I was a little late to raiding, started with the first set of Alex savage. My FC leader decided to set up a static from ppl in the FC to work on the more challenging stuff. My FC isnt huge and its all made up of irl friends, or at least someone who knows someone in the FC in real life. We did make some progress, but eventually it kind of started falling apart. Some people were much more into it than others, doing everything they could to get better while it seemed like other people were just showing up. Some people liked to read guides/watch videos while others wanted to run in blind. And some people just had real life stuff going on and it was clear they couldn't put as much time in. but we kept pushing on and trying to make it work cause we were all friends and wanted to play together.
One night though, shortly after a5s-8s dropped I had an acquaintance ask if I could just fill in for their group cause they were looking for a Bard and I had nothing to do that night. I was kind of nervous though cause I knew a couple ppl in the group and that they were -really- good players. and while I loved working on the harder content and knew I could hold my own pretty well, I've always shied away from that hardcord mindset. I liked raiding because of the friendship and accomplishing things together. I didn't want to be in a group that would kick someone if they messed up and didn't give them a fair chance to learn a mechanic or get better at their class. But it turns out these guys are all really chill and even though they are good, they're just having fun and their mindset matched really well to mine.
Of course and then they asked if I would be interested in joining them permanently. x.x Which meant leaving my FC static I was still currently in. It was hard, but I decided to leave, and my FC static disbanded shortly afterwards because of the different mindsets and people having life stuff going on. My new group is made up of 4 different FCs, we have a linkshell to chat and its never been a problem that we're not in the same FC. Unfortunately the new group is mostly Oceanic and I'm... not. So we only can raid Fri/Sat nights at some ungodly hour. BUT that does leave lots of time during the week to run things with my FC. I don't feel like I've lost that friendship with my FC, its definitely not as strong as it was though when were actively working on something together. My FC is pretty active though and has silly monthly events like hide and seek and the like, as well as weekly scheduled runs like diadem/ct/st/wod/ect so that helps too. If you want to still do things with your FC than you make time for them and find things to do, and its up to them if they want to do the same. I think starting with a group of friends is a great way to start raiding and getting a taste for it, but over time it does become clear who's really into it and who isn't. and it'll get to a point where some people will need to leave and grow and find a new group that better suites their raiding style.