Dear SE

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

At least other crossovers were done in a way that blended them well into FFXIV.

This one didn't. It felt like it was coming from an entirely different game (because it was).

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Speak for yourself.
I thought the Ivalice raids were pretty terribly integrated.
Almost like the awful exposition to desperately try and establish it all somewhere in 14 was just a bunch of artificial hoops to establish 2 other games settings within 14 (because it was).

14 has a pretty terrible track record with alliance raid storylines imo.

I never played Nier and really felt like I was missing more than half of what was going on because of it. They really relied on people being familiar with the source material to tell parts of the story. Sure it was spelled out enough what was going on with the dwarves and what not, but the imagery and the things that happened inside the raids were a complete mystery. Who was that last boss, where did they come from, why was the last dungeon designed the way it was so differently from the previous two? Maybe I just wasn't smart enough but the actual raids themselves were a complete bewilderment to me.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

I never played Nier and really felt like I was missing more than half of what was going on because of it.

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Really the only thing I can think of that's maybe not explained in the raid is that the flashback where the white dwarf is crushed established that the one you've been speaking to all along has been a clone.

Crossovers have their place and it's not in raids. Keep them as side activities for fates or duties like Monster Hunter. The Nier raids do nothing to expand the in game world/lore and are completely pointless.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Please never do a 3 part cross-over raid ever again. If this was supposed to make me want to play Nier it achieved the opposite.

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They just shouldn't let anyone near XIV content who doesn't actually care about the game. The raids make no effort to integrate the setting into XIV, like Crystal Tower and the Ivalice raids did. Those raids had easter eggs for people who had played those games, but they are our own special versions of those places fully integrated into XIV lore and history and even affecting future content like CT ended up doing.

Someone said Yoko Taro doesn't like or care about XIV and, man, did it show.

Whereas Matsuno lovingly crafted his foray into the game.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

14 has a pretty terrible track record with alliance raid storylines imo.

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Crystal Tower has probably been their best so far story wise, at least in my opinion. I've personally had way more fun in the Nier raids though than I have with any other 24 man before it, even if the story was mediocre in places. The bosses are fun and the mechanics are engaging, but it was clearly fanservice for the most part and little more. Nothing wrong with that unless you're looking for a good story. FF XIV has suffered from its own writing more than once. Heavensward's opening patch was good stuff, but just about everything before and after that was...bland at best, at least to me. Then Shadowbringers came along and blew everything else out of the water with its MSQ and Sorrow of Werlyt storylines. Bozja's got a good story too but I know not everyone enjoys Bozja.

I wasn't a fan of how... disjointed that Nier raid storyline felt. With the prior raid storylines, they felt like just more FFXIV story. We were finding out more about the lore and history of the world, and in the case of Ivalice, it felt like we were really affecting change in the world. But the Nier story feels completely disconnected from FFXIV. How come Eulmoran airships or Amaro riders flying over Kholusia didn't notice the Copied Factory? You have all of this amazing technology that would have been reverse engineered (like how the Allag tech we discovered in the Crystal Tower raid was later reverse engineered, giving us the Crystarium cannons and the city shield we see in Shadowbringers).

The Nier raid doesn't feel canon or jive with FFXIV at all. I also felt that the actual story of the Nier raids was very unsatisfying. I didn't know what was going on or why it was happening really. You discover this white android, and then you follow her into a factory and the fight robots that are inexplicably hostile, and then fight a black android for... reasons, and then white android betrays you for some reason, and then you and a black android chase her and find that there are a ton of white androids, and they morph into a ball... I just don't know what's going on, and I don't care. Never had this problem with the prior alliance raids.

Only thing I really liked about the Nier raid were the glamours and the Dwarf comedy.

Ivalice >> Crystal Tower >>> Mhach >>>>>>>>>>> Nier

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

You discover this white android, and then you follow her into a factory and the fight robots that are inexplicably hostile, and then fight a black android for... reasons, and then white android betrays you for some reason, and then you and a black android chase her and find that there are a ton of white androids, and they morph into a ball...

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This would be your typical Tuesday in the Nier universe. I think anyone who understands THAT was able to follow things a little easier, mostly because we didn't question it. lol Though to be fair, there's usually an actual reason for things happening in Nier, no matter how weird things get. The story of these crossover raids wasn't really there to begin with.

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Originally Posted by kidalutz

I rather enjoy the ivalice raids Nier was kind of meh...

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I would go even further. The Nier raids were probably the worst of them all.

I get it, people love NieR but the plot was a nonsensical mess...maybe it might make sense if you played NieR but sorry, if your storytelling requires external sources to explain what is happening then it's not very good storytelling.

The environments were, diplomatically said, uninspired grey-in-grey.

The mechanics were...okay, a lot of them were basically mechanics we've seen several times already with just a new coat of paint but it had some interesting ones here and there. Except Copied Factory, that was so uninteresting that you start playing "how many vuln stacks can I survive?"

On top of that it just doesn't fit into the "universe" of XIV at all and unlike previous raids there isn't even an attempt to make it fit. That's fine for a small crossover event like the XI or XV events but not a 3 part alliance raid spanning ~2 years.

The rewards are the best we got out of a 24man so far I guess.

I hated the Copied Factory. Just...felt like it took to long.
The other 2 I freaking loved though

And....yeah sadly I just couldnt care about the story. Halfway through before you get The Puppets Bunker, I just said...I dotn care anymore and skipped everything. Same with 95% of the story for the new one.
Only thing I watched were the Dungeon cutscenes, and abit of the story after the raid is done.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

if your storytelling requires external sources to explain what is happening...

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I think that's not true, actually. If you look at this from purely FFXIV's point of view, you still get what you need in terms of the storytelling. The only difference between this and the previous raid series is that there is a game that might explain some backstories/references of the enemies more, but that other game doesn't explain what is happening. What is happening happens in FFXIV, not in another game.

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On top of that it just doesn't fit into the "universe" of XIV at all and unlike previous raids there isn't even an attempt to make it fit.

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I also disagree with this. The world of FFXIV, a world of fantasy and sci-fi, of magic and technology, with time travel, space travel, multiple universes/dimensions/shards and who know what else, is flexible enough that Yorha fits well just by existing in it. It doesn't need any more "attempt" to fit in the game.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Please never do a 3 part cross-over raid ever again. If this was supposed to make me want to play Nier it achieved the opposite.

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I'm glad people like the OP doesn't speak for the majority of us. Or is in a level of decision making in XIV.

I will say that this crossover was an overload on my senses. I'm disappointed we don't get any Flight Unit mounts, but given what we got out of it this was pretty nice. Having Automata music playing in my personal and FC houses for years to come will remind me how much fun I had with my FC and friends of the FC.

Thanks.

While I found the story iffy in some parts, the raids themselves were actually fantastic. And for once I don't dread doing the third raid every week (in fact ran it three times today lol).

I found this to be the worst 24 man series,
I like glam and some of the music is nice but even compared to other 24 man when they were relevant Factory and puppets drag on so damn long,
9s is easily the worst boss in this game.

The latest one is easily best of the three since all the fights are atleast interesting,reasonably paced and fun.

The problem isn't that its a cross over though its just the raid design isn't very interesting imho.

Raids overall this series (ShB):
1) Gear (okay. Some good, some terrible. Some designs have small variations that don't really make them distinguishable).
2) Adding the 2B glamour/hair/9S hair was great, but missing 9S entire set (not make-shift glamour that we make ourselves) was rather disappointing for adding hair, but outfit.
3) Story made no sense and was just a "LOL THEY CAME FROM ANOTHER WORLD!"
4) Most of the bosses throughout the entire raid series weren't actually IN Automata. Some, yes. but especially the last raid (current), all the bosses were either in (NieR) or Gestalt (unless I missed hansel and gretel somehow in Automata), which neither of were from. This is why I questioned not getting Kaine's armor, among other armor from the same games (also NieR remastered releasing this fri!).
5) Questline.... questionable. Also fairly boring mixed in with the dwarves.
6) Music: excellent!
7) Fights: so-so (depends on the raid. Final was probably the best it could be and made some references in Automata for sure with the wall backgrounds through the digital hacking 9S does).

Overall: 3/5

Not the absolute BEST raid series-- but also not the worst. But I don't think I'd put it in my top 5 in raid series so far. I'm moreso glad it's over, but we're still missing bits and pieces (which hopefully will fully explain everything with these weekly side quests. How long is the question really)

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Speak for yourself.
I thought the Ivalice raids were pretty terribly integrated.
Almost like the awful exposition to desperately try and establish it all somewhere in 14 was just a bunch of artificial hoops to establish 2 other games settings within 14 (because it was).

14 has a pretty terrible track record with alliance raid storylines imo.

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I've never played any of the games represented in any of the crossovers so I had no expectations about the content going into the crossovers.

The rest didn't make me feel like I was being pulled out of FFXIV into a totally different game. Yorha did. I felt like I was being asked to play a completely different game that I had zero interest in playing. It was very immersion breaking, which is a bad thing to experience with a RPG.

I wouldn't call the story lines great either (that's always iffy with content that's more combat focused than narrative focused) but at least I had no problem accepting those storylines as part of the FFXIV game world/lore. Yorha simply doesn't fit in.

Glad it's Alliance Raids and not msq-required stuff, hence I can safely skip it without any "regrets" *lol*. I loathe Alliance Raids in general, though, so don't mind me.

Guess people are really splitted about this raid series.

Raid wise, it wasn't imaginative. Ivalice 3rd raid started with a goddamn robot loading a sniper rifle and amazing voice lines.
We got Maths and a really cool fight with Construct 8, differently delayed mechanics, confusion (with the pointing fingers going ham above your head), first introduction of Twofold Doom with the last boss of Rabanastre raid, the "Obey or Disobey" mechanics, weak point mechanic, duty actions.
And the top of the cake? The voice lines. They really went all out with the voice lines, especially with Mustadio, Agrias and Cidolfus. Nier had a voice announcement and it stops here. It was backward progress.

Dun Scaith started with Death gaze and we had to explore a really cool city. I don't know if it was the first raid to introduce getting push into obstacles. It wasn't the most interesting one but it remained a good raid, not without impact on XIV's universe. It wasn't in its own bubble, Mhach is an important element of history in the game.

Nier is Nier and belong to the Nier universe.
The implementation was at the level of a fanfiction. It had no impact except on a single village and will have no more impact than that, for an event supposed to change the world.
The mechanics were not imaginative and did not introduced anything new in the last one beyond "black/white". At most we got the "Tank buster" marker and a new "bait beam" marker aswell.
No voice acting or at most 10 seconds and a song. No "ShOW mE MOrE".
Nier's technology is beyond allagan and Omega technology (who failed to recreate a human being, unlike Nier's android) and completely disconnected to aether.
Glam are cool, but different models for genders. Can't have the goggles if you're female.

I didn't liked this raid, it made me play Nier:Automata and I believe the game was beautiful but overrated. It can't technically be called the "best raid series", it's underwhelming technically wise and story wise.
And the raid itself wasn't impressive, if you need to play Drakengard to be actually impressed, then... It's not the raid that's impressive, it's Drakengard.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Please never do a 3 part cross-over raid ever again. If this was supposed to make me want to play Nier it achieved the opposite.

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Funny though, I actually got interested in NieR after this. I just don't go all the way through getting the games because XIV already consumes all of my available time.

My only gripe with this last NieR raid is that nothing inside has a lot of relevance to what happens outside. The last boss is kind of a letdown, because... Who is that? Maybe it will be explored in the following quests in the future? But alas, the impression is that the last tier was pretty generic compared to the previous 2.

The latest raid especially is very tedious... only thing that saved this raid is the music <3

Let's agree that we disagree :D

As far as i'am concerned, it was the best alliance raid since this game release and i'm really sad that this cross over is finished.

Mechnically I love it. Mostly really interesting fights that allow for skilled players to maintain near 100% uptime while making you think.
Music is NieR tier.
Story has potential if they were to flesh it out, doubtful unless these next few weeks really add something MAJOR.
Implementation.....non-existent. Could have been a separate game.
As someone who didn't play NieR I wonder how many references I miss, and how much things would make more sense. I mostly just have a TON of questions that I doubt will ever be answered.

Would have loved to be a fly on the wall during the concepting stages. Since the FFXIV team and Yoko are huge lore nerds (and quite possessive about the lore in their franchises). I can only imagine that there was a lot of back and forth over what should or should not be in the raids.

I feel the same, and then they can't even reward us with cool Nier like weapons for glamour

I always love raid and i thought that Nier raid is more dynamic and enggaging than most other alliance raid

My issue is more toward storywise, yes, nier is only crossover so the story has to be kinda connected but also not really connected at the same time, but I didnt really felt the stake honestly

I will still hold my judgment until the weekly quest is done with the story

as Raid, Nier is easy 8 out of 10 as a whole for me, it should be 9 if not because of the story aspect

I don't mind crossovers. This crossover just didn't connect. It wasn't integrated well. They didn't take time to explain why Nier was in FFXIV. A crashed space station simply wasn't enough to do that. It did nothing to draw me in as someone who didn't play Nier. Which, if you're going to make a three part raid out of something, the story should at least draw you in.

The story, however, never went anywhere. Much like my character, I found myself doing a lot of "well that was weird" looks throughout the story. Most of what was happening had to be explained by a friend that played Nier, because they did nothing to explain things in-game. (I'd be shocked if they even could.) Sadly, I still found myself not caring at all about Nier. (Why should I buy the book, when the back cover can't spark interest?)

The story was also uninspired and lazy. Felt like everything was stuck in that "no time to explain" moment, and the payoff was coming in the end. Instead, it just ended with a thank you note. I could have skipped the story and gotten the same amount of knowledge about the subject matter. And don't get me started on the Skyrim-esc books we got to read by going back through the areas. (They even gave up on that in the end.)

I thought the areas were ugly and boring. They didn't fit with the aesthetics of FFXIV. The Tower alone was lazy even in its simplicity. It felt like we were in another program like Omega. But unlike Omega, the complete detachment from the FFXIV aesthetics made it jarring. Even in the "unfinished" areas of Omega, they still looked finished on an aesthetic level. (Like they meant to look unfinished by design, not like someone's first run with Blender.)

Most of the fights felt forced to fit the raid standard, and became bland because of it. It went from pink balls, to even more pink balls. Most likely due to the lack of enough substance to draw upon from the source material. The second raid was a one-and-done for me. I don't even remember the bosses. This coming from someone that used to enjoy the middle raids in a series. ST was probably my favorite. I cringe thinking about the most boring one being the one I'll end up grinding for gear before 6.0. I'm sure I'll get tired of it and settle for going into 6.0 with 510 gear on most of my jobs.

Overall, this raid series felt like someone slapped an abstract painting in the middle of a solid narrative masterpiece. It simply didn't fit.

The Tower certainly could have used some more varied visuals.

The white tower/cyberspace areas aren't 'bad' imo but having the first 3/4 of the raid be just that wasn't great.

They could have for example drawn from Nier Replicant visually for the Knave of Hearts and Hansel & Grettle encounters, and saved the cyberspace thing for the Red Girl boss who actually makes use of it by incorporating the hacking mini game stuff from Automata into the mechanics and boss arena.

The final boss arena is gorgeous but they could have done a lot by say, having us fight the Knave of Hearts in the Library from hte first Nier and Hansel and Grettle in the temple area thing they're fought in.

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Originally Posted by Syln

Let's agree that we disagree :D

As far as i'am concerned, it was the best alliance raid since this game release and i'm really sad that this cross over is finished.

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It's not truly finished yet. They've already told us doing the weeklies will unlock more of the story until you finally reach the "real" end.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Please never do a 3 part cross-over raid ever again. If this was supposed to make me want to play Nier it achieved the opposite.

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I had zero clue what was going and even after watching videos explaining it I was even more confused so yeah I agree.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Please never do a 3 part cross-over raid ever again. If this was supposed to make me want to play Nier it achieved the opposite.

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I mean, Automata isn't even really that good to begin with. The first one, Gestalt/Replicant, is pretty good though. People often forget it even exists, however.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It's not truly finished yet. They've already told us doing the weeklies will unlock more of the story until you finally reach the "real" end.

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True, but I don't know how much we should expect from those...
I'm not gonna pin my hopes on the weekly quests doing so much narrative heavy lifting.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

I mean, Automata isn't even really that good to begin with. The first one, Gestalt/Replicant, is pretty good though. People often forget it even exists, however.

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Well, the remake comes out Friday so..


And I disagree on automata, tho I don't think it was the right fit for a crossover. Drakengard would make more sense imo. I still enjoyed the raid series tho.


The how doesn't necessarily need to be explained, at least imo. Weirder stuff has happened in the game.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Well, the remake comes out Friday so..

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I'm referring to the originals not the remake, and even then, take note of how many people say "Nier" when they're referring exclusively to Automata. At least in the west, the title of the original game was shortened to simply "Nier", so you can see how that can be confusing.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

The Tower certainly could have used some more varied visuals.

The white tower/cyberspace areas aren't 'bad' imo but having the first 3/4 of the raid be just that wasn't great.

They could have for example drawn from Nier Replicant visually for the Knave of Hearts and Hansel & Grettle encounters, and saved the cyberspace thing for the Red Girl boss who actually makes use of it by incorporating the hacking mini game stuff from Automata into the mechanics and boss arena.

The final boss arena is gorgeous but they could have done a lot by say, having us fight the Knave of Hearts in the Library from hte first Nier and Hansel and Grettle in the temple area thing they're fought in.

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Definitely agree. I mean, in Nier Automata you need more than 30 minutes to climb the tower.
In the raid, it's Cyberspace 1 -> Cyberspace 2 -> Elevator -> Top of the tower.
Imagine if FF7R you could just take the elevator to the President office.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Well, the remake comes out Friday so..


And I disagree on automata, tho I don't think it was the right fit for a crossover. Drakengard would make more sense imo. I still enjoyed the raid series tho.


The how doesn't necessarily need to be explained, at least imo. Weirder stuff has happened in the game.

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I think Automata could have worked just fine, if they'd gone the Ivalice route and adapted it into the setting and not just 'they came from anothe world.'

Just taking the raid series name: YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse, it could have easily tied into the final days of Aumoraut, or the bad timeline that the Crystal Exarch came from, to explore those things more. Probably the latter more so given that Endwalker will probably be delving more into the final days stuff.

The problem isn't that Automata couldn't have fit, but rather the direction they took with it.

I felt the opposite, I was fine with it being "they came from space, deal with it." and I felt Ivalice suffered the reverse problem, while the raids were fun everything in-between felt like my WoL was being forced into a "History of Ivalice" class in an effort to make the setting fit, they bored me because they had to both explain why this should make sense, while assuming I knew nothing about about Ivalice, so most of it's quest run time was taken up on trying to assure me this fits into the world at large, by the end of it I just didn't care.
By contrast YoRHa fit in just as much as it needed to, and as much as a lot of other elements in this game, people say "But it came from a portal" is weak when we have Dragons, "that came from space" super robot "that came from space" ourselves "but from an alternate world" our cat boy "but not as you know him!"

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Originally Posted by BlitzAceRush

I felt the opposite, I was fine with it being "they came from space, deal with it." and I felt Ivalice suffered the reverse problem, while the raids were fun everything in-between felt like my WoL was being forced into a "History of Ivalice" class in an effort to make the setting fit, they bored me because they had to both explain while this should make sense, while assuming I knew nothing about about Ivalice, so most of it's quest run time was taken up on trying to assure me this fits into the world at large, by the end of it I just didn't care.
By contrast YoRHa fit in just as much as it needed to, and as much as a lot of other elements in this game, people say "But it came from a portal" is weak when we have Dragons, "that came from space" super robot "that came from space" ourselves "but from an alternate world" our cat boy "but not as you know him!"

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Hahaha well put.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

I mean, Automata isn't even really that good to begin with. The first one, Gestalt/Replicant, is pretty good though. People often forget it even exists, however.

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Automata was a pretty solid game, but I feel that people would have benefitted more by playing Gestalt/Replicant prior to Automata. I think those who weren't already in the know were missing some crucial context. Thankfully I had the pleasure of playing Gestalt years before, and I still view it as one of the best games I've ever played. But I know many did not get the same chance. To everyone's benefit, that changes in 2 days. I can't wait.

Fully agreed. Not only did this raid completely kill any potential of me wanting to check out anything about Nier, the third raid has made me feel physically nauseated to the point of, well, actually being sick. If these over-the-top glitching effects and graph-paper textures over everything is Nier's 'style', I sure as hell don't want to consume anything more like it. I never leave duty when I have a pop in Mentor Roulette, but for my health I may have to if I get this raid again.

People have complained that "well everything else is a crossover", meanwhile the other raids have all been crossovers with... other Final Fantasy titles. At least the stuff like Rathalos, Yo-Kai Watch, etc, have been confined to side stuff you never have to do. I mean, sure, you don't 'have' to do the Nier raids, but you do if you're not a raider and want to upgrade your Cryptlurker. Yes, I know you can buy Twine and Glaze from nuts, but those still take a while to rack up, especially if you're like me and your play hours aren't always during the day when most other players are on and hunt trains are going, compared to doing the raid once a week and having the token for upgrading. Even if the raid had been a crossover with a title I absolutely adored, I would still hate the concept of something not Final Fantasy being now officially main content. I get that this is fun and great for fans of Nier, but where I previously didn't care for it, I now detest it for being shoved down my throat and taking the spot of something that could have been much more interesting.

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Originally Posted by HiragiHOUX

Fully agreed. Not only did this raid completely kill any potential of me wanting to check out anything about Nier, the third raid has made me feel physically nauseated to the point of, well, actually being sick. If these over-the-top glitching effects and graph-paper textures over everything is Nier's 'style', I sure as hell don't want to consume anything more like it. I never leave duty when I have a pop in Mentor Roulette, but for my health I may have to if I get this raid again.

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Honestly, if you are turned off by this crossover then yeah you probably wouldn't last very long in Automata but you'd probably be okay in Gestalt/Replicant. It'd largely be your loss though. They are great games, and this crossover really doesn't do it justice. The graphs and "hackerspace" are Automata only as far as I can remember, but they are a lot more polished outside of FF XIV. Even then they aren't everywhere, just in certain places (and not many to be honest) and while performing certain actions with certain characters. To be honest though, I get the same way with Minecraft. There's something about it that makes me physically ill while playing. I'd love to get into it, but my body won't let me. lol

Here's an example of what the Tower At Paradigm's Breach was inspired by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nkmv1X_VY0

It's a bit less jarring in the game it came from. This video isn't high res either, though setting it to 720p helps a bit.

At the very least I would highly recommend you give Replicant a go. It's truly something special.

I'm keep asking for the same crossover I always do, give me a Mortal Kombat crossover plz.