Raiding is becoming less and less optional

[Raltar]

I really wouldn't call Alliance Raids...well, raids. I mean, they are in the strictest meaning of the word, but there is no difficulty in them at all and the longest one lasts maybe 30 minutes. I welcome it because the raids have had pretty great storylines so far(except Copied Factory, but that one isn't finished...but I enjoyed the first step of all of the other series, so I don't have much hope for the rest in this line) and the more people that experience the story, the better. Gives the writers more stuff to work with down the line, as well. Though, I don't really see how they can get the yorha stuff to be relevant later on after we finish up on the First.

[Fynlar]

The devs themselves stated that most people do not raid, yet now they appear to be pushing raids on people.

Victim of the term "raid" applying to too much content in this game.

I'm almost 100% certain that what they meant by that comment was savage/ultimate stuff. There's way more people doing things like the 24-mans, despite still being officially classified as "alliance raids", largely on account of being nowhere near as hard.

[Saefinn]

Victim of the term "raid" applying to too much content in this game.

I'm almost 100% certain that what they meant by that comment was savage/ultimate stuff. There's way more people doing things like the 24-mans, despite still being officially classified as "alliance raids", largely on account of being nowhere near as hard.

I guess the easiest way to think of it is.
"Does it appear in the raid finder?"
"No"
"Then it's not strictly a raid"

Admittedly, doing Ivalice for relic was a PITA (I swapped characters for ShB and hadn't done it on the character used0, but that's not because it's a "raid", but it's because they end up dragging on and some mechanics can be annoying and I just overall don't enjoy them. And heck, they nerfed Ivalice where they realised where trouble might be had in preparation.
But doing Crystal Tower on the other hand, Crystal Tower is in a position where it can facerolled to the point where I miss the good old days when it felt like they had mechanics.

These "raids" are just longer dungeons with more people. So I don't think it's any different to a dungeon requirement. But I guess in their commitment to story, in tying certain storylines into the MSQ, it makes sense for people to have gone through the story. It's a story driven MMO, so we should be used to content being locked behind story and story locked behind content by now.

[RicaRuin]

Normal Mode Raids aren't real Raids, either... they are more like a series of (Story Mode Difficulty) Trials.

[Iscah]

I think you're blurring the concepts of "doing content that is labelled a raid" and the activity of "raiding" which is doing top-tier content. (And as I understand it - though I avoid the harder content myself - that would cover doing EX trials as well even though they're not raids.)

Perhaps it's because I've got no prior MMO experience to set expectations, but there doesn't seem to be anything more daunting about raids than any other kind of content. It's just an arbitrary label for that format of "four battles per story chapter" content vs trials having one per chapter. And alliance raids are something else again - just large-scale dungeons, really. There's certainly nothing daunting about being required to clear CT at this stage.

I really appreciate the way they're tying more elements of those stories back into the overarching narrative. It makes the game feel like a big story-puzzle where you have to find and connect all the pieces to gain a greater understanding of what is happening.

If anything, they seem to be trying to nudge people into doing a lot of this content without directly requiring it. Relics are entirely optional, so they're not actually forcing people to do Ivalice to progress in the game long-term. Shadowbringers relies on the plot of several raids without actually requiring any of them - though I suspect CT might have been an argument between forcing it for story quality and avoiding it for game progression simplicity, and either they really hoped 5.0 would inspire everyone to do it voluntarily by now, or the writers weren't allowed to do it earlier but finally got the go-ahead to incorporate it.

It's possible they just didn't want to force it at the start of the expansion, especially for new people coming in. "Welcome to the game; we know you bought that Lv70 story skip and you're all set to play this critically acclaimed expansion... but we just need you to do this old Lv50 side content first."

[Rasikko]

I think you're blurring the concepts of "doing content that is labelled a raid" and the activity of "raiding" which is doing top-tier content. (And as I understand it - though I avoid the harder content myself - that would cover doing EX trials as well even though they're not raids.)

Perhaps it's because I've got no prior MMO experience to set expectations, but there doesn't seem to be anything more daunting about raids than any other kind of content. It's just an arbitrary label for that format of "four battles per story chapter" content vs trials having one per chapter. And alliance raids are something else again - just large-scale dungeons, really. There's certainly nothing daunting about being required to clear CT at this stage.

I really appreciate the way they're tying more elements of those stories back into the overarching narrative. It makes the game feel like a big story-puzzle where you have to find and connect all the pieces to gain a greater understanding of what is happening.

If anything, they seem to be trying to nudge people into doing a lot of this content without directly requiring it. Relics are entirely optional, so they're not actually forcing people to do Ivalice to progress in the game long-term. Shadowbringers relies on the plot of several raids without actually requiring any of them - though I suspect CT might have been an argument between forcing it for story quality and avoiding it for game progression simplicity, and either they really hoped 5.0 would inspire everyone to do it voluntarily by now, or the writers weren't allowed to do it earlier but finally got the go-ahead to incorporate it.

It's possible they just didn't want to force it at the start of the expansion, especially for new people coming in. "Welcome to the game; we know you bought that Lv70 story skip and you're all set to play this critically acclaimed expansion... but we just need you to do this old Lv50 side content first."

Well you didnt need to do dynamis-anything(FFXI), to complete Zilart, and iirc you didnt need to do Divine Might. You didnt have to beat the gods/hnms etc. They werent pushed on anyone.

Several other mmos i played were like this. Except aion. In Aion you needed to do pvp to progress, and often you need... a lot of people.

Eventually the harder ones will be forced on us, and Ill have my finger on the cancel subscription button ready for when that happens.

[Mholito]

Well you didnt need to do dynamis-anything(FFXI), to complete Zilart, and iirc you didnt need to do Divine Might. You didnt have to beat the gods/hnms etc. They werent pushed on anyone.

Several other mmos i played were like this. Except aion. In Aion you needed to do pvp to progress, and often you need... a lot of people.

Eventually the harder ones will be forced on us, and Ill have my finger on the cancel subscription button ready for when that happens.

The only "harder fights" they realistically would have any reason to force us to do would be Coil. And I can say with 99% certainty that if it would become required, they would either make an easy mode, or nerf the fights to the point where anyone could easilly solo them by the time they became required.

[Iscah]

Eventually the harder ones will be forced on us, and Ill have my finger on the cancel subscription button ready for when that happens.

What are you defining as "the harder ones"? Listing things from FFXI doesn't mean anything to me.

If you mean EX/Savage, I don't see any reason for those to be forced on us eventually. All requirements thus far have been for story elements - from requiring the original hard-mode primals before the final events of ARR to ensure the questgiver Scions weren't left waiting at the Waking Sands forever, to building on the Ivalice plot line, to whatever they have in store for us in 5.3. EX/Savage has no additional story, therefore there is no need for them to become prerequisite for anything since you experienced it all in the normal version.

If they wanted to maximise what they force us into, rather than keeping it to a minimum, Omega could have easily been made a prerequisite for Bozja since it sets up (particularly for a non-1.0 player) the backstory of Cid's PTSD over the incident.

[Avidria]

I sort of view alliance raids on the level of LFR in wow. It's not really raiding in the sense I tend to view it - like actual organized raiding, picking a time and going in with the goal of clearing or progressing through a raid. They are technically raids, but they're easy and require minimal coordination and arguably no real planning or preparation at all. You don't even need to know what you're doing to clear alliance raids. It helps if at least like, most of the people at least mostly know what's going on, but in general most fights are fairly forgiving with a handful of exceptions.

It is interesting to see some of them being tied more closely to other content, and I do wonder if that's a trend they'll continue. But it does seem like it'll give them a little more freedom with the story, so for now I've got no issues with it personally. Just interested to see how they'll handle it.

[MelodyCrystel]

-People who call themselves raiders surely don't refer to any 24-people-content or full-group-normal-mode-fights being cleared.
-Doing Ex-fights will also most likely NOT earn anybody the description of being a raider.

->Thus, when people are only raiders for doing Savage- / Ultimate-difficulty, then it's pretty obvious what counts as a casual raid and what goes as a raid-raid.