Unpopular (probably) opinion about the Nier raids...

[Scryar]

The best thing about the crossover were the 2b pants and the music. I didn't mind the raids, i thought they were ok. But the story was so boring that I permanently had to fight the urge to skip all cutscenes which involved the dwarfs. My biggest issue was that it didn't really add anything to the world on bigger scale unlike the previous raids.

[kaynide]

I thought it was implied that I have only been here this year, by the "past few months" statement. Sorry if that was unclear. I never really had any issues in ivalice raid or any other content ive done, honestly. Maybe a death or two there if I wasnt paying attention, or did not understand a mechanic, once. But in this one I literally had trouble seeing what was going due to the colors and textures in many parts of it. No, I am not visually impaired in any way to my knowledge, and like I said the visuals in there literally gave me a headache. Besides, me dying like a noob was only one part of the issue I had with the content. I did not like the story, its introduction, telling, conclusion, pacing or placement. It was definitely the worst experience with content I have had yet in this game. Of course, just my opinion.

Gotcha! All good. I didn’t want to assume you had or hadn’t played before that or whether you were a returning player etc.

It’s probably due to the timing that Nier feels so hard. All the raids are about this hard when they are current, obviously getting easier as they age. The devs also tend to add auto-echo to older content.

On this post- I agree. I didn’t mind the actual mechanical parts of the nier raid series, but the actual story and integration into ffxiv lore was just awful for me. Fortunately I think the devs are aware of the general distaste and are making very lore centric raids this next expac.

[lezard21]

Ivalice raids introduced a lot of new and cool mechanics like floor clocks, math, spinning cleaves, Side Unseen and the clashing Demi-Virgo, all of which were brought back again for bosses in ShB.

The only new mechanics Nier raids had were on the 1st boss of the Puppet's Bunker, and even those are a stretch since they are only a slight variation of delayed safe zones.

Nier raids were a lazy attempt at trying to drive some attention to a niche game before making the decision to moving it to phone gaming with the other dead franchises, where it would most likely find a place in the robot waifu gacha market.

[Axzeriuth]

I enjoyed the Nier raids for what they were but they really showed how much covid impacted the quality of content in the end. Copied Factory I enjoyed as there was some interesting mechanics in there and the final boss music is my jam! Puppets Bunker was the best of the 3 (wiping Alliance group C using the line AoEs was always funny until you were group C). Paradigm Breach was the weakest with boring repeated mechanics, boring hacking mini mechanic, so much waiting around for the next area to unlock, bland environments. Also the gear you got from them was uninspired rehashed black leather outfits across all 3. Instant glamour over.

I dont remember any of the story or care about it. It felt out of place and the ending ultimately was nothing. Then theres the repeatable quest once you've done the raid. I saw that and thought NOPE.

The raid had potential but Tower at PB killed it.

[Iscah]

I enjoyed the Nier raids for what they were but they really showed how much covid impacted the quality of content in the end.

In the age of Covid disruptions I find it particularly frustrating how much content time was dedicated to this crossover. Not just a whole alliance raid, but one that goes beyond the scope of any of the past raids: exploration of the zones, two interlude chapters and the dragging tail of weekly quests. Not that I thought that part was a good structure and certainly not for the disappointing epilogue at the end of it, but still. It was more work and more cutscenes and another plot thread that went nowhere unless you bring in a completely different game to be part of FFXIV's canon.

[Beddict]

There has definitely been more lead-up than that. We got a history lesson on the War of the Magi (Amdapor vs Mhach) in the ARR WHM quests and it was touched on in the SCH quests (revolving around Nym, a third city-state from the same time). If not in ARR, then the HW quests where it was clarified that Mhach was responsible for the curse-induced plague that destroyed Nym. And it likely got mentioned in BLM as well.

And it's continued to be referenced since, forming part of the background for the RDM quests.

Additionally, we fight not only Diablo but also Ferdiad in post-credits ARR dungeons – the two Amdapori locations, to be exact, so it's been planned out and connected for at least that long.

We've also seen more of Amdapor since ARR, so taking a closer look at Mhach feels like balancing it out. Basically it's a big ongoing part of world history that keeps threading throughout a lot of things, even if the raid itself is self-contained.

You're reminding me of just how good the Void Ark Alliance Raids were. I may not have necessarily cared about the Sky Pirates during the series, but it was fantastic for exploring the culture of Mhach and how the survivors tried to wait out the Sixth Umbral Calamity. The Sixth Umbral Calamity also played a huuuuge role in shaping the current Eorzea, such as Nyunkrepf Nyunkrepfsyn and the rest of the Twelve Archons who created the Ark that can be found in The Fringes, and with it saved many lives during the floods before eventually going on to found Sharlayan. Or the Star of Rhalgr which led the people Ala Mhigo to safety in the highlands which is why they worship him as their deity. Getting a chance to explore that part of Eorzean history was genuinely interesting to me as someone that loves the lore of FFXIV.

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What is this Nier raid?? You meet some lalafels with beards, and behind a hidden mine there is basically a city no one knew anything about with A.I. fighting aliens? What?? It felt so out of place...Apparently this was a crossover with a game called Neir that I have never heard of.

The Nier raids are straight up garbage that contribute a grand total of absolutely nothing to the world of FFXIV. How long were the machine lifeforms on Novrandt? Unknown. What impact did the machine lifeforms have on Novrandt? Unknown. Were other nations ever aware of the machine lifeforms, possibly before the Flood of Light? Unknown. Did Eulmore notice the giant freaking mountain exploding? Guess not. Did the Tholls have anything to say about the Goggs getting carpet bombed? Nah, they straight up never appear, not even to gloat over all the dead Goggs (all three of them). The events that happen in the Alliance Raids are incredibly disconnected from the world at large and it makes it feel like the story doesn't matter. They could move the Nier Raids to some Lalafell village on the Source and nothing would change because everything that happens is localized in such a tiny area with no influence elsewhere.

Another thing that made the story suck for me is that it involved the dwarves. We're talking about a Beast Tribe that all wear the exact same clothes making them damn near impossible to tell apart. Sure, Anogg and Konogg wear unique outfits, but I still can't tell you which is which. One of them was more cautious, one of them was more adventurous, but was it Anogg or Konogg? No idea. Honestly, the most memorable dwarf in the entire storyline was the Dig Site Chief because he had a unique lali-ho to greet us with every time something dumb happened. The story is also fairly light with the Nier characters. 2P shows up, talks for a bit, we beat the tar outta 9S at the end of Factory, 2P betrays us, 2B saves us and tells us to piss off in Bunker, we briefly speak with her afterwards, and then it's off to the Tower with 2B and 9S. Oh, and 2B thanks us and says she'll always remember the time she spent with us, that her memories of us are soooo precious. I'm sorry, what time exactly? We don't see her in Factory, we barely interact with her in Bunker because she flies off at the start to murder 2P, and then it's a brief jaunt with her in Tower. As for 9S, we beat his ass into a coma during Factory and next thing we know he's out there saying thanks for the memories after Tower? I can't take that seriously when he was passed out on a bed from the end of Factory all the way to the start of Tower.

Now, I've played Drakengard, and Nier, and Nier: Automata. I know the story of those games, the lore to the series. There's a ton of references in these Raids, particularly in Tower, but none of that shit is gonna matter at all to a person completely new to the Nier series. I enjoyed speculating about the falling ash in Factory and wondering if it was maso and that we might see some sweet White Chlorination Syndrome, and it was neat seeing Hansel and Gretel in Tower. But at the end of the day, it's just references, and people aren't going to understand them without context. I believe Yoshi-P said it wouldn't be necessary to play the Nier games to enjoy the Alliance Raids, but I find that hard to believe because I have played those games a lot and I still thought the Alliance Raids were garbage.

Anyways, that's my rant on the Nier Raids. I personally thought they sucked and were an absolute waste of dev resources. Thanks for the 2B glamour I guess, now I can give my character a dumptruck with those 2B Leggings.

[Asari5]

dont like the nier raids. never played any nier game so they are less interesting in terms of easter eggs right from the beginning.
the story is boring and flat. dont like rhe second raid, dont really know why. and i think the third one is too easy. (especially when i think back to dun scaith and orbonne).
and the end of the story was kinda disappointing. ans whats with the weekly quest? i know rhey had to overcome the six weeks between the patches somehow to patch in the end.... but the six weeks for new players are just annoying.

but i think the first raid is a pretty good first raid and the music is amazing.

[Sheriyana]

I'll echo what a bunch have said here already. The story was pointless and from the start it was a very poor fit with the XIV universe. I've played through the Nier games myself, love the first game, Automata was a disappointment for me, don't really care if robots have emotions and asses. It already annoys me how much attention it gets over the first game, but at least now more people have had a chance to play the first due to the remaster.

In terms of the raids themselves I think Puppet's Bunker is the best one but I really don't care for the other two. At first especially it was hard for me to see stuff in the factory with how everything is the rust gray color, it's just not interesting to look at either. Same goes for the Tower, I hate the aesthetic, the dull white blocks, they should have had some unique location for the last raid and not just pulled out a dungeon from Automata that made no sense. And they just crammed a bunch of "hey, I know that boss" in there for... reasons? It just felt cheap, like they just threw something together quick to finish it all off. Like a bunch have said here too, the bosses just feel like such hp sponges in like all of the raids.

Some of the glams were good from the crossover but otherwise it was completely worthless and I'd have preferred almost anything else. Can't wait for a proper unique raid series in Endwalker.

[Vyrerus]

The Nier raids had good fights(for a 24 man), and outside of their references from Drakengard/Nier they did tie into FFXIV in a very singular way. Bear in mind, this is just my opinion.


If you look at the raids and how they tie into XIV, it's only through the Dwarf twins and the WoL. The Dwarf twins plot is what's involved in the cutscenes, and it's an appeal to pathos with a "seemingly" important choice that locks you out of the other road. Never saw anyone speak about any real difference by the end, though, and this is the first time I didn't keep up on my alternate character to try to spot differences myself.

If we look at the Nier storylines with what literally goes on, it's that a Seed of Resurrection/Destruction somehow smashed on through the flimsy dimensional pudding that our FFXIV planet has been reduced to, thanks to Hydaelyn's Sundering. It comes from a world where it absorbed the machine network from Nier's extraterrestrials which had a galaxy spanning civilization. This caused it to reproduce machine lifeforms as well as the Androids 9S and 2B who had implanted their own data into that network so they could follow it anywhere and stop it/fight it(cause they're programmed to). The Dwarf twins encountered the Seed which reproduced the one in white, who goes on to learn emotions/care for the one in black, and self sacrifices to seal the Seed back on the other side of the dimensional gap(2B and 9S follow via data streaming). Dwarf in black is devastated and devotes himself to finding a way to get the simulacra of his sister back/get to her etc.

Sadge uWu <insert tiny violins playing slowly here>

If we look at it in a more metaphorical sense/symbolism/etc. with regards to FFXIV and what it's built up about the WoL, then we can kind of see that it's a metanarrative on things that have happened in FFXIV and things that might happen in FFXIV.

WoL first encounters the dwarves in White and Black. The White issues a command thinly veiled as a request that even pokes fun about how we have no choice but to accept. This "request" is to help them with tinkering in the strange ruins their tribe has found.

In the periphery of those ruins we find a girl all in white being assaulted by machines. Upon saving her, she commands us to help her stop the machines by proceeding to the heart of the ruins.

At the heart we find a boy in black who has been controlling the machines, and he fights us in a tank/jet mech combo. Afterwards he assaults the girl in white with his sword. He loses the duel knocked over the edge into mist. The girl in white is hurt, but our duty is done so we return to the periphery caves. There she collapses, and tells us that the boy and her are both androids/machines made to imitate people. She tells us she is damage and will not function much longer, but knows what we need to do. Find a key in the ruins to stop the androids, as there are more like the boy in black and they will be aggressive.

Then you choose whether you want to proceed boldy with the white Dwarf or proceed cautiously with black Dwarf. It leads to the same thing. Fixing the girl in white, and promptly being double-crossed by her and her team of androids. They show up in black, but quickly reveal their garments to actually be black. They bomb the dwarf village, and the girl in white moves to kill the dwarf in white. She is stopped by a girl in black, 2B from Nier Automata. 2B says she's there to destroy the androids in white, and then prompts you to join her in stealing into their base to do just that.

The WoL is waylaid by war machine after war machine, with 2B having gotten far ahead due to having a flight machine. By the time you catch up, she has already slain the girl in white, who then somehow manifests myriad mannequin androids which throw themselves together forming a giant orb. You fight it, and upon its defeat it stuns your alliance and reforms into a giant version of the girl in white, looking quite grotesque. Upon defeating that, it seemingly dissipates into aether.

You go back with the dwarves and 2B, find 9S and the dwarves fix him. Then starts the quests of finding the Seed of Destruction which induces an Echo vision about the Dwarf twins and how the one in white is actually a machine replica of the twin who died sometime before the events of the story.

Upon further investigation of the Seed, this time with the Dwarf village elder(neutral brown), it spawns a ton of girls in white and a tower stretching into the sky. Dwarves and 2B/9S show up to stop them, and the Dwarf in white orders the WoL to destroy the tower.

The WoL complies, leading to the disappearance of the tower and the sealing of the machines on the other side.

Now, I recount all of that because to me it seems like the White/Black dichotomy seems to represent the two dwarves as the Hydaelyn/Zodiark factions/primals. The white/black androids represent how we've interacted with those factions throughout the course of the story. It's not a 1:1 to thing, obviously, because we've spent 5 story arks fighting the Ascians, which in this comparison are represented by 2B/9S, particularly under the assumption that they're innately hostile/evil. And in this side raid arc, that's literally just the Copied Factory. Which of course means that the truth of Hydaelyn is merely the interplayed portion where girl in white(2P) wakes up and bombs the dwarf village(sundering). Becomes a shoddy comparison after that, because we don't have anything in the game directly interacting with Hydaelyn since Heavensward, and there also haven't been a bunch of Hydaelyn servants that we have been setup to fight(and we are one ourselves).

Anyway, the comparison, if it even is in line with what I've written, continues on to assert that the machines are only against us due to the extraterrestrial goddess, Her Inflorescence

What am I getting at with this?

TL; DR - Yoko Taro weaseled into telling us a summarized, butchered version of FFXIV's whole story up to the end of Endwalkers with Nier set pieces. We won't realize it/know it until the end of 6.0, though.

Of course, I'm just talking crazy again because it's another slow night at the hotel I'm working at. Don't think too hard about all this, just eliminate the enemy.

[lezard21]

In the age of Covid disruptions I find it particularly frustrating how much content time was dedicated to this crossover. Not just a whole alliance raid, but one that goes beyond the scope of any of the past raids: exploration of the zones, two interlude chapters and the dragging tail of weekly quests. Not that I thought that part was a good structure and certainly not for the disappointing epilogue at the end of it, but still. It was more work and more cutscenes and another plot thread that went nowhere unless you bring in a completely different game to be part of FFXIV's canon.

Indeed, I would have preferred it x1000 if they had said "sorry we are not releasing a 3rd part of the nier raids no one liked due to covid time constraints, instead we'll use that time to work on Dragonsong Ultimate"