Raiding is becoming less and less optional

[DuskTS]

It would never happen but imagine if they also introduced appropriate ilvl scaling to the raids when they're made mandatory. Oh the delicious tears that could be had.

[LaylaTsarra]

The worst thing about the 50 level 24 man raids is still unlocking LOTA. Thank goodness they did about with the fate waiting but it still takes more time than it should. The raids themselves are face roll at this point. I don't see them being anymore of an issue than requiring some trials for Main Story as a part of clearing story.

The 70 level raids are for the new relic and that is certainly an optional thing which many don't do regardless of the requirement to do them now. They are actually pretty cool raids and have a pretty neat story attached to them.

I'm excited about the new relic given it seems to have a significant story attached to it. i'm pretty much done with the introductory weapon other than my main which still have 6 roles to level of which 2 are almost 80.

[Synaesthesia]

I feel weird because I love raids and casual raids but I'm not looking forward to this change either. It means seeing them forever and repeatedly in alliance roulette in exchange for a few minutes of story. The first two in the series are seriously worn out, boring and unengaging. It's probably going to make me stop queueing for alliance roulette entirely.

[Lium]

I feel like this thread will be necro’d in a few years when raiding has become mandatory as part of the MSQ. And I don’t mean some old raid, but a current raid.

So, for those of you reading in this future, I told you so.

[Mansion]

I feel like this thread will be necro’d in a few years when raiding has become mandatory as part of the MSQ. And I don’t mean some old raid, but a current raid.

So, for those of you reading in this future, I told you so.

Which wouldn't be so bad if MSQ goes on steming on raid storylines. And once again, you don't need gear, farming or anything to do a quest serie once. You're free to not do them again after that.

[Colt47]

I don't really get what the point of the post is? The game is built to be played online, so even if someone wanted to preserve the game after it gets shut down in the far future it's not going to be something that people can just solo through. At least not without boosting their stats to god tier levels and doing all the content unsync. There is always the complaint that the people running around in genre bending outfits and clown suits ruin the immersion (and yes, this happened in Shadowbringers when we had the "Viera Wii Fit Trainer" get stuck in the QTE event with everyone else wearing their serious business suits, but that's a bit of a different subject than simply saying they should never require 24 people to gather in order to do story mode content.

If anything, I think constantly nerfing things in normal modes is the worst strategy MMO companies have come up with forever. Yes, Cataclysm in WoW was too much, but there should be at least something in the game that challenges people or there is no point in calling it a game.

[Stepjam]

I feel like this thread will be necro’d in a few years when raiding has become mandatory as part of the MSQ. And I don’t mean some old raid, but a current raid.

So, for those of you reading in this future, I told you so.

The only raiding that's actually "raiding" is savage raiding, and that will never be mandatory because outside Binding Coil of Bahamut, savage difficulty raids have no plot. Only normal raids do, and normal raids are basically slightly more complex trials in terms of difficulty.

[Tsaranoga]

You know, i have never joined any forum and and the only reason i do know is to tell SE and all of you that defend this crap that you suck. If SE forces raiding, then i will play until my sub runs out and never buy it again. I have no intrest in any form of raiding, ANY FORM of raiding and i know i will never have. if they make some trust kinda thing or a solo instance thing for it, then fine, i'll play through it if it's that important, but otherwise, NO.

It's also hilarious how in every game about ANYTHING, when people question the fool decisions of the developers, people come to tell them that "it's not difficult". We all know that, the problem is, it isn't fun for me.

And "it's an MMO" is another excuse. it is an MMO which means that if you want to make friends, you can and should. you can play with your new and/or old friends. it doesn't mean that you HAVE to play with random people you don't know and don't want to get to know either (too bad the developers of most games have an obsession with shoving their views and play styles down everyones throat) kinda like all of you. "not a problem for me, not a problem".

If MMO developers would want to make the most money, then they would make everything possible available for all playstyles, instead of just what they want. If the raids have some connection to the MSQ, that is their own stupid decision. it isn't necessary to have it connect to anything, least of all the MSQ. they chose to connect them because of reasons and now we might pay for it. why is it connected? propably recycling old WoW ideas. Propably.

[Avidria]

...

As someone who's frequently openly critical of the questionable or downright silly decisions this and other dev teams have made, I'm just gonna say... this really isn't one of them imo. I get people aren't gonna enjoy the content. But that's always gonna be true no matter what they do. It's impossible to please everyone, and trying to make everything accessible to everyone while also trying to make all of them happy is a fool's errand.

The MSQ already requires dungeons and trials, and trials are already only half a step down from normal mode raids - same number of people, arguably not much lower on the difficulty scale. Crystal Tower in particular might as well be a dungeon or a trial - it's far far easier than, say, Titania normal (which I wiped on several times first doing it in MSQ and still wipe on in roulettes sometimes), and if your group is even vaguely pretending to be awake, it could even take less time to clear LotA or ST than it took me to clear Titania normal for the first time. The only thing that makes it a raid, really, is the number of people, which you can effectively ignore 2/3 of because they aren't in your group and unless they're being stupid you can effectively ignore them.

The most time consuming part of clearing those raids is gonna be the cutscenes and quests to unlock them, which have already been chopped down and pruned to take a fraction of the time they used to.

I get it sucks to have to do content you don't want to to progress the story, but I can absolutely see why they're doing this. I mean, to put it simply, the Shadowbringers story makes absolutely no freaking sense if the events of Crystal Tower didn't happen. Unless I somehow missed a huge chunk of information, ShB *could not have happened* without somebody doing everything the WoL does in those quests - or heck, even the events of Alexander, from my understanding, but CT moreso. You could handwave and finger wiggle your way to some time shenanigans explanation for alternate reality WoL doing CT when you haven't yet, but the reality is that the story as a whole makes more sense and flows better if you factor in the events of CT. I'm not gonna be out here like "yes let's make all raids mandatory this is great" - no. But in this particular case, for this particular raid, it just makes sense from a storytelling perspective.

[Iscah]

Unless I somehow missed a huge chunk of information, ShB *could not have happened* without somebody doing everything the WoL does in those quests - or heck, even the events of Alexander, from my understanding, but CT moreso. You could handwave and finger wiggle your way to some time shenanigans explanation for alternate reality WoL doing CT when you haven't yet, but the reality is that the story as a whole makes more sense and flows better if you factor in the events of CT. I'm not gonna be out here like "yes let's make all raids mandatory this is great" - no. But in this particular case, for this particular raid, it just makes sense from a storytelling perspective.

ShB could not have happened without the WoL specifically doing those quests. It's just a matter of whether it's in their past or their future at the time - although at whatever point you actually do CT, it happens in post-ARR (as indicated by Nero being straight from his defeat at the Praetorium, plus the overall way sidequests are handled) and just slots into place in the timeline once it's done. It never happens after ShB unless you haven't done it at the time of playing ShB.

Technically the events of all three Ironworks raid series are necessary to set up the time travel plot - CT, Alexander and Omega - but again, all three are handwaved to have happened at some point after ShB if you haven't done them yet. The timeline is wonky if you try to make this actually make sense, but you don't need to - they happen at the time in the plot when the raids were released, regardless of when you play them. If you played the Alexander quests right now, Y'shtola will be "back in the Source" because it's her Lv60 post-HW self and not her at the current point in time and story.