Can we please get a serious 24-man raid in 3.1?

[AsahinaMyLove]

If its for the story... why we need that extremly high ilvl170 to enter Alexander? >_>
People like me wont join the threadmill for gears!

[CYoung187]

A story mode that currently gives you the best gear in the game and has the same weekly lockout Crystal Tower had.

It has the best gear for a few weeks until savage come out. Big deal. It is still meant to be casual.

[justinjarjar]

As long as there is no reason for me to do it sure.

[Xatsh]

Game needs a real large scale raid in it that is not designed to be facerolled that has something meaningful that drops.

Atm there is almost no reason to even be in a guild besides buffs and the social aspect. Which is simply not enough. For progression purposes there is 0 reason to be in a guild and that is one of the largest problems with the game at endgame. The lack of purpose of guilds is why there is nothing but guild hoppers jumping from guild to guild as their statics change. It is just cancerous to the whole endgame guild community, the design makes it really hard to build a lasting guild. Guild turn over in this game is sky high, even in the "Top" guild on the servers because of this.

I know the argument of well some people have 4-5 man free companys... well it shouldn't matter this is a mmorpg. We have linkshells for social aspects and soon you can buy houses with several people if I remember right. People should be expected to join larger guilds to endgame in a mmo. It is sorta a genre defining element.

Worthwhile large scale raids would add purpose and meaning to a free company besides vanity housing, minor/negligible buffs, and a chat channel.

[Hammerfist]

It has the best gear for a few weeks until savage come out. Big deal. It is still meant to be casual.

Just like Crystal Tower? Being an 8-man instance instead of a 24-man one doesn't really make it that much different.

[Zabuza]

I really don't understand this whole "people don't have time for raids anymore". Sure, you and other people may have grown older and have less time than before, but many, many other people, especially the younger ones, are playing this as their first MMO and are looking forward to get invested in it. Just like all the other already existing long-term contents (such as crafting, gathering, dungeon farming or relic quests), raiding is an endgame content, another extra that has the purpose of making you enjoy the game for much longer and grow bonds with other players by spending time together, which is pretty much the basis of any MMO: if you don't have enough time for that, no one obliges you to do it.

The new generation has more young people interested in mobile phone games that they can play in 10 minutes and then put down. I'm not saying young MMO players don't exist, but the generation that was willing to stand around for hours to organize a party in FFXI are in their 30s or 40s now. This particular generation of players now have jobs, a family, and responsibilities.

I'm pretty sure if they implemented a Savage difficulty 24 man raid and did not make it doable in the duty finder, few guilds in the game would have both the skill and the amount of players needed to take it down. Often in my experience the guild that has a lot of players 9 times out of 10 there are only a few good players among them.
I'm pretty sure if they allowed you to do it in the duty finder, it would breed a toxic environment where players rage at each other.

Raiding has never been about growing bonds. Raiding was always about a group learning through trial and error, improving and honing their skills. Hardcore raiding is a job and the group must oftentimes act professional if they hope to down the bleeding edge content. In FFXI leveling was great for bonding, but this has also been taken out as well. In FFXIV dungeons it's all about plowing through the mobs and finishing the dungeon as quick as possible, no time to talk unless you're all on VoIP. Best ways to bond in FFXIV? FATEs perhaps it's possible to chat occasionally with friends when you're FATE grinding when all FATEs are down in the area for a couple minutes. I suppose it is if your FC had player housing and they hung out there and messed around after raids and other such important events were over for the night.

Raiding in my experience has never ever been about bonding, and I've played MMOs for 15+ years. When my FC on Zalera pushed for server first on Twintania, there was no bonding. We had three groups of eight all separately going for the clear. After awhile, we had to kick those who were dragging us down and form a megagroup of the "best players" to clear it. It wasn't personal. Either way, such conditions does not promote "bonding" but rather the opposite, turns FC members against each other. I'm not saying every guild would be like this, but a lot would be if put through difficult 24 man raid content.

[Colorful]

If its for the story... why we need that extremly high ilvl170 to enter Alexander? >_>
People like me wont join the threadmill for gears!

You can get ilvl170 within a week or two after capping of casual play, not exactly extremely high by any standards.

[Skapoc]

If they went out of their way to make a story mode version of Alexander, there is no reason not to make a hard mode version of the next 24 man raid. You can have the normal mode which would be in line with CT/ST/WOD and a more difficult version that would require a tighter checks that would require everyone to contribute at a decent to high level. It wouldn't need to be something you have to run every week nor would it have to drop good gear, just a challenging raid thats could just offer vanity items such as dyeable versions of the easy mode stuff, housing items, titles, minions etc.

Honestly its only fair to offer hard modes of what is genrally easy content if they are offering story mode versions of the challenging content. The more content the better, regardless of difficulty.

[lydiah]

Snip

I have to agree with some of this.

While I like that players who don't necessarily raid or have statics be able to experience the story of the raid dungeon, I would have preferred a Story/Normal mode (basically the difficulty we have now) a Hard mode (akin to Coil before Echo) and Savage (much harder than Hard). This way, people who are like me (middle of the pack) can have a challenge and experience "raiding" instead of easy mode or extremely hard mode (althought we have not seen what Savage will be like, from what we've been told its gonna be very hard, for cutting edge statics).

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I want special loot again.

Procs, Wards, Activatables.. Q.Q Oh how I miss you...