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How would a new fleet go about recruiting?
the7thof9
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
My friends and I have a newer fleet, and we need more members. However, ESD is a massive clusterf*ck and no one listens, and people get all upset about spam even though 5 people are doing the same thing. How would one go about finding kind and active players?
Post edited by the7thof9 on
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Truth be told though, you're in for an uphill battle. People only want to join fleets with high level holdings these days. With thousands of fleets out there to choose from, a brand new fleet is going to be hard to recruit for. Good luck.
Mine Trap Supporter
It is certainly not the easiest thing to do. Finding good new people is never that easy, especially as a new fleet when there is some push towards being in fleets with the highest level fleet holdings (though public service channels alleviate that need somewhat). I'd just say keep your eyes open for people, and if there's someone you think you'd like to join the fleet, ask them directly and let them say no if they want to.
Include in your recruitment message a request for interested players to PM you.
Broadcast a recruitment message in Zone Chat no more often then once every 5 minutes. This keeps the bitter, angry, spam TRIBBLE's at bay. I rarely have any complaints about spam. If you do get the occasional bitter, angry, spam TRIBBLE complaining about your recruiting in Zone Chat, ignore them. Don't get into a fight with them, you'll only make yourself and your new fleet look bad, and your goal is to attract players to your fleet, not demonstrate that you are willing to argue out loud. There really is nothing wrong with broadcasting out loud to the zone that you are recruiting for your fleet, no matter what anyone says here or in game. Just don't do it more then once every 5 minutes
If you get no interested players, move out to Space and try again. Then move out to Sector Space and try again. Every couple of nights I tour the galaxy and send out my recruitment message in each sector block. I visit all the major Docks such as ESD, K7, DS9, Drozana Station, Starbase 39-Sierra, etc. I spend about 10 minutes in each place, which means broadcasting my recruitment message twice each.
Important: Always be respectful in zone chat no matter how rude someone is to you. If you tend lower yourself to fight with some troll, you might as well not bother recruiting.
Good luck!
It should also be worth noting that finding players that are both "kind" and "active" is basically impossible. You can have one of these: Either you're going to have "kind" players who, naturally, have friends, families, lives, and whatnot, which will keep them from being active, or you're going to have jerks, who, having no friends to hold them back, can thus be active. Pick what you'd rather put up with.
Take me, for instance: I'm an extremely active player averaging about 22-23 hours a day. I'm also an intolerable jerk and have no friends. And I already have a fleet.
This has not been my experience.
My fleetmates and I recruit fairly often, and we do not recruit friends from other games, and so far, over the last 8 months, we've encountered a remarkably low number of "jerks". Almost our entire fleet are recruits from ESD, we use Ventrilo to talk to each other and they are a great bunch of folks.
There are also people called introverts who have few friends not because they are insufferable "jerks" but because they are comfortable alone, or with few friends. They often make for active gamers and are usually a fine addition to a fleet.
This. I am starting to become mighty tempted to troll fleets with my bank alt --- the next blind invite, I am going to join and mess with em.
There are tons of new players in the game. I personally have had fun being in an incomplete fleet (not t5, in other words) where my contributions feel useful. The nature of games... some new folks will stay, some will try the game and leave, but if you can get a couple of good people every few weeks, and each of those can get one more every few weeks (talking one or two that will stay, play, contribute, etc). You might pick up a few strays who were tired of their fleet but, by and large people who have played a while just want to join a t5 completed fleet.
Most of them login daily. Our fleet does not tolerate rude players who make our fleet look bad. ESD is a good place, if not the best place, to recruit players new to the game. Personally, I like to pick up new players. Our fleet is happy to teach them the game, and give them a good game experience.
Players new to the game ought to be treated well, taught how to play, build ships, get equipment, do reputation, and STFs. Players who have a good playing experience will stay with the game and spend money on it thus contribute to keeping the game alive. In my experience these players tend to frequent ESD.
But we are also happy to pick up game veterans too. The more knowledgeable players we have who don't mind to teach, the better.
It seems to me, that the trolls of ESD are either already in a fleet, or are uninterested in being in a fleet. I think this is why we rarely ever recruit any.
I thought about that.
Then I just went into the "social" menu and blocked fleet invitations. Haven't seen a drive-by since.
Keep this in mind when recruiting. Plenty of people just send invites to any fleetless chars they see running around. It's annoying and will either get you ignored or they'll do a grab and go on your fleet bank.
At this point in the game's life I highly recommend you take a look at the recruitment sections of these forums and find an established fleet that suits you and then invite your friends. If you have a large enough group of friends and you really want your very own fleet you can also focus on completing tier 1 of all your holding and then focus on running provision projects. You can then join the NoP Public Service and get invites to tier 5 fleets to access their unlocked high end fleet equipment using your own fleets provisions.
I should add that we do sometimes have people in NoP Public Service in need of fleet credits looking for fleets like yours to dump marks/dil into which would help you hit tier 1 as well.
The best thing I can tell you to do during recruitment is to follow through. As in once you get someone new into your fleet, engage them. Don't overwhelm them, but get them involved in things really quickly. And get them feeling like they are a part of the group. This won't work with everyone you recruit out of say ESD, but it'll help you find the active players more effectively.
From my personal experience, the first active fleet I got involved with once they got me invited, got me doing some events and missions with them. They didn't make it a burden, they just made me feel like part of the team. And this was forever ago. But they taught me how to do elite STFs and other content. And didn't force stuff on me, but helped me get along.
That fleet kind of died around T3 in terms of starbase. But it took me forever to convince myself it was time to move on, because of how they made me feel like a part of everything. It's just the activity dwindled and most of the people who brought me in and taught me stuff, were all gone.
So I went back out into the scary world of being fleet-less. And again it was the people who were communicative and eased me into things that I responded to and am now happy that I hooked up with a great group of people to talk to and play the game with.
So that's my advice. A little perspective from the other side of the coin and I hope it helps.
The recruitment messages tossed around in zones and stuff are great. And how you word them certainly helps you get people to accept the invite. But my advice is more about keeping the people you do invite as that will help you get active people, playing together. And that's the big step towards meeting the goals for fleet holding advancement.
Good luck! Hope it works out and you find some great people.
Are you going to aim for T5 status or just making to where you can get provisioning and then use the public services that exist to get things from holdings?
Answering that helps give some shape to your fleet and it also helps you be up front with potential recruits.
Biggest tips I can give. Be truthful and upfront about how big you are and what the play style of the overall fleet is. I always tell potential recruits what our roster size is and what level our holdings are at. If they haven't gone away by then I tell them that the best I can offer is my knowledge of STO and a very casual atmosphere and that we aren't going to ever be able to compete with larger fleets in terms of services. It's just not feasible.
If they join after knowing as much as they can what your fleet is about then they tend to stay.
However as others have said, its a very uphill battle of people in tiny fleets.
Other than that, I would also say if you get someone in don't forget about them. More members may boost your number's but it doesn't get you a good atmosphere or people that may give to your fleet. In the fleet I left I was an active member. I wasn't a recruiter, I was terrible at it. However, we brought in allot of new people. So, I helped them out. I answered their questions gave advice and made them feel welcome. I was always open to answer any question any time I was on. No matter how simple or complex it maybe. It wasn't just me, but also the fleet leader and other members. We had a friendly atmosphere where the best STO player and the worst could get along. We use to enter PvP, fight hopeless battle after hopeless battle and laugh it off in Fleet chat old and new. It kept people in the fleet, but also made us a very social and fun as a fleet. So, also focus on a fleet that is open and welcoming. For a new player, I found this is a way to keep them and draw them in.
Also, sometimes people just don't want to be in a fleet for a good reason. Recently, the fleet I was in lost it's leadership more or less. They stopped coming on, project's dried up, and the friendly nature of the fleet started to vanish. A good fleet leader determine's how your fleet will be. With him and the second ranked member gone, it sort of fell apart. The real world is what is important so I can't blame them. I dealt with it as long as I could. I tried to keep up the old spirit as well. However, seeing thing's go further south I left. That being said I am still without a fleet and I'm not looking for one. Mainly because I don't want to start over again yet. That, and as of right now I have plans for my Dilithium. Plan's that can't go ahead if I join a fleet again. I am sure their are other's that don't want to be in a fleet for a reason like this or something close in nature. I am still active, my Dilithium and marks are just my own now. I'm sure other's are the same way.
My best suggestion is to treat building your fleet as if it where a brand new business. When you start a business you have to plan out the business before you open it. Do something that will make your fleet stand out from the rest.
Some tips:
Start and finish your Dilithium mine before you start the rest of the holdings. Completing this holding first will make the projects on the other holdings much cheaper.
New seasons or features mean new players, new players mean possible new fleet mates.
Be available to help and answer questions. Fleets with evasive or stand offish leaders don't tend to hold members long.
Recruiting will get you a lot of no answers, don't be a jerk when told no. Be gracious and let them know that your invitation is an open one, I've had a few no responses later sign up to my fleet.
You don't have to spam recruiting messages just make them memorable.
I've noticed that some fleets are not "noob" friendly, their loss is your gain.
Co-Leader of Serenity's Grasp