What happened to 8-man raids? Binding Coils was so elaborate compared to now..

[Kranel_San]

You know, recently going through Binding Coils of Bahamut and Alexander, and I have to wonder...what happened to Normal raids these last few expansions?

They used to have such intricate level designs, the story interwoven within those various raids, and they just were so much more elaborate. Now it is simply loading into a square or circle zone.

Why? I get budget constraints, but if they could do something as memorable as Binding Coils, why can't we get that back?

I'm not a raider, nor did I raid said raids when they were current content, but...
Did you enjoy killing trash mobs?
Did you find killing trash mobs meaningful to the fight gameplay-wise?
Most people would say "No... they're just gating us from the boss."
I could understand the situation and why the devs went the road of ( Raids are now just trials )
If trash mobs don't drop gear, items, anything of use, or anything worth noting out. If they didn't contribute to the boss fight then what's their point?
In single-player games, they're there to slow down your progress and to deplete your resources ( Or to give you resources in some others ) but here? What's their point?
What you're in is called feeling nostalgia. Where you might have never enjoyed killing trash mobs or found them meaningful, but want them back for the sake of nothing else other than nostalgia.

[Payadopa]

The thing is, they shouldn't be 'trash' in the first place.

[Mikey_R]

The thing is, they shouldn't be 'trash' in the first place.

And how would you accomplish that?

You could give them more health/more damage, but you can still get through easy enough. Give annoying mechanics to deal with? Find some way to cheese yourself through it. Make them last longer, or have multiple waves? At this point you are turning the trash pack into the instance itself.

You cannot even make a claim that they could do a system like BCoB where you have checkpoints throughout the instance, as you can now go back and redo fights you have previously cleared for that week. If you want to go back to practice a boss, you have to keep going through the trash pack every time.

The only thing people cared about was the boss, so why make trash in an instance when people just want to get to the boss as that is where the excitement is, regardless of what you do in trash.

[PickledToast]

I like them being that way, so meh

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

People complained about having to fight through trash for their reclears/prog and those complaints led to the development removing trash mobs after Alexander.

Why not just make the mobs Normal Mode only and just skip to the boss for Savage? Aren't there some Alexander Raids that do that?

[Ryaz]

One of the largest complaints about most raids seems to be trash mobs. They're usually pointless encounters that don't really add much to the raid. Now, if they dropped something cool, people might be more inclined to do them, but usually they're just in the way of getting to the good stuff.

Heck, one of the biggest complaints I've heard from WoW players in about the trash in raids and not being able to jump into boss fights.

[frostmagemari]

One of the largest complaints about most raids seems to be trash mobs. They're usually pointless encounters that don't really add much to the raid. Now, if they dropped something cool, people might be more inclined to do them, but usually they're just in the way of getting to the good stuff.

Heck, one of the biggest complaints I've heard from WoW players in about the trash in raids and not being able to jump into boss fights.

Honestly, i wouldn't mind the introduction to miniboss fights prior to the boss in the raids that drop some sort of right-side token and then the boss itself drops left-side tokens. Something to make the raids feel a little meatier, like we're actually going somewhere and doing something.
The game is already enough of an arena simulator.. it'd be nice to not go full bore into it.

[zcrash970]

Definitely a case of burning down the entire forest to save a few trees.

That's SE approach for generally everything....that or let it sit there and rot away

Also it's kinda upsetting that destiny has better designed "raids" than FFXIV. It doesn't need to be just trash mobs. There can be puzzles, optional bosses, and mazes and have optional loot as rewards. SE can certainly do better but I think they are content on being the red mage of MMOs. Jack of all trades but master of none

[Floortank]

There are actual mechanical differences between raid and trials bosses, and not just differences in damage or whether or not you get an achievement.

Raids have more important personal responsibility based mechanics, and trials have more group effort mechanics.

A trial puts the whole team on trial, with generally harder add phases. Compare Titania's add phase to the add phase in Eden 1. And the Seat of Sacrifice normal ATE exemplifies this design.

You may be sitting there doubting this assessment, but it is true, and if you look closely at every raid/trial in the game and compare where the weight on the mechanics lie, raids punish individual failure while trials screw you on bad teamwork.

[RyuDragnier]

A better question is what happened to the actual raid bosses themselves? We used to have to Sleep/bind adds, heavy them, silence/stun them, we had to actually use our entire kit to help clear the bosses. Now a lot of those moves just sit there.