A rational proposal to reduce blind FC invite spam

[Rogatum]

While we're at it, disband all self-FC's. Players should not be able to have more than one character per account in the same FC, and you typically see this or people begging you to join for a few minutes so they can do this.

Outside the fact that you are annoyed by them why should they be disbanded? What rule do personal FC's break? Seems like you want to punish the players that keep to themselves because 2-3 people per hour to once every 48 hours send you a blind invite. Seems a tad overkill.

Because they fit all the criteria of RMT, when you find one FC with only 4 level 1 characters in them and only one character is leveled to anything.

If you are asking for SE to investigate claims of personal FC for RMT and then take action based off what they find. That makes sense, but to blanket disband all personal FC's is not fair to those that have not broken any rules.

[KisaiTenshi]

Because they fit all the criteria of RMT, when you find one FC with only 4 level 1 characters in them and only one character is leveled to anything.

[BillyKaplan]

Because they fit all the criteria of RMT, when you find one FC with only 4 level 1 characters in them and only one character is leveled to anything.

Then ban them for RMT if that particular FC partakes in it, don't ban self-FCs as a whole.

[Tempest222]

If they are going to go through all that at remove tools from people who use them in other ways, why not just add options for people to block various kinds of invites..... Plus some people brand new to the game might decide to accept a random FC invite and then are actually happy where they ended up. They need to just give the the choice of whether or not to receive FC invites to players.

[Vhailor]

Because they fit all the criteria of RMT, when you find one FC with only 4 level 1 characters in them and only one character is leveled to anything.

They also fit the criteria of legitimate players looking to evade the Housing purchase restrictions that SE implemented, or players simply looking to avoid FC invite spam. I created a personal FC for myself way back when, precisely to block invites I wasn't interested in. I had a friend create a dummy character I could invite so that we had enough signatures. As far as active characters, it currently contains only myself and my girlfriend, though if she ever left, it'd only contain me. There are a few other friends in there that I collected over time, friends from FFXI who also hated the FC spam and had no interest in joining a random FC, but they haven't logged on in years. There are other reasons, such as having access to the FC-only crafting workshop (though you'll admittedly need to invite other Crafters to the party to take full advantage of it).

If SE wants to adjust a bunch of systems in order to enable this functionality without obligating players to join a private FC, fine. I suppose at that point there's no big deal either way. But there are legitimate reasons why solo FCs are currently used.

[HyoMinPark]

But there are legitimate reasons why solo FCs are currently used.

This. Not all personal FCs are RMT breeding grounds; anyone making such blanket statements clearly have no idea what they’re talking about.

I have a personal FC to avoid FC invite spam back when I didn’t have one; it started to grow and then it was suddenly Rank 8, and now it’s me, my best friend, and our alts. I had a few other friends in it at one point, but they left to join other FCs for statics or other friends. I like my small FC and would rather not have the option taken from me.

As for the FC board idea, I like that. Make it browseable similar to the Market Board. That sounds like a really good idea.

[Zukissa]

Have to blacklist anyone asking if I need a FC even if their the coolest person in the world. I get about 10-20 requests a day. Get tired of saying the same thing all the time.

[Risvertasashi]

I'd rather just have an FC recruitment board in each of the main cities. Post an ad for your FC. If someone likes what you say, they can elect to join or send an application.

It's possible I'm thinking of a different game. But didn't the dev team suggest somewhere that they might in time offer an improved recruitment tool?

In any case, I don't think that would necessarily solve the invite spam. They could just add an "auto decline FC invites" checkbox somewhere...

[BillyKaplan]

They could just add an "auto decline FC invites" checkbox somewhere...

They can also get around dumping this on the servers by having the check and decline be client-side. Means you'll have to set the option on every platform you play on, but it's better than this being shot down due to 'server limitations'.
Granted, the ideal option would be an online status like busy that won't let people even send the request in the first place, but I feel like client-side things will be easier to implement.

[CtrlAltDefeat]

Sorry for the revival of this 2 month old thread, but I have to voice my support of this. The invitation spam is really irritating and annoying. I don't want to put myself on /busy and miss messages from my friends. PLEASE can we get a fix for this?