Since the new Ultimate raid dropped this Tuesday and we got the first world clear today (plagued by some cheating and drama) I thought I would share my opinion on raiding in FFXIV.

There are various forms of high-end content which mostly require a full party of 8 people, which will vary in difficulty such as extreme trials, savage and ultimate raids. There are also Criterion and Savage Criterion dungeons for 4 people, and the endgame zones of Stormblood and Shadowbringers expansions have also seen duties which required 6 full parties so 48 people. In Dawntrail we are also getting Chaotic Alliance Raids which will have 3 parties of 8 people.

My week 2 clear of the first savage raid in the previous expansion:

I only got to endgame in Shadowbringers, and after completing all the story content I was eager to jump into raiding. But I've been only raiding before in Lineage II and that was a completely different experience. My Free Company (guild) mates were quick to rush me trough the normal version of the raids to unlock savage and that's when realisation hit me how big of a jump it was in difficulty.

If you progress through the game doing an expansion from release, you will see the natural progression of content: finishing the story trials, doing the extreme trial, getting better gear, doing the normal raids over and over again to learn the basic mechanics and then doing savage. But I missed out on all that progression, and found myself learning slower than my team mates.

Eventually we cleared the first savage raid, everyone was happy but then I was told that they didn't want me around anymore, because I wasn't doing the percentage of damage they expected from a healer. This was the point where I got hit with 3rd party tools, damage meters, logs and min-maxed ideal rotations and party buff windows. I didn't understand it at all. In my eyes there were no problems, we cleared the fight, the next one will be harder but surely we will clear that too as we will get better like we did during this raid progression?

But they didn't think so.

Looking back at it now, I know that I wasn't ready yet for high-end raiding, especially not with a job which I was forced to swap to from my main so we didn't double up on the same shield healer... But I still didn't like the treatment I got from people who were not even complete strangers but my FC mates... like... you know... friends?

Why the long story of my own first raiding experience? Because it almost made me quit the game, and it took years, a group of kind people, and lots of getting slapped in the face with the same mechanics over and over again until I learnt it to overcome my fear of not being good enough. And I see a lot of people being turned away from raid groups let those be pre-formed statics or groups in party finder. People who were like me, knew to the game, not knowing about resources you can use to learn your ideal raiding rotation, not knowing how to get better gear or what steps you should climb to get experience in harder content.

Other games use a lot of 3rd party tools, but in FFXIV they are against the T&C. There are multiple reasons for this, but the why doesn't matter that much, tldr they are not allowed you shouldn't use them. While many people use them to analyse their own performance and get better (been there done that myself after that first raiding experience) others use it to gatekeep people from their raiding parties. How? Checking if you have logs, how good your logs are, if you have cleared certain fights, and simply kick you from the group if you don't meet their criteria, no matter how good you might be, you don't even get a chance to prove it.

Ultimate raids are special and unique among the various high-end content, because you can't do them unsynced. A lot of content you can complete when you are higher level and go in to the duty without syncing your level and gear item level down. But you can't do that with Ultimates. The first ultimate was lvl70, and even if you want to do it today with your lvl100 character, you need to sync down to lvl70 and won't be able to use your higher level skills, your gear will also have lower stats etc. So these fights are more-or-less constant in difficulty to clear (they do get easier as higher level gear will sync down differently). They are still a challenge and an achievement you should be proud of.

Unless some raiders tell you that you shouldn't, because you only cleared the easiest ultimate which "doesn't count."

The game has been out for 10 years, there is a lot of content, and if someone only got into it recently, they can't be expected to do everything. There are requirements for certain duties, so for example current savage raids you have to clear them in order, you can't just jump into the last one. Every ultimate raid has a requirement of clearing a specific savage raid. But some people would demand that you have cleared various other ultimates before they let you join their current ultimate prog party.

Meanwhile these same people will use 3rd party tools to clear an ultimate.

I can't condemn everyone who does it, because having a voice chat a raid leader to do callouts makes it a lot easier to coordinate what everyone does, and if you are raiding with random people every day in party finder you don't always have the chance to join a Discord server for voice chat. Add-ons which place markers automatically and help with positionals can save you from lots of wipes. Or someone might be having a hard time noticing certain visual queues and changing the colour of things or marking certain spots is a huge help for them. Understandable? Totally. Should you do it? Well no, but if you do it quietly, the same way how you only use damage meter to check your own performance no one will care.

The problem comes when people use these tools in a race for the world first clear and get caught.

Even though the world first race is not official, the devs usually follow it, and Yoshi-P used to congratulate the first group to clear a new ultimate raid in an announcement. But at least in the past 2 years this race has been plagued by one or more of the participating groups using add-ons or refusing to stream their progress then suddenly getting very much ahead of the other groups.

Video of the current ultimate's world first clear (we don't count the ones who cheated):

I cleared an ultimate. The one which doesn't count mind you, because it's the easiest and everyone uses auto marker anyway. We didn't. We adjusted the strategy around our slowest learning member (hi that's me) so I was always in a fix position for one mechanics. I called it the "slow old lady" position. They called it the "just stand there and do big damage" position. After we cleared I was running around smiling constantly with my Ultimate Legend title above my head. For me it was the moment of proving to my first raid group that I have what it takes to clear high-end raid, even if I learn a bit slower.

Baby's first ultimate:

And my question is really, when did raiders stop doing something for the sense of accomplishment, when did they stop offering a helping hand to that one party member who was a bit clumsy? When did clearing something fast become so important that they didn't have the patience anymore to fail one more time, get up and try again, and they resorted to using 3rd party tools.

These fights were designed to be cleared with whatever tools the game gives you. Some people can even push those tools to their limits and clear an ultimate raid with 8 tanks.

There is no need to use add-ons. Anyone can clear any content in this game, the only difference is how long does it take for them.

I'm not raiding this expansion, because apparently if you have a full-time job and can only spare one day for raiding, you are not taking it seriously and no one wants you in their group. So I'm casual. Not because I can only do "casual content" like the story dungeons, but because for me doesn't matter anymore what type of content I do and how long it takes to do it. I do content for fun with people who I enjoy playing with.

I managed to get some achievements I'm proud of when I had time to play more during the lockdowns, but I feel sorry for those people who are new to the game, maybe it is their first MMO, they would like to raid for the first time, and they will have to face such gatekeeping and toxicity.

Those of us who have played this game for a long time and now the ways of it now should be showing the way for the new players and help them along their journey instead of sending them away and telling them to get better.

"Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after"

To all the fellow raiders who make guides, organise teaching runs for newbies, and despite their achievements are kind and down to earth people in every duty they do: thank you.