How difficult is Ultimate?

[Bsrking5]

Fairly easy, just open your wallet. Don't tell SE and poof, you get the title. Theres plenty of PF listing for it 24/7 that never get a second thought from the GMs. Who doesn't like microtransactions. Its just like getting a jump potion...

[Jeeqbit]

Unfortunately, finding 7 people who are equally competent at mechanics and with the time to spare is actually harder than the fights in this game. People who clear these things were lucky enough to find the right team.

[Shougun]

It's not that hard you just have to put in a lot of effort frequently to memorize 20 minutes of fight, as a group, meanwhile making very few mistakes while playing your class above average. . . lol. (Speaking ultimate, savage is a lot less to memorize- honestly just get a PF and you're well on your way for that content, good luck in DF until huge echo buffs though and then good luck again once enough people who learned it stop queuing for it xD).

It's true if you did those steps it isn't but for many people that is just a big no thanks, even if you make them realize 'they could'. It's like saying Dark Souls or Sekiro (Sekiro specifically) isn't that hard, sure if you learn to parry it's actually easy to look like a god. Now get the average person to become a master at parry.

It's not going to happen no matter how kind of a teacher you are. There will be some who learn because you were welcoming but no matter the instance of quality teacher it'll never become a majority content unless you've already made your audience focus that niche in the first place.

What makes Ultimate hard is it requires you put in above average effort. If you're a person willing to do that, then it certainly is achievable. I would strongly wager, no matter if Yoshida literally held everyone's hand individually to help them do the fight, the majority is not going to want to put in that effort. Naturally this is why mods like DBM (WoW) and the thing that must not be named in FFXIV are fairly popular as it quite literally makes it take less effort to win (basically cut your memorization down either entirely or almost entirely, then you just have to actually play your job right and get others to do the same- which still takes enough effort that the minority does this content lol).

[technole]

The numbers are definitely higher than luckybancho's scrapes simply because not everyone has their achievements public. So any capture outside of SE is simply the low mean at-best. TEA clears is probably more so around 6-7%+ of the population.

We also have compared people who are eligible for ultimate by those who have the savage mount and that's another sample set to get a fuller pictures because there are many who have tried ultimate and don't clear. Maybe they had meaningful prog and their group blew up, many go on to find another group or pause their progress until they get time again. The beauty of ultimate content is it never expires, since you can't unsync or cheese it. There is always groups recruiting for any of these, at any point. So the numbers just will simply go up and up. You can't say well only 5% clear, not worth it. It doesn't work that way. Savage content expires every 6 months, the 3 ultimates never will expire.

Obviously the Japanese data centers take raiding much seriously than NA/EU combined. Gilgamesh and Levi have always been NA sever standouts simply because the hardcore players migrated to these servers before XPF ever existed. Regional perspectives on the game have always differed, it's just a fact and people still have this bubble mentality that raiding is just a small part of the game yet every JP server has near 30% clear rates of savage.

[oblivion238]

Difficulty is subjective. I might see ultimates as being easy, you might see them as being extremely difficult. The best way to find out is to try it out for yourself and see how you like it.

[Vickii]

There's that one person who keeps talking about Ultimate on the forums... so I got curious and looked it up. Apparently there are three Ultimate fights in the entire game and they seem pretty complicated and look really cool. A lot of what was going on went over my head though so I can't tell how hard it is. I'm wondering how hard Ultimate actually is. Is it something that only the 1% can tackle, or is it accessible to any good player in the game? How long does it take?

Like all hardcore raids it’s just a memory/muscle memory/coordination test. Remember what happens for all 10 minutes and get a shiny weapon and title that means very little because most of the people who have them bought them with RMT.

Probably the hardest thing will be finding a group who want to do it, without the inevitable one/two people who will be super slow to get it and fail every mechanic. Honestly not fun to me, but good luck if you’re going to try.

[Vickii]

I meant to put "necessarily". In any event, the point is fairly obvious. You aren't guarantee to sell something because you posted an advertisement. Nevertheless, the burden of proof remains on you.

The PF ads and RMT sites isn’t proof that most people are buying ultimate clears. I understand that.

But it’s evidence that they at least find it worthwhile to advertise that service. Also where is all the ‘legit’ ultimate stuff. Forum threads discussing it, comments on YouTube strategy videos etc? You’d think a popular feature would get talked about more.

The lack of buzz around ultimate in general doesn’t seem to tally with the hundreds of people who show up on patch day with the weapon and title, usually not in a FC who is doing that content.

People buy clears. It’s obvious, but hard to prove numbers. I think you know this as well as i do.

[HyoMinPark]

The PF ads and RMT sites isn’t proof that most people are buying ultimate clears. I understand that.

But it’s evidence that they at least find it worthwhile to advertise that service. Also where is all the ‘legit’ ultimate stuff. Forum threads discussing it, comments on YouTube strategy videos etc? You’d think a popular feature would get talked about more.

The lack of buzz around ultimate in general doesn’t seem to tally with the hundreds of people who show up on patch day with the weapon and title, usually not in a FC who is doing that content.

People buy clears. It’s obvious, but hard to prove numbers. I think you know this as well as i do.

There was no shortage of “buzz” when each Ultimate released. FFXIV trended on Twitch during each week each Ultimate came out—and Ultimate is the most attention this game has ever seen on that platform. Sure, there isn’t much attention surrounding it now, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t discussed heavily when each fight first came out. I remember when UCoB released during 4.1 and people on here were praising it as a wonderful spectacle (even the non-raiders!!!)—and some complained that it was unfair a “story mode” didn’t exist, and even that they had to clear Neo-Exdeath to try out the fight. When UwU came out, people praised it as well. People watch the prog on Twitch—and they did it for all three.

There’s less talk about all of them now because they’re older content—and also given how we’re very quickly approaching pre-expansion lull, a lot of people aren’t necessarily paying attention to this game at all. But the fights are still done to this day. Just because something isn’t discussed doesn’t mean it wasn’t a success. I don’t really hear people discussing older Extremes or Eureka anymore, but they were discussed quite a bit when they were relevant. Especially on here.

Just because people have the title and are in an FC that doesn’t advertise hardcore content doesn’t mean they bought their clears. My FC is very small, but I didn’t buy any of mine. I’ve raided with people in RP-heavy FCs in both UCoB and UwU. The type of FC you’re in doesn’t really matter, since statics can be independent of them. There are plenty of raiders that don’t raid within their Free Company.

No one is denying that some people buy their clears—and it’s very easy to tell who they are as they will always lack a log for the encounter. But the insinuation that it’s any significant portion of the clears is a reach. Not that many groups even sell the content, so how could they possibly sell a significant portion of clears to the playerbase. It’s more common for people to purchase Savage clears.

[ForteNightshade]

The PF ads and RMT sites isn’t proof that most people are buying ultimate clears. I understand that.

But it’s evidence that they at least find it worthwhile to advertise that service. Also where is all the ‘legit’ ultimate stuff. Forum threads discussing it, comments on YouTube strategy videos etc? You’d think a popular feature would get talked about more.

The lack of buzz around ultimate in general doesn’t seem to tally with the hundreds of people who show up on patch day with the weapon and title, usually not in a FC who is doing that content.

People buy clears. It’s obvious, but hard to prove numbers. I think you know this as well as i do.

That "buzz" is back in 2019-2020 when TEA released. It's almost like there has been a two year wait and many people have long since cleared TEA.

When content isn't in the spotlight, it tends to be talked about less. Imagine if the Firmament had a single update in 5.1 and that was it. You'd never hear more than two words about it because, well... it's considered older content. At release, Ultimate garners more views and attention on Twitch than any other piece of content in this game's entire history, MSO included. For reference sake, FFXIV pulled ahead of WoW when UCoB released, something that never happened prior.

As HyoMin mentioned, we're rapidly approaching a massive content lull. Not to mention, many players interested in Ultimate aren't necessarily playing because they cancelled the expected 5.51 release. Put simply, you aren't hearing much about Ultimate because there hasn't been one in a very long time.

[Infindox]

As HyoMin mentioned, we're rapidly approaching a massive content lull.

Personally we are already in a content lull now, will have stuff soon in April, then will continue the lull again a bit after that until Endwalker.