Disturbing FC Behavior

[Raikai]

It's the same widespread thing, not just in XIV but in about any game that promotes similar group associations.

If you're posting this because you're facing one or all of these issues at the present date, I'd suggest just to look for a different FC. It might need a few tries, but eventually you'll end up with one that you'll really enjoy and make great friends.

Usually the best tries are onto FCs that are smaller in numbers, but with active people.

[ReynTime]

I did not and will not read anything beyond the main post here because as someone who suffers from occasionally severe social anxiety I see where they're coming from and my blood would boil if I saw any hostility or passive aggressive replies to them here.

To the topic creator, it took me 7 years to finally join a free company that does its best to push everyone to socialize and play together. The cliques are real, just like anywhere with more than like 10 people.

Everyone has their own tightly closed circles and at best someone who failed to form their own circle by the time they were done with college are basically stuck being the outsider no matter who they assume they became friends with. People who have their own love to talk as if they understand but they really don't. And their flowery speeches just add painful salt to the injury.
And with those circles comes mob mentality. Which is just plain scary and makes you hate yourself for not sharing the same opinions. And before long you stop believing anything you have to say holds any value and everything feels completely futile.
You then try again with a different group and the cycle repeats.

At least as far as FFXIV goes there are some free companies, very few of them, that encourage everyone to talk, play events together and help each other. The clique is still there of course, and just because the higher ranks are nice and helpful doesn't mean they want to be your friends. But hey they don't let toxicity or passive aggressiveness in the chat at least.
So keep looking.

[Vyrerus]

Personally, I've found FCs in FFXIV across the NA data centers to either be large and noisome or small and silent. Quite often, I've started a new character, and along the levels 15-20 I get invited to an FC. I always play characters I start with regularity, and more often than not, unless it's one of the server spanning 500ish people FCs, then it's dead silent all of the time.

As for the FCs that I'm actually in now, they vary, but I would agree that they are all insular to some degree, including the one that I, "lead."

One is lead by a friend of mine from Sweden, and it includes people from FFXI and FFXIah who he thinks are kinda cool, who have known each other for years. Occasionally these people invite their spouses, lovers, or close friends in as well. Conversation is regular, but it's always the same people. We do a lot of conversing through a Linkshell instead, since not everyone wants to be in that FC.

Another is the one my Sargatanas character is in. I'm not on the character as much anymore, but I try to lend them a hand if they ever need me. They're mostly chill, but we've got different perspectives on social issues, acceptable joking criteria, and some other things. There's also a messy past issue with my ex, and her hostility towards them, that is partially transferred onto me. I'll never know how much that affects this FC's view of me, but I know that it does on some level. They associate me with her, in spite of her being the original reason I wasn't allowed in their FC. I know they run linkshells that they talk to one another in outside of FC chat, that I am not privy to, and I don't feel the need to be, but I do know that conversations happen that I am not present for, and obviously, they'd rather keep it that way. It kinda reminds me of, "Officer Pearls" from back in FFXI, heh, an entirely separate Linkpearl just for Officer discussions. Somehow, though, even with that in play sometimes it's hard for me to tell when they're bullshitting one another or seriously having issues with like event timings and things. So it doesn't really feel very cliquey.

Then there's my FC, which I'd love to get off the ground properly, get a ground doing things together, but it's an old FC and essentially it's a walking corpse. Recently we've recruited some people, but play times don't overlap very well, so more or less, it's just an association for FC buffs that I stuck to and inherited a house from. It's very loose, and I just promote anyone who's been on for at least 3 weeks consistently to a rank with almost full privs. It's quiet.


And I have been kicked out of one FC or maybe I left after getting kicked out of the raid group? It's been too long, but basically, I was going to Japan back in 2016 and had been sick the weeks before, and had missed raid like 3 or so times. I told them why, and the lead got the impression that I just didn't want to raid with them anymore, because they were silly and I was serious. But that was literally the most fun I've had raiding in this game, even if we never cleared 4th fight in Savages (I literally haven't laughed as hard raiding since, though Sarg FC got close a few times). But yeah, the lead kicked me out of the raid group on the night I arrived in Japan. That FC had been a blast, and it was mostly centered around the raid groups. One raid group got fed up with having to kowtow to event schedule, and left to form their own FC. I put my alt with them, and the raid lead in my own group kind of interpreted it as me wanting a better group.

Anyway, I guess I wrote all this to say, it's not really about how you perceive the group or what you expect for the group, it's how the group perceives you that determines how you will be received. If you want to be in an FC and have the FC embrace you, then sometimes you have to make concessions and put them ahead of yourself. And it takes time to really bond and grow close to people.

[SturmChurro]

I generally prefer to play alone. but depending on mutual interests I will add people or join linkshells. Even there, unless it is curated people get very hostile over differing opinions - and I am referring to opinions on different aspects of the game (not RL opinions). I won't join a clan or guild in any game unless I have known and played with somebody in it before. I won't go looking for one, nor will I join a random invite one. This community - in general - does irritate me quite a bit, so that might also be a problem.

For the OP, I think you might have just read the room wrong. It's pretty common for guilds or clans to have pre-established friend groups, but with this game you are kind of walking on eggshells when you chat. It's a community problem most of all, in my opinion. Heck, you don't even have to chat, just playing the game in a different way than someone else, may get you "reported".

[CoffeeBuns]

I never had any issues with FCs. It took me awhile to find one that I fit in but they were never what you described except that some of them always stayed in their clicks of friends.

[Themarvin]

It can easy go both ways... most do not realize it can actually take quite the effort to actually have a FC.

[Aldath]

This is normal in pretty much every MMO though: enter a medium-big sized guild and it will already have a clique that will only interact with others by saying "Hi, welcome back" or inside events.
There's also a roughly 85% chance that there will be an "UwU hi guysss!" "girl" that is often the center of attention and once every two days will have a new issue that makes her very sad.

Honestly, some of the chillest people I've met in MMOs are from small guilds or randoms in map/instances. Heck, I met my wife through a super small guild, we were friends for months, I thought she was a dude until the guild finally decided to use Discord.

[Sindele]

Often people who don't mesh were "invited to the party" because nobody fully realized the extent to which they're incapable of holding normal conversations without turning into passive-aggressive, condescending, neurotic, or permanently-negative messes.

Ultimately, there's only ever one common factor in all the failed interpersonal relationships in your life. Refuse to acknowledge that at your own peril.

E: Wait, 2021? Who even resurrected this. Why have you tricked me.

[Daddyslittlevampire]

Honestly when i get my bestie in id rather just have a fc for the two of us, just because how people react if your not in their little box but lets be honest that's kinda the point in fcs and groups to segrate people based on who and what they enjoy.

Lets face it any games guild/freecompany or group is basically how it is in highschool you got the jocks all in one spot, the preppy kids in another, the stoners here, the geeks here the nerds here.. and then you got the goths at this table and the table I'm in the emos lets face it. Humans will never get along with outsiders from their own personal taste and personality.



People and game makers assume that they can enforce interactions between 2 very different types but that isn't going to happen ever period its a naive hope people wish for that will never happen. Two different fish in a small tank will never get along enforcing this typically ends with one if not both fish dead

[ChonkGoblinSuprem]

Going to a party and complaining about the cake sure is a choice.