State of Raiding In Regards to Community/FCs.

I'm going to be speaking from anecdotal evidence; just to preface this.

I have been playing the game casually hardcore since roughly the latter half of Heavensward and I have felt like something is missing from my gaming experience, at least on the servers I have played on thus far in NA. This game is definitely geared toward community and making players interact with one another on a frequent basis, which is great; I'm not going to knock it at all for this. The issue I have noticed is lack of the Free Company's ability to integrate newer members and participate in actual FC interactions of duties.

Let me be frank and come out with what I mean. For a few years now, I haven't really felt like I've been able to DO anything involving raiding with any of the FCs that I have been with. Every. Single. One; has had their own "Static" on the side, and thus the members don't or aren't willing to succeed or fail as their own communities. Instead this is replaced by cliques and creates a sort of divide between FC members. There are social events, sure; however, when it comes to raiding and/or higher end duties, something is missing.

A possible solution to this problem could be to give incentives for raiding or completing higher end duties with your FC members instead of your Static. It's going to be a very unpopular opinion; however, a few other MMORPGs have little programs in place (i.e. currency, items, exclusive things,) that you HAVE to do with your FC.

There is the obvious solution people are going to bring up... "Why don't YOU just find a static of your own?" While this is indeed a possible solution; my rebuttal is this. Why should I have to PuG, if I joined an FC for the supposed community of like-minded individuals? What is says to me, is that they are willing to do the content... with and only with their chosen group; and not with random people in their FC. Some of the community is fantastic for people who are new to content; others are only interested in parsing and will invite you if and ONLY if you have seen a certain phase, have a previous clear under your belt, etc. That old trope of "You need experience to get experience."

1 problem with this is what if you like to do raiding and being socialable. Having incentive for FCs to clear raids will either force cliques within FCs or cause people who would otherwise be fine in normal everyday FCs into raid only ones just for those extra rewards.

Believe it or not ARR and early HW had very social raid areas, loads of talking in Wineport/North Shroud/N.Thanalan/Hinterlands, you also had inbetween instances sections where groups could congratulate each other, what killed it off? allowing to queue into raids from anywhere, once this change happened you only saw people as they unlocked things or in Hub areas.

I don't think adding extra incentive for doing savage raids/Ultimates for FCs is a good idea However if the rewards were titles only I think would be fine.

Actually surprised SE hasn't done something like World 1st titles for Ultimates.

I think this suggestion would just make it harder to find both FCs and statics.

I'm sorry that you only joined FCs so far who didnt live up to their promise - or to your expectation, but it also sounds a bit like your expectation was to join an FC and instantly have some sort of static aswell...?
The way this game handles lockouts you have a huge incentive to only raid with people who havent cleared Savage this week (or you'll end up with a loot penalty) - so theres kind of an incentive to raid with a static. That wouldnt change even if those 8 people were from the same FC: Anyone else, even if in the same FC, would be left out. You'd still have cliques and FC-statics that you cant get in, because they're full. So you could join an FC with like-minded individuals, who then tell you "Sorry mate, but the FC-static is already full" - or who wont let you join in the first place (so now you're out of a static AND an FC).

As long as the rewards for all-FC-clears stay minor (and I'd actually prefer if those were something FC-related, like maybe special crest-options or something similiar?) I'm not opposed to your idea - but I dont believe it will solve your problem one bit. You'd just see PFs like "FC-static looking for healer, raiding three times a week! MUST JOIN FC!!" instead of "static looking for a healer, raiding three times a week!"
You'd also reduce the pool of potential candidates if people dont want to leave their current social network just in order to raid.
An FC-intern-static would still only do Savage with their choosen people in order to avoid loot-penalties (and probably because they like playing with this exact group of people). You wont have an easier time getting a foot into that door if you cant get one in now. There simply is limited space is a static and joining an FC will never guarantee you a spot in a static, unless thats the specific condition of joining, I guess.

And I have to say that I actually like having the social aspect and the "progression" aspect seperated. I think its best that no one is basically forced to pick between hanging out with the people they like and those who they do Savage with - ideally both groups are the same, but I know enough super pleasent people who have no intrest in raiding and enough people who only log in to run Savage - I'd hate ending up with an FC in which half the people never log in to do anything besides raiding.

The only incentive you'll get with that is people leaving for a FC with a better clear rate.

The raiding loot system is very "anti-community". You can only clear once yourself and can't even go back to help others without robbing them of their loot. If you could raid more freely with other people, I would see bigger communities and non-statics raid together more often. The problem is that with the current savage system if loot was available even when clearing with people who already cleared, you would get 1+7 parties where all loot is funneled to a single person. This would mean the most effective gearing plan would be to run alts and clear the raids 8 times every week for insane loot.

Alternatively, we could have savage use the normal mode loot system, or something alike it, where everybody has their own personalized loot for each fight. That would allow people to help their friends regardless of their own progress very easily and for communities to support each other. The problem is that when helping is easy, it's also very easy to sell the help. Selling content clears and loot would become rampant. I don't think there's an easy way to have one without the other.

I'm not sure if that's an acceptable cost, but at least it would make the raiding community more open instead of the closed static style we currently have.

Just make a FC with your static.

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Originally Posted by AmiBeau

I have been playing the game casually hardcore

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What are words, what is meaning, lmao.

While I do think that this game's FC system could use a lot of improvement(seriously, the lack of actual in-game board is infuriating) and more FC-specific activities, the "clique" problem is on players, not the game and SE shouldn't really try to "enforce" doing things as FC rather than statics imo. It's up to leadership to set up events for practice and farms and up to members to show up to them - which can also be an issue sometimes, when you set something up and only a couple of people show up while you see others PFing, it sure doesn't make you want to organize more things.

Rather than incentives to raid with your company(which already are there - not having to wait in pf and then getting bad/impatient players is plenty incentive), they should fix issues which make it harder for FCs to organize themselves. The before mentioned problem of not having a proper board to keep people informed and sign up for things is one such issue and the other is the weekly chest lock-out.
There isn't really much good reason to decrease the number of drops when people who already cleared participate in a run - it's only a punishment that makes people less likely to help each other. Keep the rolls limited to first weekly kill, but remove the stupid 1/0 chests system.

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Originally Posted by AmiBeau

A possible solution to this problem could be to give incentives for raiding or completing higher end duties with your FC members instead of your Static.

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I'm 100% against this even though my own static is fc based.

One of the best things about this game is that you do not have to be tied down to a fc if you want to raid. This means you don't have to leave a fc you love in order to find a raid team, nor do you have to stay in a fc you dislike to be in a raid team. Whether raid teams are fc or ls based the rewards are the same, and this is great. This allows people to raid with whoever they want without having to leave anyone behind.

Adding your suggested rewards would instantly create a hierarchy as to the best way to raid, and it would kill ls-based statics. Not a good thing. It would be punishing players for wanting the freedom to not have to leave their fc to find a good raiding team.

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Originally Posted by AmiBeau

The issue I have noticed is lack of the Free Company's ability to integrate newer members and participate in actual FC interactions of duties.

There is the obvious solution people are going to bring up... "Why don't YOU just find a static of your own?" While this is indeed a possible solution; my rebuttal is this. Why should I have to PuG, if I joined an FC for the supposed community of like-minded individuals?

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It's not anyone's fault their fc doesn't cater to your personal needs. Every fc is different so they all have a different approach to building and nurturing a community. If raiding in a fc-based static matters that much to you then find a fc that does this. They are out there.

Or make your own fc. Easier said than done I know but this is what I ended up doing when I couldn't find the sort of fc I wanted to be in.

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Originally Posted by AmiBeau

Why should I have to PuG, if I joined an FC for the supposed community of like-minded individuals?

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Well, you clearly joined the wrong FC, and that's on you.

The "community" doesn't end just at your FC. Some players have groups with cross server players. These groups won't be able to be in the same FC unless they transfer servers. Over on the Japanese servers they use DF. There are players that just PuG all the way. All incentives will do for people that are with "outside" statics by choice is to leave the FC for a raiding FC, make a massive dummy FC just to get the rewards, or a leave/join fest. Sounds good on paper, but I don't see it helping much.

I know what you're talking about TC. If even just to let you know you're not crazy, I can confirm that its not as easy as most people (including this thread) think it is to find a static, especially in FC's. Just like you said, most people will just say "Sorry you didn't find the right FC, but that's on you. the right one is out there!" Well, "the right" FC is few and far between. It's actually harder than people realize to find a good FC, let alone one that has enough active players that are willing to make raiding statics. For me, its the only thing that has prevented me from even doing Savage content up to this point. Like you, I'm "casually hardcore". As in, I'm on most nights (but not every night, because there are other things in my life that are important to me), I have a couple lvl 80's, gatherers are 50 but no crafter is above 10. I play pretty much everything but PvP (not that I'm opposed to PvP, I actually like PvP in games, just not in FFXIV in particular).

But I will say that I also agree with most of the others that FC-related content lockout is not the answer. What I think is the answer is making FC's more approachable and manageable. Imo, its more or less dead content. Recruitment in general sucks super bad. And I think that making FC's a more manageable and enjoyable experience would drastically encourage FC activity for us smaller/mid-sized guilds and in turn, increase FC related raid statics.

/my2cents

Ya know, the funniest thing is my fc has two high end statics: No Hit and Columnae Custodes. Both were formed independently of each other yet happenstance has at least 3 members of No Hit (a world prog team) and 5 members of Columnae Custodes (a week 1/2 tier team). If we really wanted to, we could probably field an entire static with our in-house members, but A: we don't want to, we have different goals for raiding between our groups, B: it wouldn't change much for people in our fc, as our top members would all have filled out exactly one static, and C: not everyone in our fc wants to raid.

You see, our fc is a meme: we're casual oriented to the bone despite some of our heavier hitting members. In our group, we don't do too much to advantage raiders besides scream support for them on stream.

We have map nights, movie nights, ex primal nights for any mount across the expansions; recently we've all taken to chilling out and shooting the breeze at a local tavern fc. That's not to say we're unhelpful for anyone outside of our statics: if anyone were to ask about high end content we have several experts in every role ready to lend a hand, and we have taught Savage fights to people so they could get a page and be prepared to go for chests in pf. It's just that raiding is not our focus as an fc: being a bunch of fun loving derps is.

If I had to pick something I liked most it's *that* I don't have to link my raiding career and non raiding social life together. When my group is done raiding and I'm looking to just chill out doing maps, watching movies, or playing other games, there are tons of people willing to do just that in my fc.

To go onto topic, I feel like I can only oppose this suggestion. I remember what it was like before xworld pf, especially during Midas: if you wanted to raid, you went where the pool of high skilled players was the highest. As a former Coeurlite, that was no fun. I don't think you can force communities in a way that wouldn't harm the way XIV's communities are set up now, and a lot of people do like and do benefit from how they're set up.

I do agree though I miss having to hang out at the raid entrance.

Although my own static is FC intern, including some surrogates, I'm completely against tying progress to social life.
Having the freedom to join statics outside your FC and joining FCs without having to leave your static aswell is a huge boon and shouldn't be underestimated. It gives you the chance to interact and do things with two different groups, each like-minded in a different way but both equally "for you".
You never have to weigh their chance of success against how likeable they are on a personal level.
If you're very casual outside of raids, that's no problem. If you rarely play outside of raids, that's also not a problem. If you can work well with your static but couldn't imagine doing social and casual stuff with them that's, again, not a problem.

The only thing I miss and would like to see is some QoL for FC intern statics.
I liked the way WoW went about it - encouraging intern statics without making it mandatory because it was really just some QoL. While many things fall flat in FF14 because of the design (like mass ress outside combat) the general idea of having FC skills could be implemented.
E.g.:
- summoning a FC chests in a dungeon/ raid
- being able to repair gear of FC mates/ summoning a repair bot your FC mates can use
- in case of the latter: repair bots can be crafted at the company workshop; people who don't enjoy raiding themselves but enjoy giving ingame support to a raid team can help with crafting them
- potions with multiple charges that are worse than current tier HQ potions (e.g. current give 398 (?) main stat, those would give 320); can be crafted in your company workshop and are bound to the person picking them up. They are meant to be "makeshift" potions for progression and save you some money while still being able to use pots to get a rough estimate about the rDPS and when/ how to best incorporate them during each fight
- FC buff that gives you a higher chance to retrieve materia (e.g. additional 10-20%); nothing too big but worth using after a successful raid when everyone is melding or someone is changing class and needs to re-meld

I think QoL encourages the social aspect much more than progression/ exclusivity. It also has the added benefit of being able to include people outside the static but part of the FC.
FCs could set up a farm night every now and then where everyone, wether part of the static or not, can join to bash stones and trees and help crafting the bots and reusable pots.

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Originally Posted by AmiBeau

I'm going to be speaking from anecdotal evidence; just to preface this.

I have been playing the game casually hardcore since roughly the latter half of Heavensward and I have felt like something is missing from my gaming experience, at least on the servers I have played on thus far in NA. This game is definitely geared toward community and making players interact with one another on a frequent basis, which is great; I'm not going to knock it at all for this. The issue I have noticed is lack of the Free Company's ability to integrate newer members and participate in actual FC interactions of duties.

Let me be frank and come out with what I mean. For a few years now, I haven't really felt like I've been able to DO anything involving raiding with any of the FCs that I have been with. Every. Single. One; has had their own "Static" on the side, and thus the members don't or aren't willing to succeed or fail as their own communities. Instead this is replaced by cliques and creates a sort of divide between FC members. There are social events, sure; however, when it comes to raiding and/or higher end duties, something is missing.

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That has always been the problem with FFXIV and its strict 8 men limitation in party sizes. Until something like flexible party size is implemented, I don't see it change, because the way loot work, you re basically punished for running the content without a static (not even talking about the fact rotating members would have to learn the fight anew).

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Originally Posted by AmiBeau

I have been playing the game casually hardcore...

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Casually hardcore? I did not know this was a thing...

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Originally Posted by AnonymousBard

I know what you're talking about TC. If even just to let you know you're not crazy, I can confirm that its not as easy as most people (including this thread) think it is to find a static, especially in FC's. Just like you said, most people will just say "Sorry you didn't find the right FC, but that's on you. the right one is out there!" Well, "the right" FC is few and far between. It's actually harder than people realize to find a good FC, let alone one that has enough active players that are willing to make raiding statics. For me, its the only thing that has prevented me from even doing Savage content up to this point. Like you, I'm "casually hardcore". As in, I'm on most nights (but not every night, because there are other things in my life that are important to me), I have a couple lvl 80's, gatherers are 50 but no crafter is above 10. I play pretty much everything but PvP (not that I'm opposed to PvP, I actually like PvP in games, just not in FFXIV in particular).

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For the record: I dont think its easy to find a static or a good FC - but I do think that a lot of people expect this to be far easier than seems realistic and I dont understand why.

Just to elaborate a bit what I mean: I view both a static and an FC as more than just 7 other people to clear raids with - to me they're friends, more or less good ones, some you're closer with, some you know less about, but they're all friends and its more a community than just the people that you kill Ramuh-savage with.
Joining a static is only the first step in becoming part of such a community - you need to understand that you're joining a bunch of people who know each other for a while already and who will be more familiar with each other at first than they are with you. Joining an FC doesnt mean you get straight into the inner circle or become part of the FCs static. It also doesnt mean that the FC is outright excluding people if they dont kick half the current static to make room for new memembers!
A community, an FC, a static is something everyone builds together - including (a general) you. Its something one needs to invest in - time, effort, kindness... on both sides.
I'm sorry if I'm missunderstanding things here, but often posts complaining about bad FCs read a lot like people were expecting to have 30 friends who are willing to do any content at any time with them - and thats just not realistic.

It takes a while to find a good fit - and it takes an even longer while to foster relationships within the static.
But suggestions like OPs wont help with that - forcing people to play together just because they're in an FC will more likely lead to FC you cant even get a foot in the door. It will lead to more gated communities, not better ones.

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Originally Posted by MoonPhaseAlpha

Casually hardcore? I did not know this was a thing...

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Mutually exclusive terms, isn't it?

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Originally Posted by Vidu

For the record: I dont think its easy to find a static or a good FC - but I do think that a lot of people expect this to be far easier than seems realistic and I dont understand why.

It takes a while to find a good fit - and it takes an even longer while to foster relationships within the static.
But suggestions like OPs wont help with that - forcing people to play together just because they're in an FC will more likely lead to FC you cant even get a foot in the door. It will lead to more gated communities, not better ones.

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This so much. I often feel the same when I read these kinds of posts.

For example, the FC I am in is very friendly and welcoming. We are casual. Some people do extremes and some do savage, but there are no statics within the FC. If you join us we will welcome you warmly and offer to help on things if you need it, just let us know. But our FC has been together a long time. Some of us even have known each other from other games. We won't exclude you from things. But we don't know new members yet as well as we know each other because we've been together a long time. That's just normal. And some people join and don't say much or come along when we ask if anyone wants to do such & such. And that's okay, but if you (general you) don't speak up or engage we can't help (general you). And sometimes it's just not a fit and that's okay too. We also don't do any recruiting. I mean you can join, but we don't do active recruiting like doing shouts or random invites or anything like that. Sometimes we play with people who don't have an FC and if it seems to be a good fit we may ask if they would like to join. Most of our new recruits come from members that way or who are friends, or friends of friends.

I do know I'm lucky to have the FC I have. Love the people in it and we have a blast. I've heard about some horror stories. Not everyone is a fit for our FC either. But we are upfront with people who join - we are casual and social. We do raids and such together but if you are looking for a savage static in an FC then our FC is not for you.

As for the topic at hand, I wouldn't want these to be integrated. We have people who do savage in our FC, but with a static outside or they PUG it. I would hate to lose them because they are lots of fun - they just do savage outside the FC.

I like the current state of FCs, where each FC has their own focus and can advertise and recruit according to that.

On that note, and taking na idea from another thread somewhere on the first pages, what's missing is a proper way to advertise FCs in the actual game, and a proper way to look for na FC that's catering to your personal needs.

Some kind of recruitment board, perhaps, where FCs would post recruitment notices for what they're looking for?

This would benefit everyone as social based FCs would stay the same and members could still have their own LS statics on the side and just chill at their FC, while people looking for a FC static would have the means to look for one suiting their needs.

This is a problema that's affecting everyone at the moment, not just people in your specific situation. Finding an FC is done basically through map /shout ing and joining a friend's FC. There's no way to look for anything more specific, and that makes it hard for anyone to find exactly what they're looking for. :/

Yeah, I think if you want something like this you have to start it. It can be intimidating if you’re not fond of leading things but it’s doable! I’ve seen it firsthand in my own FC this tier, actually. We’ve had a few members come and go, complaining there’s no FC raiding. This tier a bunch integrated a couple newbie raiders from the FC into a static with other members of the FC that have been raiding for a while. They’ve been progging every night this week, having a blast, and cleared e5s last night!

For more casual duties and raids, especially for first clears, we have worked hard to let people know to give a holler in FC chat if they want help/company.

It’s definitely about finding an FC that fits your needs and personality. Rewards won’t really change that, and might even increase the clique problems people run into because you’ll have groups only doing content together with people they know can clear it quickly.

I think that joining an FC and expecting to consistently raid with that group is unrealistic, because every FC would need to have exact multiples of 8 with exact party comps to make it possible to have 1+ statics in the FC. People come and go, people play at different times... Unless you're in a large FC that has 8+ raiding-minded members on all the time, it's unlikely that you'll get a static out of an FC--unless you specifically start the FC to make the static... Join raiding linkshells, use PF, advertise yourself as looking for a static... Maybe your static will one day evolve into an FC and then you'll be the ones excluding others. XD

That said, I agree that the loot system does discourage FCs from working together. My FC is having an issue currently where half of us (those of us with more time to play) have cleared content but the other half haven't--now we can't go back and teach/help the other half of the FC without killing their chance for any loot. Thus, the other half of the FC is stuck with PUGs who also haven't cleared yet, despite the fact that we (their FC mates) already know the fight and would love to help them if it didn't cost them a chance at gear. This does create frustration when half the group is excited about their clears and the other half of the group is stuck in PF hell. And we can't just resolve this by saying "We'll all raid together at this time" because we're all adults with conflicting real life schedules, soo...

Finding a way to make it so that FC members can help each other without punishment would be ideal, but in order to make that possible, Square might have to find some way to discourage people from jumping through FC after FC just for rewards... A tough situation.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

You see, our fc is a meme: we're casual oriented to the bone despite some of our heavier hitting members. In our group, we don't do too much to advantage raiders besides scream support for them on stream.

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This is very much the same situation as my own FC; it's a no-pressure friendly one that does a lot of spur-of-the-moment activities ("Hey, anyone want to run treasure maps this afternoon?") but there's certainly no formal raiding focus. Despite that, there are two statics which, while not entirely drawn from FC members, are predominantly from the FC. One is veteran, experienced raiders; the other (mine) is a group of all rookies new to savage content that the veterans are mentoring.

But it wasn't that the FC formally organized statics; it was that people organized statics, and happened to reach out to their FC members to see if they were interested. And honestly, I think that's the OP's best bet—not waiting for the FC to form a static, per se, but starting a static and seeing if others in the FC are interested.

Still, I agree that the game needs more discoverability. There should be a Free Company search that lets you advertise more effectively than the one on the Lodestone currently does, and there definitely should be a better way to advertise statics and linkshells and such than just using Party Finder to throw a party up with an advertisement as the description.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

For the record: I dont think its easy to find a static or a good FC - but I do think that a lot of people expect this to be far easier than seems realistic and I dont understand why.

Just to elaborate a bit what I mean: I view both a static and an FC as more than just 7 other people to clear raids with - to me they're friends, more or less good ones, some you're closer with, some you know less about, but they're all friends and its more a community than just the people that you kill Ramuh-savage with.
Joining as static is only the first step in becoming part of such a community - you need to understand that you're joining a bunch of people who know each other for a while already and who will be more familiar with each other at first than they are with you. Joining an FC doesnt mean you get straight into the inner circle or become part of the FCs static. It also doesnt mean that the FC is outright excluding people if they dont kick half the current static to make room for new memembers!
A community, an FC, a static is something everyone builds together - including (a general) you. Its something one needs to invest in - time, effort, kindness... on both sides.
I'm sorry if I'm missunderstanding things here, but often posts complaining about bad FCs read a lot like people were expecting to have 30 friends who are willing to do any content at any time with them - and thats just not realistic.

It takes a while to find a good fit - and it takes an even longer while to foster relationships within the static.
But suggestions like OPs wont help with that - forcing people to play together just because they're in an FC will more likely lead to FC you cant even get a foot in the door. It will lead to more gated communities, not better ones.

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Right, I mean, its not something that happens overnight. A Guild is an opportunity for like minded individuals to have mutual ground to hang out, chill, adventure, etc... We agree i think on that. Where i was kinda going with it though was that FC manageability and recruiting are so horrid right now (in-game) that it makes it difficult on smaller or mid-sized guilds to keep FCs active. Ideally, most statics would come from FCs imo, because familiar people that you can click with is who you would want to do savage content with and would more than likely be a part of your guild (though i concede that statics and guilds are not mutually exclusive), at least, thats how I've always gamed end-game content. But we dont really see that, which is a shame.