Advice for recruiting for free companies from someone who isn't in one.

[RiyahArp]

This is going to be a little list of things not to do and to do.

1. Do not randomly blind invite. Blind inviting is just sending an invite out of the blue. Talk to the person first.
2. Do not use a copy/paste macro when recruiting. We can tell. Talk to the person as a person.
3. If you talk to the person and they say no, they may remember you if it was good. They may say yes later. So don't:
-get mad at them for not accepting
-offer to bribe them to join.
-badger them to join
4. If you talk to the person, and it goes ok, even if rejected, for the love of God remember them. Do not keep sending them the same copy and pasted macro each time you come across them. Just talk to them as people (see the common thread?)
5. Realize that not everyone wants to be an officer. Try and find out what they do want from an fc. Make sure its soemthing beneficial, not many people want to join an fc just to make levekits for everyone, or be errand boy for you.
6. Be careful of what your members do. If your members like to troll the local annoying guy in Limsa for the lulz, realize a lot of people are watching them do that, and they may not like trolls, and they will remember the FC.
7. Lastly, make sure your fc meets its existing people's needs. Make sure you are not all on discord, that your members are ok, you are doing content, etc. Recuiting people who are considering your fc only to watch it implode and split, and then the following fc split, can sour them on the idea itself. Watching them go through three or more changes of leadership because the leaders keep dropping out of the game...not good. The best advertisement is a group of people having fun.

This game is tough because guilds are such a weak presence in it. You don't rely on them to do any endgame at all, its all the relationships. So you don't have the leeway other games have, where a lot of people feel forced into it just to run raids.

[KaivaC]

7. Lastly, make sure your fc meets its existing people's needs. Make sure you are not all on discord, that your members are ok, you are doing content, etc..

You were fine up to this point. I am not sure what your beef is with discord. The last Siren FC I had was wonderful - they still are, from what I understand. It's nice to hang out with your guildmates outside of the game, when you're not near your computer, or just want to bs around. Those qualities make a good FC. There are some bad discords out there, but advertising to make sure that FC members are not all on discord speaks of bias based on personal experience. Discord is not bad. You can have just as much drama and problems without discord. Other than that, the rest of this point is correct.

This game is tough because guilds are such a weak presence in it. You don't rely on them to do any endgame at all, its all the relationships. So you don't have the leeway other games have, where a lot of people feel forced into it just to run raids.

Again, this is bias on your part. Because for every story you can come up, there are dozens of other stories that say otherwise. Sorry to hear that you aren't in an FC, but when you give a PSA about something like this, don't put bias about certain things out like that. Not all FCs care about running endgame. Most of the FCs that I have been a part of, they are still up and running successfully, and they do things that don't involve endgame. My current one included.

[MomomiMomi]

You were fine up to this point. I am not sure what your beef is with discord. The last Siren FC I had was wonderful - they still are, from what I understand. It's nice to hang out with your guildmates outside of the game, when you're not near your computer, or just want to bs around. Those qualities make a good FC. There are some bad discords out there, but advertising to make sure that FC members are not all on discord speaks of bias based on personal experience. Discord is not bad. You can have just as much drama and problems without discord. Other than that, the rest of this point is correct.

From personal experience, an FC that's always chatting on Discord means anyone who isn't using it is left out of most of the conversation. It is biased, but people should advertise what kind of FC they are. If they're always going to be on Discord, someone who isn't won't find it very welcoming.

Anyway, this whole thread will just fall on deaf ears. The people who are doing blind invites and such are just going to keep doing it, because they're just casting a wide net. Quantity over quality, and keeping whatever sticks. It can be an effective method of recruiting, but not one that I'm fond of.

[RiyahArp]

You were fine up to this point. I am not sure what your beef is with discord.

I have been in FCS where all the core members are on discord, and no one talks in the game, ever. Trust me, you lose members when you do that, because not everyone wants to use voice chat to socialize, because people often monopolize voice chat and form cliques, because some players don't like it because they don't want their gender or age known, or because they don't want to be contacted outside of the game. So if your newbie pops in, and no one talks in it, or every time you run something the core members are on discord, why bother?

Again, this is bias on your part. Because for every story you can come up, there are dozens of other stories that say otherwise.

There is nothing in this game that requires an FC. That's a big problem. Since the apartments, the two biggest benefits were taken away, i.e. affordable fc apartments and chocobo raising/stabling. If you are two out of the three archetypes, you don't need fc mates to pop queues for you. With HoH and POTD, you may not even as DPS. You get some minor buffs. I said that mostly because you cannot rely on people wanting to join an fc for fc's sake; if anything, i do more outside one because I don't need to spend a half hour waiting for them to do things.

So you have to compensate for having a great community of people.

[KaivaC]

I have been in FCS where all the core members are on discord, and no one talks in the game, ever. Trust me, you lose members when you do that, because not everyone wants to use voice chat to socialize, because people often monopolize voice chat and form cliques, because some players don't like it because they don't want their gender or age known, or because they don't want to be contacted outside of the game. So if your newbie pops in, and no one talks in it, or every time you run something the core members are on discord, why bother?

The issue in particular that I'm taking is that you are sort of demonizing discord. Sometimes, it is a pain to have to put down the controller to type during runs (PS4 player). Other times, I just want to check in with either my forum mates or my FC friends when I'm not near my game. ...Maybe I should ask you to clarify something. Is the point you made about FCs that exclusively use discord, or FCs that happen to have a discord available?

edit: Aha...well, looks like you won't have to worry about a follow up post. I just hit my daily post limit.

[RiyahArp]

The issue in particular that I'm taking is that you are sort of demonizing discord.

I don't think theres separation as much between occasionally and exclusively. people will over time go to exclusivity because of the intimacy of voice chat. Or at least it is a big danger.

Anyway, this whole thread will just fall on deaf ears. The people who are doing blind invites and such are just going to keep doing it, because they're just casting a wide net. Quantity over quality, and keeping whatever sticks. It can be an effective method of recruiting, but not one that I'm fond of.

well, i do owe this board some constructive posting, so let it fall if so.

[LalaRu]

Make sure you are not all on discord

Reason:

Discord is run by Ascians.

[SannaR]

The whole thing with and FC that's always chatting in non FC chat is that unless you're also part of those chats voice or otherwise is the fact it can make people feel unwanted. Specially when you get a response to something said in one of those other chats in FC chat. Or the chat suddenly moves to FC chat. My problem is when you know those who are chatting only in those other channels are on but non responsive to people asking for help or wanting to run things. Along with that's how they chose to decide when events are and then only mention it or want to talk about it in those other chat channels. Any time a chat is always dead and yet you know that it doesn't have to be is a bad thing. Also some people are uncomfortable when needing to check things like discord even if it's just to see if any events have been planed.

[Skivvy]

The Discord concerns ring true for me as well. My very first FC at launch, we had so much fun together, but they started doing just about everything on voice chat. Those of us who couldn't hop on often got to deal with a silent FC, and when we did try and chat/ask questions, it was often missed and we got no response. Gotta say, that sucks. I've run into varying degrees of that with most of the other FCs I've joined as well. Discord isn't necessarily bad, but be upfront about it because that can be a deal breaker for a lot of people.

The other thing I would add to the list, if you are rejected by someone, at least give them the courtesy of a final reply. I don't have a FC either, and so I tend to get a decent amount of FC invites. I try to always respond directly to an invite, and it always makes me laugh when I've replied to them declining politely, and they no longer respond to me. Perhaps that's being petty, but it seems like basic social etiquette. And it always makes me feel like I've made the right decision in declining if they can't even bother with a quick reply.

[SenorPatty]

I can attest to the discord thing as well and I'd recommend any fc leader tha when you're recruiting, if you know a very large chunk of your members are mostly on it, advertise that and vice versa. At least it'll let members know which social medium your fc uses most.