My thoughts on clearing the Hardest fight in FFXIV

hey buns so I I'm like still feeling pretty emotional because uh just just cleared DSR uh this just happened like 20 30 minutes ago lb1 please yes got it let's oh my God she's finally did it guys I wanted to make a video right now uh to kind of capture what I'm feeling and thinking and what this experience has been like for me because um I have we have been doing DSR prog uh if you don't know DSR Dragon song reprise it's the newest ultimate fight uh in Final Fantasy 14. it is a beast of a fine it is oh we're going to talk about it basically uh we started well 10 days ago today was the 10th day and we were going for eight hours a day five days a week and um basically I've been living breathing DSR for about two weeks now and uh it has been the most difficult fight by far of any fight I have ever done in any game uh the other Ultimate Experience that I had was tea um and I felt like yeah Tia was exhausting and tea was difficult but this I feel like T doesn't have on DSR like I I really feel like uh DSR is light years harder than T at least in my experience because I feel like there's a lot more Pixel Perfect mechanics where you need to be absolutely accurate and uh gosh I gotta like Catch My Breath a little bit because it's been so emotional that we've finally cleared it today after so long um and it's just like the fight itself is 20 minutes long so you have to be incredibly alert and Vigilant and on top of your for 20 minutes straight and what's difficult is that when you're learning some of the later parts of the fight you have to have a poll that's like 15 16 17 minutes 18 minutes and then something goes wrong and you have to remember what it was and then start again and then go for another you know 15 to 20 minutes and then go again and then again and again it's like so it puts piles up and up and up and up and it's just so it becomes so mentally draining and so mentally exhausting and like if there's a mistake that happens in the later part of the fight you just it's so easy to get discouraged because you've lost everything like it felt like the stakes are so high and it took you so hard to get there and uh having something even any teeny tiny tiny mistake from anybody can cause a wife and set you all the way back like I feel like it was just as much a psychological challenge as it is a mechanical challenge where you need uh to know your job in and out you need to know the mechanics extremely well and you need to be consistent you need to be consistent this is something that I learned very early on that we would simply not be able to proceed if we lacked consistency because you just do not have the time uh you just do not you don't have the time to uh wait you can't waste time if you need to learn much later mechanics and I feel like when I did tea um this was shadowbringers and that was when it was the first expansion where I actually tried to improve up as a player right like I just stopped being as casual and I decided to try to learn how to play better and I'll try to learn you know how the game is actually supposed to work better in shadowbringers and tea was sort of a true test of that true test of everything that I had tried to learn throughout that expansion and um so I felt like I was a good player uh but I feel like DSR since then I've become like since that time I had a tea I've become a better player the DSR forced me to grow so much as a writer because I had to learn how to remain calm and remain focused and remain on task and orderly for every single mechanic and step that I needed to take and not get overwhelmed with everything that's happening and just try to take things apart one step at a time no matter how many times we pulled and how exhausting it was you just have to learn to uh like only look at what's ahead of you and you know prioritize that and you're best at that and so I feel like uh it helped me grow a lot as a player as a writer I became much more consistent I uh and through all that as challenging as all that is and it's exhausting and as much of it has pushed me to my absolute limit I feel like at the same time it made me love the game so much more um like obviously 2022 is very difficult for me uh you know this if you've been watching uh that you know I wasn't able to read much this year uh 2022 was really and I had like the war started in Ukraine we were living in Ukraine and you know had to leave my studio behind I'd leave my house and then moving everywhere spent the whole year like in limbo moving and moving and moving America I could barely ride and um in the last step this Savage tier acidelis like it kind of just I was so tired I was so tired like I just moved here to n a and uh I was just kind of yeah I did P5 I did P6 70 p7s and um I just kind of like cleared it and just felt like didn't care that much anymore I think it's just a combination of factors like feeling tired and then Savage is uh you know it's more or less easy to Breeze through like it's not gonna be that demanding of you that it's gonna like force you to be super on task and alert the whole time like an ultimate fight you know like you can just kind of like figure it out and have a general idea what you're doing and you're gonna clear especially uh this this right here and so I kind of like I don't know I felt like a little bit jaded a little bit burn out a little tired um even though rating has always been something that I loved and I just felt like I had lost that spark that I had in shadowbringers for writing like when I was doing tea and I was trying to optimize because I just I couldn't I don't have them I didn't have the emotional capacity for it anymore right I was exhausted from my life like life is just uh like chewed me up and spit me out you know and uh I'm so grateful for this experience in DSR because it just came at a time when I felt like the game like one of the my favorite things to do in the game I had sort of lost interested in rating and I felt like there just wasn't a lot to do and I felt kind of bored just waiting for the next patch and just felt like well you know I guess I'll do this you know I like rating maybe it'll be fun and it ended up being such an incredibly engaging and demanding Adventure like this has been a journey this is not a fight this is so much more than a fight this is a journey this is an experience this is felt like a boot camp almost because of the hours that we were putting in every day eight hours a day up starting at nine a.m going for eight hours every day afterward watching the vods analyzing seeing what could have done differently looking at diagrams and all this preparing for the next day day after day like trying to push myself and I guess it just like it felt like an electric shock to my system like it forced me to uh be fully engaged in this thing because the fight you can't clear it with anything less than that you need absolute dedication to what you're doing you're not gonna be able to clear this is a fact you're not gonna be able to learn you're not gonna be able to clear unless you give your all every time for every poll and uh I'm so grateful for it because it put me like fully suddenly very fully into the writing experience and uh I just I feel like ultimate is such I personally feel like it's the best way to play the game like I think that doing an ultimate fight uh is the is Final Fantasy 14 at its very very best why because you're forced to use all of your buttons on your job you need to know your job very well you cannot like everything that you have every tool in your kit has a purpose has a use that will be invaluable in this fight because the team needs every advantage that they can get you know you can't just uh snooze on Mid you can't just forget about certain major cooldown you need to use everything everything that's available to you and the party needs to all be working together I feel like this is the game um at its absolute best because everybody is getting the most out of their job they're playing their jobs the way that it's meant to be played the way that it is designed um and I feel like uh you know there are certain jobs that people often complain are boring like uh I'll give the example of white major even even dancers some people think dancer is boring but for the example uh White Mage some people say you know some of these jobs are boring because they're used to doing them in like expert roulette content or in a just trial content or even low-level Savage content I mean like early tier Savage content and for a lot of this stuff you can just kind of Breeze through it and you don't really need to know how to use all your buttons that well and you can kind of Snooze in a lot of stuff and if you just more or less know an idea of what you're doing and then you can get along fine um and that's all well and good I'm not saying that those things shouldn't exist because there needs to be like a ramp up of difficulties for people that are newer to the game but um I also feel like you know take that same job and put it into oh my gosh did I not turn off my you might have heard a twitch follow anyways I just finished streaming so you're you might hear these sounds but if you take that same job and you put it into an ultimate raid uh suddenly it becomes so much more engaging like our raid lead Sally he was playing White Mage for our clear and uh he said there's so much to do I've got so much to think about I have all these different tools but we'll have so much damage I'm able to do and um I just feel like this is the game at its most engaging these are the jobs at their very best this is a combination of all these different elements layering on top of each other in this incredibly synchronized and coordinated way that is so so satisfying like probably one of my favorite mechanics in the whole fight is called die from Grace and uh it's in phase three and basically it's like you need to learn um different or like a different order of operations of things that need to happen at a very specific time and you get assigned a role at the beginning of the mechanics so for I don't know how I'm gonna be able to explain this easily or quickly but I'm going to try so basically let's say at the beginning you might get a one two or three well then this means that the ones need to immediately go to this spot and prepare to do this at the same time the rest of the group will be over here and preparing to do this other thing and at the same time people with the twos need to be thinking about well I'm going to go here and then I go to the back and then while people are stacking together that some people are like okay well uh I'm a 3A and I'm stacking here and when the ones are coming back then I'm gonna go over here it's like all these different pieces for me at the beginning it was overwhelming it actually made flash cards for this mechanic I literally made flashcards for this again sorry this again I guess I spent time after the rain studying flash cards so I could that had questions like okay it's the second lash and Nash cast you're a two what are you doing right now and who's on the arena this is literally what I wrote in my flashcard and I would like think okay it's the second National Oshkosh I'm a two and so this means that I've already dropped my tower and I'm waiting for it right now the threes are in position and this needs that I need to go to the side uh where I dropped my tower so I can go and prepare to bait uh the three stars yeah it actually helped me a lot I really help me a lot but it was so much fun like I've I enjoyed it so so so much I loved it I loved it I I've never had so much fun in the game I've never loved playing my job more I've never loved playing this game more because it's uh all the things that are best about Final Fantasy 14 are here they're in this fight they're in this ultimate fight at the best they can be like it's a story fight there's like a lot of story elements uh there's incredible music that plays that syncs up with certain mechanics like uh the feeling of getting to the end of phase six and you hear a dragon song like this incredible part uh where she's singing like uh and these are it's like there's that certain part of the song that you will only hear when you get that far in that phase and it's so epic and it's so loud and uh you would only and so it like makes you feel it's so hype because you're like oh my gosh should we finally made anything in the face looks and I hear the different part of the song and the song is so epic and I'm like so actually this ended up being a problem because there were situations where I got so hyped when we first saw uh like the beginning of phase seven like that's the last phase and like you see the transition you see all the there's a new music is this crazy transition that the boss has and I'm thinking oh my God I'm so hyped this sucks I need to stop like I need to calm down I need to calm down calm down I need to calm down this sucks I wish it wasn't so hyped turn all my emotions off because I needed the mechanics of yeah it's so actually uh I was joking um with our array lead because he got into the habit of telling us just to breathe okay hey guys we made it to pay Seven it's fine it's chill just breathe just relax because uh it's very difficult to play well when you're that excited in fact there's a mechanic on the very last phase where the Precision that you need to move your character is so so so exact you need to be on a pixel and you cannot move at all and it's the very end of the fight and you're gonna be like if you're shaking and you shake your left you're gonna you're gonna wipe the whole ring intercourse everybody 20 20 minutes of time and everybody's gonna be pissed off so it's like a huge amount of stress and pressure um and you've got to get it right it has to be exact it has to be perfect you know I was playing a horizon zero dawn after the uh raid slightly because I just needed to get away from the computer it's been nice to just sit down somewhere else and you know play on the console and uh in it there's a point in the beginning in the proving where aloys says Precision isn't enough Perfection is required and that was plank like this this motto this applies to ultimate Precision isn't enough Perfection is required and DSR at least a DSR ultimate this is something that I tried to repeat to myself to be able to clear this fine and obviously it wasn't perfect I mean it was I feel like I have room to improve in terms of optimization on the fight that's a whole other story it doesn't matter the fact is uh we were just trying to do our best to in the safest way possible clear the fight and I'm so proud I'm so proud of our team and I'm so proud of the personal accountability that everybody had because let me tell you you're not gonna be able to do this if you don't have personal accountability like if something goes wrong and you don't immediately ask yourself what did I do wrong what could I do better how can I prevent this in the future you're not gonna be able to clear like they were I was streaming at all and sometimes we would uh you know I loved our raid lead our right leaders um friend of mine from EU uh well that I played with on you Sally and uh there were times when you know Sally was just absolutely factual and realistic about our goals and what was required to meet these goals and if people were just not playing well oh sorry there's another follow-up uh people are just not playing well and people aren't paying attention and people were just clearly unfocused or they seem like you know they're just I don't know not neither here nor there he would say like you guys just aren't playing enough uh you're not playing well enough you need to play better if you want to if you want to clear this now you need to play better and a lot of times yeah we did we did like because and he wasn't trying to be me he wasn't trying to be uh obviously he was very encouraging too um but there were times when like if we did not improve and we did not put our head in the game and we did not you know dig deep we were just waste we would literally waste lockouts you could waste a whole day and uh we didn't have that kind of time another thing I should mention is that we had not a very long time to clear this because some of the people needed to go back to work people were doing this on their holiday break for Christmas and as you can see it's already January 5th today when I'm recording this so it's some people already had to go back to work today and still made it to the right uh today uh so good thing we cleared that's why we had to be we took the most difficult content in the game and then we made it even harder by giving ourselves a ridiculous timeline to do it in a ridiculous deadline it is not normal to try to do this content in 10 days this is a Content that I feel like it's designed to keep you busy for months and months okay I don't think Yoshi P intended for you to go hard eight hours a day and clear it in 10 days uh you can and if you can honestly I recommend it because uh it forces you to not get rusty it keeps you it keeps everything fresh in your mind anybody who's rated three days a week or rated uh you know with a space between days and then you've rated with taste uh consecutively you know already the difference it makes and having people come back the next day because they don't forget as much but anyway uh yeah I should I wanted to say that uh there were sometimes people who would hear uh us talking about you know we need to be harder on ourselves we need to play better we need to get our head in the game we need to stay focused on what we're doing and there are sometimes people that come in my twitch chat and hear this and be like what that is too much y'all need to chill out like it's you don't need to be so like strict about it and I told these people if you think that you do not understand the challenge that we have before us if you think we're being too hard on ourselves you don't understand ultimate and you don't understand the time limit that we have to do the ultimate uh because this is an absolutely beautiful incredible piece of content that demands everything from you and uh I I'm so grateful that we have it in the game I'm so grateful that we're getting a new Ultimate actually and uh very soon I don't know if I'm gonna be ready and I'm gonna but I'm going to try um but it really is I feel like a gift to uh people who really love writing this is a this is a gift on a silver platter to you and if you love rating if you've ever loved rating um I would I definitely think anyone can do it but you need to be accountable for your mistakes you need to know your job extremely well you need to do your best to be able to focus now maybe not everybody can do it for eight hours a day probably not but uh you can do a more normal amount of time and you chip away at it slowly and you'll start to understand like why it's so rewarding why it's so fun to do I uh gosh I'm breathless I'm breathless for our clear and um I feel kind of I feel also it's sort of bittersweet obviously like working so hard at something for so long I feel a little a little empty yeah like what do I do now I don't want to go back to like the way I felt before DSR I before DSR I was just sort of like like I said I lost interest and I just the raids The Savage raids weren't engaging me that much so I didn't care about it that much and just kind of like faded off and like just try to just you know enjoy like the fun little casual things that I do love about the game you know like glamor that's fun for me and so you've seen me make videos about you know glamor and how much I love my character these are places where I found joy in this game so that's what I've chose to make videos about but there is I had felt like there was something missing and that's writing it like that love of writing uh that's the reason I got so invested in this game to begin with back in heavensward when I started um that's been missing this year and I I just knew that it was because of the war and I just couldn't find a static and it was just so yeah all this situ the situation has sucked and it resulted in a lot of problems but now I feel like you know it's a new year as you're started off really well with the DSR clear and um so let's it's a fresh start you know it's time to move on it's time to uh you know get back into this thing that I love so much and I don't want to go back to just sitting around maybe doing one extreme trial maybe doing like one Savage raid every couple of weeks but I don't really care about the lewd because why do I even need this because I don't care like that's how I felt and now after this after 10 days of like pushing myself to the absolute limit as a player learning so much having the time of my life just like trying to figure out you know little timings and um working with the mechanics and feeling the incredible flow of battle feeling the rush of that and feeling the satisfaction of progression there's nothing like it I love it I love it I don't I don't want to lose it like I don't wanna I feel like like I said I feel like I've grown a lot as a player and I don't want to lose that progress I don't want to uh devolve I don't want to go back to just like not caring how could I I even started like I feel like it's kind of it's kind of a meme but I started to dress differently if you've noticed on the DSR streams uh I I actually started just like trying to dress more neatly and trying to be very tidy and like putting a lot of effort into the way that I look on streams and preparing for my raids because for me it was just another element of being trying to be the absolute best that I could be for the right like in-game yeah it's like part of like this big psychological battle because it has been a psychological battle to clear this and proceed and not lose hope uh part of that is just like me trying to uh be uh absolutely prepared ready to uh give my best to the team and to the stream and um it also was like the meme part is like I honestly was starting to lose it a little bit uh in the past few days I don't know what really started to uh like go insane somewhat like after I had learned most of the fight and I felt like I could clear at any point um but we just kept wiping and wiping away they just started to have to start driving and saying a little bit I actually made a tweet yesterday how I went to the gym after a raid yesterday and I as soon as I walked into the gym and I looked down at the floor immediately my brain is like okay well there are lines on the floor and as you can see there are four safe lines of blocks between the edge of this black AOE and the wall like I thought that automatically without even thinking about it why did I think that like there were times when you know I would just be at home um you know making a sandwich or whatever and I'm hearing call outs randomly in my head I'm hearing comments like uh rot pass at Mid out then in okay it's out then and I'm like why am I hearing this right now why am I wearing this right now uh but it just it gives you an idea of like what this has been like psychologically so I like I said I don't wanna it has been a uh you got a full ass DSR okay you got to put both cheeks in there you cannot half-ass knees on and I've loved it it's just I feel like through this I got to experience the absolute fullness of what I'm capable of as a player the fullness of what a fight can be in Final Fantasy 14 everything that my job can do everything that a fight can be everything that I can bring to the table all has been here in this experience and uh I I feel like it's changed me for the better it's uh reminded me of what I love it's encouraged me to give my best effort all the time to not get discouraged and uh yeah so I feel like I've rambled a long time here because it's very emotional okay this has been a very emotional day and uh now I've got to do re-clears right you know to optimize too better damage on the site and prepare for the new Ultimate that's coming hopefully I can do it um but yeah that's I think that's pretty much everything that I wanted to say Obviously huge thanks to my team huge thanks to my team and huge thanks to our array leader Sally who is so patient and so uh kind and so uh you know encouraging yet firm like letting us know when things needed to improve what needed to improve how to fix it so we can move on we needed it so thank you so much for that Sally and to everybody else on the team um I guess I should say you know if you if you want to do an ultimate you should if you're thinking about doing an ultimate you should but don't go straight North okay if you haven't rated you need to start off on like trials and Savage and uh you need to know your job inside and out you need to have a real good handle on your job uh before you go in there but if you if you can and you're ready it's worth it it is worth it so that's really all I have to say for today I feel like I need to wrap this up it's almost 30 minutes of talking I'm gonna wrap it up uh but I will be posting the clear VOD on Zep live Channel and uh yeah that's all thank you so much for watching I do hope you like this video uh if you did please consider supporting the channel on patreon or on Twitch you can also support the channel for free just by clicking the Subscribe button or sharing this video with your fellow Warriors of light thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time bye

Channel: Zepla HQ

Views: 65,503

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Id: BzqaakgRfdc

Length: 29min 55sec (1795 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 05 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/PYre84]

Around 80hrs of progression raiding at 8 hrs a day (all streamed).

Yea that content is not for me. Congrats to her though and eager to see the new Ultimate in 2 weeks.

[u/GrayFarron]

This comment section surely doesnt reek of cringe jealousy.