc.

However the above does bother me because what if the fc falls below four? You get punished because someone left, and you can't control if people want to leave. Some may even leave because they know it would put a fc's house in danger. Never underestimate how petty some people can be : /

I really don't like the idea of a minimum amount of players. A tiny fc can be super active with just three people. More players doesn't always mean a more meaningful or more active community. I think a credit tax of some manner would be enough to separate dead fcs from those who are active.

EDIT: I just realised if member count is the only thing required to keep a fc house (along with demo timers of course), players could just pay people to be in their fc or make several accounts. So that's not a perfect solution either. However paying people to do content to generate credits isn't something I imagine would be easy to do, especially if they joined on alts.

I foresee a lot of extremely active hardcore RP FCs and housing enthusiasts getting caught up in a "generate x amount of company credits" and having their houses destroyed because of it. There's also no easy or convenient way of seeing how many credits have been generated: you'd have to manually calculate it every month. If the solution requires a chunk of the playerbase to behave differently because 1.8% of housing is owned by solo fcs, I don't think it's worthwhile.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

because 1.8% of housing is owned by solo fcs, I don't think it's worthwhile.

---

It's not just solo fcs that are dead. There's are fcs in my ward with a few lvl 50 characters as members and they have been lvl 50 for several years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Penthea

It's not just solo fcs that are dead. There's are fcs in my ward with a few lvl 50 characters as members and they have been lvl 50 for several years.

---

Evidently, there are still people in the FC that are active. I don't see what the issue is. If it was a personal, it wouldn't be a problem but for some reason because there's an FC tag attached we expect a community to be present when we acknowledge that a single person owning a house is fine. Frankly, I'm more annoyed with houses that aren't even decorated, but there's no way for SE to do anything about that: even if they said a house has to have 20% of the max amount of furnishings possible for that house size, people would just pile shit on the ground floor and continue to not decorate. Let's just give subs and rooms for tenants to personals and stop pretending to care.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

Evidently, there are still people in the FC that are active. I don't see what the issue is.

---

If you call staying the same lvl for several years and only logging in to reset a demo timer being active, then sure that's active :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

Frankly, I'm more annoyed with houses that aren't even decorated

---

Most of the gardens have no decoration aside from gardening patches that never have any crops. Some don't even have aetherytes. I can't comment on the interiors because the houses are locked but I doubt they were given much attention.

One person in the FC is active and that's enough. If they had a personal house, it would be no different.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

One person in the FC is active and that's enough. If they had a personal house, it would be no different.

---

Actually it is different because you can only have one personal per server per account but this isn't the case with fc houses. Some of these clusters of dead fcs are owned by one person. This is why some players think there needs to be a mechanic in the game that tracks fc activity beyond just resetting a demo timer. Resetting the timer is near zero effort whereas something like the fc credit tax isn't. It would be difficult for one person to juggle so many different fcs on their own if that credit tax was in the game.

:P That feeling when people want to take plots from people thinking that it will make things easier for them. End of the day who are we to say what is considered an active fc or plot usage. What is next should we monitor the usage of a plot minus the stepping foot inside.

I know on my main account I get hate cause I have a large that is not decorated and I just use to grow onions.

If they’re paying their sub and active enough to keep a house, it’s unlikely SE would want to do anything to take them out of their house.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

One person in the FC is active and that's enough. If they had a personal house, it would be no different.

---

If one active player is enough to be considered a FC, then every player should have full access to all FC perks. It also wouldn't required four players to register a FC. It would only require one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jojoya

If one active player is enough to be considered a FC, then every player should have full access to all FC perks. It also wouldn't required four players to register a FC. It would only require one.

---

They need to remove the FC perks from FC housing except for buffs and obviously the social aspects of why FC's are created to begin with. Airships and gardening should be available for all and not simply for the FC leadership for which is the case in most cases. Some of us use FC's to share a house with alts as well and personally that's a very legitimate reason for creating a small FC at the moment given SE has found that sharing a house with alts is something they have a hard time doing.

They need to make it so only one character per server can be the leader of a FC just like only one personal house can be purchased per account per server.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

at the moment given SE has found that sharing a house with alts is something they have a hard time doing.

---

Have they said that? I thought they just sort of forgot that many of us have alts. I'd be satisfied with being able to make my alts tenets, but I guess that requires them to figure out friending or mailing your own characters. At least a teleport would be nice :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

Have they said that? I thought they just sort of forgot that many of us have alts. I'd be satisfied with being able to make my alts tenets, but I guess that requires them to figure out friending or mailing your own characters. At least a teleport would be nice :(

---

It was over 2 years ago and they haven't addressed it yet. Personally I want to be able to share a house with my alts. I've created small FC's off server for them and they can share the house and the FC chest and so on. I also share those FC's with friends so it's not simply a share with alts thing for me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

Have they said that? I thought they just sort of forgot that many of us have alts. I'd be satisfied with being able to make my alts tenets, but I guess that requires them to figure out friending or mailing your own characters. At least a teleport would be nice :(

---

I doubt they've forgotten it. At the time they mentioned it, they said there were technological hurdles they needed to figure out how to overcome. It looks like they haven't been able to figure it out.

If they would just let players friend their own alts, it wouldn't be an issue since someone has to be on your friends lists before you can make them a tenant. Since players were able to do that at one time (granted through an exploit), we know it's not technically impossible to do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravy9

tears

---

1: A quarter of Free Companies with a house on the JP Data Centers don't have 4 or more members. What about you go take a stroll to the JP forums and suggest taking all those houses away and report back with how many people agree with you huh?

2: "Most likely bots" Based on what? Your inexperience with how this game has to offer? Odds are whoever owns these houses is way more active than you are.

3: Would you like to talk about the 200+ players who didn't enter their house for 10 months on your server? Where's your outrage about those players? Why aren't you talking about having mandatory tenants for personal housing?

The main issue here is supply. If there were enough houses then we wouldn't have so many threads suggesting creative ways of taking houses away from people. Making the system punitive enough to free up large numbers of houses would lead to a lot of very unhappy players. We already have to jump through hoops to keep our houses and making small FCs less viable would be unfair on people who simply want a FC for personal friends or family. I certainly wouldn't like to see any system that encourages FCs to spam invite newbies just so they can keep their house.

It's worth remembering that Japanese servers are smaller than the E.U. or North American ones. I would hope that the Devs are aware that this is an issue that disproportionately affects players on E.U. and the U.S.A. servers, but I do wonder if the fact that this is a lesser problem for Japanese players might be something to do with the apparent belief that adding a few more wards will sort everything out. On a server like Balmung, adding Ishgard wards is going to have as much effect as a drop of water on a bucket of hot sand.

We already have instanced housing in the form of apartments but they are unattractive due to their small size and lack of an outdoors. If a FC could buy a large apartment with access to a workshop via their Grand Company and have somewhere to garden along with members being able to have personal rooms, then I think there would be less demand for housing in the wards. It would be nice for individuals to be able to upgrade their apartments to a larger size too.

Personally, I think improving apartments or introducing a new type of instanced housing that gives you access to a garden alongside the existing wards would be a better way to go than tweaking the frankly horrid system we have at present. I do understand the frustration when shell FCs take over a large number of houses, but all the proposals to curb this by making it even harder for people to keep a house once they get one, are likely to harm individual home owners far more.
The only change I would like to see is making it impossible for an individual to hold more than one FC and one personal house per server, I can't see any problem with that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Solarra

The only change I would like to see is making it impossible for an individual to hold more than one FC and one personal house per server, I can't see any problem with that.

---

Being able to own houses on multiple servers isn't helping. I very much doubt it's a large percentage of players who do it but it is being done and each one is taking away a chance at a house from another player who doesn't have a house just as much as multiple houses on the same world does. With world visit and soon to have data center visit, there's a less of a barrier to being able to play with friends if you split up your characters between multiple worlds.

I wonder if SE has looked at the numbers for total accounts across all worlds that own a house versus total personal houses versus total houses. I wouldn't consider a FC house as owned by an account unless all members of the FC are on the same account (which would primarily be the solo FCs).

I guess you missed the message here... This isn't about low-member FCs. This is about 23 FCs run by the same person, for the sake of having the houses.
this list here

You can click on each and everyone of the "Free-Style" FC and clearly see that they are essentially bot/Shell FCs even the additonal members are level 1 on war only ->as seen here



as for the 10 months, nothing we can do about that as it was a SE decision to halt it due to the first global pandemic since the 1920;s.... and there already was an out cry for that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravy9

I guess you missed the message here... This isn't about low-member FCs. This is about 23 FCs run by the same person, for the sake of having the houses.
this list here

You can click on each and everyone of the "Free-Style" FC and clearly see that they are essentially bot/Shell FCs even the additonal members are level 1 on war only ->as seen here



as for the 10 months, nothing we can do about that as it was a SE decision to halt it due to the first global pandemic since the 1920;s.... and there already was an out cry for that.

---

Yeah, I guess you don't know a thing about FC workshops. Funny you're complaining about someone who is more invested in this game than the hundreds who didn't care to enter their house in nearly a whole year. Educate yourself before calling someone a "bot".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

They need to remove the FC perks from FC housing except for buffs and obviously the social aspects of why FC's are created to begin with. Airships and gardening should be available for all and not simply for the FC leadership for which is the case in most cases. Some of us use FC's to share a house with alts as well and personally that's a very legitimate reason for creating a small FC at the moment given SE has found that sharing a house with alts is something they have a hard time doing.

They need to make it so only one character per server can be the leader of a FC just like only one personal house can be purchased per account per server.

---

They wont ever make it so only one character per server can the leader of a FC. There is a auto promotion feature in place to promote the next highest ranking most active member to the rank of leader, should the FC leader go offline for too long a time. Restricting it so only one character per server can be FC leader would conflict with that feature. It just conflicts with FC promotion in general and would cause a headache for FC leaders.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jojoya

The 2 problems I see with using company credits generated through "normal gameplay" is that there really isn't such a thing (different players enjoy different aspects of the game) and not all forms of game play are equally rewarding for the time invested. Some forms of game play don't reward any at all (such as spending time decorating or touring houses, which is still playing the game).

I might spend one hours crafting HQ Exarchic and possibly end up generating more company credits than a standard 4-6 member doing their "normal game play" that doesn't include crafting.

I probably also play more hours in a week than a small family FC would, especially if they're limited to playing on days they don't have work/school. If I were running a shell FC for the sake of having additional houses, I'd be in less danger of losing the houses than the family would.

It would take a major overhaul of the company credit system to turn it into a fair way to determine if a FC could retain a house. SE would have to cap the number of credits a single account could generate for a specific FC in a weekly or monthly period then adjust credit rewards for all types of content that players engage in. I don't see SE going to that effort and I'm not certain it would really solve the problem even if they did.

Membership seems the better way to go but it's still a matter of figuring out what method could be used that wouldn't be overly restrictive or controlling on how those members need to play the game while also not being subject to exploits.

---

These ideas of tax and upkeep sound good on paper but with this game. Such ideas will not strip homes from the intended targets but just hand them more homes to gobble up. There is at least 2 FC's here on Lamia who own multiple plots and these not single player FC's. One of them has 100+ members with at least 50-60 members actively playing, Saw some of their members recently hanging around a few open plots. Biggest problem with upkeep systems is they stomp on the small honest player and reward the dishonest players in return. The only way to make upkeep or tax effective against player/FC's who own multilpe homes is too put it so high the average player would suffer as well. Same idea also applies to a gil tax or upkeep as their are owners who have a crap ton of gil so unless the tax is absurd it would have no effect on them.

Multiple FCs with lazy names owning multiple plots for years, all FC houses with the only members being low level leaders with generic or gibberish names who only log on once a month to prevent demolition? By educated guess, they're likely RMT placeholders.

But can you prove it with concrete evidence? No.

Will Square Enix willy-nilly toss out bans based on educated guesses? Probably not.

Fixing the problem will involve changing how FC housing and FC membership promotions work, and that's a lot of work. Better to pray island Sanctuary is the instanced housing people have been begging for.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

snip.

---

All the more reason to strip houses of gardens, workshops, and aetherial wheel stands then make those features available through other means. If those items weren't attached to housing, there would be less demand for multiple house ownership because it would become a pointless expense. Gardening we might be getting through Island Sanctuary (depends on if what can be grown on the islands is the same as what we grow in gardens). Workshops could be accessed through the affiliated GC HQ much as we access our Squadron Barracks. The workshops are already instanced separately - all SE has to do is switch the location of the entry portal from the FC house to the GC. Grade 3 FC actions could be sold by GC QMs same as the grade 1 and grade 2.

The limited resource system is always going to be stomping down on a significant part of the player base if SE refuses to fix the core problems - lack of dynamic supply that can expand as needed on a per world basis and lack of enforcement of the posted rules regarding house ownership plus a vague definition of what a FC is (OIC Administrator: Free companies can be described as mercenary groups formed of adventurers.) . Unless those things are addressed, someone is always going to lose out.

Recurring fees don't have to be prohibitively high to be a deterrent for someone who really doesn't care about housing. Every player deterred is another house open for someone who truly wants one. Are they still going to have to compete against those who exploit the system to get multiple houses? Yes, but there would still be more houses in the long run to compete over.

Making gil is also a lot easier than players think if you're actively playing the game. Now I've got all jobs leveled on this character, I'm starting to level additional jobs on my alts (want each to have at least one tank, one healer and one DPS job). The one I've been focused on most recently is my alt I use to run our FC's workshop and finances. I keep her gil on hand to 1 million gil so when I'm doing things for the FC, I can see how much has been earned or spent and transfer the gil to/from the FC chest accordingly.

It also makes it very easy to tell how much she's personally earning from doing content. Every Tuesday, Doman Enclave + weekly hunt bills + custom deliveries (plus getting the bonus gil from challenge log for the deliveries) is 67-69k gil. Switch to leveling a job and it's 37k from MSQ roulette + daily hunt bills + beast tribes. If I were playing that character 3 days a week, I'd be making about 700k gil a month just from those things I listed. That's very casual play and doesn't include gil earned from additional content or retainer ventures.

Things are valued more when you have to put a little effort into keeping/maintaining them. Right now, there's no effort involved in housing. If you think stepping foot into your house once every 45 days is effort, you don't need a house.

Sooo... My FC was formed between myself and two friends. We've obviously put several alts apiece into our FC. The FC leader (my one friend) and I have been active since we formed the FC (June 2020), consistently playing at least every day. (That's just two of us for those of you who are doing math.) The third person in the FC was playing a bit but not consistently.

We had no FC house. We were trying to get one, but no luck. It was the housing crisis due to COVID. Tough times.

Our third FC member had some real life stuff go sideways and quit playing around September 2020.

So it's still just the FC leader and myself who are mainly playing consistently every day. (Still just two of us among our various alts in the FC for the math types here.)

Yes, we've tried recruiting. People weren't interested in an FC that didn't have an FC house.

Then the housing expansion in October came and we got an FC house! Yay us!

We've tried recruiting. People want an FC with more members. More activity.

So... how do we get more members... if members won't join because we don't have members? My friend and I are on every day, but we're also grown adults with real life adult responsibilities. I guess that's not enough activity for some people. We're role players. We don't do raiding. We don't do PvP. We enjoy free form role play and people are looking for things we're not offering, so they look for other Free Companies. It's not for lack of trying that we don't have members, but we're not the sort of fit that a lot of people are looking for and we also prefer quality over quantity, so we turn away people who aren't a good fit for us as well.

So, with just myself and the FC leader being the only two active people in the FC (the third person being inactive due to real life situation)... Should we now be kicked off our hard won plot of land that we've sunk millions of gil into not just buying but also decorating as well?

Please explain. I'll wait.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jojoya

All the more reason to strip houses of gardens, workshops, and aetherial wheel stands then make those features available through other means. If those items weren't attached to housing, there would be less demand for multiple house ownership because it would become a pointless expense. Gardening we might be getting through Island Sanctuary (depends on if what can be grown on the islands is the same as what we grow in gardens). Workshops could be accessed through the affiliated GC HQ much as we access our Squadron Barracks. The workshops are already instanced separately - all SE has to do is switch the location of the entry portal from the FC house to the GC. Grade 3 FC actions could be sold by GC QMs same as the grade 1 and grade 2.

The limited resource system is always going to be stomping down on a significant part of the player base if SE refuses to fix the core problems - lack of dynamic supply that can expand as needed on a per world basis and lack of enforcement of the posted rules regarding house ownership plus a vague definition of what a FC is (OIC Administrator: Free companies can be described as mercenary groups formed of adventurers.) . Unless those things are addressed, someone is always going to lose out.

Recurring fees don't have to be prohibitively high to be a deterrent for someone who really doesn't care about housing. Every player deterred is another house open for someone who truly wants one. Are they still going to have to compete against those who exploit the system to get multiple houses? Yes, but there would still be more houses in the long run to compete over.

Making gil is also a lot easier than players think if you're actively playing the game. Now I've got all jobs leveled on this character, I'm starting to level additional jobs on my alts (want each to have at least one tank, one healer and one DPS job). The one I've been focused on most recently is my alt I use to run our FC's workshop and finances. I keep her gil on hand to 1 million gil so when I'm doing things for the FC, I can see how much has been earned or spent and transfer the gil to/from the FC chest accordingly.

It also makes it very easy to tell how much she's personally earning from doing content. Every Tuesday, Doman Enclave + weekly hunt bills + custom deliveries (plus getting the bonus gil from challenge log for the deliveries) is 67-69k gil. Switch to leveling a job and it's 37k from MSQ roulette + daily hunt bills + beast tribes. If I were playing that character 3 days a week, I'd be making about 700k gil a month just from those things I listed. That's very casual play and doesn't include gil earned from additional content or retainer ventures.

Things are valued more when you have to put a little effort into keeping/maintaining them. Right now, there's no effort involved in housing. If you think stepping foot into your house once every 45 days is effort, you don't need a house.

---

Islands should take care of the gardening issue depending on how they work. As for FC's with no house I dont see why they cant add FC aparments, let you choose a small,medium or large interior. Would be no different then buying a house when you go the apartment you choose personal or FC room. There so many empty apartment rooms right now its not even funny, but they will fill fast if FC apartments were added. I am aware of how easy gil is too make, been doing map runs every monday with friends making 300-500k a run. Scored 10 million on one run after selling a golden beaver minion..

Like do you bother to read or click the links?

How are character at level one warrior, as their only job, going to invest time in a the FC workshop

Unless there some new mythical PTW access feature you can use them without having any crafter leveled.

As for the temporary delay of auto demolition from SE. It is what it is. After the delay went right back to how it was. Just be thankful you had enough income to pay for a sub still

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SpiritualOcean

If they’re paying their sub and active enough to keep a house, it’s unlikely SE would want to do anything to take them out of their house.

---

There are active players who lost their house because they misunderstood how the demo timer works (they thought being in the garden was enough). While there are players who have been lvl 50 for several years who do nothing on those characters aside from reset the timer on a house with no decor or aetheryte. Which one of these types of players is more active in the game? And no not entering your house doesn't mean you're not using the plot. You can grow plants and decorate the garden without ever entering the house.

And please no one come to me with "well people who know how the demo timer works obviously love housing more because they did research" because believing this means thinking human error isn't a thing, thinking language barriers don't exist, and ignoring that you can use your garden every single day without entering your house. A player who merely teleports to their house every single day is still using it significantly more than a person who logs in once every 45 days for less than a minute.

In my opinion the system isn't working very well if all you have to do to keep a house is log in for less than a minute to reset a timer once every 45 days. If SE tied the timer to just having an active sub it wouldn't change much of anything for these "active" characters, which just shows what a joke SE consider basic activity to be.

Shell fcs are a problem and they need to be tackled somehow. Personals being hoarded is still a problem but it's significantly smaller due to the limitations on how many you can have in a server per account severely stunting their hoarding growth. Whereas an account can own eight fc houses per server so the problem with shell fcs continues to grow.

I would prefer if everyone could do whatever they want with housing, even to the realms of ridiculousness, but the system we have doesn't allow everyone to. It's already a limited resource and those who are pushing their use of it as far as they can go are depriving others of content by hoarding so much for themselves. So as long as housing is a limited resource, I will always be of the opinion that hoarding is an issue that needs to be dealt with.

I hope hope hope HOPE that island sanctuaries will provide some manner of housing with both indoor and outdoor decoration so a big chunk of this issue can finally be put to rest. There would still be issues for fcs getting houses but at least individuals would be fine which would dramatically decrease the demand for houses in wards. But considering SE's track record with how they handle housing the possibility of this boon happening is sadly very low.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravy9

Like do you bother to read or click the links?

How are character at level one warrior, as their only job, going to invest time in a the FC workshop

Unless there some new mythical PTW access feature you can use them without having any crafter leveled.

As for the temporary delay of auto demolition from SE. It is what it is. After the delay went right back to how it was. Just be thankful you had enough income to pay for a sub still

---

Yes, I do.

You can deploy/repair/outfit/dismantle airships and submarines with any character. Guess what those FCs are used for? Don't worry, it's okay to be wrong about something but in your case, you really should educate yourself before talking about things you are oblivious about.

The issue isn't the suspension of the auto demolition. The issue is that you are visibly upset at someone who's using their FC houses, but don't give a **** about people that don't use their personal/FC house.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zhalar

(...)

So, with just myself and the FC leader being the only two active people in the FC (the third person being inactive due to real life situation)... Should we now be kicked off our hard won plot of land that we've sunk millions of gil into not just buying but also decorating as well?

Please explain. I'll wait.

---

I’m in a somewhat similar situation, except that I’m alone in my fc because I don’t want to go through the headache of managing people and activities anymore. We used to be 5 at some point but people left.

Because of my work and times zones I can’t always be here at the same time as others during the week, and I have some activities I need to attend to on weekends as well. So most of the time when I logged in it was late for the other members except one who was in the same time zone. And we couldn’t do much all together.
So we ended up being two for a while, then they stopped playing a bit after Shadowbringer release.

The time zone issue is because I’m in the wrong server, should’ve went to a NA one but choose Europe because of language (I didn’t speak English fluently yet back then). But I like it here, and I don’t wanna leave.

The fc is mine (I always been the leader), house is mine, I bought it myself and decorated it, the airship is mine and the submersible is a gift from the member who stopped playing.
I shouldn’t have to loose all that just because I now play alone :(

You can’t kick people out of their hard earned propriety because their play style doesn’t match your ideals. It’s unfair.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adrameliya

You can’t kick people out of their hard earned propriety because their play style doesn’t match your ideals. It’s unfair.

---

They are not going to kick people (take away their properties) with FC's regardless of size. There were no stipulations other than needing 4 members to start one and being a certain rank in GC in order to purchase a property. The take away crowd isn't going to win this one. If there are new rules implemented it will affect new FC's after the date of the new rule implementation and i highly doubt they'll change them.

What they do need to fix however is the ownership issue where ONLY one alt/character can be leader of a FC per server. That is the crux of the problem with people owning multiple FC's.

And frankly I'd have no problem with those with alts who all own multiple FC's on the same server and who have bypassed the intent of the rules to actually have to transfer ownership or have them taken away.