Day 1 of nonsense: Why is this allowed?

[Kirutsuki]

Why not just nuke all of these? It's clearly not the intended use for housing in the game, why can't the devs just do SOMETHING. Ignoring it wont make it go away, just hire someone to sweep these out on a monthly basis.

[Jojoya]

Housing has multiple uses, and SE has decided intended or not that they will allow players to have multiple FCs with houses per world.

I don't like it as such but that's up to them and not us. Most of those FCs date back to early Shadowbringers so a lot of those houses were probably purchased back when Spriggan was still mostly empty. SE isn't going to take houses away from players that made their purchases within the rules at the time of purchase, even if the rules might have later changed.

So two questions for you in return: why are you complaining when there are still multiple houses available on Spriggan, and what made you pick on that particular LB ward instead of the other 3 LB wards that also have workshop farms set up (though one did a decent job of masking that it's mostly the same player)? Is it their questionable aesthetic taste in choosing all Paissa skins? As nauseating as that might be, it doesn't seem like a good reason to single them out.

Those players running workshop farms aren't preventing you or any other players on Spriggan from getting a house. Why does SE need to do something?

[Kirutsuki]

It's not about housing availability directly, but what limiting availability causes.

As with the blacklist, just because SE thinks it's the way because of some random thought process they have is not necessarily how it's supposed to be.
Whenever this topic is brought up someone comes out of the woodwork to try and justify it.

Plain put; it's an exploit of the games systems and as such should be treated as such. No matter how many pennies were used to fill an entire district with shell-FC's.
It sets a precedent that any other exploit or work around the game systems is also ok.

If a player finds a way to outright block other players from bidding to a plot then that should be "ok" by SE standards or by this logic.
If we set a precedent that something is ok, then there is no real line anywhere telling anyone what is NOT ok.

Additionally what this specifically does is make players ask for additional systems to be implemented in the game, like; instanced housing.
Which at best is a band-aid fix to the problem they are having and at worst might introduce ANOTHER housing exploit for these players to use.

So, on a fundamental level I have to most likely disagree with you that nothing should be done about this. Sure, you can worm a way around it to convince me or others to agree that it's fine, but
I'm not going to argue about opinions. Whatever SE decides to do or doesn't decide to do is up to them, on that we agree, but again.. It sets an example of such things being ok elsewhere in the game.

Oh and I just chose this ward at random cause it was the one I found first.

[Homeless_was_taken]

Plain put; it's an exploit of the games systems and as such should be treated as such. No matter how many pennies were used to fill an entire district with shell-FC's.
It sets a precedent that any other exploit or work around the game systems is also ok.

Actually, that specific screenshot you added was mainly done through player trading. Aka reaching out to people who wanted to leave the then 'dead' Spriggan server. Not only did they get to play wherever they wanted but they also had a nice fund to get a better plot right after. Regardless the Paissa Iron Dome will fend off any of your nukes.

[Kirutsuki]

Actually, that specific screenshot you added was mainly done through player trading. Aka reaching out to people who wanted to leave the then 'dead' Spriggan server. Not only did they get to play wherever they wanted but they also had a nice fund to get a better plot right after. Regardless the Paissa Iron Dome will fend off any of your nukes.

So an exploit. Gotcha.
I know how player trading works.

It's not intended to be used that way.
Otherwise you could just trade houses by giving player the house instead of logging off from the DC until you get booted from the property.

[Ayan_Calvesse]

So an exploit. Gotcha.
I know how player trading works.

It's not intended to be used that way.
Otherwise you could just trade houses by giving player the house instead of logging off from the DC until you get booted from the property.

I think exploit is not really a accurate term.

Its more that its probably being used as intended but in bad faith; I pondered why SE allowed this to work - reality is if SE wanted to stop this they could very easily - the flag they set for personal housing is a character file flag that associates your character to your account (think of your account name as your character and every "WOL" you make is just a alias of your account) the flag is world specific - this is why you can't have more then 1 personal per world. SE decided not to apply this same limit to FC's which is a odd choice but I suppose it does allow friends to FC sit for their friends while they submerge their FC's until the last content delay concludes. This is also contingent on those FC house-sitters logging in and visiting each of those houses roughly every month (which is easy because if they are running a sub-farm then they are already doing such.)

As such its likely not a exploit - just not in the spirit of the mechanic; SE could easily stop it from happening; its not like they cannot see multiple wards in game that are all ran by the same 4 accounts. If SE isn't doing something that's a choice; not because SE is helpless and if it were a violation of their rules they would have acted by now; SE has quickly responded to far less significant rules violations in the past and this one would probably be a pretty easy fix with a simple patch to have FC houses treated like personal homes by setting the same flag. Note that it's likely not a exploit because even if someone has a FC on that character; they cannot move that FC without first starting over.

Personally I think a easier fix would just to allow people to consolidate all workshops in 1 location and then apply the aforementioned flag.

Also note whats good for the goose is good for the gander; so if we applied those rules it would also apply to the Kingdom of Noctis (I think thats what its called) On Spriggan; which is actually a beautiful accomplishment where they turned a entire goblet ward into a full blown city with amenities and made the Goblet look much nicer.

[Jojoya]

Additionally what this specifically does is make players ask for additional systems to be implemented in the game, like; instanced housing.
Which at best is a band-aid fix to the problem they are having and at worst might introduce ANOTHER housing exploit for these players to use.

Instanced housing done right isn't a band-aid. It is a solution. It's why so many other MMORPGs use it over a ward style system.

Instanced servers only have to be flexible enough to handle the players online at a given moment since the assets are only loaded when entered. Ward servers have to handle those both online and offline since part of the assets are always loaded even if a player is offline.

The question becomes if SE would create a good instanced system or if they would continue to make mistakes when it comes to judging why players want housing and how they use it.

As for it being an example that it's okay to bend the spirit of the rules, you'd be better off talking about 3rd party mods. That's where the example is really being set. That gets far more public discussion than the rare sub farms.

[Kirutsuki]

Instanced housing done right isn't a band-aid. It is a solution. It's why so many other MMORPGs use it over a ward style system.

Instanced servers only have to be flexible enough to......

The problem with instanced housing is that it completely removes the joy of housing. E.G showing off to others how your house looks.
Even if it had player visits enabled it would literally function the same way Island Sanctuaries do and no-one actually visits anyone's Islands.
So while decorating your house is cool, it'll eventually loose all novelty and be forgotten behind the instance. It is not a solution, at all.

And I doubt SE is going to fundamentally re-work how instances work in the game so you wouldn't even be able to join someone's home instance and play together with them since you'd constanly drop out of the hosts instance the same way you always teleport out of your house when you do a duty.

[Jojoya]

The problem with instanced housing is that it completely removes the joy of housing. E.G showing off to others how your house looks.
Even if it had player visits enabled it would literally function the same way Island Sanctuaries do and no-one actually visits anyone's Islands.
So while decorating your house is cool, it'll eventually loose all novelty and be forgotten behind the instance. It is not a solution, at all.

And I doubt SE is going to fundamentally re-work how instances work in the game so you wouldn't even be able to join someone's home instance and play together with them since you'd constanly drop out of the hosts instance the same way you always teleport out of your house when you do a duty.

I never had a problem showing off my house to others when I was playing RIFT and setting up my Dimensions. It was actually easier there to find other good housing designs to tour because there was a system with Likes displayed publicly and a keyword search.

Here, it's hit or miss when you pick a ward. The estate tags have no search system; you have to check the individual ward plot list.

Island Sanctuary is not the same as instanced housing. Instanced housing allows for random visitors (see apartments). Island Sanctuary does not. Island Sanctuary also had zero reason for anyone to visit another player's island until patch 6.4. By then, most of the player base adopted the mindset that Island Sanctuary was something to be ignored. That we're heavily restricted on where we can place items within Island Sanctuary doesn't help. We can't decorate within the buildings, only around them.

Instances don't have to be fundamentally changed in how they function in order for improvement to occur.

Again I must emphasize you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to say robbing an entire district is not an exploit, but fundamentally it is.
Otherwise the game would have always had a little button for you to press that just gives ownership of the house.

The reason why SE hasn't done anything about it is the same reason they didn't touch blacklist system for almost 10years.
There wasn't a pressing concern to do anything until harassments came into question. This system will stay as is as long as majority of the playerbase just turns a blind eye to shenanigans like this.

But I 100% think we would be better off if SE fixed existing systems in the game instead of introducing new systems with new problems.

What is being robbed? Nothing is being robbed.

Essentially we are asking for them to fix an existing system and not asking them to introduce something completely new. The interior of a house is instanced. Apartments are instanced. But the player base is not being well served by the system as it currently exists. We're asking SE to fix it so it will.

If you think that wards are capable of being fixed to serve the entire player base better, how do you think it would be accomplished?

Instanced housing is another Homogenized system that I'd rather not have. A game doesn't stay unique when you're trying to rid it of anything that makes it such.

Most of us aren't asking SE to remove ward housing.

We're asking for them to improve the instanced housing the game already has.

[LianaThorne]

Most of us aren't asking SE to remove ward housing.

We're asking for them to improve the instanced housing the game already has.

Personally I'd like to see both exist but I don't see a point to it ultimately after thinking about this for a while.

Square makes money off forced subscriptions to keep housing. Implement instanced where you don't have to have a subscription to keep it and I have two questions:

1. Who is actually going to stay in neighborhoods at that point if a free option exists? (Since I assume they would carry over everything involved in FCs and private housing unless it's specifically private housing only)
2. How is Square going to make up for the loss with the forced subscriptions no longer being a thing? A more invasive cash shop perhaps? Higher subscription prices in general?

I mean, personally, if I had a house I couldn't lose I'd just be subbing at expansion launches for a month or two and probably closer to the .4-.5 patches to catch up.