Normal/Savage Raids should be one big raid

[Atelier-Bagur]

I know Im not the only one who isnt fond of the raid design in this game for how extremely simplified it is, with its one boss encounter per raid. When I first started FFXIV, Ive imagined that the raid bosses that Ive been seeing at the time such as Kefka and Exdeath were all these cool bosses that you found traversing through the Cleft of the Dimensions dungeon from FFV and my mind was eagerly hyping up the whole instance.

Of course, I quickly found out thats not how raids worked as soon as I started Coils of Bahamut and as I played along through the expansions, I slowly started to see how the game reduces these raids to just be a boss room and thats it. This while Ive accepted it, I cant lie to myself knowing how much of a letdown the raids are in this game.

So how about this. Why dont we take the existing raid tiers which has 4 bosses but build a whole large dungeon into it where you explore the instance, fight mobs and encounter these bosses for one huge raid instead? Pretty much an 8-Man raid dungeon. Imagine having to actually physically delve far down into the coils of bahamut, or scale up large parts of Alexander, or having to explore and brave the forbidden corridors of Pandaemonium? Seriously, lets make these into actual huge dungeons!

I can imagine this will make the raids more satisfying and fulfilling to complete, provide a challenge since you have to defeat these bosses in one run (although also allow a save/check point after the 2nd boss), it still correlates with the current design of having to redo all the savage raids weekly for gaining loot, AND actually place treasure coffers in the dungeon instance to allow extra chances for getting savage gear (maybe just have the accessories come from these treasure chests).

To me personally, this sounds like a such a good idea to make raiding more fun and rewarding. What do you guys think?

[Kaurhz]

Yes, it should just be 1 big raid with all 4 turns as part of 1 actual raid - Like they do in BA, CLL, DR, and Dalriada.

Raids don't feel like raids, they feel like glorified trials

[EliaStormblade]

It's funny, considering there's a non-trivial group of people who think being able to spend all your time on the actual meat of a raid (the bosses), rather than getting bogged down by constantly respawning trash mobs you don't care about and re-running after every wipe is one of FFXIV's strengths.

For those purposes, I'd argue that the best option would be an in between. One big raid, but it retains the ability to return to the point you've progressed to so you don't return to the entrance every time you wipe on boss 3 of 4 or something.

[Ath192]

I know Im not the only one who isnt fond of the raid design in this game for how extremely simplified it is, with its one boss encounter per raid. When I first started FFXIV, Ive imagined that the raid bosses that Ive been seeing at the time such as Kefka and Exdeath were all these cool bosses that you found traversing through the Cleft of the Dimensions dungeon from FFV and my mind was eagerly hyping up the whole instance.

Of course, I quickly found out thats not how raids worked as soon as I started Coils of Bahamut and as I played along through the expansions, I slowly started to see how the game reduces these raids to just be a boss room and thats it. This while Ive accepted it, I cant lie to myself knowing how much of a letdown the raids are in this game.

So how about this. Why dont we take the existing raid tiers which has 4 bosses but build a whole large dungeon into it where you explore the instance, fight mobs and encounter these bosses for one huge raid instead? Pretty much an 8-Man raid dungeon. Imagine having to actually physically delve far down into the coils of bahamut, or scale up large parts of Alexander, or having to explore and brave the forbidden corridors of Pandaemonium? Seriously, lets make these into actual huge dungeons!

I can imagine this will make the raids more satisfying and fulfilling to complete, provide a challenge since you have to defeat these bosses in one run (although also allow a save/check point after the 2nd boss), it still correlates with the current design of having to redo all the savage raids weekly for gaining loot, AND actually place treasure coffers in the dungeon instance to allow extra chances for getting savage gear (maybe just have the accessories come from these treasure chests).

To me personally, this sounds like a such a good idea to make raiding more fun and rewarding. What do you guys think?

You just described DRS. And yes I would be willing to give this a go. Have you done it by the way? You should because you'll experience just what you suggested and It'd be interesting to see if you still like it after having been through it. It was a lot of fun IMO.

[Atelier-Bagur]

It's funny, considering there's a non-trivial group of people who think being able to spend all your time on the actual meat of a raid (the bosses), rather than getting bogged up in constantly respawning trash mobs you don't care about and re-running after every wipe is one of FFXIV's strengths.

For those purposes, I'd argue that the best option would be an in between. One big raid, but it retains the ability to return to the point you've progressed to so you don't return to the entrance every time you wipe on boss 3 of 4 or something.

Actually I was thinking about it like this too. Of course we need to have some convenience for it. I was just thinking the mobs dont respawn but yeah obviously you would want it to where if you wipe you dont have to redo the whole instance. Which is also why I proposed the mid check point where you can call it a day after the 2 bosses if you want and come back to finish the last 2 later. But basically the idea that I want is to see these normal raids be *actual raid instances like CLL, Delibrum and Dalriada*. Just with more exploration involved for placing extra loot.

[Atelier-Bagur]

You just described DRS. And yes I would be willing to give this a go. Have you done it by the way? You should because you'll experience just what you suggested and It'd be interesting to see if you still like it after having been through it. It was a lot of fun IMO.

Ive have not actually, although I have done DR and the rest of the Bozjan raids and is just hit me how they could've just...applied those designs into the regular raiding and improve on them. Maybe one day I'll get into DRS.

[EliaStormblade]

Actually I was thinking about it like this too. Of course we need to have some convenience for it. I was just thinking the mobs dont respawn but yeah obviously you would want it to where if you wipe you dont have to redo the whole instance. Which is also why I proposed the mid check point where you can call it a day after the 2 bosses if you want and come back to finish the last 2 later. But basically the idea that I want is to see these normal raids be *actual raids explorable instances like CLL, Delibrum and Dalriada*. Just with more exploration involved for placing extra loot.

Yeah, so basically what one generally expects from a raid. Raids traditionally are meant to be larger-scale dungeons, whereas contemporary XIV raids are more like alternative trials. I mean, I'm for that myself. I sure don't mind some sort of continuity between areas and bosses, rather than just being ported into one box, fighting the boss and then moving on. I feel like one issue XIV has is that it feels too sequestered anyway. In the overworld, but also raids.

Keep the convenience of not having to reclear trash and being able to port to the bosses after wiping, and put all four bosses into the same instance where you have to traverse the raid like it's an actual compound, or crypt, or whatever it is that the raid is themed after. It sounds more immersive. Hell, I'd argue Alliance Raids do this better than Normal/Savage raids.

[Ath192]

Ive have not actually, although I have done DR and the rest of the Bozjan raids and is just hit me how they could've just...applied those designs into the regular raiding and improve on them. Maybe one day I'll get into DRS.

It's a lot beefier that normal DR content wise. So you start with different rooms and the raid has to split up and meet back together later. There's a lot of people with different responsibilities to make everything work, and then there's of course the fights, although they are more EX level due to the sheer number of people. Still think it could've used a bit more exploration zones you could just go check out and stuff but there's more to see than in the normal edition.

[CidHeiral]

Fun Fact: The Alliance raids were originally supposed to be hard content just as you described.

Our original goal and plan for alliance raids when we were launching A Realm Reborn was for the content to not only be large in scale, but also a higher difficulty than what we see in game. I think it would have netted out somewhere below The Binding Coil of Bahamut in terms of difficulty, but far harder than what we currently have.

Unfortunately, when we determined that the release of the alliance raid would not make it in time for ARR’s launch, we had no choice but to change up the plan of our difficulty hierarchy for our content. We thought players would feel suffocated if we just had high-difficulty content, so alliance raids were positioned as a more casual type of content, even if there were some wipes along the way. This turned out to be well received, and we are also very satisfied with the current difficulty level. We plan to continue including this as one of our main forms of content.

SOURCE: https://www.destructoid.com/stories/...--605273.phtml

I agree there is certainly something about the grand scale of alliance raid dungeons that would be cool to see in the regular raids. However, I have never in all of my many years of raiding found myself fighting trash mobs and thought "wow I'm having so much fun fighting this trash right now." Even in the older 8-man raids in this game that have trash before the boss I feel more annoyed than anything. While I don't totally disagree with you I personally don't have much desire to see that design brought back.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Fun Fact: The Alliance raids were originally supposed to be hard content just as you described.



SOURCE: https://www.destructoid.com/stories/...--605273.phtml

I agree there is certainly something about the grand scale of alliance raid dungeons that would be cool to see in the regular raids. However, I have never in all of my many years of raiding found myself fighting trash mobs and thought "wow I'm having so much fun fighting this trash right now." Even in the older 8-man raids in this game that have trash before the boss I feel more annoyed than anything. While I don't totally disagree with you I personally don't have much desire to see that design brought back.

which is fair, since this the whole reason why Normal raids and even Alliance raids to an extent dont follow this design, since a lot of people didnt like it in WoW. People nowadays value their time much more than decades earlier with gaming but ever since I started looking back at other MMOs, I feel like we've also sort of lost a bit of that "spectacle" with doing content with other players that felt very big in a sense.