Observations and suggestion for impeding bots grabbing FC plots

[Pashino]

This is mainly about FC wards as RMT ppl can't resell personal plots.

If one scours the housing ward listings, checking each FC plot, you'll find that a majority are held by what appears to be bot accounts, approaching 80% in datacenters like Dynamis. Typically 1-4 members, and the plot name has been renamed from a default like 'Plot4-23' to '####4-23' where the #### is the FC's nick(to keep organized on a spreadsheet, no doubt). Even after selling the plot, now showing a more reasonable number of members and some even online, the new owners don't think to rename the actual plot name so can deduce they likely bought the plot from the RMT folks. 3rd party sites often sell medium FC plots for around $800 and large for $2,000.

When premium large FC plots come up for lottery, one often sees the bids jump dramatically overnight a day before the lottery cycle ends and if you wait up for the wee hours to monitor such a plot, you can sometimes catch the procession of tiny 4-member FC's popping in rapid fire to bid on the plot. Yes, some FC's are big enough and rich enough to have a large number of members bid (which is fine) but that is not what happens in most cases involving large FC plots.

There are also plenty of ppl with personal solo 4-member FC's hunting the plots but that is a lesser issue.

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Suggestion:

For medium FC plots up for lottery, require the applying FC's to have at least 10 members, with at least 10 showing sustained membership for the prior 30 days. For large FC plots up for bid, make that 17 and the rules above. It's a bit more work for the code validating the bid, but hardly a load on the server give the scarcity of these plots.

This approach will put a lot of pressure on the RMT bot FC's, as they appear to normally shuffle members around to prep FC's for bidding. Tying up their bot armies to stay locked into a specific FC at the suggested numbers and time period should crimp them considerably, not to mention stiffing solo FC plot hunters.

I strongly urge SE to think this thru before unlocking the remaining 6 wards in Dynamis worlds if it will include FC sections. Having virtually sealed the FC plots in Dynamis(aside from Ishgard small FC plots), the bots appear to be grabbing even personal plots to lock down wards, likely in an effort to add pressure to unlock the last 6 wards.

[AlexiaD]

FC's with 1 to 4 members are not all "bots", they're called shell fcs which are used for submarines for gil making, some are botting of course, but the big majority is not.

Shell FC =/ Botting

Also no thanks for more requirements to bid, it's already enough as it is that you need 4.

This kind of thread is why it's always good to at least look things up a little bit and get informed before you throw accusations towards people, which this directly is.

The last part of your post is literally conspiracy theory so I wont even talk about that lol.

[Pashino]

Not throwing any accusations, just pointing out how the housing situation is and a solution that will help regular FC's get housing and even move up to bigger housing as their FC grows.

Bots, 'personal' FC houses, and shell FC plots for subs/gil all do nothing to grow or enrich the game population but rather frustrate the average players and FC's.

[AlexiaD]

Not throwing any accusations, just pointing out how the housing situation is and a solution that will help regular FC's get housing and even move up to bigger housing as their FC grows.

Bots, 'personal' FC houses, and shell FC plots for subs/gil all do nothing to grow or enrich the game population but rather frustrate the average players and FC's.

"Regular FC's" move just like Shell FC's move, what does that even mean lol, its RNG, shell FC's dont get bonus point in a bidding cycle.

Also me having a house or multiple houses is not supposed to grow or enrich the game population, that aint what having a house is for, I dont have a house for other people, I have a house for myself, I couldnt care less about the "average players and FC's", I play for myself, not for others.

[LaylaTsarra]

Maybe if SE let alts share housing many who go the FC route with alts wouldn't have to. Alts should be able to share any house regardless of DC or Server. Long long overdue to fix this.

In addition many people do not want smalls as FC's which leaves the door open for abuse. Perhaps the talked about being able to use any size interior regardless of the exterior size might help the situation.

[Yuniko]

Maybe if SE let alts share housing many who go the FC route with alts wouldn't have to. Alts should be able to share an house regardless of DC or Server. Long long overdue to fix this.

In addition many people do not want smalls as FC's which leaves the door open for abuse. Perhaps the talked about being able to use any size interior regardless of the exterior size might help the situation.

I wish they did, but sadly. That is not the case. :<

[Chii-Chan]

God forbid people like housing in this game and create more alts to get more bids in.

Instead the assumption from the layman is always bots and RMT. Get back to reality.

[Kyssa]

I am in a small family guild. We are active every single day. We got our large fair and square during lottery event #6. We only placed 1 bid on it (bid #101) and there were 184 bids on it, no doubt, some of those were FC's voting multiple times, which is fine. They had more chances to win and I won't argue- they had more members/gil available to, and they still didn't.

Not all small guilds are what you think they are- and just because we're a small guild, it doesn't mean we deserve less than.

[Jojoya]

I don't understand why you think bots are involved in content that no longer offers an advantage when using of bots.

Is there RMT involved? Likely in some cases but probably less than you think. Many of those really are players buying up multiple houses for one reason or another, including "I have too much gil and nothing else to spend it on".

There shouldn't be any FCs out there having a problem getting a house (except on good old Balmung). They may not get the location of their preference but that's less of a multiple owner problem and more of a supply problem.

Limiting who gets to bid on a certain plot based on FC size doesn't accomplish anything positive in the long run. I've been in a large FC that had a large house and almost no one would visit the house (easy to tell since I spent a lot of time crafting in front of the house). I know of small FCs (6-8 members) with large houses that have used those houses to host community events. Use of house would be a better qualifier than number of FC members and yet even that wouldn't be a good method to select (even if there was a way to monitor actual use).

Certainly the system needs to be improved so players and FCs can get the location of their choice. Trying to twist the system to favor one group of players over another is not an improvement.

[WinglessSeraphim]

3rd party sites often sell medium FC plots for around $800 and large for $2,000.

Those sites, the houses aren't actually owned by the people selling, most times the pictures they list aren't even of the plot they supposedly are selling. It's a scam site. No one is actually selling those houses.