Raiding is becoming less and less optional

[Xtrasweettea]

That's not what they are asking though. The devs want you to do one serie of quests one time, not raid weekly, nor participate in something that would need you to gear up through that kind of means. Even when they are current content, 24man raids are never requesting high iLvl that would need you to grind gear. There are no real harder mechanics than a normal dungeon or 8man raid, the difficulty lies in 24 people being involved, otherwise it's the same "don't walk in danzer zone", "spread markers" and/or "stack markers" in different coats of paint.

I don't see any "corporate" gain either, doing the CT quests once won't keep you subscribed more than you currently are. It's a matter of a few hours, ONCE per character.

I know exactly what they are asking for, thanks.

I was describing my lack of interest for the content and reasons behind it.

As for the corporate part, again it is something I see everyday and you don't. I'm done trying to explain that part.

If we see more 18 man raids becoming mandatory I am just going to chalk it up to "keeping stories straight as they add onto it." I'll just do my one time and that's it. Just like I did for Ivalice and CT.

[negiman4]

This game's categorization of "raids" is fucking retarded and extremely confusing. Let me break this down for you. Crystal Tower, Mhach, Return to Ivalice, and YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse are called ALLIANCE RAIDS. Alliance Raids are easy, casual 24-man raids that take about 30-60 minutes to clear depending on the group. These are for casual players.

The Binding Coil of Bahamut (Normal/Savage), Alexander (Savage), Omega (Savage), Eden (Savage), Unending Coil of Bahamut (Ultimate), The Weapon's Refrain (Ultimate), and The Epic of Alexander (Ultimate): These are the game's hardcore raids. These will NEVER be mandatory. They consist of 8-man parties that face extremely tight mechanics and dps checks for the game's rarest loot. All the Normal versions of these raids, with the exception of The Binding Coil of Bahamut, are casual content.

[Videra]

This game's categorization of "raids" is fucking retarded and extremely confusing. Let me break this down for you. Crystal Tower, Mhach, Return to Ivalice, and YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse are called ALLIANCE RAIDS. Alliance Raids are easy, casual 24-man raids that take about 30-60 minutes to clear depending on the group. These are for casual players.

The Binding Coil of Bahamut (Normal/Savage), Alexander (Savage), Omega (Savage), Eden (Savage), Unending Coil of Bahamut (Ultimate), The Weapon's Refrain (Ultimate), and The Epic of Alexander (Ultimate): These are the game's hardcore raids. These will NEVER be mandatory. They consist of 8-man parties that face extremely tight mechanics and dps checks for the game's rarest loot. All the Normal versions of these raids, with the exception of The Binding Coil of Bahamut, are casual content.

You're preaching to a choir of people who won't listen to you. We've been telling them that for eleven pages, now. But KEEP PREACHING IT.

[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.

[Lium]

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.

As I said before in this thread, to eliminate semantics, a raid is defined as anything that’s under the Raid tab in Duty Finder regardless of how you personally might define it.

It is SE’s definition. Even if it’s faceroll easy.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

As I said before in this thread, to eliminate semantics, a raid is defined as anything that’s under the Raid tab in Duty Finder regardless of how you personally might define it.

It is SE’s definition. Even if it’s faceroll easy.

I feel like you are getting hung up on a name. The point is, the content is designed for everyone, just like dungeons. Do you get upset when you have to do a trial for the msq? Dungeon? No? Why.

[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.

[Videra]

SNIP

I question the garbage decisions of the developers every day, I main healers. Having CT - a very story relevant plot line - be mandatory is not a foolish decision. And if you're going to rage quit over it, bye. Thanks for telling us that you're leaving.

[Klaleara]

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 in this case, it is. Make raids not part of the MSQ. Make it a sub-chain like the Crystal Tower, and how they've done for almost/if not all of them.

Some people just don't like grouping. I LOVE grouping, and it sucks having people who have 0 interest in it in my group. If people don't want to be involved in that content, then why are we trying to force them? Imo, it just ruins the fun for both sides.