Add company workshops to Grand Company hubs so that ALL FCs can access this content!

Being a member of one of the many "homeless" FCs in FFXIV, I find it rather unfortunate that the company workshop and its collaborative content can only be accessed through FC housing. This is especially true now more than ever, since the auto-demolish for housing has been temporarily frozen due to COVID-19 so there are virtually no plots moving in the housing markets these days. This has made it so that any FC that doesn't already have housing has even less opportunity to obtain housing at this time, and has to wait even longer to be able to access this content. As a small, crafting-focused FC, my FC mates and I are missing out on some of the more appealing FC content (for us) simply by virtue of not having an FC house.

There are several fundamental problems with the housing system that make obtaining a housing plot a frustrating and exhausting process for most (whether for personal and for FC use) and there are plenty of threads elsewhere in these forums discussing them at length; instead, I'd prefer to focus on what I think is a rather simple solution that enables FCs to access the company workshop content: have the company workshop accessible through FC housing AND through the Grand Company hubs.

Much like our personal Grand Company squadrons, company workshops could be added as an instanced zone accessible through the Grand Company hub. Thematically, every single FC is already affiliated with one of the Grand Companies, so adding a company workshop to the hub would just be an extension of the administrative duties FCs already perform through the Grand Company. Even if it required spending company credits to build the workshop, or if your FC needed a certain standing with their current Grand Company, this would allow every single FC to access this content while still allowing FCs with housing to continue using the company workshops in their houses. Equal opportunity for all FCs to participate in this FC content!

I wouldn't mind this honestly. It'd give Grand Companies something else to do given how increasingly irrelevant they happen to be and it could even provide an additional gil-sink to the game simply for the ability to unlock it in the first place. It's always kind of baffled how they've had the system set up honestly. I get the desire to make it engaging group content and to require you to be in an FC and physically gather people to do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the housing requirement has always felt like a misstep.

Yes, please. Many players create FCs to buy houses for the workshops only, and don't use them otherwise. If you could have a workshop without needing an FC house, more houses would be left for players who want them for decorating.
We would just need a way to do gardening without a house then.

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Originally Posted by Limonia

Yes, please. Many players create FCs to buy houses for the workshops only, and don't use them otherwise. If you could have a workshop without needing an FC house, more houses would be left for players who want them for decorating.
We would just need a way to do gardening without a house then.

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I was thinking the same thing! It seems like every ward has a house or two that is completely empty besides an aetheryte crystal and a retainer bell, which is a shame. For every FC using their housing just for the workshop and cheap teleport there are a dozen or more waiting on the sidelines for a chance to buy housing that they plan to actively use for hanging out and decorating. Not to mention that FCs also have to compete with individuals who buy up plots for personal use and vice versa. With the way it is now, the housing system is one that has very few winners and a heck of a lot of losers. Apartments were one step to improving housing access for personal use, and adding these company workshops would be a step to improve access to FC content.

Though I wish hope dream of a housing overhaul for everyone, this idea sounds like a reasonable solution that shouldn't be that hard to add. They just need to find were to place a door. :D

This said, considering it is probably technically linked to housing, they could have use of one of the two doors in housing hall for apartments. It could even make housing a bit more lively. And maybe, if it means for technical reasons, they could open apartments to FCs.

Yeah this is a good idea. I'm not sure what the design specs were for the workshop in relation to it being tied to housing. It's possible that one of the requirements was for it to also be a limited resource FCs had to work towards. In which case this will probably fall on deaf ears.

This is a nice idea. I think a company workshop for all FCs would be excellent.

I started a Free Company with some friends a year ago, but we had no trouble getting an FC house as we dont play on an overpopulated world. We have been diligently working on our airships and subs since then. crafting and gathering is a lot more fun when your working on something as a group. Its a shame that other FC's are locked out of this.

Honestly though I think FFXIV missed an opportunity when they gave us free company housing. What we should have is a free company airship instead of a free company house. They are up in their air so they don't need neighborhoods, that means instancing would be fine. In the singleplayer games getting to the point you can use an airship as your mobile base is always a big and exiting thing. FFXIV should have that for FCs.

Tl;dr/too side tracked: yes, definitely :). I think it's a sad position to be in, to feel like 'well guess we are one of the lamed / hobbled FCs'.

Although I really just have a whole issue with the system itself, really feel it a missed opportunity to let players flex their creativity in such a magical world (Wild Star housing would have been beautiful with FFXIV's setting, and post ShB it really screams like it should have been a feature in this game lol). Not that I'm asking for the destruction of neighborhoods (some people like it, though I'd love to see a new system arrive beside it and enhance the whole thing altogether), I just feel like what a missed opportunity for a themepark mmo that doesn't take itself super realistically (not saying it doesn't take itself seriously sometimes, but that we're basically gods with gil amounts that make some small cities and villages weep, we're not super 'grounded' in hard low fantasy setting), how that system would have done much better in another type of game and not this one.

One of the ideas I had proposed as a cheap (er.. nothing is free) idea for the housing limitations was taking their pretty cute doma reconstruction and turning up with a few to many nodes of customization, had envisioned it being a big, long term, build a project thing for FCs.. with the workshop. If anyone remembers Dark Cloud from the playstation 2, something like that, which is to be honest also a bit like WoW's Garrisons. Thought you could have some really cute reputation mechanics, unlocking favor with beast tribes and cities, hamlets, etc, getting new buildings, new workshops, taking pretty much all of the non-visual content that is currently in housing and move it over to something every single FC will have, and more. May even bring back hamlet defense, but as a FC content lol.

Which gave birth to the Cid Workshop idea, and airships acting as a sort of mobile base that have a smooth upgrade path with a very high end steep potential vanity project for huge FCs (entirely unnecessary but a FC owning a juggernaut airship would be quite the gil sink and achievement), a home away from home, and just plainly home for those who can't seem to find what they were looking for (dead neighbors, location they dislike, server is packed and they can't get the size they want, etc), or for people who want a home but can't decorate to save their own chocobo's greens (since things are nodes, SE is your decorator and you get to pick), while being a lot more memory friendly than houses are normally (remembering 200+ items and their additional information like position in space vs remembering 10-100 nodes without any positional data, still lots of customization available but less info needed to be managed).

Honestly I think either or would be a pretty neat new content. Though for Cid's Workshop it was intended to be for personal use as well as FC use, not just FC, as the airships was an everybody thing (with progression to make room for reasonable to "all my gil" sinks), and also magitek content.

bumpity bump

+1
Very good suggestion.
Anything that can add more functionality to Grand Companies is very welcomed.