Fake FCs' Housing Abuse

[Gravy9]

Hi!

I know it's many people's plight to purchase a home in a game, and that takes hours upon hours. and even then it boils down to luck. I know... 'Cause I am also stuck playing the housing RNG slots. This is for Framfrit server mainly but might apply to other words too. And as well as I do acknowledge housing in this game is broken but I think this a valid complaint if you bear with me, and I am open to debate after you read.


I find it quite frustrating that they put requirements in place to purchase an FC plot (4+ members, FC level 6, or higher.) and not enforce it after. Once the plot is created for the FC, these requirements no longer matter so you can have a proxy FC hold a plot for you.

This is a link to 23 Free Style Free Companies

Each one of these individual FC has 1 or 2 members (most likely bots) all created around the same time during the last housing boom. They currently take away 23 plots from actual potential solo players or FC members, who are all actively trying to purchase a house.

Sure there are 23 potential players paying for a sub so why would SE do anything, its money in their pocket. But fixing things like this would be for the better of the community as a whole.

In closing, I feel that if there are requirements to first purchase a plot for an FC, the requirements should remain the same to maintain the title to the plot as an FC.

/endrant

[Catstab]

there are requirements to first purchase a plot for an FC, the requirements should remain the same to maintain the title to the plot as an FC

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

[Gravy9]

That's a good point I neglected.

I would say once you have fallen under the minimum threshold. You, as FC master you would get a warning for X amount of time ( 30 - 60 days ) to recruit new members or have the house auto demolish. Similar to having absent player auto demolition.

-OR-

Maintain an active FC group and obtain a minimal monthly Company Credits

But I agree that having to enforce minimum player count like that does open a can of worms for the potential of griefing legitimate FCs

[Catstab]

You, as FC master you would get a warning for X amount of time ( 30 - 60 days )

So if you have 3 alts and invite them to your first FC, it resets the timer to 60 days, then? Then you kick them and invite them to fc #2. Repeat 21 more times. Now the demolition process is stopped and your 23 1-man FCs operate as normal until day #59 comes back.

Not trying to tear down your solution, just saying that you have to think about two things:
1) "How can this hurt players experiences?" - With situation A above, people could lose their housing as social FCs
2) "What is the first thing someone who wanted to break this rule would try?" - And if its too easy, then the solution won't help.

Now your FC credit idea, I kind of like. People do keep suggesting "house rent." Maybe an FC with a house decays by 1,000 FC credits a week. 0 fc credits = house deleted. Problem is, that's only 3 green items a week turned in to the GC counter. Kinda easily solved. And again, if an officer decides "lol I buy morning glory x2000" then he burns the FC house down doing it.

[Gravy9]

Not trying to tear down your solution,

That's quite all right! I did say I was open to debate! My solutions are by no means perfect and are mainly brought on by my frustrations with the current condition of the housing market. It's a nightmare for a lot of players and even if it wasn't, the rules and regs will never please everyone.

I feel however that there should be some implications put in place to prevent quite an obvious Shell FCs from owning a substantial amount of a limited resource


And to boot on SEs' side you have 23 accounts paying for an active subscription as well..

[Gravy9]

So if you have 3 alts and invite them to your first FC, it resets the timer to 60 days, then? Then you kick them and invite them to fc #2. Repeat 21 more times. Now the demolition process is stopped and your 23 1-man FCs operate as normal until day #59 comes back.

This also came to mind as well after I wrote that. So let us say you are the mastermind of the 23 shell FC, you can potentially prevent anyone from purchasing a house by relocating your FC during the 'plot not ready for sale' period indefinitely (if they have the funds to do so.) provided of course that the RNG timer is reset when the relocation is activated but that is something I don't think anyone other than Devs would know AFAIK

[Penthea]

Maintain an active FC group and obtain a minimal monthly Company Credits

Now your FC credit idea, I kind of like. People do keep suggesting "house rent." Maybe an FC with a house decays by 1,000 FC credits a week. 0 fc credits = house deleted. Problem is, that's only 3 green items a week turned in to the GC counter. Kinda easily solved. And again, if an officer decides "lol I buy morning glory x2000" then he burns the FC house down doing it.

I don't know how many credits the average 4 man fc would make with normal regular play, but whatever that amount is would be a good baseline as a payment requirement for a fc to keep its house. Especially considering that upon reaching rank 6 (when you can buy a house) you would already have more than you need assuming you are very active so it would be easy to stay on top as long as you play. This is actually a good idea, and significantly better than a gil tax many players seem to love throwing around. You gain fc credits just from playing the game so a fc credit "tax" won't force players to do content they have no interest in just to keep the fc house, unlike forking out large amounts of gil.

[Jojoya]

I don't know how many credits the average 4 man fc would make with normal regular play, but whatever that amount is would be a good baseline as a payment requirement for a fc to keep its house. Especially considering that upon reaching rank 6 (when you can buy a house) you would already have more than you need assuming you are very active so it would be easy to stay on top as long as you play. This is actually a good idea, and significantly better than a gil tax many players seem to love throwing around. You gain fc credits just from playing the game so a fc credit "tax" won't force players to do content they have no interest in just to keep the fc house, unlike forking out large amounts of gil.

The 2 problems I see with using company credits generated through "normal gameplay" is that there really isn't such a thing (different players enjoy different aspects of the game) and not all forms of game play are equally rewarding for the time invested. Some forms of game play don't reward any at all (such as spending time decorating or touring houses, which is still playing the game).

I might spend one hours crafting HQ Exarchic and possibly end up generating more company credits than a standard 4-6 member doing their "normal game play" that doesn't include crafting.

I probably also play more hours in a week than a small family FC would, especially if they're limited to playing on days they don't have work/school. If I were running a shell FC for the sake of having additional houses, I'd be in less danger of losing the houses than the family would.

It would take a major overhaul of the company credit system to turn it into a fair way to determine if a FC could retain a house. SE would have to cap the number of credits a single account could generate for a specific FC in a weekly or monthly period then adjust credit rewards for all types of content that players engage in. I don't see SE going to that effort and I'm not certain it would really solve the problem even if they did.

Membership seems the better way to go but it's still a matter of figuring out what method could be used that wouldn't be overly restrictive or controlling on how those members need to play the game while also not being subject to exploits.

[Penthea]

The 2 problems I see with using company credits generated through "normal gameplay" is that there really isn't such a thing (different players enjoy different aspects of the game) and not all forms of game play are equally rewarding for the time invested. Some forms of game play don't reward any at all (such as spending time decorating or touring houses, which is still playing the game).

I agree so I since thought about this. Maybe SE could do something as simple as calculate how many credits a player earns from capping tomes weekly and use that as a baseline to calculate fc credit tax. It's not an incredible amount of activity but I think it's enough to deem a player as active. Players who do other activities instead could easily reach the same amount. Those who play religiously could earn more than is needed, which would make up for anyone who isn't online often.

If the fc is very active from early ranks, by the time they reach rank 6 they will have more than enough to keep their house without stress. And if they continue to be somewhat active they could easily stay afloat.

It's not a perfect plan yet but it's a start, and like I said before it's significantly less punishing than paying a huge amount of gil because only specific activities generate large amounts of that. Almost all activity generates credits. I think only fcs who do little other than rp or afk would have to worry about not generating enough credits.

Membership seems the better way to go but it's still a matter of figuring out what method could be used that wouldn't be overly restrictive or controlling on how those members need to play the game while also not being subject to exploits.

I think the only way for it to not be too restrictive is to have the minimum at four, which is the required amount of people to make a fc. Anything more than would very easily punish small fcs for simply being small and not inactive. Four is also the minimum amount required to do almost all group content (PoTD and HoH being the exceptions). I want to clarify that I mean a minimum of four to keep a house, not to keep the fc.

However the above does bother me because what if the fc falls below four? You get punished because someone left, and you can't control if people want to leave. Some may even leave because they know it would put a fc's house in danger. Never underestimate how petty some people can be : /

I really don't like the idea of a minimum amount of players. A tiny fc can be super active with just three people. More players doesn't always mean a more meaningful or more active community. I think a credit tax of some manner would be enough to separate dead fcs from those who are active.

EDIT: I just realised if member count is the only thing required to keep a fc house (along with demo timers of course), players could just pay people to be in their fc or make several accounts. So that's not a perfect solution either. However paying people to do content to generate credits isn't something I imagine would be easy to do, especially if they joined on alts.

[NanaWiloh]

The 2 problems I see with using company credits generated through "normal gameplay" is that there really isn't such a thing (different players enjoy different aspects of the game) and not all forms of game play are equally rewarding for the time invested. Some forms of game play don't reward any at all (such as spending time decorating or touring houses, which is still playing the game).

I might spend one hours crafting HQ Exarchic and possibly end up generating more company credits than a standard 4-6 member doing their "normal game play" that doesn't include crafting.

I probably also play more hours in a week than a small family FC would, especially if they're limited to playing on days they don't have work/school. If I were running a shell FC for the sake of having additional houses, I'd be in less danger of losing the houses than the family would.

It would take a major overhaul of the company credit system to turn it into a fair way to determine if a FC could retain a house. SE would have to cap the number of credits a single account could generate for a specific FC in a weekly or monthly period then adjust credit rewards for all types of content that players engage in. I don't see SE going to that effort and I'm not certain it would really solve the problem even if they did.

Membership seems the better way to go but it's still a matter of figuring out what method could be used that wouldn't be overly restrictive or controlling on how those members need to play the game while also not being subject to exploits.

These ideas of tax and upkeep sound good on paper but with this game. Such ideas will not strip homes from the intended targets but just hand them more homes to gobble up. There is at least 2 FC's here on Lamia who own multiple plots and these not single player FC's. One of them has 100+ members with at least 50-60 members actively playing, Saw some of their members recently hanging around a few open plots. Biggest problem with upkeep systems is they stomp on the small honest player and reward the dishonest players in return. The only way to make upkeep or tax effective against player/FC's who own multilpe homes is too put it so high the average player would suffer as well. Same idea also applies to a gil tax or upkeep as their are owners who have a crap ton of gil so unless the tax is absurd it would have no effect on them.