Free Company Alliances are necessary to save the social state of this game

[Titor]

With the increase in available FC housing, many who have not been able to secure a house has turned to running 1-9 person FCs to get one of these easy plots.

Before I continue, this is NOT an issue with 1-4 people FCs or house 'hoarding'. So, please do not comment that in this thread, there are plenty of threads to be upset about that.

The issue is that the number of tiny FCs being used to hold housing are splintering the community. Rather than people congregating to larger FCs, they are all off in their own tiny, tiny islands. There is little incentive to leave a small FC, as housing is very valuable. The state of the game has changed tremendously since 2.x-4.x.

I felt like the average FC size back then was 30-90 people, and now that is quite rare with maybe a handful of FCs on each server having that many members. (and of those, the number of active members is usually low)

If you take a look at the FCs in any housing ward, you will see a majority are tiny (under 9 people).

FC alliances, the ability for FCs to formally share a chat, roster, and other social resources, would breathe new life into the community. These small, fragmented companies will be able to keep their personal gil-related resources (housing, subs, whatever), but benefit from the social environment of more friends and peers.

I believe that FCs should be able to ally with up to 4 other FCs if they so chose to. This would provide more of a social aspect in the game without pressuring anyone into giving up their own personal resources.

Of course, solo players or those who wish to play alone or with a tiny group of friends need not ally their FC with anyone. It would be optional, not forced.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I don't want to be in a large FC. I don't like large groups where you don't matter and have no input.


My fc is a group of friends.

[Stormpeaks]

So you want an fc with 400 people with absolutely 0 personality and uniqueness and absolutely no one talking or hanging out together

k

[Titor]

So you want an fc with 400 people with absolutely 0 personality and uniqueness and absolutely no one talking or hanging out together

k

Nowhere have I mentioned 400 lol. Maybe 40-80. Good attempt at a strawman though.

[Saraide]

Isnt that just a linkshell?

[Seraphor]

Isnt that just a linkshell?

Yes. I've been playing for several years now, and the FC's I've been in have evolved and changed, or in some cases fallen apart entirely. People moved on for different reasons. So we've ended up with a couple of linkshells that encompass people from about 5-10 different FCs.

[Titor]

Isnt that just a linkshell?

I would also be up for an increase in CWLS members. Right now, a majority of it will fill up with people's alts as its only 64 slots, and it's hard to tell which alts/people have been active or inactive as there's no offline counter.

[SilversLyu]

If anything I can understand wanting the game to be more social. I think them focusing on making the game more single player-ish is a mistake. The good old days of meeting at Wineport for raiding for example, or just more gatherings in general. Now it's all either going to the venue scene or people being more in discord calls with each other. And things like isolated island sanctuary do not really help that social aspect. That's why Bozja and Eureka felt so alive, it was an incentive to include the open world as well as seeing people engage in something together. Now some people may not care about that, but I think it's just as integral to the game.

[Fawkes]

This is your yearly reminder that Fellowships exist.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

This is your yearly reminder that Fellowships exist.

Ive tried to use that feature without much success, personally.