People prefer to PUG rather than join an FC?

[peaches]

I personally cannot find a good FC. There's some friends in my FC, and about 8 50s, but not all of them are active at the same time. Out of the people who ARE on not many are ever willing to run anything. Don't get me wrong, there's more to a FC than just having them run dungeons and 8 mans with you, but still.

Every other FC I've seen has only 30-50 people with around 8 on at any given time. I have 5 linkshells as well, and even asking all 5 of them I'm lucky if I can put together a full 4 man. So I'm stuck with finding maybe one friend who's willing to join me, then using the DF for the rest.

[Kal-El]

I joined an FC in Beta 4. It's small, I'm one of several 50's and it's really casual.

But the guys in it are awesome!

Much rather have that than a huge FC with no chat min-maxing.

[Kaesara]

That is not what I have seen on cerberus but then I hardly ever pug hehe We are recruiting but it has got quieter. At the moment we have 16 active players and we have set aside Fridays & Sundays to get group content done which is working pretty well for our free company

With that being said one of our white mages has pugged everything a head of the rest, did Titan tonite.

[Kyuuen]

Nikita, I accept that people can play how they choose to. What I'm trying to understand is why in this game it's worse than in any others I've experienced.

Are players generally becoming more casual, less committed?

Is it the same on your servers, or maybe this is a specific problem on just my server.

No. It's just that people that consider themselves as "raiders" think there's only one way to clear content. Some people can't stand the impatience of said raiders, others can't stand some of the bs drama that comes with any FC/guild.

As others have said.. how is it that this even frustrates you?

[Nithryok]

IMO alot of people did not re-sub since they were able to get to 50, full DL, partial AF2/relic+1 in the first month. That and with server transfers coming up, alot of people do not want to commit to a group just to transfer a few weeks later. Or as previously stated by another poster, most FC's have a very big inactivity rate, so there's no one to do anything with. I hardly ever login anymore myself, show up to raid, maybe fate grind a few levels on a different class and log out for a few days. After no story quest or much to do it get's boring, I'd rather play another game than bleed my eyes out grinding fates for hours.
Personally I pug because I could not find a FC that meets my raid times or skill level, so until I do so, I will not be joining one and ill just continue to get to turn 5 each week with a pug, not missing out on anything since no one can down turn 5 yet. Also get's your name out on the server when you setup and lead group in raids and more and more people want you.

[Thriar]

It's not easy to find a good FC

You join one and notice it has hundreds of ppl in it, but if you search the members list you'll notice that 90% are inactive characters that have been offline for more than 15 days.

If you ask FC members to do Primals, CM or AK runs they either don't reply or say they're too busy.

A great FC needs to have active members, it needs to have extra baggage like inactive members to be dismissed from the company, and everyone needs to be able to lend a helping hand whenever they can. It's true that sometimes ppl are busy, but sometimes people are just unwilling to do something from which they will have no reward. Charity is not supposed to leave you with anything.

Some people know how hard it is to find a good FC, so they rather just pug everything and get some progress done, rather than to wait forever for their FC to do anything at all.

This is also very true. Even skill wise it's hard to find a FC that matches your own. If you know you are great at mechanics and doing your job well 9/10 the FC of your same caliber is not recruiting. If you like to go slow and steady, 9/10 the FC that fits you has a lot of inactive members due RL that log in every now and then. I think the majority of people are tired of being goldie locks and just rather go it alone.

[Reokudo]

It's hard to find a group of competent players who play at/better than your current skill level. It's also hard finding people who play in your normal time frame. Likesay you have a static doing Coil, one doesn't show up due to <insert reason here> and no coil that day. Sure, you could have a backup player, but who likes being backup? Everything else is easily puggable. Tome grinding? Pug. AK? Pug. Coil? Can try a pug, but chances are you might get shit on.

[Nikita]

Nikita, I accept that people can play how they choose to. What I'm trying to understand is why in this game it's worse than in any others I've experienced.

Are players generally becoming more casual, less committed?

Is it the same on your servers, or maybe this is a specific problem on just my server.

I am in a Free Company that's pretty social. Sometimes members within form groups for content but more often than not, they find PUGs. I am currently working on my 6th relic weapon and I have done all of it in PUGs.

My long term goal is to join a free company that specializes in content I am interested in, but I would rather fall in with one than just go out and look. I want it to be a natural process and not an interview. I'm in no rush for this to happen.

There is no reason for me to do content with my Free Company. While I have a mic, I mostly never need to use it.

Also, I find more "sense of accomplishment" completing content with a random group of strangers than an organized, static group.

To answer your question more directly: I don't think it has anything to do with being casual or hardcore. I know people on both ends of the spectrum that like to PUG. Everyone has their own reason for doing it, I just find it convenient. Also, I think it happens across many servers. It happens on mine. I disagree with it being a "problem", it's just a style of play. Being in Mor Dhona reminds me of standing in Whitegate/Jeuno and seeing runs for content. It's nothing new, so I guess I just don't understand why you seem to view this as a recent occurrence in the MMO genre.

[Grailer]

The problem is I like to play when I feel like it. If I have to play when Im told to play then the game feels more like a job , which is why I never really enjoyed end game raiding in WOW . I enjoy running dungeons doing 4-8 man groups.

[Llan]

This worries me. Maybe the community doesn't have enough faith in the longevity of the game to commit to an FC?

What the kitten...
You jump into conclusions too fast and thats just not it.
Seriously. People love this game, I can tell for the number of online people. The end-game content WILL be added. Game has just launched.

That's a serious What the eff. for you sir.

Llan Hana.