Dear SE

[linayar]

if your storytelling requires external sources to explain what is happening...

I think that's not true, actually. If you look at this from purely FFXIV's point of view, you still get what you need in terms of the storytelling. The only difference between this and the previous raid series is that there is a game that might explain some backstories/references of the enemies more, but that other game doesn't explain what is happening. What is happening happens in FFXIV, not in another game.

On top of that it just doesn't fit into the "universe" of XIV at all and unlike previous raids there isn't even an attempt to make it fit.

I also disagree with this. The world of FFXIV, a world of fantasy and sci-fi, of magic and technology, with time travel, space travel, multiple universes/dimensions/shards and who know what else, is flexible enough that Yorha fits well just by existing in it. It doesn't need any more "attempt" to fit in the game.

[MaikoRaines]

Please never do a 3 part cross-over raid ever again. If this was supposed to make me want to play Nier it achieved the opposite.

I'm glad people like the OP doesn't speak for the majority of us. Or is in a level of decision making in XIV.

I will say that this crossover was an overload on my senses. I'm disappointed we don't get any Flight Unit mounts, but given what we got out of it this was pretty nice. Having Automata music playing in my personal and FC houses for years to come will remind me how much fun I had with my FC and friends of the FC.

Thanks.

[Infindox]

While I found the story iffy in some parts, the raids themselves were actually fantastic. And for once I don't dread doing the third raid every week (in fact ran it three times today lol).

[Duskane]

I found this to be the worst 24 man series,
I like glam and some of the music is nice but even compared to other 24 man when they were relevant Factory and puppets drag on so damn long,
9s is easily the worst boss in this game.

The latest one is easily best of the three since all the fights are atleast interesting,reasonably paced and fun.

The problem isn't that its a cross over though its just the raid design isn't very interesting imho.

[Elkanah]

Raids overall this series (ShB):
1) Gear (okay. Some good, some terrible. Some designs have small variations that don't really make them distinguishable).
2) Adding the 2B glamour/hair/9S hair was great, but missing 9S entire set (not make-shift glamour that we make ourselves) was rather disappointing for adding hair, but outfit.
3) Story made no sense and was just a "LOL THEY CAME FROM ANOTHER WORLD!"
4) Most of the bosses throughout the entire raid series weren't actually IN Automata. Some, yes. but especially the last raid (current), all the bosses were either in (NieR) or Gestalt (unless I missed hansel and gretel somehow in Automata), which neither of were from. This is why I questioned not getting Kaine's armor, among other armor from the same games (also NieR remastered releasing this fri!).
5) Questline.... questionable. Also fairly boring mixed in with the dwarves.
6) Music: excellent!
7) Fights: so-so (depends on the raid. Final was probably the best it could be and made some references in Automata for sure with the wall backgrounds through the digital hacking 9S does).

Overall: 3/5

Not the absolute BEST raid series-- but also not the worst. But I don't think I'd put it in my top 5 in raid series so far. I'm moreso glad it's over, but we're still missing bits and pieces (which hopefully will fully explain everything with these weekly side quests. How long is the question really)

[Jojoya]

Speak for yourself.
I thought the Ivalice raids were pretty terribly integrated.
Almost like the awful exposition to desperately try and establish it all somewhere in 14 was just a bunch of artificial hoops to establish 2 other games settings within 14 (because it was).

14 has a pretty terrible track record with alliance raid storylines imo.

I've never played any of the games represented in any of the crossovers so I had no expectations about the content going into the crossovers.

The rest didn't make me feel like I was being pulled out of FFXIV into a totally different game. Yorha did. I felt like I was being asked to play a completely different game that I had zero interest in playing. It was very immersion breaking, which is a bad thing to experience with a RPG.

I wouldn't call the story lines great either (that's always iffy with content that's more combat focused than narrative focused) but at least I had no problem accepting those storylines as part of the FFXIV game world/lore. Yorha simply doesn't fit in.

[Mahoukenshi]

Glad it's Alliance Raids and not msq-required stuff, hence I can safely skip it without any "regrets" *lol*. I loathe Alliance Raids in general, though, so don't mind me.

[CKNovel]

Guess people are really splitted about this raid series.

Raid wise, it wasn't imaginative. Ivalice 3rd raid started with a goddamn robot loading a sniper rifle and amazing voice lines.
We got Maths and a really cool fight with Construct 8, differently delayed mechanics, confusion (with the pointing fingers going ham above your head), first introduction of Twofold Doom with the last boss of Rabanastre raid, the "Obey or Disobey" mechanics, weak point mechanic, duty actions.
And the top of the cake? The voice lines. They really went all out with the voice lines, especially with Mustadio, Agrias and Cidolfus. Nier had a voice announcement and it stops here. It was backward progress.

Dun Scaith started with Death gaze and we had to explore a really cool city. I don't know if it was the first raid to introduce getting push into obstacles. It wasn't the most interesting one but it remained a good raid, not without impact on XIV's universe. It wasn't in its own bubble, Mhach is an important element of history in the game.

Nier is Nier and belong to the Nier universe.
The implementation was at the level of a fanfiction. It had no impact except on a single village and will have no more impact than that, for an event supposed to change the world.
The mechanics were not imaginative and did not introduced anything new in the last one beyond "black/white". At most we got the "Tank buster" marker and a new "bait beam" marker aswell.
No voice acting or at most 10 seconds and a song. No "ShOW mE MOrE".
Nier's technology is beyond allagan and Omega technology (who failed to recreate a human being, unlike Nier's android) and completely disconnected to aether.
Glam are cool, but different models for genders. Can't have the goggles if you're female.

I didn't liked this raid, it made me play Nier:Automata and I believe the game was beautiful but overrated. It can't technically be called the "best raid series", it's underwhelming technically wise and story wise.
And the raid itself wasn't impressive, if you need to play Drakengard to be actually impressed, then... It's not the raid that's impressive, it's Drakengard.

[Raikai]

Please never do a 3 part cross-over raid ever again. If this was supposed to make me want to play Nier it achieved the opposite.

Funny though, I actually got interested in NieR after this. I just don't go all the way through getting the games because XIV already consumes all of my available time.

My only gripe with this last NieR raid is that nothing inside has a lot of relevance to what happens outside. The last boss is kind of a letdown, because... Who is that? Maybe it will be explored in the following quests in the future? But alas, the impression is that the last tier was pretty generic compared to the previous 2.

[Hysterior]

The latest raid especially is very tedious... only thing that saved this raid is the music <3