Raiding is becoming less and less optional

[Iscah]

I think you're blurring the concepts of "doing content that is labelled a raid" and the activity of "raiding" which is doing top-tier content. (And as I understand it - though I avoid the harder content myself - that would cover doing EX trials as well even though they're not raids.)

Perhaps it's because I've got no prior MMO experience to set expectations, but there doesn't seem to be anything more daunting about raids than any other kind of content. It's just an arbitrary label for that format of "four battles per story chapter" content vs trials having one per chapter. And alliance raids are something else again - just large-scale dungeons, really. There's certainly nothing daunting about being required to clear CT at this stage.

I really appreciate the way they're tying more elements of those stories back into the overarching narrative. It makes the game feel like a big story-puzzle where you have to find and connect all the pieces to gain a greater understanding of what is happening.

If anything, they seem to be trying to nudge people into doing a lot of this content without directly requiring it. Relics are entirely optional, so they're not actually forcing people to do Ivalice to progress in the game long-term. Shadowbringers relies on the plot of several raids without actually requiring any of them - though I suspect CT might have been an argument between forcing it for story quality and avoiding it for game progression simplicity, and either they really hoped 5.0 would inspire everyone to do it voluntarily by now, or the writers weren't allowed to do it earlier but finally got the go-ahead to incorporate it.

It's possible they just didn't want to force it at the start of the expansion, especially for new people coming in. "Welcome to the game; we know you bought that Lv70 story skip and you're all set to play this critically acclaimed expansion... but we just need you to do this old Lv50 side content first."

[Rasikko]

I think you're blurring the concepts of "doing content that is labelled a raid" and the activity of "raiding" which is doing top-tier content. (And as I understand it - though I avoid the harder content myself - that would cover doing EX trials as well even though they're not raids.)

Perhaps it's because I've got no prior MMO experience to set expectations, but there doesn't seem to be anything more daunting about raids than any other kind of content. It's just an arbitrary label for that format of "four battles per story chapter" content vs trials having one per chapter. And alliance raids are something else again - just large-scale dungeons, really. There's certainly nothing daunting about being required to clear CT at this stage.

I really appreciate the way they're tying more elements of those stories back into the overarching narrative. It makes the game feel like a big story-puzzle where you have to find and connect all the pieces to gain a greater understanding of what is happening.

If anything, they seem to be trying to nudge people into doing a lot of this content without directly requiring it. Relics are entirely optional, so they're not actually forcing people to do Ivalice to progress in the game long-term. Shadowbringers relies on the plot of several raids without actually requiring any of them - though I suspect CT might have been an argument between forcing it for story quality and avoiding it for game progression simplicity, and either they really hoped 5.0 would inspire everyone to do it voluntarily by now, or the writers weren't allowed to do it earlier but finally got the go-ahead to incorporate it.

It's possible they just didn't want to force it at the start of the expansion, especially for new people coming in. "Welcome to the game; we know you bought that Lv70 story skip and you're all set to play this critically acclaimed expansion... but we just need you to do this old Lv50 side content first."

Well you didnt need to do dynamis-anything(FFXI), to complete Zilart, and iirc you didnt need to do Divine Might. You didnt have to beat the gods/hnms etc. They werent pushed on anyone.

Several other mmos i played were like this. Except aion. In Aion you needed to do pvp to progress, and often you need... a lot of people.

Eventually the harder ones will be forced on us, and Ill have my finger on the cancel subscription button ready for when that happens.

[Mholito]

Well you didnt need to do dynamis-anything(FFXI), to complete Zilart, and iirc you didnt need to do Divine Might. You didnt have to beat the gods/hnms etc. They werent pushed on anyone.

Several other mmos i played were like this. Except aion. In Aion you needed to do pvp to progress, and often you need... a lot of people.

Eventually the harder ones will be forced on us, and Ill have my finger on the cancel subscription button ready for when that happens.

The only "harder fights" they realistically would have any reason to force us to do would be Coil. And I can say with 99% certainty that if it would become required, they would either make an easy mode, or nerf the fights to the point where anyone could easilly solo them by the time they became required.

[Iscah]

Eventually the harder ones will be forced on us, and Ill have my finger on the cancel subscription button ready for when that happens.

What are you defining as "the harder ones"? Listing things from FFXI doesn't mean anything to me.

If you mean EX/Savage, I don't see any reason for those to be forced on us eventually. All requirements thus far have been for story elements - from requiring the original hard-mode primals before the final events of ARR to ensure the questgiver Scions weren't left waiting at the Waking Sands forever, to building on the Ivalice plot line, to whatever they have in store for us in 5.3. EX/Savage has no additional story, therefore there is no need for them to become prerequisite for anything since you experienced it all in the normal version.

If they wanted to maximise what they force us into, rather than keeping it to a minimum, Omega could have easily been made a prerequisite for Bozja since it sets up (particularly for a non-1.0 player) the backstory of Cid's PTSD over the incident.