Forced to Raid?

[Kes13a]

The Binding Coil and Omega raids are "recommended reading" for Endwalker but not mandatory.

Binding Coil can be largely brute-forced now with an unsynched party (or even just a few players) and Omega is on the same difficulty level as MSQ trials and easily cleared through the duty finder. Or you can unsynch that as well.

Not everything in the game labelled a "raid" is synonymous with the high-challenge gameplay activity of "raiding". They learned from the Binding Coil that locking story behind difficult content just means that most people miss out on the story, and raid series since then have had their "story mode" first before moving to the savage versions that the raiders are playing.

yeah, really unless it specifically says savage, they just label them "raids" since there is a larger than 4 people likely going with you. ^^

[FoxyAreku]

There's already so little to do in this game I don't know why you would limit your content intake even further, but no you don't have to do anything.

[Lanadra]

There's already so little to do in this game I don't know why you would limit your content intake even further, but no you don't have to do anything.

Perhaps WoW would be more to your liking? I heard Blizzard loves keeping people going with lots of busywork.

[Dreamsoap]

Yeach, echoing Roda, I'm not sure if OP gets that just because they have the name "Raid" in them that they aren't remotely hardcore. OP, you can complete all the normal raids and alliance raids via duty finder. They're very easy. Only the savage version of normal raids are end game, but you need to unlock all normal raids first before the system would even let you Q for those.

[Evergrey]

Afaik you don't have to complete them before Endwalker.
It's just a recommendation as they have stories within that will tie in with Endwalker.

[Illmaeran]

The anxiety of having to complete all these raids is just mentally exhausting.

I understand this 200%. I haven't done any actual "raiding" since Vanilla WoW days due to the levels of anxiety it gives me. Needless to say I didn't do any raiding except with full FC parties past Binding Coil up to the present day. That being said, the older raids; Binding Coil, Syrcus Tower, Crystal Tower, World of Darkness are very easy compared to ShB Trial content. I've had significant loss of reflexes due to medical treatment and have to use my mouse to click many abilities rather than use keybinds and am still able to make it through the ARR raids. I died a few times when re-learning the mechanics but since they're old daily Roulette things now I've never had any sort of negative pushback.

I was also able to make it through the Ivalice raids to unlock Bozja as well as the portions of Alexander that come up on the Roulette with little to no problems too. I'll encourage you to give them a try. I haven't given Omega a go yet but I'm going to guess it's pretty chill as well.

If you don't want to do the content in-game, there's always YouTube for the cutscenes.

[nebby00]

As other people have said, the other raids in FFXIV are not mandatory outside of the Crystal Tower raids. However, if you want to do the long grinds like the shiny, cool relic weapons, or have a more comprehensive grasp of the story going into Endwalker; then yes, you're going to have to do the raids. In all honesty, the raids aren't too hard and the ARR ones are the easiest out of all of them. Plus, I'd personally recommend unlocking and completing all of the raids due to getting some variety for the Alliance Roulette that can award you tombstones and gil daily.

[KitKatnip]

Thank you all for your replies. I really appreciate it. I realize that not everyone feels the same way about raiding and it helps to hear that these older content raids can be run at the lowest difficulty via duty finder. I have a mood disorder so sometimes I ruminate on things and end up turning molehills into mountains. I think I will check out the unlocking for some of these and see how it goes from there.

[nebby00]

Thank you all for your replies. I really appreciate it. I realize that not everyone feels the same way about raiding and it helps to hear that these older content raids can be run at the lowest difficulty via duty finder. I have a mood disorder so sometimes I ruminate on things and end up turning molehills into mountains. I think I will check out the unlocking for some of these and see how it goes from there.

It's all good, hopefully you'll have a good time completing some of them. And remember, there's no harm in announcing in the alliance/party chat that it's your first time, people will be more than happy to explain mechanics most of the time. After a few runs you'll get a hang of it and it'll be easy for you then. Not to mention the stories behind the raids are pretty neat too; so if you do like story and lore you might enjoy them.

Have a nice day; best of luck to you!

[Dreamsoap]

OP if you're in an FC, you can also ask them for help running these. This is what FCs exist for!