Raiding is becoming less and less optional

[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.