The Raid that Fractured the FFXIV Community

[@ashencometmom5291]

the unnamed zoomhack video is still so funny. it starts a bit past max zoom distance and youre like "hmm yeah i can see how thatd give an advantage" and then the camera leaves the solar system

[@jordantruong305]

The stupid ass memes that came from them was my introduction to that subreddit and it was amazing

[@sailor_anna9924]

Those memes were hilarious.

[@Simmons101]

The memes were peak

[@vexflorez6220]

I love that Omega got stronger after absorbing Alpha. It finally has a rubber ducky to bounce ideas back to and fix its code.

[@ApexGale]

It's poetic that Omega gets stronger by finally accepting weakness back into itself, remember that Alpha is the literal weakest creature Omega created

[@xhephergaming]

Awesome video! I think the only thing that was a bit off was the controversy. TOP wasn't the first one that had a player punished. In DSR, the first clear video was showcased by a player that had a few visual addons that allowed them to see timers on debuffs, and a few other quality of life mods for the HUD. SE punished that player as well and later implemented all of the HUD mods he had been using. His sacrifice shouldn't be forgotten because it made the game better as a whole for the raiding community.

[@metricAsc02]

TOP was the first time where the team that actually got world first was nixxed from history overall even by the devs.

[@altia7945]

They didn't implemented all of the visual mods, like slidecast timing on castbar was one of the things that happened on the DSR clear footage (I believe it happened on RDM's footage) but they didn't do, which was understandable. One thing they did implemented and was very well received is the debuff timers implemented on 6.3, and they did proceed to use this in a lot of ways, like what they did in Another Sil'dihn Subterrane's 2nd boss where you can look at every player's timer to decide your movement. Another example of this is Bond 1/Bond 3 from p10s in this tier, which as you can read and see everyone's debuff timer, you don't have to recite the exact starting time of debuffs and can just look at everyone's debuff. This has become essential to raiding.

[@syllawblood]

It didn't launch memes

[@Folsomdsf2]

@@metricAsc02 which is hilarious because the other teams were using outside monitors for the same thing.

[@casdi2515]

Let’s not forget TEA is also the reason we can’t move waymarks during combat now either. In perfect Alexander phase, people had programs that would move waymarks to the safe spots.

[@MiuStreams]

Hi, Teamcraft creator here. Just wanted to comment on third party tools getting more SE attention since the TOP incident happened. This is definitely only valid for fighting-related tools, most databases or crafting/gathering tools are doing just fine, as long as they're not in the cheating territory (and tbh, some cheating tools are doing just fine too, which is enraging but anyways). Amazing video tho, crazy how fast one can spend more than an hour of their life without noticing it ! Time to resume the video to see the conclusion of all this :D

[@ArchieBlacke]

Thank you and anyone else who has worked on all the amazing teamcraft tools, you have saved me (and countless others) hundreds of hours in FFXIV and helped me learn to love crafting and gathering :)

[@eimpty]

You carried me through patches where you would craft raid gear WHEN the savage raid releases. I miss those days. I miss the salt on the market board and I’d yoink 10 million Gil before the economy crashed.. I even used your tool to test crafting rotations before the patch even went live, with predictions of the stats and stuff. Thank you thank you thank you 🙏

[@luna_theraider]

Thank you for your development of such an amazing tool.

[@notrealsaga]

Here to express my love to you and your team 💗 love teamcraft

[@AlcyonEldara]

I've stopped the game years afo, but I am still baffled by the stance about of DPS-meter in the game. For the prog guilds, it isn't really important (but it is a another tool in the box) but for the midcore/casual raiders, knowing how much who can improve what makes the difference between frustration and progression. I understand that some have a horrible mentality about it, but when you build so much mechanics around some kind of dps check, yo should, at least, allow the players to check where the issue is.

[@krysmphoenix6010]

I love Alpha's chirp to you as he glows with Dynamis. It's as if he's telling us "its okay, you've got this." And we get Torn From The Heavens, one of the WoL's lietmotifs. A joyous and hopeful song in stark clash to Final Omega's From The Heavens. To me, i see it that Omega has become a Warrior of Light too. Tldr: we teach a killer robot the power of love by using the power of extreme violence

[@grimacetexas9719]

As we should

[@psymar]

the power of LoVe a la Undertale

[@heyfell4301]

And a rubber duck

[@Lost_01]

very happy the 'stand and let thing resolve' meme made the cut

[@Tom-Pendragon]

TOP humbled the ff14 raid community so hard that it destroyed plenty of statics.

[@Fexghadi]

They were already dead with DSR. Only the newly-formed ones who couldn't even do UWU got destroyed, and nobody got humbled because people won't learn humility any more than they'll learn mechanics anyway. TOP was an unfinished joke that got rushed out because Square really couldn't afford to suffer more ultimate drama after the two years of delay - and therefore, polish - that DSR incurred, which is also ironically what made it an actual ultimate. Of course, DSR being mostly a DPS/consistency-check means it rolled out of flavor very quickly with potency buffs in 6.2 and 6.28 but on release... it wasn't for babies. To me, the comparison between DSR and TOP is the same as between UCoB and UWU: the former of each pair was more about tight checks, and precise mechanics, while the former of each pair is more about solving a puzzle, but with lower checks once you have figured out the resolution step. They require different skills from players, and for example, one group who'd only have 8 players excelling at their rotation, but would struggle to find strategies on their own, wouldn't be able to compete for world first on TOP like they would on DSR.

[@Antiyoukai]

It destroyed Zepla too lol

[@SuguSugux]

@@Antiyoukai she though she was high and mighty for clearing DSR when it was not on patch. when guide and strat were already stablish. then she did TOP on day 1. and got absolutely shit on.

[@FizzieWebb]

@@Fexghadi methinks that one of those "the former of each pair" should be "The latter of each pair"

[@thegamer101n]

​@SuguSugux a great example of what the second reply was about of not being humbled lol

[@bolladragon]

I will say that Omega /literally/ blue screening of death as a mechanic is one of my favorites

[@Ariandrise]

You know that was Koji-Fox

[@McDonaldWilliamT]

lol, it's not only that, The 'Hello World' cast is a reference to a common computing 'sanity check' from the early days when you had to enter each command line by line. Basically by telling it to 'print' Hello World on the screen with a 'repeat' command you would make sure that the system's software is working as intended. End result, it's about the first thing you would ever do when buying a new computer for the first time.

[@TheGreyParse]

The fact that the GMs did not delete the items themselves, but made the members of UNNAMED_ throw their TOP weapons away with their own hands is a level of salty malice I can only aspire to.

[@ieyasumei4339]

Rinon definitely found his niche! These are great

[@yummychips_]

i dont even play ff14 besides a lil bit in shadowbringers, Ive raided in wow and other games tho. His vids are super interesting, informative, and he does a great job telling the history of them.

[@cassandratremblay5802]

As someone who doesn't have the time, skill, or physical ability to even think about doing ultimates, but who does still enjoy watching the world first races and watching others succeed at them, I loved both the TOP ultimate breakdown and the DSR one. Because you've done these fights, and done the world first race yourself, you can offer a super unique perspective on the entire process. The mechanic breakdown is absolutely overwhelming to my smol brain, but I really enjoy these deep dives into what goes on in the fight and what went on outside the game/how people problem solved mechanics. So thank you for the hard work that goes into your content!

[@SlasherSRL]

This raid happened just after I started playing and was the first time I engaged with the community. It was quite cool to follow the prog, wake up to see unnamed cleared, just to see the clip. And then going back to waiting for a team to clear. Of course I wish we could have seen neverlands clear live but you cant get everything

[@fardin.fkr3]

Top was also the reason devs decided to increase the range for many abilities, becuase of how big the map sizes and hitboxes have become

[@redthorne5643]

Still mad that the enrage cast is "Run: ****mi*" and not "Run: Dynamis" as Omega finally understands it and fully unlocks its potential.

[@TheUndyingCrystal]

In a way, I think it's fitting. Omega does understand Dynamis now, but it defies programming and computational logic. It isn't quantifiable in the same way aether or other aspects of energy or matter are. It's fitting in the way that Alpha Omega is running a program that shouldn't be able to even function. It has no logic, no formula, no real law of science or physics behind it. But it runs all the same because it *must*, because Dynamis takes the impossible and makes it possible through sheer force of will and belief from the wielder. Alpha Omega isn't speaking in the same scientific robot garble that Omega does, his speech patterns are much more like an actual person's.

[@GambeTama]

There are two ways I like to look at it: 1. The computer nerd answer, is that asterisk symbols in program name could be a reference to wildcards, which basically tells the computer "it doesn't matter what is in this spot, as long as it's SOMETHING." You could interpret that to be Omega's understanding of the unlimited potential afforded ot it through Dynamis, which is beginnign to affect it by making the "program" not just be limited by name. It doesn't need to call dynamis, it simply just does what it wants. 2. The fact that the name has become somewhat scrambled could be showing that Omega is evolving beyond its mechanical capacity. In the Golden modes, the Dynamis runs were clearly limited tests (ex. Alpha, Beta, Delta testing, ect.), but here, it is just trying to execute Dynamis as a whole. In a way it's almost poetic, as if Omega can now fully comprehend the power, and that power is just too grand to put into proper words. All in all, it is a wonderful what if arc to their character, and I do hope that little OMG will figure it out some day too.

[@Juice566]

It was likely so that people that had finished the Omega raid series but not yet done the EW MSQ could still watch the race. You wouldn't expect an MSQ spoiler from 6.0 in an Ultimate based on a 4.0 raid series. ... Granted, as I write that, I remember that you get buffs that plainly call it Dynamis, but at least that text isn't always on screen, just the little symbol.

[@chaptap8376]

@@Juice566 And, yknow, the fact that DYNAMIS is an entire Data Center now. It's almost like a single word out of context isn't going to ruin the story for people.

[@ETIENNELIVE]

or, you know, its retconned.

[@jetscrush7080]

This was a great video well done. I will say there is 1 thing missing from the controversy surrounding TOP, that a group did clear it on same patch release with no healers. This coupled with Yoshi P’s statement saying to go play ultimates for healers that want more, hit back against them, while a lot of people can understand how they were able to do it, the fact it was possible at all is what a lot of people didn’t like. It highlighted how much the dev team need to look at encounter design and healer job design going forward. Just wanna say again thank you for making the vid as someone who no longing does Ultimate raiding(cleared UWU and TEA only, phase 4 DSR before group was done and I decided to take my 1st ever long break from XIV)but still likes to watch.

[@DarkDyllon]

yeah, pretty much this. i'm not an healer main at all, I heal casual content at best, but i've heard more and more people say how bland healing is, how unfun it is. then reading yoshi's ignorant statements like "if you want engaging healing content, go play ultimates" or when there was and still is a massive healer shortage (mainly around the 2nd raid tier of EW) he goes "there is no healer shortage, Stormblood also had a tank shortage, this'll fix itself" meanwhile, parties in PF had to wait hours for an healer, meanwhile statics needing to find a replacement for a healer had to settle with people who were far below the average skill level of the static (the static I was in had this issue, we had to replace both healers, both replacements were bad, atleast 1 of them was at p8s, the other didn't even clear p6s yet, but it was promising since we got through p5-7s in 1 session, but boy, did the guy suck in p8s p1 and p2) Yoshi needs to learn to shut up if he has no idea about it.

[@satsu3098]

listening to the instructions for this Raid is esoteric. of all the things going on in the universe, for incredibly tiny amounts of time in the grand scheme, there are sets of humans up to thousands of miles apart coordinating their brains in sync to overcome some arbitrary, massively complicated set of computer commands for minutes at a time to achieve a victory. Because they enjoy it. I think FFXIV fundamentally breaks the idea of solipsism. that "I am the only mind that exists". If one person doesnt do their job to near perfection then the Raid is over. Its like a Universal check for other sentient life. If one person zones out then the entire thing falls apart.

[@DC-pf5tp]

said it perfect 🍻

[@BLACKDISC]

Poetically said

[@SPB___]

That's not how solipsism works

[@Lost_01]

You're basically doing the work of compiling all this information and giving us an eye into what was going on around the world race. reminds me of those sports documentary series like Drive to Survive. DTS is to F1 what you are to FFXIV Ultimates. Appreciate all the effort you put in, what a great video!

[@RinBanana]

Sorry if it's too long! Maybe I got a little carried away, haha

[@shadowofchaos725]

It's a nice listen during work on my second monitor lmao

[@MissPoplarLeaf]

It's a perfect length, there was a lot to cover!

[@acelinlynn3989]

You did your due diligence to cover everything, no need to be sorry 😊

[@dragocrafterr8286]

How are you making these so fast while still being fully edited holy shit

[@Soress9]

You may think so but this is great to listen to while im working. ive still got half an hour to go and im not the least bit bored listening to this

[@tinybee7780]

That dynamis spam mechanic in TOP Phase 6 was such a brilliant idea from the devs it will no doubt be incorporated once again whenever they decide to release Endsinger Ultimate in the far future.

[@psymar]

I could see it being not just an Endsinger Ultimate but a Convocation Ultimate. Or perhaps Convocation Raids in 7.0 could lead to a Final Days Ultimate.

[@siritachi31]

My only snippet I would add is, yoshi P himself said before the raid was out that it was not harder than DSR. And that DSR would remain the hardest Ultimate raid. And then when it came out it was clearly a league above the previous and so community expectation was literally created to be lower and not expecting the hardest ultimate we ever had.

[@user-ge2vc3rl1n]

Not the first time Yoshi-P gaslights the community and just lies

[@eilonr4847]

Honestly, what a fkn banger, brother truly blessed by the quality of the content, thank you so much - this did not feel like 90 minutes at all

[@Iisho]

I am absolutely loving these while at work, I watched Rinon's Dragonsong video before this. It's incredible how well he summarizes and portrays these fights and the hype at the time within the community. It feels like I'm there experiencing it too, despite being many years late. Truly phenomenal writing and execution of these videos.

[@DreamingTheatric]

That first TOP clear after 2 months of near daily prog was cathartic. Nothing like that first kill. One of the reasons we still keep doing ults.

[@PrimeN7]

I have such a strong desire to do hardcore raiding but it feels just as hard to find time and to find a group as the fights themselves.

[@ridleyroid9060]

Man I'm really jealous of you. I got fucking broken by TOP because at that time I was gunning to find a group that I can legit just fucking prog with, no bs, and I went through like 5 groups that would disband after a few nights, and had to re-prog with each one. Granted it does mean I can do program loop and panto pretty much blind but oh my god TOP really exposed how impatient people can be.

[@ridleyroid9060]

@@PrimeN7 I've been raiding for 4 years in FF14 and cleared all ultimates except TOP and I love raiding but truly finding a group that both fits your schedule and you know wants to stick it out to get the fight down is just a fools errand at this point.

[@WordyWooly]

Another raid analysis video! Loved your DSR video, cannot wait to watch this one :D

[@RinBanana]

Thank you so much! Hope you enjoy it

[@kartoffelman1663]

Why are so many ppl so super toxic under here like disregarding players achievements and saying shit like "Its easy" like wtf upload your clear pls. The ultimate community is truely perplexing.

[@AkenoAkine]

Main things is it isn’t really the ultimate community that do this. It’s mainly people who did savage who think they are ready for ultimate

[@vespi__]

The lynx kameli reference cracked me up but ty for putting this out. Its a nice retrospective

[@MrCharly780]

Im about to clear TOP, now progging sigma/omega in PF and I can safely say this raid is on a whole other level to anything else i have ever done in a game. Never i had to study and work so much to defeat a boss in a videogame. Gonna be sweet when I'm finally done. EDIT: finally cleared, I'm so glad it's done. The scythe is so pretty!

[@ridleyroid9060]

Holy shit man, how are you even progging that in PF @_@. I've been wanting to go back into TOP since the launch of it burnt me and I couldn't get past phase 3 because of groups crumbling at the seams and having to re-prog shit a milion times, had to hardstop at patch 6.4 and have found 0 time or groups to go back since. I tried in pf last 3 months but I got to phase 3 again and just waiting a full day for a fill for maybe 30 minutes of prog is just so fucking disheartening.

[@surlakek]

@@ridleyroid9060pretty doable now that automarkers and sims are out, lowers the difficulty of the raid by a LOT

[@altia7945]

1:07:11 Here's the point of view from a spectator in Japan. I was not that shocked when I see unnamed cleared since sherry's twitter was not updated for a few days and you know that something's up if some high end world first raider is not updating their Twitter when the newest ultimate dropped (because not everyone is sfia and clees and likes to troll). I think it's pretty safe to say very little people expect them to cheat. It also has bring the bald white roegadyn protest back, also known as 'white fairy of justice' in FFXI. When UNNAMED announced their clear some of the players just went to sleep and they leave their characters AFK on Limsa while showing off their new weapons. As the cheat video was up and everyone knows they have cheated their prog, a bunch of bald white roegadyn (male) showed up on their server (or should I say - my server, Alexander in Gaia) with funny names such as 'Zoom Akan', 'Zoom Dameyo', 'Zoom Chan', 'Tenbatsu Kun' (because the snitch's youtube channel name is Tenbatsu, Heavenly Punishment), 'Nasa View' and so on and surround the person who has the weapon. While it does nothing and adds nothing to the whole cheating scandal, You can't help but think JP Humor can be really mean and yet so funny at the same time. But the biggest shocked when this was announced was not that people from UNNAMED cheated, but that even the former raidlead (eis) who are not in Unnamed this time said they were cheating. Eis was raidleading Unnamed and they get world first in p8s. When Unnamed's cheating scandal was announced, eis suddenly jumps out of no where and apologize because he confess that on p8s prog 'they have received benefits from external tools'. While the devs does nothing to eis, eis deleted all of his characters and quit 14 for like 6 months or so. The term 'Digital Seppuku' got popularize because of what eis and a lot of the member does. Some of the members deleted their characters because of this. While for now Eis returned and some of the people from unnamed kept on playing as usual (like Rin If, Sherry and Tatsuya, a lot of these people actually started from One Ace) This is very much a shocking news at that time since eis was progging TOP with Haru Glory/One Ace at that time and they were streaming. Essentially that stalls One Ace's prog for like a few days before they can find someone else to fill in, and while One Ace was not front in the race at that time, that's pretty painful to watch.

[@cakescakescakes]

yeah i wish there was more info about this on the video and how TOP pretty much made the JP raiding scene implode because of the cheating scandal

[@0054nee]

Thank you for giving your POV. Despite seeing this happen on twitter too, all of this information was unknown to me simply because EN community had other focus and there was hardly other people translating & sharing what was happening on the JP side.

[@DarkDyllon]

a lot of people were exposed to the more shady side of world first prog, Arthars put it best, this is just the tip of the iceberg. every group "cheats" in some capacity, unless it's something like they're streaming, it's still likely they can cheat somehow, since some mods are overlays, which if you do direct game capture, it won't be displayed (this is how streamers got around the whole "ACT" thing not being allowed on stream) now everyone expects the world first raiders to cheat in some capacity, either through zoom hacks, triggernomitry, splatoon or other mods, i'm sure when the next savage raid tier comes out and even the next ultimate, people will look back and automatically think "surely they got mods on" But also, this is kinda like the sweet sweet revenge for the west and the main reason why the JP community reacted to fiercly (apart from them being super against anything now allowed) was that they always had the stance, we are better because the west cheat and use third party tools, now that it was outed that THEIR top team (literally) was outed for cheating, that illusion was shattered, sort of like if a son brings shame to the family name type of deal. Although I found the outcry a bit overkill, it's telling that either SE has to stop getting involved and just do something about it, or host their own world 1st race where cheating is simply not possible, since everytime this happens, we get yet another letter from Yoshi-p where he acts like the dissapointed dad, and i'm frankly fairly tired of it, just put out a statement of "people participating in the world first race were found using third party tools, proper actions have been taken" and that's the end of it, not go on a rant of "as a gamer i'm dissapointed, what's the point of making an ultimate fight if people use third party tools to clear it" meanwhile, we don't even know if his dev team can clear these ultimates, since I would love to see how they cleared ToP.

[@lucafrix66]

As a long time WoW player who took a dip into FF14 during HW and SB.... The raids in this game requires so much execution it's mind melting. Truly impressive.

[@AmiliaTheGeek]

This whole expansion has made me love ffxiv again I took a very long personal break right before endwalker came out and came back fairly recently and the fights, the story, the complexity of normal stuff and the promise of these difficult mechanics and battles has reinvigorated my love of this game and I'm so hyped to see what further we get in dawntrail

[@JJMomoida]

I don't think I'll ever touch one of these ultimates but even as someone on the outside, I really like the sentiment of the community coming together in anticipation of a clear. I'll go to work in the morning and basically check in on discord, asking what prog is looking like, etc etc. As an aside, I love that these ultimates have a bit of a story to them, which, I mean, DOES make sense since they're supposed to be "retellings/speculation", but the devs really could have just made the fights harder and added no flavor to them, which is why I'm glad they went the extra malm with that.

[@ofanichan]

It's crazy how Stormblood was an 8/10 and people consider it the low point of the game because the rest is 9-10/10 lmaoo I loved stormblood personally. The added characters are amongst my favourites. The areas was absolutely gorgeous and sometimes I fly around them just to vibe.

[@drzoidberg71]

Beautiful video. I wish I had the skills and physical ability left in my life to complete this fight. It is the most amazing encounter in the game, and I can only enjoy it vicariously through my best friend, who is good enough to do it. Thank you for giving me a taste of the excitement that he experiences.

[@adonisdarkblade]

Would love to see you do these for each Savage tier and Ultimate. You found your calling dude these are great.

[@TipYourtank]

Hey, I'm halfway through this video, and I gotta say, well done! This is a huge video that must have taken a ton of time to make, and you do a great job of explaining the whole story as well as the stakes in it. I play WoW not FFXIV but you give enough info that it all kinda makes sense even to an outsider of this world. Big thumbs up!

[@RinBanana]

Thank you so much! That genuinely means a lot to me

[@BioRoxas]

I’ve been waiting for this!! Cant wait to watch ^^ EDIT: Incredible. I loved reliving this time! Your narration and flow for the video was so good! I didn't even realize time had flown by at all I was a bystander for TOP but I hope by the time the next World Race appears I'll be fighting alongside you guys making history!

[@ankowat6775]

I laughed when you said "BRB CNY." Stal's group's names always cracks me up. TOP happening during the CNY period and this group name humour. I really hope Stal doesn't quit ultimate prog.

[@awesomeuno1]

Beautiful video. You now get people to drop what they're doing when a new vod drops, like summoningsalt.

[@andreascoca418]

TOP was my "trial by fire", and completing it on the patch cycle it was released was and is my biggest accomplishment in the game, while playing black mage. Playing Black Mage in the most difficult fight(s) in the game was a personal goal of mine since i started the game. And i had missed the DSR on patch hype train, so when TOP was reveled.. there was no way i was missing out. It made me so much better at the game than i ever thought i was capable of. And a raid requiring perfect execution on the final phase, is insanely satisfying and will make it stand the test of time. Was very excited to see this documentary about the release after seeing your DSR video. And i look forward to future ultimate content, and potentially being "on-par", with the world racers that inspired me to play in the first place.

[@leonhart829]

Amazing video. I got to watch all this unfold as a viewer and spectator, as this content is way outside my skill bracket. I remember waking up after the "first" clear, mad I missed it, going to work and watching that controversy unfold in real time. Reddit exploding, twitter on fire, even talks between colleagues I didn't know played FF14 and those who still don't wanting to know what happens now. This fight had an everlasting effect on the game when it comes to third party tools especially. Those who opt to no longer use them, those who use them but are forced into hiding, and those who continued but stream only to friends out of fear they don't want to get banned, and those who criticise the FF14 team for not implementing functionality of some of the better QOL mods into the game. We can all agree on one thing though, TOP was wild.

[@theshal7260]

I'm just a viewer, but I've watched your party's clear video upwards of 50 times. I've watched it so many times I make callouts in my head. I watch it just to listen to the amazing soundtrack, but you all genuinely play amazingly. Congrats again on the clear and thanks for making this informative breakdown.

[@jadeparelius]

This is such vivid storytelling and it makes me emotional about those fights I could never have the focus or willpower to fight. Thank you Rinon

[@mintssu2843]

I finally had time to sit down and binge both the DSR video and this and oh my gosh!!! You really outdid yourself with the editing and the scripting and both videos brought back the excitement of watching these groups race world first as it happened! Very excited to see how Ultimates will evolve from here on out and I hope your future clears will be smooth-sailing as well!

[@TheArkator09]

What an amazing video, looking at it while having cleared the fight makes it hit so hard too hahaha Thanks a lot for taking the time to put it together, it was a really good watch :)

[@nielsjansen247]

Amazing video, as someone who just started progging TOP this week it's really interesting to see how the world race went down and how certain mechanics were originally solved

[@RinBanana]

Good luck with the prog, I hope you have a good time!

[@SubduedRadical]

Amazingly well put together documentary. I barely even dip a toe in Savages, but even I heard about some of the stuff at the end. Yoshi P's disappointed dad letter was kind of heart wrenching.

[@NotTheWheel]

15:20 the confines of an Ultimate raiders mind is an enigma.

[@bigtimetimmyjim6486]

So my group killed this pretty quickly and I still think it was one of the least-enjoyable fights I have ever done in any game, ever. I have so many complaints about it, but my biggest is that doing monitors on a controller is a freaking nightmare. You need to be exactly parallel to the arena edge in order to execute the prevailing strats, but the radial nature of controller joysticks makes doing this consistently impossible; I literally needed to plug in a keyboard for this mechanic. It was the first time I actually felt severely disadvantaged in this game as a controller player, and this really scares me when thinking about the future of this game.

[@SorrenRaclaw]

I'm really loving your long-form video essays! You're a great narrator and give a real feel for the events as they were happening. Hopefully we see more in the future!

[@shirox11]

Great video and don’t worry about the length, the level of detail made it that much better. I dk if you played during that era , but i would love to see a video like this on Gordias and how it nearly destroyed the raid scene of Xiv forever.

[@bloodiedporcelain6320]

I love watching your "FFXIV history" deep dives. These are amazing. :)

[@Draon029]

This was an excellent retelling. I don't think I could ever get into Ultimate raids, but I will stick around for any of your retellings.

[@Lixeffect]

Great essay. As a viewer of the race I remember bits and pieces but it was nice to have certain parts I missed reiterated. Interested to see your dive onto 3rd party tools in the future and the different viewpoints on them especially now in a world with mare, and the ability for other people to see them ingame.

[@YouChoke1v1s]

These documentary style videos are so fire bro! Keep it up

[@200000adam]

What a video... Literal chills all the way, keep up the great work! Having just finished a blind O12S mil prog this couldn't have come at a better moment. Guess TOP is also going on the list of must do fights in the future. Thank you for doing these ultimate essays they are really inspirational!

[@Nurr0]

I didn't think I'd be able to watch a video of this length on one raid but it was surprisingly engaging... Especially for content I will literally never participate in.

[@MoshuKyoi]

TOP was the only on content ultimate I've ever done and it was the most exhausting but enjoyable experience I ever had playing this game. I still remember the excitement I had from watching streams and seeing teams figure out the new mechanics in the fight, as well as the memes that formed throughout the race. Your video brought back a lot of nostalgia and happy memories from watching the world first race and progging the fight myself, and I want to say thank you for that.

[@Trashley112]

I remember the kindred chat wars between red defamation and blue defamation. there were channel point bets every pull. anytime a pull wiped after going past hello world chat would be filled with like "typical blue pull". seriously those hello world callouts are imbued in my mind at all times after watching this WF race

[@playlist233]

TOP destroyed Zepla so hard she quit the game

[@kohlicoide2258]

And try to explain everyone that FF14 is dead now

[@Vfanatic1]

@@kohlicoide2258 Which then opened the floodgate to haters making videos about how FF14 was terrible now or had been terrible for years and that the players who aren't raiders are bad for the game.

[@kohlicoide2258]

@@Vfanatic1 And how much they hating Square Enix for not making a new Bozja in Endwalker (even if some people hate Bozja back then in ShB.. i was also not a big fan of Bozja it was "okay" but the raid was cool ngl) and crying that is nothing to do in the game (even if is their enough new content but not "the right one") after the praising FF14 because "The game respect your time not like WoW!"

[@LotofNothing]

Good riddance to her TBH

[@DarkDyllon]

@@kohlicoide2258 and now she made a random 180 and is all positive and happy go lucky again, like literally everyone predicted she would coming Dawntrail, her villain arc was short, but definitely weird to see. (like her video going against Xenos on "zoom hacks" while it's just an ultrawide or super ultrawide (which she uses super ultrawide and didn't even know it, she had to go into the thordan trial and enable the resolution and she was shocked)

[@BenRice_PLG]

Well worth the wait! Great video sir thank you for blessing us with it!

[@RinBanana]

Thank you so much!

[@Firecat0]

Really enjoyable video! I am now even more filled with despair about ever being able to clear an ultimate. XD

[@Hyskaris]

I'm encroaching on quadruple legend status, with only UWU blocking my path. But I'm terrified of being done with it and having to look at this fight myself. But somehow, knowing how much everyone struggled and toughed through this fight gives me a bit of hope. I'm hoping to get this done before Dawntrail, or maybe after it launches. But for now, thank you for articulating the terror and excitement I was feeling just a year ago watching this all on stream. I look forward to feeling it again on my own!

[@adonisdarkblade]

I got my 4th ultimate (UCOB) under my belt a couple weeks ago and have been slamming my head against TOP. It's absolutely brutal. Kind of wish I left UCOB as my last Ult because it was so easy and felt like a breath of fresh air after DSR.

[@0019khudson]

I love long videos. the fact you take the time to put these together to explain the basic idea of the mech and then explain how each team worked on it. i love. Keep these up i love them!

[@apaleguy]

I think Kefka's raid will forever be my favorite raid. That second phase where dancing mad kicks in gets me so juiced every time that.

[@furiouschicken8202]

Watched the whole video and thoroughly enjoyed it. Was a awesome video!

[@SonicXCII]

Was there to watch most of the world first race and the way this is packaged is truly amazing. In a way, a Minstrel's retelling of all the drama, highs and lows of the race, poetic.

[@aeopu]

I can't believe a video about raid prog has got me bawling like a baby. Thank you for this A+ video.

[@bazil-d1h]

this is a seriously amazing video, and just super cool to hear about as someone who started recently and wants to eventually get to this content. thank you for covering this (and dsr) in such incredible detail and making is so fun to watch and listen to!

[@thekawaiiginger7840]

Still remember the three months my bf spent doing this raid and finally clearing it. (I got him a pin for Christmas that says "I cleared TOP" and it's beautiful. He loves it)

[@lunacryst5368]

I only recently started TOP, up to P3 atm, I’d heard horror stories about it but I’m actually really enjoying the experience so far and honestly I’m less intimidated and more excited about the trios I have to look forward to in P5 😄

[@ridleyroid9060]

The horror stories come less from the fight and more from the people doing it. I can tell you I still have major trust issues in coming back to doing TOP.

[@lunacryst5368]

I can understand where you’re coming from, I recently cleared and recleared TOP several times with my static, I’d love more totems, but I’d be a bit nervous doing it in PF because there’s so much pressure riding on each person not to screw up and you don’t want to let the side down 😅

[@lunacryst5368]

I love the fight overall though, prog ended up being way less painful than DSR and I’m excited to see what the devs cook up next with FRU… 😄

[@wadeslilson4385]

One of my favorite little details is that the sub 20% blue screen solution isnt just a randomly assigned number, the old rule for limit break generation was if an attack brought you below 20% health you would generate more LB gauge. and what we're trying to teach omega to do is use dynamis, to break his limit. Love this fight even though i never want to run it again.

[@Lightna]

1:09:26 That hyur in the middle of that gaggle looking at the camera with that expression killed me.

[@Alninio]

OHHHHHHH BABY YES. I've been waiting for this since your tweet about it. Grabbing my popcorn for this 🍿

[@twilight1386]

One of the sad things about Unnamed's 3rd party incident is that one of their former member is progging TOP with Haru Glory's group. Eventually he also come out and apologize for also using 3rd party during previous race too, leading him to leaving Haru Glory's team and disrupt their p5 prog until they can find a new member. Even Arthars shout out to them in his clear.

[@DarkDyllon]

this guy could've just shut up and ride it down, since his cheating wasn't even noticed yet, he wasn't involved or even near the blast zone, yet he took the 1st private jet he could find, went to the nuclear reactor when it was about to blow up. he literally grieved his prog group by doing this, meanwhile ... every group has third party tools in the background, everyone had ACT atleast, but even in stream teams, you had people who didn't stream and had third party tools, Arthars even said that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

So even though you didn't want to talk about it in length here, coming from the perspective of a console player, it's absolutely vital that Square is cracking down on these third party cheats, and not just for the world first challenges. The more commonplace these plug ins get, and the more Square sees more players completing more savage fights quicker, they can use that as justification to make the fights harder. (It feels like the fights this tier are significantly harder than when I did Omega after taking the Eden tier off) When a sizable portion of the playerbase, one that will grow once the XBox version goes live, can't use the same tools that others are using to get easier clears on fights, then this creates a somewhat unfair play experience in the game.

[@rikku343]

i was so excited to see this video uploaded - i love the historical (?) style videos!

[@hannie798]

Thanks for doing these videos! I haven't even touched an extreme trial but I love hearing the stories of these raid groups, what a different world

[@runitealphonze3119]

I start top next week and it's my favorite raid series. I can't wait!

[@nathe-kun]

DSR was my first ultimate ever cleared and TOP was my first ultimate on patch release. These fights both pushed me to different new limits, DSR with overwhelming mechanical skill checks and TOP with needing to be absolutely dialed for DPS rotations. Both fights were the hypest moments in my gaming history. Last tier of Eden was the first raid I ever did (cleared e12s fifteen minutes before servers went down for Endwalker) so I too am absolutely looking forward to Futures Rewritren Ultimate!

[@ridleyroid9060]

I went through around 5 statics with this fight, of which the last had 6 replacements (all melees) and I still only got to phase 3. So many people just got humbled uber quickly and quit within weeks, statics just fell apart constantly due to program loop and party synergy wipes I felt I was loosing my mind. I agreed to re-prog just so I could get back in there so many times, I even tried pugging it but waiting an entire day (this was around 3 months ago I tried to get back into it) just for someone to leave after a couple of pulls is just disheartening. This fight really made me distrust the community more than anything. Granted, DSR was the only ultimate I've done on patch, but I did prog TEA when it launched, and did UCOB and UWU in Shadowbringers. What doing that taught me is that nothing will get a group a clear more than patience and persistence. I took close to a year to get TEA down, I never gave up even when I took breaks. Frankly my trust in getting a group that is gonna take a bad raid night and shrug it off to continue tommorow while being commited to invest the time needed for the damn fight to go down is broken. Utterly, completely broken. I want to go back into TOP, but I am so afraid of getting burnt like I did when TOP launched. I know that I, as a player, can absolutely do TOP, I can put in the work, I can invest the time and focus needed for it, but finding a group of like minded individuals has been a harder experience than it has ever been, at least for me.

[@marslara]

You are just pumping how these videos damn 😂 Single handedly running the social media drought till DT

[@Halomy95]

I understand that the "zoom" hack may have given an advantage but not enough for them to be almost 1.5phases ahead. They were really good and no one can take that away from them.

[@katyyulig]

I screamed on that first streamed clear clip. I cant even imagine what it must have felt to have watched it live. Much less to have been one of the players who did it. Massive respect!

[@UrickSan92]

Seeing this when starting my own prog, and coming back to it now, these videos are absolute peak content. I cant wait to see the next episode once the race happens in 7.1

[@enchanrenan]

The reveal teaser in the patch video WAH

[@RinBanana]

WAH

[@Ellenoah3]

Amazing video Rin!! These videos are really bringing back the world race hype and watching groups get their clears one by one. I may be biased and KT are my favourite team but I loved the use of multiple different groups and povs!

[@maegnis]

You knocked it out of the park again Rin. Amazing work!

[@FatalHog]

Feels like alot of the recent Ultimate fights have had some sort of thematic stuff behind it. Omega is a perfect example of "what would happen if we acted like the players in a raid fight", creating a insurmountable obstacle because we the players due to being able to try and try and try again ARE that obstacle for who we fight. Dragonsong's reprise was what happened if we played god, and got what we wanted, if we were able to save them all, we doomed them all.

[@jadelegarff2380]

I recently came back into the game and i just watched the video, a couple of months late ngl, but that's why i always wanted to do ultimate in the past, it's so intense and so hyping. I loved your video, thank you Rinon.

[@zy-x]

The Joemega Protocol Chills...

[@RinBanana]

Exajoel...

[@redjarman]

mad props to the people solving this in real time because my brain is melting just watching this

[@newmethados5817]

I have to say having the Final Phase be the entire party have to use all their limit breaks together has to be the coolest finale to a fight in this game.

[@bluesquirrel0175]

Bro you did not have to do Mr. “Stand still and let thing resolve” like that 😭😭😭

Seeing mr. Happy constantly call the stormblood raids mid, boring, bad is so funny.

[@damagedownpls2508]

he liked and praised 8 fights out of 12 and has 2 of them in his top 5 savage fights of all time though?

[@neinlives9424]

Everquest Gates of Discord had a raid called Uqua. In it's original form, you had to be flawless for a 4 hour crawl with no raid tools, markers, in game coms, and lotta folks still had dial up. While modern era has some challenges I dont think anything will be as difficult and require as much luck as original EQ raids with 100+ people.

[@vespi57]

My group managed to clear the first phase before we dropped TOP for the next savage tier, and we haven't done TOP since. It took us a lot of effort to get all the mechanics right, but ultimately our biggest problem was the DPS check. Many times we did everything right, but at the end, our DPS just wasn't enough. Couple of times we got to second phase, until we dropped TOP.

[@filipvadas7602]

This Raid had come out not too long after I had started playing the game so I was there to see the prog for this one, whereas most of Dragonsong had alredy been figured out by the time I learned of it I am obviously NEVER going to even try these, but its so crazy to see the level of skill, memorisation and luck needed to beat these fights and work around the eye melting effects

[@fernandocepeda1719]

got my hyped to rewatch my group's clear video.... p6 is so good

[@Qardo]

Still disappointed, Phamtom Train doesn't have a special LB3. All so you could Suplex the Train.

[@Lilybellmusic]

I really love party synergy as a mechanic. In p1, the boss tells you in advance what's going to happen and very slowly executes it 1 by 1. Party synergy gives you all the information you need in like a second and you have to react to it immediately. I hope there are more mechanics like this in future ultimates

[@steeltalon937]

Your last video on DSR was an amazing watch, excited for this new feature length film!!