How to build a good FC (looking for tips)

[Vivi_Bushido]

Here is my advice, and use which ever part is most helpful for you. I'm going to break it up into sections to organize as much information as possible.



Section 1) Recruitment:

A) New recruits and trust:
For many people, recruiting is the most difficult task. Personally, I find recruiting to be quite easy. Preventing your newly recruited members from leaving is the true struggle. You need to make sure your members are happy but NEVER cater and bend over backwards to anyone. Never give into demands solely for the sake of increasing your numbers. For example; if someone asks you about gardens or airships before joining, chances are they're only using you to have access to those features; and might be seeking to control those areas of your company. Be very careful of this! Letting members have access to these things is okay, but if that's what makes or breaks them from joining in the first place, you probably don't want them at all. It's okay to have good faith in people, but be very VERY careful about the motives of new recruits. Don't trust everyone!

This however does not imply to never trust them. New recruits should always under go some kind of one week trial before getting promoted and granted permissions. New recruits should not have be able to see what's inside of your company chest at any given time, ESPECIALLY GIL. Chest thieves are a very real and scary thing and Square Enix will do absolutely nothing about this if you are stolen from. Remember, at the end of the day, they're still a complete stranger and trust has to be earned.

B) Recruiting members:
Recruiting members into your company is rather quite easy, all it takes is confidence and patience! All forms of recruitment are fair methods but never do anything that the public might find irritating or annoying. This will quickly give you a bad reputation for being a nuisance. Here's my dos and don'ts list for recruiting methods.




Don'ts:
-Do not blind invite. What is a blind invite? A blind invite is randomly sending a person without a tag a free company invite. People hate this. This is the fastest way to recruit untrustworthy strangers into your company and just outright irritates everyone else. You'll find more players will overall blacklist you for this than accept your company offer.

-Do not spam shout chat. To a degree, this is almost just as bad. While it's okay to shout once in awhile, do not make a habit of this. Do this to much and you are no better off than a gil bot spamming their advertisements to folks; and thus you will find yourself blacklisted.

-Do not lie. Do not lie about things your FC does not actually have. Do not make false promises to players. Do not make promises you do not believe you can keep.

-Do not change your companies focus. If you're recruiting for a casual, midcore, hardcore, or roleplay FC, it is never a good idea to change your companies focus when recruiting. You should always keep the focus consistent as soon as you begin the advertisement process. This is a good way to lose those you recruited as they will start to feel they joined a company they did not sign up for.

-Do not force recruits to sign up for websites or discords as a requirement. Social media is a great way to bond and stay in touch outside of the game but not everyone has access to these. Never force someone to join them. You're likely to make them uncomfortable and scare them off.

-Do not do recruitment drives with prizes. Enticing your members to do a mass recruitment drive with a prize reward for most recruits will easily open all the doors for the previous things suggested.


Dos:
-Do use the party finder to recruit. Using the party finder is possibly the least spamful way to recruit. Do not be afraid or ashamed to use the party finder to recruit. A lot of people would much rather you use the party finder to recruit than shout in chat. Just make sure you're recruiting on your server and not across worlds!

-Do ask players without a tag if they would be interested in joining your company. It is perfectly acceptable to send a private message to someone if they would be interested in joining. To further increase the chances of getting them to say yes, you should try to build a friendly conversation with them and talk about them or the game before asking. If they say no thanks but the conversation still went very well, you may have just made a new friend instead!

-Do ask your friends, family, and teammates if they know anyone looking for a company that fits your focus.

-Do try to ask and be extremely helpful with new players. New players can be some of your most loyal members since you might be the first friend they met!

-Do take care of your FC's reputation! This matters a lot and everyone wants to feel proud about the company they selected to be apart of!



Section 2) Ranks:

A) Rank Icons and organization.
Ranks are very important in the growth of an FC. The first thing to do is to recognize the special properties of a rank. As a previous poster had mentioned, this rank here:



The one with this icon, SHOULD ALWAYS BE THE NEW MEMBER RANK. The game recognizes this as the new player rank and will always assign new recruit to this Icon. In my opinion, this should be your lowest ranking rank besides either a rank for alt characters or an MIA rank. (Missing in action)

The second most important rank is the leader and the blue shield. The leader rank can never be demoted or kicked unless they willingly give the rank to another player. Once they give it up, they can't reclaim it unless promoted back. Only one person can have this rank at any given time. The blue shield rank should be your officers. This icon is bright and pretty, and it stands out. Making it easy for members to tell who the FC moderators are if they need to get in contact with someone.

Once you have all your ranks made, properly organize them. Make sure your leader ranks are the highest on the chart and the recruit ranks the lowest on the chart with the filler ranks in between. Everyone likes a nice clean ranking chart. Make sure your rank names make sense! Inconsistency between rank names will leave your new members confused and might not take your FC's hierarchy very seriously. Do not give players their own "joke" ranks. This makes your roster look clunky and like a mess. Have a clear understanding of how members should earn promotions and do not give every promotion out solely based off of how long someone has been within the company or just because they talk more than others. Make sure ranks are fairly earned and deserving! Take your ranks very seriously!

B) Assigning permissions:
Always double check and make sure your permissions are exactly how you want them to be. Do not allow your officers the ability to adjust ranks as they might make changes without your consent! This also gives them the power to assign permissions to themselves that they otherwise did not have! Becareful with who has the ability to promote as well! Someone could promote themselves to a rank with the ability to adjust permissions and do all kinds of damage to your company! Make sure that only the leader has access to promotions and rank adjustments! While you are at it, make sure nobody else has permissions to destroy your company house or your company workshop! Seriously, why does anyone even need the rights to those? They don't!




Section 3) Ranking up your Free Company

A) Free Company Credits
Your free company ranks up based off of how many total free company credits it has acquired. It takes roughly 200,000 total credits to reach Rank 8. But the road to rank 8 can be a struggle for some new companies. There are some tricks to speed this up. First thing to note is that basically everything in this game adds company credits but all with different values. FATEs have some of the highest point yielding values. Go figure. But crafting and grand company turn ins are also great. Always trade gear into your grand company. Only High Quality crafts will earn any company credits. However you can speed up the process by crafting HQ turn ins. This way you earn points for your craft and the turn in! You can also double and even triple your points per turn in! It's easy too! As stupid as this sounds, this is the God's honest truth. If you are the only player online when you trade in your items, you will earn triple the company credits per trade in! If there is two players online, you will earn double instead. If there is 3 or more players online you will earn the basic value of points. Everything you do when you are the only player online will yield triple the points. Use this to your advantage!



Section 4) Handling troublesome members and complaints:

A) Drama:
First thing everyone needs to realize is that there is no such thing as 'Drama Free". Reality just won't allow it. Everyone and everywhere will have it's own fair share of drama. Your job as a leader is to reduce the drama as much as possible when it comes around. Because it will! Becareful with the number of chances you give a player. If you have to keep a 3 strike rule on a sheet by your computer, do so. There're plenty of people that aren't worth the trouble. This does not mean to give up on somebody the first time there is an issue. Never neglect a member of an issue. If they feel they have to bring it up to an FC leader, take care of it right then and there; and do not shrug it off. If they bring it to your attention that means it's already an issue and you need to fix it. Keep a closeful eye on the company chat conversations as well. If you see something getting heated, step in the middle and tell people to take it tells. Do not let them duke it out in public chat. Take them into a party and solve the problem and make them aware that is not cool to get that way in the FC chat. If someone leaves because you gave them a warning, don't chase after them. Let them come back to talk when they have cooled off. Remember, use your best judgment.

B) Foreshadowing problem people from joining:
As I read this forum, I have noticed some posts say to avoid cliques and couples. To elaborate more on why they say this; this is more that players that join in groups generally stick to that group like glue. This is not everyone but most times they do not socialize outside the circle they came inside with. However the ones that do make great additions to your company! Your FC activity sky rockets off of them! However it can come with a price. If one person in the group leaves, it's a likable chance that the rest will follow after. Resulting in multiple people leaving at once. This makes it look like your FC had a falling out to new recruits that join when they see the FC activity and then they begin to question if they made the right choice. Remember, these things affect your FC's reputation. As for couples, some people feel that they will bring their drama into the company if they should have a couples argument and break up. Generally with one of them rage leaving. While these're all risks, they aren't intentional; and you should never deny a clique or couple entry into your company over some fears you may have.



Conclusion:
This is my advices for you running an FC. Good luck and I hope this was helpful! Tried to give as much helpful advice as I could think of.