To all FC Leaders....Can you Help me PLEASE! (^.^)

I really don't know how to help you here. My FC has remained populated because we are all old and new friends who tackle all content the game has to offer. We have only gained ONE single new recruit since creation. If you build a good personal bond with your members and your FC does stuff as a group then I don't see why you would be having issues gaining/retaining members.

Basically.. This game is dieing. A lot of the people logging on to play only log on to cap their myth and not miss there bcb loot and then they don't log on for the rest of the week.

SE made this a theme park MMO and this theme park is lacking in rides, there aren't even decent side attractions. And when they make new rides, they turn the old rides into kiddy rides no one wants to go on anymore.

This game has the potential to be great, but as it stands now, it's a cluster F of stuff that's not working well together.

But, putting my opinions aside, let's discuss the concept of an FC in FFXIV.

What exactly is an FC (Guild) for?

To me, an FC is a place for like minded individuals to group together for a common set of goals. In world of warcraft that was progression raiding. Every night tuesday through monday we formed a 25 man raid and progressed the hardest raids out at the time trying to get server firsts and to be one of the most progressed guilds on the server. In doing so we formed strong bonds and became friends. In down time we would PVP raid Iron Forge or help each other level alts by power leveling them through dungeons and the recruit a friend system. We would also help gather materials for crafting jewels for jewel crafting and making high end crafting items etc.

So here's the problem in FFXIV,

1. No content in the game that a full group can que for requires more than 8 players. As such an FC ends up with 1 or more 8 man core groups going to BCB. This causes each group to become unconnected from the rest of the FC
2. There are no high end items to craft to gather materials for
3. There is no open world PVP
4. Alts don't need power leveled or help leveling at all
5. You can't do the daily roulletes in a group (which is all anything really runs outside of BCB and Crystal Tower)

In short, all of the content in this game is really designed for casual people to just que up for solo outside of that 8 man group.

As such, many people like myself find it easier to just make a linkshell for BCB. I happen to be in an FC right now, but that's only because I found a static to run with in this FC. If I didn't have a BCB Static, I wouldn't be in the FC, period. I also don't need to be in an FC to have friends. I can just make my own Linkshell and invite people I like and kick people I don't like.

There is very little reason in this game right now to even be in an FC aside from having a house (which serves no functional purpose) and FC buffs like (5% experience) which is negligible and you can easily go without.

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Originally Posted by Ryios

Basically.. This game is dieing. 90% of the people logging on to play only log on to cap their myth and not miss there bcb loot and then they don't log on for the rest of the week.....snip........

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What a load man. 90%...?????? 90%???I couldn't even read the rest, wasn't worth it.

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Originally Posted by Ryios

Basically.. This game is dieing. 90% of the people logging on to play only log on to cap their myth and not miss there bcb loot and then they don't log on for the rest of the week.

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lol at 90%

my server always active so no way thats only 10% of ppl on

Haha, my bad for throwing random numbers out. But why are allt he people on and playing? What are they doing?

Running Pharos Sirus*, atempt 1654 at titan extreme? Pugging turn 1-4? Wiping on Turn 5? Leveling alts?

I bet half of them are capping myth and going to play Minecraft or Lol.

I say this because I've seen it. Playing this game is like working for a high labor factory where the employee turnover rate is super high. Some new people come in to work, they can't handle it and 3 or 4 leave and 4 new people come in to replace them. That's almost every static I've seen since game launch. At one point I was beside 7 statics running bcb which ended with 2 and eventually both of those broke up for the most part and all that was left from any of them was 2 to 4 people from each finding new homes, then going through the same thing again.

Now on the flipside, take world of warcraft. I ran that progressions guild, I was the GM. And I ran it for the entire WOTLK expansion and from start to finish we were 95% intact. We lost no more than 5 of 25 people from the original run. It was a good ride.

A linkshell I formed at game launch with 100+ people in it, has lost all but 5 people, 90 some dead accounts in it and I don't know which ones to kick (no indiciation in the UI as to when someone logged in on linkshells).

This games still new, people playing it actively just haven't hit the wall yet. Once you run out of things to do (and I'm not interested in getting every job or craft to 50) it loses it's flare.

Like I said, this game could be great, but right now it has too man annoyances to entertain me, and many people like me. A year from now I'm sure it will be full of content and they will have fixed many of it's issues (like multi job dungeon runs) and a non existent player market. But most of all, a world with a reason to explore it, not a town full of duty poppers.

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Originally Posted by Ryios

Running Pharos Sirus*, atempt 1654 at titan extreme? Pugging turn 1-4? Wiping on Turn 5? Leveling alts?

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at least they do something rather than just myth cap and log out thats what i wanted to reach

I was able to recruit 70 members in four days when I made an FC on my alt two weeks ago. You run a player search. Level 1-25. See who doesn't have a FC Tag. And then politely send them a tell. Apologize for interupting them. Ask them if they'd be interested in joining a FC that helps out new players. If they ask what you offer: You give advice, help them with duties they get stuck on, have people their level they could party with, and that your FC even gives a +5% (or 10%) exp buff. In my case I was also able to offer free melding, HQ crafting, and housing.

Half of these members will stop playing in the first week you invite them. And it also depends on your leadership skills and whether you can maintain fun conversations with the FC on a daily basis. But 20% of the people you invite should become long-time members. Rinse and repeat until you have the size you want.

I lead a large FC on Ragnarok, and we went through the same hard times you are describing and even now it can get frustrating, for example we have over 100 active members but are still yet to get ourselves a house..

We have absorbed several smaller FC's on the way to this number and i wouldnt be put off by the thought of merging into another FC, I am a lax leader and anyone who brings me a good idea or wants to help out is welcome so suggesting this to a bigger FC might work in your favour (maybe not leet FCs lol) for example we took in 15 members from another FC and two of those are now in leadership roles.

The best time to recruit is on a patch drop though cos thats when people return to find they have been booted out of their FC for being inactive.. for example my FC has a 90day inactivity cull

But as i said i've seen the hard times.. there were times we have 3 people online and i thought that was it for the FC now we have 20-30 at one time and 80+ over a 24hr period.. just stick at it and get some leadership who want it to succeed as much as you want it to..

Also giving every rank the same responsibilities is a bad bad idea.. you need to seperate out members and leaders.. i am a social FC master and yet we still have that divide.. people know who to go to to get stuff done then etc.

Finally try making ranks to distinguish yourself from other FCs.. people always comment on my ranking system when they join

http://gyazo.com/746eea6ede448fc6b8792fb95013ec0d.png

As you can see we have a new rank with no members in it yet above officer, this is for someone to go into to take a more "me" role as i am burning out from all the work i put in lol.. officer has become the role that just puts on buffs and moves peoples ranks around.. coin counters are in charge or finding ways to raise money for the FC, recruiter speaks for itself, the end game ranks make it easy to see people who might be able to help you if you are looking for a certain role (multi being one of each) foot soldier is the rank you drop in the FC on with no access to chest and Yeoman is when you have been active enough for us to trust you with things like chest access :)

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Originally Posted by Taei

And one piece of advice I would always keep in mind is to never expect any member to always be there. And also don't take it too hard on yourself when people leave, it just happens.

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Really pay attention to this. The person behind the character does have a life (I hope...). Odds are the game is fairly low on their priority list. So if the "active" population isn't on as often as desired or some one does leave a FC, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY. It's only a game ^^

The difficulty of recruitment and retention of members depends on your guilds style.

Casual Free Companys will commonly run into the problem of once people get to endgame if you are not capable of completing all the content people will leave you and go to an endgame guild or lowman static guild.

It is also bad that the turn over rate is fairly high on new members. So new guilds have it rough because people fear they will fall apart quickly. At least in our guild new members turn over is about 60-70% recently. Turn over as in quitting the guild, game, or just not logging in anymore, larger guild it effects less then smaller ones because they have a base already.

So the OP has 2 problems. 1 it is a casual guild and it is small currently. Both those are negatives.

MY suggestions are doing this:

1) Try to be something more then just a chat channel. Do Crystal tower together, Maps, dungeons, work on some extremes, Coil if possible. Even if it is only 2-3 days a week. Set stuff up. Let people know if they join your guild even though it is casual you will do stuff together. You do not have to make it mandatory. But talk to your members and discuss what day you want to do stuff. So maby Tuesdays are Crystal tower day. Thursdays are coil, and Sundays are insert event here.

2) Invest in some voice chat program if you do not have one. In my experience when people are able to talk to each other they are less likely to leave. Most the people my guild who leave are the ones that are rarely on teamspeak.

3) Invest in a guild site if you do not have 1. Several free ones out there that are decent that require no coding. Just have to deal with some ad banners if you do not want to pay. Guildwork is a nice one.

4) Talk to all your members and get help recruiting. Most my members who stay in the guild are friends of friends of friends. I will get 1 recruit that will like the guild and then ask 2-3 more people. One of their friends will bring 2-3 more and so on. I suggest utilizing the party finder and shouts. As well as forums around the web Lodestone, Zam, Eorzeapedia, and so on. Just post in the world sections and so on you are looking for members and describe you guild.

You can try a merger with another guild, that sometime works more times then not it fails. Since you are a casual FC it has a better shot then a endgame free company which is usually rules based.

I know the nightmares of recruitment in this game first hand and feel your pain. I think almost every guild was there at one point. This game punishes people in guilds. It is a strict 8man min/max for almost all the content at endgame, 4/4 for everything before it. It is why you see alot of people just run around in Lnkshells or 5-8man free companys. It is more of a static game then guild game, a really bad design for a mmo. To build a successful guild you have to give people a reason to want to join you over just being with their 8man static group. Running a guild in this game is way more stressful then it should be because of this.