Salted Flakes

[Vyrerus]

So, I was thinking to myself the other day my static of eld has had a bunch of roster changes over the years. Namely healers. Particularly in the Heavensward expansion. We had a lot of healers just flake on us then, so raiding each week became a monumental chore.

I wondered what others have experienced with flakiness? It doesn't have to be a static, of course, but perhaps in a really good farm party. A short term static for bird farming, maybe? Maybe just people flaking on a planned event with the FC. Tell me the story of your flakes, maybe go on a rant about how salty they made you! The floor is yours, after I dispense with mine.

So I'll share my experiences from a few different statics at different points.

In ARR I made my first alt. In short order I moved him to Sargatanas for non-raid related reasons and wound up raiding anyway. I cleared Turn 9 in a PUG with him, and half of the PUG was trying to form a static for FCoB. I joined their static, and it was a really tumultuous static, but it was the first time in the game where I really got ahead of my other friends in their separate statics and ahead of my main, in my main static on Excal. We started it mid December, and we cleared Turns 10 through 12 by January. However, our WHM wasn't very good by the static's standards, because she was having a hard time meeting healer checks and contributing "good" DPS. Bear in mind, she was passing all checks, and was DPSing. When we could have started progging Turn 13, the leads of the static made the motion to kick her out. After that, we had revolving door healers for a month. We wound up letting her back in. Our SCH was her boyfriend and one of the raid leads btw(and he strongly advocated for her dismissal, I was opposed). It was weird. When we finally cleared Turn 13 we got a Healer Body and the WHM cane. The second time we got SCH book. The third time, another healer body. Now having all of the gear from FCoB for their healers on what have would have been a 4th clear week, the SCH and WHM say to the rest of us, "Hey, we're done with raiding until Heavensward, see you in the expansion!" All cheerful. None of the rest of us had weapons for our mains. When we protested, they didn't understand our frustration and then never talked to us again.

In HW in my main static, the one that's still going, we thought we'd found a solid pair of healers. The SCH was a bit foggy headed, but our... I can't remember if she was AST or WHM, was super on point. We loved having her, and she seemed to enjoy our group. She joined into our static when Midas was fresh I think after we'd cleared 5 & 6. We progged all of A7s with her, and we cleared it a few times with her. We got he the healer pants, and then suddenly she said she couldn't raid with us anymore. She left the static and started raiding with her boyfriend, sometimes. It was really weird. No explanation, just gone. Revolving door and PUG healers for the rest of the tier.

[Provoke]

Honestly bro, nobody cares.

[Vyrerus]

Honestly bro, nobody cares.

[ReynTime]

FFXIV community is mature, nice and friendly according to that other topic. Here are a few examples, with the first getting 10+ likes btw:

Honestly bro, nobody cares.

Can I get a TL;DR please, thanks.

[WoW]

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

[Nethereal]

Aside from healer in this game being considered the most unenjoyable role to play the static I joined(as a healer main) had issues with healers way before I even joined back in stormblood and have continued to plague the group to date.

Since I joined the static after it had reformed 3 times already I'm a little fuzzy on the history but the last healer issue before me had to do with a whm who wanted south for her "Stone 4 south positional" in o10s.
Needless to say the group didn't clear the tier and stopped raiding after beating(?) o11s.

Skip to when eden's gate, that was pretty solid had a full group long enough to get everyone their mounts.
Between gate and verse we have somebodies friend come in as a fairly fresh whm(doesn't know the difference between medica and medica 2) and the only contention was that he kept his dick in his pants, he didn't and got kicked.

Eden's verse rolls around and one of our dps mains swaps over to sch is absolutely atrocious and we have our whm swap to ast so he can swap to whm since he was struggling to heal during add phase it got the clear but he still needed to be reminded when to drop asylum so not great.

Eden's promise rolls out and we're feeling stronger than ever with most of our team fresh from TEA and the other half from our UCOB group.
Weeks into prog one of our healers is constantly late and their attitude is rubbing some of our members wrong.
Reclears come around and our healer is late again this time by 3 hours.
The static started reclearing after having waited an hour. Needless to say since this was their third strike they were removed from the group and replaced by a very fresh healer who was progging e12s lions after we helped them clear e11s.
Two weeks after we replace our old healer who we cleared up to e12s with we clear with our new healer and that's where we are right now.

I don't know the exact reason why healers have so many issues in this game but I have to imagine it's because in this game healers are very free.
The only thing the game tells you to really do is make sure your DoT is up 100% of the time and that the group is alive how you go about that and how efficiently is all up to you.

Where as if you're a tank or a dps you have rotations and especially on dps it doesn't matter how good your dps brethren are doing in the immediate situation as long as you're alive and doing mechanics.
That's very much not true as a healer when you're expecting your co-healer to at least be alive using their oGCDs at least.

It's the only role in the game outside tanks back when bosses could crit where you have to awake every second in case someone fucks up and you have(want) to save them where as everyone else can just turn off their brain and ignore most everything except their rotation until mechanics. It's probably the reason why the disparity between healers is usually obvious and why if the synergy is bad the static isn't going to have a good time.

[Vyrerus]

Since I joined the static after it had reformed 3 times already I'm a little fuzzy on the history but the last healer issue before me had to do with a whm who wanted south for her "Stone 4 south positional" in o10s.

Oof!

I've definitely experienced people who cling to certain directionals for mechanics like that. It's so they never have to think about it, but of course, that meshes poorly outside a controlled experience.

As far as healers being free, that's certainly true. We've settled for some pretty questionable ones in the past ourselves, with our leader calling out what cures for them to do and when. In Stormblood he wound up rolling an alt just so he could bring in an emergency healer, because we had a lot of tank friends who had troubles clearing for the week that we could bring in.

In HW we had a SCH for Creator who didn't know he could tell Eos when to do things. He didn't know the purpose of Selene, and he also had the assumption that Physic was better than Adlo. He actually did stay with us the whole tier though, and he got better as we slowly beat good habits into him. He was also really apologetic usually, and humility goes a long way for all of us.

I'm trying to think of time DPS and tanks flaked on us. I know we had a MCH for all of a week when progging Midas, A5s. He just stopped showing up without an explanation. I think we got one line about he had to quit on Discord and that was it.

[LianaThorne]

We got her the healer pants, and then suddenly she said she couldn't raid with us anymore. She left the static and started raiding with her boyfriend, sometimes. It was really weird. No explanation, just gone. Revolving door and PUG healers for the rest of the tier.

I found the reason you're looking for. If her bf isn't in your static/you don't have room for him then sorry, you're not going to win over him and odds are he wanted to start raiding with her. It's not being a flake, it's just wanting to be with her boyfriend lol. As sucky as it is, this is a game and not real life and not everyone is going to give you the answers you want because they don't have to in a virtual space.

[Vyrerus]

I found the reason you're looking for. If her bf isn't in your static/you don't have room for him then sorry, you're not going to win over him and odds are he wanted to start raiding with her. It's not being a flake, it's just wanting to be with her boyfriend lol. As sucky as it is, this is a game and not real life and not everyone is going to give you the answers you want because they don't have to in a virtual space.

I mean, sure. It'd be nice if that were the whole reason. But she was inconsistent in raiding with him too, and they eventually parted ways shortly there after.

My beef's not really with the fact that people have reasons they don't tell me. It's just, there's no courtesy. Not losing any sleep over it, but it's kinda memorable.

Waiting until raid time of raid day to tell someone that you're not raiding is flaking (whether it just be for that day or forever). Not showing up is flaking. The least people could do is give a heads up, or any simple courtesy such as, "Sorry all, decent group but I'm going to join my boyfriend's raid group." Also, it is real life. We're real people, playing a real game. I mean, we don't need to take it super seriously, but it does affect our lives.

I mean, I myself have flaked before. I was in a static from mid 2014 until early 2016, and in January of 2016 I got sick missed their raid time a few times, told them I was sick, but flaked on the last raid night before I went to Japan for three weeks. Raid lead literally sending me angry texts as I'm trying to find my hotel in Japan, and it was sad times for me. She told the static that I didn't want to raid with them anymore, and that they shouldn't be lenient with me for missing so much. They raided once, sometimes twice a week if everyone could make it. I was literally just too sick to stay up as late as I needed to make their time, and then I sorta tunnel visioned vacation prep for Japan. I told'em all that, and I wrote them an apology on their raiding board. I didn't have to do all that, but it was the least I could do.

This thread isn't really intended to be a pity party or a deep dissection about the whys. I'm just curious to see how similar my experience is to other people who have raided throughout the game's life. That's all.

[LianaThorne]

I mean, sure. It'd be nice if that were the whole reason. But she was inconsistent in raiding with him too, and they eventually parted ways shortly there after.

My beef's not really with the fact that people have reasons they don't tell me. It's just, there's no courtesy. Not losing any sleep over it, but it's kinda memorable.

Waiting until raid time of raid day to tell someone that you're not raiding is flaking (whether it just be for that day or forever). Not showing up is flaking. The least people could do is give a heads up, or any simple courtesy such as, "Sorry all, decent group but I'm going to join my boyfriend's raid group." Also, it is real life. We're real people, playing a real game. I mean, we don't need to take it super seriously, but it does affect our lives.

I mean, I myself have flaked before. I was in a static from mid 2014 until early 2016, and in January of 2016 I got sick missed their raid time a few times, told them I was sick, but flaked on the last raid night before I went to Japan for three weeks. Raid lead literally sending me angry texts as I'm trying to find my hotel in Japan, and it was sad times for me. She told the static that I didn't want to raid with them anymore, and that they shouldn't be lenient with me for missing so much. They raided once, sometimes twice a week if everyone could make it. I was literally just too sick to stay up as late as I needed to make their time, and then I sorta tunnel visioned vacation prep for Japan. I told'em all that, and I wrote them an apology on their raiding board. I didn't have to do all that, but it was the least I could do.

This thread isn't really intended to be a pity party or a deep dissection about the whys. I'm just curious to see how similar my experience is to other people who have raided throughout the game's life. That's all.

1. Getting sick isn't being a flake. Whoever told you that needs to chill out and stop to smell the roses once in a while. That's not a healthy mentality. People get sick and things happen that are out of their control and no one should be punished for that. This isn't a real life job and also why some statics have alternate players to take over if someone can't make it.

2. Correct, we are real people but this is a game. This is not real life outside of how we choose to control our character and the friendships we make along the way. I have issues separating from the game because I do view it as an extension of myself, but a lot of people don't look at it like that at the same time. People put on personas and fake who they are so it doesn't have to be real to them. There's nothing you or I or anyone can do about that. Just have to brush it off and move along onto the next thing. This is the internet, get ready to meet a lot of people who ultimately won't care about you or your feelings.