Housing Ownership Restrictions

[Catstab]

[Cat: grandfathered houses are a tiny percentage of the owned houses on a server]
Perhaps of those you know of and yourself included, you only have a small handful of grandfathered houses each, and this makes you feel you're being harshly targeted despite having a small impact.

[Cat: FC workshops should be tied to the GC headquarters like your squad is]
I am not really sure what you are suggesting here. Care to elaborate? Are you suggesting workshops be tied to GCs to prevent abuse? Or to have more/different features? Or something else?

Fun fact, I do not own any grandfathered houses. I do have friends that do. If they lost their multiple houses, they would probably quit the game. They lose enjoyment, I lose friends, SE loses money, a tiny group of people gain houses. It's a lose/lose/lose/win. The detriments outweigh the benefits. The same benefit can be had by just launching more wards, and it avoids all the problems deleting the grandfathered houses would create.

As for the workshop being moved to the GC headquarters, I can break that down for you. Currently, there is a game feature called "Squads" where any player of captain rank may enter an instance through a door to the left of the GC counter. Inside, you manage a group of adventurers that run instances with you, or do errands for you. The "Tie FC workshops to GC headquarters" suggestion would remove the workshop from the FC house and instead place it at your allied GC headquarters building. The workshop would still function exactly as it does, but it would no longer be entered from the FC house. This way, no shell FC that only wanted to pilot submarines would need to own a house.

[Penthea]

Fun fact, I do not own any grandfathered houses. I do have friends that do. If they lost their multiple houses, they would probably quit the game. They lose enjoyment, I lose friends, SE loses money, a tiny group of people gain houses. It's a lose/lose/lose/win. The detriments outweigh the benefits. The same benefit can be had by just launching more wards, and it avoids all the problems deleting the grandfathered houses would create.

As much as I dislike any hoarding in general, I can completely understand that assets being removed could drive a person to quit the game. I love my house and I would be devastated if I lost it.

This is why I would prefer instanced housing as a solution. No one loses anything. Every single one of us would gain. But I don't think SE is going to do this. They have not expressed any interest in it at all. So then instead I ask for tweaks, because at least that is something possible : / Well at least the apartment upgrades would improve things without anyone losing anything.

Though you can't say for sure that the detriments outweigh the benefits. For you personally this is completely true, but I know quite a lot of people who keep their sub rolling only because they have a house. When they had no house they unsubbed very periodically between content patches. SE have certainly made more money from individuals like this when they got houses. That being said I do understand what you mean.

As for the workshop being moved to the GC headquarters, I can break that down for you. Currently, there is a game feature called "Squads" where any player of captain rank may enter an instance through a door to the left of the GC counter. Inside, you manage a group of adventurers that run instances with you, or do errands for you. The "Tie FC workshops to GC headquarters" suggestion would remove the workshop from the FC house and instead place it at your allied GC headquarters building. The workshop would still function exactly as it does, but it would no longer be entered from the FC house. This way, no shell FC that only wanted to pilot submarines would need to own a house.

Ah so you are saying that by taking the house out of the equation for workshops and submarines, you then reduce the incentive for and advantage of shell fcs. That is certainly a very interesting idea, and not one I have come across before myself. This of course would not completely stop people making shell fcs to get houses because there are other motivations to get them, but it definitely would reduce the amount of people doing it.

I'm quite surprised that you don't seem to have made a thread with this suggestion. Or if you have I have not seen it. I honestly think it's good enough to warrant a discussion of its own because it tackles two major issues: incentive for hoarding fc houses, and fcs being locked out of fc content due to not having a house. And it is something that helps to improve things without taking anything from anyone. Really if you make a thread about this, I would be there to support this suggestion. It really is excellent.