Can I report people for buying multiple houses?

[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.

[Penthea]

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.

I wasn't aware that the restriction broke anything.

I don't like that the solution to this is just to remove the restriction because that's essentially replacing one problem with another. But anyone who knows a lot about housing knows that SE don't exactly rank it high up on their list of things to improve. So I'm not surprised if that is what happened.

And before anyone says the restriction needed to be removed for the fc leader mechanic would work; SE could just change how that mechanic works.

For example the leadership could get automatically passed on to someone without leadership of a fc house on that server. In the event that no one in the fc is eligible due to every member being a fc leader on that server on another character, then the first player could get notified that if they relinquish leadership elsewhere they will become eligible to take on the leader role in that fc. They have, let's say, a two week window to redeem the fc and if they do not, then the next player gets the same option and so on.

SE could have both systems work fine. But well...they need to care enough about the housing system to do that. And they do not.

[Jojoya]

I wasn't aware that the restriction broke anything.

I don't like that the solution to this is just to remove the restriction because that's essentially replacing one problem with another. But anyone who knows a lot about housing knows that SE don't exactly rank it high up on their list of things to improve. So I'm not surprised if that is what happened.

And before anyone says the restriction needed to be removed for the fc leader mechanic would work; SE could just change how that mechanic works.

For example the leadership could get automatically passed on to someone without leadership of a fc house on that server. In the event that no one in the fc is eligible due to every member being a fc leader on that server on another character, then the first player could get notified that if they relinquish leadership elsewhere they will become eligible to take on the leader role in that fc. They have, let's say, a two week window to redeem the fc and if they do not, then the next player gets the same option and so on.

SE could have both systems work fine. But well...they need to care enough about the housing system to do that. And they do not.

They do care about the housing system. We wouldn't get all the changes we get each expansion is they didn't. But that doesn't mean they have all the time and resources needed to make all desired improvements to the system.

Perhaps what they need to do is state that a player cannot lead more than one FC per world. If the player has a character that already leads a FC, their other characters may not start a new FC or be promoted to leader in another one they join unless they step down as leader on the other character first. It's highly unlikely any legitimate FC would have no members eligible for promotion.

One thing I'm finding interesting is that SE did update the housing information page on Lodestone back in October. It does still clearly state that a player is only allowed to own one personal and one FC house per world per service account. That runs counter to all the player claims that SE removed the ownership rules and left only the purchase rule in place.

SE may not be able to use programming to prevent the additional purchase but that shouldn't prevent the GMs from manually enforcing that rule where there is evidence a player is abusing the system to gain access to multiple houses.

[Penthea]

They do care about the housing system.

I didn't say they don't care. I said they don't care enough.

We wouldn't get all the changes we get each expansion is they didn't.

The only reason why we got some big changes to the system in SB is because there was an enormous uproar in the community when Shirogane launched. I seriously doubt we would have had those changes if no one complained. If SE planned to bring them in all along they would have introduced them BEFORE launching a new housing area, not after.

But that doesn't mean they have all the time and resources needed to make all desired improvements to the system.

While I agree with this very often some good changes people request aren't complicated. I'm not under the illusion that any company reacts to all the whims of the playerbase but when you see other systems consistently get updates and/or changes, while another one does very infrequently by comparison, it is clear that SE have a list of priorities which don't have housing anywhere near the top.

Perhaps what they need to do is state that a player cannot lead more than one FC per world. If the player has a character that already leads a FC, their other characters may not start a new FC or be promoted to leader in another one they join unless they step down as leader on the other character first. It's highly unlikely any legitimate FC would have no members eligible for promotion.

Completely agree that something like this should be in the game.

One thing I'm finding interesting is that SE did update the housing information page on Lodestone back in October. It does still clearly state that a player is only allowed to own one personal and one FC house per world per service account. That runs counter to all the player claims that SE removed the ownership rules and left only the purchase rule in place.

And here's another reason why I am annoyed with how SE ranks housing in their to-do list. Many players over the course of far more than a year by now have said this to be the case. Some have been saying that the restriction getting removed has lead to them personally, or other players they're aware of, be able to buy more houses than the housing page on the Lodestone says they can purchase. I myself have seen some purchasing habits that point to the restriction getting lifted.

...but SE haven't updated the lodestone guide on housing. Which honestly makes it look like SE know the restriction being removed is bad, and they're hoping no one will notice it's gone as long as they don't have any official statement about it.

SE may not be able to use programming to prevent the additional purchase but that shouldn't prevent the GMs from manually enforcing that rule where there is evidence a player is abusing the system to gain access to multiple houses.

If the house abuse entails only activity that doesn't violate the ToS, 99% of the time SE will do nothing. At best they might do something if the house hoarder is being very rude to other people, but in that case they would be getting punished for harassment, not for finding loopholes in the housing system that don't break the ToS.

Honestly I don't think we'll see any major improvements to the fairness of the housing system unless we have another fiasco like the Shirogane launch. It's not impossible that we'll get some without an unhappy playerbase pushing SE to act, but looking at the past that really does not seem likely.