Normal Raids aren't exactly Raids, are they?

[ReiganCross]

Okay, so, he's a spicy hot take that nobody ever thought up before. But by the time that Omega came about, Normal Raids stopped being about raiding a place, didn't they?

When Binding Coil came about, we were raiding this gigantic Allagan complex from pieces of Dalamud to Containment facilities to bits I loved so hard that I won't spoil to this day even when asked to. Cutscenes were intruding the whole thing so it definitely needed to be kicked out of Normal Raid roulettes, but it was still an awesome story, with a cool and visually distinct place, with interesting architechture and design.

Then Alexander came about and we were raiding this gigantic robot castle, you would get some entrance bits, some scenery and we had some snaps of dungeon play before we fought a cool boss. The cutscenes were much better paced, taking place entirely outside of gameplay so you can repeat them comfortably. The place looked much bigger on the inside, but that's entirely okay. It had its boss-fight rooms like Manipulator, Brute Justice and Alexander but those were at the end of raids and still looked like inside Alexander.

Then Omega came about. And the whole story is about getting inside this hole filled to the brim with aether juice? And soon the place got all warpy and weird, and we get to explore this weird dimension filled with floating platforms and when we finally get to open Alphascapes it... Becomes a tournament arc? We get tossed into a boss room, get to find something entirely random and get promptly spit out to fight the next boss fight in the tier. By the time Deltascape comes around we don't even get that much. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE the story for Omega, Alpha will live rent-free in my heart. And we also get to see Cid being awesome and some couple of twists that I still won't spoil, same as Binding Coils.

But that's not a Raid anymore at this point, right?

By the time Eden came up and it started doing the same thing I finally noticed: We stopped raiding stuff! Hell, we didn't even get more than a single ROOM inside of Eden! We just kept being tossed into disjointed boss rooms, one after the other. Hell, we were even fighting Primals, the thing that Trials stopped being about in by the Four Lords in Stormblood and the entirety of Shadowbringers! And again, the story is lovely, I will miss Ryne and Gaia terribly if they're just left in the First and we never return, I want more of them almost as much as I want more G-Warrior. But this wasn't a Raid! Hell, even the PLACE the Raid was taking place in is completely disjointed from the entirety of Norvrant!

Normal Raids now feel like Trials with extra steps. And they're not even different from the extra Trials, because the Weapons storyline is ALSO amazing and lovely crafted and, like I said, I could get an entire Masked Carnivale's worth of G-Warrior content and only then I MIGHT have enough of it. But it's essentially the same!

[cheolsu]

you can raid a refrigerator. you're in there getting loot. it's a raid. but i get what you mean. the exploration has been missing

[ItMe]

They removed the trash pulls because no one liked them.

[ReiganCross]

They removed the trash pulls because no one liked them.

So, Instead of mentioning how I don't mind the trash pulls because maybe they're an issue in Savage or something. I'll just say that I still miss the exploration of an actual place in a Normal Raid. I feel like the fights are just disjointed and if the history of Pandemonium just turns into a tournament arc versus Ascians then I'd be very disapointed, but not surprised.

[Vyrerus]

Yeah people hate trash. They took trash out of Savage Alexander raids entirely. I'd much prefer a Binding Coil Turn 1 style depth exploration with bosses laid out across a map with their own arenas...

You can blame Turn 10 of Binding Coil(Turn 1 Final Coil). It this turn they incidentally made it possible for Ninja or DRG to skip the entirety of the trash segment, and so a lot of people would skip that trash segment entirely. And basically, SE doesn't want to make challenging trash, because no matter how challenging they made trash it'd always have to be weaker than the boss anyway, and you wouldn't get rewards from it. No rewards means players don't want it. I guess some people were complaining as early as Turn 3 of Binding Coil, since it had no rewards as well, but it was mandatory.

They also used to have waiting lobbies in between boss floors in Coil and Alexander, but eventually decided that those weren't being utilized very much for rest breaks or anything, so they did away with them too. They were really small, like the lobbies between the Deep Dungeon floorsets. Not much to see, but they did add a little more space and flavor and made the raids feel larger to me.


It's one of the game's weaknesses, but it's still around in the 24 man raids and the 100 man instances like Eureka/Bozja style places. Baldesion Arsenal/Delbrum Reginae etc. They are still trying to implement it. It's just not going to be in the main line raid events, probably ever again.

[ReiganCross]

Yeah people hate trash. They took trash out of Savage Alexander raids entirely. I'd much prefer a Binding Coil Turn 1 style depth exploration with bosses laid out across a map with their own arenas...

You can blame Turn 10 of Binding Coil(Turn 1 Final Coil). It this turn they incidentally made it possible for Ninja or DRG to skip the entirety of the trash segment, and so a lot of people would skip that trash segment entirely. And basically, SE doesn't want to make challenging trash, because no matter how challenging they made trash it'd always have to be weaker than the boss anyway, and you wouldn't get rewards from it. No rewards means players don't want it. I guess some people were complaining as early as Turn 3 of Binding Coil, since it had no rewards as well, but it was mandatory.

They also used to have waiting lobbies in between boss floors in Coil and Alexander, but eventually decided that those weren't being utilized very much for rest breaks or anything, so they did away with them too. They were really small, like the lobbies between the Deep Dungeon floorsets. Not much to see, but they did add a little more space and flavor and made the raids feel larger to me.


It's one of the game's weaknesses, but it's still around in the 24 man raids and the 100 man instances like Eureka/Bozja style places. Baldesion Arsenal/Delbrum Reginae etc. They are still trying to implement it. It's just not going to be in the main line raid events, probably ever again.

Yeah, maybe making challenging trash is something they're still trying to do. Like, the latest dungeon Paglth'an has a boss that is just a bunch of Trash Mobs and beating on a cube for a while, Alliance Raids still have some rooms that is just about beating a wave of Chocobos or Robots, so it still exists.

It's just Normal Raids that I guess got complained into just being a collection of boss fights without any exploration to them. Maybe Binding Coil was too much but I truly believe Alexander had the best balance out of it. But then, once again, I'm just saying "Heavensward best expansion" yet again...

[SirCadogan]

New to FF but in any other game, clearing trash was just another time sink. Raid starts at 8pm, I expect to be doing bosses at 8 not (depending on the game, raid, etc…) 10-40 minutes just to get to the first boss.

Spend 15 min getting to a 5 min fight only to spend 15 min getting to a 7 min boss fight and so on. What’s the point?

[Vidu]

Yeah, maybe making challenging trash is something they're still trying to do. Like, the latest dungeon Paglth'an has a boss that is just a bunch of Trash Mobs and beating on a cube for a while, Alliance Raids still have some rooms that is just about beating a wave of Chocobos or Robots, so it still exists.

It's just Normal Raids that I guess got complained into just being a collection of boss fights without any exploration to them. Maybe Binding Coil was too much but I truly believe Alexander had the best balance out of it. But then, once again, I'm just saying "Heavensward best expansion" yet again...

So, here is the thing for me: Exploring and trash fights are nice - the first time you run the raid in question. The second time, you might notice a few little details you missed the first round. The third time its okay.
...and then we're on week 4 of running this raid for weekly loot, I already did this one raid 15 times in one single day and I've explored everything the raid has to offer, I've fought this trash 15 times today already when the only thing I want to do is kill the boss. It doesnt add anything anymore, it doesnt drop anything, its just an annoyance and frankly a waste of time.

I actually liked how the Omega raids did it: We had trash fights in there - but they werent parts of the actual fights, you did them as solo-content while unlocking the next duty.

In regards to challenging trash... non of your examples is challenging.

[Frizze]

So, here is the thing for me: Exploring and trash fights are nice - the first time you run the raid in question. The second time, you might notice a few little details you missed the first round. The third time its okay.
...and then we're on week 4 of running this raid for weekly loot, I already did this one raid 15 times in one single day and I've explored everything the raid has to offer, I've fought this trash 15 times today already when the only thing I want to do is kill the boss. It doesnt add anything anymore, it doesnt drop anything, its just an annoyance and frankly a waste of time.

I actually liked how the Omega raids did it: We had trash fights in there - but they werent parts of the actual fights, you did them as solo-content while unlocking the next duty.

In regards to challenging trash... non of your examples is challenging.

Agree wholeheartedly with this. Exploring and trash in raids is the sort of thing that sounds better in theory then it feels in practice.

[ReynTime]

Responses like the ones in this thread almost me want to quit before Endwalker.

Why don't we just remove trashes, period? After all only bosses matter, and the game's combat is way too static and lacking depth without enemy/boss mechanics because you do the exact same things in every fight otherwise.

Let's remove monsters from the overworld unless they're quest spawns, hunts and fates. No one likes them because they're too much weaker than bosses. All 4~24 man dungeon should consist of boss arenas with tiny paths connecting them but no enemies.
No time for trash, no time to look for chests, no time to read notes, gotta hurry up and cross these pesky duties off my checklist asap so I can log off and do something else. I enjoy the pve content I swear.