Cloud of Darkness Chaotic: Awesome Fight, Horrible Experience

[@Saiga906]

People quitting after three pulls is something that has been plaguing Fru as well, people have been a lot less patient lately.

[@jonamar3965]

Agreed. PF give the flexibility to play when you want, but that also means there's no guarantee how long you get to engage with content. I do hope that the discord that came about due to Chaotic can adapt to growing a midcore community by branching out to savage prog groups!

[@vex4859]

i dont got time for people who say p5 prog and cant do p1 shit

[@LupusArcavius]

I’ve been having a blast in PF with this fight. I love the incentives for helping new people clear. I usually like joining clear parties for stuff just to help anyway. But the lockout for savage punishes you and others for that so I’m really happy this fight not only doesn’t punish people for helping with clears but it also rewards you. I find myself joining clear and prog parties more than farms. Even if we don’t clear I just get to have fun doing the fight and helping people get experience

[@onedaynoreason2572]

I think a lot of players have lost sight of that. I always only raid for FUN

[@LupusArcavius]

@@onedaynoreason2572yeah it’s like people view content in this game as a checklist. Clear the fight *check* Farm the rewards *check* Never look back and complain there’s no content

[@Aitherea]

@@LupusArcavius I understand the sentiment as I've felt this way too, but I think for lots of us, the fight starts out fun but then we get held back for hours due to the nature of it. Being unable to reach a goal, not because of your own failings, doesn't feel good. It's great that you can find enjoyment in it no matter what, but for a lot of people, a fun fight quickly turns into the frustration of hitting the same wall over and over for hours. It's like getting stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway. You can enjoy the scenic route, but when you're stood still with the scenery never changing, it loses its charm and you just want to get to your destination.

[@garynguyen4253]

Any party is tower memes lmao it doesn't matter where prog you will wipe to towers and you will like It. Manage to clear day two but have only gotten two clears so far and that basically sums out how memey this fight is

[@cherryindil8869]

even in farm party :(

[@Nillabeans1]

it blows my mind. towers are so easy! how do people contantly fuck them up?? look at the raidplan guys smh

[@immersion9880]

I freaking hate body check mechanics. It just seems so lazy imo and putting that shit in a 24 man? No thank you.

[@TheBpendleton44]

Never been more happy to turn in 99 materia in my life

[@Aitherea]

congrats on getting the mount!!

[@OlveshTTV]

I think they will learn a lot from this first Chaotic raid. I am an avid fan of Delubrum Savage and Baldesion Arsenal. This is my kind of content and yet, I don't feel too enticed of doing it. I progged up to towers, and when I realized no one seemed to understand this mechanic and kept hurting my head into the same wall, I just stopped and played something else. I dont know when I'll hop back in Chaotic, but damn would I love to have a premade of at least 7 other people I know with me. WoD Chaotic just came out and I already want the next, most likely improved, second one out.

[@oszaszi]

This is nothing like BA... in BA you can go in with very minimal preparation. You are encouraged to talk to each other. It gives time to breath, be friendly and nice. This is just a one boss 24 man savage. Savage raids are not peak mmo experience. When was the last time you had a friendly banter or discussion in a savage raid? You dont. The only thing spoken about is if someone fails a mechanic. So the only social experience you get from these is when someone shittalks you.

[@d0k0night]

@@oszaszi hear hear. Savage raids kinda suck. They're not fun.

[@hawgacrux]

⁠​⁠@@oszaszi This. In short BA is a real raid while chaotic is just another boss fight. It’s just more of the same old treadmill in knowing your position or wipe. I honestly don‘t get why the „top“ content creators out there hype it so much as the arrival of Jesus for this game. It’s just another savage fight with more people. How is it’s any special outside of the rewards? I disagree with Aitherea on some topics but imo here she is one of the few who actually echo the general feedback I saw in the comments, social media and even ingame. Even the Japanese side is not too happy with it.

[@ItsZorroDood]

Put the strict body check at the beginning.

[@GCarv0301]

Nice to hear a rant about the hell we've all been going through. I bet a good metric for how toxic this has been is if we could see statistics on use of the blacklist feature pre/post cod release. I was hoping this would be fun.

[@formy52]

I think you raise a really good point about just the sheer amount of positions that you might need to remember. Savage is already a test of memory when it comes to clock spots, placements, spread positions and so on, and now you might have to learn two more Alliance spots. I can definitely see how that would just be a lot.

[@black-velvet98]

Me and my friends have been trying to clear this for days. The four of us know what we're doing and usually our alliance is doing stuff perfectly, but then the other alliances are messing up and we even have people joining our brambles prog that haven't even done it yet. it's nuts x-x

[@kestenyi3873]

Make all the towers single player soaks and done, fun fight, no longer tower purgatory that makes you want to bang head into desk wall anything. "Keep my toxicity in my head except when RDMs heal then I'm stepping on your tile" is really funny lmao

[@xsteelersx6]

Body check reduction would make it easier to bring more casual friends into the content without the full burden of execution on them being responsible for the whole groups success. They really didn’t need to make the bait/ tower count as high as it is.

[@silverwill-x7v]

I do believe that content similar to this could work, but the devs really need to go back to the drawing board and reassess some things. I have seen more toxic outbursts in the last week than the past 5 years I've been playing this game combined. And having had a 17 hour stretch between clears and dying to flares in P1 in a farm party, I've almost lost my temper too. This fight is unhealthy for the game, it's players and the community as a whole.

[@thevermin23]

This rant was spot on! ❤

[@m0ko0]

fo the "there's not much to do for healers" : yes if dps and tanks know how to do mit and do mechanic : as soon as there is a vulne up or a fked up (like a dot or something) : theres is things to do (and let s be real: 24 ppl : it will happen haha) so if they increased the healing or mitigation necessary : the difficlulty would increase and less chance to clear : it it designed to be farmable so adding to much for the healers would be not balnced enough. (I think people should know how to use their tools but we cannot expect that in 24 people raid sadly) i love a good challenge for the healing part : but there is so many fucks up possible in this fight that depending on your team you can just chill out or sweat tears and blood

[@d0k0night]

FF14 needs an entire redo of healers. Healers should be HEALING, not dpsing. The incoming damage should be consistently high where tanks need to be always receiving a steady stream of heals or they'll die. The current healing to dps ratio needs to be reversed, where you're healing almost all the time, and dpsing only a tiny fraction of the time.

[@bibimboup]

​@@d0k0night even if we change that, healer will need to dps no matter what. They will never get to heal every single second because that will make fights more harder and it depend also of how good you are at healing. I do think healer need to be change in the future because when we dps we play with just 2 actions while we do have a variety of healing actions but we rarely use all of them in fights.

[@naotohex]

I think phase 2 is just too much, phase 1 is so so fun, and it feels so great dodging all the mechanics, while phase 2 having that swap ruins just about everything. I think if it was removed or replaced with something else it would be much easier for groups, but like you said, one person dies and the whole things ruined.

[@HippeusOmega]

I finally made it to about 2% enrage today. It's a fun fight, I think, but whew the PF just makes things so unbearable. The constant waiting and then getting the group together just for ppl to leave 2-3 pulls in just to either have to refill or start from scratch is so exhausting.

[@cmciff4054]

Happy New Year, great video and agree with all your points on the content, especially how the mechanics of this fight are contributing to toxicity, which I think SE should really pay attention to given how special this community is. Also, thanks for saying hi in game last night on Hyperion, I’ve never met one of my fav XIV youtubers in game before so I was geeking out to my partner as we were hanging out in Solution 9! 😂

[@idno4856]

Happy New Year! Good vid!

[@cyne122]

I'm tired, boss.

[@SincerelyUnique4u]

Just wanted to say this is the first of your content I've ever seen and I really like the way you handled this video! I agree with your sentiments about Party Finder in NA. I really think this is a result of a difference in cultures. If you look at JP, Mana has over double the clears on Aether! PUG culture here is sooo rough and is number one issue with Chaotic here. The Devs did admit that this fight was harder than intended (the item level synch is such a dumb idea I'm about to buy the hair to resell in like 8.0 LOL), so hopefully the next Chaotic Raid is more PF friendly here. I know one creator who did all of his reclears and farming on JP just to trade the rewards to his main on NA. I admit some of the sentiments from Week 1 raiders I do not take seriously since they all huddle over to their own spaces to curbstomp this content, but you gave a real perspective that many people here agree with.

[@MagicFanatics-l8b]

I keep resolving myself to finally grind it out in PF and then I hear other peoples negative experiences and lose my motivation. Maybe I will try for it one day.

[@kestenyi3873]

the fight is fun, NA PF is itself, pf is way more the issue than the fight, so still try it if you can. for learning try with a static that fills out with pf those have been good in my experience.

[@davidbernardino8109]

The experience is like any content in pf , sometimes you get good parties, and sometimes you dont. The fight is super fun, and i hope they continue to make new ones. Learning p1 blind on release was some of the best fun I've had in a while. I also really like how even people who dont raid have given this a try and even cleared. Have over 30 clears now and all in pf, so people will get better over time, i think.

[@Aitherea]

As someone who PFed this raid tier, this was basically pf BS on steroids. Like yes, pf is ALWAYS a mixed bag. but the 24-man nature of this definitely made the normal pf struggles even worse.

[@davidbernardino8109]

@Aitherea I imagine DRS and BA were also the same on release. The BS, I mean. I don't know if I have better luck then most in pf, but I feel this is just normal for 24 "hard" content, and I've been getting pretty consistent clears in pf.

[@asmophet]

I think it's a worse experience in PF than normal because you're doing essentially Savage content with 24 other people. 8 People was already a struggle in PF. 24 Amplifies the difficulties.

[@NotExplicable]

​@@davidbernardino8109 BA is backed by content progression and progression within BA, this 24man has almost nothing I almost with it was an add-on to the new field Operation

[@LupusArcavius]

Bro me too! Day 1 blind was so much fun. And since everyone was blind on the content we all were just helping each other out. Such a wholesome experience. I don’t have that many clears yet but I also mainly join prog and clear groups to help and get first time clear bonus.

[@Williammax1000]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="65">1:05</a> ngl for half a second i thought you were going to talk about raid shadow legends or smt, great video tho :)

[@hawgacrux]

All of this echoes my experience with this fight. Great fight itself but an absolute nightmare in PF to the point I haven’t done it again after clearing. It is just so soulcrushing and toxic in every aspect and showed the true side of the community to me. I play since around HW and honestly have never seen such straight contempt for casual players or nonraiders who attempt this fight even though I understand the reasoning behind it. Honestly I fear this raid will have the opposite effect it wants to have. Instead of bringing new people into harder content it might actually repel them from it. So many parties that just straight up don’t have fun in this fight. They overdid it with the body checks. If those weren’t there or at least lesser… Great video.

[@LupusArcavius]

Yeah I’ve been noticing that people lately just don’t have the patience to help new players. And when you have this many people in one piece of content that is exacerbated even more. I been playing since mid ARR and the community has changed so much. Seems like everyone is just focused on the clear, like checking off an item in a list instead of having fun with the content and playing with others. For me on a personal level this content is giving me the opportunity to join prog and clear parties even though I’ve cleared just to help and get first time bonus if we clear. Savage punishes the community for helping and maybe that contributed to the divide in the community. Everyone is so focused on the clear and you can’t even help your friends get into high end content because they won’t get completion rewards. I hoped this content would have the same effect on the community that it had on me but after seeing the comments on this video I’m starting the think maybe not

[@d0k0night]

After trying out M4S (my first savage raid ever), the static that I was trialing with made me basically not want to continue to do it. They were all very nice people, let's be clear. But the expectation that you "just get" all the mechanics...when you've never seen them before...and even though they say in a very nice way "hey we've been telling you how to do this for the past while but you're still messing it up" basically broke the straw on the camel's back. This game is not fun when it comes to savage content.

[@Decus86]

I think the ff community is overrated in general. People say it's so nice and helpful, but they are really just contained by SE's community policy. This raid just showed some of those true colors to people that haven't seen the insane dramas ff players conjure up. And I say that coming from a pvp mmo xD And yeah, high end xiv raids are basically about memorization of the dance steps. Jobs are so simple now that it's the only way to make it challenging and I've questioned if I enjoy it either. Like why are we suddenly going into a downtime to perform some funky ritual instead of killing the boss (looking at ultimates)?

[@jf4156]

The worst part was waiting an hour for the group to fill only to have some shit for brains leave or disconnect after 4 pulls then the group falls apart

[@pUREsTORM9267]

From my personal experience (I did enough clears to get the Dais mount), the biggest problem in PF was not the higher chance of human error due to having more players. The big issue was the twats who would leave after 1 or 2 wipes, every time. And you'd be forced to reform the party would could take 5-10 minutes depending on how many people bailed. This was a very noticeable issue in clear/reclear parties. IMO so much time was wasted not on people making mistakes thus causing wipes, but from waiting for the party to reform after someone leaving due to said wipes. I definitely spent more time waiting for the party to fill up as opposed to actually attempting the content. I understand leaving if the party is clearly a trap. I would leave if I noticed someone was consistently making the same mistakes several times, or if someone was clearly a prog liar. But I would not leave just because of one wipe on looming chaos.

[@Yarpell]

I basically agree with everything you said. I thought discords-organized reclears would be the way to farm it less painfully, but unfortunately, even in those you can get like a clear per hour if you're lucky. Cause yes, everyone cleared, everyone should know the fight in theory, but with 24 people there is a higher chance of mistakes and something always goes wrong. I'm at 26 materia I so far and I just don't think I can make it to 99. Farming this is way too time-consuming.

[@bluezhift]

I really enjoyed your analysis in this video! I don't know if I will ever even attempt this fight, but I do appreciate getting a look at what I'll be up against if I do. I do hope that you will be able to get the hair you want!

[@Maeseam1611]

I have done savage and ultis pf since anabaseios and i noticed most ppl are realizing now how the community of this game is not diferent from any other game when is about toxicity :/ Also this fight bring me p10S PTSD uggh...the fight is fun tho but man...is 24man raid you cant give them individual responsabilities like in a 8 man raid yoshipls

[@Watch_over_us]

"The ff14 community is so much better than all others!" - people who stand in limsa and don't do actual content 😂

[@Wishmaster787]

​@@Watch_over_usTbh sometimes I think MW2 and Gta 4 lobbies from 2009 were less toxic than this community

[@Decus86]

​@@Watch_over_usthose people don't play anything else either, cuz damn those rp'ers are drama magnets and don't even realise it

[@HippeusOmega]

After enduring another 8 hours of PF tonight with no clear and people constantly leaving im just done with this raid. Just not worth it.

[@nitemare1004]

ilv sync i have not heard anyone else mention this. thank you!

[@Nodnarb59]

Its like i said Yoshi-P and team don't know how to create good midcore content its savage or casual no in between

[@leighg9o]

BA/DR was good midcore content they just need to put it in duty finder

[@cyne122]

They know how. they just underestimate the value of it. CLL, DR, and Dalriada before the Bozja buffs are good examples. As re many of the CEs. The mechanics are a bit more complicated and faster than Normal mode, but you are able to react to them, as opposed to memorizing and perfecting them. Also, FF could do to have some "soft" enrages with his content, when instead of the boss blowing everyone up at XX Minutes, the pressure and incoming damage just slowly gets to a point where it becomes overwhelming.

[@NeFlux]

I'm playing on the JP server side and the experience is the same. Much worse if you were doing it on the first like 5 days. Plus the toxicity got amplified by thoe whole jp mixed with non-jp players because everyone fled to Mana DC to do this. To give you an idea, it was 6-8am and servers were rather congested. A lot of silent CN players surfaced in this content and they don't even look at guides before joining a party. 3 wipe disband was such a dumb rule to put, and if that's not ridiculous enough, having the rule where you leave if you get a loot is also ridiculous. Imagine sitting in the fight for over an hour and having to subject to rolling for 1 loot only. Wish they made the loot drop individually like how it was in Delubrum Reginae. The fight being recoverable with a tank/healer LB after towers post Looming Chaos was a mistake. It brought so many people who didn't know how to do the fight properly into reclears. And yes, similar to your experience, never have I been hounded on so hard before for not raising someone. One party I joined was so annoying, the leader constantly spammed Raise with a sound effect in alliance chat when someone dies. Over time I found it funny how people in the outside groups were failing towers so hard when it's simple pre-assigned spots.

[@carlotolentino4019]

I’m just happy there’s part of a fight where my cleanse is useful as BRD lmao

[@no-trick-pony]

My experience in PF before even in EW has been nothing but horrific, with me quitting the last time I tried because of name calling (like... the bad kind) and toxicity and one guy following me to the next group, joining and going "so, , how are you planning on fucking this group over this time, hm?" After two pulls he left himself, after one more when he was gone we cleared - that was P2s. And that was the last time I ever used party finder or did content. Yeah, I met some nice people in PF. But all in all it's just a cesspool of toxicity. If I do any content nowadays I am doing it with friends or the FC. Huge respect to anyone who can deal dealing with PF for more than half a tier.

[@KogasaYosikage]

Doing p8s in pf has prepared me for disappointment, so Atleast I never get tilted at wiping to towers 5 times

[@KibaAzure]

I think the combination of body checks, clears required, and number of players needed for this is just unfeasible for long-term content. After the first month I expect the only way to get groups for this will be through discord groups same as BA and Delubrum Extreme.

[@yuzuki2385]

Oh, hello there, so you've cleared the fight. Now, you might be asking how hard it will be to reclear?

[@xapapetsugaming2311]

I degened the fight for 3 days when it released, and got my clear, I now have 5 clears.

[@jeremy.geronimo]

If you’re going after this, give it 3+ hours of learning curve. Get synergy with your group, then after you clear. RINSE & REPEAT.

[@razblue2204]

I’ve been stuck in post swaps prog almost all day and yesterday. It’s messed up how the fight feels good to do, like it’s got very nice moving parts but good lord every time I see 2 players hp bars at 0 on any alliance close to towers or swap the frustration keeps piling up.

[@morvereth]

You can still get the hairstyle dont give up hope. I only got 16 materia from my clear, but i went to help out on clear parties after, and after 4 or 5 kills i got enough materia. cff, C41 and clear parties have been better experience to me than ”farm” parties anyway. On farm parties, people are tilted and salty: someone leaves after pull or 2, I get kicked when i join ( even when meeting 5kills join req for party), people saying toxic stuff on chat all the time. Im not even sure have I got single kill on farm party, but clear party is kill after 1-3 pulls most of the time.

[@Aitherea]

i have enough for the hair now, but im holding onto it to try and get the mount instead and then buy the hair from MB because its cheaper than the mount. Unfortunately my experience has just been so bad. I tried a couple c41 parties for the reasons you said and they were just as bad somehow... they were literally locked to duty complete only so its not like people who hadnt cleared could join, and yet it was still an entire lockout of wiping without a clear.

[@Drac_Iguro]

Progged this fight for about two hours split between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Got up to towers before logging off. Unfortunately got super sick after that night so I just watched guides in bed as they came out. I haven’t had the motivation to go back since. I loved P1 but man towers and P2 seem annoying. I thought surly thy wouldn’t do any body checks in a 24 man but here we are. I’ll get my clear eventually but I doubt I’ll end up farming this.

[@just_radical]

I think if you connect the tiles to the outside with some sort of permanent 2 way passable platform a lot of the issues in the fight would be resolved. It also is probably why normal Alliance Raid content after ARR stays very Alliance neutral in terms of how mechs are resolved (nothing like the specific platforms during Ancient Flare in Labyrinths or the Cerberus mechs anymore) b/c it's way too much responsibility for the weakest links of one alliance to be able to sink an entire run. For future ones they should def consider making mechanics so they can be satisfied by 5-6 people of each Alliance and design different zones of a map with a way to feed more consistent players into each zone to assist or replace struggling/dead players to keep runs going. But I think it's a really fun fight, it just doesn't come together with 24 people of wildly varying skill levels essentially being at the mercy of the lowest common denominator of the group.

[@shanehunt3019]

This fight is basically "The problems with high end party finder, placed underneath an electron microscope"

[@therelax4166]

i think they should nerf p2 damage especially from towers and remove vuln stacks or replace it with damge down stack, yes the fight is super easy but ppl cant do towers or 3rd art if darkness without deaths, and i would rather farm than tower prog

[@seanmacisaac334]

I said it about this savage tier as well, they need to gate other high end content behind the current Ex. Maybe there would still be be plenty of people who got hard carried, or lucked out on 1 pull, but there wouldn’t be a sch casting adlo on the tank 5 times in a row, while the tank is still healthy instead of healing the rest of the party or raising their co-healer.

[@Watch_over_us]

Pf has two options, neither of which suit the average player. "Sprout, Fresh prog, never used PF before!" Or clear farm.

[@TheForhekset]

Ive cleared m4s, Sphene ex3, and did those in pf but you only need 8. 24 is a lot.

[@arknightsboi2050]

I really enjoyed this fight!!!.... for the first 2-4 hours. Then yeah you get to towers and you just wipe to towers. Then you get to brambles and you wipe to towers. Then you get to swaps and you... WIPE TO TOWERS!!! My personal take is that all content period should be made with PF being the main target audience and SE deciding how to best make their harder content with them in mind. Because yeah this IS a good fight, but currently its painful to play rather than fun and as you said once the PF dries up this will be impossible for new players to actually play. I think its fine for the once and expansion unicorn to just not be good for PF like BA or DRS but they clearly want and should make more of this but like.... the formulas gotta change. Its a good start for the to experiment but I can tell you now that if its the same difficulty next time Im not coming back and Im sure some people who tried it now wont be back either. FYI for bonus btw, its garbage. Actual garbage. During the RANDOM BONUS TIME which can last a little as 2 hours from 4am to 6am your time and doesnt tell you what DC its currently on in game (yes you can use discord but it should be in game) you get.... 8 extra demimateria 1's!!!!! The catch is that they are randomly assigned to your party. So you could walk away with 8 demi 1's!!!! or zero. Likely you'll get 1-2 extra every clear but good fucking luck clearing more than once in PF. The rates on the hair, minion, mounts all might be boosted too but I barely noticed a difference so its pretty small. Basically if you want the shroud of darkness, farm during bonus for demi 1's. If you want everything else, go help newbies clear.

[@Aitherea]

The sad thing is ive been trying to help newbies clear and it ends up not being worth it... The other night i spent like 3 hours with the same group and just had to give up. Ive been having good luck with farm parties, but ive been joining the strict ones that threaten to kick people or that say "3 wipe disband" because honestly, even though that may seem toxic, those who arent confident stay away and these groups usually *do* consistently clear. In the future when this content dies, itll be like impossible to farm the rewards, so I hope at that point they make it drop way more tokens or reduce the cost of the items from the vendor. (or make it unsync or SOMETHING like cmon??) Overall though I think you hit the nail on the head with this. I had fun at first, but then it started to wear on me as I was ready to be at further mechanics but spent hours in groups wiping to the same old stuff. The clear itself was so frustrating because I guess I thought that it would take a few hours at most but it took 9 x.x Like i just figured if people were in clear parties they had the mechs down like i did, but most clear parties are actually just swaps prog T_T

[@gilaverde]

Good vid. I've not cleared yet. Recently I've been getting groups that can't even clear the position setup. I had one group, after 45min of waiting in PF, that could not agree on positions for P2. I"m still unsure on P2 positions but I know the general setup. This group, alliance C wanted to be io Alliance A and was forcing A to be on C. It was a mess, the chat log was so bad, that entire Alliance A just disbands. We never got to pull. The group fell apart, I never attempted that night again. What can be done? IDK but I may not ever get a clear at this rate.

[@dadkwashere]

I no lifed this thanks to PTO Git my clear day 1, and by end of week i got everything this content offered plus bought 2 hairstyles and 1 dais to sell. But yeah pf experience is so bad. People leave early, bad time management, plus the reclear/clear trap parties. I could have easily alloted my no life period clearing FRU from phase 3 to clear but decided to do this because it released christmas day which was very bad timing. Now ill have to do my regular 3 day schedule with the static and clear in a month or two. Rrleasing this content so close to each other wasnt a good move imo plus the holidays

[@black-velvet98]

If this fight wasn't a 24 man alliance, it wouldn't be this hard x'3

[@kcopper2118]

My experience was pure pain, u get one of 2 things, sometimes both, either you get people that pull twice then break your alliance and leave, or you get fake proggers that are still stuck in p1 when you're in a clear party, it became so toxic and mentaly draining honestly, it is a shame because this fight mechanically is very fun

[@rowdyretromoose]

The fact you have to coordinate Delubrum Reginae Savage and even Baldesion Arsenal from Eureka outside of PF may be a greater boon than it is a hassle to have to use something like discord. My experiences with them for what I have engaged [so many BA runs successful and fun, at least] just proves putting fun, large-scale content behind an obnoxious grind may be a great filtering system in and of itself. Rarely if ever had any toxicity, but soon as I get into PF stuff? After day 1, it was the same stuff I remember from years ago, back when I did PF savage raiding in HW and StB lol. I was quick to give up when I realized nothing had changed. I want to love the fight but I have zero patience for the typical PF nonsense that everyone talks about and experiences. Was done with that years ago.

[@cyne122]

I think one big part of BA/ DRS is also that mechanically they are both pretty simple and carry-able, so it doesn't cause as much friction between players. You also are in a position where you CAN'T just play the "In and Out" game, so you're forced to commit and put time aside for it.

[@rowdyretromoose]

@@cyne122 Yeah, that sums it up nicely. But we know the reason the mechanics are simpler because of the permanence of death in those raids. You're not guaranteed to get up after hitting the floor, and if you do and fail an auto-revive? That requires a healer to risk sacrificing themselves to get you back up. Puts a lot more responsibility on your shoulder to be nicer. That plus the time factor of not being able to play the in-n'-out game as you said.

[@delimelone]

I havent had the chance to try this yet and Im really unsure if I should do it now, given that alot of people have already cleared this and calling it a horrible experience.. but I really want that glam 😭

[@INeosIRex]

I proged this fight for about a week since release, 2-3 hours a day until I cleared. If you go in with the expectation to clear this fight in a day or 2 and you are not used to hardcore raiding in pf, don't do it. But if you don't take it this serious and prog it at your own pace it is not that bad. I recommend you give it a try and decide for yourself :)

[@RicardoSantos-oz3uj]

Except in the case of the healers do not even have esuna in their toolbar. Lets be honest. Those healers suck.

[@stargasior]

Reading that some healers don't have esuna on their hotbar is shocking.

[@eternal_waffle9371]

same experience really, i love the first phase but ive yet to make it past towers a single time regardless of the amount of time put in

[@vincentbeton]

Sounds like 'Chaotic' is not supposed to be a fancy new word for hard but describes the Team Dynamic or lack thereof

[@HeroSosh]

def seems liek good/interesting and challenging content (which is good) however, im glad u touched on this for a few mins in ur video, and thats' which plagues our community for awhile now - and its the toxicity/elitism/trolls of PF.. like u said, 24 man, means 24 chances for screw ups.. hell, its hard enough going into an Ex-Trial or savage, with only 8 ppl, and after a couple wipes, ppl leave and u're back into PF, waiting to fill, and again, like u said, u go back in, and its someone else making a mistake now, then another person leaves.. these ppl no longer have the patience required to do challenging content.. like hello, are these ppl not watching world races or ULT prog?! these ultimate raiders literally sit there and wipe to the same mechanics for hours, hours!!!! ppl were doing 16 hour days raiding, and get stuck on the same mechanic for sometimes days at a time,.. ppl think "oh its been cleared already, clearly its not that hard" and expect to go in there with a bunch of ultimate-caliber raiders... meanwhile, who u're actually getting, is the filthy casuals, who struggle in ex-trials, who only want the mount or cause its new content etc.. sure there are some savage raiders, ult raiders etc.. but being matched up with 24 randos, all trying to follow a very complex, meticulous and strict raidplan; All for it to go out the window as soon as someone dies, cause now the entire raidplan is thrownoff... all in all, its good content, and its an amazing game.. I love 14.,. however the biggest problem with 14, is its community.. and now im of the mind of, "do I want to go into this content, and sacrifice hours upon hours, subjecting myself to this troll environment that is PF"... and i struggle to find the commitment to do it thesedays..

[@spacegamer13]

I farmed this out for all the rewards and yeah. I think this definitely could've done without the towers after the swap. Put something else there and it would've been a way more PF friendly fight. I think this encounter would've been the perfect difficulty in that case.

[@IKIGAIofficial]

I praise them for finally releasing new type of battle content since Stormblood.

[@MrProg-ey3tl]

What about Criterion?

[@IKIGAIofficial]

@ id say the main new thing criterion brought was actually interesting and challenging mob packs with gimmicks. The trash mobs in the rokkon one were kino

[@4NSW3RM3]

I am embarrassed to say this is the fight that I learned what flare markers are. I only got to phase 2 twice, within the first 2 hours of release, before having to go to work. The general consensus makes me think I'd much prefer trying to rally my linkshell into doing this than PF.

[@Dastan117]

I really wish people would ask questions when they don't know how to do something. I don't know how they see the community to feel like they can't be seen as a weak link in content like this, but it needs to stop. Just ask and someone will probably help you if you are lost.

[@Aoi-mirror]

oh the lolly lolz. Its discord. Its discord to blame. I've been in a enough discords to see how people just forget chat is even there, once the've got two or three friends in voice. Also... PF supports DEFJ. There are probably not enough F, maybe enough D, and what about spanish and italian etc?... well... they are all joining E, but their E isn't that good. These fight is sooo badly designed, and that's because they were determined to make it savage. Brand new content... and they when full 'tight' (savage). Because they thought that was a worthy priority, savage. Don't allow a gear carry, I won't be doing it if its not 'hard'. If you allow a gear carry your going to have to make undodged mechanics hit much harder.

[@Zkid531]

I love how everyone has the same experience with PF lol. It's interesting, I joined a few clear parties when I *thought I was ready to clear, only to find out more small details I didnt know yet. You could probably attribute it to the raidplan being updated throughout the 2nd and 3rd day, but, I didn't know the 3 pairs on the platforms were baited to the 3 closest players... which means someone was just "Adjusting For Me every time to make sure it went off correctly lmao. I also didnt know there was a movement prio in center although we were kinda unofficially doing H > T > D for a bit until the raidplan specifically listed T > H > D. So even in the poor clear parties I joined I was learning some small things to make the fight more consistent. Idk overall, really good content. I'm happy they finally added some medium scale content we can do as a community. We desperately need some midcore content to close the gap between casual/midcore players and hardcore players. It's been quite a while since Bozja released, and I feel that the communities have splintered quite badly since then. Hopefully this kind of content can bridge that gap a bit, at least until our *New Bozja comes :]

[@CereaII]

This can either be the best experience you ever had, or it could be your worst nightmare. I love the fight; it's fun, and I say give it a try to anybody that wants to get their hands dirty for the first time or so. This raid pulled in a lot of people. You have a mixed bag of goodies. Your above-average, average, and the worst people you didn't know existed. Now, overtime people will get better (hopefully), or people will continue to do what they're doing now with Whatever alliance messes up the most gets kicked. I'm fine with either option, but man My experience was like walking through hell with gasoline drawers on. I cannot express the amount of trolling/lying players do. Every clear party felt like a trap party; now granted, it could be a clear party, but it all boils down to that one person to ruin it all. I really don't know what's worse, waiting about 15-30 mins for full groups to form and then 1-3 pull bounce outs or tower prog at the start and the towers after swap. Towers you can easily live if one group missed one set of 3 IF everyone is prepared and noticed 1-3 people are dead in either alliance. but if not that one group missed it thats 150k hp for everyone and its gg's for the run. Going from B mid to outside. You can easily wing it if you just did towers correctly, however. What I notice that will kill a run. Is when a healer that's on the west rez someone that's all the way on that's like North/east and vise versa. As long as you don't input a button, they can walk maybe 5 tiles, but that's not enough to put them back to where they were, and when it comes to swap, that person being on the east is just shrewd with the swap priority. Now you'll probably have one additional tank/healer/DPS somewhere they don't belong, and it just goes to shit. (I could be wrong about that but that's just what I seen/experienced) I say this raid is to test who has common sense, patience, and "awareness". You can argue that's every raid. Like, I can't stress this enough: people will black out so hard and forget you were next to them on tiles xDD. When people say they're clear-headed, trust me, they're not. People going into clear parties that don't know how to cycle between alliances to heal the people standing right next to them. The people that don't know standing still on the tile will break, and let's not forget the people that can't tell if they're standing in the wrong spot with light party spreads in part 1. As fun as this was, I'm still going to try to go for both mounts, but man oh man. Pain is the keyword for raid. When, I got my clear. It felt like too good to be real, finally joined a party that requires a duty complete just to fail to towers again LMFAO. I would believe it if someone said it took them a month to clear with how wild PF is right now. It is terrible. I can't express this enough. All jokes aside. Like I said before, it really is a mixed bag of fun you don't know what you're going to get and I still give this raid 9/10 go in with a friend or two or a full group and have a great time. I'm going to stop yapping, though, and grind some more. Good luck on clears and happy New Year's!

[@steveh1474]

BIG AGREE on the level sync problem. why in the crap can we outgear savage but not this?? its meant to be easier than savage, let us outgear it! give us echo in a few patches! if its meant to be easier, let it be easier! square really aint thinkin

[@leighg9o]

Disagree here. Out gearing content is why it dies because its no longer fun.

[@MatsuzoSF]

How do we know they're not going to do this? This is new content. Obviously we can't outgear it yet. I don't see why there wouldn't be echo at some point or why we wouldn't eventually be able to unsync it.

[@XxMazziexX]

Went in for an hour or two on Christmas eve, encountered toxicity almost instantly (co heal who didn't seem to understand party lists can sort differently when bitching we overlapped esunas then came out with "like in TEA" cause yes of course, we've all done TEA!). Bashed my head against it for another couple of hours Monday... just don't see myself clearing or enjoying enough to keep trying. And I do regularly farm extremes and do savage. Honestly will probably just buy the hair - think they've missed the mark in a lot of ways on this

[@oEXTRA]

Good video. The only thing I disagree with is making this unsync-able in the future. This game actually needs more endgame content to always be synced, or at least give players a legit reason to do it synced. Reason being, allowing endgame content to be unsynced later on just kills the content and any reward that came with it (by making it just another cosmetic). So the only content worth doing "legit" is the new content. This is ok for vets that have done everything already, but terrible for newbies and the overall game. It's also a big reason why the raiding community is such a mixed bag, especially in PF. The discord communities for BA and DRS have opened my eyes to this a year or so ago (same can even be said for ultimates). Though that content is seemingly dead in PF, it's actually thriving to this day on discord and in general. Tons of people still go to Eureka and Bozja. If you could unsync both of those content in entirety, I doubt that'd be the case (well maybe Bozja due to leveling). You can also still find parties for old ultimates because they can't be ran unsynced. So yeah TL;DR if they do make it unsync-able in the future, they need to add some reward(s) that can only be obtained through sync clears, or make it so drops/coins are only obtained through sync clears. In order to keep this content alive.

[@reyronald]

It took me 8 hours to clear so pretty similar! Seems like the standard amount of time for a pugger to clear. What is that Radar discord you mentioned? Would love to be in one that organizes it

[@TruckDrivinGamer]

Really Actually Difficult Alliance Raids = RADAR. Hope that helps you in your search

[@vespi57]

I'm still progging the fight. Phase 1, no problems. Phase 2? Haven't gotten far, but never because of something I did. But overall I like the fight so far. The biggest problem of this fight in the end is not the fight itself, but getting those 24 players. You can easily sit in a PF for a long time. People do come, but then, when you only have 1-3 spots left, people will start to leave. And when you finally do get the group, it often takes just couple of wipes for people to leave, and its back to square one. There's not much that can be done about this, but I do feel that in the high-end duties, before anyone can leave the duty, a certain amount of time must pass first, something like 20-30 minutes. My threshold for leaving is very high. As long as I have time, I'm more than willing to stay the full lockout, no matter how many times I wipe. But it also has to do with the fact that I don't want to be the first guy to leave when things don't work out. Everybody makes mistakes. Considering that this is the very first of this kind of content, I believe this was also a learning curve for SE. The towers should either require less people (something like 16 at most) or drop them in waves, not all at once. If it were like this, it would be more recoverable and it would still retain the level of difficulty.

[@justcallmekame]

This fight could have been fixed with just a few small tweaks. PVP tiles last longer than a single moment. Maybe 2 full seconds to allow movement. Location of death is location of rez.

[@Viech54]

Doom: Kinda, but there's more to it. It's not always a skill issue by the player that got doomed. You can get clipped with doom from others and it happens way too many times that someone points their doom in the center or just at another player. Still a skill issue (or just being mean to others on purpose), but not by the player that got doom. It is never the healer's fault, tho, unless the healers clipped you with their doom. At which point it is their responsibility and they should go out of their way to cleanse it. What helped me for this is using sprint. Part of me wants to play Bard, so I can Warden's Paean myself if clipped by someone else's doom. That's actually not true, you can get from the inside to the outside without dying and without killing others. For some reason, gap closers on the outside add or possibly a WHM's teleport work. I like the fight and the mechanics, but it is a terrible experience in most party finders. Doesn't matter if clear/kill party or farm party, good luck getting enough players to respect the mechanics and not wipe everyone. I have 16 clears by now, only a handful were consistent clears and I pretty much lived in the raid the last week. Most clears were a struggle and not in a good way. Quite a few players were prog lying, got carried (tank LB towers), or did not understand/read the raid plan. Felt that way at least. Can't prove it, of course, but surely it would be more consistent otherwise. I can say with confidence that wipes were not my fault by the time I got good at the fight. Sure, I may have gotten doomed or died every now and then. But there are so many way for others to kill someone. Clip doom, tiles PvP, mess up Looming Chaos, tower memes, don't get out of the way for chasing AoEs, so player can't run away, outside doesn't resolve their tether, incorrect spread/stack baits, pointing cones at inside groups, healers not healing at all despite being alive, ... All of that can kill another player at no fault of their own and I've see it all. Quite a few players in my group no longer want to do this fight until it is heavily nerfed or an expansion or two later, when all DPS checks no longer exist, we can take way more hits before dying, and we just delete the boss. I don't think it needs a huge nerf. People just need to learn to do mechanics and the correct way of solving those is known by now. It's also no longer day 1 or week 1, so we had time to figure things out and get used to it. There should be way less failed mechanics with the tools available unless it is a prog party. I do think that the body checks should be more lenient. Maybe make it require 20 players out of 24. So a few players could be dead and it wouldn't end the run. And gear should not be synced to 735. That is not much higher than what we have right now.

[@MegaDoomWaffle]

I still haven't been able to experience p2 mechanics. Most parties i get into don't get to p2 with enough people alive to soak towers. Then break up after a few pulls.

[@fiammaspell]

If the usual suspect prog liars were like normal gremlins before this content, it seemed like someone fed them after midnight during this prog.

[@Aoi-mirror]

Yeah but I suspect your are waiting for people to be P1 perfect, before entering a P2 begin party. So now people have got to spend 2 days with people who don't yet have experience of oragnising into light parties, getting no useful P1 practice either. No people need to ACCEPT that your not entitled to expect P1 to be perfect, until its a P3 party. ITs going to take time, stick with the party and we will all get better togehter. If you don't want to deal with humans and their mistakes, go play a solo game. There is always duty support.

[@Ron1840]

This definetly wasn't for casuals and not sure why SE isn't providing much content for those who don't prefer raiding

[@leighg9o]

Because they are lazy. There is literally no pount subscribing this expansion

[@Ceronia]

Because it was never advertise for casual to begin with???? Casual got entire ShB AND EW expansion for themself, why are you acting like casual never got anything?

[@leighg9o]

​@@Ceroniayes and so do you lmfao. Personally they should drop every difficulty above normal out the game. Its a final fantasy story game not a savage raiding game, would probably make the game much healthier not having to cater for savage

[@Ceronia]

@@leighg9o "Oh let me just remove everything for this specific type of player because i don't like them." Yeah bro you sound totally sane and reasonable

[@leighg9o]

@@Ceronia stop being emotional. If they remove all the odd difficulties they can use each expansion to slightly increase difficulty and actually balance the game properly so everyone can enjoy the full benefits of playing with a class BiS other than savage raiders, might even be able to implement so gear diversity that way.

[@ReveredDead]

This raid has only made shit worse imo. If player moral and motivation was low before. It sure as hell is lower now.

[@xapapetsugaming2311]

I don't know if I fully agree with that, but I can see the stress for people who haven't cleared. I run CODCAR on primal, and since it's got such a low pool of players, I ended up making a lot of friends and can consistently get at least 1 clear every day. I've personally had a lot of fun, but i won't say I didn't get extremely toxic before my first clear.

[@Chevalier541]

I never comment but I wanted to throw my own input. I agree with nearly everything you said. As a hard content healer main, this fight is great. People leaving after 1 pull? Don’t understand it. I just blacklist and move on. The biggest issue I have with this is the amount of rage quits AND you’re completely right about the toxicity and worst people being in PF. I just snatch people and throw them in my own personal chaotic alliance reclears because PF is absolute hell. I have had about 20+ enrages 0-4% with at least 16 clears under my belt within the first 4 days of release. P.S. be AWARE of the SCAMS!!!! There are people legit scamming others out of rewards in PF by setting them to only duty incomplete! I got sent to GM jail for warning people by having a PF up. There are people letting in 3-4 people in premade alliance groups, bribing them Gil for the rewards and just not paying out. It’s RAMPANT in the duty Incomplete. Additionally if you clear with people who haven’t cleared before you get additional rewards. It’s kinda creates a scummy reward system. They really need to overhaul the next one.

[@xkey_blade9558]

I guess I was lucky I cleared it in about 5 hours on the second day. I got in a group in pf with a great leader we stick all together till we cleared sometimes only 2 people needed to be replaced. We were all friendly and always watsch over the other that someone who doesn’t understand we could say him what he need to change 😊. It was very fun this fight and refreshing I loved this wish we get more midcore content like this 😊.

[@Cindertear]

I think it would have been a lot better if you could just jump across the platforms and the tiles. I think that debuff that prevents you from jumping is just a cheap way to make the fights “harder”. It was the same with p12s in phase 1. Pf is miserable for this. And I don’t think either the mounts or anything is worth the effort you put in it. Maybe when this can be done unsync, and if they allow it for it to be unsync. And yes, as it is right now there’s barely any difference in doing this vs progging a 2nd or 3rd floor of savage.

[@Nillabeans1]

24 people also means more people that can randomly disconnect. I've seen so many people repeatedly D/C and we can't really do phase 2 with 23 people. If your internet is being dodgy, I'm sorry. but maybe you shouldn't be raiding right now.

[@steveh1474]

the all healers out strat doesnt work too well for a few reasons. if a tile drops out and two people spawn on the plats, they might be on the opposite plat from where they need to be. the outside ring might be covered in deathgoop, the boss might be doing a donut or a cross, the atomos might have just spawned so they need to be killed before you can get back inside, even once you get the portal buff to jump back in, it takes 5 seconds to send you in. the best possible case scenario of dying inside, getting rezzed out, and trying to get back in still takes 15-20 seconds just to get back in there. youve seen the fight, its ruthlessly fast. its really not that recoverable, especially not in PF. dont try to do healers out, just stick with aurellia, imo.

[@Aitherea]

i guess it sounds better than it is. too good to be true

[@highlycaffeinated998]

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="230">3:50</a>, as a healer main, you just earn my Subscribe.

[@matthewsnow3074]

The developers are going to drive players away with this content. Adding cool rewards to a raid that requires misery in PF is ridiculous. I can't imagine why they thought this was a good idea. Meanwhile, those of us that have better things to do than PF nonsense are left with nothing to do again, just like Endwalker.

[@jaquanepatterson2537]

Why don’t they just remove enrage mechanics and make 2/2/4 party mandatory? I feel it would go a long way in making advanced content more casual.

[@canderia]

You can't make me do this stuff

[@delektrix6083]

I do any kind of raiding in this game and i hate this content it has much good ideas but is made for eternal suffering hope they change this

[@jonamar3965]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1003">16:43</a> So, the attitude of leaving after a good first attempt is something that is more pervasive than pf. People playing this game are frustrated at more things than the 23 other people in the alliance... It sucks.

[@a_simple_strudel]

will say, as someone stuck on swap prog i'm still enjoying the shit out of the fight. My main issue is the people in party finder leaving after a single pull, prog liars, or pf descriptions saying tower/bramble prog, but get a level of toxic i've only seen in league ranked matches if we wipe at any point. Genuinely love the angle square took with this fight, but i see why people are frustrated/burnt out.

[@Aitherea]

The toxicity is honestly new for me in xiv. Like i see it here and there in savage but its honestly kinda rare. This I see it so much more frequently.

[@a_simple_strudel]

@@Aitherea it's new for me too in XIV, but sadly present.

[@Aitherea]

@@a_simple_strudel basically, i think this brings out the worst in people LOLOL QQ

[@a_simple_strudel]

@ I can see it

[@davidbernardino8109]

People leaving is probably the worst part of chaotic, with 24 people, everyone needs to understand you need more patience not less, especially if you're progging still. Farm parties are guilty of this, too, unfortunately.

[@SuperFUNNYKILLER]

Every healer in this game is hot garbage, and this fight hard exposed y'all, square enix literally makes esuna easier for u. 1 guy in my párty gets doom there is 2 healers and both of them don't esuna in the span of 5 seconds.. and if u say don't get hit.... U just self expose urself as someone who should never do anything above expert roulettes. And don't even let me started bout phase 2 where ppl constantly die to damage and tanks literally have to invuln the autos coz healers don't do shit.

[@iRyd3]

It is sad but I think there is a culture change in the current player base of FF14 players. It use to be back in the day where if it was a clear party and mistakes were made people would thought it out and help those who are struggling however, I do get the frustration because you go in to join a clear party but it ends up turning into a Tower or Tile Prog. I think people are overestimating their ability in doing mechanics. Its definitely easy if you have done E9S in the past. Most of these mechanics are pretty "easy" but unfortunately the state of party finder is straight toxic.

[@kraidy117]

To play devils advocate on hands and dooms. I've seen many situations where people baited hands wrong that ended up hitting other people, and then they don't get cleansed and people died despite doing nothing wrong. It gets worse if a hand is put right in the middle and half the alliance now has dooms. So situations like that just feel really bad, which is why healers should always be prepared to esuna, for that possibility.

[@itsghostfire_1]

98% of the time, doom is a skill issue. 2% its getting blasted in the back by someone who didn't do theirs properly and wasn't on your view/screen because you see them run out and you're like: oh, they're doing their mechanic, i wonder what the next randomized boss move will b...... why do i have doom all the sudden..... DED. Still not the healers fault, but not always yours either.

[@Aitherea]

So true! I try to keep an eye on my team whenever hands are going out, but there are some cases where i notice too late, esuna at about 1 second but they still die xD

[@althyk]

I got the mount on a roll. Im free! Actually no, still need the stuff we can buy from the MB, but no need to rush until the content is dead.

[@RicardoSantos-oz3uj]

A reminder that the devs play in 15 ms ping and never bother to test their game at the average rate of most users. I call bullshit on the difficulty between extreme and savage.

[@DrZlow]

If you cannot play on 200ms ping you don't deserve 10ms

[@HRFleur]

3 pulls? People leave after 1 wipe in Aether. It's a miracle to find an enrage party that can do 3 pulls now. And yeah I've noticed the same thing about toxicity too. I've never seen people starting to trash talk this early and often in a savage prog party before. I played OT with my MT partner, so we can be in a relative consistent spot. In some parties I could smell the dislike between the healer and dps in my tile corner, like one BLM complaining about the healer refreshing too frequently. I just didn't get their points, like the dps could always refresh after the healer or not if they didn't find it necessary. In another party the healers refused to heal a BLM(again) who eat one AOE in the fight's beginning due to LL. People start to get triggered by weird things in this content very often. Maybe it's unhealthy to prog this content alone. At least you'll have someone to keep your complaints private.

[@Aitherea]

@@HRFleur that's so hilarious because I've been considering telling my parties to eat the aoe if it's out so I can just heal all of them instead of having to spot heal the odd melee that decides to take it.

[@Bloodlustx]

I was finally happy that the game now has good, challenging content that can be done multiple times, but the community for this game is very discouraging, something I just don't understand, if you are a limited human being, and weak for difficult things, so why the hell do you want to make the content? the content is not for you and that's it, if you think it's bad, just don't play it, if you want something easy, and that you can sleep on the keyboard, go do dungeons, which are extremely brain dead, the great reality is that this game is easy, and the community's skill level is terribly low, I've done all the ultimates except FRU, I'm progging on PF, and after years of playing pvp games that require much more and even after completing an extreme demon in geometry dash that took me more than 100k attempts over 8 months, I realized how easy this game is, this company's mistake is listening too much to the weak, the content is not for casuals, so don't join, simple, thanks to casual people, the players with more neurons they end up being harmed because the content is easy.

[@xxomega702buzzalini8]

the 1st 30 seconds of the fight is show and tell for arm blades and that's it

[@xxomega702buzzalini8]

They have already said that phase 2 is way harder than they imagined

[@coaster1235]

for me the reward structure makes me want to run it less. i haven’t been able to play so far, and ive seen ppl get full first timer clears, and since i won’t have that it makes me lose interest, why bother? criterion was absolutely blasted to shit because of the rewards, but it’s maybe the one type of content ive ran the most just because i like it so much (sil’dih is my favourite instance in the game). so for me the addition of rewards made me lose interest, and it seems like im supposed to just buy whatever i can with gil since i won’t get the big bonuses. i hope the rewards work to motivate other people to do it i guess