I hate raiding, I hate free companies

[Crustyman]

Let me just go ahead and say that this is all purely unfiltered anger, along with some pent up emotions that I've felt while playing xiv. For those who don't care for the rant, basically don't join small fcs and if you do really wanna raid just join an FC specifically made for one.

Firstly let me state that I don't hate raids or free companies in terms of the actual game, rather I hate the my experience with the two. I've just recently started xiv back in 2019ish, and I've been in about four different fcs at this point. Every single one of them has moved on to other games, or just broke apart.

My first FC had an internal divide where a bunch of people took a lot of resources from our FC and made a new one. Which sucked, but it didn't bother me that much at the time.

My second FC was one of the nicest groups of people that I could ever ask for. I could always just ping them and we could do dailies or something niche, sometimes we put together events for mount farms or maps, just fun stuff like that even if we were just a small group. It was especially active during EW, because of all the story stuff. Though after EW it started to slow down a bit. That's when a few of my really good friends from that FC got into raiding. At first, I didn't really mind, since I'd still see them most days of the week. Though after a while, they'd didn't have time, or really want to do anything else besides gearing for raids or doing those raids themselves. After a while those raiding friends left our original FC to go make a raiding one, they also stopped talking in our FC's discord too. Then, while they were raiding, the leader of the FC got particularly peeved at the fight, and decided to delete the FC discord, as well as the kick most people from the FC. After that, I didn't really know what to do, I ended up joining the raiding friend's discord, but most of the people there really only cared about raiding. I felt so out of place there and ended up just leaving. I still really miss those friends, but we just grew apart.

[Crustyman]

Second part to this rant

Then I joined my third FC, which was made up of a small group of more casually geared players. This FC was a lot like my last one, with events, great people, etc, etc. Though after a five or so months after I joined, people started to take breaks. Then more people started to take breaks, and then I was the one of the few people logging in every few weeks. Even the FC discord because a desert, with only a few people bothering to send messages once every few days. It went quiet for a while, until the discord had more activity when people started to play another MMO, though I didn't really like the game, I decided to join just because I haven't done anything with them in a while. I should mention that I had join another FC in xiv during the deserted period of my third FC, since I'd accepted that they just weren't gonna get on anymore. Anyways, during a particularly tough dungeon in the MMO we were playing I had a complete meltdown because I wasn't preforming well enough on this one encounter, and thought they wouldn't wanna do anything with me after that, so I left the discord. After I got some sense back into my body, I tried to apologize but the leader of the third FC said that I simply wasn't meant for the discord due to me leaving and joining the discord as well as the xiv fc multiple times.

Then came the fourth FC, the one I'm apart of now. This FC that I'm apart of right now is a combination of the previous two FC's that I was apart of. What I mean by this is that there's a bunch of great people who I loved doing things with, but now I'm facing similar situations from my previous FC's. Before I get into what's going on with my fourth FC, I should state that one of my best friends (irl) got into raiding around last November, and I haven't been able to do much with him since then. Back to my fourth FC, recently the leader of the FC along with some really good friends have gotten into raiding. Not only have the pretty much only been online to raid, but they're becoming less and less active on the discord as well. Not to mention some of my other casual friends on the discord are becoming less and less active, to the point where its been almost a month since they've really said anything. Everything that's that's going on has made me gain a bizarre sense of dread that I just haven't been able to shake these past few weeks. On one had, I don't wanna worry because maybe this is just natural and I shouldn't get too upset over it. On the other, I feel like they're all getting ready to stop talking to me, and become another name on my friends list that I just look at on my friends list for 5 minutes, remembering the fun stuff we did.

[Crustyman]

Third and final part

I just can't help but feel like I'm gonna left in the dirt, or mess up again to were they don't want me around anymore. I know that "taking a break" from talking to them is not a bad idea, but it's not xiv that's the problem, I can take a break from that anytime, I just can't help but feel like I need to constantly send messages (at least a couple every day) just so we don't grow distant and not talk. I'm just not sure what to do anymore. I'm done trying to find FCs, I've tried them for the past 3ish years and they've almost always ended in just another person on my friend list.

I almost forgot to say, I hate raiding, and I highly dislike raiders (I don't hate them, I just don't like what they do). Firstly, I know its your life, and you CAN do whatever you want. But every time I've met a raider, everything they do centers around raiding. "Hey wanna come do roulettes with me?" "Sorry, I gotta prepare for my 89127PGHS peanut butter UWu that's gonna last from 7pm to 3am, oh I'm also doing this every day this weekend, so I won't respond at all". It just feels like such a slap on the face to just be left in the dust and become distant from one my good friends. I could image someone would suggest trying raiding, which isn't a bad idea, but all my patience for raiding and hardcore content was exhausted in d2, I don't wanna go down that rabbit hole ever again. I just wanna have fun with my friends again, what gives them the right to just leave me behind, never send me a message, not even a hi, and act like nothing happened. Did I do something wrong? But I'll never hear an answer, because they're never online, only raiding and gearing.

If anyone is just starting xiv, if you're gonna take anything away from this post, just know that if you wanna raid, just join a raiding FC. If you wanna join a casual FC, just join a massive one, where there's always at least one person online for you to do things with.

Sorry if there's any grammatical mistakes or anything like that, I just wanted to get this all off my chest, I just don't really know what to do anymore.

[Stormpeaks]

I agree with the overall sentiment honestly, I played WoW for over 12 or even 14 years iirc, and I have never struggled to make friends, however in FFXIV it's an absolute hassle just to find any at all, and even when you do the typical friend you get will contact you once every few weeks (if even that) when they are bored and all their raiders friends are offline and you'll be used as a last resort, it's really a crappy feeling honestly.

Raiders in general repeat the same content over and over again despite getting no reward from it once they have had their loot, simply to fill the void of content that this game has, this also leads to groups of friends just breaking apart, the game in general is just absolutely void of content or there is content but its disliked by most (criterion,variant etc..)

I cant count how many times in 2 or so years I've played this game I argued with people that responding once in a while or saying just "hi how are you?" would be nice, but then I simply get told that "i have other friends that need my attention too i cant be there for you 24 7 and talk with you daily" or they are just always doing content and then log out so there is 0 interaction.

It really does feel like getting friends is absolutely impossible a lot of the time, and most of the time I just give up and sit at my house doing nothing afking watching youtube, because every time you meet someone new, even if you do tell them that you want friendship, you'll basically never get any, or just get used as a last resort after the person's entire friendlist has gone offline and there's only you left and all of a sudden they remember you exist.

I'll never forget someone that I used to talk to, they were telling me every time we'd cross paths that they were my "best friend", yet they'd never talk to me, say hi or ask how I am in a month, sometimes even up to 3 months, but yet somehow they were my "best friend" apparently, and the fact I was telling them that this it was not friendship was me trying to create drama, according to them.

I think the definition of friendship in FFXIV is just absolutely messed up in general, because at least in my eyes, talking to a person once a month is not friendship, that's just "oh i know this person, cool", that's not friendship.

[Shinkuno]

It was alot better during ARR and HW when the game still felt like an MMO. Its a single player game with a 3d chatroom now, people move on from that rather quickly.

[Hasrat]

I think the definition of friendship in FFXIV is just absolutely messed up in general, because at least in my eyes, talking to a person once a month is not friendship, that's just "oh i know this person, cool", that's not friendship.

Yeahhh... welcome to adulthood. Normal people recognize everyone has lives and you can't always stay in touch at all times. That doesn't diminish actual friendships.

Your experience is less "differences in game" and more "differences in time."

[Stormpeaks]

Yeahhh... welcome to adulthood. Normal people recognize everyone has lives and you can't always stay in touch at all times. That doesn't diminish actual friendships.

Your experience is less "differences in game" and more "differences in time."

I talk to people that have a wife and kids, work a usual 9-17 job, and then still manage to say "hi" in the morning and "good night" at night, every single day, it takes about 30 seconds total.

Anyone can do it, it's all about effort.

[Eastwall]

Looks like you are just afraid to be alone in the dark, which is natural. I do hope you find a group that sticks. For me, a random recruited me into a guild, then they all stopped playing, but the original guild leader made me leader before he quit. Now l enjoy owning a cottage and submarine and a guild chest all to myself. It is great, and a cute lalafell and reworked pvp is enough for me.

[Roshidon1]

I think the bit about joining a casual FC is good advise, and I may take it. I recently left a FC due to some drama (I actually quite enjoyed it but something something got said and I was basically targeted after that, so left ) I joined a new one recently and its probably a mix of the type 2 FC you mentioned. A group of people that do raids and that is pretty much it, and there is a small group of people that do casual stuff but not much. I also play at weird hours (either really early or really late, only for an hour or 2 if I play late, usually) so its hard to find people to play with.

P.S. I do enjoy raiding, but just dont have time for it anymore.

[Fawkes]

Back in ARR my FC had like 80+ people in it, but when raiding started the people who were in raids would always get mad if anyone talked in /fc chat during their raid because they didn't want to be distracted and you couldn't turn off FC chat. Most of the raid groups split off to make their own FC and a lot of people quit, by Heavensward the FC was much smaller. The game design has always been at odds with the way FCs are designed. Like, lockouts made it so you couldn't help other people/groups in your own FC get their weekly clears. You have to go out of your way to come up with things for FCs to do together, because all the content is either fine to do solo/DF or it requires exactly 8 people. And maybe 8-man FCs work for a short time, but I think they're usually doomed to fall apart once one person loses interest, but that's just the nature of MMO raid groups in general.

I think it would make way more sense to treat linkshells like social groups instead of FCs, but because housing got tied to FCs and you get the FC tag next to your name we're stuck with this "one FC social group" mindset, and linkshells get relegated to being the specialized interest chatrooms for hunt callouts and fishing discourse.