Honestly I do wish they'd fix the ilvl/stat inflation issue with those raids. I kinda miss all the mechanics that just don't get done anymore, like Glasya's platforms and Cloud's whole worm mechanic.
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I actually don't pay attention to the Story at all and have completed an Alliance duty several times before(I love Nier).
However, your cordial and in-depth attempt to introduce me to raids and preface how the plotlines of the Crystal Tower series intertwines into the overall plot have made me sincerely feel guilty.
I appreciate the sentiment and will run the raid in any case.
Even if you don't play for story, running the raids is no different than running any other story-related dungeon or trial. Click-spam and cutscene-skip all the lead-in quests, queue up, follow the group, kill stuff. There's, like, maybe 1 or 2 fights in each raid that maybe have a bit of a "pay attention" mechanic. And honestly, even if the raid wipes, it's a lot more fun to meme with a larger group about it. Because it's frankly hilarious that there's still raid wipes that happen in these.
Plus, more glams.
The only reason I hated doing them - I did them before the patch- was because when I do my dailies when I get to my 24 man roul the only ones that pop up are those. I hate those... I want more 70 24 man pops but people be scared and lazy so they ilvl cheat ruining the roul. So I don't do that one.. which sucks but people ruin everything.
Well, after looking over at the wikis and the official FFXIV Lodestone website, I found the following:
1. The Sunken Temple of Qarn is no longer a mandatory dungeon in 2.1 as the story quest got taken out.
2. Completion of Ifrit (Hard), Garuda (Hard), and Titan (Hard) are still mandatory to proceed with the first 2.5 story quest (Good Intentions).
I'm a bit bummed that Qarn (normal) is no longer a required dungeon, but still satisfied with Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan Hard modes still being mandatory to help get people a taste of 8-man trials to come in later story arcs.
Back onto the topic directly, the amount of 2.1-2.55 story quests for newer players seems reasonable this time.
I always get a chuckle at people who complain that playing an MMO requires them to play with other people.
When was Qarn normal ever required? I remember looking up gear progression online back in 2013/14, when I was around the 30s and seeing that Qarn, this dungeon I'd never heard of and had to access via a non-msq side quest, had my weapon for that level. I went to get it to be able to do Brayflox' Longstop successfully.
WELP. We're here folks. "There's too much content".