housing conundrum: there needs to be a better way.

[Reinha]

It's not just multi owners, but when someone owns half a ward to themselves and housing is scarce, it really is wild how that's not the first thing that comes to mind is to have them follow the rules everyone else has to.

Not going to bother with the biweekly NA tantrum about housing scarcity but I'd like to point out that everyone who has finalized a house purchase at a placard in game has done so without breaking the rules. It isn't possible to bypass the game mechanics set by the developers.

So your idea has nothing to do with the rules, it's about forcefully taking away what people have earned and distributing it to people who didn't earn it. I will say that is not what I expected to hear from someone on an NA server who is likely from the US.

[RosaliaDLB]

Not going to bother with the biweekly NA tantrum about housing scarcity but I'd like to point out that everyone who has finalized a house purchase at a placard in game has done so without breaking the rules. It isn't possible to bypass the game mechanics set by the developers.

So your idea has nothing to do with the rules, it's about forcefully taking away what people have earned and distributing it to people who didn't earn it. I will say that is not what I expected to hear from someone on an NA server who is likely from the US.

This tbh, it's basically the idea of taking something someone has earned and worked towards, and giving it to someone else that apparently "deserves it more" for some reason ? lol, it's pretty insane

Also because I forgot, the poster mentioned "follow the rules", multiowning is FACTUALLY not agaisnt the rules, it has been debunked a million times, not only by me, but multiple people on the housing forums, the only way to make it agaisnt the ToS is if RMT is involved, otherwise it's not agaisnt the ToS, I dare anyone to show me where it says in the ToS that multiowning is agaisnt the rules, I will wait.

[Ravenblade1979]

This tbh, it's basically the idea of taking something someone has earned and worked towards, and giving it to someone else that apparently "deserves it more" for some reason ? lol, it's pretty insane

Also because I forgot, the poster mentioned "follow the rules", multiowning is FACTUALLY not agaisnt the rules, it has been debunked a million times, not only by me, but multiple people on the housing forums, the only way to make it agaisnt the ToS is if RMT is involved, otherwise it's not agaisnt the ToS, I dare anyone to show me where it says in the ToS that multiowning is agaisnt the rules, I will wait.

I love how people go back to tos. The stormblood grandfathering aside...people have been using a alt loophole to bypass a programmed in ruleset that's been in place since stormblood. I believe this would fall under some sort of tos concerning modification.

The fact the dev team put a 30 day restriction on new members in a fc shows they well aware of the fact. They just need to have the balls to pull the trigger but they won't. So the outcry for housing continues.

Instanced housing would abolish this. I myself am not saying both private and fc moved to instanced...if anything private at most. Then the crying would stop. It doesn't abolish the obvious breach of rule people are doing now that been in place since stormblood.

I always thought private be instanced and allow workshop to be utilized to build either a medium or mansion frame for use on instanced house.

Obviously keep fcs to wards as lots of venues run out of them but a total wipe of ownerships across the board. Refund the plot and furnishing cost to the owner. Then increase the new member thing to say 365 days so it essentially kills off the alt loophole. Then make all fc houses medium and large plots only. Although expanding on this. Can offer a free plot purchase to the fc owner after the wipe so they can get a fc house back but only one per service account per world and absolutely make sure the loophole or any loophole is closed.

[Ravenblade1979]

Except there is no loophole to close, because its not agaisnt ToS.

I've already said it a time or two, if one day, a multiowner actually woke up, decided to take the entire house supply on a new world for an entire area like Shirogane, on 100 accounts, they would be able to, it's not agaisnt ToS in any way.

(thanks to this forum for its amazing daily quota of posts, cant even have a proper discussion)

There is absolutely nothing to "close down" on, multiowning is done within the ToS (except if you buy houses via RMT, but that's a different ballpark and that is 100% agaisnt the ToS)

Oh seen that last part. While not officially in tos they did mention unofficially that a person can be reported for charging a certain amount past the plot price if reported and there's proof. Why you think any and all deals are done on the discord. So there is zero trace of it and no one can be dinged

[RosaliaDLB]

The fact the dev team put a 30 day restriction on new members in a fc shows they well aware of the fact. They just need to have the balls to pull the trigger but they won't. So the outcry for housing continues.

Actually that's false, the 30 days restriction is in place for house selling, not because of multiowners, but because of people selling houses, be it for gil or RMT.

Instanced housing would abolish this. I myself am not saying both private and fc moved to instanced...if anything private at most. Then the crying would stop. It doesn't abolish the obvious breach of rule people are doing now that been in place since stormblood.

Instanced housing will help absolutely nothing, but please if you want your little house in the middle of a completely dead mist area, with no visitors ever because it's too annoying to even reach, or have housing in the middle of nowhere, which in the same case again no one will ever visit, have at it, I am not the one dealing with a subpar housing experience, you are, but it will fix absolutely nothing, because ward housing is superior, the amount of bids on ward houses will stay the exact same, because why settle for a terrible instanced housing experience when ward housing exist ? Absolutely no reasons to, as I mentioned earlier, the game is already lonely enough sometimes, I doubt people need to be even more alone in a dead mist ward with their little house in the middle of it all alone, it'd be a terrible feeling honestly, I wouldnt want to feel it, I'd rather know people have built things around me, and are sometimes there, and see random visitors come up to my house from time to time and have small interactions with them, or welcome new neighbors, than this "amazing" instanced housing experience

I always thought private be instanced and allow workshop to be utilized to build either a medium or mansion frame for use on instanced house.

I'm not sure I understand, there are no workshops for private

Obviously keep fcs to wards as lots of venues run out of them but a total wipe of ownerships across the board. Refund the plot and furnishing cost to the owner. Then increase the new member thing to say 365 days so it essentially kills off the alt loophole. Then make all fc houses medium and large plots only. Although expanding on this. Can offer a free plot purchase to the fc owner after the wipe so they can get a fc house back but only one per service account per world and absolutely make sure the loophole or any loophole is closed.

Do you understand how insane that sounds ? A total wipe of ownerships ? Do you even understand what that would do to actual houseowners, for the wards to re-fill in like a week or two at most, by the exact same people ? You really have no idea of how housing works do you ? Also there is 0 loophole, there is nothing agaisnt ToS, just stop trying to justify taking stuff away from people to give to others, honestly, just stop, it's not happening.

Oh seen that last part. While not officially in tos they did mention unofficially that a person can be reported for charging a certain amount past the plot price if reported and there's proof. Why you think any and all deals are done on the discord. So there is zero trace of it and no one can be dinged

Once again I am confused about what this has to do with people multiowning, I have never seen that "mention" myself but from the wording you give me, it talks about people abusing relocations, which has nothing to do with multiowners

[VerdeLuck]

I love how people go back to tos. The stormblood grandfathering aside...people have been using a alt loophole to bypass a programmed in ruleset that's been in place since stormblood. I believe this would fall under some sort of tos concerning modification.

The devs are aware of it, and it is very much a loophole since it's "technically" inside fo the TOS, but very much against the spirit of how the game is set up and the spirit of the rules everyone else is forced to abide by.
It's a case where people who fall into this situation and have multiple alts without houses and own large amounts of houses already really really don't want to give them up, even if that means anyone who started after them gets screwed over.
It's just a part of the classic MMO mindset of F you I got mine.

It really should be fixed and the fact that SE have been too scared to address the issues properly and fix the housing system for this long are what's building this pressure. They come by every so often and drop extra houses to relieve the pressure, but any extra houses get snapped up by people wanting to recreate their own perfect little RP ward to themselves. Supply gets short again, and now more has to be dropped in because SE refuses to address what has already been put out there but has been concentrated in the hands of a few.
Instanced houses will not fix this, unless there is a significant reason to use instanced houses over real houses, we will just be at square 1 where people fight over the superior housing of ward housing and those with multiple houses just add +1 to their house count for free. Adding additional supply just kicks the problem down the road for a few months until once again all the supply is snapped up by people who want to own as much as possible, and then we're back where we started.
They would need to to tighten up enforcement and fix some of the loopholes but they're honestly too scared of the pushback they'd get over a subculture of the game that's been allowed to fester for half a decade doing this and would be apalled if suddenly they were forced to follow the same rules as everyone else without half a dozen alts, and just stick with 1 house per person.

Really, it's not going to be fixed, the problem will continually get kicked down the road with wards added over and over till finally in 3-4 expansions the game gets put on maintenance mode, it starts to wind down, and eventually it hits end of life. Doesn't mean we should stop asking, but the signs are all there that this is something SE does not want to address and piss off a part of the community to fix.

[RosaliaDLB]

The devs are aware of it, and it is very much a loophole since it's "technically" inside fo the TOS, but very much against the spirit of how the game is set up and the spirit of the rules everyone else is forced to abide by.
It's a case where people who fall into this situation and have multiple alts without houses and own large amounts of houses already really really don't want to give them up, even if that means anyone who started after them gets screwed over.
It's just a part of the classic MMO mindset of F you I got mine.

It really should be fixed and the fact that SE have been too scared to address the issues properly and fix the housing system for this long are what's building this pressure. They come by every so often and drop extra houses to relieve the pressure, but any extra houses get snapped up by people wanting to recreate their own perfect little RP ward to themselves. Supply gets short again, and now more has to be dropped in because SE refuses to address what has already been put out there but has been concentrated in the hands of a few.
Instanced houses will not fix this, unless there is a significant reason to use instanced houses over real houses, we will just be at square 1 where people fight over the superior housing of ward housing and those with multiple houses just add +1 to their house count for free. Adding additional supply just kicks the problem down the road for a few months until once again all the supply is snapped up by people who want to own as much as possible, and then we're back where we started.
They would need to to tighten up enforcement and fix some of the loopholes but they're honestly too scared of the pushback they'd get over a subculture of the game that's been allowed to fester for half a decade doing this and would be apalled if suddenly they were forced to follow the same rules as everyone else without half a dozen alts, and just stick with 1 house per person.

Really, it's not going to be fixed, the problem will continually get kicked down the road with wards added over and over till finally in 3-4 expansions the game gets put on maintenance mode, it starts to wind down, and eventually it hits end of life. Doesn't mean we should stop asking, but the signs are all there that this is something SE does not want to address and piss off a part of the community to fix.

but any extra houses get snapped up by people wanting to recreate their own perfect little RP ward to themselves

until once again all the supply is snapped up by people who want to own as much as possible

Well good to know my private ward was actually me all along then, should I go and say hi to myself since apparently I own all of it ?

[LianaThorne]

Based on the fact that it eats into the housing for real FCs that aren't just a shell to get cheap and easy Personal housing and access to airships and subs. You seem to be pretty offended by the idea of closing loopholes and exploits in the system, I take it you use quite a few of these?

Except it's not eating into anything. Populated servers still have empty FCs that have been sitting for weeks or months at this point. Adamantoise on Aether for example has over 200 empty FCs.

This is easily searchable information and I don't get why people act like the situation is worse than it is. If people want an FC they can literally go get one right now.

[LianaThorne]

I love how people go back to tos. The stormblood grandfathering aside...people have been using a alt loophole to bypass a programmed in ruleset that's been in place since stormblood. I believe this would fall under some sort of tos concerning modification.

The fact the dev team put a 30 day restriction on new members in a fc shows they well aware of the fact. They just need to have the balls to pull the trigger but they won't. So the outcry for housing continues.

Instanced housing would abolish this. I myself am not saying both private and fc moved to instanced...if anything private at most. Then the crying would stop. It doesn't abolish the obvious breach of rule people are doing now that been in place since stormblood.

I always thought private be instanced and allow workshop to be utilized to build either a medium or mansion frame for use on instanced house.

Obviously keep fcs to wards as lots of venues run out of them but a total wipe of ownerships across the board. Refund the plot and furnishing cost to the owner. Then increase the new member thing to say 365 days so it essentially kills off the alt loophole. Then make all fc houses medium and large plots only. Although expanding on this. Can offer a free plot purchase to the fc owner after the wipe so they can get a fc house back but only one per service account per world and absolutely make sure the loophole or any loophole is closed.

Lol who would make new FCs at all then if they cant even go for housing thats literally available in every server? You'd basically kill off the chance for any new players to make one with their friends and restrict FCs to only established ones lol. Yeah, no. Let's not screw over everyone for the sake of a minority of people.

This also just sounds like an attempt to reroll mansions to try to get one so that's cool....I guess. Who would get priority with the free plot purchase? I'm curious.

[Amenara]

If you listen to them, there's literally nobody in any housing ward, its actually an empty wasteland, yet off the top of my head, I know quite a few fcs that are very active in their wards, and that's just on top of people randomly visiting houses, leaving messages in the books, or just random interactions from time to time

I'll say it again for the people in the back, instanced housing will not be as good as you think it is.

Being in the middle of absolutely nowhere on your island with a house is not going to be a fun feeling, people will have to go through multiple hoops to even reach that place, if they even care enough to, which most wont, they'd rather chill in Limsa or at their own
In the case that somehow instanced housing makes it to old areas (mist etc), you'll basically have a house in the middle of... absolutely nothing, sure there's the beach, and you'll have your lone house there, and then what ? That's really what you want ? Something completely dead and barren just for the sake of having a house ? Can you imagine a mist ward, but with one house in the middle of it ? Or even if there's "fake" houses, it's just dead, boring, and lonely, there is nothing good about this.

A lot of players are already lonely enough in this game as it is, they dont need instanced housing to make them even more lonely than they already are, there is literally no positives to it, absolutely none.

I will disagree with this opinion till the end of time. It is a system that is locked or limited to a large number of players based solely on RNG. I would imagine that a lot of those players would love to have access to their own house to interact with, decorate, show off their creativity, and then have available to them when they come back off of time off from the game. I think you are grossly overstating the activity in housing wards the vast majority of the time. Maybe in some wards with prominent venues there will be a lot of activity when they are open. Otherwise you may go days or weeks without seeing anyone else since barely anyone hangs out in the housing wards. Your entire criticism of instanced housing negatives can be copy pasted for the current ward system.

The big positive is that it stops being completely RNG whether you get to interact with the housing system beyond your apartment and the completely seperate Island Sanctuary systems (which you can't even access till you finish 6.0 which is hundreds of hours into the game). As for your critique about how difficult it would be to get to a house, it's the same criticism for wards. You have to teleport to the correct city, go to the correct ward, and then teleport to the nearest aetheryte assuming you aren't on their friendslist. I imagine an instanced system would use a very similar system as the current ward teleportation system.