How to Fix Housing Without Everyone Freaking Out

[T2teddy]

Sounds possible to me.
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Personally I think every person who is in an FC but, who also has their own personal house, should flat out be given all their money back, all items returned to them and those lots made only available to the FCs which STILL do not own land.

The current three residential areas should never have been anything but Free Company housing.

The points below are simply my ideas on ways to prevent ownership by any group or single person, of more than one of the measly 1440 housing plots which exist on each world. There are hundreds of qualified FCs on every world which have been unable to benefit from gardens, stables, workshops etc, because NO empty lots have been available for darned near the entire last year.

Furthermore:

1. Only one house may be owned per account on a single world, whether it's an FC or personal house UNLESS Square makes personal housing completely separate from the already existing wards.

2. Anyone belonging to an FC may not leave it in order to start a new FC, who then purchases additional housing and then turn leadership of the new FC over to one of their alt characters then rejoins the original FC.

3. SE has obviously got the ability to know who is in an FC at any given time SO it behooves them to check the roster of any FC which is trying to purchase land and deny the purchase if the roster indicates evidence of being a BOT FC.
There are many such in existence on Sargatanas which DO OWN HOUSES. If you check membership every one is a BLM with names which follow the random lettering of bots and gil sellers

4. SE needs to add more tabs to FC chests, which will reduce the need some people have for starting an FC simply to gain more tabs.

5. SE could also let an FC have as many garden plots as they wish on their land, regardless of plot size. This also would negate another reason for people wanting to own additional houses.

Edits in RED for a bit of clarification

[Xerius]

Only one house may be owned per account on a single world, whether it's an FC or personal house UNLESS Square makes personal housing completely separate from the already existing wards.

I could have sworn this was the original plan. Maybe I'm just remembering things that never happened though. :P

[Anova]

I generally agree with this whole argument. And most of these rules I think would be great, if SE started with them. However, I think it's going to be very hard to suddenly change the rules now.

There are some great ideas you have on how to do it though, and I think most players would be happy to get 80% of their money back.

My biggest concern though is that the already shaky game economy would see a meteoric rise in prices if a few hundred million came rolling back all at once. Maybe players can opt for a gradual release of the money: like being able to regain up to 100k every week until the house's value(actual number is subject to change). This way we can at least avoid inflation.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, furthermores...

This is nitpicking, but I just wanted to clarify your ideas a little more and throw out some case studies for consideration. Keep in mind, these are largely rhetorical. i'm not expecting a solid answer to any of these, but it simply shows how complicated it is.

1. Does this apply to every FC member? Keep in mind not every FC member has full privilege to use the FC's garden, change the furniture, or do airship building. Most FCs do leave them open, but the FC master can also restrict it to specific member ranks. If so, there's very little reason for a player to join a FC when they want some specific feature of the housing.

2. Would this prevent players from transferring to a lieutenant who then transfers to the FC master's alt? It's technically not being shared across the same account directly, but ends up the same.
Alternatively, what would happen when a FC master steps down because of real life issues and then comes back with a new character (because s/he wants to relive the story again or similar drivel). And the members want the "new alt" as their FC master because the person playing it is still a good leader?

3. Do any of those FCs own houses? Bots and goldfarmers don't usually spend time on gold sinks. If they don't, that's more of a bot issue than a housing issue. And we already know SE has a lot of problems handling bots.

4. I don't see how this impacts housing. Not all FCs need to own houses, and if you make a FC simply for the sake of transferring mats and items between alts, housing doesn't benefit you at all.

5. My only concern for this is literal gil farming for rare mats such as glaze nuts. Otherwise, I'm down for it.

Also for full disclosure, I'm a proud member of a FC with a house and owner of a personal house myself. Feel free to shout "boos" and cries of "death to the 1%" before continuing on. Thanks and it's my pleasure to join the discussion!

[Xerius]

My biggest concern though is that the already shaky game economy would see a meteoric rise in prices if a few hundred million came rolling back all at once.

This is true but don't forget that much of this money will be sitting on inactive accounts that very well may never return to the game. On top of that, the person purchasing the house next time would be removing that money from the economy and the next person will only receive 80% of that.

[T2teddy]

This is nitpicking, but I just wanted to clarify your ideas a little more and throw out some case studies for consideration. Keep in mind, these are largely rhetorical. i'm not expecting a solid answer to any of these, but it simply shows how complicated it is.

I added some red edits to my original. See if they seem more workable now?

[Anova]

I added some red edits to my original. See if they seem more workable now?

Ooh, was not expecting this. Thanks for going to the trouble of highlighting the changes.

2. As for these revisions, I think I understand where you're going with that example. Certainly, I can see how it's upsetting for a house owner to buy a house and never use it. It's like a slap in the face of everyone who does want housing.
I still don't see how this could be enforced though. Sure, we could devote data to tracking it for all players and do a boolean check for all those conditions, but there's probably a time limit. You can't stop players from buying a house forever if they ever join a fc with a house, and you can't stop players from making alts. You can make it very difficult, like say a month between leaving a fc and a new housing purchase, but that's only going to punish those FCs who can't afford to pay for a voip (mostly ps players who have to use a phone app and the servers for those usually charge monthly fees for voip).
Also, I know a few of those alt players who bought the house for their FC earlier, watched the FC die for unintentional reasons, joined a new FC and are collecting money to buy the house back as private housing for sentimental reasons. It's a little selfish, but it's not exactly malignant or dishonest. The biggest cause for some players just holding on to houses is because houses are so difficult to get that this is probably their only chance to get one. If you were suddenly offered the chance to buy a house and only needed 5 million more gil to get it, you'd probably hang on to that reservation for as long as you could.

3. Yeah, got nothing to explain this except on the off-chance everyone in that FC is a Seawolf Roe. Those RP names are a weird combination of Polish, Welsh, and Chinese Gold Farmer. Keep in mind Gold Farmers are rather notorious for using keyloggers to steal accounts, so it's possible someone bought gil from them for the house and then a gold farmer hijacked their account later on. Still doesn't explain why SE hasn't punished them yet though.