8 man endgame content should go back to the 2.x method (no baby mode) Hear me out...

[Kamatsu]

It's easy to forget out here in internet land where everyone posting here is dedicated enough to the game to be posting on the forums, but the overwhelming majority of players are casual. 99% of players spend 99% of their time not raiding. Most players will never even set foot into a savage raid, let alone clear them in current content. Hell, some people don't even do normal modes more than one time for story purposes. Raids, including savage level ones are definitely important for the game to have, but they're not the MOST important thing. Making sure the casuals are happy is way more important than catering only to the tiny minority that is progression raiders.

Funny thing is this is true even of "Raid or Don't play" MMO's such as WoW (although stats might be different now due to them forcing LoR (Looking for Raids - 'casual' tier of raids) into the main story). I remember reading Dev commentary on the old WoW forums back in 2012? or so about the changes to raiding they'd made starting with WotLK and forwards, what their goals were and why they were doing it.

Turns out that even though WoW was known for it's raiding scene, and huge focus was (and still is) on the end-game raids... only 6-7% of the games population had ever set foot into a raid, only 4-5% had beaten the base level raids and only 1% had made it to the top tier Vanilla raid... with less than 0.5% beating it. This in a game where if you went by the forums, social media talk, etc it was super-duper heavy full of raiders and they made up the majority of the playerbase... when in reality the vast majority were casual players who played for the story, the lore, to play with friends, etc.

[Lanadra]

You want the 8-man endgame content to supply juicy lore?
Isn't that what Eden did???

Through those raids you learned:
- what the world swallowed by light is like
- why it is the way it is
- that ascians can be corrupted by aether (Eden itself)
- it explains what happened to The Burn and discusses how what they learn here might inform a "solution" to that.
- It gives us another glimpse into the story of The Shadow Lord
- and in the end we see what the future of The First might look like.

I think Eden Litany(?) also briefly touched on the elves that turned into Wetland Wargs in Lakeland, but I'm falling asleep and can't think straight lol.

But yeah, like... Eden was jam packed with lore yo.
And it was, like, lore that directly ties back into the main story, main characters personal history (like Ardbert's), and deepens your understanding of the world.
Is this no good?

From what I understand their point is more that they think it should go back to how the Coils were done as far as difficulty goes, and from what I have often heard, Coils were pretty much the proto-Savage.. so to me that sounds like the OP wants normal mode removed and for everyone to 'deal with it' and learn Savage.

Now speaking more generally, I admittedly never experienced 'the Coil days', hell, I only started playing back in July, but I do know that 'removing baby mode' and expecting everyone to learn Savage or something halfway to Savage in difficulty is an exceedingly bad idea. People who just want to experience the story don't want to learn the ins and outs of a gruelingly difficult raid series.. most people would more than likely either quit out of frustration or not even bother with it in the first place.

For example, I recently did Eden, no Savage, just normal mode.. partially because I just wanted to experience it's story and see The Empty change and partially because I wanted glamours.. I had an exceptionally unpleasant time with most of the fights because at first all the near instant AoE's and easy to miss visual ques just had me floor tanking more than I was actually contributing. Off course things got better as I did it more often, but frankly I still didn't find it particularly enjoyable content to play.. and again.. that's the supposed 'baby mode' that the OP wants removed.

[Iscah]

Even just for the sake of experiencing the story in a logical manner, it's going to be far better structured as:

[cutscene] - [short fight] - [cutscene]

Than:

[cutscene] - [hours or days of learning the fight] - [cutscene]

Ideally normal mode feels challenging, but not so hard you can't scrape through after a few tries. For the sake of story flow, preferably the first try.

[Lanadra]

Even just for the sake of experiencing the story in a logical manner, it's going to be far better structured as:

[cutscene] - [short fight] - [cutscene]

Than:

[cutscene] - [hours or days of learning the fight] - [cutscene]

Ideally normal mode feels challenging, but not so hard you can't scrape through after a few tries. For the sake of story flow, preferably the first try.

To be fair, in my experience as a relatively recent starter, the only raid series where I've had to go multiple tries a few times for a story clear has been Eden. Alexander and Omega had for the most part always been first time clears for me, with some exceptions like Alexander Prime and the final two Omega fights.

[Vickii]

No, terrible idea to lock story related content in a casual mmo jrpg behind challenging group oriented content. I’m going to say my thoughts on this and please note it isn’t directed at you but at all raiders..

You aren’t any better at the game than the people who make stuff on WVR just because you’re willing to spend hours remembering things and where to stand and what buttons to press. Raiding content has never been hard, it’s time consuming and requires out of game study but pretty much anyone can do it with commitment.

This should not be a requirement for a side characters story in what is a casual game for most.

However you absolutely should get titles, gear, mounts and achievements for what you do in the same way the WVR does. But please remember that you’re no better than them because you choose to raid and you aren’t entitled to more.

[Iscah]

To be fair, in my experience as a relatively recent starter, the only raid series where I've had to go multiple tries a few times for a story clear has been Eden. Alexander and Omega had for the most part always been first time clears for me, with some exceptions like Alexander Prime and the final two Omega fights.

Things get easier over time as gear strength goes up and possibly with skill strength adjustments, plus everyone having access to at least the top-tier equipment from that expansion. I wasn't around for Alexander as current content, but Omega feels far less chaotic than it was at the start.

[Vickii]

No, terrible idea to lock story related content in a casual mmo jrpg behind challenging group oriented content. I’m going to say my thoughts on this and please note it isn’t directed at you but at all raiders..

You aren’t any better at the game than the people who make stuff on WVR just because you’re willing to spend hours remembering things and where to stand and what buttons to press. Raiding content has never been hard, it’s time consuming and requires out of game study but pretty much anyone can do it with commitment.

This should not be a requirement for a side characters story in what is a casual game for most.

However you absolutely should get titles, gear, mounts and achievements for what you do in the same way the WVR does. But please remember that you’re no better than them because you choose to raid and you aren’t entitled to more.

Also I have no objection to ultimates or extra stages of the fight (although it was questionable to add Gaia to E12S and not e12 imo). Like the WVR gets extra cutscenes when doing weaving stuff, nothing wrong with raiders getting little bits here and there too.

But a major arc for a scion needs to be accessible to everyone who does the story, regardless of which end game they choose.

[Taikugemu]

Also, a friendly reminder that Raid Roulette is a thing, and I don't think people want to be locked on massive wipefests with randoms to do it.

There's a good reason coil isn't there.

[Packetdancer]

Also, a friendly reminder that Raid Roulette is a thing, and I don't think people want to be locked on massive wipefests with randoms to do it.

There's a good reason coil isn't there.

Considering how much people complain about getting extreme trials in Mentor Roulette, I shudder to think what people would say if Mentor Roulette (and Raid Roulette) could give them T9. Much less if they just made Savage the only raid variant and people had to do it for story, so you had things like E8S in there and would be "expected" to quickly teach people Diamond Frost, much less Light Rampant.

[Rilifane]

I enjoy raiding, I really do. And I'm also all for a bump up in difficulty.
Making things progressively easier affects the playerbase and the general level of gameplay. Because as long as it's neccessary, people will do things up to a certain point. Once you remove this requirement people get more and more careless about it because if it's not neccessary it's okay to forget/ ignore it.
The playerbase adjusts to the level of difficulty to a degree and adapts a mindset that's mostly fitting for it. But only up to a certain point and savage-tier difficulty for story content is way above that limit with the added downside that it not only needs good gameplay but good gameplay and coordination from a whole 8man party.

I spent hours on end teaching people 14 Spears, Chain Lightning, Conflag, Betwixt, Diamond Frost and Light Rampant once savage had unlocked and PF was flocked with people who had a basic interest in savage but noticably lacked preparation and practice. More often than not we didn't get a kill even if it was enrage to kill. Or didn't once get past the mechanic we were supposed to practiced after hours.
That was with people who didn't have a serious interest in savage and just dipped in for a bit of fun/ for science but at least did so of their own will.
Now imagine having to repeat that with players who have 0 interest in savage and feel forced to still do it.
It's unlikely that they will suddenly adapt a completely different mindset and become good players that strategise and optimise just because game "forced" them to run savage-like content. It's more likely they'll watch the cutscenes on YT or play a different game.

Savage gets you dyeable gear, some extra bit on the last boss and a mount. I think that's as far as it should go in terms of extra rewards.
Removing normal mode and tying a huge sidestory to it for the sake of forcing players to improve is taking it too far.