Any chance that all raids could become relevant in some capacity in the future?

[Vidu]

I think it would be beneficial still, because it would add in a variety. I currently run my alpha raids weekly to get the rewards, but aside from that there is no incentive for me to raid any further. And after however long, eventually running four bosses gets a tad stale. Mix in a legacy raid here and there to spice things up, and it'll become a lot less repetitive.

YOU can mix in other content if you want to play other content.

For Savage raids your main motivation "should" be wanting to see and learn a cool new fight - not gear (its a legit reason to raid though, obviously).
And you wont be able to do Coil and Alexander Savage like you're doing Alpha NM, let me assure you of that...

[Ventimus]

YOU can mix in other content if you want to play other content.

For Savage raids your main motivation "should" be wanting to see and learn a cool new fight - not gear (its a legit reason to raid though, obviously).
And you wont be able to do Coil and Alexander Savage like you're doing Alpha NM, let me assure you of that...

You cannot do group content on your own. And there is no reason for others to want to do the content, especially if they've already done it before. That's the point. There is tons of great content in the game, and no reason at all to do any of it. How can you be against giving incentive to do older content?

[Vidu]

You cannot do group content on your own. And there is no reason for others to want to do the content, especially if they've already done it before. That's the point. There is tons of great content in the game, and no reason at all to do any of it. How can you be against giving incentive to do older content?

I answered that question in the post above, I hope.

And now, you cant do group content on your own. But since you mentioned Alpha NM and wanting to spice that up, let me repeat: You cant do this content in DF either. You need a static for that. And for a static the incentive might very well be to enjoy the content and each others company. I get that extra gear would be and additional reward and might make it easier to find people, but I'm not sure if you're aware of the fact that you'd still need to find those people by yourself, make a schedulde, have everyone show up at raidtimes... and not only queue up with the DF.
And since you need a static, you're back at the same problem: If current Savage gives you better gear than old Coil - why isnt your static running that for the actual good stuff?

Current NM is casual DF content and offers rewards that reflect that.
You're lumping Coil and Alexander Savage in with that, when its not. Its content that - for the most parts - requires a static when you wanna do it properly. And if you already went through the trouble of getting a static, might aswell do the new stuff.

...so you're back at square one, with no one doing Coil and Alexander Savage.
Unless they want to to see the fights itself.

[Ventimus]

I answered that question in the post above, I hope.

And now, you cant do group content on your own. But since you mentioned Alpha NM and wanting to spice that up, let me repeat: You cant do this content in DF either. You need a static for that. And for a static the incentive might very well be to enjoy the content and each others company. I get that extra gear would be and additional reward and might make it easier to find people, but I'm not sure if you're aware of the fact that you'd still need to find those people by yourself, make a schedulde, have everyone show up at raidtimes... and not only queue up with the DF.
And since you need a static, you're back at the same problem: If current Savage gives you better gear than old Coil - why isnt your static running that for the actual good stuff?

Current NM is casual DF content and offers rewards that reflect that.
You're lumping Coil and Alexander Savage in with that, when its not. Its content that - for the most parts - requires a static when you wanna do it properly. And if you already went through the trouble of getting a static, might aswell do the new stuff.

...so you're back at square one, with no one doing Coil and Alexander Savage.
Unless they want to to see the fights itself.

Okay, I'm not sure where your assumption comes that I don't want or think it should require a static. I never said that, and more content for statics to form for is also a good thing. For example, in SWTOR NiM raids still require raid teams, they just provide relevant gear and are properly scaled to level cap. Why would anyone want to be on a static doing old content just for poops and giggles? There is no incentive for players to do old content, and I hate to say it but in MMO's unrewarding content is content that doesn't get played.

[Adrestia]

I've always remained a big advocate of the EverQuest model of raid/gear progression.

You had FOUR separate lines of progression, essentially.

Farmable
First is normal gear that you would acquire through killing rare monsters in the overworld and dungeons, as well as gear from the majority of crafting recipes, was on one level, designed to be enough to play the game effectively and break into raiding at low tier/older raid zones. Some of these items were extremely desirable despite the fact that they did not come from raids, as they were great enablers, could last for a long time, and could be traded. Absolutely anyone could acquire these, either by camping and killing the monsters that dropped them (also used as a good source of experience), or by saving up and purchasing them.
Defining Characteristics
- Strong HP/MP OR decent attributes OR decent resists: You have to pick and choose to patch holes
- Proc (on-hit) effects and passive (when worn) effects that differentiate these items from mundane pieces and provide a leg-up but don't typically alter how you play


Quests
Then you've got the tier of items that you can get with some effort, but not designed to be impossibly challenging, at least after they're not brand new. Admittedly, some are harder than others and some seem almost unfairly easy. These come from long quest chains typically, and also include each class's "epic" weapon, similar to an XIV relic. Some of these items have unique effects that, even if you didn't wear them into combat 24/7, you wanted to have around.
Defining Characteristics
- Usually 2 out of 3 strong HP/MP, attributes, and/or resists
- Unique effects that could be powerful procs, strong worn effects that you can't get from anything else, and "clicky" effects that allow you to cast a spell that you wouldn't normally have access to, or without a mana cost


Entry Raids
In the middle, we have low end raid gear. These are targets that were specifically put into the game to be stepping stones to high end raids if you needed to do some catching up, weren't capable of or interested in competing with uberguilds, or just wanted to raid with a more casual approach.
Defining Characteristics
- Fairly comparable stats to those quest rewards but without unique effects


Endgame Raids
Then we have high end raid gear. This was a lot of work to get. Depending on the era of the game, you could be looking at getting together 20-72 people to take down raid bosses, and if you wanted to kill the latest and greatest, you had to compete with other guilds hunting the same monsters, which would have typically 3-7 day respawn timers.
Defining Characteristics
- High HP/MP, High Attributes, Lots of resists
- Occasional unique effects of all varieties, sometimes so powerful they enable builds


Now what makes all this interesting? These 4 tiers (except 2 and 3 are pretty close) are VERY different from each other. One of those entry level farmable items may have a bunch of resists and you may wear it just so you don't fall flat on your face to every unavoidable AoE if you start trying to raid. But it's always lacking something. You probably wouldn't wear such a resist piece for small group leveling and farming, because you need stats more than you need to hit raw resist values for that. What happens when an expansion comes out? How does a casual/non-raiding player upgrade their gear? They get the next piece that has more stats than this one! But it STILL can't compete with raid gear. I think on average we were looking at about 4 expansions passing by the time non-raid gear had pretty much caught up.

Those quest and entry level raid items? I had those in my bags for years and years because they did unique things. I had a wand that allowed me to make enemies forget they had aggro on me. The Cleric Epic was not only a rite of passage (it was one of the harder ones) but it let you rez people for free. No mana! That was huge.

And the high end raid items are the same progression treadmill we're all in today, but you can't just skip an entire expansion's worth of content by buying a set of crafted gear and slam yourself into the latest and hardest raids. Instead, you actually PROGRESS through the backlog of content. Maybe not all the way to year 0, but all of that content is valuable to you at some point in time. It doesn't come with an expiration date due to an item level reset every other minor patch. If you didn't want to farm and farm and farm the old high end raids until you had every drop under the sun, you could augment with entry level raids from the current expansion as well as the occasional crafted or quest piece, but you were still doing those old raids to get baseline stats that let you keep progressing in the newer and newer high end raids.

"Butbutbut what if I want to play with my friends and they're already super geared and years ahead of me?"
Raids weren't restricted to such a small number of people that you couldn't be brought along for the company and the occasional benefits you'd provide even under-geared. Not that different from how normal modes and EX primals are today. You won't clear if everyone is undergeared, but if a handful of your 40 people are, you'll be just fine.