xXLordYggdrasillXx: Man the Gorias days... One thing Happy didnt really talk about was just how brutal the dps checks were not only from a player skill perspective but also from a gear perspective. This raid tier was still released with the intention of probably needing to clear the earlier floors for a few weeks to get gear that would help you beat the later fights. Nowadays we are used to raid tiers being beatable week one in full crafted gear and dps checks designed around that ilvl. That wasnt the case back then. I think when Gordias dropped on the Chinese server, they actually manged to beat it without gear upgrades due to the knowledge from the global version, but for us global players at the time, it felt even more frustrating due to the gear gating. Even if you felt like you had the mechanics down and brought your A-game, you were still bashing your head against the dps check wall in the hopes of the one magical run that would be enough to get a clear otherwise you had to simply wait a week and try again with two more accessories and a hat (if the gear RNG favoured your group that is).

DacianGradaMusic: These videos really put into perspective just how rough the game was back then. Sure, some ideas are still valid and could add a nice spice to the current fight designs and whatnot, but there's a reason why many people deem HW as the worst content expansion, between brutal savages, actually no stuff to do otherwise and the infamous Diadem.

People who keep complaining about current XIV really don't consider just how worse it was in various periods over the years. While the game certainly isn't perfect and again could bring back some of those very ideas from old times, it certainly is way, way better now in many aspects.

Skywardflare758: I think the state job design, gearing, and lack of certain QoL was important context as well. While HW job design was overall super punishing, it was arguably at its worst in 3.0. A mistake like dropping Enochian could cost you like 40% of your damage until it came off cooldown and a poorly timed death would gut your resources, not only deleting your MP and TP, but also your gauges/stacks for big abilities. Oh, and Cleric Stance. Accuracy was still a thing, along with the Str/Vit tank accessories. And of course, stuff like no cooldown reset on wipe. I’d think that barring AoE shenanigans or Machinist DSR shenanigans, a Living Liquid today would go much better.

NotTheWheel: Oh come on now - everybody loves Pepsi Man.

RemyConst: Something that Happy doesn't mention is that EU players were playing with NA ping back then. EU servers were physically located in NA, so A3S debuff swaps were such a pain in the ass to do. You could be standing on top of each other and it still wouldn't pass. It made gordias slightly worse for EU players. The servers were moved physically to EU between gordias and midas iirc.

Iybraesil: I dont know if it was a bit, but i think Happy described how magnet worked wrong xD

dividedbyzero4: imo they can learn one thing from A4S; the concept of a boss having multiple body parts you need to destroy is pretty neat. I actually expected dawntrail's eliminator to be like that based on the marketing that it's supposedly too big to be defeated in a traditional way, but apparently they either lied or scrapped it somewhere since we just got a regular boss.

aaallen23: Don't show this to Zepla or she will explode

holo_val: I love these retrospectives cause I was late to FFXIV.

dazkid33: I do kind of miss trash pulls in raids, at least normal raids. It gave a sense of scale, as you said, and a level of discovery and investigation. You felt like you were explortion (raiding) somewhere where no one should be, and its inhabitants gave it life. Nowadays, raids are just back to back fights, in a narritive sense, being a more difficult Extreme.

HiroesX81: but DT is 'allegedly' the one that kills ff14. lol suuure

KersplosionLlawchwith: I might be in the minority but I actually like the relic, as an alternative form of power progression to the raid, to sort of mirror the amount of effort it would otherwise take to clear the tier, even taking into account that gordias is the outlier and not a good example. And I think were the anima not surrounded by a complete lack of anything else for casual players to do and the "most optimal" way to get it being "grind the bad normal modes 660 times" it might have been a better look for people. The relic weapons are my kind of content, a slow burn long term goal to keep me engaged with the game in many different ways, and I wish other steps and weapons had kind of stuck to that.

Pimers: Recently did this tier with our MINE static and uh, as an Endwalker baby who began savage in DT, it was hell.

The moment we understood we needed Nisil for Pentacle i was like "Seriously" ? We somehow managed to half keep a nisil and sac some people to scuff a clear but with food buff and current upgrades which make everything much easier.

Really as much Coils was a pain to do, it was a lot funnier to prog. Heavensward people had it rough, i can't imagine having to go back to that every week.

I really love keeping up with this serie of videos, i can't wait for next one o7

xoJulianMarcelxo: The only reason I wasn't quitting the game at the time, was because of my guild and raid group. I was playing Paladin at the time and my god, the damage difference between Paladin and War/Drk was abysmal.

And as you said at the end of the video, Thordan ex did not help at all.

Despite that, beating Living Liquid before any nerfs got released with the Midas tier is, to this day, still one of the greatest moments I have ever experienced in this game, so... at the very least it left one good lasting memory of it lol.

linkaiser8709: Can we go back to... Exactly that...? Bugs aside. Gordias is just like Naxxramas was in WoW back then. Players subpar skillset made raiding much harder than what it actually was. Naxxramas was absolutely demolished when WoW Classic was released... If we ever get a re-release of Gordias on Mobile (or a classic XIV Server) it will be demolished by players.

LazyFastGaming: very cathartic to watch this video. Thank you for making this! I was one of the raiders who spent 3 months on Living Liquid and quit. I couldn't remember what was so hard about it, and you explained it all. You can't even do the original fight anymore and all the dps checks(along with the jobs being a lot harder back then), and the KB mechs where you didn't know always where you were gonna go, very many ideas that with slight tweaks could have been a lot better.

DestinysCallStories: im go glad this is being talked about in this day in age!!!

people should know, they need to knooowwww LOL

they must now, the absolute dread and sufferage.

i remember how insanely low the playerbase was lol i had ended up letting my sub go, and i had went to play PSO2

the new peoeople are SO DAMN spoiled, if something like this even remotely close came, they would cry to no end. hell, EVEN WE DID LMAO this was truly, a darker time than even 1.0 kek xD

Kaslo25: ughhh this is why I quit the game for 2 years

seaverino5346: Gordias was a pretty hard tier. The dps checks and new rotations were rough. Jelly man destroyed my raid group lol

Breakfastlizurt: back in the day when Gordias savage was new, getting a healer fill in was a nightmare on my server, because healers flat out did not

henrywesterman493: I would say trash would be good for add phase learning. Like the exploration of the raid environment doesn't really make sense for this raid series... But it would be a handy way to learn add mechanics when you have like M6S style long add phases.

Revonlieke: Man I wish some of the gobwalker stuff and just controllable raid machinery would be transfered to the overworld instead as like ways to do fates with or just some fun little world events that happen where you have to fly some airplace from point A to point B and you get some random sacks that contain some loot that you can open later for some crafter materials and nuts or something.

VentusxBBSxSpero: Say what you want about the Nisi sac strat, but I love it. It's like the playerbase looked at this shitty mechanic and just said "no thanks :)" which I think is hilarious and creative.

phadeparadox: happy treasure maps were introduced in 2.1

GanonAutumn777: I could swear u made a gordias video before O.o

Or maybe im confusing it with another video >.<

Jul 20 2025

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