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.

[Burado_T]

So after spending far too many hours basically clubbing on Aether after our maps group last Saturday, I think I understand why SE wants to retain the housing neighborhoods. What's not helping things, however, is the ability for a player to roll an alt and buy a house (which the alt only needs a jump potion to be able to buy a house).

Here is what SE should do to fix part of this problem:

• All characters on a server gain teleport locations to all the houses owned by all the characters on that server.
• A player is unable to buy a personal house on a server if they have at least one personal house teleport location. In other words, one personal house per account per server.
• Have SE indicate whichever house was bought first.
• For the next couple of main updates (X.2, X.3, etc), SE should allow you to remove all decorations from your houses without penalty, and allow you to get a 100% refund on the house price if you choose to relinquish the house. Also, if you could put an item up on the market before using it with a house, you should be able to do so after retrieving it from the house.
• After this time, SE should auto demolish all houses owned by an account except for the one bought first.
• FC houses are completely unaffected by this, and FC houses do not count towards your personal house limit.

For example, if I had three alts (Moe, Larry, and Curly) in addition to my main (Maley) on Catcuar, and everyone but Curly has a house, Curly wouldn't be able to buy a house until everyone else demolished theirs. If I was being stubborn, and Maley's house was bought first, after the grace period Moe and Larry's houses would be autodemolished.

All in all, this really is a case of "this is why we can't have anything nice" as the above is a way to help better utilize the housing ward system while we also keep adding additional wards.

Awesome offer, I agree. Especially about the teleport for the account, otherwise the alts cannot get it at the moment

[Almagnus1]

Workshops being ran through Garlond Ironworks (or Skysteel Manufactury once you have a high enough MCH) make the most sense to me, as we already do enough work for either that asking for a workshop to tinker in would probably pique even Nero's interest.

As far as instanced housing goes.... there's a definitely RP side to the whole ward thing as that enables you to go clubbing in FFXIV, so while I can see that as a complement to the ward system, the ward system itself should still be supported. Unfortunately, until gardening gets decoupled from housing (run that through BTN?) it's still going to cause a problem. IMO, I'd rather have a skyship as my personal house as that allows for an instanced house that people may want to pick up... but it shouldn't prevent you from being able to acquire other forms of housing.

[Arielen]

Unfortunately, until gardening gets decoupled from housing (run that through BTN?) it's still going to cause a problem. IMO, I'd rather have a skyship as my personal house as that allows for an instanced house that people may want to pick up... but it shouldn't prevent you from being able to acquire other forms of housing.

I know that SE at some point mentioned liking the suggestion of upgradable apartments or other sizes of apartments. Should that become a thing, then maybe there can be something tied to window planters or balcony gardening. Fingers crossed, really.

[Almagnus1]

I know that SE at some point mentioned liking the suggestion of upgradable apartments or other sizes of apartments. Should that become a thing, then maybe there can be something tied to window planters or balcony gardening. Fingers crossed, really.

Unless it can cross, it's probably going to be a pointless gimmick.

[Jojoya]

I know that SE at some point mentioned liking the suggestion of upgradable apartments or other sizes of apartments. Should that become a thing, then maybe there can be something tied to window planters or balcony gardening. Fingers crossed, really.

This has been explained before. There is no dynamic weather in instances (including house interiors, apartments, FC private chambers) unlike the open world zones like the wards. If you ever check the weather inside of a house, you'll see it's always showing Fair Skies even if it had been raining outside just before you went in.

Part of how garden plots function is tied to dynamic weather. Without it, they won't work.

If people want to make what use they can of gardening in their apartments, there are always flowerpots. You can grow any seed, including the decorative flower seeds that can't be grown in the garden plots. You can use Shroud topsoil to increase yield if increased yield is possible. You can use La Noscean topsoil to get HQ if what you're growing can be HQ.

The only thing you can't do is intercross to get new seeds.

Considering how many house owners only end up growing things like shards and Krakka Roots if they grow anything at all (which usually they don't), the gardening already available via flowerpots should be sufficient for the majority of apartment/FC private chamber owners.

If SE were to solve the weather issue inside instanced housing, great, but I doubt that will ever happen. Better for players not to get their hopes up.

[Barraind]

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.

Why not both?

Make it so you can enter the FC workshop from your FC house, your personal GC door, or your FC GC door. Its just an instance that boots up, its not actually tied to any of those, the only possible issue is selecting where it kicks you out should you log out inside.

After this time, SE should auto demolish all houses owned by an account except for the one bought first.

That. Is. Still. Never. Going. To. Happen.
They. Are. Not. Going. To. Do. This.
They. Have. Said. This. Every. Single. Time. It. Gets. Addressed. For. Years.

For example, if I had three alts (Moe, Larry, and Curly) in addition to my main (Maley) on Catcuar, and everyone but Curly has a house, Curly wouldn't be able to buy a house until everyone else demolished theirs

And THAT is already a thing. You can have 1 personal house per account per server unless you already owned houses past 1 when that restriction was put in place.

[Almagnus1]

This has been explained before. There is no dynamic weather in instances (including house interiors, apartments, FC private chambers) unlike the open world zones like the wards. If you ever check the weather inside of a house, you'll see it's always showing Fair Skies even if it had been raining outside just before you went in.

Part of how garden plots function is tied to dynamic weather. Without it, they won't work.

If people want to make what use they can of gardening in their apartments, there are always flowerpots. You can grow any seed, including the decorative flower seeds that can't be grown in the garden plots. You can use Shroud topsoil to increase yield if increased yield is possible. You can use La Noscean topsoil to get HQ if what you're growing can be HQ.

The only thing you can't do is intercross to get new seeds.

Considering how many house owners only end up growing things like shards and Krakka Roots if they grow anything at all (which usually they don't), the gardening already available via flowerpots should be sufficient for the majority of apartment/FC private chamber owners.

If SE were to solve the weather issue inside instanced housing, great, but I doubt that will ever happen. Better for players not to get their hopes up.

What about public garden plots (similar to what we see in some RL cities) where you have plots with people that have their gardens? I mean, if SE had what amounts to an outside housing space that allows for a single deluxe garden with other decorations, and had like a 6x6 section in a "ward" (so each ward holds 36 gardens) with the restriction that you cannot buy one if you own a house (but will allow you to buy a garden if you own an apartment), that would allow for players to garden and still make it somewhat social - which I think is a core design philosophy behind much of the housing system that SE does.

[Jojoya]

What about public garden plots (similar to what we see in some RL cities) where you have plots with people that have their gardens? I mean, if SE had what amounts to an outside housing space that allows for a single deluxe garden with other decorations, and had like a 6x6 section in a "ward" (so each ward holds 36 gardens) with the restriction that you cannot buy one if you own a house (but will allow you to buy a garden if you own an apartment), that would allow for players to garden and still make it somewhat social - which I think is a core design philosophy behind much of the housing system that SE does.

I think that's what players were hoping the farms were going to be when SE announced them back at the FanFests. Since then, the farms sound more like they're going to be for raising minions not crops. There's still the hope they might include gardening but i'm not going to bet on it.