Good recruitment methods?

[Sileas Bishop]

Hey all, wasn't sure where to ask this but i was wondering what the best free company recruitment methods are? I feel like i've been trying everything but wanted to know if there's certain things that have proved more useful than others? I've been using party finder often and tried personal tells and wasn't sure if there was a better way to do this. I avoid shout chat just since i've heard a lot of people don't like it, yet i see people doing it anyways and didn't know if it actually worked or not. 

 

I'm open to all suggestions! Thank you.

[Faye]

- Post a listing on the FC section here if you have not already so people looking for an FC can find yours. Make it eye catching and easy to read, make it detailed, and be sure to explain what makes your FC unique and appealing.

- Assuming it's an RP FC, plug your FC IC! You don't have to try to get characters to join IC at random; that can of course be annoying to them and make you feel overbearing. Just have your character mention the FC that they run when it's relevant to the conversation!

- Make a site for your FC on Enjin and activate recruitment there. A lot of people browse Enjin for FC's.

- Make a thread for your FC in the appropriate section of the official FFXIV forums.

- There are several Facebook pages/groups for XIV and even the Balmung server in particular. You can advertise your FC there (depending on the respective page's rules).

- Hold public events. People will see that your FC is active and organized, and they will know your FC's name and have some familiarity with your members, which will make them more inclined to joined.

- Be active, be involved, and don't be afraid to namedrop your FC. Being an FC leader trying to recruit is a lot like being a fulltime salesperson.

[Thunderbolt300]

Personally, I avoid shouting, whispers and headhunting. Generally, I have found these methods are ineffective at building a good roleplaying community, despite them yielding quick results ("This leads to the Dark Side..."). Rome wasn't built in a day, and taking the longer, more patient route may be far more favorable. A good marketing campaign will attract long term, dedicated players- innovative, passionate guild advertisements on these forums, for example, and running community events will draw you into the open. A good guild ad is a chance to show off your ideas, and people are drawn to groups that contribute to the community and show that they're active. Roleplaying guilds generally have some kind of quality control for new recruits to make sure they'll fit in nicely and mesh well with the tone you're trying to establish. 

 

These are ultimately tradeoffs though. Choose what you wish but you'll have to be patient!

[Valence]

Other than supporting what has already been said this will probably sound super sarcastic, but know that if your FC isn't the usual generic 'merc company' or 'company of adventurers' you have to expect a lot more difficult to find people.

[Maril]

In addition to what the others have said - Remember it's okay to start small. 5-6 people is more than enough to craft some engaging plot, and what I find is that when you do good roleplay people will be allured to that. I can't stress how much explosive growth - taking in 5-10 people over a short span of time - can be more harmful than good.

Bring your people to public events as well as public RP locations - having a weekly or bi-weekly meetup at for example one of the bars around (not just the quicksand, also places like the coffer and coffin) isn't just good for your social RP, it also means other people can spot you and engage with you. Don't just get tied to a house or an apartment (if you have either).

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Having a house is also critically important, for reasons which aren't quite explainable. Lots of very successful FCs hardly do any of their RP within their FC house, and could probably carry on just fine without having one, but for some reason people tend not to stick around with an FC that doesn't have one. If you're not fortunate enough to have one already, it'll be a steep uphill climb to try and reach the point of acquiring one - and bear in mind, when we got 4 more wards per city with 3.3, every new house on the server was bought in less than 20 minutes after the servers came online, so even holding out hope for more wards in a future patch is still a long shot.

[Sileas Bishop]

Thank you to everyone who has replied thus far, a lot of these have been very helpful/good tips and I will be sure to be active on the forums. I made a website for my FC as soon as I created it, and has been very helpful. I'm definitely not trying to be, or ever plan on being an incredibly popular RP FC but just wanted to make sure I was doing all that I could to get our name out there. I've been wanting to make my own FC since I started playing this game around a year ago, so I have a lot of ambition.

 

But yeah, we don't have a house and going into making this I knew it would be an obstacle. The housing in this game barely even makes sense to me considering how ridiculous it is to even get any. Adding apartments (which I was able to get after sitting through 1000 person queue) didn't really fix anything, considering if you have a house you can still get an apartment. And I've already ran into people not wanting to join for the pure reason of not having a house, but I'm not going to let that stop me. I can be patient about ever possibly getting one. The whole point of making an FC isn't to just have a house, but It'd be a nice plus haha.

[K'nahli]

Shout recruitment doesn't bother me so long as it's not spam-like. I really dislike tells though. I find that quite invasive and prompted me to add a "Not Looking for a FC" tag a couple of times and even an outright block when the same person messaged me 2-3 times in a row on the same character.

[Branson Thorne]

Shout recruitment doesn't bother me so long as it's not spam-like. I really dislike tells though. I find that quite invasive and prompted me to add a "Not Looking for a FC" tag a couple of times and even an outright block when the same person messaged me 2-3 times in a row on the same character.

 

I dislike both equally.

 

Tells I dislike for the fact that if I'm level 60 and not in an FC, I don't want to be in one.

 

Shouts I dislike because they are posted every several minutes and some of them are 3-4 posts long!

 

Stop that shit.

[Thunderbolt300]

Shout recruitment doesn't bother me so long as it's not spam-like. I really dislike tells though. I find that quite invasive and prompted me to add a "Not Looking for a FC" tag a couple of times and even an outright block when the same person messaged me 2-3 times in a row on the same character.

 

I dislike both equally.

 

Tells I dislike for the fact that if I'm level 60 and not in an FC, I don't want to be in one.

 

Shouts I dislike because they are posted every several minutes and some of them are 3-4 posts long!

 

Stop that shit.

 

Manly grunt of approval and vindication- the kind of grunt you give someone who just ordered an A.1. Thick & Hearty burger combo in front of you at Whataburger

[ExAtomos]

No tells. Period. >: | If folks are mid rp scene and you just blasted em with a commercial, you may find yourself on their blacklist faster than you can say 'oops'.

 

PF, a few carefully written non-spammy shouts, put up your FC info here and the OF if you aren't banned yet, make flyers on tumblr/instagram/fb/other social media. All good suggestions.

 

What's your theme? Why is your group different from others (especially if you have a common theme)? Think of who you want to join and go to where they are likely to be (for example, dropping a shout in a real lowbie area will be great for pulling in folks who are brand new to game, but probably won't snag veteran players. And you'd advertise for these groups differently anyways.)

 

Put yourself out there. Go to events and interact with people. Trust me, most everyone is checking out everyone else's search info and FC info. (Do not put up a PF while at events though, that's considered rude to the hosts.) If you can go with your FC as a group, all the better.

 

Be patient, but keep your forward momentum going and spirits up.

 

Also, no tells.