Can it still be called a "raid" anymore?

[Mansion]

I like Alexander's design, with each tier's Faust roughly checking if you are "worthy" to get in.
But I'm not so keen to see them put pools of trash mobs for the sake of it. I think FFXIV's AoE DPS is bland and boring, so there's not much challenge or anything to do that (like A2S).

In terms of design (not balance), I like A6S, the mini-boss rush feeling of it. And also I don't know which Bahamut turn where the team was split in two at the beginning : doing two mini-bosses that needs to be taken down at the same time by two teams of 4 could be nice...
I think there's a lot of possibilities for the future of raiding. Omega was like that because of its lore, it was a fighting contest. So let's see what ShB will bring.

[SenorPatty]

I'd rather have 3-5min boss battles where the journey to get to each of them is hell than drop me in an arena for the next 10m.

Trials exists already for that. What's the point of calling 8man raids, "raid", if there's no raiding?

Gimme a map with conditions other than beat enrage to clear it:

-Get to point A before while escaping sandpit/wall of fire/etc

-Defend point B's targets from rush mobs

-Boss Battle C

-Half your party has to solve D puzzle. The longer it takes, the longer the other half has to spend their resources trying to kill mobs.

-All skills are nullified. Use only what E room has to battle monsters

-Boss Battle F

-Thrash mobs but with condition, map G. Go along with kill orders or watch yourself get reflected/debuffed/etc

-Final boss.

[Burningskull]

People were already trying to skip the trash mobs in Coil to get to the boss faster so they could learn the mechanics of the boss faster so they could clear it faster. That's why the 8 man fights, the savage ones anyway, are deemed a raid. Because the mechanics of the boss require more effort and teamwork than the usual dungeon / ex primal, and the average player, can handle.

[linay]

Honestly, I've always disliked the way the words "dungeon" and "raid" are used. What are called dungeons should be called raids and raids/trials should be called trials. I also like SWTOR's names for its instanced duties: "flashpoint" and "operation."

[Stanelis]

everyone complain back in ARR/HW about it, this why they change it with omega.

People in ARR were only complaining about T3, that didn't have any boss. Don't put words into people's mouth.

Also, trashs can be made to be interesting. Make pulling mobs technical (like it used to be in some FFXIV's dungeons), make them drop stuff, give them mechanics. They made an attempt at this in BA and, even though it is far from what we ve seen in older wow's raid in that regard, it is still something.

[LalaRu]

...Qarn normal where you gotta remember what the patterns are and then once you know it you know it forever...

If I remember correctly (talking about YEARS ago), you had to look the (variable) pattern you can see in the starting room, and then replicate it at the end. Then it was nerfed to a fixed flame+fruit because, you know, it was too difficult... but I may remember bad...

[ErryK]

Even doing M/F before progging final omega is a massive hassle. Imagine having to fight the same trash and mini bosses each week before doing the fight you actually want.

I would gladly trade the Savage transitions for trash mobs if it meant I didn't have to do tons of annoying mechanics for 7 minutes before I get to the actual boss fight.

[Nora_of_Mira]

I just wish they'd do something to spice them up a bit, or at least not just give us a trial fight and call it a raid.

Idk what other people have said, but it's been my impression the 8-man raids are called "raids" because they are each 1 part in a 4-part series of an overall "raid" (deltascape, sigmascape, alphascape, etc).

Alphascape is a raid, just broken up into 4 parts. Why? It probably has to do with difficulty, the loot, the fact we get 3 raid tiers per expansion...this is a good question to ask at the next fan fest, IMO.

I cant imagine why they would break up the 24 mans into smaller fights unless they made them 3-4x more difficult. And adding trash mobs to the 8-man raids would just be...useless and annoying. I like the direction Omega has taken the 8-man raids. No faff, just boss fight with your team.

[Barraind]

There is a fine balance in raiding between zone in, see boss, kill boss and zone in, do a tedious number of trash pulls for reasons, see boss, kill boss.

While straight to boss encounters get old after a while, older mmos had raids where youd kill 30-60 minutes of trash before bosses, which was one if the worst experiences in raiding.

Everquest started doing a pretty solid job with this in the expansion everyone remembers hating, by having the first raid zone with heavily scripted encounters that were interesting, and a combination of killing trash, killing bosses, and puzzle solving, as well as a zone with 1 trash mob before every boss (4 before the last boss), in a pattern that bracketed through the zone and let you choose your own bossventure.

Theres stuff in the past that needs to stay long in the past though.

[Bright-Flower]

It's a mixed bag for me.

When I ran through Alex at the end of HW, I did appreciate the scenery and atmosphere provided by the lead ins to fights and not just being plopped into a boss arena. It was a really cool place.

On the other hand... when I think about fighting Omega 8 times in a row trying to get a spring to drop for me, and I imagine putting 5 or 10 minutes of trash in front of that boss EVERY TIME I want to try again for my weekly loot...I feel like that it would wear out its welcome VERY quickly. It's all fine and dandy in say WoW where you're expecte to clear a boss no more than once per difficulty in a week, but here where you may have to farm over and over and over to get the piece you're after....that time adds up.

On the other hand it is a bit odd that the only thing really separating raids from trials now though is the way loot/reward structure, and raids coming in sets of 4 while trials are standalone.

Honestly I'm not sure why the game has extreme and savage as terms for the 'hard mode' of content instead of using one or the other for both.