Has anyone else noticed....?

[Vynym]

First, let me start off by saying I'm not trying to be alarmist or chicken little here (the sky is falling the sky is falling!). I've just happened to notice a couple things and am wondering if you all have noticed it too, and if you attribute it to the same things I do, or if there's an entirely different reason(s) for what I'm noticing.
(the following is just my personal observations and opinions resulting in me reaching out to others to see if I'm alone out here with my thoughts or if others feel the same)


Server Population/Active Population
Ok so one thing I've noticed is yet another decline in active population. Last time we saw a decline like this, everyone kept saying, "Oh don't worry, it will be alright when the new content comes out and everyone comes back." And while that was true to an extent, people did come back, we did have a population surge, it was short lived before a large amount of people fell off again.

Now I feel like we're in a slump....again. The market board is wonky, things aren't selling, prices are going to high/low extremes. Not only that but the sheer amount of FC's starving for more people is insane! Some of us are branching out to recruit on other servers, other servers are coming here to recruit, I've seen an increase in fc's recruiting in party finder. Obviously we're ALL hurting for active people in our individual communities. Heck, there are even some fc's that are PAYING $18 A HEAD for TRANSFERS to their server for joining their fc! If that's not a sign of low/slow population, I don't know what is!

I realize that summer is always a slumper in any mmo. Also, the whole atma/animus thing has become unenjoyable for tons of people. But are those the ONLY reasons for this slump? Is there a slump to begin with or am I imagining it? How can we as a gaming community fix this slump, if there is one? Can we even do anything to fix it?

Negative Impact of Linkshells on Growing FC's
Another thing I've noticed is a negative impact linkshells have on small/struggling/raid oriented fc's. Our FC in particular has had an uphill battle trying to build our FC b/c of linkshells. The first question I get asked most often when someone is interested in joining is, "Do I have to join your FC?" For obvious reasons, that would be preferred. Almost everyone that inquires would rather stay in their own fc and is more than happy to let you know they are a member of any number of "raiding linkshells" and don't really need you if you're going to make them join your fc.

How are we supposed to grow our fc's when people aren't forced to make a choice to join or not? With linkshells devoted to raiding, why join an fc at all? That seems to be the impression I get from speaking to people.

I guess main issues I have with linkshells in this aspect are that it's never been this hard in ANY mmo to recruit/build a "guild" community because if you wanted to raid you pretty much had to join the "guild" you wanted to raid with. But here, there are options and those options end up hurting fc's in the long run.

For us, it's been a catch 22. We have a low number of active members, so people don't want to join, so our membership declines b/c people aren't joining, so less people want to raid with us, etc etc. It's a never ending downward spiral largely due to linkshells and the fact that people don't have to join FC's to do what they want in game. Why even have fc's at all then? What is the purpose of linkshells AND free companies? What am I missing here?

Lack of Willingness to Merge Low Membership FCs
And yet something else I've noticed is how unwilling fc's are to merge together. Being one of those fc's who doesn't want to merge into somewhere else, I can understand why. My question really is how to fix it so merging is more appealing, i suppose.

It would seem to me that with a lower population, lessened activity, fc's everywhere are hurting. All servers, if you look at their forums, you see fc's starving for players. Heck, some servers are downright hostile if you try to recruit on their server because they are trying so vehemently to covet their steadily declining population.

What I don't see is merging fc's. I've spoken to a few people about the possibility, but it always boils down to the same things: We have our core who don't want to be part of anything else, but you can come to us. We worked hard for our house and don't want to give it up, but you can come to us. Our people might come back with new content and we don't want to leave them out in the cold, but you can come to us. The commonality? Many are open to merges, but only if you merge in to them, otherwise, shove off bucko.

And I totally get that, most of the time. We're one of "those" fc's who's members don't want to merge into somewhere else; largely b/c of our unique raid schedule which no other fc on the server (that we've found) can accommodate. But by golly, at some point, someone has to give. All these small, dead, dying, struggling, starving fc's out there not willing to give up is only going to lead to more people leaving, more people getting frustrated, and only the super powers getting anything done in endgame.

How can we fix this?

Thanks for your time everyone, I know it was long winded.

[Mrs_Sticks]

Long answer short, nothing needs fixed. Moving on.

[Vynym]

Long answer short, nothing needs fixed. Moving on.

Can you elaborate on why you think everything is fine?

[Zaero]

All games have a slump between new content (I've seen in it GW2, SWTOR, TSW personally). Unfortunately, it also doesn't help a lot of new/shiny games are releasing.

Unfortunately, a lot of these are kinda core issues with MMOs: the social element/what to do between those patches. We find a bubble, and stay there (aka farm X until your eyes bleed).

Plus, FC pride. No one wants to admit defeat (and I got stuck running a small SWTOR guild that started with 20 people down to 5 in 2 weeks), and usually it's hard to recover from that.

Most pops perk up with expansions of new content, but decline in between hile people either ragequit, quit for another game, unsub and wait, or just get bored and need a break. Either way, ya can't change people, and that's the bummer.

[AmyNeudaiz]

I think FC alliances need to come out sooner. This will fix exactly what you're pointing out in your post (which is slightly exaggerated tbh).

People will be able have their FC pride while making alliances with other FCs to make a larger community and have virtually no suffering for it.

[Vynym]

All games have a slump between new content (I've seen in it GW2, SWTOR, TSW personally). Unfortunately, it also doesn't help a lot of new/shiny games are releasing.

I guess I'd just never noticed it in other mmos (FFXI, EQ2, Wow, etc), at least not to this magnitude. I came here from Eq2 (the most recent in the string of mmos over the last 15 years) and while there was always a "seasonal" related slump, I never really saw an "in between content" slump like this before. At least not this pronounced. Maybe I was just not seeing it.

[Vynym]

(which is slightly exaggerated tbh).

I don't feel I was exaggerating. I pulled examples from my and my free companies personal experiences. I can link to forums (where available) and ffxivsoul to support my position on those things you feel I was exaggerating if you'd like.

(I'm genuinely offering to support my contentions, not bumping heads with you)

[Tivia]

I'll address some of this as I have been around this block more than a few times so to speak.

Server population -
There is always natural attrition in a MMO. While it is difficult sometimes to be able to tell the difference between natural attrition and unhealthy attrition. Often times the particular circle one person hangs in may up and head out while others remain unaffected. Right at this point our server population does seem to be generally ok. It certainly is lower than it was a few months ago, but the game in general is growing. That is really the litmus test. One of the things that our server in particular lacks is something that excites the community as a whole, which in turn encourages more people to come here.

As for cross server recruitment, that will happen and will begin to happen more due to the fact that it is difficult to pry people out of their existing Fc's. In most games that don't have the easy "social" aspect of Linkshell's this isn't as large of a problem. However you can't fully blame linkshells as they had them in FFXI and it wasn't an issue. The other problem comes from 8 man content. With everything being 8 man, people have little incentive to leave their FC and join another. There is little tangible benefit to most people. So this compounds the cross server recruitment problem because when everyone is largely locked into a static party or FC on your existing server, It makes it monumentally difficult to recruit home server. The biggest problem here is we frankly just have too many smaller do nothing guilds. It is entirely possible in this game to be a guild of 8 people and not care because of the Content and Linkshells. As such the community is heavily fragmented into a multitude of smaller groups. This over time will actually harm the server as when 1-2 people in those small groups leave, there is a higher chance of the rest of them leaving instead of sticking around like they would in a larger group.

Now concerning "Mergers" I am going to throw it out there and saying those who don't want to merge are the smart ones. Just putting it bluntly, mergers don't work. I've watched more guilds than I can count over 15+ years of gaming across many many games merge and fail. Mergers are just the single worst thing that a guild can do. Being Absorbed or absorbing is honestly the only way to go about it. Then people coming in have a clear understanding of the leadership structure, the guild culture and what they can expect. There is no power struggle, it just happens. Mergers just are a terrible way to go about things as it just leads to power struggles and chaos. As for why groups aren't getting absorbed? Well see my above comments on the content doesn't really require it. In the long run it would be healthier for most of the fragmented groups to absorb into larger ones as far as the community goes. Unfortunately most aren't able to see that and or are too young age/game experience wise to understand it. Now don't get me wrong, I am certainly not encouraging everyone to join "mega guild" take everyone no matter what types, just larger groups. Honestly the optimal size would be around the 50-75 member mark.

As for conflicting raid schedules. This was certainly something DH struggled to wrap our heads around for a while. Our background of course is large scale raiding where Everyone in the guild shows up at the exact same time/days etc. However, in this game that is completely unnecessary. Now certainly we still highly prefer to recruit people around our play time, but recruiting entire groups outside of that isn't a bad idea. You see, players don't only log in at raid time (some do yes), but generally you have people on regularly doing things. If you have multiple groups across multiple raid schedules, it means that in your "off hours" you are more likely to have more active players for the more "social" aspects of the game. So really the thing that people need to get out of their head is "Oh we can't all go to such and such FC because they raid a different schedule". Well so what? How does that stop your group from logging in at those hours? It doesn't. The only thing that impacts is replacing members or recruiting to fill holes in that particular group.

So what are some of the solutions to this?

In some things, I honestly don't know. I know myself I have changed from being willing to recruit up and coming people and trying to train them, to just simply recruiting high end players already. There were Tiers of guilds in every previous game I played where players joined everyone allowed guilds when they started, then migrated to low tier guilds while learning and ultimately applied for the top tier guilds once they felt ready to push their limits. I tried damn hard to in-house that entire progression and frankly it just blew up in my face. So as such I simply positioned our recruitment to reflect what the core group is, the group that built our guild in the first place and remains intact today. If guilds at all levels start doing that, it should work out well given it has worked in every mmo to date. Just accept whatever level you are, don't feel bad because you can't clear turn 5. Everyone has different play times/skill ceilings and even goals..Enjoy the damn game at whatever level you are.

We need to also encourage people to get out of the Linkshells are more than just a social/communications hub mindset. It is the Number 1 reason I do not post "linkshell" groups on the progression thread. Linkshells are fantastic, don't get me wrong. I think they are one of the best features of the game. However I don't view them as a replacement for a larger guild structure. They facilitate great communication between small groups, BUT for the health of the server community as a whole they are hugely detrimental in how they are used right now.

Once that happens, I think we have a chance at getting the smaller groups to start being absorbed and that will certainly help recruiting across the board.

[AmyNeudaiz]

I don't feel I was exaggerating. I pulled examples from my and my free companies personal experiences. I can link to forums (where available) and ffxivsoul to support my position on those things you feel I was exaggerating if you'd like.

(I'm genuinely offering to support my contentions, not bumping heads with you)

I'm on a different server so I may see things from a different point of view, but I genuinely believe this MMO still has a healthy player base. The only issue I will agree is the FC issue. People don't let their FC die when they fail and it ends up being a static and their close friends holding a near dead FC. I believe Alliances will fix this negative community aspect.

(I don't take different views as bumping heads. Talking to someone who doesn't agree with you is the best way to flesh out one's own thoughts)

[Zaero]

I guess I'd just never noticed it in other mmos (FFXI, EQ2, Wow, etc), at least not to this magnitude. I came here from Eq2 (the most recent in the string of mmos over the last 15 years) and while there was always a "seasonal" related slump, I never really saw an "in between content" slump like this before. At least not this pronounced. Maybe I was just not seeing it.

All game dependent, I'm afraid. The games you listed also are a lot older then the more recent, which are more "casual based". I've seen this more in the more recent games, but I'll also admit SWTOR was my first MMO. Just lots of people that wanna beat the content then move on. Gaming's changed I guess.