Why is the recruitment side of this game so horribly neglected?

[Shofie]

Voice chats in MMOs are...honestly a waste of time for them to develop, and usually not that great in terms of quality. Most people will just opt to use third-party voice chat programs like Discord nowadays anyway, which are much more reliable.

I would LOVE it if they added some kind of effective Free Company recruitment to the game that doesn't force people to rely on means outside the game to find people interested, or require members to stand around using shout chat in cities.

I do agree that having a generalized chat wouldn't be a bad idea. As annoying as people can be in them sometimes, they can actually be pretty good networking channels to get various things done. Currently, I know my server uses Novice Network in this fashion, as a general socialization channel (in addition to giving new players advice), and for the most part, it's not too bad.

[RyuSaarva]

ask someone in your fc who actually does content which does not require duty finder to use party finder.

[Rasikko]

They can add all of that and it wont fix the communication problem in the game.

Yesterday I went 5 hours having only said one word..

[Jojoya]

I haven't played a MMO yet that had a truly effective FC/guild/clan/club recruitment system. Listings became cluttered with inactive groups that claimed to be always online doing all content so players looking had a difficult time finding an active group that matched what they were looking for. Recruitment has generally come down to inviting friends you made doing content together or public chat spam.

I would still love to see an effective recruitment tool that had listings expire on the final day of the month. Officers of FC that are actively recruiting could one-button relist using the previous listing or make adjustments before doing it.

They can add all of that and it wont fix the communication problem in the game.

Yesterday I went 5 hours having only said one word..

That doesn't sound like a communication problem. That sounds more like lacking any reason to chat.

Between linkshells and FC (and Novice Network on an alt), there's usually someone looking to chat except in the very early morning hours when few are online.

[LalaRu]

Sorta "FC search" in game will be nice.

Maybe listing FCs with filters as
- current number of logged in members (to avoid FC maybe active but not much in your playing time)
- existing tags the FC can turn on in their activity tab (raiding, pvp, casual, etc)
will be a good start.

And FC with no members logged, or recruitment closed, will not show there.

[Omedon]

I'm going to say this as tactfully as I can...

Baked in voice chat is doubly doomed to fail in FFXIV because... potentially shattering the illusion behind many of the extremely attractive "females" in this game is not in its best interest. The window dressing of the art, models and glamours of this game are a huge draw, and FFXIV has the graphical fidelity and... the specific morality to paint a gorgeous world full of "the beautiful people." There's an important illusion to that, one that voice chat would just wreck, unfortunately.

Above and beyond the specifically gendered issues like this, few of us have the real world charm of our eorzean selves just in general. That illusion is part of the escape. There is value in that escape.

Sure, we can all retire to discord and learn all of this anyway, but asking the game to support this 4th wall breaking, on this front, I think will always fall on deaf ears (pardon the pun). It's just not in their game's best interest to "humanize" such gorgeous specimens as the eorzean palette.

[Stanelis]

No voice server for the game

No free company recruitment system ingame

No general chat channel

It's very hard work to recruit players in this game. Yes, I can understand the lack of a general chat channel, (I turned off the mentor channel due to the vileness of the chat) but having to use outside forums and outside voice servers just points at a lack of concern for the social side of the game

Having to run around each single zone with a recruitment message just addds insult to BOREDOM. Standing around with a party finder message for several hours isn't anyone's idea of fun.

People are reduced to standing around like puddings using Party finder to recruit for statics raid groups or free companies because there is no real ingame alternative to using Party finder as a glorified message board.

Your systems are either flawed or brilliant if peeps don't use them for their intended purposes: - in this case it's flawed

Why isn't there at least a simple free company recruitment page allowing peeps to browse recruiting and active free companies? Even some 2nd rate MMOs I could mention can manage that!

FF14 is an mmo with the social aspect not being treated with the proper respect. A great game, full of people, but without the tools to make it easier to build proper communities to enjoy the game as fully as it deserves

It's frustrating. Worse, it's getting stale, old and boring

Free companies have been largely ignored feature wise over the years.

[Omedon]

Free companies have been largely ignored feature wise over the years.

Having just returned to the game to use road to 70 to binge watch the MSQ from 1-70, then complete the story, then bring all crafting classes to 70... I have never actually "needed" my FC. They're good people, I'm glad they're there, but FFXIV seems to have gotten the memo that we shouldn't need each other to "play the game." I'm not surprised that such a manifestation of outdated interdependency such as the FC/guild hasn't been "supported" as much as the genre ages.

[Saefinn]

Better options for recruitment wouldn't go amiss. Definitely. I usually see people use shout chat and party finders to do it, when it could be better to use tools intended for the job instead.

But in-game voice chat, nah. It'd be more server resources that could be better spent elsewhere I'd imagine. Plus normally when games implement this as a feature, it's not as reliable or good at dedicated services. EG. although we had the option when I played the Division with friends, we ended up hijacking the Teamspeak I had at the time for my FC because it was just better. And I don't think there's much of a demand for it?

We use Discord and back when we started it was Teamspeak.
They also come with other niceties. I get how it might be more difficult for a PS4 player, but heck a tablet, phone or laptop are all options to use. I'd be hard pressed find somebody without a smartphone that can download the Discord app (or Teamspeak or any of the alternatives).

[Vidu]

I'm going to say this as tactfully as I can...

Baked in voice chat is doubly doomed to fail in FFXIV because... potentially shattering the illusion behind many of the extremely attractive "females" in this game is not in its best interest. The window dressing of the art, models and glamours of this game are a huge draw, and FFXIV has the graphical fidelity and... the specific morality to paint a gorgeous world full of "the beautiful people." There's an important illusion to that, one that voice chat would just wreck, unfortunately.

Above and beyond the specifically gendered issues like this, few of us have the real world charm of our eorzean selves just in general. That illusion is part of the escape. There is value in that escape.

Sure, we can all retire to discord and learn all of this anyway, but asking the game to support this 4th wall breaking, on this front, I think will always fall on deaf ears (pardon the pun). It's just not in their game's best interest to "humanize" such gorgeous specimens as the eorzean palette.

...yes... yes, this is clearly the problem - that someone might have to realise that the pretty girl they've been staring at isnt a girl at all...

Forgive me if I sound a bit nasty or missunderstand your intend here, but the funny thing is that (as I explained previously) I feel that the exact opposite is kinda true: "Exposing" real life females could very well lead to harrassment by people who refer to women as "gorgeous specimens"...