Why are Statics so difficult sometimes?

[TyrTry]

Don't treat the static as your family, or as your FC, or as your friends or anything. You are all there to do a job, if you as part of that static cannot perform your task, then you need to leave.

Oh, I can understand an immature or not-savage-ready FC; been in my share of a few. The one thing I didn't want is for this to become another job, but we do have a goal to accomplish. If we can't accomplish that goal because of lack of skill, the nice thing about an FC is that we can train them (if they so desire). If it is gear, we can help them. Some of the members have pushed themselves to increase DPS and gear levels to help out to those who were already there.

[Penthea]

Don't treat the static as your family, or as your FC, or as your friends or anything. You are all there to do a job, if you as part of that static cannot perform your task, then you need to leave.

As another note, running with an FC static is the worst thing you can do. I don't even consider my FC as viable simply because I've seen how some of them behave and decided it is not worth my time and effort to organize vegetables who think being incompetent is ok.

I don't see how having a close relationship with the static members is automatically a bad thing. Maybe it wasn't a good experience for you but that doesn't mean it's going to be just as bad for everyone else. Raiding with friends or fc mates isn't always a direct ticket to failure and raiding with strictly business sort of people isn't always a direct ticket to success. Raiding is far too complex to have such a black and white view on it. There is a lot to be said about the sort of rules you have, the environment you nurture and the attitude towards it all. Statics and fcs can greatly differ from one another even if they share the same end goals because there are several routes to those destinations.

What I personally found to be a good route to success is to ensure everyone in the team has a similar vision in how they want to achieve that. Whether you're treating your team mates as if they're co-workers or if they're close friends, having the whole team agree on what they want and how to get it is one of the most important things in raiding. Without that the road is going to be very bumpy.

[HyoMinPark]

Don't treat the static as your family, or as your FC, or as your friends or anything. You are all there to do a job, if you as part of that static cannot perform your task, then you need to leave.

I disagree. The best groups I've done high-end content with have been groups of friends. If I join a static full of strangers, and develop no bond with them, then I develop no loyalty to them. I also don't like treating raiding as a job or a chore. Yes, I aim to clear, and I aim to prog fast. But if I'm not having fun, I'm not going to be satisfied, and I'm going to look elsewhere. If I'm not enjoying the group, I'm going to be apathetic towards the entire situation, and apathy is not a good state of mind to have when you're doing hardcore stuff like Ultimate, or even Savage.

I don't consider this advice as good advice.

[TyrTry]

There are many helpful replies in this topic with a whole array of diverse ideas. Thanks to you guys, I'm able to create a better idea of what I need to do keep the static moving. Like I said, things are running more smoothly, and our biggest goal is to complete Ultimate raids.

[Liam_Harper]

Players and lack of flexibility compared to others MMO's. WoW have the same problem with Mythic raiding but thanks to how loot and raid size works normal/heroic experiences are far superior.

Aye, the biggest difference with other MMO's, like WoW, is that Mythic raiding and indeed progression content or any organized raids at all levels in general is seen as a FC activity, while in FF14 it seems Statics are often seen as something you ideally do outside of your FC.

I'm not sure why this is really, probably a combination of factors but it is a shame FF14 doesn't encourage FC progression more.

[Lunafreya]

I know what you mean. I actually really hate it when people dont show up and I would never lead a static for those reasons. I'm usually quiet during raid as I prefer concentration and in the event drama happens I dont want to talk to people that start it. Whether it's healing, dps, etc is just annoying. I play a certain way and that is the role of aggressive healer. I've been told a few times to change my playstyle and I refused and said this is my playstyle I'll only heal when there are checks up because there's no point in healing when no damage is going up. I dont really have to communicate this to my other healer as well cause we have different styles of play and that's clear. Some prefer healing and minimal dps. Some prefer dps and only healing for checks IE: earthly star. putting up shields, and only really healing when there's too much damage going on. A good healer understands when and when not to heal and when to dps. It became an issue in some of my groups sometimes and i'm glad I left those because I will never be told to adapt to x healing playstyle when my own is far better. Anyway, the best advice I could give you is to just get a new group or kick the person who started the excuses. Sometimes it is better to burn bridges for the clear but if the person is a close friend you'll need to talk it out with them beforehand and say they are letting down the group. Statics can be extremely difficult but savage isnt excatly impossible to pug as I got my first clears in pug every fight this tier.

[Vhailor]

We set times in which we could meet (95% of us are working adults), annnnnnnd people would skip out or had an appointment or fell asleep or grandma died or grandma revived. This happened many times typically with the same people. Grandma must have died at least 16 times.

FFXIV places a tremendous burden upon statics given its combination of 8-person content (as opposed to 6 for most content in FFXI), and its utter inflexibility in terms of group size. It means everyone has to be there, at all meeting times, for eight people, all of whom have to juggle the various demands of life.

This is where 'midcore content' should factor in more heavily: content featuring a moderate grind, moderate challenge, and group size flexibility in that 6-7 people could work in a pinch. Eureka has the potential to provide this if the content is augmented by additional things to do, farmed force-pop NMs a la Abyssea or some such. Maps are good. There's not much else, though, besides catch-up Mount farming from old unsynced EX trials. The relative lack of mid-core, flexible content then pushes people into harder stuff with inflexible party member requirements, and... then it's just done, from what I've seen.

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I'd also point out that running the hardest content with SPs is dicey, especially from the get-go. It takes time to form chemistry, familiarity, trust - from a gameplay perspective. Attempting Savage content before that stage is hit is dicey. Maybe everyone was there already, but given the problems you ran into, I suspect the group cohesion hadn't yet reached an acceptable level. I'd suggest easier content in the future for starting out, like running 24-person Raids as one of the full parties, running current Trials (NM and EX), etc.

[MicahZerrshia]

Honestly there is little reason to do anything outside of saying you did it or just because you enjoy it. The treadmill is way to fast and gear is way easier to get by alternate means (aka tomes). Even primals, the drop rates are super low for mounts that you will maybe use briefly. So it's hard to dedicate hours of your time to it.

Coil was different since the story was locked behind it and omg was it a good story, esp for us legacy ppl, compared to the meh alex and omega (so far) story. XI was different too, we had a static that lasted over 5 years in XI because it felt like you were doing something worthwhile and you had a large variety of things to do, all of which were relevant in one way or another. This also made us great friends who I still play with today (in ESO cause none of them want to bother with XIV).

Here, I haven't had a static last more than a month tops and even within that month you only get to run things 50% of the time because that's the only time 50% of the static shows up. And pugging is tremendously horrible. I stopped pugging primals at Sephirot because getting 1 successful kill was a miracle, much less farming it.

Endgame in ffxiv can be summed up by "more frustrating than fun". Honestly if I wouldn't have been here since beta v1 and gotten invested, I prob wouldn't sub anymore. I only log in for dailies at this point anyway and I really only even do a couple of them before wondering why I even bother and logging out so I can log into a different game.

Don't treat the static as your family, or as your FC, or as your friends or anything. You are all there to do a job, if you as part of that static cannot perform your task, then you need to leave.

Yikes. I beg to differ. Best statics I have ever had (see above) were with friends, good friends who became like brothers and sisters after years of playing together and chatting even while playing other games. It's when we brought strangers in that things got messy. Because you don't want to let your friends down, who cares about randos you will never talk to again.

[Yeol]

It all comes down to the mentality of the players and how good their leader is. If people are going to act childish and the leader does nothing about it, things are going to get bad. You don't want to have people with bad attitudes in your static no matter how good they are at their job.

Also, when having a static set your rules/goals, you'll eliminate unwanted people. People can still lie to get into the static, but a good leader can handle it just fine.
Some things are better said in private. You can always contact your static leader privately if something is bothering you. Talking badly to a static member in front of everyone is just disrespectful. You don't want this to happen to you, don't do it to other people.

I've met some of my best friends in-game by joining a static filled with strangers who with days became good friends. It was by far, the best raiding experience ever for me. Turning your static members into friends is good for long-lasting static.