Can I report people for buying multiple houses?

[Ryedan]

If there's a person who is knowingly and openly (and I mean, they are ADVERTISING it proudly) creating 1 person FC's to purchase housing under identical FC tags, is there anything I can do to report them?

Normally, I wouldn't care if someone wants to make FCs to charge more aether wheels or get extra bank space, but when they buy houses just to hold, they're reducing the "community" value of having a house - i.e. It becomes essentially an empty lot with no one ever going in or out.

Obviously, it's terrible from a supply/demand standpoint, but it's increasingly isolating when I see 3, 4 now 6 houses owned by one user (single subscription). I feel like I don't even have neighbors and it kills the entire ward.

So again, my question: is there anything I can do about it? I'm pretty sure SE creating the housing restrictions because they wanted to practically limit the number of houses people can own (for the above reasons). Players going around that intention should be stopped from further exploiting that.

I don't even want them to take the houses that person owns away from them. I just want them to stop.

[Penthea]

SE know very well that many fcs do this and they don't take any action. So I seriously doubt they will do anything about this either. That said the worst they can do is say "no" to you, so if you want to try go ahead. Just don't expect much of anything.

Also this thread is likely to descend into an argument about house hoarding. Enjoy.

[Ryedan]

There is literally no argument to be made that purchasing and holding more than 2 houses per subscription is acceptable. The stance from SE is crystal clear about their intention to throttle ownership to that exact amount.

I don't care if someone pays 15 subscriptions and buys 30 houses to own an entire ward. That's between them and their $2,700/year gaming habit. Good for them.

If you have one subscription and purchase 8+ houses, you are knowingly violating the intended housing cap while simultaneously inconveniencing other players.

[Penthea]

There is literally no argument to be made that purchasing and holding more than 2 houses per subscription is acceptable. The stance from SE is crystal clear about their intention to throttle ownership to that exact amount.

While their stance has certain implications the fact remains that SE don't do anything directly against those who hoard houses. They have so far merely put in system changes to make it more difficult to do in order to discourage it. If you still find a way to do it without violating the ToS, they won't do anything.

If you have one subscription and purchase 8+ houses, you are knowingly violating the intended housing cap while simultaneously inconveniencing other players.

For some silly reason SE quietly lifted the fc house per server ownership cap, so now players can have several fc houses in the same server on the same account.

And I say it's silly because why bother putting in the restrictions only to later take them away. Very redundant. Very few people could claim to legitimately lead more than one fc. So I am very puzzled as to why they lifted the restriction.

[Ryedan]

I understand that they wouldn't want to take an automated approach. But there's actual evidence of a person chatting with me saying "this is exactly how I make a 1 person FC and buy all these houses. Oh and here's a link to my website where I show them all off"

They tend to not do things proactively, but they SHOULD do something reactively when there's people so openly disregarding the rules

[Penthea]

I understand that they wouldn't want to take an automated approach. But there's actual evidence of a person chatting with me saying "this is exactly how I make a 1 person FC and buy all these houses. Oh and here's a link to my website where I show them all off"

They tend to not do things proactively, but they SHOULD do something reactively when there's people so openly disregarding the rules

You seem to misunderstand. There are ways to hoard houses without breaking any rules.

I agree there shouldn't be ways to do so, but unfortunately SE are very slow to take decisive action when it comes to housing and for god knows what reason they went back on one of the restrictions that definitely helped against hoarding. Likely some crap about only looking at activity in the JP servers, and not comparing them to how some players tend to act in the west. From what I understand house hoarding isn't as much of an issue in the JP servers.

It will be very interesting to see what happens when the Ishgard housing gets released. Will the fc house restriction come back? Will it come back only to be taken away again? Will its launch be as controversial as Shirogane?

[Canadane]

While it may feel unfair, they are playing within SEs rules.
So while you can report them, nothing will come of it.

[worldofneil]

For some silly reason SE quietly lifted the fc house per server ownership cap, so now players can have several fc houses in the same server on the same account.

Just a guess, but I think it was probably because it broke the system that transfers an FC when the leader doesn't log in for 35 days.

Either it stopped it working if someone already had an alt that was in an FC with a house, or it didn't stop it working so people would have used that as a workaround/bypassed it so SE thought what's the point.

[NanaWiloh]

You seem to misunderstand. There are ways to hoard houses without breaking any rules.

I agree there shouldn't be ways to do so, but unfortunately SE are very slow to take decisive action when it comes to housing and for god knows what reason they went back on one of the restrictions that definitely helped against hoarding. Likely some crap about only looking at activity in the JP servers, and not comparing them to how some players tend to act in the west. From what I understand house hoarding isn't as much of an issue in the JP servers.

It will be very interesting to see what happens when the Ishgard housing gets released. Will the fc house restriction come back? Will it come back only to be taken away again? Will its launch be as controversial as Shirogane?

People also dont understand how FC house ownership actually works. The restriction stop buying not owning and there was good reason for it, cause FC houses dont belong to a single player they belong to the FC itself.

[Yshtola]

It's this time of the year where people who have no idea what they are talking about come out of the woodwork I presume.