World progression

World progression, in the context of massively multiplayer online role-playing games consists of attempts to complete raids and superbosses almost immediately after they are released. In Final Fantasy XIV, while there is no official award for being the first to complete a raid, players still unofficially compete to attain world first — that is, to be the first group to complete world progression.
==World progression by expansion==
===A Realm Reborn===
====The Binding Coil of Bahamut====
 was completed by the FC Order of the Blue Garter on 26 October 2013, 65 days after the release of Final Fantasy XIV. Because of the extreme precision required to execute Twintania's Twister attack, Twister was described by Order of the Blue Garter as the "most unforgiving mechanic" not just in Final Fantasy XIV, but in several other MMORPGs as well. During world progression, the fight against Twintania was notoriously buggy, and had to be taken offline for emergency maintenance multiple times. After world first, Twisters were nerfed in difficulty (with Firestorm buffed in difficulty to compensate).
====The Second Coil of Bahamut====
 was completed by the Order of the Blue Garter on 13 April 2014, 19 days after its release.
====The Second Coil of Bahamut (Savage)====
 was completed by Lucrezia on 9 August 2014.
====The Final Coil of Bahamut====
 was completed by Lucrezia on 2 November 2014, 5 days after its release. Nearly a month later, only 50 groups had defeated Bahamut.
===Heavensward===
====Alexander: Gordias====
 was completed by Team Updog, a team in the Free Company Elysium, on 6 September 2015, 34 days after its release. Previously, Team Updog had attained world first on , on 28 July 2015, 7 days after its release; this was the previous fight in the raid tier.
The unusually long time to clear was attributed to the extreme difficulty of both Living Liquid (The Arm of the Father) and The Manipulator (The Burden of the Father), which manifested both as DPS checks which were perceived as impossible during the first week of progression, and extremely complex mechanics. In particular, most teams abused exploits in order to clear The Burden of the Father, and when combined with the unusually long amount of time before the release of Alexander: Midas, the difficulty of Alexander: Gordias was so high that it threatened the viability of the Final Fantasy XIV raiding scene. Many players transferred to other Worlds, especially Gilgamesh, in order to find a raid group, as there were insufficient raiders interested in attempting Alexander: Gordias after seeing its extreme difficulty in world progression.
In reality, was clearable within the first week, as proven by Chinese players when the fight was released on Chinese servers using a superior party composition than what was theorized at the time of initial release.
====Alexander: Midas====
 was completed by Team Double or Nothing, a team in Elysium, on 23 February 2016, 17 days after its release. As with Alexander: Gordias, the long time to clear was attributed to the high difficulty of the tier, especially Brute Justice (The Burden of the Son) and Blaster, Brawler, Swindler, and Vortexer (); The Cuff of the Son also suffered from game-breaking bugs.
====Alexander, the Creator====
 was completed by Ston3, a team in the FC Angered, on 29 September 2016, 2 days after its release. The tier had a significantly lower difficulty, which became standard for Savage raid tiers in the future.
World progression in Alexander, the Creator marked the first time that players not directly participating in world progression could follow progress, as completion of each turn of the raid was documented by the MogTalk podcast.
Furthermore, raid progression times were also significantly reduced by quality of life changes in patch 6.4 that reset players' cooldowns upon wiping, cutting down time between pulls.
===Stormblood===
====Omega: Deltascape====
 was completed by Toxic or Honest, a team in Angered, on 19 July 2017, 16 hours after the raid was released. As the first raid tier in Stormblood, Deltascape's world race was the first raid tier to have five bosses, as Deltascape V4.0 contains two bosses: Exdeath and Neo Exdeath. However, the increased length of the tier did not translate into an increased length in time to world first, in part because was completed very quickly by most groups, with Equivalent Effort Estimate completing Deltascape V1.0 just 13 minutes after the fight was released.
====The Unending Coil of Bahamut====
 was the first Ultimate-difficulty raid in Final Fantasy XIV, and was completed by an unnamed team on 4 November 2017, 11 days after the fight was released. The Unending Coil of Bahamut only consists of a single boss fight, unlike the four or five boss fights that previous raid tiers had, so that the exceptional time to a clear especially highlights the fight's difficulty.
The victorious group included members of Lucrezia, the team which had previously attained world first twice in the Coils of Bahamut, prompting member Eis to proclaim that the unnamed group should be called "Ultimate Lucrezia" to contrast "Ultimate Bahamut". In particular, the victorious team was the first Japanese team to attain a world first since Lucrezia, three years prior.
As the first Ultimate raid, world progression in the Unending Coil of Bahamut drew large amounts of attention that previous raids had not. In particular, with MMORPG.com proclaiming the spectacle "the coolest thing in Final Fantasy XIV"; the relevant Reddit thread becoming the highest-rated thread on r/ffxiv of all time up to that point. Many popular Final Fantasy XIV streamers livestreamed their progression on Twitch, with streamer Xenosys Vex peaking at over 7,000 concurrent viewers, more than seven times the number of concurrent viewers that every Final Fantasy XIV streamer combined would expect to get around the time. However, as with previous raids, the world first, and most serious competitors for world first, did not livestream their progress, preferring to keep their strategies secret.
====Omega: Sigmascape====
 was completed by Wheelchair Emoji, a team in Elysium, on 31 January 2018, 17 hours after the raid was released.
====The Weapon's Refrain====
 was completed by the FC Entropy on 10 June 2018, 5 days after the fight was released.
World progression proceeded in a nonlinear fashion, because The Weapon's Refrain is designed as a puzzle, and decisions raiders make in earlier phase can make later phases impossible. The Weapon's Refrain is a gauntlet in which raiders must defeat Garuda, Ifrit, Titan, Lahabrea, and the Ultima Weapon in succession. However, one needs three copies of the Beyond Limits buff in order to defeat Lahabrea; this can only be accomplished by defeating Garuda, Ifrit, and Titan in a rather non-obvious way, and it is unclear that one needs (or can even obtain) Beyond Limits when they first attempt Garuda, Ifrit, and Titan. Moreover, one needs several copies of the Thermal High buff to defeat the Ultima Weapon, which can only be obtained from Garuda. These considerations lead one world progression raider to describe Garuda as "the gift that kept on giving".
====Omega: Alphascape====
 was completed by Entropy on 20 September 2018, 1 day after the raid was released. As with The Weapon's Refrain, the second boss fight of Alphascape V4.0, the final form of Omega, is a puzzle fight, due to the high complexity of the "Hello World" phase of the fight, which slowed down progression.
===Shadowbringers===
====Eden's Gate====
 was completed by Entropy on 30 July 2019, 14 hours after the raid was released. Somewhat unusually, the enrage of Titan, the boss of Eden's Gate: Sepulture, occurs after Titan has used certain other abilities, rather than at a fixed time after the start of the boss fight; as such, the amount of time that raiders had to kill Titan before his enrage was sensitive to random effects, with a difference of almost 30 seconds. Since two other teams defeated Titan within an hour of Entropy's clear, it is unclear if another team would have gotten world first had they had better luck with the random enrage timer.
====The Epic of Alexander====
 was completed by Thoughts per Second on 16 November 2019, 3 days after the raid was released.
As with The Weapon's Refrain and Alphascape V4.0 before it, the centerpiece of the encounter was a puzzle: in order to survive Perfect Alexander's attack Fate Calibration α, one needs the buff Enigma Codex, which can in turn be obtained from True Heart enemy earlier in the fight. However, the method of obtaining the Enigma Codex is so obscure that, while Thoughts per Second was able to solve the puzzle after a day of experimentation, no other group cleared for another three days.
The group MOOF finally obtained world second on 19 November, and now that the solution of the Enigma Codex puzzle was common knowledge, an unnamed Japanese group also cleared shortly after. Unusually for a serious contender for world first, MOOF's progress was livestreamed on Twitch by one of their members, Crystal Azure (known as Stal on Twitch).
Thoughts per Second, and many other groups, utilized a third-party tool in their clears of The Epic of Alexander which allowed them to more rapidly move waymarks while in combat. Square Enix did not punish these actions, but later removed the ability to edit waymarks while in combat with the release of Patch 5.2 in order to prevent this tool from being abused.
====Eden's Verse====
 was completed by Sylink on 19 February 2020, 1 day after the raid was released.
====Eden's Promise====
 was completed by Thoughts per Second on 9 December 2020, 1 day after the raid was released. Krile, a streaming team, attained world second.
AkhMorning, MogTalk, Fey's Temperance, and other Final Fantasy XIV community groups hosted Eden's Promise as a "World Race for Charity", with all proceeds of the MogTalk Twitch channel in December donated to Child's Play, a charity which provides toys and games to children's hospitals. MogTalk's stream commentated over streamers' world progression, providing both play-by-play and color commentary. The winners of the world race received cash prizes: $1800 to Thoughts per Second, $1600 to Krile (as streamer world first), and $1000 for the streamer world first kill of . In total, the World Race for Charity raised $17,500 for Child's Play.
===Endwalker===
====Pandæmonium: Asphodelos====
 was completed by Thoughts per Second on 5 January 2022, 14 hours after the raid was released. As with Eden's Promise, MogTalk hosted a World Race for Charity, with proceeding benefiting Extra Life.
====Dragonsong's Reprise====
 was completed by Neverland on 2 May 2022, 6 days after the raid was released; it took them around 750 pulls to clear. Krile received streamer first on 6 May.
World progression received a large amount of outside attention, even for an Ultimate-difficulty raid. This can be attributed to both the difficulty, which was characterized as much higher than previous Ultimate-difficulty raids, the mass exodus of players from World of Warcraft to Final Fantasy XIV, and the fact that the plot of Dragonsong's Reprise revolves around an alternate history in which fan-favorite character Haurchefant Greystone survives the Dragonsong War. The difficulty was due to the extreme precision of the Nidhogg phase, the extremely punishing nature of the enrage mechanic of Hraesvelgr, and the fact that unlike in previous Ultimate difficulty phases, the final phase did not function as a lower-difficulty "victory lap"; it was further exacerbated by a bug during Nidhogg's boss fight which was patched partway through progression. Facilitating livestreamed progression, MogTalk livestreamed commentary for six hours per day from 26 to 29 April, donating proceeds to Doctors Without Borders. Because the race got so much attention, player characters celebrated Neverland's victory in Limsa Lominsa after the clear was announced.
However, Neverland's clear was not recognized by the entire playerbase, and drew a particularly negative response from Square Enix and Naoki Yoshida, as they used certain third-party tools to assist their progression. In particular, some of their members used a tool that allowed them to see when they could slidecast. While third-party tools had been open used in prior world first clears, most prominently by Thoughts per Second in The Epic of Alexander, Square Enix had not previously punished their use, and so it was unclear if third-party tools were tolerated or banned, as the Terms of Service claimed that they were. To punish Neverland's use of the tool, which called out safe locations wherein one could avoid certain boss attacks, YouTube videos of Neverland's clear were hit with a copyright strike by Square Enix. Naoki Yoshida also said that, if their recognition of world progression would encourage players to become more competitive and therefore use third-party tools, that he would no longer recognize world first.
====Pandæmonium: Abyssos====
 was completed by UNNAMED_ on 31 August 2022, 1 day after the raid's release. Much of the difficulty derived from The Eighth Circle; in fact, Neverland had managed to complete just 5 hours after the raid's release. MogTalk again hosted a livestream with commentary, with proceeds benefiting Direct Relief.
====The Omega Protocol====
The title of world first for is in dispute. The raid was first completed by UNNAMED_ on 31 January 2023, 7 days after the raid's release. However, UNNAMED_ used third-party tools, causing a significant backlash. As such, Naoki Yoshida wrote that "If the illicit use of third-party tools is made clear through our investigations, I, at the very least, will not recognize that team as the true World First." Since it later was confirmed that UNNAMED_ abused illegitimate third-party tools, it would appear that the title of world first was claimed by Neverland, 1 day after the clear of UNNAMED_. However, Neverland members did not recognize themselves as world first, and instead stated that their clear was "top 2".
The stream first kill was obtained by Kindred on 2 February 2023. The streamer race was so popular that MogTalk was able to raise $56,404 for Extra Life. A first in the Final Fantasy XIV raiding scene, MogTalk's coverage of world progression was sponsored by Corsair, and they provided gaming parephenalia as prizes to Kindred. As such, MogTalk's coverage was branded #CorsairxMog.
=====Difficulty and glitches=====
While Yoshida had previously claimed that The Omega Protocol would not be harder than the previously hardest Dragonsong's Reprise, Siliconera wrote that it was "the most challenging Ultimate Raid." World progression raider Arthars claimed that, while world first did not take much longer than Dragonsong's Reprise, the game's best players had significantly improved since Dragonsong's Reprise, making The Omega Protocol look deceptively easy.
Moreover, the difficulty of The Omega Protocol during world progression was exacerbated by multiple bugs and oversights. It is only possible to have 30 buffs or debuffs on a player character at a given time, with priority given to debuffs. However, the Hello World attack in the third phase of The Omega Protocol issues so many debuffs that certain party compositions will exceed the buff cap under circumstances, making it impossible for them to function properly. This oversight was not addressed during world progression, presumably because the buff limit could not be easily hotfixed to be increased.
A further bug allowed the boss of the third phase of The Omega Protocol to auto-attack before enmity could possibly be established, and hence kill a player character unavoidably. This bug was patched out of the game on 2 February. A similar apparent oversight, in which Omega-F would use a magical auto-attack on the main tank before a Magic Vulnerability Up debuff would fall off, was not patched out. This is, in fact, not a bug or oversight, but merely a punishment factor for not properly considering a debuff's timer on the players' part, given that there is a lot of freedom in choosing who acquires this Magical Vulnerablility Up. A similar situation arises during The Epic of Alexander's Inception Formation, with Cruise Chaser's Alpha Sword prior to Alexander returning to the field.
=====Cheating scandal=====
On 29 January, two days before UNNAMED_ announced their clear, a YouTube video appeared, referring to a "Zoom Hack", in which an UNNAMED_ member appeared to zoom their camera out far more than is actually possible in-game, was published on YouTube by an account named . In addition, the video shows white markers indicating the boundaries of players' hitboxes, a feature not in Final Fantasy XIV.
After UNNAMED_ cleared, the video became public knowledge. One allegation is that one of the three ninth-mans of UNNAMED_ leaked the video after an internal dispute over compensation. However, UNNAMED_ claimed that the video leaked after an individual illegally obtained access to their Dragoon's YouTube channel. After a backlash from the playerbase, UNNAMED_ agreed to disband, and many of their members, including their ninth-mans, promised to delete their accounts and stop playing Final Fantasy XIV altogether, saying that Square Enix would not fairly punish them for their transgressions. The controversy was exacerbated by the fact that there is no official world race: while Square Enix considers all third-party tools illegitimate, many raiders use Discord, Advanced Combat Tracker, and various other tools, so that it is not clear when the playerbase should consider a run to be illegitimate.
Naoki Yoshida wrote that individuals who participated in UNNAMED_'s misconduct, and any other public abuse of third-party tools, would be punished, possibly by account bans. Later, members of UNNAMED_ were stripped of their achievements and weapons obtained from The Omega Protocol, including those who did not provably abuse third-party tools. 
=====Leaked footage=====
An individual, apparently internal to Square Enix, leaked development footage of the fifth phase of The Omega Protocol, as well as the ending cutscene, during world progression. Naoki Yoshida said that Square Enix would issue a "firm punishment to the perpetrator".
====Pandæmonium: Anabaseisos====
==Citations==
Category:FandomCategory:Final Fantasy XIV