Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Alym]

Apart from exclusive story and bosses/arenas, Coil had the same reward structure as Alex Savage. Tome Gear + 10 ilvls for drops, access to tome upgrade gear for an entire patch before non-raiders got them, and BiS weapons until relic caught up in the catch-up patch after. They seem to have abandoned the idea of relic ever being BiS now and offer a mount in A4S, so Alex Savage has bigger rewards over Coil, too.

If you and your 54 friends all stopped raiding during Alex for it not being rewarding enough, what were the big rewards in Coil that kept you all enraptured that Alex currently lacks? Exclusive access to the Coil story, arenas and bosses? Exclusive access to raid gear glamour? If 55 people quit raiding because they no longer had exclusive access to what's usually considered "casual" parts of the game (story and glamour), how can they claim to even like raiding? It just seems like you all did it to not miss out. I don't really want to play a game that makes you play parts you don't enjoy for fear of missing out. That's just me, though.

If people need big shiny lures to raid and will ragequit if they don't get them, maybe raiding just isn't that fun of an activity to begin with. Maybe, like Thayos said, raiding should not be the sole focus. Let's include activities that people want to do without needing to have exclusive rewards attached. It would make for a far better game for many more people and would add a form of horizontal progression people crave if all the activities rewarded BiS-tier gear.

This is coming from someone working on A8S at the moment.