Normal Raids aren't exactly Raids, are they?

[ReiganCross]

In regards to challenging trash... non of your examples is challenging.

Yeah, I said they tried. The best example I can think of is what they did on that room after the first pair of bosses in CLL, and that's also not a challenge.

But it's an attempt. It means they haven't (nor shouldn't) give up. My only point in pointing those out is saying that there's still a place for them.

And somehow I don't get tired of doing the trashpulls in Alexanders, and while I was on the HW Endgame (Which I spent a month on.) And they weren't even challenging, people just breeze past those parts, doesn't mean the fight is worthless.

[Vidu]

Responses like the ones in this thread almost me want to quit before Endwalker.

Why don't we just remove trashes, period? After all only bosses matter, and the game's combat is way too static and lacking depth without enemy/boss mechanics because you do the exact same things in every fight otherwise.

Let's remove monsters from the overworld unless they're quest spawns, hunts and fates. No one likes them because they're too much weaker than bosses. All 4~24 man dungeon should consist of boss arenas with tiny paths connecting them but no enemies.
No time for trash, no time to look for chests, no time to read notes, gotta hurry up and cross these pesky duties off my checklist asap so I can log off and do something else. I enjoy the pve content I swear.

Let me try to explain my point a bit "better", because you jump to extreme conclusions quite fast:

For me there is a fine line, a certain balance to all content - a balance between battles and rewards; between difficult and easy encounters; between exploring/scenery and battles. For each kind of content I expect and want this balance to tip to a certain side. I need to add here that FFXIV is my first MMO, Coil was my first raid, I have no experience in regards to "the good old times" from other MMOs and how they handled raids.

So for me, in this game, the mainpoint of the raid always was the bossfight "at the end" (since it actually was "at the end"). We'd spent hours just with this fight, the raid was this fight. Running up to the boss and clearing the trash took a couple of minutes out of an evening with hours of wiping, teleporting back to the bossarena and just... fighting that boss. The focus was: Kill that boss! And which each week that passed, that focus grew stronger. With limited time to raid, you want to spent as much of it as possible with actual progress - clearing the trash takes time out of your limited budget, but you dont progress - so you find ways to skip the trash, such as forming parties dedicated to clear the trash for 8 groups (1 person from each static, makes 8 people from 8 statics, clearing the trash, then returning to their statics and jumping the rest ahead).

...now this is obviously for savage raids (and Coil), but it coloured my impression of raids as a whole and is bleeding into the NM-raids aswell. I'm sorry, but "atmosphere", "story" and "lore building" arent good enough rewards to clear that trash in NM over and over again. Please dont get me wrong here: I love those things, I play for those things. And they're great... the first time around. Maybe the second and the third. Which is why I liked the Omega-approach: You get your trash, you get your "exploring" (as much as there was to explore anyways...), but you go through that once, as part of a story that you can enjoy in that moment and that doesnt get tainted by repeating it over and over again.

For dungeons my expectations and my "wants" are different - for me dungeons and raids are two different types of content. If they werent, why do we have both of them anyways? In dungeons trash has a place for me, its closer to the "main event", the time spent in a dungeon is more split 50:50 between trash and boss, it feels more like part of the experience and less like a hinderance on the way to the fight you're actually looking forward to - if that makes sense?

Oh, and I love the notes in dungeons - but I read them once, after that I dont really need to look for them again (...maybe a year later or so...). I'll always wait for new people to read them, if they want to - but I dont need to read them on a daily basis, should I run a dungeon with notes on a daily basis. Its not about "no time", its about "I've done this once, I'm done".

The reason not to remove those things period is - at least for me - that they do have a place. Just not always, everywhere and all the time. And you have to find a balance between "it adds to the experience" and "it doesnt add enough to the experience in the long run".

[Vidu]

Yeah, I said they tried. The best example I can think of is what they did on that room after the first pair of bosses in CLL, and that's also not a challenge.

But it's an attempt. It means they haven't (nor shouldn't) give up. My only point in pointing those out is saying that there's still a place for them.

And somehow I don't get tired of doing the trashpulls in Alexanders, and while I was on the HW Endgame (Which I spent a month on.) And they weren't even challenging, people just breeze past those parts, doesn't mean the fight is worthless.

(Uni over for today, time for the second post here...)

I dont think that making the trash more challenging would be the answer by itself - they need to make these fights somehwat more engaging, to make them feel like a valid part of the overall experience (even on run 50), not like a hinderance. As I mentioned in my previous post: For me, the bossfight of a raid is the intresting part, the part where progress happens and the part you want to get to - anything on the way is amazing the first time, nice the second time, okay-ish the third time and just a drag past run 30.

Making it more challenging would only make it more of a hinderance, not necessarly more intresting.
They'd need to ask "How can we make sure that this adds to the overall experience of the content?" - so the question would also be "What do we - or the playerbase - want the overall experience of this content to be like?"

For me, trash doesnt add much to the experience of the raid content after the first few rounds. It wouldnt add much if it would be more difficult, since there isnt any benefit to gain from it anymore - I got all the lore and exploring in Omega with the solo-duties, I havent really lost that experience of the first runs, I just dont have to go through it again and again.
So that would be one way for me - to have them in solo-duties. They could also go down the route of T2 and give you certain benefits during the fight at the end if you defeat certain mobs before.

Bottomline is: I dont think adding trash just "to have it" is the way to go. It has to be tied to the gameplay aspect of the content, it has to be something intresting and something people would actually want to do - currently thats not it and has never really been it.
They'd have to find a way to make sure that those trash fights add something to the content - not only on day one where it obviously adds story, atmosphere and lore - but also on day 50.

[Payadopa]

Responses like the ones in this thread almost me want to quit before Endwalker.

Why don't we just remove trashes, period? After all only bosses matter, and the game's combat is way too static and lacking depth without enemy/boss mechanics because you do the exact same things in every fight otherwise.

Let's remove monsters from the overworld unless they're quest spawns, hunts and fates. No one likes them because they're too much weaker than bosses. All 4~24 man dungeon should consist of boss arenas with tiny paths connecting them but no enemies.
No time for trash, no time to look for chests, no time to read notes, gotta hurry up and cross these pesky duties off my checklist asap so I can log off and do something else. I enjoy the pve content I swear.

I see it the exact same way. Instead of spicing things up by giving trash actual abilities or giving us skills that do something other than a X% DPS increase we get more and more shallow corridor dungeons with lip service mobs (can't call it a dungeon without monsters, I guess) and circle arenas. Bonus points if your job plays like two other jobs.

[Arohk]

I'd say it depends on the encounter and raid design, for alexanders it akes sense that there are some trash mobs, because it is goblin infested.
For eden it doesnt make sense to have trashmobs, as you yourself summon the bosses.
I myself never were a fan of time consuming trash mobs that then would eventually respawn after a few bosstries (WoW TbC raids ugh...)

[Jirah]

I’ve been saying this for years! Even the “raid” instances have been less unique over time! Eden had a few good fights but overall probably was the weakest raid tier in terms of ambition.

Some may argue that the formula is fine and those some also love stagnation, if we can’t raid then make some sort of 8man content that does, we didn’t even get a deep dungeon this expansion so it really feels SHB was just a handful of platform trial fights not so much removed from Ex trials and a pretty decent amount aren’t as fun as previous trial fights let alone “raid” trials

[ItMe]

if we can’t raid then make some sort of 8man content that does,

Why does it have to be 8 specifically?
Honestly 8 people never felt very "raid-y" to me.
The alliance raids and multiple bozja raids have keep my raid needs satisfied, I'm sorry it hasn't been the same for you.

[ReynTime]

It may not be raidy but I too would vastly prefer 8-player fully fledged dungeons instead of alliances.
I hate the 24+ player content in this game. They feel like tourist attractions.

[Commander_Justitia]

They removed the trash pulls because no one liked them.

I like them, they give the area more depth and detail because the zones are usually larger. They create more atmosphere. I think that is a big weakness compared to Raids in WoW for example. My favorite "atmosphere" raids are Coils and Baldesion Arsenal.

[TheRealQuah]

I’ve been saying this for years! Even the “raid” instances have been less unique over time! Eden had a few good fights but overall probably was the weakest raid tier in terms of ambition.

Some may argue that the formula is fine and those some also love stagnation, if we can’t raid then make some sort of 8man content that does, we didn’t even get a deep dungeon this expansion so it really feels SHB was just a handful of platform trial fights not so much removed from Ex trials and a pretty decent amount aren’t as fun as previous trial fights let alone “raid” trials

Have you done Savage? I don't know if you can claim something is the "weakest raid" if you haven't played the content.

Everytime I see a thread like this it's from people who don't play savage or all of the content and then moan that it's unfulfilling. No one serious about raiding wants to fight trash when progging/farming fights.

Normal mode is going to feel unfulfilling, savage is the content that matters. Normal raids only exist because casuals were complaining all the time about not being able to access story content because it was too hard. People should be lucky that it exists in the first place.

There's barely any high end content in the game now, the game is catered to casuals. Can people stop complaining about one of the only pieces of content good players have left to do.