To all FC Leaders....Can you Help me PLEASE! (^.^)

[Keith_Dragoon]

Sure i like that idea but how about you want mature players?
I don mind all kind of age in a guild but since most guild players/friends im with are above 23+
asking people there ages i feel its abit rude perosnality wise.

This as well as quality > quantity. I only have like 58 members, 90% of which are active and I know them all. They are not just faceless names on a long list of faceless names. I get to know them and if they are in need of a FC I'll bring them in. I can't stand people who join FCs get/don't get what they want and split because you've served your purpose or failed to appease them.

[DenzelTaru]

I lead a large FC on Ragnarok, and we went through the same hard times you are describing and even now it can get frustrating, for example we have over 100 active members but are still yet to get ourselves a house..

We have absorbed several smaller FC's on the way to this number and i wouldnt be put off by the thought of merging into another FC, I am a lax leader and anyone who brings me a good idea or wants to help out is welcome so suggesting this to a bigger FC might work in your favour (maybe not leet FCs lol) for example we took in 15 members from another FC and two of those are now in leadership roles.

The best time to recruit is on a patch drop though cos thats when people return to find they have been booted out of their FC for being inactive.. for example my FC has a 90day inactivity cull

But as i said i've seen the hard times.. there were times we have 3 people online and i thought that was it for the FC now we have 20-30 at one time and 80+ over a 24hr period.. just stick at it and get some leadership who want it to succeed as much as you want it to..

Also giving every rank the same responsibilities is a bad bad idea.. you need to seperate out members and leaders.. i am a social FC master and yet we still have that divide.. people know who to go to to get stuff done then etc.

Finally try making ranks to distinguish yourself from other FCs.. people always comment on my ranking system when they join



As you can see we have a new rank with no members in it yet above officer, this is for someone to go into to take a more "me" role as i am burning out from all the work i put in lol.. officer has become the role that just puts on buffs and moves peoples ranks around.. coin counters are in charge or finding ways to raise money for the FC, recruiter speaks for itself, the end game ranks make it easy to see people who might be able to help you if you are looking for a certain role (multi being one of each) foot soldier is the rank you drop in the FC on with no access to chest and Yeoman is when you have been active enough for us to trust you with things like chest access

[Xatsh]

The difficulty of recruitment and retention of members depends on your guilds style.

Casual Free Companys will commonly run into the problem of once people get to endgame if you are not capable of completing all the content people will leave you and go to an endgame guild or lowman static guild.

It is also bad that the turn over rate is fairly high on new members. So new guilds have it rough because people fear they will fall apart quickly. At least in our guild new members turn over is about 60-70% recently. Turn over as in quitting the guild, game, or just not logging in anymore, larger guild it effects less then smaller ones because they have a base already.

So the OP has 2 problems. 1 it is a casual guild and it is small currently. Both those are negatives.

MY suggestions are doing this:

1) Try to be something more then just a chat channel. Do Crystal tower together, Maps, dungeons, work on some extremes, Coil if possible. Even if it is only 2-3 days a week. Set stuff up. Let people know if they join your guild even though it is casual you will do stuff together. You do not have to make it mandatory. But talk to your members and discuss what day you want to do stuff. So maby Tuesdays are Crystal tower day. Thursdays are coil, and Sundays are insert event here.

2) Invest in some voice chat program if you do not have one. In my experience when people are able to talk to each other they are less likely to leave. Most the people my guild who leave are the ones that are rarely on teamspeak.

3) Invest in a guild site if you do not have 1. Several free ones out there that are decent that require no coding. Just have to deal with some ad banners if you do not want to pay. Guildwork is a nice one.

4) Talk to all your members and get help recruiting. Most my members who stay in the guild are friends of friends of friends. I will get 1 recruit that will like the guild and then ask 2-3 more people. One of their friends will bring 2-3 more and so on. I suggest utilizing the party finder and shouts. As well as forums around the web Lodestone, Zam, Eorzeapedia, and so on. Just post in the world sections and so on you are looking for members and describe you guild.

You can try a merger with another guild, that sometime works more times then not it fails. Since you are a casual FC it has a better shot then a endgame free company which is usually rules based.

I know the nightmares of recruitment in this game first hand and feel your pain. I think almost every guild was there at one point. This game punishes people in guilds. It is a strict 8man min/max for almost all the content at endgame, 4/4 for everything before it. It is why you see alot of people just run around in Lnkshells or 5-8man free companys. It is more of a static game then guild game, a really bad design for a mmo. To build a successful guild you have to give people a reason to want to join you over just being with their 8man static group. Running a guild in this game is way more stressful then it should be because of this.

[Rekujen]

The problem is raid size... It's really difficult trying to manage 3-4 active raid groups, and when some don't work out for 1 or 2 weeks people start to leave or get annoyed and look for pug static groups.

I wish they moved to a 24 man setup and stuck with that, that way we can have 1 active raid group and not 3-4 all over the place.

[Kewitt]

I've jumped ship from 2 FC, Because they where falling apart. You will also get this kind of person.

As for people that shout. I avoid that kind of FC. They just looking for quantity vs quality.

[Keith_Dragoon]

The problem is raid size... It's really difficult trying to manage 3-4 active raid groups, and when some don't work out for 1 or 2 weeks people start to leave or get annoyed and look for pug static groups.

I wish they moved to a 24 man setup and stuck with that, that way we can have 1 active raid group and not 3-4 all over the place.

So far I help manage my FC's 3 coil groups every week and all 3 groups are progressing at about the same pace except mine which is slowly learning T5 while the other groups gear up to meet DPS checks and such. It's only difficult when the people you invite to FC were shout players or blind invites.

I've jumped ship from 2 FC, Because they where falling apart. You will also get this kind of person.

As for people that shout. I avoid that kind of FC. They just looking for quantity vs quality.

This, I avoid shouting because I like to befreind and know someone before I invite them to meet my dysfunctional family. It helps keep things drama free and all abouts the fun. :3

[Casper]

The problem, quite honestly, is : what do you offer ?

If it is only for having a channel to discuss with friends, why not maintain a LS ? This is the perfect place for it, and all you really need to keep in touch (friendlist is much worse in this regard).

If you want to maintain a FC, you need to offer stuff to your peeps. And i don't mean "a nice play to be" or whatever crap. You need events. Most likely it means tackling end game. Look at it this way: you have casual players in your FC. They can either move toward boredom, move toward endgame, or stay casual -- you will have all 3 happening. Boredom people you will lose no matter what. If you don't tackle endgame you will also lose those moving to it. Your retention will be abyssmal, and there is no way you will replace them.

[MikoteAstra]

I want to tank you all for your responses (^.^)

Unfortunately one of the main issue im experience stays and i still dont know what to do about it. None of you tackled the problem (^.^)


Be for anyone join i make sure to tell him everything about our FC and in what state it is. When they accept to join they play for one day, log out for 2-3 days and then they are gone with no info.For the last week and a half i got 4 new members in my company and 3 of them did exactly this. But with the other member we started to talk and know each other, and yesterday i helped him for the main story quest and CT quest, even that we were only two we had a blast.

Here is the question, what have i done wrong by the other new members so that they leave and they dont want to speak with me.....when im on im allays ready to help any one from the FC and not only i often help diffrent players in the game if i see that they need help and i can help them. This is what i dont understand and dont know what to do about it. Can some one help with that ?

[Galactimus]

That will always happen Mikote. Especially if they've only been playing for a few days. You WILL lose the majority of the people you invite in the first week - and there's nothing you can do to stop that from happening. They may get bored of the game, dislike the game for various reasons, go to a different server, join a friends FC, find a FC with a cooler name / crest (personal opinion), timezone issues, language barriers, etc.

Only 20 of the 70 people I invited are active. 50 of them haven't signed in for two weeks (and have been given an Inactive rank.) But the 20 who still play sign in everyday and participate. It's simply a matter of going through this recruiting process over and over again until you have a strong list of active players who enjoy the game.

[Keith_Dragoon]

Agreed with above, I had that problem in 1.0 because nobody really talked to anyone. There isn't much you can do to keep them logging in. Again, while helping others, try and get to know them abit before jumping to add them to your ranks. People who aren't going to stick around make it painfully obvious.

Just keep at it and slowly you'll bolster your ranks with quality players who will stick around and help you maintain an active FC.