I raid to have an unique experience. Do you?

[Feilina]

To summ it up. The OP would have had more fun if the drop chances have been lower?

I may have another goal for him, nothing other is needed as a goal to aim for.
Try to get you 2-star-gear. Craft it yourself or let someone craft it for you. But the thing is, collect the materials by yourself. You know AK, you know how many tomes drop. That could be your goal.
You got those gear pieces? Next goal is Materia!

If you can't or won't do that, take a break. But these two goals would do it for you, for the next 2-6 weeks, depending on you coming play style.

[Zfz]

1) The raids did offer a little bit of uniqueness in boss AI, though this only holds for first few runs.

Since some people like to focus on semantics, let's not say "raid" and just say "end-game content".

One of the best end-game content experience I had was World of Warcraft Ulduar. The place had encounters with a lot of variation.

First boss in Ulduar, there are 4 towers you could destroy to make it a easy mode loot giver. But you can choose to leave any combination of the four towers or all of them up, and the encounter will change accordingly with new types of adds and environmental damage, making it a really chaotic and fun fight. Not to mention it was a vehicle fight so even more fun.

Then there's a fight where there are different types of NPCs you can free who give different buffs, one of them will make a fire and if you stand next to the fire you won't freeze, etc. There's a attack speed buff mist that moves around and can be passed around if you have it and run past another team member.

The "pre-nerf" Mimiron fight. The boss had three sections, each with unique abilities and AoE, tanking that fight was the most fun experience having to position the boss while avoiding directional AoE and such, and the three sections have to die within short time of each other. Not to mention the humor in a "Don't Press" red button that activates a hard mode.

The inherent randomness due to non-fixed combinations of encounter mechanics in these fights make them memorable and exciting to challenge each time.

But nowadays MMORPG fights seem to levitate towards fixed, rigid routines so people can just memorize patterns and beat the fights. A lot of people say RNG is not difficulty, but RNG creates difficulties that needs to be overcome on the spot. Having no RNG in terms of boss attack patterns make encounters a once-off enjoyment. Granted, RNG may create situations where you end up having to rely also on RNG to avoid a wipe, but as long as it doesn't happen too often, what's wrong with wiping to some of the obscure and absurd situations? It's these situations that we later talk about and joke about.

The current end-game content lacks variation. I hope Square Enix realize this and create encounters that are not just based on gear and numbers, but on player skill and response to spur of the moment circumstances. Make it accessible, sure, but don't make it dull and boring like it is now.

[Huxer]

So, the OP is complaining that it's a terrible grind with only darklight boots on. He has level 38 jewelry and he has a relic. It's pretty obvious he paid/got carried and now he wants to complain about the lack of challenge. Say whatever you want but I call em like I see em.

[Orsnoire]

MOBA or FPS games: They offer an unique experience because it is PvP based and no match will be the same (generally). So they are fun.

ITT: FPS player who doesn't like to put in effort long term for gear, saying the game is too boring for him.

Uh yeah, obvious result is obvious.

[Millerna]

Depending on how you define raid, I don't really think ARR has any yet. I just see them as dungeons. Crystal Tower I'll consider a raid though.

As for my most fun raid, that would have to be in DAoC a few days after the introduced the 3 dragons into the game (1 pre realm). My guild and some allied guilds got around 150 people together, and made our way to the dragon. We discussed some rudimentary tactics (there was little to nothing known about the fight), and eventually ended up just running towards the dragon. The moment we got in range, the dragon flew up, cast a massive fire based AoE and 1-shot all 150 of us

[skiwi]

So, the OP is complaining that it's a terrible grind with only darklight boots on. He has level 38 jewelry and he has a relic. It's pretty obvious he paid/got carried and now he wants to complain about the lack of challenge. Say whatever you want but I call em like I see em.

I'll just reply to this for now, since my post amount will be capped.

I 'complain' that it will be a terrible grind, hence I only have only Darklight boots, because I don't see fun in grinding for the other ones.
The level 38 jewelry is still there because I haven't bothered so far, nothing new has dropped from AK and that thing is definately on my todo list.
The relic weapon: In all honesty I have tried a few weeks ago to do Titan HM for several days, without free company and with free company, and we got into phase 5 but I went off to play Battlefield 4 beta. Then I came back somewhere around the weekend and they asked me if I wanted to join in Titan HM and so I got my Relic as I had the 900 philosophy already saved up. I see nothing strange about that, perhaps just slightly carried but not strange if you are in a FC.