Greetings, Warriors of Light!

Have you ever stepped into extreme or savage duties in FINAL FANTASY XIV? If so, do you prefer progressing through the fight without any hints, or would you look to consult a guide?

If you've been active on Party Finder, or if you fancy a challenge every now and then, you may have heard of our next guest - Hector Hectorson! He is one of many incredible guide makers when it comes to high-end raiding in FINAL FANTASY XIV, with videos on YouTube dating back to the beginning of the Pandæmonium raid series that have helped players in their tens of thousands.

Without further ado, join us as we sit down with him for a chat about his experience in raiding and the design philosophy behind his video guides!

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Community team: Thank you so much for agreeing to the interview! To start off, could you introduce yourself to our players and tell us about how you got into FFXIV?

Hector: Hi everyone, I am Hector Hectorson of Spriggan. I make animated video guides or "Hector Lectures" for extremes, savages, unreals and occasionally, ultimates. IRL, I'm a science teacher working in an inner-city school in the UK. I started playing FFXIV alongside a good friend of mine at the start of Shadowbringers and fell in love with the game pretty quickly. I've always been a console gamer, and so being able to play an MMO comfortably on console was perfect for me. I first started raiding on-content [participating in raids released within the current patch] with Eden's Verse in Shadowbringers and have done every extreme and savage since then.

Community team: What inspired you to begin making guides in the first place?

Hector: I love raiding, but, being a teacher, I really LOVED helping my static and FC friends to understand the fight. During my first raid tier, I would make lots of crude diagrams as visual aids to help when explaining certain mechanics, all using a chalkboard app I had used when teaching online during the pandemic.

▲ A Diagram representing part of Eden's Verse: Furor (Savage)

Over time, these evolved into fully-fledged "Hector Lectures" that I would make and record just for my static (and later, FC).

▲ Diagrams representing parts of Eden's Promise: Umbra (Savage) (top) and Eden's Promise: Litany (Savage) (bottom)

Because I raided very casually back then, I would normally make these before our group ever stepped foot in the fight. It helped my group to all be on the same page and understand the mechanics a bit better, but mostly it was just a lot of fun to make the guides. I ended up making full guides for every fight from Eden's Promise onwards. I only first shared a guide publicly with P1S [Asphodelos: The First Circle (Savage)], and that was mostly on a lark. I had made the guide just as a tool for my static, and it ended up being so useful that we cleared the fight in around 45 minutes. I realised there were no other guides available for the fight yet and so made it public on YouTube, on the off-chance that someone might find it helpful. The community response was overwhelming, and, because of that, I've been sharing all of my guides ever since. 

Community team: What is your main "design philosophy" when it comes to showing solutions for strategies in fights?

Hector: This is something that has evolved over the tiers that I've been making guides for. At the start, I would always just show whatever worked best for my group or what I personally thought was the easiest solution for a mechanic. As I had always raided in a static, my mindset was to explain how the mechanic works and then show a potential solution, but with the assumption that statics would decide for themselves what strategy they thought was best for them. This created a lot of friction during the Abyssos tier, when "Hector" started showing up in PF [Party Finder] descriptions. Because I didn't anticipate this, I had not been looking at what PF was doing when choosing what to show in my guide. Hardcore raiders were understandably frustrated when they felt they were being forced to use the exact strategies shown in my guides, which usually differed from what they had already used to clear the fights.

From Anabaseios onwards, I've put a lot more focus on trying to make sure my guides are helpful for statics AND party finder. A good strategy has to balance a huge range of factors: uptime, minimal movement for casters, positionals for melees, safety (in terms of how tight the positioning is), and most importantly, how easy it is for someone to consistently resolve. That last factor is tricky, as everyone's brain works a little bit different, and what I find easiest won't necessarily be the easiest for you. For most people, the easiest strategy is the one you already know, so my later guides take heavy cues from what PF is already doing.

Community team: Does regular guide making affect the way that you play high-end raiding?

Hector: Not really, as guide making has always been a part of the high-end raiding experience for me. I think I'm a bit more considerate of the needs of other classes when deciding on the strategies for my group. Probably the biggest change is that I've started to raid on a more hardcore schedule, so that I can be a bit more of an authority on the fights I'm making guides on. The recent Arcadion tier was the first time I've fully completed a tier in the first week.

Community team: Can you walk us through a general overview of the guide making process from start to finish?

Hector: The first step is always asset making. I get static or FC friends to help me in the normal versions of a fight to get clean screenshots of every boss and attack animation. I then edit these to make a toolbox that I can use when making my guide.

Next up is research. On launch day for savage, I'm bouncing around between about 5 different streams of world-first raiders doing the fights. I work out things like mechanic order and visual tells, but also more nuanced things like how hard different attacks are hitting and if groups are finding a way to keep uptime during a mechanic. I review footage very carefully to ensure AOE sizes are as accurate as possible. I'm also seeing multiple different solutions for some mechanics, which helps when deciding on the best strategy.

Once I feel I have a really good grasp on the fight, I start the animating process. My guides are made in Keynote, which is like the Mac version of PowerPoint. Animation normally takes 15-30 hours, depending on the fight, with each guide featuring thousands of animations.

At some point in this, my static and I actually go DO the fight, but oddly enough, I find this to be one of the least essential parts in the process. For me, learning the fine details of a fight is a whole lot easier when you don't have to worry about a rotation or healing, so I can really concentrate on what's happening.

Finally, I record my audio explanation for the guide. These recordings are rehearsed but unscripted, as it's how I have always been most comfortable teaching. I spend a few hours editing and tweaking and then it's ready to go live.

Community team: Which guide are you proudest of so far, and is it different to your favourite fight in general?

Hector: So I am a notoriously BAD artist, with no graphic design or animation experience before this. This is really easy to see in my earlier guides.

▲ A Diagram representing part of Asphodelos: The Third Circle (Savage)

I think I'm most proud of my P5S [Abyssos: The Fifth Circle (Savage)] guide, just because of how much I was able to step up the visuals while still releasing a highly accurate day 1 savage guide.

Definitely not my favourite fight in the game though. That honour has to go to either E8S [Eden's Verse: Refulgence (Savage)] or TEA [The Epic of Alexander (Ultimate)].

Community team: Are there any particular anecdotes you'd like to share around the creation of specific guides?

Hector: So for April Fools Day a few years ago, I wanted to make a guide for Cape Westwind, which has since been remade into a brilliant solo instance, but at the time was infamous for evaporating in about 30 seconds. For my video, I wanted to give it a proper guide, with a full explanation of the mechanics before the fight was lost to history. The problem was that, like most people, I had never actually resolved a mechanic in that fight. So I had to put together a group of FC friends and spend about 2 hours fighting Rhitahtyn at minimum item level, no echo, no jobstones, so we could actually see everything in the fight and try to devise optimal strategies. It was so cool to see how much was actually going on this fight that I had just never seen in dozens of runs. 

Community team: We heard that there's a special guest that helps with your guide-making adventures! Could you tell us a little more about him?

Hector: Hector Lectures are mostly a 1-man endeavour, but the guides wouldn't be complete without my editor, Maverick.

Mav is what might be described as a "velcro kitty" so he normally jumps on my lap at some point in the recording process. If you listen carefully during my M1S [AAC Light-Heavyweight M1 (Savage)] guide, he pipes in to say hello. I guess he was just a big fan of Black Cat.

Community team: Get us in on the Maverick fan club! Finally, do you have any advice or tips and tricks for players looking to trying high-end raiding for the first time?

Hector: My biggest piece of advice would always be to just give it a go. High-end raiding can be really scary with how big a jump up it can look from normal mode, but it can also be really fun and incredibly rewarding. Grab a friend or two, find a learning party doing one of the new extremes, and just jump in. You won't regret it!

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A huge thank you once again to Hector for showing us some very interesting behind-the-scenes on guide-making! You can check out his YouTube channel here.

While you're here, be sure to check out our other Community Spotlights below!

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