Shell FCs are a bigger problem than we think...

[ItMe]

Goto https://www.xivhousing.com/2021-cens...enters-regions , click the max number for members, set to 3, drill up to the region level, pull data.

That gives me data about FCs with 3 or less people.
How can we tell from this data which are shell FCs and which are simply small FCs?
That is the part I can't follow.

[Almagnus1]

That gives me data about FCs with 3 or less people.
How can we tell from this data which are shell FCs and which are simply small FCs?
That is the part I can't follow.

Why should a failed FC with less members than what was needed to create it be able to hold land?

All FCs with less than 3 members should lose their houses BECAUSE of the shell FC problem. That frees up roughly 10% of the houses worldwide to either become personal houses (which there is a strong demand for) or gets them to FCs that don't have a house and have at least 4 members (which about half of the FCs that are 4+ members don't have an FC house IIRC).

Edit:
10% is a guesstimate, too lazy to actually math this out >.>

[Canadane]

Why should a failed FC with less members than what was needed to create it be able to hold land?

All FCs with less than 3 members should lose their houses BECAUSE of the shell FC problem. That frees up roughly 10% of the houses worldwide to either become personal houses (which there is a strong demand for) or gets them to FCs that don't have a house and have at least 4 members (which about half of the FCs that are 4+ members don't have an FC house IIRC).

All that would happen is the FCs throw on a couple extra alts to that shell FC.
An automated system will simply be bypassed one way or another.
We need GM crackdowns, but, like it or not they're playing by the games rules. So this will likely never happen.

There's a lovely large house unused by a shell FC that I've kept my eye on but it's never gone up for sale. It would be nice upgrade to have I'm pretty restricted in my current house lol.
While I can't tell by looking at a random FC if it's a shell or not this particular one doesn't really try to hide it, knowing the 'real' FC behind it.

[worldofneil]

Why should a failed FC with less members than what was needed to create it be able to hold land?

Feels a bit harsh to suggest any FC with less than 4 members has "failed". But regardless, what about a group of 4 friends who form an FC then buy a house... what if one of them leaves? (maybe they fell out, maybe they moved to another server or maybe just joined another FC, why they left doesn't really matter though...)

You're suggesting that they should lose their house and then the only solution they would have would be to recruit someone into their small group of friends. I'm sure that wouldn't feel weird at all having a have a stranger forced into your group just so you can keep your home.

It also wouldn't actually work to stop the "shell FCs". Anyone who has put in enough effort to create an FC, get it up to rank 6, make enough Gil and then actually find and buy the house... an actual four person requirement isn't going to be a problem at all.

Of the top of my head they have at least have two easy options:

A) Just create more alt characters. Any standard account allows 8 characters and once an FC is already formed it's a simple matter to apply to join an FC, especially if you have a house with a placard that they can click. All They would ask to join FC on one character, accept it on the other. Done.

B) Pick up a cheap copy/copies of FFXIV Starter Edition. Using the free 30 days they could create 8 characters and put them in whatever "shell FCs" they wanted. Then they could just ignore the account and never touch it ever again.

So I'm sure now you'll say that the member count should be active members only and from different services account, but that is just not realistic. At times like this where many people are unsubscribed until the expansion, many small FCs would be at risk of losing their house.

[Lachesia]

Why should a failed FC with less members than what was needed to create it be able to hold land?

All FCs with less than 3 members should lose their houses BECAUSE of the shell FC problem.
Edit:
10% is a guesstimate, too lazy to actually math this out >.>

I think you're missing the point everyone is trying to make. The small FCs are not 'failed' FCs, Free Companies are in no-way hundreds of people big, free companies can be a small group of friends that adventure together, in Japan the market for Free Companies is not a huge group of people all running content at the same time, it's a small group of friends usually between 4-8 people large that get together to play the game, that's the reason most of the content only requires at max, 8 people to run, unlike other RPGs that want upwards of 24+ people at the same time.

The difference between FFXIV and an American game like, (gasp) WoW is that the developers for Blizzard cater more towards larger groups which in Japan is considered unnecessary. The restriction on the housing being that it had to be a free company of 4 people or more to establish a house is because the party system only requires 4 people to get anything done in normal content, 8 for higher content.

You keep calling any FC with less than 4 people a "Shell FC" and it may simply be a small FC that is exchanging out members. The fact that you don't take into consideration, the small groups that have people they are going or cycling through the FC shows that no only did you not actually correctly math the statistics FFXIVhousing.com provides, but you failed to work with the invisible variables, something that other players tried to point out and you blatantly ignored. Stop calling them 'shell FCs', they are *small* FCs and you don't know the background of said FCs. You don't know if they're recruiting, or if they're changing out members, or if they just lost a member for one reason or another, and denying them fair access to housing is the same as limiting the number of personal housing to be for a single person. As you can share a personal house with up to 4 people, are you suggesting that small FCs use personal houses and just add their small number of members to that single plot? What about when the numbers grow beyond that? What then?

Being considerate towards others is why Yoshi-P and the devs built the housing system this way, I agree that the split for FC and Personal housing should have been more even, but even I know that small FCs that are just building, or prefer to keep their number small because it's a group of friends that play together, are NOT shells. They just don't meet YOUR criteria of being a Free Company.

(P.S. 3 active members isn't including the FC lead. The FC lead is member number 4)

[Jojoya]

I think you're missing the point everyone is trying to make. The small FCs are not 'failed' FCs, Free Companies are in no-way hundreds of people big, free companies can be a small group of friends that adventure together, in Japan the market for Free Companies is not a huge group of people all running content at the same time, it's a small group of friends usually between 4-8 people large that get together to play the game, that's the reason most of the content only requires at max, 8 people to run, unlike other RPGs that want upwards of 24+ people at the same time.

The difference between FFXIV and an American game like, (gasp) WoW is that the developers for Blizzard cater more towards larger groups which in Japan is considered unnecessary. The restriction on the housing being that it had to be a free company of 4 people or more to establish a house is because the party system only requires 4 people to get anything done in normal content, 8 for higher content.

You keep calling any FC with less than 4 people a "Shell FC" and it may simply be a small FC that is exchanging out members. The fact that you don't take into consideration, the small groups that have people they are going or cycling through the FC shows that no only did you not actually correctly math the statistics FFXIVhousing.com provides, but you failed to work with the invisible variables, something that other players tried to point out and you blatantly ignored. Stop calling them 'shell FCs', they are *small* FCs and you don't know the background of said FCs. You don't know if they're recruiting, or if they're changing out members, or if they just lost a member for one reason or another, and denying them fair access to housing is the same as limiting the number of personal housing to be for a single person. As you can share a personal house with up to 4 people, are you suggesting that small FCs use personal houses and just add their small number of members to that single plot? What about when the numbers grow beyond that? What then?

Being considerate towards others is why Yoshi-P and the devs built the housing system this way, I agree that the split for FC and Personal housing should have been more even, but even I know that small FCs that are just building, or prefer to keep their number small because it's a group of friends that play together, are NOT shells. They just don't meet YOUR criteria of being a Free Company.

(P.S. 3 active members isn't including the FC lead. The FC lead is member number 4)

It's true that not every FC with 4 or fewer total members (including FC Master) is a failed FC.

It's also true that not every FC with 4 or fewer members is a legitimate FC. Many are shells used to exploit the housing system to sate personal greed.

A FC that drops to a single member (the FC master) immediately after acquiring a house and stays that way is not "exchanging members". Please don't pretend it is. That's a player being inconsiderate of others, especially when that's not the only FC with a house they have on their account.

I doubt "being considerate" was ever a phrase listed as being part of the housing concepts when they were developed. If being considerate was a core philosophy for housing, SE would be doing something about the exploiters. You probably should stop pushing it as such.

I don't agree with the person you quoted that small FCs should have their houses taken away but SE needs to take a closer look at how the housing system is being exploited by some individuals through use of small FCs and how that is blocking access to the content for others.

[Lachesia]

It's true that not every FC with 4 or fewer total members (including FC Master) is a failed FC.

It's also true that not every FC with 4 or fewer members is a legitimate FC. Many are shells used to exploit the housing system to sate personal greed.

A FC that drops to a single member (the FC master) immediately after acquiring a house and stays that way is not "exchanging members". Please don't pretend it is. That's a player being inconsiderate of others, especially when that's not the only FC with a house they have on their account.

I doubt "being considerate" was ever a phrase listed as being part of the housing concepts when they were developed. If being considerate was a core philosophy for housing, SE would be doing something about the exploiters. You probably should stop pushing it as such.

I don't agree with the person you quoted that small FCs should have their houses taken away but SE needs to take a closer look at how the housing system is being exploited by some individuals through use of small FCs and how that is blocking access to the content for others.

I agree that they need a better system in place, the lottery is a good idea...on paper, but in practice, it falls short of what it was supposed to be. Very short. The fact remains that much of the data that SE is using for their decision making is based off the Japanese servers, which are larger and older than the EU, NA, and now OCE data centers. Many of the groups on the Japanese servers are not huge in terms of numbers, and are fairly dedicated and small groups that only use the FC housing as another benefit/means of entertainment with the perks you get from the FCs. And while shells are a problem, if you notice I mentioned that it should be taken into consideration that not EVERY small FC is a shell or failed FC. Calling a free company that has at max 4 members a failed FC is fairly dismissive of those who are content to just work with a small group of trusted friends or companions in game. No one was talking about people who just drop to a single member in an FC this is explicitly about those small groups being called 'shells' when they aren't. We don't have all the data on which FC's are 'shells' and which are just small groups, which is why generalizing smaller FCs as shelled or failed is not only rude but legitimately takes away from people who are actually working on building themselves up by lumping them in with those that are exploiting the system.

You misunderstand when I said being considerate towards others is the reason the housing system was built the way it is. No one can see the future, and therefore, they cannot predict what measures will be used against the system they were hoping would give everyone a fair chance at housing. I disagree that they put so much emphasis on FC housing and they should have left it mixed. Furthermore they need to implement that an FC can only attempt at *one* plaque per lottery.