I hate raiding, I hate free companies

[Tsumdere]

Yeah, I most likely gave them that impression. It was when a lot of the group went completely silent ign and in the discord. Though when they all came back to the game I wanted to rejoin them. Also one of the previous times I left was for a really stupid reason, the discord had an ARK survival server and I accidentally killed one of my friends new tames.

If you (or anyone) plays ark, what happened was, my friend had just tamed a griffin and I thought it would be a funny idea to use a lighting wyvern's breath attack to scare them. I thought that friendly fire was off, it was not. After that I left the fc and discord because I felt like they were gonna be pissed at me, though me and the friend ended up working things out.

In terms of sounding demanding I've kept these thoughts to myself for the longest time, I just wanted to share how I really felt. I wouldn't say what I said in the third part to any of them.

As a rabid ARK player, I can see why you thought people would be mad because they probably were. And you probably already know now after sorting it out, that dipping was really not the right way to do things and I can see why people drift away if this is the natural response to things you don't like. They think you don't care.

I had a super mutated raptor named Mountain Dew. He was bright green and yellow and had 500% run speed. So fast I would crash if I went too far too fast. One of my good friends I met in FFXIV picked up Mountain Dew and accidentally dropped him in lava.
Of course, I was devastated. I'm not afraid to say that I legit started crying (sorry, I'm woman and form unhealthy motherly attachments to dino pixels). But instead of running away from me, he apologized profusely and spent a literal IRL week collecting tech dinos and wyverns for me and even tried to recreate Mountain Dew. That meant a lot to me and it actually solidified our bond even though it was a moment of strife.

Advice:

It sounds like you DO make friends, but you react pretty extreme to conflict and people having different interests than you. I would recommend trying to "soft-participate" in what they do like watch their streams or ask how its going. I would also openly say (in a nice way) that you DO feel left out/miss them and would like to do a few roulettes or maps. Most people are going to understand.
If they don't, they were never your friends.

Don't bottle up stuff. It turns into resentment and frustration.

I hope that your next FFXIV social endeavor works out.

[LittleImp]

This is going to sound harsh, but frankly it really sounds like you're the problem in this case.

Based on some of the things you've said, it's likely that people find your attitude/behavior emotionally draining, and end up distancing themselves from you.

Like this:

Anyways, during a particularly tough dungeon in the MMO we were playing I had a complete meltdown because I wasn't preforming well enough on this one encounter, and thought they wouldn't wanna do anything with me after that, so I left the discord. After I got some sense back into my body, I tried to apologize but the leader of the third FC said that I simply wasn't meant for the discord due to me leaving and joining the discord as well as the xiv fc multiple times.

That's honestly some super red-flag kinda stuff that indicates instability people may just not have the energy to deal with. It's also not normal to feel such extreme bitterness towards your friends interests, and I can pretty much guarantee they can pick up on that bitterness/disdain when they interact with you, which leads them to interact with you less and less.

[Renalt]

As a rabid ARK player, I can see why you thought people would be mad because they probably were. And you probably already know now after sorting it out, that dipping was really not the right way to do things and I can see why people drift away if this is the natural response to things you don't like. They think you don't care.

I had a super mutated raptor named Mountain Dew. He was bright green and yellow and had 500% run speed. So fast I would crash if I went too far too fast. One of my good friends I met in FFXIV picked up Mountain Dew and accidentally dropped him in lava.
Of course, I was devastated. I'm not afraid to say that I legit started crying (sorry, I'm woman and form unhealthy motherly attachments to dino pixels). But instead of running away from me, he apologized profusely and spent a literal IRL week collecting tech dinos and wyverns for me and even tried to recreate Mountain Dew. That meant a lot to me and it actually solidified our bond even though it was a moment of strife.

Advice:

It sounds like you DO make friends, but you react pretty extreme to conflict and people having different interests than you. I would recommend trying to "soft-participate" in what they do like watch their streams or ask how its going. I would also openly say (in a nice way) that you DO feel left out/miss them and would like to do a few roulettes or maps. Most people are going to understand.
If they don't, they were never your friends.

Don't bottle up stuff. It turns into resentment and frustration.

I hope that your next FFXIV social endeavor works out.

I've only played a little bit but I was going for speed too so I totally understand if they accidentally ran into lava. You are pretty much playing an old school sonic at that point and flying face first into some spikes with 500% speed.

Glad they tried making amends.

[Avoidy]

Second part to this rant

Then I joined my third FC, which was made up of a small group of more casually geared players. This FC was a lot like my last one, with events, great people, etc, etc. Though after a five or so months after I joined, people started to take breaks. Then more people started to take breaks, and then I was the one of the few people logging in every few weeks.

This is the result of a game that has 5 month periods of nothing, with lead devs telling bored players to just play something else instead. This exact scenario has probably been repeated across thousands of community FCs because the devs don't even try to keep their remaining players engaged outside of weekly reclears and tome capping and maybe, if we're lucky, a mogtome event. I've tried keeping Free Companies and Crossworld Linkshells active in situations like these and it's hard as hell. You can invite folks for content or hold events, but none of it means jack shit if the base game isn't giving people a reason to log on in the first place. If you're literally the only person online in what was once an active FC, and you watch fewer and fewer of them return with each new content patch, then there's basically nothing you can do except throw your hands up. At this point, assuming you're not brand new or something, you're either logging in for weekly reclears or you're logging on to do /beesknees in the club. There's not really a space for anyone who falls in between those two extremes. And I'm saying this as someone who enjoyed the casual content in this game so much that I'd log in at 1 am and queue orbonne monastery just for funsies. 6.4 has been so dry for me that I've actually taken an extended break for the first time in years.

I really can't comment on the rest of your post, but the quoted part struck me since I've seen it happen countless times.

[Celine_Aurora]

Anyways, during a particularly tough dungeon in the MMO we were playing I had a complete meltdown because I wasn't preforming well enough on this one encounter, and thought they wouldn't wanna do anything with me after that, so I left the discord. After I got some sense back into my body, I tried to apologize but the leader of the third FC said that I simply wasn't meant for the discord due to me leaving and joining the discord as well as the xiv fc multiple times.

So you are disliked because you have meltdowns over videogame perfomance which probably no one else cares about, and accuse your friends of being flakey while leaving, joining, leaving, joining their group at your whim. Do we need to read anything before or after these lines?

As for you not being able to connect with your friends if you are not doing rollos or "activities", I don't know. I am part of a group of players, not a FC but a linkshell, and I consider most of them very good friends. I might see their avatars in game maybe once every two weeks. Why do you need to run mindless daily roulettes to feel like you've made a friend? Just talk to them.

You might have the impression a "raider"'s life is about either gearing up or raiding every single minute they are in game, but that is absurd, unless they really only login for raid hours, which can happen, honestly I know a lot of people who are not that interested in the social aspect of the game and you have no right to fault them that. But if they are online and you can'ìt even manage to get some banter going on during their downtime, and in light of the issue I quoted, well then I'm afraid raiding is not the cause of your woes.

[Crustyman]

and accuse your friends of being flakey while leaving, joining, leaving, joining their group at your whim. Do we need to read anything before or after these lines?.

Glad you pointed this out, I'll have to apologize for all that sooner or later. As for accusing them of being flakey, I've kept all of this to myself for a while. Honestly I probably should have kept it to myself.

[Quintessa]

If that is not an alt account you're using, I'll search for you/that character on levi and we can be friends. I don't raid and I will never raid and that is due to past experiences in 75 era FFXI(endgame was the killer of many friendships for a lot of people). I am having unsual difficulties making friends in this game as well and now just looking for people who are having the same problem.

I will say I noticed one thing about my interactions with some I had tried to connect with - I ended up being an emotional tampon. I ain't gonna get caught in that trap anymore.

Yeahhh... welcome to adulthood. Normal people recognize everyone has lives and you can't always stay in touch at all times. That doesn't diminish actual friendships.

Your experience is less "differences in game" and more "differences in time."

I'm 41, I work 40 hours a week, I, at best have 6 hours free time, sometimes less yet I still maintain contact with the one friend I got in the country I live in and we don't talk every day, maybe 3 times a week and they aren't long exchanges. If you mean something to someone and they mean something to you, you both will make time for each other. The whole "I don't have time" or "I'm working a lot" are all excuses, you just simply don't care about that particular person enough.

[Quintessa]

It really baffles me how most people online are armchair psychologists.

[thevanguard]

It really baffles me how most people online are armchair psychologists.

That's the best compliment because psychology is a joke field that can pretty much be armchaired.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

The irony that this is first game in many many years that I have had no trouble making friends. Like, I can't avoid making friends in this game. Never had this much success in many other games, specifically mmorpg's. I second the person who said they are baffled at how people claim it is impossible to find friends in this game.