Can we go back to original FFXIV for raids again

[MirronTulaxia]

I'm talking about the fights, yes. Omega outside of that was alright, but the fights are a big part of it.

[RagingStallion]

No, no, NO! 6.0 raid should be about Xenogears since it's machines and Garlemald, 7.0 raid should be definitely Chrono Trigger because we're definitely going to cross the void and spacetime. I want 8.0 raid to be FF7 if possible and fight Sephiroth and Jenova XD

[Yuella]

The Void Ark series is better world building. We got Amdapor from Amdapor Keep and Lost City of Amdapor. We got Nym from Wanderer's Palace. We finally found out what happened to Mhach in this raid series. Alexander story wasn't the best but at least it fit into FFXIV lore.

Omega started ok but it degenerated into bringing cheap imitations of FF5 and FF6 bosses. Ivalice and Nier broke immersion and it's annoying. Eden is ok so far, at least bringing old primals back has a good explanation.

[Iscah]

Overall it seems there's been a shift in the alliance raids from telling stories primarily about FFXIV while borrowing set pieces from other FF titles, to retelling another game's story with some token involvement from FFXIV characters. Ivalice felt too dense, cramming too much new lore in to support its own story rather than building on anything we'd seen before, and NieR just doesn't seem to be even trying to be comprehensible if you haven't played the original.

Immersion is long dead, and it was murdered. I don't mind going back to more FFish themes, but the Crystal Tower and the Sky Pirates were some of the blandest and disconnected stories to date in the game (in my humble opinion). I honestly couldn't remember any of the major character names in either of them. I actually had to look up who Graha is after that one Exarch scene. Crystal Tower now has the benefit of being written into the MSQ, which is nice. Still doesn't really make the original story that much better for me.

But I guess that's more about the execution, not the theme.

It's very much personal taste, of course - I wasn't keen on the sky pirates either but I enjoyed the Crystal Tower for the characters and for filling in lore information of Allag. G'raha managed to leave a fair impression on me at the time - I thought he was a bratty show-off at first, and certainly wasn't impressed with the wild dodo chase he'd sent us on for the aethersand, but he turned out surprisingly likeable. And I guess the ending felt significant even if (or so I thought!) it was simply a convenient way to write the character out of the story since it had to be stand-alone.

I'm talking about the fights, yes. Omega outside of that was alright, but the fights are a big part of it.

The fights are a big part of it, yes, but I prefer their "simulation that doesn't affect the larger world" approach over trying to write it all into the setting. I'm fine with it as a showcase, and the surrounding story is 100% a FFXIV story that builds on earlier plot and sets groundwork for the future - it was clearly planned to integrate into Shadowbringers and it shows.

I don't like Ivalice and NieR being in the "real world" of the game when they're just putting a big blob of their own plot on there and not trying to integrate it. (Though I don't want the NieR crossover as integrated canon itself, it's taking the place of another hypothetical story that could have been.)

[Vyrerus]

I loved the Crystal Tower raid series, because it was a little love letter to FF3. I love the early FFs with all of my heart, cause my brothers raised me on them. Plus more Nero is always good, though when they first came out I didn't like him quite nearly as much as I do now.

I loved the Sky Pirates raid series too. Never expected Diabolos to come back into a 24 man. It was truly, uniquely FF14 as far as I could tell, with bits of other FFs sprinkled in. Caliofisteri from FF5, because you fight her in the Interdimensional Void. Echidna because she was missing from World of Darkness(is from FF3). Ozma from FF9, of course. Deathgaze from FF6. Diabolos from FFXI. But they had their own lore in 14, and to me it was seamlessly integrated, since most of them had little to no backstory in their original game appearances. I'm also just a sucker for Sky Pirates because of Skies of Arcadia for the Dreamcast.

Omega for me was the best raid tier since Coil. The story surrounding it was great. More Nero/Cid/Ironworks. The fights were fantastic, a great mix of showy and at what I consider a fair difficulty, if a bit on the easier side for a lot of them. It doesn't bother me, with what we've been shown prior to them that magical computers are capable of simulating within FFXIV's world. And you'd better believe that I loved every second of muh old FF references, going as far back as the final boss of FF1 with Chaos hehe.

Ivalice... I know the story tie ins for it were sorta forced and meh, but I can't get over my FFT nostalgia bait and those crispy, sexy voice lines in the last two. Fight design wise, Ridorana Lighthouse was my favorite. Orbonne close behind, but more loved for the voice lines alone heh. I mean all in all, at least it's still a Final Fantasy reference, in our themepark of FFs MMO.

As far as Nier raids go... It's not hard to explain away how the Nier stuff got to The First. Within one of the Nier endings, the androids fly off into space looking for a better home or something like that. (I will freely admit the only ending I managed to get in Nier was the dying to the tutorial ending). So they set out into deep space and they find The First. Yay. I don't think they're going to integrate it into FFXIV at all, but I will say the fights are really enjoyable, at least within Puppet's Bunker. Copied Factory fights were sorta snoozes beyond their music, for me anyway. I'm by far the least invested in the Nier raid series, but if they give us more battle design like Puppet's Bunker then it'll always have a fun factor of 10/10 for me.

[Jirah]

Agreed , FFXIV has many locales to do this and ill give ivalice a pass since Dalmasca is a legit Province stated in the story several times and is currently forging ties with Nagxia and Doma.

Personally they should stick crossovers to unique instances or trials not a whole expansions worth of raids. 8 man Raids Trials desperately need a tune up being 4 barley connected trials is boring even more so since so far 3/8 are unique and arent based on prexisitng fights.

[DamianFatale]

Eh, when they tried being "original" I really didn't care for the result. Void Ark, Weeping City and Dun Scaith left a lot to be desired. They had their moments, sure, but I was very underwhelmed by that series. And for the record, immersion went out the window years ago and it wasn't Ivalice and Nier that caused it. lol

The sky pirate series was amazing. It felt like a grand new adventure and I can't help but remember all the void discoveries we made along the way.

[Shurrikhan]

To be honest, none of the raid series have been particularly well preestablished via main story context and connective themes therein (save perhaps somewhat the Ivalice series), though at least three of them have had main story consequence (Crystal Tower, and to a lesser extent the Twisting Coil and Ivalice).

Personally, I care a whole lot less about whether the aesthetic comes directly from the FF franchise as just whether it fits the story, settings, and themes around it. In that regard, NieR has probably been the worst to me, not because it's from another IP but simply because it taken as just a part of FFXIV alone (i.e. to anyone not familiar with the NieR: Automata) it has no real weight, connection, or cohesion. And that's not a problem with it being NeiR or anything like that. Opportunities abounded to situate it better within Shadowbringer's themes and settings. It's just that few to none of those were taken.

Or, to take another example, the Sky Pirates themes was 100% my cup of tea, and yet it was disappointing that they never bothered to connect flight itself, Eureka, airships (as housing projects, in this case), or any further side-content to that. We'll still have yet to see whether the NieR series will have consequence, but one could absolutely miss the whole Sky Pirate series from Stormblood onward and never notice the lack.

[DamianFatale]

I love the Nier series dearly, but my problem is with the ruins themselves. Isn't it strange that such this high tech stuff is just laying around? Why hasn't any of the other people on the first seen it? Wouldn't they see the area as very alien and terrifying? Probably akin to UFOS in our real world? The place makes no sense on the first. It would probably have made more sense in the source because allagans are actually known to have existed.

[Penthea]

The only raid that isn't really stirring much within me are the Nier raids. They're cool but I haven't played any of the Nier games and it feels like that unless you have you may feel very disconnected from the content.

The Ivalice, Omega and Crystal Tower raids were done better. While the stories were taken from other games, they fit into the world really well because they have integrated it with The Source. The characters and locations have been impacted by things that happened outside of the instance. With the Nier raids it looks as if the android npcs do not know or care about anything outside the raid content. Considering that The First was nearly completely destroyed it's very strange they don't refer to this at all. (or maybe they did and I forgot?)

Maybe the Nier raids are located in a pocket dimension but still...very strange that almost no reference to The First itself is made.

Maybe if I played the Nier games I would better understand why the situation on The First is something that is essentially overlooked by the android npcs.