Why do the bosses/raids in this game feel so lifeless?

I see where you're coming from, but honestly I wouldn't expect every encounter to have a level of depth or narrative importance that one would get from a character that had an entire expansion or more to develop. Eventually it'd become contrived or lazy in the opposite direction if you get my meaning. A recurring threat or narrative thread throughout a series of fights would be nice but that's something they mainly save for raids or key dungeons.

And sadly two of those examples were woefully underutilized, especially Rhitahtyn. The DRK quests did a fine job of showing the how weight that taking lives and the general amount of garbage the WoL has to do wears on them. Those would be better served being integrated more into the MSQ but the writers have decided to set that bit of character building aside as "optional". There are HINTS of that in some MSQ scenes but you have to remember they want to keep it as open and blank slate as they can for the player to project onto. Assuming that the killing is an adrenaline rush is incorrect though I feel, as the WoL doesn't seem to revel in the killing but the victory or the accomplishment of the goal. Again they could have the actual burden of killing in there more but they choose not to.

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Originally Posted by SilverObi

I see where you're coming from, but honestly I wouldn't expect every encounter to have a level of depth or narrative importance that one would get from a character that had an entire expansion or more to develop. Eventually it'd become contrived or lazy in the opposite direction if you get my meaning. A recurring threat or narrative thread throughout a series of fights would be nice but that's something they mainly save for raids or key dungeons.

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Well sure, we don't need narrative importance or depth with every encounter, but that doesn't meant it has to be lazily written. Instead of just having random beasts, the entire dungeon could be written as a comedy! Kugane Castle was almost that with the Yojimbo fight. And Haukke Manor played up the horror movie aethstetic and was actually built up via a quest about finding a bunch of mutilated bodies. Made the dungeon far more memorable to me then the copperbell mines.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Well sure, we don't need narrative importance or depth with every encounter, but that doesn't meant it has to be lazily written. Instead of just having random beasts, the entire dungeon could be written as a comedy! Kugane Castle was almost that with the Yojimbo fight.

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This is going to come off as a dig at the writers, but honestly I doubt they have the chops to make every single final boss encounter memorable or unique in terms of style while needing to keep pace with the dungeon creation. Random beasts aren't lazy if they fit the narrative (nearly every dungeon that has been described in story as overrun by wildlife) and what makes an encounter seem random can vary on player perception. Kugane Castle for example didn't come off as a comedy or near it to me, we were busting up a political home invasion after all.

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Originally Posted by Edax

True, sometimes a monster is just a monster. I'd argue that FFXIV relies on it a bit too much. Like I said, it's really takes no effort to write the story of a dungeon as "random bosses are in your way" and the players can sense when little effort has been put into a dungeon. Sure, you can spice up random monster with death consequences, but I still say that the engagement level remains low, like on the level of Eureka Amenos. However, if you actually develop these bosses in the story, the fight because far more meaningful, even on repeats. The act of taking a life should be a tragedy, not just a cheap adrenaline rush.

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I agree. Most expansion MSQ dungeons have decent final bosses but almost all Hard mode dungeons with the exception of Tam-Tara (Hard) have trash for bosses. Tam-Tara and Genbu in Hell's Lid are dungeon bosses done right. I don't expect everyone of them to be like those but i would like to see more of them meet us halfway at least.

I was so pleasantly surprised to see the Swallow's Compass boss in the Genbu area afterwards, but really that's because they have set the expectations so low for us at this point. This is like a quarter effort.

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Originally Posted by SilverObi

This is going to come off as a dig at the writers, but honestly I doubt they have the chops to make every single final boss encounter memorable or unique in terms of style while needing to keep pace with the dungeon creation. Random beasts aren't lazy if they fit the narrative (nearly every dungeon that has been described in story as overrun by wildlife) and what makes an encounter seem random can vary on player perception. Kugane Castle for example didn't come off as a comedy or near it to me, we were busting up a political home invasion after all.

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Well I admit the writing has been questionable in Stormblood, I still think they were at least trying for comedy at Kugane Castle, what with the goofy reaction and dutch angle in the cutscene.
https://i.imgur.com/l4ih9Ui.jpg

I also note that you don't actually kill Yojimbo or Kageyama either. It seems to me the writers were at least trying for something a little different by using an actual plot.
https://i.imgur.com/KJjg949.jpg

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

To me personally, I HATE Suzaku's voice. Its warbly and super annoying as hell for me. Now, if that was the intention, that was part of how her character is, Well then, alrighty. Its spot on. However, I feel like the feel was supposed to be some regal 'high-class' female kind of feel bemoaning the loss of a loved one, but it just comes off as shrill and grating.

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ALL I EVER WANTED WAS FOR US TO.... TO....!

But seriously, her voice sounds much better in Japanese. Light light years better. And I rarely say that about JP voice acting (since the cast is mostly western and it's a western setting, Westerners can be more diverse with accents than Japanese in general, e.g. there's no Japanese-with-Russian accent for Russian characters in Japanese games.

Starting to get the feeling that people who say there was no context or reason for Omega or the bosses didn't pay attention to the story and just skipped it all then came here to complain.

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Originally Posted by Ruinfeild

Starting to get the feeling that people who say there was no context or reason for Omega or the bosses didn't pay attention to the story and just skipped it all then came here to complain.

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I think to most people it felt the same as every other raid they just didn't tolerate how they justified it this time. Weather that's because they didn't like the tournament arc or weather they were tired of 5 years of a similar style of raid story.

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Originally Posted by Ruinfeild

Starting to get the feeling that people who say there was no context or reason for Omega or the bosses didn't pay attention to the story and just skipped it all then came here to complain.

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The issue with Omega is that Deltascape, Sigmascape and Chaos have an 'easy out' for shoehorning in bosses.

Does Phantom Train make any sense here? It doesn't matter, it's a simulation based on a story from another world!

Contrast that to say, Cloud of Darkness, Ultimate Wepaon etc that are recontexualized for FF XIV's setting and story.

Most of the Omega raid bosses feel more shoehorned because they have the excuse of 'legend from another world' and they don't have to put any effort into giving the bosses a new context or story.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

While I agree on the Suzaku voice acting - I dont think the voice was well picked

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The English one? Cause I think the Japanese voice is great for her.