FFXIV: The State Of Raiding

[Hyperia]

One of the major problems I've seen with raiding is the emphasis on each person having to do things exactly right, and so much as one screw up causes the whole group to wipe. This is what discourages many raiders from integrating players newer to the fight. Adding someone who doesn't know the fight yet is pretty much asking for the whole group to wipe multiple times before they reach the point they were at again.

Its hard for slower learners too. When one person is consistently screwing up, and not picking it up within a few tries, the rest of the party starts to side-eye them. I've seen many cases where a person is trying their hardest, and *will* eventually get it, given enough time, but the rest of the raid just doesn't have the patience. They'd rather find someone who can either pick it up faster, or better, knows the fight already, so they can finally move on.

Its not a case of 8-man parties, because one look of World of Warcraft tells you parties much larger can work. No, I think the problem is a combination of how one person's mistakes can cause the whole group to wipe, and a very justified lack of patience in veteran raiders.

The best things the devs could do, I think, is to tweak the raid design so that one person screwing up accidentally doesn't equal an auto-wipe for the whole group. A raid should be very salvageable if one DPS, or even one healer or tank, dies. Normally death=Yeah we aren't going any farther. It shouldn't be that harsh. Yes, there should be SOME consequences if a person dies, but right now the punishment levied on the group for a minor screw from one is far too harsh, IMO.

This so much, so much....

I remember back in older games when something bad happens like a player dies, the whole raid slows or stops DPS, gets the people back up and then continues. There were no hard enrages or DPS checks. You had as long as your physically could jump rope or your raid lockout timer lasted. Getting rid of DPS checks and hard enrages would allow for a lot of creativity for the developers. Go in with whatever raid comp works for your group, take as long as you need till the job is done. This would also eliminate the "you must bring XX class to the raid" problem and allow people to play the jobs they want, I'm looking at you MCH vs BRD debate.