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

[Darkplanet]

I think all the extreme fights are pretty cool and lively in my opinion. I think the voice acting helps, and the mechanics are very much around who they are as a boss in style. I would generally agree on savage content, it becomes more about doing ridiculous mechanics then an exciting fight. o11&12s seem more exciting though.

[Roda]

Omega feels flat because it's fanwank in the form of, essentially, a tournament arc. Alphascape gets it worse because we get three more fights after the tournament. And the last one is pretty much a case of "That wasn't even my final form!" I was starting to wonder if we were still on Namek for a bit.

Exactly my feelings on omega. I hate contextless fanservice, and I hate tournament arcs. Omega was the worst of both worlds.

[Talshara_Blade]

I feel ya, I can't enjoy the look of the bosses cause it's all just a dodgefest waiting for the next stupid telegraph or random whatever bullshit. I don't need stupid mechanics just for the sake of there being mechanics to have fun!

[Nixxe]

Because with few exceptions raids are a disjointed pile of microinstances filled with throwaway bosses that have little to no story relevance.

[Sapphire_Dianta]

I personally share the feelings that a couple other people in this thread have expressed. Let's be real; the Omega 'raids' aren't raids. You get dumped in a pretty standard arena and fight a boss. These are basically glorified trials, not raids.

[Bright-Flower]

Why is there 2 Coeurl O’Nine Tails guarding magiteck terminals in the Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak? Aren't they plants who need sunlight?
Why is there a Great Yellow Pelican, Deep Jungle Coeurl in Brayflox's Longstop? Are they guarding the Dragon? If so, why does the Dragon just eat the Hellbender in the middle of the fight?
In Dzemael Darkhold, an army of Voidsent have been sent into the realm, conveniently with 3 random bosses that just sit around far apart from each other waiting for adventures to attack them.
In The Wanderer's Palace, there's a Goobbue and a Flan guarding it as bosses, despite it being a Nymian Palace taking over by Tonberry. Are Tonberry allied with the flan or something?
Snowcloak is Ysayle's hideout, yet it's guarded by an Elemental, an Abominable Snowman and Fenrir. Like why? Did the heretics form an alliance with the Yeti or something? Do the wildlife of Coerthas support the heretic cause?
That's just up to level 50, and I could go on.

They're not 'guarding' anything they just happen to be there. They're just monsters that made t hose places their lair. The plants are probably predatory in totorak, preying on the mice or something. Flans aren't allied with tonberries there's just a flan creature lurking there. As for the voidsent in the Darkhold, that's just how dungeons are structured in any MMO I've ever played. It wouldn't be much of a dungeon if the first thing you fought sounded an alarm and then the whole dungeon bumrushed you.

[Bright-Flower]

I personally share the feelings that a couple other people in this thread have expressed. Let's be real; the Omega 'raids' aren't raids. You get dumped in a pretty standard arena and fight a boss. These are basically glorified trials, not raids.

This was a huge disapointment for me in Deltascape because I'd been thinking the raid would be about us pursuing Omega through the rift, maybe competing with some Garleans or something to try and catch up to it first. Instead we got a fanservice tournament arc where the bosses weren't even recontextualized for FF XIV, save for Midgar and Omega itself.

[Lunalepsy]

Because it's just a script. You don't have any variance whatsoever because they are not measuring your skills as a gamer, but as a clicker/dodger.

[BillyKaplan]

This was a huge disapointment for me in Deltascape because I'd been thinking the raid would be about us pursuing Omega through the rift, maybe competing with some Garleans or something to try and catch up to it first. Instead we got a fanservice tournament arc where the bosses weren't even recontextualized for FF XIV, save for Midgar and Omega itself.

To be fair, there was some element of chasing and being tested prior to the actual boss fights - it was just in the questline leading up to it. And they very much did recontextualize them, they just never set out to make them actual parts of the XIV world and lore, there's a difference.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I loved the vault. I loved that every npc and boss felt like it belonged there.

I didn't really notice it as an issue until recently, but it's annoying/confusing when bosses are really random. For example in Lighthouse. The creature you fight on top with the little arms. What species is he? How did he come to exist? Was he just some concept sketch someone drew, and was like 'yeah, fighting this will be fun!"

It doesn't matter what game. I just hate 'cool sketch, let's fight it' bosses. I like bosses that come from known species, and have a logical reason to be wherever they are. At least if story is important. I know that Deltascape was specifically to be a 'let's fight 'cool sketch bosses,' but it's annoying anywhere else.

I don't even know what species exdeath or chaos are, or how the ghost train is haunted. How are ghosts in this game anyways? I'm sure there's some lore with how undeath works.

Yiazmat is some weird dragon thing from Final Fantasy XII. I don't think he's explained there. Here, at least, XIV gives the explanation of "Ba'Gamnan wanted a powerful form to destroy the Empire with, so he turns into a big dragon robot thing."