This is what i call BULLCRAP

[Stormpeaks]

Yep. People post these things in 2022 like this is something new when it's been around since 2015 on a lesser scale. If anything they only tightened the rules on it happening further since the move to lottery.

I've always had two houses in the game and for awhile I was like I have all this gil I could just give myself a third somewhere else but I wasn't that invested to fish out another plot.

Basically a standard sub buys anyone 8 characters per-server. There are people who use the extra characters for RP, raid logging, or even just for another FC caretaker kind of things. Just use FC chest to give another toon gear and gil. You can tell people who say derogatory things probably don't even know how to use these basic mechanisms because they don't even run their own FC. Nor know the benefits of what an FC workshop entails.

Nonetheless they had years to kind of fold up multiple ownership, all they done is just make it much harder now but that's it.

It's not even harder, as you said it makes it even easier to get multiple fc houses in lottery, you have to wait 30 days which is the only hassle but then you can get multiple houses at once and it makes up for the "time lost", people thought lottery would fix housing from both bots and multiowners, if anything, it helped both to spread even further, but hey, people wanted placard gone, they got what they wanted

[LianaThorne]

It's not even harder, as you said it makes it even easier to get multiple fc houses in lottery, you have to wait 30 days which is the only hassle but then you can get multiple houses at once and it makes up for the "time lost", people thought lottery would fix housing from both bots and multiowners, if anything, it helped both to spread even further, but hey, people wanted placard gone, they got what they wanted

I'd consider it harder tbh. The black market sale system has been around for years as well and the lottery system completely destroyed the personal house selling/relocation market. Now you have people selling FC houses for hundreds of millions of gil regardless of size, some even asking for over a billion for a large FC. Plus the amount of scams/RMT regarding housing are on the rise since you can just say you'll give someone the house in 30 days and then just kick them and keep the gil/have to pay actual cash for a house. It was a lot easier back before lotto happened to get a house for a reasonable price. Now you just get people being squeezed dry because of how much harder it is to get a house now in general with 200+ people on a placard for private housing, so FC sale prices are reflective of that. If you want a house now, be prepared to spend at least 100m.

[Stormpeaks]

I'd consider it harder tbh. The black market sale system has been around for years as well and the lottery system completely destroyed the personal house selling/relocation market. Now you have people selling FC houses for hundreds of millions of gil regardless of size, some even asking for over a billion for a large FC. Plus the amount of scams/RMT regarding housing are on the rise since you can just say you'll give someone the house in 30 days and then just kick them and keep the gil/have to pay actual cash for a house. It was a lot easier back before lotto happened to get a house for a reasonable price. Now you just get people being squeezed dry because of how much harder it is to get a house now in general with 200+ people on a placard for private housing, so FC sale prices are reflective of that. If you want a house now, be prepared to spend at least 100m.

New worlds thankfully helped with that and made it easier to get "S-Tier" houses, so no need to go down that route, but yeah for NA it might be worse in particular if you want to be a house from the market because of extremely high prices.

SE should just act better against abuse in this case by introducing more restrictions, including systems that enable demolition to happen. For example:
- Instead of just counting players, it considers only subscribed players.
- If a player falls under more FCs, that player is now worth less in that check. If he is part of 3 FCs, he is only worth 0.334 player on each char (rounding to 3 decimals wont matter due to FC player limits).
- If a house no longer passes the 4 members requirement, its marked for demolition, if not getting that 4th player after 60 day (extended a bit to be graceful), the house gets demolished. For grandfathering they could even make this requirement like 1 year to give sufficient time to resolve this (and note, granting a new owner using customer support or something like that would be the solution here if the FC owner was inactive for a long time).
- For bidding, if at the lottery end time the FC lacks members, its bid wil be excluded (and enable the full refund). This again means you need sufficient subscriptions.

That system would just punish people who are just there to enjoy housing in the way they desire, with no ill intent towards anyone, I would know because housing is all I do in this game, I dont have ill intent towards anybody, if anything I gladly make my houses look amazing so they fit in with the area and they are not absolutely abandoned sitting there for months on end without any activity. People may dislike it but it is an activity in the game and for a minority of people like me, it is their main activity just like content is the activity of others, raiding or PVP.

[UkcsAlias]

That system would just punish people who are just there to enjoy housing in the way they desire, with no ill intent towards anyone, I would know because housing is all I do in this game, I dont have ill intent towards anybody, if anything I gladly make my houses look amazing so they fit in with the area and they are not absolutely abandoned sitting there for months on end without any activity. People may dislike it but it is an activity in the game and for a minority of people like me, it is their main activity just like content is the activity of others, raiding or PVP.

I am very much aware of it, hence i knew it isnt optimal. But without any system to negate abuse, those with ill intent are always going to be able to cause others to get locked out. Infinite housing would obviously be the only solution here, but is currently simply not possible.

But on that, even if housing is the only thing you are doing, if you are using an FC for that, you are technicaly already abusing the system and part of the problem to begin with. And as my idea does not affect individuals, it does not disrupt a single person for house ownership. It only will disrupt small groups. But thats where the tennant system can work since this still enables a group of 4 players to maintain a house.

Also before I get the brigade on my back, on EU there are on average over 200 plots left in Empyreum on each world, or a bit less, so I am not "taking someone else's plot".

Not on the server i play (and changing server is not an option)

[Stormpeaks]

I am very much aware of it, hence i knew it isnt optimal. But without any system to negate abuse, those with ill intent are always going to be able to cause others to get locked out. Infinite housing would obviously be the only solution here, but is currently simply not possible.

But on that, even if housing is the only thing you are doing, if you are using an FC for that, you are technicaly already abusing the system and part of the problem to begin with. And as my idea does not affect individuals, it does not disrupt a single person for house ownership. It only will disrupt small groups. But thats where the tennant system can work since this still enables a group of 4 players to maintain a house.

Aside from new worlds, it would be absolutely impossible to do that in a personal ward, plus that would be very unfair because personal housing is extremely limited, even on new worlds, some wards are already full or close to full, that would be abusing the system and taking plots from others, however FC housing has more than enough availability with over a thousand plots available (if not more) including mediums and smalls. Abuse would mean there is ill intent behind it, while in my case at least, I wont talk for others, but for me there isnt, I just enjoy what I do.

Also Ragnarok has many houses still available in empy FC wards I am pretty sure. I even verified right now and ward 3 subdivision is almost entirely empty, same goes for ward 4 and ward 5 and the rest as well. There is more than enough availability.

[UkcsAlias]

Abuse would mean there is ill intent behind it, while in my case at least, I wont talk for others, but for me there isnt, I just enjoy what I do.

Ill intent is not a requirement. Its just using something in a way it is not intended. And even without ill intent, abuse can still be a problem. Just because its possible and from your perspective doesnt harm anyone does not mean you should do it (in traffic we see this too often).

A lot of exploits in single player games are still 'abusing a system'. Even if that can just improve the quality of a game and you arent hurting anyone with it.

But the issue is not about 'now', its about the future. Those wards can slowly fill up, but once that happens. Your FC house in which you are the only owner is now a problem because you abused the system.

Hence you are part of the problem.

[LianaThorne]

Ill intent is not a requirement. Its just using something in a way it is not intended. And even without ill intent, abuse can still be a problem. Just because its possible and from your perspective doesnt harm anyone does not mean you should do it (in traffic we see this too often).

A lot of exploits in single player games are still 'abusing a system'. Even if that can just improve the quality of a game and you arent hurting anyone with it.

But the issue is not about 'now', its about the future. Those wards can slowly fill up, but once that happens. Your FC house in which you are the only owner is now a problem because you abused the system.

Hence you are part of the problem.

Late to this but ill intent from one person is absolutely required for something to be abusive. I could go into a deep discussion on abusive relationships and how one partner actively tries to take a dominant/controlling role to have power over their victims but that's not the point of the thread. You can't just call someone or something abusive if the intent of the person behind it is not evil or manipulative...because then literally everyone has been an abuser at one point in their life if we remove that defining line. As an abuse victim, I don't just throw out that word to anyone who does something wrong towards me because that's not abuse. They aren't actively trying to hurt me or manipulate me.

If people go into housing with the mindset of: I'm going to take all of these houses from others because I want them and no one else deserves one." - that I would call abusive.

Someone just trying to get a house and using a loophole that the devs put in the game is not. Is it a bit cheaty? Sure. But they're not going into it with the intention of just stealing from other people. To them, they're just getting a house the same way anyone else could if they took the time to do it.

There are literally hundreds of FC plots available across multiple servers, if they don't shift them to personal plots (which I doubt they will since that would require redesigning wards and moving houses around) I don't blame people at all for wanting to take another path to get one instead of fighting over a 300+ person placard. If they're just doing it to end their own suffering, I see nothing wrong or abusive with that.

[UkcsAlias]

people thought lottery would fix housing from both bots and multiowners, if anything, it helped both to spread even further, but hey, people wanted placard gone, they got what they wanted

For FCs it made it worse, but for individuals its a massive improvement. 0% chance on getting a house, or having over 60% (from multiple attempts) is a huge diffirence. Sure, i still dont have a house after that, but the odds on that were infinitely better.

SE should just act better against abuse in this case by introducing more restrictions, including systems that enable demolition to happen. For example:
- Instead of just counting players, it considers only subscribed players.
- If a player falls under more FCs, that player is now worth less in that check. If he is part of 3 FCs, he is only worth 0.334 player on each char (rounding to 3 decimals wont matter due to FC player limits).
- If a house no longer passes the 4 members requirement, its marked for demolition, if not getting that 4th player after 60 day (extended a bit to be graceful), the house gets demolished. For grandfathering they could even make this requirement like 1 year to give sufficient time to resolve this (and note, granting a new owner using customer support or something like that would be the solution here if the FC owner was inactive for a long time).
- For bidding, if at the lottery end time the FC lacks members, its bid wil be excluded (and enable the full refund). This again means you need sufficient subscriptions.
- If a player left an FC, that FC is still considered for 60 days in this system. Changing 4 times on a single char means the player is only worth 0.2. This is to negate players leaving for a day to boost numbers.

Using this method, shell FCs require 4 full subscriptions worth of players, rather than just counting characters. It therefor motivates going for more members. For ward takeovers this then means a massive cost of sustaining.

And sure, its probably not optimal. But without such systems FC wards will always remain broken.