Dear SE

[LittleArrow]

I appreciate both methods of approaching raids. The ivalice raid was probably the pinnacle in regards to cross final fantasy universe. I really enjoyed eden, but I was actually disappointed we got arr 2.0+ primals... again. I know Yoshida said this is xiv and not viii, but I was really expecting more nostalgia feels than just the first fight and the salt lake flats (although both were incredible).

Still, having something different is always welcomed imo, especially with an aging mmo. If you're going to go different, then you should go WAY different. I don't know how much more different you can go than NIER. I really enjoy the fresh new gear look, the incredible minions, amazing soundtrack, and the insane mechanics (well, insane to me especially on first day run through with no guide). Having literal buildings and modern day trains thrown at you was so fun to me.

I really disliked how the story kind of fell apart during the 2nd installment. I'm not a nier player, but I have watched more hours than I'm willing to admit from youtube videos explaining the story etc. So with my limited knowledge, I thought even with the weirdness of NIER, the story was the biggest disappointment. Sure, things don't make sense in NIER but there is still a storyline you can follow. This raid's storyline just fell apart and never got back together, which was a real shame.

Otherwise, I would encourage Yoshi and team to do more bizarre and fun big crossovers. Each patch with the nier raid was a huge point of excitement for me. Looking forward to what the team does next

[Arkevorkhat]

I would go a step further and say that I would be completely content for the Devs to simply omit Alliance raids from a future expansion. Imagine if the Royal City of Rabanstre was a 4 floor normal raid tier, instead of being the hour long slog it ended up as, or if Tower was structured similarly.
Alliance raids seem to me to be a symptom of the devs wanting to put a structured story behind encounters that have very little to do with eachother. As is, savage raiders are punished if they don't do the normal raids from the current tier in the "correct" order, by having gear drop allotments be consumed for all previous fights if you so much as step foot into a later instance.

[BaconBits]

Unless everyone is asleep at their keyboards and controllers, no alliance raid should ever take an hour to complete, let alone Royal City of Rabanastre and the other Ivalice raids. Especially considering they've already been nerfed into the ground via Ilvl creep and the echo buff being active at all times unless you somehow mistakenly click it off.

Also, turning an Alliance Raid into yet another 4 floor normal raid tier when those already exist seems pretty redundant, unless you like all of your arenas being technicolor circles, squares, and maybe even rectangles floating in the sky.