New Direction in Content

[Welsper59]

I think they just need to make 2 tiers of Raid content - the LFG version where you get the "catch-up" gear, kind of like how current Alexander exists, and then the more endgame oriented version where you take a small group in and spend some time in there. Sort of how WoW's Ice Crown Citadel worked where you went in and fought trash and each boss had a checkpoint where you could pick up again for the rest of the week. I just miss the "raid feel", and arena-based boss fights do not give any sense of adventure. Sure it feels good to finally win after hours and hours of getting everything just right, but that isn't a raid.

While I certainly share your views on the old school raid exploration format, I am very confident that most raiders will begin to complain about this. FFXIV does not transition well when you throw players into lengthy instances, at least among the player base. The lengthy completion times are fine the first few times, but then it gets to be nothing but a burden. Proof? Dungeons. At first, the idea of a larger dungeon seems like a fun idea, but then think about how you feel running through a regular dungeon your 10th time. Chances are, you and/or your group members, would rather just get straight to the boss so you can call it a night faster.

It's the exact same results over and over again when you give players what they think they want when it comes to style of content. Do you know how much of a godsend it was, to those of us that raided before, when means to go straight to a boss, like with primals, were the new thing? If you asked any WoW player, particularly those that raid normally, most would opt for an option to instantly be sent to the boss after their first clear of an area. This game is not as fast paced as some others, so by adding more travel to something, it feels bigger even if it's not by any means significantly different. T1, for example, sort of feels like it's an entire wing of Naxx, even if it's barely larger than a small area of a dungeon. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people would enjoy it... but we don't like the idea of unnecessarily wasting time, so we would opt not to do it. If someone in the group wants to hurry it up, skip pointless trash and go straight to the boss, I guarantee no one would object in a traditional pre-made raid setting. Think if you had to run through a map like Tam Tara before every boss in Alex Savage. I don't think you'll be singing many praises after your 5th week of clearing the raid, especially when you remember that the game once had it be a norm to just go straight to the boss.

And just to be clear, a lot of people (myself included) like to think of raids like ICC as having been overall fun. The thing that needs to be noted though is that... it was an exception. I mean, the entire feel and design of the place was worked on since WC3 essentially, long before WoW even came to be. Plus, with how popular undead stuff tend to be in today's entertainment, it kinda adds to it. Think back to non-undead related raids or ones without critical lore appeal (like Black Temple with Illidan). SSC wasn't exactly hailed for it's overall raid design. Most of the raids after ICC weren't exactly stellar in upstaging it from raid enjoyment standards. Same for most, if not all vanilla raids. The bosses were memorable, but technically the same could possibly be said here... I mean we get the bosses, just not the whole forgettable raid format.