What happens in an actual FC?

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Hit the nail on the head there. I actually enjoy playing the game and being social, but every FC I've found has either been hardcore go go go or lets sit and talk at the house for 4 hours without doing anything.

AHHHH

I noticed that too and you can throw RP into the mix if you're on Balmung. My FC does a bit of everything so it's never a dull moment.

[LaylaTsarra]

ISo... I figured that since I haven't been in any other free companies, I'd ask what happens in everyone else's free company.

Find another free company, one that is more casual focused. Ours is casual for the most part. We do have some who raid but who do so with a static not the FC itself.

[PizzaPastaMan]

YMMV

In my experience with 2 FC's on Ultros, you gotta take initiative and be the kind of person willing to extend an olive branch. Take newer players to dungeons and raids you've already completed with DF/with friends. Im only a 'private' in my FC(we have a military like chain of command) but last night I helped a newcomer with a dungeon.

The most active my current FC ever had 7 online at a time. We have a 25 member FC.

Normally my FC head and his second in command are sporadically online and are always helpful and great resources of information. I've only began dabbling in MMOs and don't entirely understand the social dynamics of MMOs, especially when it comes to 8 man/24 man raids, but a good FC/Guild from my understanding bridges the knowledge gap and has enough people to actively access other content. I haven't even began delving into RP, doesn't interest me.

I'd say if you aren't feeling the love in your current FC and in your experience it isn't reciprocal, then change FC or leave server. It's a game. You are there to have fun and have camaderie between your FC, yourself, and the server community. Everyone has an option and there's no need to tolerate any clique-y groups or elitist jerks.

But, I do hope you've discussed this with your FC and your FC Heads OP.

[Zepla]

The FC I lead has about 10-20 people online during primetime hours - we do weekly events like Primal Ex farms, and monthly events which include FC meetings and games.

We do everything we can to reach out to new members. We all make an effort to make everyone feel at home with us.

That said, we've also tried to impress on new members the reality that being social in an FC is a mutual effort. We, the members, can do a lot to make someone feel welcome. But a recruit can't expect the party to come to them all the time, so to speak. We encourage people to talk, ask questions, and participate in our events... but, that's not for everyone. The "right FC" is a personal thing - and if you can't find what you want, go out there and start your own.

[MicahZerrshia]

Your friend sounds more like an acquaintance to me so if you are not happy just move on. If they ask you back, be polite and refuse and see what's out there.

My personal exp from fc I have been in is that someone always wants to be the big cheese and wants things done their way or it is a clique that is incredibly hard to get into. So I always tended to just leave after spending weeks of only being spoken to when I was needed for something. Or there is the voice chat FCs that if you don't wanna be in voice chat 24/7 then there is no way to get in the group, and to me voice chat isn't an option all the time.

I tried to start my own, twice. But then I ran into the same problem. No one wanted to talk or help each other with anything outside the occasional, "fine I'm bored, why not". I did get ppl to contribute for airships but that took A LOT of prodding. Everyone also wanted events but no one showed up but still complained there wasn't anything to do and no one volunteered to help with anything officer-ish so I was doing it on my own. I had voice chat, website, events, free gear for newbies, fc discounts, various free stuff, the list goes on. The cream of the crop also felt that it was my responsibility to get them all wins, through all content and carried thru everything else with no effort from them outside a lil button mashing. It's rough. I finally just shut it all down and everyone left or was kicked.

So now I am sitting on a rank 8 fc, with 600k+points, a med house, fully pimped out airships and no one but me, my roomie and a handful of alts in our fc. My LS from ffxi was the complete opposite and spoiled me with good friends, participation, helpfulness, lots or progression and farm pts for those hard to get mythics/relics with minimal to no drama. If I ever find people who want to help me with leadership things, great I will give it another go, but for now it is what it is. Still better than other FCs I have joined.

[Pheryx]

In the FC I'm in we have about 200+ members but we only usually have 30 to 50 members on at a time. I think we tend to get some people to check us out and will leave like a day later. We have our own website to organize events such as pony farming and raiding and we also help each other with roulettes and story. Lately we have been doing treasure hunts and the diadem.

I know there are some FCs that all they care about is the raiding scene, but I prefer an FC that does a myriad of other things to try and make things enjoyable and sociable.

[Melorie]

My FC is quite active, I guess. Probably because we're not from NA, so it's easier to get close. There are around 20 people online every day, 2 statics (one is new, they're still trying to beat Seph EX). There are strictly casual players (that pretty much stay 4h talking in the house), but also players that focus on progression and before doing any type of content they usually asks if someone wants to come around. There's even some kind of RP going on (nothing really sofisticated tho), crafters and the active players are mostly new to the game (aside the leaders, very few people there have been playing for more than 6 months). I'm happy with them, I'm happy that I decided to try a FC with people from my country, since I usually play with english speakers to improve my english.

[Joe_Schmoe]

What happens in an actual FC?

In mine, a wide variety of stuff, from end-game raiding to leveling to much ado about crafting and gathering. It also helps that we got people that have been playing since 1.0/vanilla, people that are knowledgeable about all this stuff, so it isn't the blind leading the blind (not that that's a bad thing, but you get the idea).

[Ninster]

Thank you everyone for your responses. I've been trying to be open-minded about this, but this has gone on for months. By open-minded, I mean that I considered this possibility that this is probably the norm for most FCs and I'm just being silly, but I see now that there ARE free companies that do different things.

I've tried to be 90-99% available to help FC mates with anything they need, but only on few occasions do they request for help. I also offer to run roulettes with them if I happen to be doing mine, but the few people online usually aren't interested. I seem to remember a time when the free company was not only more active outside of raiding, but I often got invited to run roulettes or primal farms or even Coil farms. So perhaps I'd just gotten so used to that dynamic that I'm not adapting well to how things have been.

[TankHunter678]

The free company I first joined was semi-active, small, but also talkative and helpful. Our FC was rather limited in what it could do so we merged with another FC that was larger. The thoughts were that by merging our people who wanted to raid could join fellow raiders, our crafters would have more crafters to work with to keep everyone geared up without having to spend too much, and there would be more people to run with in dungeons/trials/maps/etc.

The problem was that the FC we merged into was large enough that honestly they are very cliquey. The goals for the merging were not met and its gotten a lot quieter. Feels like we are invisible. The only people that even get a response most of the time are those who raid, as if they are the only ones most of the FC we merged into deemed were worthy of their attention. So newbies who need help do not get help from the FC we merged into, its mostly our FC who merged in who helps new people.