Ok so looks like people are still taking advantage and getting multiple houses.

[Nepentha]

sure. Let me level up a char to lvl15+ so i can have 2 retainers, on every Materia world. I will name them all the same. Then lemme make say 50 of every size of shirogane, gingerbread and cafeteria walls (tho there's more) some DC elsewhere and then transfer. then let me dump 5-10 of each on every world using my same-name retainers. when I sell them all, scoop all the gil and buy every glam and mount in the game and RMT the vast amount that got left. Sounds about right?

Or make a bunch of the skins on a character who has access to a workshop that's unlocked the skin, stick them onto an already leveled alt, and transfer them over to OCE to sell them on the marketplace.

This just looks like someone was smart, made a bunch of skins, transferred characters, and is now selling them. I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

[Jojoya]

I still think if people are this blatant, it'd be perfectly within SE's rights to just hand out blanket bans.

Based on what TOS violation?

Don't get me wrong. I greatly dislike that it's possible for a player to do this.

Yet SE is intentionally allowing it to happen. They have chosen to set the limitation as "character owns as buyer" instead of "account owns as buyer". Even with "account owns as buyer" there's still a way around it by using multiple service accounts.

In the end, all of this would be a pointless argument if SE would use an instanced housing system like we see in many other MMOs instead of stubbornly sticking to a flawed ward system. A player could own multiple houses and it wouldn't matter because every other player would also be able to own multiple houses if they desired. RMT would have no foothold because players could get what they want without relying on others to give up what they have.

If SE intends to stick to the ward system, they need to decouple the in-game financial incentives for owning a house. Workshops could be given a new point of entry. Gardening could be removed with the items obtained solely through gardening placed on vendors or added to retainer venture loot tables. Considering the number of players who say they want a house solely for garden and/or workshop access, decoupling those features would reduce a fair amount of the demand even if the reduction still wouldn't be sufficient to balance supply with demand.

[DeNada]

Well maybe not a blanket ban but rather a shift in policy to enforce the restrictions of only 1 personal and 1 FC house per world at max. Advance notice to be given to owners who own multiple plots to divest of their holdings or they would lose their extra plots.

Then plug up all the loopholes which enable players to circumvent the restrictions of owning more than 1 personal and 1 FC house per world and account and it would free up a lot more plots. There are several players who own hundreds of houses on one account just to submarine farm and this would free up a substantial amount of houses for players who do not yet own a house but would like to get one.

Even if you decouple the in-game financial incentives for owning a house now, the multi-plot owners have no incentive to give up their current houses since there's no in-game mechanisms like monthly rent or such which penalize them for holding on to their houses.

[TwistedTea]

Well maybe not a blanket ban but rather a shift in policy to enforce the restrictions of only 1 personal and 1 FC house per world at max. Advance notice to be given to owners who own multiple plots to divest of their holdings or they would lose their extra plots.

Then plug up all the loopholes which enable players to circumvent the restrictions of owning more than 1 personal and 1 FC house per world and account and it would free up a lot more plots.

The FC Master inheritance/transfer is a mess. If an FC Master is inactive for 35 days, FC Master gets automatically transferred to a suitable active FC member.

This means that some people can end up with FC multiple houses even if they had no intention of owning multiple FC houses.

In such a scenario what do you want SE to do?:

1. Autodemo the FC house, if there are no suitable members in the FC who don't already own a FC house? This might be a legit FC with other legit FC members who don't qualify for FC Master for some reason or another.

2. Force the new multi FC house owner to choose between having their old/main's FC house or new FC house? Just like in #1, both might be legit FCs with active members.

Ultimately, the limited ward housing system and all the associated problems is a result of SE's lack of foresight and stubbornness to persist with band-aid solutions which have only made accessibility for the average player worse.

[Unkara]

The FC Master inheritance/transfer is a mess. If an FC Master is inactive for 35 days, FC Master gets automatically transferred to a suitable active FC member.

This means that some people can end up with FC multiple houses even if they had no intention of owning multiple FC houses.

In such a scenario what do you want SE to do?:

1. Autodemo the FC house, if there are no suitable members in the FC who don't already own a FC house? This might be a legit FC with other legit FC members who don't qualify for FC Master for some reason or another.

2. Force the new multi FC house owner to choose between having their old/main's FC house or new FC house? Just like in #1, both might be legit FCs with active members.

Ultimately, the limited ward housing system and all the associated problems is a result of SE's lack of foresight and stubbornness to persist with band-aid solutions which have only made accessibility for the average player worse.

if there are many active members in such a FC, there should also be many other players that dont have a FC house bound to an account

[GerryMall]

Based on what TOS violation?

Yes. Believe it or not if you're hosting something like a website or an mmo, it's actually very easy to get a lot of information on your users and even easier to draw accurate conclusions from said information. If you have 20 different active accounts, each with 5 characters and each character has one or two houses, all of which are logging in from the same IP address, you can safely infer that it isn't a household of 20 different people all of which happen to play the same game, but rather that it's one person multi-accounting. If they didn't want to lose their [literally fucking everything] then they could simply not do what is essentially multiboxing but with a way worse impact.

The FC Master inheritance/transfer is a mess. If an FC Master is inactive for 35 days, FC Master gets automatically transferred to a suitable active FC member.

This means that some people can end up with FC multiple houses even if they had no intention of owning multiple FC houses.

In such a scenario what do you want SE to do?:

Simple. The FC house tied to the current FC leader stays, all others get revoked, autodemolished and put up for lotteries. And going forward whenever the FC gets a new FC house, the previous FC house gets revoked even if the FC has changed leaders since the last house's acquisition.

[DeNada]

if there are many active members in such a FC, there should also be many other players that dont have a FC house bound to an account

Agreed, the scenarios TwistedTea pointed out will mostly hurt those players who are hoarding houses on their alt characters/shell FCs. If it's a legitimate FC with actual active players, there shouldn't be much of a problem handing over ownership of a FC house to a member who doesn't own one.

[Azuri]

Yes. Believe it or not if you're hosting something like a website or an mmo, it's actually very easy to get a lot of information on your users and even easier to draw accurate conclusions from said information. If you have 20 different active accounts, each with 5 characters and each character has one or two houses, all of which are logging in from the same IP address, you can safely infer that it isn't a household of 20 different people all of which happen to play the same game, but rather that it's one person multi-accounting. If they didn't want to lose their [literally fucking everything] then they could simply not do what is essentially multiboxing but with a way worse impact.

Find me any mention that prohibits owning multiple accounts. You are truly delusional if you think SE would actively prevent someone from paying them multiple subs.

[Jojoya]

Yes. Believe it or not if you're hosting something like a website or an mmo, it's actually very easy to get a lot of information on your users and even easier to draw accurate conclusions from said information. If you have 20 different active accounts, each with 5 characters and each character has one or two houses, all of which are logging in from the same IP address, you can safely infer that it isn't a household of 20 different people all of which happen to play the same game, but rather that it's one person multi-accounting. If they didn't want to lose their [literally fucking everything] then they could simply not do what is essentially multiboxing but with a way worse impact.

Players are allowed to have multiple service accounts. It's not a ToS violation.

Please stop blaming other players for the housing situation. It's a problem of SE's design and making. Start pressing SE for viable solutions instead.