As an adventurer in Eorzea, it is a known fact that you can’t save the realm all by yourself. As a matter of fact you will need to band together with other Warriors of Light if you want to fend off wave after wave for threats from all sides.
The Duty Finder has long be the token personal assistant for Warriors of Light to get together to fight against the evil. Well at least most of the evil. It has been a long tradition that if you want to explore the harder parts of Eorzea, you will need a consistent circle of friends whom would like to explore with you relentlessly. These static groups develop skills and bond together and thus were able to take down one extreme threat after another.
However, as a plankton adventurer, I didn’t usually get a chance to tackle these threats until much later. The fact is that most of these harder contents were locked for preformed groups. So if you have a static group, as long as you meet the equipment level requirement you can jump right into them. But if you don’t have a static group, it is much harder. Since I came back into the game 3 months after it was first launched, I have been a plankton adventurer. I float around waiting for chances to tackle harder contents. Whenever there is a new patched, the Party Finder will be flooded with practice groups one can join. However, even for practice groups sometimes you will encounter some players more explosive than the Bombs and Grenades near the Camp Overlook area. I certainly had my fair share of experience being a healer (yup that if I die it is the healer’s fault thing). As a result for harder contents, it is just quite common that I am usually two patches, which is around 6 months, behind. I needed to wait for the lock to be removed because new harder contents were released so I could jump into the old ones using the Duty Finder.
However, as the tension between the Dravanians and Ishgardian begins to melt away, so does the frozen vault of high end raids. In one of the earlier Heavensward patches the Raid Finder was introduced. For the first time I can queue up to practice fights that I wanted to try with a view or hope of clearing them without waiting for 6 months. Also since the Raid Finder allows player to indicate their level of experience, the chances of running into explosive players that burn you more than the boss are much lower. For example, if you queue for a practice group that are trying to learn the first phase of the fight, it is a pretty good chance that the whole group is new players. Because of that players are more willing to work together to learn instead of pointing fingers across the continents and then rage quitting. As you progress then you can learn more and perform better, then you can sign up for more advanced practice groups, and eventually farm groups. Of course in order to participate in the Raid Finder you will still need to meet the minimum equipment level, after all they are high end raids. But the prospect of being able to try without the need to cry is extremely enticing.
In the latest patch Soul Surrender, I finally had a taste of the benefits brought about by the Raid Finder. In around two weeks after the patch dropped, I was able to practice through Raid Finder and then eventually cleared the latest primal extreme mode Sophia Ex. Two weeks might still be a long time for most players but then considering I can usually only play from 7.30pm to 10.30pm on weeknights (and sometimes not all week nights) and a longer bit of time on weekends, for me this is pretty cool, because there are a lot of other contents I wanted to do at the same time too. For me this is a big deal as I had never been able to finish this kind of content that early since Shiva, when I had some raiding friends in the game who could go in as a practice group with me. Since Heavensward dropped, I had never been able to clear high end primal raids as they come along. So I was extremely happy about the achievements I could attain with the Raid Finder.
Sometimes adventuring in Eorzea could be a bit lonely because it is a big big world. However, with a bit more effort and a bit more help from the developer, adventuring has been made a bit friendlier. I surely enjoyed the benefits the Raid Finder brought to me. So if you are interested in trying harder contents but do not have a raid group, I would encourage you to give it a go. There is no harm trying after all.
