Fake FCs' Housing Abuse

[Drkdays]

I think it's pretty clear that you guys aren't going to agree, so it's probably time to move on.

I wish that were possible, honestly.

I just can't stand rude players, those who argue against fixing what's broken about housing, or those who flaunt having what others don't.

[Lothian]

Yeah, I'm on your side in that I think this guy is rude. I don't really have enough information to disagree with either of your perspectives, but I wouldn't bother arguing with someone who obviously isn't open to disagreement, and will condescend and insult anyone who doesn't agree. So, again, better to move on.

[ReiganCross]

Alright, so I'd need to see how the Auto-Demolition timer works. AFAIK, the timer checks if the players enters his house and reverts back to 0, starting the whole counter from scratch.

What if an FC under minimal player count doesn't reset the counter at all? Okay, that would be the standard demo timer would kill single person FC houses, but that would mean you'd just get 5 or so bots to rotate around your shell FC and reset the timer every month or so, annoying but easy to do, if not eminently flagable.

But... What if the timer didn't revert to 0 even IF the FC had more than 6 players but instead it just shaved off some time off the demo counter? You don't need to stop counting compleyely, right? So lets talk amounts.

What if once a day, every day, you shave 36 hours out of the demolition using the same prompt that would stop the timer? You would easily be able to keep it at 0 if you just have the required members on the FC every day to shave it down, especially if any FC member going into the house counted as an auto-demo slower. But if you didn't had the ammount, you'd need to fill your FC, every day, to slow down the auto-demo timer by a bit, and then empty it out again to fill another possible shell or do whatever those cheaters do with those accounts. And maybe an FC recruiting the same members day in and day out might raise a couple of eyebrows.

This shouldn't be impossible to implement, check if the FC is over the minimum players to own an FC house (And I'd argue make the minimum more like 8 or 10 players but this goes beyond my point) and if it doesn't, don't stop the demolition timer. Even if it DOES, only stop it by a bit instead of reverting back to 0. You already have to visit your FC house every day to refresh Company Buffs and the like so normal FCs shouldn't even notice the change (Even a completely passive FC that just likes to spend money and decorate their houses all day.)

[Anhra]

So how does this proposed system work?

Option A) Member number 4 leaves. The house demolishes immediately. This means that regular members can destroy the FC house by leaving in the right circumstances. Any officer who can boot members now also has permission to destroy the FC house. FC splits would commonly result in the house being demolished, and both leftover FCs having to re-purchase.

Option B) Member number 4 attempts to leave the FC. The game says "You may not leave <Free Company> until more members have joined."

Option C) something else

I think a good way to fix this, would be to tighten the requirements for being granted any real estate. For example, medium and large houses should be exclusively for FC's with a member count of 50+ for medium, and 100+ for large. If the member count drops below those numbers, the demolish timer starts ticking (timer might need adjustments for this). Also, the FC level would need to be alot higher in order to purchase a House (like lv15-20).

You probably ask "why the harsh requirements?". The reason is simple, not only would this strongly discourage Botters from buying those Houses (since it would require them to fill the entire memberlist with dummies in order to keep the thing, which then could easily be identified and banned by a GM), it would also completely destroy any plans from people which illegally try to sell their houses to other players at ridiciolous prices or just keep a low membercount on a large house just for extra storage space.

As for small houses, FC's at level 10+ and a membercount of 10 or more should be allowed to bypass the timer which starts ticking when plot becomes avaiable.

As for how exactly "bypassing the timer" would work, it could be something similar to a petition sheet item(can be bought at the GC counter for alot of seals) and would require the minimum amount of players to "sign" it, of which, logically, only FC members with the granted rights, can sign.

[Catstab]

member count... and 100+ for large.

lol no.

Under this proposed change, people are making and selling their alts as house batteries. "Full account owner offering 7 alts to sit in your FC so you can buy/keep a large. 7m gil per year"

Do people just post suggestions without thinking about them for more than 2 seconds?

[ReiganCross]

lol no.

Under this proposed change, people are making and selling their alts as house batteries. "Full account owner offering 7 alts to sit in your FC so you can buy/keep a large. 7m gil per year"

Do people just post suggestions without thinking about them for more than 2 seconds?

How would you even enforce said contract? What's stopping me from just dropping out of the FC after being paid? Also, just 7mil for an entire year worth of attention and will you really keep track of this? Also, you can do this all of once, are you really willing to increase your subscription rate to make a single gil transaction? And even if you did and had 7 accounts sitting on a 100-man fc, that would be one huge ammount of alt accounts being used.

Are YOU sure you thought about this for more than 2 seconds?

[Jojoya]

I think a good way to fix this, would be to tighten the requirements for being granted any real estate. For example, medium and large houses should be exclusively for FC's with a member count of 50+ for medium, and 100+ for large. If the member count drops below those numbers, the demolish timer starts ticking (timer might need adjustments for this). Also, the FC level would need to be alot higher in order to purchase a House (like lv15-20).

FCs with large and medium houses (or who want to get one) would simply start mass inviting random players and stop culling the ones who go inactive instead of clearing them from their rosters like many currently do.

FC level wouldn't be barrier to those abusing the system, who likely know a lot more about how to rank up a FC quickly than members of a normal social FC do. Do you even know how a FC gains ranks and the most efficient ways of getting them? Ask most players and they'll reply "do quests", which is actually one of the least efficient ways to gain ranks.

There's also no reason to limit mediums and larges to FCs only. Any size house can have an aetherial wheel stand, workshop and private chambers, the only FC specific content in housing. I know of smaller FCs who have more active members online on a regular basis than some of the huge FCs out there. It's not hard to View Company Info for a players to see how many players are online in their FC.

I dislike the abuse of FCs by solo players to get additional housing in a system where houses are a limited resource but the last thing I want to do is see housing become the incentive for FCs to end up like the cesspool guilds of WoW during Cataclysm when the guild perk/level system was introduced. A big FC is not automatically a better FC. A big member count is more often than not solely to boost the FC leader's ego while the general membership gets neglected.

We're right back to square one. If SE would use a housing system that accommodated every player who wanted a house, discussions like these would be unnecessary because the loopholes some individual players use to obtain more housing than the published rules allow wouldn't impede another player's ability to get a house. For that matter, every player who wanted to have multiple houses could do it so there was no special snowflake status for any player when it came to housing.

ESO is an excellent example for what a housing system should offer all players. Imagine what an amazing gil sink it would make for this game if every player could own multiple houses if they wanted, much better than the ugly gold mount reskins are accomplishing as a gil sink.

The FC system in general needs a review but dreaming up more ways to complicate a system that shouldn't need to be complicated in the first place isn't accomplishing anything.

[ReiganCross]

I sort of agree with Housing Auctions acting as Gil Sinks. BUT, it would essentially just be an An-Cap free market nightmare, pretty much like house flippers were. I actually like the idea of making housing the place where you go to burn gil like it was going to fly you to the moon, but you'd also need a very good regulator so that the value of a house doesn't skyrocket so high as to make an RMT gil seller cream his pants.

Instance housing would just increase Player Save File size They're rationing Armory Chest slots by giving the Belt Slot spaces to Main Weapon and Rings, what makes you think it is a good idea to shove an entire house worth of items and respective (Possibly gliched) positions in there? The save file for houses are on the wards, not on the player characters. And finally just giving more houses by way of more wards solves the issue for all of 2 hours before it's absolutely all taken and we're back to Status Quo. This is why Status Quo needs to be improved. This is why single-player FCs only so a player can have his second or third Large House is a disgrace. And this is why the random timer needs to die.

[NanaWiloh]

Please before anyone else posts a suggestion on how to fix housing take a step back. Take a look at all the flaws and loop holes your idea may have and how it could possibily be taken advantage of. A Housing fix should fix the issue of getting a house for Honest players while making it hard for dishonest players to keep or get more. If a fix punishes Honest players by making it harder to keep a house or harder to obtain one, then its not a GOOD FIX to the problem.

[Jojoya]

Instance housing would just increase Player Save File size They're rationing Armory Chest slots by giving the Belt Slot spaces to Main Weapon and Rings, what makes you think it is a good idea to shove an entire house worth of items and respective (Possibly gliched) positions in there? The save file for houses are on the wards, not on the player characters. And finally just giving more houses by way of more wards solves the issue for all of 2 hours before it's absolutely all taken and we're back to Status Quo. This is why Status Quo needs to be improved. This is why single-player FCs only so a player can have his second or third Large House is a disgrace. And this is why the random timer needs to die.

Items placed/stored in housing aren't handled any different for apartments than they are for houses. The items are part of the apartment's inventory, not the character's. That inventory data doesn't move around with the character as they go from zone to zone (which is what SE struggles with).

It would be nice to see SE enforce their published rules regarding multiple house ownership per account. It's puzzling why they don't considering how many of those players with multiple FC houses are clearly only doing it to earn personal gil instead of actually running active free companies.

The random timer is the only thing giving players a chance to be able to directly buy a house without having to pay crazy fees to a flipper. Remove the random timer and flippers go back to dominating house sales just as they did prior to 4.2. The timer system could stand improvements but it's a necessary evil as long as the wards are the only way to get a house.

Please before anyone else posts a suggestion on how to fix housing take a step back. Take a look at all the flaws and loop holes your idea may have and how it could possibily be taken advantage of. A Housing fix should fix the issue of getting a house for Honest players while making it hard for dishonest players to keep or get more. If a fix punishes Honest players by making it harder to keep a house or harder to obtain one, then its not a GOOD FIX to the problem.

It's good to go ahead and post a new idea. Sometimes those flaws only become apparent in discussion with others who take a different approach or have different experience from you.

But players should take a moment to search the forums to see if their idea is truly new. Too many separate "I have a great new idea - let's have a lottery!" threads have been started over the past 4 years because the poster didn't bother to search. If I do a search using the keyword lottery in the Housing forum, I get over 100 search results. It's not a new idea, the pros and cons have been debated many times over. Another thread is not going to accomplish anything.