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.

I will show my support for this happily. I have a small FC estate, but before I did, I felt like it was lacking since I was unable to do things for a workshop.

I'd probably say make the requirements as such:
- The Free Company must be at least Trusted in their primary Grand Company
- The Free Company must be at least rank 6 - the same as being able to purchase an estate
- Workshop access costs 800,000 gil and 80,000 credits

Another +1 to this idea; I've said it for a while.
Then if they could let apartments use the 2x2 garden plots I'd have way less to complain about lol.

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Originally Posted by 8bitbort

Another +1 to this idea; I've said it for a while.
Then if they could let apartments use the 2x2 garden plots I'd have way less to complain about lol.

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Honestly, apartments should have an instanced 'rooftop garden' or something similar, with a limited number of outdoor furnishing slots. Then you can still do yard stuff; that could include putting down a single garden plot, just like with a small house, but you could also put down trees/plants, make a little zen garden, whatever. But that is a discussion for another thread, as it's not directly related to the FC workshops.

Now, I like the wards/neighborhoods. When I managed to snag a house (largely through sheer blind/dumb luck), several of my neighbors actually spotted a new house go up and came over to visit while I was first laying things out in the yard. A couple of them brought housewarming gifts, and I've actually run roulettes with one neighbor. I know that's not everyone's experience, but there's something to be said for your house having an actual presence in the greater world. So as broken as the housing system is, I'm (admittedly selfishly) glad that it isn't instanced houses off in their own little bubbles or I would never have met those neighbors.

But I think that with housing supposedly an entirely optional system, gating other systems on home ownership is not really great given the scarcity. People who haven't had the chance to grab a house shouldn't be shut out of gardening. (Ironically, I use my FC's garden plots for gardening, because I gave a friend access to my house and effective 'ownership' of the gardening plot there, since they don't have a house of their own.) FCs who haven't had the chance to grab a house shouldn't be shut out of workshops.

I get that they wanted to make housing attractive, but right now the system is broken; people need options to use gardens, and FCs need options to use the workshop. Giving access to a workshop off of whichever Grand Company the FC is affiliated with would be an excellent workaround, and probably require fairly little effort (since the workshops themselves are already instanced).

Agree with this! Let all FCs have access to workshops through the GC.

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Originally Posted by ctcc42

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.

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I really like this idea, because the intense competition between FCs and individual players for the housing plots is one of the underlying problems with the system. From what I can recall, SE originally intended for all of the traditional housing plots to be for FCs only, with separate housing areas for personal housing. They then scrapped the personal housing and decided to let players buy up the same plots that were originally reserved for FCs, and the housing market has been pretty busted since. (Again, from what I recall... I could be wrong there :confused:) Anyways, going along with the FC airship idea, FCs still get their decorated hangout spaces, but all of the plots currently occupied by FCs can be freed up for personal housing. Every FC has a chance at housing, and more players can finally get personal housing, so it seems like there's winners all around!

That said, I know a lot of FCs use their housing for hosting events, so being able to visit another FCs airship could be a tough challenge to implement with this approach. The easiest solution there would be to just host FC events at a designated players' personal housing in the same way that the events are hosted now, but I'm sure there's bound to be somebody displeased by it.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

May even bring back hamlet defense, but as a FC content lol.

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It's been 84 years since I've heard the words "hamlet defense", but I'm kind of loving the idea of having it back as FC content. You gave me a hit of nostalgia for both Dark Cloud and FFXIV 1.0 in the same post. Confound it! ;) Thanks for sharing links to the other threads, there's some great ideas there (now if only we could get SE to take notice sooner...)

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

I get that they wanted to make housing attractive, but right now the system is broken; people need options to use gardens, and FCs need options to use the workshop. Giving access to a workshop off of whichever Grand Company the FC is affiliated with would be an excellent workaround, and probably require fairly little effort (since the workshops themselves are already instanced).

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Exactly! I didn't talk about gardening in my initial post, but that too has been a huge peeve to miss out on! It would be amazing if there were options to do gardening and workshop activities without having to dissolve my FC to join into another one that already has housing. Housing already has an allure of its own just through its base functions, but locking more content behind it compounds the demand when housing is already in short supply.

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Originally Posted by Izariael

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You recall properly. Initially, they made FCs only housing but since a lot a free slots were remaining and people wanted houses, they decreased the price and opened it to individuals.

Totally agreed with this thread concept. It's a no brainer. There is no reason FCs upon creation can't have access to a centralized workshop.

If there is an issue with like the game code where it has to be tied to a house, change that coding or create a secondary workshop of sorts that keeps unlocked recipe progress.

For people paying the same amount of money with their subs, they shouldn't be restricted by not owning a physical house.

Workshops and Gardens and use of Aetherwheels should be accessible to all FCs by default. Please change this. You'll see that it also helps alleviate some of the grief people have over not owning homes as well. Gardens should be available via apartments or hopefully future instanced housing.

Please address this SE. This is something that could really help the community.

Honestly, I like the idea of FCs being able to have airships in place of houses (just, y'know, throw in a greenhouse aboard so they have space for gardening). Aside from anything else, it'd also be cool to be able to pilot it to different 'places'. All it would change is what view you saw out the windows/off the upper deck (depending on design), but that'd still be neat. Do you want to park over the Black Shroud and see Gridania and a forest below? Park over Ul'dah and see the Belah'dian ruins far below? Park off the coast of Kugane and see the lights of the city at night in the distance? You could even park it places that don't have housing; imagine parking your airship over the Yfaem Saltmoor, with the ruins of Mhach below, or over the clouds you can see from the cliffs near Ala Mhigo.

And let the airship be parked at places with an actual airship dock, so that people not in the FC can come aboard for events. Want to run a party on the airship, but have folks who aren't FC members (and so can't just aetheryte there) or friends of FC members (thus able to use Estate Teleportation) attend? Go dock in Gridania, and then folks can go to the airship docks and pick a 'Board docked Company Airship' option to go on board anything docked there.

That'd free up housing for individuals, while making the FC housing instanced. Because I think you can make a solid argument that while housing is 'optional' (save for, y'know, gardening) for individuals, it really isn't for FCs.

I personally would like to Garden and use a Fc Workshop or Personal Workshop. It feels bad having to dump loads(or sell) mats that I cannot interact with. Because I need housing or an FC, in order to do certain content; that exist. It just doesn't make sense, that I have to have an exclusive thing that has been around for many a moon. And has been scarce, far before I picced up the game. Yet, however I can get all these things that is used specifically for that content, that I am locced out of. That game is full of instanced content and group storage and etc. Feels bad doing all this work and inventory calculus, just for it not to matter. Example, make apartments able to do limited gardening, at least you can access that content(though limited), Workshops and etc. Remove the game created restrictions that, you cannot control. Time, money, skill, these things I can control. I cannot make a house appear, or start a FC, if 3 others do not want to get in it. Just my simple thoughts & opinion. Thanks for ya'll posts. And reading mine's. ;)

While I don’t disagree with this idea…I don’t understand the need.

Almost all of the crafting stuff in the FC crafting is used…for house stuff.

While you might be able to make some gil from airships/subs, that’s about the only use you’d get out of it. And now that anyone can get it, those prices are going down

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Originally Posted by Violyre

While I don’t disagree with this idea…I don’t understand the need.

Almost all of the crafting stuff in the FC crafting is used…for house stuff.

While you might be able to make some gil from airships/subs, that’s about the only use you’d get out of it. And now that anyone can get it, those prices are going down

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Some of those items are used for craftable glamours. We've been sending out the airship to get Fine Alumen because someone in the FC wanted it for crafting and it's the only way to get it.

Both workshops and subs/airships need to be decoupled from FC's so everyone can benefit from them. For the most part these perks are used by the leadership and most members rarely get a chance to benefit from the rewards. It would also reduce the incentive for those buying up multiple FC's with alts to have access to these perks.

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Originally Posted by Simply_Spider

I personally would like to Garden and use a Fc Workshop or Personal Workshop. ... Remove the game created restrictions that, you cannot control. Time, money, skill, these things I can control. I cannot make a house appear, or start a FC, if 3 others do not want to get in it.

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I fully support the request to decouple the functional parts of housing (gardening, workshops, subs, and airships). I'm less convinced that removing the FC requirements from workshops is warranted. It's not that hard to create a vanity (personal) FC.

If FC workshops were there to only produce things of direct benefit to the FC (eg. buffs) I'd say opening it up would be unnecessary. Unfortunately there are crafting mats locked behind subs and airships that have nothing to do with FC's other than pad the FC's gil account or (more likely) line the pocket of the FC's crafting director.

Yet another necro thread "slow clap" Guessbits that time of the month again.
Time to log out of this forum again because most of you are extremely annoying...