Yoshida Recommends Beating Final Fantasy 14's Bahamut, Alexander, And Omega Raids Bef

[Iscah]

I'm more the type to do 4man runs casually and enjoy soloing solo content. My goals are HOH 100 and POTD 200, but I'd never hope for this kind of stuff to be necessary to unlock the next step of the MSQ.

But the long grindy challenging content is such a different structure. Like PVP, it doesn't make sense to put it in the way of the MSQ because you have to bring the story to a halt while and spend time building up your strength in a different system entirely so you can beat it. And losing to bosses costs you a big chunk of time replaying back to the same point. It would be a far bigger roadblock than following a party through three dungeons that each take 15 minutes all up, even if you don't like being in a bigger group than usual.

It's a false equivalence anyway. If they did want to railroad you into PotD for some reason, it would be doing 1-50 not 200. Just like you only have to do the "easy mode" of the eight-man raids to get the story, which isn't even mandatory.

[LisSquid]

And these are only raids in name only. They are basically just 24 man dungeons, especially in regards to difficulty.

These CT elitist raiders are ruining our game!! /s

Though, seriously, I am glad they are making raids more core to the story and not just encapsulated arcs. They're great for tying up loose ends, expanding on subplots, and filling in character development (thinking very much of Eden with this. 10/10 wish I could wipe my brain and do it all again). I still firmly believe that if you are paying to play an MMO then you shouldn't shake your fist at the suggestion of multiplayer content.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

It's not a big ask

Sorry, but I disagree.
By that logic, you could argue that it's not a big ask to have you PVP for a day.
Or gather and craft.
Or play minigames at the Saucer.

I don't know why it's so hard to acknowledge that there's players who do not enjoy certain content.

The MSQ is mandatory, and coupling it with stuff not every player likes to do is just putting off for people who don't enjoy it. I brought an example above, imagine you'd have to do PVP to advance the MSQ, these forums would burn.

[kaynide]

These CT elitist raiders are ruining our game!! /s

Though, seriously, I am glad they are making raids more core to the story and not just encapsulated arcs. They're great for tying up loose ends, expanding on subplots, and filling in character development (thinking very much of Eden with this. 10/10 wish I could wipe my brain and do it all again). I still firmly believe that if you are paying to play an MMO then you shouldn't shake your fist at the suggestion of multiplayer content.

Agreed; it was a small point, but the final boss inside the Crystal tower 4 man dungeon was a great way to see both the Alexander and Omega raids actually have meaningful story elements.

@shironeko,
I can sympathize with not wanting to do multiplayer content- my wife does each raid or dungeon exactly one time if she can help it. She will do them again with our group of friends in roulette if it pops, but basically she only plays the game for social elements and the MSQ.

..but that said, she does do the content…kicking and screaming and mostly floor tanking.

We even 5 man’d (4 man counting my wife) Binding Coil to get everyone to see the story at 80.

[Iscah]

The MSQ is mandatory, and coupling it with stuff not every player likes to do is just putting off for people who don't enjoy it. I brought an example above, imagine you'd have to do PVP to advance the MSQ, these forums would burn.

And I addressed your example above – it's not a good equivalence.

All these other things you're bringing up are fundamentally different gameplay styles to the core design of dungeon gameplay.

An alliance raid just requires you to walk in with your normal skill set and do all the things you would do in a four-man dungeon: fight monsters, don't stand on the orange floor, learn the boss's gimmick. The healer can raise you if you mess up, and you'll all get through together. Once. For the story experience.

None of these other things you're listing make use of the player's normal skill set, or if they do they are a time sink.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

it's not a good equivalence

Running a dungeon and doing a raid are fundamentally different, too. In one, you have a very straight experience with 3 other people, in the other, you waltz through an area as part of a herd. You know what to do and do the stuff the raid requires you to, or you don't, and lie there not knowing what even killed you. Ivalice was a great example of this, not even 10 seconds in the fights, and the ground was already littered with corpses (it doesn't gate the MSQ at least, only Bozja -- for now).

But all that doesn't matter, because I nowhere ever asked to remove any form of content from the game.

The MSQ is a series of quests, a story to follow, it can only be played solo. There's parts that are technically impossible to group up for.
Even the dungeons were a deviation from this, but SE recognized that and added the squadrons, later the trust system.

For the MSQ, the very core of the game, it has to be an experience that's streamlined and doesn't suddenly ambush you with "you now have to group up with 23 other people and enter a zone (you had no interest in even looking at it on your own volition)".

And last but not least, this is something I found very irritating, considering the FFXIV community is so proud of itself:

Why is it that "my taste in gaming is so overwhelmingly important to the world at large, that it can and must dictate what other elements of gaming my fellow FFXIV players will have to take part in. They WILL do these raids, and they WILL like them" is a thing? This very thread here proves it.

[RyuDragnier]

No. Because I just don't want to do raid content. I raided for years in WOW to the point I have an aversion.

The 24 mans are not really raids. They're rather simple, and we have an actual roulette for them people do daily. An average 24-man with a decent group can take 30 minutes (Syrcus Tower can take 8 minutes if the team is good).

Compare that to Savage raids which less than 10% of the playerbase have ever done, that will never have any kind of roulette, that are constantly treated as completely optional that give no real rewards outside of better gear (which is unneeded in most endgame content), an extra orchestrion roll for the extra final boss form for the last raid of the expansion, and some exclusive mounts that you can wait until you can unsync the fights for. These fights can take people days to clear the first time compared to the 2-3 hours for a clear of a 24 man on the first week (under an hour in subsequent weeks).

That is the difference between a 24 man and an actual raid.

They're raids. A zerg rolls through the instance and kills stuff.
When I did CT and Ivalice to unlock content, there was a small core team who carried the rest of the team, who was dead on the ground most of the time.

Call it dungeon, raid, whatever. That's not fun content to me.

People should not be dead in CT (outside of World of Darkness), especially not Syrcus Tower, which is the easiest 24 man in the entire game.

[Ayuhra]

The 24 mans are not really raids. They're rather simple, and we have an actual roulette for them people do daily. An average 24-man with a decent group can take 30 minutes (Syrcus Tower can take 8 minutes if the team is good).

Compare that to Savage raids which less than 10% of the playerbase have ever done, that will never have any kind of roulette, that are constantly treated as completely optional that give no real rewards outside of better gear (which is unneeded in most endgame content), an extra orchestrion roll for the extra final boss form for the last raid of the expansion, and some exclusive mounts that you can wait until you can unsync the fights for. These fights can take people days to clear the first time compared to the 2-3 hours for a clear of a 24 man on the first week (under an hour in subsequent weeks).

That is the difference between a 24 man and an actual raid.


People should not be dead in CT (outside of World of Darkness), especially not Syrcus Tower, which is the easiest 24 man in the entire game.

To be fair to them there is some lopsided difficulty in the Alliance Raids, at least if they really are supposed to be "easy".

I find some of them harder than Normal Raids, to be honest. At least sometimes.

I'd do multiple floors of Alexander (synced) LONG before I ever willingly step into The Orbonne Monastery again.

Also I prefer Eden to Tower at Paradigm's Breach....

Tower isn't hard, exactly, I just don't like it. Whoever designed the encounters in there hated me specifically.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

Still, why does it matter?

The MSQ, as the very foundation of the game, the core experience at the heart of this Final Fantasy title, is intrinsically solo. Then there's the dungeons, who expand this to a 4 man experience, but that can be circumvented by using the scions, so there's still a way to play it solo. Mandatory CT completely shuts that down.
They fixed the forced social interaction with dungeons by implementing trust. They either do something similar for the raids, or they don't, but then they stop shoving it down our throats as a forced feature.

This comes down to the main point of what Final Fantasy 14 even is.
Is it a MMORPG like WOW, where large scale encounters are the main selling point? (But then, why come here, WOW does raiding just fine)
Is it a Final Fantasy game? (Then make sure we don't have to do things that force the MMO part onto the story -- you did fix it for dungeons)

Personally, ya know, find nothing worse than having to deal with 23 strangers for 30 minutes, in a setting I don't like to play. Might as well run into an AOE and refuse the res.

[RyuDragnier]

Still, why does it matter?

The MSQ, as the very foundation of the game, the core experience at the heart of this Final Fantasy title, is intrinsically solo. Then there's the dungeons, who expand this to a 4 man experience, but that can be circumvented by using the scions, so there's still a way to play it solo. Mandatory CT completely shuts that down.
They fixed the forced social interaction with dungeons by implementing trust. They either do something similar for the raids, or they don't, but then they stop shoving it down our throats as a forced feature.

This comes down to the main point of what Final Fantasy 14 even is.
Is it a MMORPG like WOW, where large scale encounters are the main selling point? (But then, why come here, WOW does raiding just fine)
Is it a Final Fantasy game? (Then make sure we don't have to do things that force the MMO part onto the story -- you did fix it for dungeons)

Personally, ya know, find nothing worse than having to deal with 23 strangers for 30 minutes, in a setting I don't like to play. Might as well run into an AOE and refuse the res.

You didn't do any of the dungeons, trials, or raids up until now solo. You've been doing them with other people. The game is asking you to do that again, while only upping the cap by having you work with 23 other people, but you're trying to make a million and one excuses not to do so. So let me ask you, why are you so afraid of playing with large groups of other players in an MMO?