Why do people want trash?

[Catwho]

Classic Dynamis in FFXI was an example of trash done right.

1. Each cluster of 4-8 trash mobs protected 1-2 MP or HP restoration statues. Also spawned another 4-8 trash mobs.
2. Everything linked like the first room of Aurum Vale, so 90% of the skill in Dynamis was pulling the correct number of mobs.
3. There were 10-20 mini bosses that had to be killed. Most of them weren't too difficult, but they were a DPS check and could blow up and kill everyone if not killed or slept first.
4. Did I mention sleeping? Yeah, trash in Dynamis could be slept, and selective group sleeping is what made that raid a success.
5. Killing mini bosses was required to spawn the big boss. The big boss also usually had another squad of mini bosses, requiring a sac pull.

The downside of Dynamis was that it took 2-3 hours.

[Dererk]

Because they don't have to make trash on the way useless or optional trash useless. They could make them drop rare mats and treasure chests that can give you a gear drop from that floor so you could possible get more gear in one run.

Also the raids are very boring but I'm sure Alexander normal had a hand in that also.

The downside of Dynamis was that it took 2-3 hours.

Did people really think this was a downside? I always found long engaging content that's supposed to be done with a lot of people fun.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Did people really think this was a downside? I always found long engaging content that's supposed to be done with a lot of people fun.

Yeah, maybe it was fun back then, but do you think anyone in today's time is going to tolerate doing a single piece of content for several hours after everything else in this game was made to be done in an hour or less?

[Seryl199]

I actually had a blast in Turn 3 back in its day. The loot was nothing more than potions, and the jump platforms were on the excessive side, but it was filled with powerful trash that could rip your team apart on a messy pull, especially at lower ilevels. It was a lot of fun having the tanks split up the trash, identifying key threats like the golems, and handling the mobs that were at least as deadly as a boss. Have an encounter like this, give the mobs decent gil drops and good loot tables, and you have trash that is not only engaging to fight, but also rewarding. It makes the raid longer, gives more rewards in the long run, and gives variety to the battles.

[Fevelle]

Because it's fun.

[Evangela]

After beating so many endgame raid bosses. I feel so tired learning new boss fights with their 4-5 phases of mechanics. It's not entertaining for me to learn these fights, die over and over with PF groups.

It feels more like working instead of playing a video game. Even my real life job is way easier than those endgame boss fights. After BCoB I started to think that if I have to put this much effort to play a game then I should try to do something else in real life instead. with that much efforts I should make more money to make my life better. video games should be something that entertain me.

[Yukiko]

The downside of Dynamis was that it took 2-3 hours.

In 1.x I suggested a system with "saving points".
We got with 2.x the Coil Boss by Boss system, thats not what i have suggested with saving the progress!

Well, it was not the original idea, but as an other example:

Lets say we have a very big open world like map (could be airship exploration maps).
-> Everyone can buy an item {Baby-Aetheryte} and place it somewhere on the map.
-> When going out he can teleport back to that one and continue exploring.

Problem#1: The map will be erased to keep serverspace small - you can not go back into same instance as you were!
Problem#2: Progress and player shuffle, what if you are then alone because every other one already cleared the map?
Problem#3: Boss and Rewards, what if your Group cleared something while you were away?

Well... There are solutions to the Problems and its just a short example with many other problems not listed...
My guess is that Square Enix had a lot Problems to programm the "Gateway" and so we can not "save" our progress...

The main idea was that you can go a raid as group with friends and say on day 1 we will clear the trash to boss #1, on day 2 then trying Boss #1, on day 3 finishing off boss#1 on day 4 exploring, on day 5 killing trash (exploring must not mean to kill trash, lets say 8 players split up to avoid trash with walking or ninja skills to scout the different paths (one path to boss#1, one to boss#2 one to boss#3... you must not do them in correct order), then the group discusses which path we will go the next day. Still, thats something you cant do with random people because ingame are no tools to plan ahead and not everyone is reliable... it needs some ingame tools to organise raids! (Can be added to an android or IOS app) - it needs more social support from the game itself, but thats another story.

[RiceisNice]

It's mostly on the environment that the "raids" present. Although according to an eariler dev blog with the new 4-man dungeons, Yoshi's perception of a "raid" is the difficulty (which I would disagree with) rather than the environments or circumstances.


Objectively if you look at any of the Alexander floors, it's objectively smaller than any 4-man instance you'll ever see, in both explorable areas and outside environment (due to it being enclosed, compared to how you can see limosa from pharos sirius, or the corrupt crystal formations in turn 1).

It's not so much as raiding in the literal term (you're invading, attacking or otherwise moving into something as a large group) or the game term since it's trials at this point, especially when savage is brought up.

[Nalien]

I'd rather have more puzzles than more trash, with trash being the punishment for failing the puzzle. Sort of like T10s stealth section...

Heck, I'd be happier with Alexander (and Coil) if it was just one continual thing... I don't like clearing a boss, exiting, then going back in... I'd rather the whole thing be a single encounter, similar to Praetorium in design, but scaled up to Raid level and with rewards... The sad thing is? I know they could do that... Look at T1, back in the day you beat ADS and that was saved, you could leave and reenter and ADS was still cleared... Doesn't even happen with Faust these days...

Make something like that, with puzzles and trash in between to actually give a feel of raiding, rather than single boss encounters (and they don't have to be hard trash, see; Praetorium and our little joy ride on the Magitek Armor). That would be something I'd be a lot more interested in doing, just because it would be a more enjoyable experience. Alexander on the other hand, is effectively us just doing the same Trials over and over, it's far less interesting IMO.

[Alex_Lenderson]

No one actually wants trash.

People just think it'll make it more "Raid like", when in reality all it will do is make a majority of us roll our eyes in boredome.

Pretty much this.