Content geared towards FCs

[Jeeqbit]

I agree i just want to do unique activities with my group. If we can get tons of side quests, hildebrand,gold saucer, or other content that ultimately ends up being for fun/glamour i really don't understand resistance to content that encourages a little camaraderie.

Then do the content that encourages camaraderie that other FCs do.

Treasure Map parties, mount farm events, RP events, house decorating, if it's big enough do an alliance raid together. Plenty of FCs run events for all the different content in the game and don't have this problem. It's when there is nobody who sets up events that the FC doesn't do anything.

[MonteCristo]

Then do the content that encourages camaraderie that other FCs do.

Treasure Map parties, mount farm events, RP events, house decorating, if it's big enough do an alliance raid together. Plenty of FCs run events for all the different content in the game and don't have this problem. It's when there is nobody who sets up events that the FC doesn't do anything.

Fluff content doesn't move all players...if i was asking about fluff, adding a hairstyle, or something glamour related I'm 90% sure the responses would all be supportive. General consensus seems to be we dont want it locked behind fc meanwhile if implemented correctly it could be a invigorating change to spark more life into the deadness that is absolutely felt by many FCs across all data centers. When did our community get so afraid of innovation? Its always no dont touch anything the game is perfect as is for many things that are suggested.

[Deveryn]

Fluff content doesn't move all players...if i was asking about fluff, adding a hairstyle, or something glamour related I'm 90% sure the responses would all be supportive. General consensus seems to be we dont want it locked behind fc meanwhile if implemented correctly it could be a invigorating change to spark more life into the deadness that is absolutely felt by many FCs across all data centers. When did our community get so afraid of innovation? Its always no dont touch anything the game is perfect as is for many things that are suggested.

It's not fear of innovation. It's the glaring lack of possibilities for SE to find something to fill this alleged gap in content. Nothing is perfect, but nothing is broken either. If you want your FC to have more to do, take some initiative (and see who sticks around).

[Raven2014]

General consensus seems to be we dont want it locked behind fc meanwhile if implemented correctly it could be a invigorating change to spark more life into the deadness that is absolutely felt by many FCs across all data centers.

Seeing how there are many active FCs around, this sound like an issue with those "dead" FC. At the end of the day, if you want to run and manage a social community, it gonna have to be your own effort. An FC, or a guild (or whatever an MMO call these) have always been a place for people who want to do "existing" activities together, not so they can run some "exclusive" content. Even the MMO call itself "Guild War" didn't do anything like that.

When did our community get so afraid of innovation? Its always no dont touch anything the game is perfect as is for many things that are suggested.

And when did this line become the next favorite gaslighting lately? Oh I want to change something you disagree? You must be afraid of change!

- Bring up the issue of healer and ask them to be changed: literally 90% of the forum gonna support you.
- Bring up things like 2min buff windows and you'll see a split opinion.
- Bring up PvP, and most will agree with you but still gonna disagree 'cause most of the "fixes" is actually about reversing it to a worse state.


But there will be also topic like this one, or the one about Second Wind earlier this month then yeah, most people telling you they don't see a problem because ... well, they don't just see it as a problem, not because they don't want change. And you labeling it innovation doesn't really make it so. And like I said, it seems the counter punch is 9/10 time is always something similar to that above quote.

[Deveryn]

Seeing how there are many active FCs around, this sound like an issue with those "dead" FC. At the end of the day, if you want to run and manage a social community, it gonna have to be your own effort. An FC, or a guild (or whatever an MMO call these) have always been a place for people who want to do "existing" activities together, not so they can run some "exclusive" content. Even the MMO call itself "Guild War" didn't do anything like that.




And when did this line become the next favorite gaslighting lately? Oh I want to change something you disagree? You must be afraid of change!

- Bring up the issue of healer and ask them to be changed: literally 90% of the forum gonna support you.
- Bring up things like 2min buff windows and you'll see a split opinion.
- Bring up PvP, and most will agree with you but still gonna disagree 'cause most of the "fixes" is actually about reversing it to a worse state.


But there will be also topic like this one, or the one about Second Wind earlier this month then yeah, most people telling you they don't see a problem because ... well, they don't just see it as a problem, not because they don't want change. And you labeling it innovation doesn't really make it so. And like I said, it seems the counter punch is 9/10 time is always something similar to that above quote.

I was going to come back and say something like this.

It's such a meme these days that anyone who disagrees "finds things to be perfect". No. I have my gripes, but I pick my battles. Some things are more likely to change than others.

Many ideas I see are just bad or not fully fleshed out. Some are rooted in selfish desires and there's no regard for others who might be affected negatively. When things don't go their way, it's time to attack the opposition, which just confirms the fact that their own argument has no chance... and people wonder how feedback doesn't reach the team.

[Vidu]

Fluff content doesn't move all players...if i was asking about fluff, adding a hairstyle, or something glamour related I'm 90% sure the responses would all be supportive. General consensus seems to be we dont want it locked behind fc meanwhile if implemented correctly it could be a invigorating change to spark more life into the deadness that is absolutely felt by many FCs across all data centers. When did our community get so afraid of innovation? Its always no dont touch anything the game is perfect as is for many things that are suggested.

I dont know about this "sparking life into dead FCs" - if the FC is dead, its probably because people within it dont enjoy playing together, otherwise they'd already do that. So whats the gain of forcing them to do that for some sort of content or reward?

And lets assume that there is content thats FC-exclusive - that content would most likely still require you to organise it. Depending on the size of the FC and the amount of players needed/allowed in the content, you'd need to create a schedudle to make sure that (1) there are enough people to tackle the content and (2) everyone who wants the content is included. You might need to manage jobs, loot/rewards, fair times for everyone so that the person pulling nightshifts has a chance to join as well... Some of these things might not be requiered, depending on the type of content, but the bottomline is: a lot of oragnising would be involved.
Which is something "dead" FCs probably shy away from in the first place. Just having FC-exclusive content doesnt automatically makes it accessiable to all FCs (in the sense of them actually being capable or willing to do it - and I'm not talking about solo-FCs). The "hard" part about getting your FC to do stuff together and to have it lively is, in my opinion at least, not finding some content but organising it. Thats also the part the game cant do for you - in any case, FC-exclusive content or not, you'll have to do that yourself. FC-exclusive content wont just "magically" make your FC play together and it wont turn it automatically into a pleasent social experience, either - I'll repeat my point: If you enjoy playing with the people in your FC (or if you desire to be in an active FC), you'll put in the effort to achieve that. You'll need to put in that effort even if there is FC-exclusive content (probably even more so). If you dont enjoy that, I dont think being bribed into it is going to be healthy for the FC and the indivual players long term...

[Vidu]

Fluff content doesn't move all players...if i was asking about fluff, adding a hairstyle, or something glamour related I'm 90% sure the responses would all be supportive. General consensus seems to be we dont want it locked behind fc meanwhile if implemented correctly it could be a invigorating change to spark more life into the deadness that is absolutely felt by many FCs across all data centers. When did our community get so afraid of innovation? Its always no dont touch anything the game is perfect as is for many things that are suggested.

Because there are a few thoughts I cant get out of my head, I figured I might as well write them down - you mention content being implemented correctly and while one could argue that its not the players job to figure out what that would look like, I think its interesting to think about what "content implemented correctly" could even be.


The first question one has to ask here is: What even is "content" in this context?
Broadly speaking I could see two different general categories this "content" could fall into: One would be content that requiers the FC to actively play together, similar to a dungeon-type of content where everyone needs to be online at the same time and work together in clearing the content in question.
The other one would be a shared goal that everyone can work towards by themself - along the lines of earning FC-credits, increasing the FC-rank, building something in the workshop or saving up for a house together. Some of these things are even passive to a degree - you earn credits and build up rank by just doing stuff you'd do if you werent in the FC, but the FC profits from that aswell.
(A third option I could imagine would be something where just being in an FC grants you access to something like a vendor or a special area)

While saying "Obviously, we want all types of content" is a valid answer, I think thinking about what type of content one even means is worthwhile - a connected question would be: What do you hope this content achieves? Bringing people together in the same place, at the same moment, interacting with each other? Or something everyone can contribute towards at their own pace?

The second big question I want to raise however is: For how many people is this content designed?
If the content is designed for FCs, I think every legitimate FC should be able to participate in it - meaning that we dont need to worry about shell- or solo-FCs. The game requiers 4 people to found an FC (if memory servers right), so the smallst FC we need to consider is a group of 4 people. The maximum amount of people is 512.
So thats our range - we need content that can support 4 to 512 people. In reality most FCs are going to be somewhere in between of course, but thats not relevant when thinking about content thats supposed to be for FC because it should be for all FCs.

So, looking at these numbers and knowing that zones/instances cant support 512 at once (I think Eureka and Bozja had a maximum amount of 128 people or something along those lines?) we would need to rule out any content that has everyone play together at once if we want to be really fair.
We dont have to be, of course, and can just say that not everyone in the FC can participate in the content at the same time, even if everyone is online at the same time - and that it would be up to the FC-leaders to decide who gets to do the content and who doesnt.
At the same time we need to think of small FCs, so the content would need to be designed in such a way that even 4 people could clear it - or it would need to allow for non-FC-members to fill in and help out (thats how the original diadem was btw - you needed to take an airship and only a member of the FC could do that but you were able to take non-FC-members with you). But wouldnt that defeat the purpose of gating the content behind FCs in the first place...?

Then the question of jobs and levels - would everyone be able to participate, starting at level 1? Would you need level 50, 60, 70, 90...? An ilvl? Progress to a specific part of the story? Do you need specific jobs? Or could you have 4 level 1 archers do the content? We could have a whole seperate skill-system, like in PvP, that puts everyone on equal footing, of course. Maybe paired with special actions like in Eureka, Bozja and Criterion to allow for parties to go in without a tank or healers, but that still leaves the question if the difficulty should be geared towards someone at endgame or someone just starting out.

...and when I'm just looking at these few points, I'm wondering again: What would be the true benefit of this in the end? Or rather: What would be the benefit of desiging FC-only content when it requires so many hoops to jump through - maybe except for just adding another type of FC-credits that everyone gets to grind together. What would be the benefit to lock Eureka-like content behind FCs? Supplying us with FC-only content would still require the FC to work together, to organise the when and how and who. It would potentially exclude indivuals within the FC (Sorry buddy, we're already 24 people - maybe next time!) or it would exclude whole FCs (dont have 24 people? Better leave that FC!).

I dare say that one of the most challenging parts of raiding with a static is the organisation, not the fight. The more people you can draw from the tackle content together, the better in my book - I want to play the game, not spent most of my time trying to find people to play with. By limiting content to your FC, you're limting the amount of people you can draw from - for no good reason.
Each time a new 24 man raid comes out my FCs tries to organise a full blind run - everyone from the FC is invited, but if we dont get 24 people together its not an issue, we can just invite friends from other FCs or use PF (heck, even DF for the last few). If that wasnt an option, it would mean that the 19 of us who did show up and wanted to play together are now locked out of the content - you can scale those numbers however you want btw, I'm just using this as an example. How would that be better than what we currently have?

[Jojoya]

Fluff content doesn't move all players...if i was asking about fluff, adding a hairstyle, or something glamour related I'm 90% sure the responses would all be supportive. General consensus seems to be we dont want it locked behind fc meanwhile if implemented correctly it could be a invigorating change to spark more life into the deadness that is absolutely felt by many FCs across all data centers. When did our community get so afraid of innovation? Its always no dont touch anything the game is perfect as is for many things that are suggested.

If a FC is experiencing "deadness", look to the FC leadership. Active FCs don't just happen on their own. They happen because there are members that take on leadership roles to organize events and keep members engaged.

It's amazing how many players go "it would be neat to start my own FC" without having any intention of doing anything other than invite people to join and then end up puzzled why their FC is boring. It's because they didn't do anything other than invite people.

It's not that community is afraid of innovation. They'll show up if someone is running an event. It's that few are willing to put in the effort to innovate and organize the events in the first place. Most players feel like it's someone else's responsibility because they aren't here to "work" and then end up disappointed (or upset) when it turns out those around them likewise aren't interested in "work".

In addition to that I also see potential from turning FCs from social groups into "reward factories" where you dont join a FC or stay in it because you like the company, but because its the most efficient one for you to have access to the content/rewards. I'm being a bit hyperbolic here, but imagine people having to leave FCs with friends that they enjoy playing with because the FC is to small for the content or because everyones schedules dont line up well enough to tackle it. People staying in FCs where they dont like anyone, but get to do the content. People being kicked out of the FC because they dont contribut enough to said content. People going FC hoping to do the content more often. People threating to leave the FC if they dont get XYZ..

That's a pretty accurate description of what happened in WoW during Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria when the guild perks/rewards system was a big deal.