Originally Posted by
Amarande
Cliquism, already a notable issue in XIV, is enhanced as well, because of the system encouraging small groups to spall off rather than mingle together in a larger FC.
The fact that everyone's in separate FCs also encourages people to base their communities in social media rather than in game, too. This has the double effect of big SM and its policies placing heavy pressure on the development of those communities, and of players tending to drift away more readily than otherwise from XIV, since they're no longer a FFXIV community, they're a Discord or Facebook community that plays XIV sometimes (which has its benefits, but also its problems - in particular, it aggravates the already significant problems with content lulls and those who join/return during them often struggling to pop queues).