The housing system in this game NEEDS A COMPLETE GD OVERHALL. Complete stupidity....

[Barraind]

Imagine saying SE condones selfish players who can't be satisfied with owning one house and exploited loopholes.

There are no loopholes.

Squeenix allowed alts on the same account to purchase housing, so people used them to purchase housing.

Squeenix still allows you to purchase a house using a FC (be it one you made or joined, there is 0 difference) if there is already a FC house owned by your account, even if your account is the only account with a character in that FC. So people used them to purchase housing (and FC housing is better than personal housing).


Their inability to balance housing availability and server load on NA servers (JP doesnt have the same issues we do because they're sitting at 8 more servers, and their servers lock for character creation/transfer at ~70% of the population threshold) is their problem, and blaming people for following their own rules, including those who bought houses many years ago when the idea of fully populated housing wards was laughable at best, is nonsense.

[Melichoir]

There are no loopholes.

Squeenix allowed alts on the same account to purchase housing, so people used them to purchase housing.

Squeenix still allows you to purchase a house using a FC (be it one you made or joined, there is 0 difference) if there is already a FC house owned by your account, even if your account is the only account with a character in that FC. So people used them to purchase housing (and FC housing is better than personal housing).

Their inability to balance housing availability and server load on NA servers (JP doesnt have the same issues we do because they're sitting at 8 more servers, and their servers lock for character creation/transfer at ~70% of the population threshold) is their problem, and blaming people for following their own rules, including those who bought houses many years ago when the idea of fully populated housing wards was laughable at best, is nonsense.

This isnt exactly accurate. There are 'loopholes'. While it isnt up for debate that SE allowed Alts to own houses, the loop hole isnt that alts could do this but how those alts acquired the money to do so. Alts were meant to be standalones, by and large. There are systems in the game that discourage or prevent direct transfer of Resources between alts without an intermediary (friend, FC bank, etc). This means that if an alt wanted a house, they would have to grind that money themselves. That was the intent. However, because intermediaries exist, it became very easy for one person to create 7 other alts, transfer money to them through intermediaries, and then have those alts purchase property - even if there was no intent for those alts to even utilize the property (which is what you see from players who 'own a ward').

The best way to actually handle this situation is to create a tax system on properties. Ive mentioned this concept in another thread earlier, but the sum of it is instead of having a demo timer - just create a deposit box that you have to store Gil in. Every so many days (lets say 30 days) it withdraws a set amount based on the size of property you own. If you fail to pay the fee, you get penalized and have to pay the tax + fee wihtin 7 days or you lose your property (gets demoed). You can only store so much Gil as well. So lets say its 50k/30 days for a cottage, the deposit only holds 100k. You have to manage your deposit to keep property.

For a person with 8 characters who all own property, thats 400k every 30 days they have to fork over, and manage.

The gil amount could be scaled by account size too, if they want to really push it. So maybe its 50k for hte first 2 characters with housing, then it doubles progressively per extra alt with a house. So 50, 50, 100,200, 400, 800, 1.6Mil, 3.2 Mil for a grand total of 6.4 Mil a month to maintain properties.

Point is to actively push players who have been using these loop holes to get property and 'buy up wards' to give up property through cost.

Just a thought on how to handle it, but to make sure my initial point is clear - yes there are loopholes, albeit indirect ones. To say "Its all fair and square, no loopholes" isnt correct because it ignores how alts function in this game, and the fact that players who own multiple houses per server are likely doing so by bypassing Trade barriers through intermediaries.

[Edax]

If there's a line of people behind you at the buffet, it's immoral to take ALL the crab or a whole plateful.

Why? It's first come first serve. If I'm there to eat crab at a buffet, I'm eating crab. The point of a buffet is that you can grab a plateful of crab if you so desire. Otherwise you might as well visit a restaurant where you can predetermined proportions so you don't get offended by the all-you-can-eat ideology.

[iilan]

Why? It's first come first serve. If I'm there to eat crab at a buffet, I'm eating crab. The point of a buffet is that you can grab a plateful of crab if you so desire. Otherwise you might as well visit a restaurant where you can predetermined proportions so you don't get offended by the all-you-can-eat ideology.

The problem with this analogy is that there will always be more crab. The kitchen will constantly prepare crab while the devs are not constantly preparing wards (to our knowledge). I agree alts should be able to buy houses, but I favor an upkeep system or at least open wards so other folks can get crab from different crab trays, you know?

[Edax]

The problem with this analogy is that there will always be more crab. The kitchen will constantly prepare crab while the devs are not constantly preparing wards (to our knowledge). I agree alts should be able to buy houses, but I favor an upkeep system or at least open wards so other folks can get crab from different crab trays, you know?

According to the housing census, there are still many empty plots on some servers as early as January. I do remember people complaining on the forums in the past of wards filled with empty plots on some servers.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...nsus%21/page32

[iilan]

The most recent housing census for Aether (according to your link) was done last July (literally 11 months ago) and even then, everything was taken across the board excluding one or two here and there. And trust me, the situation has not improved.

[TwistedTea]

The best way to actually handle this situation is to create a tax system on properties. Ive mentioned this concept in another thread earlier, but the sum of it is instead of having a demo timer - just create a deposit box that you have to store Gil in. Every so many days (lets say 30 days) it withdraws a set amount based on the size of property you own. If you fail to pay the fee, you get penalized and have to pay the tax + fee wihtin 7 days or you lose your property (gets demoed). You can only store so much Gil as well. So lets say its 50k/30 days for a cottage, the deposit only holds 100k. You have to manage your deposit to keep property.

For a person with 8 characters who all own property, thats 400k every 30 days they have to fork over, and manage.

The gil amount could be scaled by account size too, if they want to really push it. So maybe its 50k for hte first 2 characters with housing, then it doubles progressively per extra alt with a house. So 50, 50, 100,200, 400, 800, 1.6Mil, 3.2 Mil for a grand total of 6.4 Mil a month to maintain properties.

Point is to actively push players who have been using these loop holes to get property and 'buy up wards' to give up property through cost.

Do you seriously think even 10m a month is going to affect someone who owns 8 FC houses?

Or that multi-house owners will not find ways to game the system, so they end up paying lower upkeep tax?

There are no loopholes. The rules permit ownership of 8 FC houses per server/per service account.

Perhaps when SE can properly resolve the FC Master inheritance issue, then this 'loophole' might be closed.

It would be more productive to request SE to introduce proper instanced housing along with workshop/garden access alongside existing housing. There will never be enough houses for every individual player under the current persistent ward system. Surveys conducted on NA data centers, have shown that personal house owners are occupying the majority of houses. ~70% Personal houses vs ~30% FC houses.

[Jojoya]

The rules permit ownership of 8 FC houses per server/per service account.

No, they don't.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../housing_land/

Players may only own one private and one free company estate per World on any given service account.

That was updated again in February of this year. It continues to say the same thing that was said since the new rules went into effect in 4.2. If that rule had been removed at some point as some players who have purchased multiple FC houses using the loophole having been claiming for over a year, then that would have been changed in the update.

The rule is still there. What's missing is the enforcement and that's a big problem.

[Shibi]

Bigger problem, is just no housing with it's current design. It's an unsolvable issue until they sit down and do a patch for it that redesigns the whole underlying structure to instance it.

For me, the solution is still have the wards as they are, but improve the apartments. Allow multiple rooms to be bought, allow an outside area (surrounded by huge tall garden walls so there is no view contention). And allow guests to be added.

Eventually allow the non-instanced housing to decay over to genuine FC use only.

[TwistedTea]

No, they don't.
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../housing_land/
That was updated again in February of this year. It continues to say the same thing that was said since the new rules went into effect in 4.2. If that rule had been removed at some point as some players who have purchased multiple FC houses using the loophole having been claiming for over a year, then that would have been changed in the update.

That link does not strengthen your case because on that very page:
Temporary Changes to Purchasing Land

Also there is a distinction between purchasing FC houses from the system and owning 8 FC houses.

Show a link from SE that owning 8 FC houses per server/per service account is against the rules. For example, if I were to purchase 1 FC house from the system and have my alts promoted to FC Master, 7 more times, is there a clear rule against that?

Again, majority of houses are owned as personals across the NA data centres not as FC houses.

Finally, this is someone who reported themselves to the GM for owning multiple FC houses and this was the GM reply: