I don't think we have enough incentives to join/stay in Free Companies

[Nihiru__]

Hey, I'm opening this thread because I'm in a genuine struggle lately and I really don't understand if at this point it's just me or it's a game related issue. I'm the owner of a very small FC, and we have some occasional players and some all-year subbed raiders. Problem is, while we normally hang out via other games, somehow it feels like there's nothing "fc-related" that's worth doing all together. Literally, it feels like the only content we can do together is... roulettes and maps? Idk, Limsa's ocean fishing? Content that everyone can run through duty/party finder anyways without having to necessarily belong to our fc?
It's been since I started playing this game, but I feel like compared to other MMOs there's no real need to be in an FC to do anything, which is good I guess, it avoids to gatekeep content, but at the same time isn't it bad that there's no real incentive to play in one?
I'm feeling this dilemma being kind of heavy lately especially due to me spending so much time in Light with our part of FC who's really into raiding, while we go back at Chaos, we maybe run roulettes together with everyone else, from time to time we might do maps, but then again, maybe mount farming, but we're kinda trying to squeeze these things because otherwise there's no real incentive in doing things together, not as a FC anyways... I do the same on other DCs with friends without really belonging anywhere
I was thinking, couldn't we have some type of in-game activity that's specifically tied to Free Companies? Like having something like FC leaderboards being also tied to content like Firmament/Diadem, Eureka, Bozja, all activities that normally it's already funnier to do together, Idk. I'm just putting out very simple inputs, but if you have suggestions it's really good. I think this type of stuff would not necessarily set up any fomo to stay subbed, but might push fc members into working together for something, Idk, some gamers just like dem shiny numbers. Rankings for gc seals are kinda dumb to me because especially on my DC there's just a lot of people botting to stay on top and they don't really need to work for anything, but that's another type of conversation I guess.
TL;DR: Am I the only one that wishes FC had some guild-type of activities/incentives to play together? Do you have any suggestions regarding this? ;-;

[Ath192]

It's a game issue. FCs are completely irrelevant for the most part. They focused on making the game so solo focused and accessible they killed off the social aspect of the game outside raids. Even maps, just join a PF party, no need to talk or coordinate.

[Asari5]

yeah. in ff14 its just whatever. no point in having a guild / friend list with nice and reliable players.
here you just sign up, do a boring ass dungeon in 15min and thats it.

[hydralus]

A real conundrum, huh? On the one hand, make the reward too lame and nobody's going to care. Make it too good, and people will be crying that they're missing out and you're giving power-tripping guild leaders even more pull.

[Jeeqbit]

You are right that the game isn't hugely FC centric and others have expressed this as something they perceive as a problem. You can get by without an FC even (I think this is good as you said because some people are loners and don't want to be gatekept). I think it's fairly common for MMOs to add guilds as an afterthought - some exp bonuses, a chat, little incentives for new players to join and not much else.

It used to be more needed for raiding because of PFs not being cross-world in Heavensward, so some worlds were actually dead and had no PFs and on the most busy worlds you could run into the same people that trapped you.

But there are many active FCs and these are the sort of activities they do together (you listed many of them):

• Mount farming
• Maps
• Forming a static together or otherwise doing high-end raids together
• Alliance raid (usually doing it together on release days)
• RP events or venues
• Decorating a house together
• Just talking/joking in the chat or exchanging advice
• Doing roulettes together, whether leveling jobs or tomestones
• Doing PvP together
• I don't normally see this, but since you mentioned it, I've seen odd friends group (very rarely) do Eureka together.

Usually no FC does all of those things, but rather some of them. Mine does most of them because it's large. It's heavily contingent on event organizers and people with initiative to start chatting and organize events, otherwise they don't happen.

The only things designed specifically for an FC as far as I can remember are:

• FC buffs to motivate being in the FC to do things.
• FC rooms to motivate being at the FC house to interact.
• Airships and Diadem (but Diadem has been changed since then).

As for leaderboards, the only ones I can think of are on the lodestone, which show various activity lists of what your FC members are doing.

[AvoSturmfaust]

Personally i actually like the fact that there is no "guild only" activity because not everyone likes the Social Aspect especially in ffxiv (the times i saw chat only guildes is incredible, i miss the old mmo times where voice was a obligation) and like previous poster already said you have enough activity i mean yea you can do the same in PF but isnt the reason to join a FC because you wanna do all that stuff with friends?

[Shougun]

I think some of the GW2 guild quests could be an interesting idea, I liked that a guild could start it and others could join it (I free loaded a few times lol). One of the potential contents I suggested in some thread around here was Hamlets for FC. Where the FC would get its own Dark Cloud (playstation game) hamlet, kind of a housing ward, where they get a substantial number of progression mechanics and systems. Just like hamlet defense in 1.0, you'd also have combat components.



So you would be gaining reputation for your guild in different cities, agencies, and people, that would then unlock new recipes, structures, features, and individuals at your hamlet. You would be attacking NPC 'hamlets' (strongholds) like in FFXI besiege, and you would be defending yours. Potentially may also have an opportunity to have FC vs FC pvp (definitely make that optional in some way).


Just like freeloading special events in GW2, here if your FC was not established or you were a lone wolf, you could find a FC that opens their doors to share in their content. Potentially also this means that a FC couldn't have ALL options active all at once, to further just encourage that. Like if you have the Garlond Ironworks set up you wont have space for the Crystal Forge (or whatever). A guild may at some point unlock them all, but they would have to cycle options (with timers added)- as to not be so painful that you're SoL but restrictive enough that you might look at the directory of other places if you needed a service.

[MoofiaBossVal]

The game sadly is not constructed from the ground up to facilitate the formation of FCs.

On FF11 the game was really tough after level 10, and you had to use the /sea function and form a 2-3 hour long levelling party to continue past that. You have to be active in talking to people to form or get into that party, if you are a wallfly standing around with your invite flag on then you will never get invited and progress unless you are a white mage. Logging in night after night, eventually you start recgonizing the same names, people who are on the same leg of their journey as you, so you form a linkshell (guild) to progress together and it grew from there. As early as level 20 you are forming 18 man alliances to take on the level 25 bandersnatches and skeletons in Gusgen Mines to spend 2 hours farming magicked skulls for everyone to unlock their subjob. And then your farming coffer keys to get every linkshell member's job armor, or doing the story missions together, or farming the BCNMs. You can't solo in this game. Once you reached level 30 you could unlock beastmaster and then slowly level by yourself, but you still had to do the story BCNM fights and the level uncap quests with other people.

Problem with FF14 is that the game never forces you to party up and form guilds from the get go. The moment to moment experience is not exping with other people and chatting during the low APM combat and during downtime, but instead watching cutscenes, running to the next cutscene, or ocassionally doing solo instances. You don't need a party to survive the overworld or to level up. When you need to do a dungeon you just queue for it, no talking to people required. You get teleported and sprint through it, and it is a high APM pseudo action game and there is no downtime between pulls so people have no time to talk, and then everyone goes their seperate ways and never sees each other again. People go through the 400+ hour long visual novel story and are conditioned to believe that they don't need anyone and to be passive and not socialize. That then leads to the pugging scene at level cap where you have solo players going into current content with a mercenary mentality of viewing everyone else as replaceable or as an obstacle rather than as a person.

Adding hard content that requires a party, like a hard field operation zone accessible by a new player from the get go that can take them to level 100, won't solve the problem. The main content of the game is still the singleplayer 400+ hour long visual novel, and it is also the path of least resistance to levelling up.

[Ath192]

The game sadly is not constructed from the ground up to facilitate the formation of FCs.

On FF11 the game was really tough after level 10, and you had to use the /sea function and form a 2-3 hour long levelling party to continue past that. You have to be active in talking to people to form or get into that party, if you are a wallfly standing around with your invite flag on then you will never get invited and progress unless you are a white mage. Logging in night after night, eventually you start recgonizing the same names, people who are on the same leg of their journey as you, so you form a linkshell (guild) to progress together and it grew from there. As early as level 20 you are forming 18 man alliances to take on the level 25 bandersnatches and skeletons in Gusgen Mines to spend 2 hours farming magicked skulls for everyone to unlock their subjob. And then your farming coffer keys to get every linkshell member's job armor, or doing the story missions together, or farming the BCNMs. You can't solo in this game. Once you reached level 30 you could unlock beastmaster and then slowly level by yourself, but you still had to do the story BCNM fights and the level uncap quests with other people.

Problem with FF14 is that the game never forces you to party up and form guilds from the get go. The moment to moment experience is not exping with other people and chatting during the low APM combat and during downtime, but instead watching cutscenes, running to the next cutscene, or ocassionally doing solo instances. You don't need a party to survive the overworld or to level up. When you need to do a dungeon you just queue for it, no talking to people required. You get teleported and sprint through it, and it is a high APM pseudo action game and there is no downtime between pulls so people have no time to talk, and then everyone goes their seperate ways and never sees each other again. People go through the 400+ hour long visual novel story and are conditioned to believe that they don't need anyone and to be passive and not socialize. That then leads to the pugging scene at level cap where you have solo players going into current content with a mercenary mentality of viewing everyone else as replaceable or as an obstacle rather than as a person.

Adding hard content that requires a party, like a hard field operation zone accessible by a new player from the get go that can take them to level 100, won't solve the problem. The main content of the game is still the singleplayer 400+ hour long visual novel, and it is also the path of least resistance to levelling up.

Yep, the game is borked for a true social multiplayer experience. I don't believe it is recoverable in this sense, the design is absolutely not geared towards this. I do hope a modern MMO similar in mechanics and gameplay to XI comes out one day. XI graphics and UI are just too outdated.

[Nero-Voidstails]

I would like FC to have a bigger impact because right now I have been FCless for sometime and honestly other then maybe RP I don't see the point in one