"Free Company Houses" should not exist, or at least be re-defined

I'm going to be real with you guys; I am actually currently guilty of this. However, I recognize it is an issue that the Devs honestly need to address.

I think most people are aware of the issues of "Free Company houses". If you're not, let me explain; currently, you can own a "Private estate" and ALSO have a "Free Company estate" if you are the head of a Free Company.

Now, some players will "sell" Free Companies that have a House. So it's effectively "selling a house". That's not what I did, and truthfully, I actually don't consider that the real problem.

The REAL problem, is that it effectively allows players to "own two houses". So, technically one is Private and the other is Free Company, but the distinction is largely irrelevant.

Now, what about "legit" Free Companies wanting their own House?

My solution is simple; allow the FC Leader (or anyone with Housing permissions) to mark any one member's house as the "Free Company estate". Everyone in the FC gets the option to teleport there, exactly the same as currently allows.

The difference is, there's still an actual OWNER, which is a Character.

So it's not so much a "Free Company house", so much as a "Free Company meeting-place".

This is obviously an important distinction, but doesn't REALLY have a terribly large impact. The biggest impact is that it would (theoretically) allow Private owners to participate in things like "building airships/submersibles".

The payoff?

Well, a TON of houses come up on the market.

Now, I'm not suggesting we screw FC's out of their houses; rather, upon logging in, the FC leader would have to assign who gets ownership. If they ALSO own a Private estate, then they either grant ownership to someone else in the FC, or they forfeit either the FC or their private estate, which obviously goes up for the next raffle.

But I can tell you, there are a lot of players who "own two houses", which is what drove me to also do it. I don't necessarily "support" it, but if it's being allowed, well, it's nice to have a place in Mist and Shirogane, and decorate them differently.

But I 100% support this change, even if it means literally losing one of my houses. Because frankly, I think it IS a form of abusing a loophole, and as long as no one else is able to abuse the same "loophole", those houses really SHOULD be going to other players.

As a FC leader I will say no. You are taking away the right of the home onwer to decide if others can or cant tp directly to their home.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

As a FC leader I will say no. You are taking away the right of the home onwer to decide if others can or cant tp directly to their home.

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It would require some minor tweaks, sure, but I would still maintain all of the FC-housing features, simply offer them to Personal houses, too.

So as an FC leader, you would be able to set your house as the "FC house", so everyone could teleport there still. Actually, you would have MORE options, because if you know one of your officers has a really cool house they spend a ton of time decorating, you could offer to flag THEIR house as the "FC house", so everyone would teleport there instead. If they left the FC, then you would just mark someone else's house (or your own) as the FC house.

I agree it's unfortunate guild houses still only truly hold creative license to the one who owns the plot.

I also think that all guild houses should be M or L and editable trusted ranks set above whatever threshold a FC leader wishes, and that FC housing should be in their own ward away from standard house plots but it's an absolute mess of a system. It is what it is and I don't see it ever changing.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

As a FC leader I will say no. You are taking away the right of the home onwer to decide if others can or cant tp directly to their home.

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No because this. If everyone else can own their own private estate, why shouldn't FC leaders? FC estates is shared property basically, you can't lock the doors and keep your FC members out. Everyone should have the ability to have their own form of privacy.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

No because this. If everyone else can own their own private estate, why shouldn't FC leaders? FC estates is shared property basically, you can't lock the doors and keep your FC members out. Everyone should have the ability to have their own form of privacy.

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I mean... FC houses are literally no different, other than setting permissions. You could have the same permissions, or even more extensive if need be. At the end of the day, the FC house isn't *really* shared property, because the FC only has the permissions granted by the FC leader, which can be given or taken away at their discretion. No reason that would change at all.

The ONLY difference is that FC leaders would not own separate houses; thus if you DO own a private estate AND a FC estate, you would either give one of them up, or give the FC estate to a trusted member. And if you don't have a member you would trust enough to give the estate to... well, that sounds kind of like a "second house" for you.

This pops up periodically. I get it - there isn't enough housing. The answer isn't taking housing away from anyone - it's SE FIXING their housing so anyone who wants a house can have one.

But if the player base wants to make the case for taking away housing ownership from anyone - it should be personal houses getting the boot and FC housing stays. And this is me saying that as an owner of a personal house. FC housing gives more people access to housing because multiple people are sharing and using that house - in some cases hundreds of people for the really large FCs.

Also, some wards come 6.1 will be FC housing only per Yoshi (I don't remember if it was a live letter or during the digital fanfest where he stated that). So no, they aren't going to take away FC housing.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

FC estates is shared property basically, you can't lock the doors and keep your FC members out.

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You can, in fact, lock the doors and keep your FC members out. "Estate access" is a rank setting. There's nothing stopping someone from doing this.

I feel like the entire housing system needs to be reworked.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

You can, in fact, lock the doors and keep your FC members out. "Estate access" is a rank setting. There's nothing stopping someone from doing this.

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That permission no longer works with FC members. FC leads were abusing it keep FC members with rooms trapped in the FC.

As an FC leader who inherited the FC when I already had my own, private house, I say no. Why should I have to lose my medium house because I ended up with a FC mansion too? My private house is decorated after my personal taste. The FC mansion is decorated to look more like a meeting place for several people. I don't consider the FC house my house, even if I technically own it.

We need a better housing system, not to take away houses from players who have them.

I love having an FC house. My FC's lucky; we have a big house in a prime spot, and it's thus a gathering point for our FC. Teleport to the FC house and you can always find someone at the marketboard, or crafting, or using the vendors/resources inside the house, or trying out a rotation at the training dummies in the yard. It's great, and I think a lot of what helps the FC I'm in feel active and inclusive is that you do constantly find FC-mates at the FC house when they're between instanced duties or crafting or whatever.

(I recognize it is luck, and that many FCs don't have a house.)

I dislike the idea of designating a given player's house as the FC house, for a variety of reasons... but a big one is "what happens if that person leaves the FC?" Does the FC house just go "poof", along with anything people had put in it? Or does it reassign the property to the first person on the FC roster who doesn't own a house, so thus you lose your house if you leave the FC? Etc. There's too many weird edge cases there, and no clean way I can see to solve them that someone couldn't abuse.

What I do wish they'd do -- and I've pitched this idea on this forum before -- is make instanced airship housing.

Each FC would have an instanced company airship. The airship would have a greenhouse (thus opening up gardening), personal quarters (so you can still have basically an apartment in your FC housing), a company workshop (for working on and launching the mammet-piloted expedition airships and submersibles) and the top deck would serve like a yard (allowing you to put down outdoor decorations).

Moreover, since it's an airship, you aren't limited to the existing housing neighborhoods.

Want to park your FC airship over the ruins of Mhach in the Yfaem Saltmoor? Sure, why not. Park it off the coast of Eureka, looking at all the crazy weather going on over there? Hey, that sounds cool! Park it over Mor Dhona, with the Crystal Tower on the horizon? Done! All you need is a sort of generalized view of the area you could see when you looked over the railing of the airship (or out a window), and if you got bored of one area an FC officer could just 'pilot' the airship somewhere new for a new view.

This would ensure all Free Companies had access to the systems gated on home ownership (mostly gardening and the company workshop), and it would free up the housing plots currently used by Free Company houses for personal home ownership. It wouldn't solve all the problems with this housing system, but it would help alleviate pressure in those two spots at least.

Not mentioning this won't go through with YoshiP but how is this going to address anything?
At the best you free up about 300 plots each server, how is that going to help when player base is more than 17,000 per server?
No, you don't kill FC House just for this stupid reason.

I understand where you're coming from and share many of your concerns. I feel as if though you are suggesting a patch-up when what is really needed is a complete re-work. Even if you eliminated FC housing, wards will still fill up on popular servers.

What is needed is more instanced housing. There is no reason why apartment buildings can’t have penthouses with 2 or even 3 floors. Maybe a nice outdoor area with a garden overlooking the ward from on high? In effect, it would be like a house only it would not have any outdoor decorations. I would actually prefer something like this. Currently, I own a medium house. I can’t take a long break, ever, because if I do, I might lose the house—but I love the layout of a medium home and I love to decorate. Housing is like my end-game. If I had an Apartment with the space of a medium, I would be totally satisfied with that.

There are also other things, like saving layouts, increasing item limits, having more control over guest access and who can visit. I would like to see more control over design, so that a person can change elevation of items, or even resize items. There is just so much work that needs to be done.

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Originally Posted by Veliaire

I understand where you're coming from and share many of your concerns. I feel as if though you are suggesting a patch-up when what is really needed is a complete re-work. Even if you eliminated FC housing, wards will still fill up on popular servers.

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Honestly, while I agree with you on this, I personally feel like the bigger problem is the inability for a Free Company to obtain a house. Because there are systems that are gated on housing; if you want to do gardening with cross-breeding, you need a house with a yard, and if you want to have a company workshop you need to have a house to have that workshop in.

It's bad that individual players who want housing can't get it. It's even worse that an FC has to scramble for housing if they want to participate in entire systems within this game, like gardening or submersible expeditions.

(Hence my FC airship suggestion.)

So you want to kick a bunch of FCs out of houses and also perpetuate your dumb house trading idea in the other thread?

This reeks of house flipper to me, tbh

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

What I do wish they'd do -- and I've pitched this idea on this forum before -- is make instanced airship housing.

Each FC would have an instanced company airship. The airship would have a greenhouse (thus opening up gardening), personal quarters (so you can still have basically an apartment in your FC housing), a company workshop (for working on and launching the mammet-piloted expedition airships and submersibles) and the top deck would serve like a yard (allowing you to put down outdoor decorations).

Moreover, since it's an airship, you aren't limited to the existing housing neighborhoods.

Want to park your FC airship over the ruins of Mhach in the Yfaem Saltmoor? Sure, why not. Park it off the coast of Eureka, looking at all the crazy weather going on over there? Hey, that sounds cool! Park it over Mor Dhona, with the Crystal Tower on the horizon? Done! All you need is a sort of generalized view of the area you could see when you looked over the railing of the airship (or out a window), and if you got bored of one area an FC officer could just 'pilot' the airship somewhere new for a new view.

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Why should the head of an FC not be able to have their own private housing, and have a house for the FC. They serve completely different purposes. My house is for myself and SO and friends to relax in and is decorated to my tastes. I don't have a garden or stables. The FC house is set up for the benefit of all of the members. It's a more communal set up with vendors/menders, stables, garden, training dummies etc. It's not there for ME, it's there for the FC members that may or may not have their own housing to have access to anything they might need, and a place to hang out together and be social. MY house is MY retreat.

Now this airship idea is AMAZING! Hell, go ahead and make it a big old platform like the first boss of Dun Scaith platform and just put an instanced house on it if you don't want to have to redesign the whole look of things. As long as there's something to decorate and keeps the stables, gardens, training dummies, and workshop, that's really all that's needed. It would be fantastic to be able to travel to different areas and change up the view as well. I can't tell you how much I adore this idea. We have a medium in the Lavender beds because the location is in my opinion one of the best in the game. We have a nice extended area in front of our yard with summoning bell, marketboard, aetheryte, and of course can swim there as well. I won't give up that plot for any other plot in the game, but if I could trade that in for a mobile FC house that had all the same amenities, I'd do that in a heartbeat.

I say get rid of private housing. Have FC only housing. Then more people benefit

The one true solution is to pay for housing. Any solution basically has to involve that because housing is system resource intensive. They wanted it to be where 1 sub price gets you everything, but that philosophy failed when it came to housing. It failed because everyone pays the same sub but many players don't get housing, and so in effect the many without housing end up subsidizing the housing system for the lucky few who get housing.

This means the only fair systems are things like:

1) charge a higher subscription price to everyone, but include housing for everyone in this price, so everyone gets housing.

2) charge a separate fee for housing, and so anyone who wants housing can pay the fee and cover the system resource costs associated with housing and so get housing. And if you don't want housing, you don't have to pay the fee.

It's crazy that for so long now they never made a decision to fix this and just let the winners exploit the rest of their player base.

A much better solution would be to just add a new type of ward within the housing wards that are for free companies only. Adding some extra tabs to the housing wards that don't have to compete between personal or FC housing would go a long way at ensuring server growth. I know a lot of people that want to start a free company, but won't because there isn't any housing to do it with.

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Originally Posted by Waaltar

The one true solution is to pay for housing. Any solution basically has to involve that because housing is system resource intensive. They wanted it to be where 1 sub price gets you everything, but that philosophy failed when it came to housing. It failed because everyone pays the same sub but many players don't get housing, and so in effect the many without housing end up subsidizing the housing system for the lucky few who get housing.

This means the only fair systems are things like:

1) charge a higher subscription price to everyone, but include housing for everyone in this price, so everyone gets housing.

2) charge a separate fee for housing, and so anyone who wants housing can pay the fee and cover the system resource costs associated with housing and so get housing. And if you don't want housing, you don't have to pay the fee.

It's crazy that for so long now they never made a decision to fix this and just let the winners exploit the rest of their player base.

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I am majorly against them charging for housing. Other MMOs, including XIV's predecessor, manage to give equal housing to all players with no strings attached. It's really quite sad that they didn't have the foresight to see what a hot mess housing would become with the way they were implementing it. I am totally down for a full revamp but draw the line at actually charging customers more for it. This game pulls in so much money as it is, and quite often it feels as if SE is unwilling to put enough of that profit back into the game. I get it, they're a business, they have other projects.....but this game could use some love.

The solution to any and all housing is the same: add instanced housing so every FC And every player can have a house. Let people still fight over the prestige of having their houses in the visitable public spaces and districts - but at least give people access to the mechanics locked off by not having a house or FC house.

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Originally Posted by Zaddi

As an FC leader who inherited the FC when I already had my own, private house, I say no. Why should I have to lose my medium house because I ended up with a FC mansion too? My private house is decorated after my personal taste. The FC mansion is decorated to look more like a meeting place for several people. I don't consider the FC house my house, even if I technically own it.

We need a better housing system, not to take away houses from players who have them.

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Exactly this. My FC house is where fellow members can get a taste of owning their own house.
They got the right to have a room, and also help decorate, or at least give their opinion on, the interior of our home.

My personal house is that, my personal house, decorated to my own taste, can be all pink, black, orange, or green if I so desire.

We've worked hard to earn one, I don't wish to repeat my experience buying that Medium Shirogane home, ever.
So, no to this OP, sorry.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

I am majorly against them charging for housing. Other MMOs, including XIV's predecessor, manage to give equal housing to all players with no strings attached. It's really quite sad that they didn't have the foresight to see what a hot mess housing would become with the way they were implementing it. I am totally down for a full revamp but draw the line at actually charging customers more for it. This game pulls in so much money as it is, and quite often it feels as if SE is unwilling to put enough of that profit back into the game. I get it, they're a business, they have other projects.....but this game could use some love.

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FFXI's "housing" was smaller than a studio apartment with no exterior options and primarily served as a storage space for most players because retainers didn't exist. Furniture was generally placed based on its function, bonuses, or effects rather than as a decoration since they could impact the element balance on your mog room which impacted gardening and various items could basically create more storage slots when placed. However the storage slots created by furniture were only accessible from your mog room. Accessing the moogle attendant in one of the temp rooms accessed when you go to other locations only gave access to the things in the basic safe.

Another thing that comes to mind is i that I feel a major part of this housing demand only exists because it's a finite resource. A majority of other MMO's that gave all players free housing seemed to have said resource remain almost entirely unused by mass majority of the game's player base. "They have enough well made, cute teddy bears for everyone? Meh I don't care. They only have 100,000 of the disfigured, poorly made, ugly ones? GIMMIE!"

Hard no on this one. The FC house is for my FC. There are amenities there just for members. It's designed in a way to be a gathering place. That's not my house. It belongs to my FC.

My personal home is my choice on everything and I don't have to make anyone happy with what I do but myself. I don't lose the ability to have that just because I'm also an FC leader.

Ive owned 2 houses before letting them lapse, and Ive owned an apartment that I gave up because I never used it after I managed to get a house.
Now I just finished decorating my FC room, not just for my use, but for my FC members to chill in if they so choose.
Out of all of them, I find my FC room to be the coolest. Not to mention our FC house gets used a lot! So... No, I dont share the OP's desire for removal of FC housing.
FC housing has different meanings to different FC's. For some its a homebase, for others its a figure head or to show off. For many its just a way to get free buffs.
Some dont care, others do. I feel it has its place and should be left alone.
What could really be useful instead is instanced personal housing. Apartments are nice, but they lack the functionality of outdoor areas for gardening, decorating, etc..

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Originally Posted by Zaddi

My private house is decorated after my personal taste. The FC mansion is decorated to look more like a meeting place for several people. I don't consider the FC house my house, even if I technically own it.

We need a better housing system, not to take away houses from players who have them.

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Basically how it is in my case. I have a private home and I'm the fc leader of a fc with a house.

Our fc house is designed specifically with a fc in mind. It doesn't look like a home for one, it looks like a venue that a large group can attend. It has no bedrooms. It has seating for several people on each floor, and each floor is designed with a different theme to appeal to more than one type of taste. I have taken suggestions from fc members so I'm not making all the furnishing decisions. There is a huge amount of furniture at the fc house that I would never want in my own house. But that's okay because it's not only my house.

Additionally I furnish the ground floor and the garden to match every event in the game, so right now the house is very festive for Xmas and the New Year. I actually spend several days planning the furnishings for the events and try to never do the same thing twice. It keeps things fresh and members often look forward to what's coming next. They even take screenshots at the house when it is furnished to match in-game events.

I put in a lot of work to make my fc house as great as possible for my members. The only reason why I don't allow everyone to have furnishing permissions is because a lot of drama occurred in the first fc I was in (I was not in a rank with any authority) due to members constantly changing the house to suit their personal tastes and someone started removing furniture without telling anyone. It was a huge mess. I don't want to risk that happening in my fc. No one in my fc minds the restrictions on who can furnish. They understand my reasoning.

I don't view myself as the owner of the fc house. I'm the main caretaker for it. It's a never-ending project to make my members happy. Not a vanity project to fulfil only my personal desires.

Yes there are some people who use fcs to have one or two private homes but I don't think it's right to punish every single fc leader in the game just because a small portion of fc house owners don't use their fc house for social purposes. What's wrong is that the game currently has system design that permits house hoarding. However SE have taken measures in the past to combat this, and are introducing more in the future. It's not a problem they're unware of.

The root of the problem is availability issues. Even if absolutely no one abused the system there would still be an incredible amount of players and fcs without a house. And there would be still people who would find some way of viewing someone's ownership as invalid. Regularly some players criticise small fcs for having a house, claiming that they could never get the full use of it due to being a small group. I have seen criticisms directed at fcs who have not yet gotten a workshop. I have even seen someone criticise a fc for never changing their furnishings so they claimed they did not deserve the house because they were never adventurous with it. Unless everyone can get a house with ease there will ALWAYS be unhappy people ready to find something to scrutinise to justify why they should have the house instead.

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Originally Posted by Terin

The ONLY difference is that FC leaders would not own separate houses; thus if you DO own a private estate AND a FC estate, you would either give one of them up, or give the FC estate to a trusted member. And if you don't have a member you would trust enough to give the estate to... well, that sounds kind of like a "second house" for you.

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Sorry I own a FC house and a personal right next to it on Spriggan. I am entitled to have my own private estate just like everyone else. I shouldn't have to share my house and call it a FC with everyone when they are able to own their own private houses and be a part of that FC.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

FFXI's "housing" was smaller than a studio apartment with no exterior options and primarily served as a storage space for most players because retainers didn't exist. Furniture was generally placed based on its function, bonuses, or effects rather than as a decoration since they could impact the element balance on your mog room which impacted gardening and various items could basically create more storage slots when placed. However the storage slots created by furniture were only accessible from your mog room. Accessing the moogle attendant in one of the temp rooms accessed when you go to other locations only gave access to the things in the basic safe.

Another thing that comes to mind is i that I feel a major part of this housing demand only exists because it's a finite resource. A majority of other MMO's that gave all players free housing seemed to have said resource remain almost entirely unused by mass majority of the game's player base. "They have enough well made, cute teddy bears for everyone? Meh I don't care. They only have 100,000 of the disfigured, poorly made, ugly ones? GIMMIE!"

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For what it's worth, XI has expanded the housing to include a 2nd story, patio area, and a somewhat large garden/monster rearing space. The housing is more limited in many ways, but it still manages to give housing to all. The game is almost 20 years now, so it probably deserves a bit of slack. ;) XIV, however, was the new shiny MMO, and it makes me sad that they chose to make housing finite instead of expanding and improving upon what was seen previously. Wildstar is still my favorite housing system that I've experienced. I think that game did a good job of showing how expansive instanced housing can actually be, and that it doesn't have to simply be a square box (like our apartments in XIV).

As far as the topic of FC housing goes, I do wish there was some sort of a way to toggle/convert an existing personal house into an FC house, but I don't see most people wanting to give up their personal housing to designate it as the FC house, and other options would only encourage FC selling/house flipping. As far as my own selfish reasons go, I want access to a workshop. My dream is that one day they will create some sort of workshop instance that isn't linked to owning a house for FCs. It's not great that so many are locked out of that feature. :X

I run an FC but I can't be arsed to decorate. We have a special rank in the FC called "Interior decorator" and it's given to the folks who enjoy that. Every once in a while I come in and they're doing a full tear down and the place is a construction zone. I know they're having fun.

If your FC leader is selfish and won't share those decorating rights, maybe you should find a new FC?

Hourly reminder that personal housing is inherently inferior to FC housing.

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Originally Posted by Terin

I'm going to be real with you guys; I am actually currently guilty of this. However, I recognize it is an issue that the Devs honestly need to address.

I think most people are aware of the issues of "Free Company houses". If you're not, let me explain; currently, you can own a "Private estate" and ALSO have a "Free Company estate" if you are the head of a Free Company.

Now, some players will "sell" Free Companies that have a House. So it's effectively "selling a house". That's not what I did, and truthfully, I actually don't consider that the real problem.

The REAL problem, is that it effectively allows players to "own two houses". So, technically one is Private and the other is Free Company, but the distinction is largely irrelevant.

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I'm going to call for it the other way around.

Private houses should not exist. Given that they're not instanced there's a very limited number of them - so they should be for FCs only, with apartments for individual characters.

They should take back all the houses not owned by an FC - refunding 100% of the cost.

I've never owned an FC with a house (there was a brief one hour period or so in 2014 where I owned an FC because I came back after taking 6 months off to find out I was the only person of the people I'd joined at launch with who still had a sub. Lasted until I figure out how to hand the FC back to the account it belonged to, and then quit) - so I don't know how FC houses work...

But they should be linked to the FC, not to any account in the FC, not even the FC leader. If an FC with a house finds itself with less than 8 active people (a full party), it's house should get taken back with a 100% refund. I know that sounds brutal - but there are a LOT more active FCs out there than there are houses. If people are just camping a resource, or using a pile of dead accounts to make a private home - that spot should go to people in communities.

Weren't we getting freecompany/private ownership wards with Ishgard housing?

As an owner of two houses I disagree with this idea. This would only hurt the FC leader..they would have to give up one of their houses while the rest of the FC can not only hang out in the new FC house but also can buy their own houses too...

In the end its on SE to provide us with enough housing. Lets stop with always trying to punish the playerbase for this bad limited system. We already need to log in to keep our houses, lets not make it even worse.

They need to have a better housing system, period.
The entire system is a horrible mess and needs a rework.

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Originally Posted by Juun

Weren't we getting freecompany/private ownership wards with Ishgard housing?

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That doesn't solve the general supply problem. All that does is ensure a small number of houses are reserved for private ownership and another small number is reserved for FCs.

It does not add enough housing so every FC and every player who wants one can have a house. The number of players and FCs who can own a house is further diminished by the number of accounts that own multiple houses. People forget the current ownership limitation is per world, not per account. Someone with a standard subscription theoretically could have 80 houses, two on each of 40 different worlds. That's 79 other players/FCs that will never be able to get a house because that one player has purchased what they're allowed under the current system.

These discussions end up pointless when SE has no interest in addressing the underlying problems with the system.

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Originally Posted by Dewslam

The solution to any and all housing is the same: add instanced housing so every FC And every player can have a house. Let people still fight over the prestige of having their houses in the visitable public spaces and districts - but at least give people access to the mechanics locked off by not having a house or FC house.

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I think this is the best solution. Some people just want access to housing activities like the airship or garden. Those who care about a place to show off can do so still.

This whole post is focused on the wrong thing , if we had instanced housing everyone would have a home. FF14 is creating artificial scarcity by running its housing the way it does.

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Originally Posted by Terin

I mean... FC houses are literally no different, other than setting permissions. You could have the same permissions, or even more extensive if need be. At the end of the day, the FC house isn't *really* shared property, because the FC only has the permissions granted by the FC leader, which can be given or taken away at their discretion. No reason that would change at all.

The ONLY difference is that FC leaders would not own separate houses; thus if you DO own a private estate AND a FC estate, you would either give one of them up, or give the FC estate to a trusted member. And if you don't have a member you would trust enough to give the estate to... well, that sounds kind of like a "second house" for you.

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FC members can buy their own rooms in an FC house. I dunno if you're lying or actually that incorrect.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

I'm going to call for it the other way around.

Private houses should not exist. Given that they're not instanced there's a very limited number of them - so they should be for FCs only, with apartments for individual characters.

They should take back all the houses not owned by an FC - refunding 100% of the cost.

I've never owned an FC with a house (there was a brief one hour period or so in 2014 where I owned an FC because I came back after taking 6 months off to find out I was the only person of the people I'd joined at launch with who still had a sub. Lasted until I figure out how to hand the FC back to the account it belonged to, and then quit) - so I don't know how FC houses work...

But they should be linked to the FC, not to any account in the FC, not even the FC leader. If an FC with a house finds itself with less than 8 active people (a full party), it's house should get taken back with a 100% refund. I know that sounds brutal - but there are a LOT more active FCs out there than there are houses. If people are just camping a resource, or using a pile of dead accounts to make a private home - that spot should go to people in communities.

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I agree with pretty much everything you've said, but 8 players is way too much. Here's a report just for you: https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/re...328/page/ez06B

Average member count per FC house:

• Japan: 10.24
• North America: 26.13
• Europe: 19.43

Free Company houses

• Japan: 67,172
• North America: 42,811
• Europe: 20,578

Free Company houses with less than 8 members

• Japan: 40,667
• North America: 15,881
• Europe: 9,270

Your proposal would nuke:

• 60.5% of the FC houses on the JP DCs
• 37% of the FC houses on the NA DCs
• 45% of the FC houses on the EU DCs

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FC housing represents roughly 30% of all housing. Nuking personal housing and the FC houses that fail to meet 8 members would effectively bring us back to a peak of 1,400 FC houses on Balmung and 722 FC houses as the bottom (Shinryu). That's patch 2.38/2.4 level of supply and would leave us with, at the bare minimum, 4,300 available plots per server.

Do you know how long it would take for your average server to come up with that many FCs? I'll give you a hint, the average amount of FCs on all servers since 2.0 is 5,090. Considering most of those FCs are long dead and their status isn't going to change (https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/re...603/page/BBs5B), it will take at least a decade to fill the gap.

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Bottom line:

Personal housing was a mistake.
Japan never needed 32 servers.
NA should have been given more than 1 server since 2013... way before Yoshipizza could cry about covid or any other pathetic excuses.