New Player Looking to Find RP friends/RP in general help

[honk123]

For context, I'm relatively new to FF14, my main is level 76 and just started Shadowbringers. A huge selling point for me with FF14 was the fact it had a big RP community. I made a couple RP alts who are around 25-30 now, and I can't seem to find any willing to RP with me. I have horrible social anxiety and have no friends that RP, so I often find myself sitting on the Steps of Nald on Balmung for hours waiting for someone to interact with me. I don't think I'm brave enough to walk up to others, yet. I have a short bio on my character, and I am willing to put myself out there, but it seems like nobody is really interested in me. Maybe my sprout is turning everyone away? I'm also terrified of venues, and have no idea if there are prerequisites or anything for attending them, showing up to someone's venue unannounced seems scary. I've joined RP discords, put my characters' bios there, too. How can I find people willing to RP with a new player like me? Should I look on different servers? Or should I focus on leveling the characters first? I'm willing to do whatever to find RP partners.

[EZGIL]

[Jeeqbit]

Balmung used to be the server that everyone went to for RP (to the point it was congested and the only way to get onto it was at a certain time in the week at a specific time), and then you could only get there by transferring there. It got to a point where there were overflow servers, such as Gilgamesh and Mateus. Then Balmung was put onto a new data center with mostly low activity worlds and we got the ability to visit other worlds freely, so the RP was able to expand all over the Crystal data center since they could visit Balmung easily.

However, now it is very common to find RP on all data centers and you will find "venue" advertisements in the "Other" section in Party Finder on any data center. It's more likely to be "18+" outside of Crystal though, I think, because if someone is purely interested in genuine RP then they would probably go to the data center that everyone does that on - Crystal (and yes, think what 18+ is likely to mean).

You seem to have done the right things, such as joining RP discords and playing on Balmung. The easiest way to actually get interaction though is to join an RP free company https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...&fixed_tags=29

They will often run RP events together that has a narrow focus on what that FC is about and get you involved because you are part of their FC.

I would suggest going to the venues if they interest you from an RP perspective. Whatever you see your character doing, really. But it's obviously putting you right next to people to interact with just like going to a club or other venue in real life. Probably the easiest person to interact with is the person selling drinks, again, just like it is in real life.

Make sure you enable /roleplaying so that people see the RP icon. You can also actually walk into the Quicksand in Ul'dah, which is where I remember lots of people hanging out on Balmung. You can click people, look at their FC and apply to their FC as well.

[rainichan]

Like Jeeqbit mentioned, turn on your RP flag! If you have an interesting look and an interesting hook, you'll attract people as well. If you're not sure how to turn on your RP status, hit the O button to open up your party menu, right click your name, and click 'Edit Status'. The drop down menu should have various statuses to choose from, and when you click on the RP one, it'll change over to have it next to your name. You don't need a carrd or anything, just a quick hook and what you are and aren't okay with in your character info should suffice.

[Boblawblah]

I'm willing to do whatever to find RP partners.

Na, just kidding. I wish you luck though. I'm currently occupied with my crippling anxiety, so RP is out of the question.

[Vahlnir]

Looks like a usual trip to Limsa to me.