The Pandaemonium raids also referenced the Ivalice storyline too. I loved that alliance series and it gets referenced so often still, from Bozja, Zandor, and now Panda.
I’m so surprised that the Binding Coils of Bahamut are optional! There’s so much important story stuff in there and it made certain stuff make a lot more sense since I didn’t do the until after I finished Shadowbringers. The only thing that sucks is that no one queues for older raids as much so the wait time is terrible. I’d love some kind of Duty Support system for the older raids at least 😭
To be fair, Coils was designed to be pretty hard iirc and the general Design was way more boring trash heavy. Can't just force that down every ARR Player's Throat without nerfing it a good chunk. Duty Support would be neat but would clearly do just that, nerf it to the ground.
I was legit going to say something about Coils especially since that is where you really interact with Alisea since she just peaces out after at level 15 until the Heavensward Post Patches. When everyone was freaking out in the cutscense I was just like "who is this?"
If they make coils mandatory they will have to completely rework the raid to have a normal and savage mode. Coils isn't as hard as current savage raids, but it's much harder than normals.
my friend and I really wish they'd add coils to the roulette system because it really has a cool story, but nobody really does it unless you put it up on party finder.
The reason for this is that they're the equivalent of Savage raids(though a lot of the mechanics inside are basic by modern savage standards) so they'd have to rework coils or make an easier version of them.
Probably would be nice if they offer incentives to the Coils like a mount. Maybe then, people might come back to the old content. It’s a shame they didn’t couple it with the Crystal Raid series.
Having Alisae comment on not finishing the coils while I was doing the prequests for Stormblood made me feel so bad, but having gotten carried up to Nael and being unable to get a group to do it the rest of the way since then, I admittedly still feel pretty bad about it. The fact they never did it with the Normal Trial roulette is a goddamn crime.
@@ikeaira8701 the person who solo'd the stuff up to Nael never picked it back up after I hit Heavensward endgame so basically yeah. Not a huge biggy but as just started Stormblood recently the dig feels a bit fresher than most.
I think what kills me the most is knowing that whatever Raid content, non-msq trials, or beast tribes I do they will never be mentioned or made relevant later on in the story. In a story that really tied every single bit of its characters and plot points up in the final chapters of Endwalker, it sucked that more then half of the content I did in my time playing will never be mentioned in the grand scheme of things because it was designed to be optional from the start.
Forcing people to play content they may not want to play is never the way. Options are always good and they always have the option to play if they want and not play if they don't care about that content. Choice is always better than force.
I see what you mean, but it doesn’t feel that different from having to do trials in MSQ. Valid point though, if it was crafting required I’d avoid it like the plague. It’s just a shame some fun stories are locked behind it.
@@StoutHelm and they can do the fun locked stories if they WANT to. Some people don't evne enjoy the msq grind. now imagine you have to do MORE stuff you might not wanna do ontop. (i am not saying that cause i am that way, i did EVERY quest in the game including the side quests that give almost no exp in the open world) cause if you start with stuff like that it could become stuff like "you have to level all jobs to a certain point" or "you need crafter xy storie for that cause it involves character form it"
Choice or not, people will find ways to complain. Just look at the situation with the Hildy relics. They want the weapons, but hate the storyline. They rant about the grind being too easy while complaining at how exhausted it made them. They made a choice to do what they didn't want to do while crying a river about doing it. Despite the fact that the content is completely optional, they complain as if it's mandatory. *_There are times in which you need to make decisions for people._*
bingo. You REALLY can't expect player to have the patience to be stuck and unable to progress because getting 24 players in a queue in this game is a big ask
Honestly the Eden raid are looking like they might need to be required soon too, and the role quests tbh (though I understand not making that a requirement, it is WILD how much important stuff is behind them)
I honestly feel it'd be a harm to the game to make things hard required, because as it is now, if you're mostly in it for the story of the quest, after completing msq the raids and some trials are the only large new things to do. Having to do them between times you might be more interestied in actually playing msq would I think lead to content exhaustion and after its all done, seeing thats it, that was all of what the game had, and dropping it
@@HoneyDoll894 i mean, raids take about as long as a dungeon, and the story between them are really no longer than a trial series. I get where you're coming from but the devs are kinda hamstringed if they cant ask players to do msq relevant story heavy side quests with a handful of 10-20 minute duties
@@rosacetus none of the trials series except arr are required by msq, and being told after completing stormblood for example to go complete an two entire raid series before you can progress the main story, which will likely take multiple days for most people, is a pretty big ask imo. This would also happen after every expansion. The yorha series even while skipping cutscenes and dialogue, takes about 20 minutes to just get to the first raid
I think this change would be ABSURDLY unpopular, and that people like us are blind to that because we're the type that are doing this stuff voluntarily anyway. To us, 'do Omega before Shadowbringers' isn't even an ask, because we did that on reflex for fun. But the people who haven't done it? They don't want MORE barriers in front of them before getting to the content people have actually recommended to them. Crystal Tower is loathed in large part because it's mandatory now (of course, it's not exactly standing up for itself well).
You’re probably right, I’m super biased toward the story and I don’t really see normal and alliance raids being that difficult. I guess I’m not exposed to sheer number of solo players because they’re solo. Until now anyway, comments have tons of em!
Forcing it would be a bad idea and alienate way too many players. If players want lore, they'll make the effort. I'm one of those players that have extreme anxiety when doing trials and raids with other players, but I do so for the lore (and pretty gear). Best option will be if they make trials/raids available to do with some type of scaled down version with Trust/Duty Support system.
Now that’s not a bad idea. Trusts could fill the gap like with dungeons and the Hydaelyn fight. The tricky part would be 23 bots for the Alliance Raids but that’s a start. Good suggestion.
The ivalice and omega raids should 10000% be obligatory for msq. Void ark as well, considering how it ties into a lot of other story content. Though forcing future raids to be tied into msq could end up ruining them by making them more of the same story instead of banching out into different story. The 6.0 trials being all msq is the main point of contention for me, considering we could've had something good or interesting instead of what we got 💀
Making the raids mandatory to progress in the MSQ is a terrible idea! The post-arr questline and the crystal tower roadblock almost made me quit the game. It was so tedious. Walk to npc A, watch a cutscene, walk to npc B, watch a cutscene, load into the next cutscene right after. Go back to npc A, watch a cutscene. Wait 20 minutes in queue as a dps for the raid to pop... "I just want to hit lvl 90 so I can play with my friends." If you had told me that I had to do the same thing again, at lvl 60, 70 and 80, I would have quit the game right there and never looked back. And I am sure, many other new players would quit too. Sure you can buy level boosts and skip all that, but that would defeat the point of making these raids mandatory in the first place.
As someone who loves the lore and story, I don't think anything should be required. If someone wants to just enjoy the game socially, or focus on crafting, or whatever, they should be allowed to do that. Flipping this on its head: imagine you want to do the next MSQ. But first, you have to get a certain rank in a Triple Triad tournament, or be forced to grind a certain amount of money, or attend a social event. Just because YOU enjoy something, doesn't mean everyone will. If people want to experience the story, they will. Don't force people to.
I love triple triad but crafting, I would cry. The difference for me is you’re not really asking the player to do something they haven’t already done. Normal raids and trials are super similar.
@@StoutHelm So look at it the other way around. You have already forced the players to do this kind of content once, telling them hey, this is a thing in this game. They know this kind of content is there, so if they enjoyed it they can seek out more. And if they didn't, then they don't have to. But now you're saying "oh, you didn't enjoy this? Well tough luck, here's more of it. Have fun! Or not, we don't care. Because we know better and we have deemed this mandatory". You really think every bit of story content in this game is so important, so essential, that somebody has to be forced against their will to experience it? Everything in this game is gated by the msq. If you cram everything onto the critical path you will just lose players. I would have been one of them. I don't enjoy the raids, so I don't do them. I think FF14 is successful precisely because it has a lot of different content and you can do what you enjoy. That's why this is such a bad take to me. I don't care if I miss "nuggets of information". That's my decision, whether you can imagine that or not. And thank you for calling disagreeing with you "whining" in advance, it's always nice when someone is mature enough to accept that other's opinions are equally valid.
Maybe they don't need to force players BUT... they should 100% use the content/lore anyways. Don't know where this is from? Well do the content to find out. Maybe give a heads up like "recommended quest completion". The only thing I don't like is that some content lose "weight" because you know it is side content so you don't expect much from it. For example the Voidquest series on the first. They don't wanna make every player level 4 roles to 80 to complete the quest + Warring triad? Fine. BUT don't waste those characters and lore potential there. Personally I'd love for the 7.0 main cast to be Voidquests gang + Unukalhai + Gaia and Ryne.
I think Coils, Omega, Pandemonium, and Eden are all important story wise. But I wouldn't force Alexander, Ivalice, or NieR on anyone. I wish I could undo the NieR Alliance Raids so I wouldn't draw them on roulette anymore.
Not only is it tied heavily to Shadowbringers but Endwalker too. You need to know Graha, and Amon. They’re both key players in that raid. I almost see the possibility the Stormblood raid becoming central to the story in 7.0 possibly. The set up is there.
I understand where you're coming from, and I do empathize , but the thing is that people who want the lore WILL seek them out, and they WILL do those content, hell I know of lore nerds who did DSR groups just to "see what would it have been". That's the beauty of FFXIV's model, you can if you want, but you don't have to; if you want to sink your teeth into the lore of the land, you can, and you'll more likely than not fall deeper in love with the game, but if you are purely a casual fan (think about the people who know what the Avengers are, but can barely list who the members), and more than likely don't really care, that's fine too. Are they missing out? Yeah, but again, that's up to them to engage in.
We need to do the Syrcus Tower series, so your premise is a little flawed. However, as a disabled gamer -- and there are a lot of us -- I suck at raid content. I play the game for story and crafting. I go to the metagame to up my lore literacy. Spoilers are my friends. Players like me count, too.
You absolutely count, my intention behind this suggestion wasn’t to diminish anyone based on performance. And I did mention the tower situation in this video. I just wish they did it with a few other raid entries since they feel reallt important to the larger story.
@@StoutHelm So every raid at Hard or whatever the base level might be is suitable and friendly for people who essentially need to be carried? I mean, most of the group content, you have to go through so damn fast with a group aiming for a speed run, your opportunity to notice the lore aspects are minimal. It was perhaps 5y into playing the game when I decided to unsync the very first dungeon to read the notes and see all the area. No group I was ever in did that. So doing raid content with a group, being carried, being battered about, with people who are rushing... I don't see how that really accomplishes your ideal. Since I realized that about Sastasha and completed it, I've done most of the ARR and Heavensward content and some onward from that, either solo or with a FCmate, to stop and smell the roses. But mandating MSQ raids isn't going to fix that. Perhaps adding a story mode to replace the lemming mode? ;) p.s. I'm been a subscriber and fan for quite a while. I just think you aren't walking in everyone's moccasins here.
@@shavanerad9038 I think that’s an okay compromise. At the end of the day, it’s just strange that important narrative pieces are gated off. And I’d like to avoid another MSQ roulette situation, even though it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I know there are players who don’t want that level of commitment to the game for a variety of reasons. And I’m certainly biased because I find most of the story fascinating. I’m willing to concede there are elements of this issue I haven’t considered. Lots of folks have been vocal about aspects I missed, and I really appreciate them for that! Including you
@@StoutHelm Yet, I feel more gated off by being required to traverse difficult content. Not just raids. For example, Worthy of his Back had me blocked for months. I have double vision from my stroke. If you can imagine doing that content with something that looks a lot like stereoscopic graphics without a VR headset, that's where I operate from. Xenos makes me more insane that he makes most people. The Badaam was hard for me. I am not a typical case. Comparable to many others, though. There are a lot of folks who have blocking obstacles in different ways. But there are plenty of spoiler rich videos of cutscenes from raids. e.g. ua-cam.com/video/PY6LGbmMLD4/v-deo.html Everyone has the option to pursue these, regardless of ability. I can catch up in the metagame. Why do you think it's "gated off" content? It's simply not compulsory to fight your way through it. Appreciate your flex. ;)
Making raids mandatory isn't a good idea. Alliance raids take too long (both for joining and clearing) for most people who don't have all day to play the game. I could see the devs making the normal raids included into the MSQ but that would add so much more bloat to the MSQ that spans over four expansions and base game plus whatever gets added in 7.0. If people really wanted to learn more about the lore they could do it without being forced to. Best thing they could do is show new players that the raids are available as a recommendation pop up whenever a player completes said expansion (maybe give the NPCs that unlock the quests for raids have a special icon). The way they do it now is fine, if they have to make certain raids mandatory for specific plot reasons that are central to that expansions story like with Crystal Tower.
i love raiding but Optional >>>>> mandatory. I wouldnt want someone force me to do the crafter quest XYZ just because the story is good. Raids have their own story. when i was playing the MSQ i wanted to know what happens next and not be forced to check out whats going on in some robot sitting in a lake.
Regardless of whether you liked it or not, being forced to go through YorHa is something I would not wish on my enemies. Particularly as it contributed nothing at all to XIV's world and lore. (Before I get blasted, I do love the Nier games). However, I reckon there's a balance that can be struck. If you did the Ivalice content, you get a bonus scene at the end of Pandaemonium which is super relevant to the games' lore. The balance can be struck when the next MSQ storyline is confirmed and has a connection to previous content. The devs clearly want new players to get through the MSQ as succinctly as possible, and I think required 8/24 player raids are a bit of an obstacle. Pandaemonium could end up being mandatory content going forward, but the conclusion leaves it so that it doesn't leave much of a mark on the status quo if you missed it. There has to be some reward to be earned for investing in "side-content" like the extra cutscene in Aporia if you did Ivalice, or P12s second phase. I think players need incentive to chase these things rather than them being mandatory. That's just me, though!
Nier could definitely be left out of that required column, and a few others could too. I think like some have suggested, putting a trust party option for some raids, could be a happy medium. Or maybe an in-game notification that recommends players go unlock these raids if they want more story related to what they just did.
Maybe the solution here is to make another 'type' of quest. MSQ is required. Blue is 'unlocks'. Maybe we need to have a quest marker for 'strongly suggested'. I can see advantages and disadvantages to making the raids mandatory, but I feel that the advantages may outweigh the disadvantages. With all due respect to those who play the game for savage and ultimate content or who like to focus on the social or crafting aspect (and more props to you, you wonderful people), FFXIV is a strongly story based game. Making the raids mandatory gives the writers the ability to bring in loose plot threads and tie them back into the MSQ as well as expanding the story in new directions. SPOILER FOR 6.x MSQ One thing I am thinking of in particular is the Warring Triad. If you have done Warring Triad and all of the role quests in Shadowbringers, then there is another quest that is heavily tied into the fate of the 13th and the lost heroes who tried to save it. But since that content is not mandatory, there is no way that it can be brought into the 6.X MSQ, which is also heavily tied into the fate of the 13th. The only way that they can finish that storyline and not leave it hanging is make a questline that unlocks only if you have made all of the requirements, rather like Tataru's Grand Endevour. But given that the raid series is not mandatory, that content can't have any real impact on the overall storyline and the fate of the 13th.
I think they've been trying to get more people into older raids, by tying it to other optional content, which i think is the best compromise without stepping on peoples toes, Like hildibrand for relic, or Ivalice to unlock Bozja, or the tataru sidequest requiring 1 raid from each expac, or how they made bozja and eureka relic steps have older raids as a way to get the items and so on
I mean, prior to this relic, the relics basically allowed them to revitalize older content, idk why they just made it level 90 tomes this time because that only keeps people in level 90 content. As much as I dislike the Nier raids, having relic steps that need it would revitalize the content for sure, instead of people waiting 30m+ queues for it.
I thoroughly disagree. I've done all of them and love them but it's just too much content to ask new players to go through to get to endgame. The burden is already heavy just getting through MSQ. You will drive a good chunk of new players away from the game if you put that requirement on them.
I think that’s just part of jumping in to an MMO that’s been churning out content for a decade. I will concede some raids could be left optional like Coils and Nier. But some feel so important to MSQ, I can’t imagine skipping them. But I know not everyone will feel the same way.
@@StoutHelm you know all the aspiring glam a holics gonna do atleast the first nier raid for that juicy plump butt 2b legging lmao to have in their dresser.
The MSQ is already a massive barrier of entry to not just the endgame, but everything in later expansions. They're never going to do this with normal difficulty raids while they're also trying to make the game more accessible and solo-friendly with trust support and stuff like that. They only did it with the Crystal Tower after what was clearly a lot of hesitation and a really important story continuity problem. Being pushed into a raid as a casual low-skill player and being unable to clear with a reasonably low number of attempts or being dead the whole time is a quit moment for people. It's a filter that's potentially worse than getting through slow ARR quest progression. Filters lose you new players. Crystal Tower just barely gets away with this by being extremely easy and clearable with 10 sprouts dead on the floor so long as the other 14 know what they're doing and include at least 1 tank and a healer or two. Imagine pushing whichever of your friends or family has the least MMO experience into Dun Scaith or Weeping City relatively early on while trying out the game; let alone any part of Coils even earlier still. They're trying to get rid of their filters and you're proposing a new one.
I beat EW last year doing relatively little side content raidwise and enjoyed it. Then, i made an alt and took my time to do a 100% completionist playthrough where i did just about every job, raid, and side quest and realized full well the scale of things i missed out on. Msq tie ins aside, seeing references to or recurring npcs in various questlines really expanded the world and made it feel alive. Although i originally disliked alliance raids and 8 man trials, by sb i was wanting more of it. They ended up being excellent ways to develope secondary charas that dont get a lot of screen time as well.
I've got fibromyalgia and arthritis in my fingers and hands, and I realize, of course, I'm an edge case, but I can't do things like the 8-person raids very easily -- mechanics past what are in expert dungeon bosses are super difficult and, frankly, painful, for me. If it weren't for the grace of bumming 10 minutes every major patch off some good friends to bring along with me as ringers for the trial fight to make up for my vuln-stack-collecting self to the rest of the team, I'd likely still have the boss from The Dying Gasp story mode t-bagging me instead of past my ceremonial one clear of The Voidcast Dais story mode and done with 6.4's MSQ. The fights in stuff like Eden and Omega and Pandaemonium are not trivial, and there're 12 fights each. I recognize that there's a practically unlimited amount of time to do them in, but it's still forcing a LOT of difficult content on people that may not be up for it. Again, I know I'm an edge case as a disabled player, but we're out there and if we want the story for those raids, UA-cam is a thing. Just saying...
Maybe not force, but definitely have a little notification on the Main Scenario tab telling players what raids they should complete and where to find them. Similar to job quests. Then, if the players choose not to do the raids, then let them be lost in the MSQ while the rest get to enjoy everything tying in together.
good points but no thanks, optional is better. The lore is still in the game if you want to enjoy it. The barrier of entry will be too high and annoying. Your opinion on when a story is complete is skewed because you enjoy the lore and want people to enjoy it in full but that is too much for normal players.
Absolutely not. You see how forcing CT is? Raids have never been important to the game. What they should do is give players a journal that highlights post story content and lets them do it if they choose too.
@@StoutHelm Yeah, that way people who care about some of the great side stories can choose to do them at their pace. People in general dont like to be forced into doing something. So I think a journal or a pop up, (Like the story and class quest thing) would be a good way to inform people. Plus a lot of new players wouldnt know about them to begin with until directed, so it would be a good way to get new players aware of the optional content. Like personally I dont think any of the side stories from raids 24 man or 8 really effect the main story all that much. Maybe Eden with current situations in MSQ. But outside of call backs and good story you dont need any of the alliance raids outside of wanting more world building done. Like even CT raids arent needed. I feel like they wanted people to know the cat boy so they force it, but the story still works without it. Since regardless if you helped or not, he would have still read your story.
@@MrListerTheSisterPhister I disagree about CT. If you haven’t touched those quests, the Crystal Exarch’s big reveal in Shadowbringers simply doesn’t work. Players are left scratching their heads asking “am I supposed to know who that is?” That’s how I was before it was made mandatory.
I understand your point but making them mandatory is just absolute agony. Imagine having to run through Coils after all of ARR. How much more do you want to prevent people from breaking out of the most unfun section of the game? Yeah, sure, they can probably adjust some things to make it less grindy but you already have to go through the first Alliance Raid to progress the story... which is fine in itself but not after barely making it out of ARR. Having another mandatory questline just kills the last bit of strenght people may have had after finally seeing some teasing of HW.
I agree, especially with Coils still not being tied into the Story WHILE being tied directly into the Story. It blows my mind, especially when I saw they made Crystal Tower mandatory, that was the perfect time to implement Coils imho. Edit: I'd go as far as to say the Alliance Raids should be implemented into the MSQ as well(besides Nier for Obvious Reasons. I love Nier/Drakengard, but it has no ties to XIV's story/world. It was just fanservice that I thoroughly enjoyed). Or maybe do something with a "flashy" notification via Two Cards pop up over the Screen showing 2 Paths: Continue the Original Path, or Alliance Story Path, when the player hits those patches where those Alliance Raids & Normal Raids were implemented. Gives the illusion of Choice and of "branching pathways" imo and that illusion almost always makes a game feel/play better
Should they require them... no. There are a lot of people who wouldn't appreciate it and who wouldn't stick around. They have to take into account that there are a lot of people who don't want to be forced down that road. I say this as a person that reached the crystal tower raids right after 5.3 and I was outright angry that I had to complete the raids to progress. Now, yes, I love the story and I'm pretty obsessed but at that time, I skipped the entire raid story as fast as I could and ignored the content because I didn't want to be there. People that don't want to be there won't be paying attention anyway. What, in my opinion, they should do is no longer omit "optional" content from the main story going forward. It feels silly that we've spent the last 3 patches with Y'Shtola going nonstop on finding a way to open a portal to the 13th and I can't once mention that I know a kid that can just do it at will and he's hanging out with two people who are from that very world or that I saw a giant flying ship that can rip open void gates with ease and I know the familiar of the mage that created it. The raid content and side content will always be available and if people reach a point in the story that they're lost on, they should absolutely be encouraged to go back and complete the relevant story but forcing raids isn't the right option. Especially since not all of them are really integral to the story (Alexander was peripherally in an optional dungeon in SHB but otherwise it's damn near non-canon). They should move forward with the main story assuming that you have completed it and then nudge the people that are confused to go back and catch up. Also, incorporating an "Active Time Lore" like FF16 with information on what source the story is drawing from would be very helpful. In other words, incorporate all of the stories in the central arc entirely but lead players into filling in the gaps with the carrot rather than the stick. Otherwise it holds us all back for the decisions of a few.
I remember in the lead-up to the release of Shadowbringers, the devs were heavily hinting that players should go and finish the Crystal Tower raid series. They made it mandatory in 5.3 because the way the MSQ ends would have run up against a hard paradox if you hadn’t completed CT. So far, I haven’t even seen them make hints about completing some optional content, which is unfortunate. I feel like we’ll be seeing Ryne in 6.5, and having Gaia be missing from this will feel weird.
I’m so excited to see the first have some kind of impact on 6.5. Which could create some necessities for players to do the Warring Triad, the Shadowbringers job quests and Eden.
No this would be a bad change. I think at most they should change Coils of Bahamut by making the current normal "Hard" mode right underneath Savage while making a normal mode version to slot into the roulettes. While I see where you are coming from it is a place of knowing the quality of the story telling in XIV. Unless they fully remade ARR and got the new English cast to redub it and added voice acting to all of those raids to make it so there are not gaps in quality I am not for this. Also the already bad gameplay to cutscene ratio would increase with it as they also have to deal with the MSQ patches which do not provide new locations to take in.
I personally think it should be pick and choose for whats Mandatory cuz there are some that aren't SUPER relevent (but are still extremely relevant aka Void ark raids) but some can probably be passed over. This being said they need to reintroduce Binding Coils. It's just barely behind CT for relevance but unless you have people to unsync it and help you, (even then with the amount of 999,999 damage things still means probs a wipe or a few) you just can't do it as a sprout, something needs to change about it.
Understand that people don't raid for a number of reasons. I personally have severe anxiety around doing trial/raid content with other people. I also have physical challenges where I don't react as quickly to mechanics which leads to floor tanking which piles onto my anxiety. Raiding can also be physically painful depending on it it's a good or bad fibro day. I have done raiding content in the past (WoW vanilla and BC). We paused a number of guild raids so that someone could deal with a baby's diaper change or tuck the kids in for the night. Also understand that those of us with anxiety telling us all of these logical reasons on why we should/can raid are very frustrating. We might agree with many of your points but trying to use logic vs an emotional response is just a lose/lose argument. The person making the "logical" points is frustrated because to them we aren't trying. The person with the anxiety is frustrated because we don't feel heard/understood. Do I want to almost have a panic attack before/during every required trial? No no I don't. But I am who I am. I accept that I won't have the coolest looking gear, that I will miss very interesting story content, etc. I'm just one example of the myriad of constraints people bring with them to the game. I know it's hard to really put yourself in someone else's shoes if you have never experienced their issue even once. My husband has no issue with raiding so even he struggles with completely understanding how I feel. But rather than push the issue, he tries to help in any way he can. I love the idea of bringing the trust system to at least the 8 man raids. The difference in the level of stress I had between doing The Mothercrystal vs The Voidcast Dias was HUGE. I will get off my soapbox now but I do ask that we stay open minded and kind.
I’m right there with you! On top of my anxiety and forcing myself to raid for the lore, I made the brilliant idea to main a healer. Anxiety levels through the roof, haha. I have to keep reminding myself that the FFXIV team made this game to enjoy any way you want to, so I try not to stress myself by not doing everything. Yoshi P himself has said they wanted to make the game casual and not have to play everyday. Stay kind to yourself and enjoy your way.
I get that, 100 percent. I don’t push progression savage because I’m just not on that level as a player. You’re right, it can be demanding and frustrating. Toxic at times. I do think trusts for normal raids would be a viable option. I really enjoy doing the dungeons first with trust members. Maybe that could help as they guide you through some of the mechanics. Thank you for your insight on this discussion, I really appreciate what you brought to the table.
I went through to the end of 6.0 without doing any optional raids. I actually regretted it and I’m now doing everything as I play through again on an alt. Doing the raids really adds so much more to the overall story of FFXIV.
I didn't even know they existed. There are a million blue quests and this was my first MMO, so I left a lot of things alone simply because I didn't know better.
I hate raids, hate the toxicity in the community during raids. That made me put the game down for best part of a year. I don’t think it has got any better the elitism from these players still shows today and thats why i never do them now.
I haven't done a savage in months, so if that's what you are referring to, sure. I personally haven't encountered much toxicity at all in Normal Raids & Trials, but that's only my experience. Maybe its a Crystal thing.
@@StoutHelm I don't think that potentially forcing players into doing raids and subjecting them to potential toxicity is a good idea would potentially put off new players. although toxicity has somewhat declined in normal raids and trials.
And then assholes speedrun the stuff and get annoyed by people watching the cut scenes... Come on this argument is a total bust, when you can't enjoy the story the way you guys speed run it all. I've gotten locked out of boss fights for watching the cut scene or getting lost not being able to find my party.
That is bad behavior on the player’s part. I know I’m always willing to sit through cutscenes and wait, others should be too. Though I know that isn’t always the case unfortunately.
I disagree, nothing needs to be mandatory beside the MSQ. If the MSQ manage to hook you with it's story, if it makes you interested in the lore you will try the other content in search for more information. If the MSQ doesn't manage to make your thirst for more information than it doesn't matter how great the stories are in the other content because you won't pay attention to it anyway. Also don't under-rate word of mouth in the community, if some content is amazing and feels like necessary knowhow of the game the community will bully their friends to try it out =P
Unfortunately, that's not going to change any time soon, sadly. People literally remove their gear to basic to make sure they can game the roulette so only Labyrinth or Syrcus Tower show up, since they are so easy to just face-roll speedrun to get the daily bonus tomes. I've gotten to the point I don't even do alliance roulette anymore, cause I'm just plain tired of the Crystal Tower trilogy.
@@etainapgwynnedd827 tbf, the pretty easy fix for this is to adjust the endgame tome reward so that there's a min ilvl for it, not just a level requirement. It's both intuitive (use an endgame ready character eligible to q for endgame content to get endgame rewards) and, if more raids are made mandatory, justified as a q health measure to ensure a better new player experience (which is true! waiting 30-60 minutes at peak times for an alliance raid is offputting)
God no. We already have enough bads in the queue. Forcing people to do things that they don't want to do will just put more bads in the queue. In advance of Endwalker, we were specifically told that the Omega raids would offer some lore, but the devs left it to individual decision to go learn it. Keep it optional! Those who are lore whores will do the content. Those who don't care won't.
I feel so called out right now. “Lore whore” I feel unclean. Also normal and alliance raids are easy even with first time players. I don’t think it would be a big deal. Savage, don’t make that required.
@StoutHelm I'm a lore whore too, but I don't want to force people to do things they don't want to do. I've run every raid and optional story content, but not everyone plays like me, nor should they be expected to.
I've thought for a long time they should have an option in the character settings that defines where your interests lie. Story or Progression. If story, the MSQ will fit in the raid content automatically where appropriate, and progression will simply not.
im surprised alexander and omega aren't required, since they give the context of how on earth the ironworks team was able to figure out how in the fresh hell to traverse time and space in the way that they did. which was essentially via reverse-engineering a god. and then omega and its backstory get brought up in one of the *most climactic* scenes ever in Endwalker itself. it boggles the mind
One thing to note is that the post-EW 6.0 trials have all been tied into the MSQ. Previously, with the Warring Triad, the auspicious beasts, and the Weapon trials were all side content. Now, I feel like the devs are trying to nudge players into the 8-man content more firmly than before. I do wonder if the devs will find a way to add the raids into the MSQ for 7.0 now that they've added the post-MSQ trials back into the storyline.
New player here, I had to buy a story skip just for crystal tower cause for 2 days no one queued up for the last raid so this is probably not a good idea.
I don't see a reason to make them mandatory personally. The prerequistes to unlock them are quite soft and progressing though them requires close to no investment past actually doing the raids. Yes I agree that they should be done and that they are great content but I see no reason that they need to be tied even more than they currently are to the msq especially considering how long the msq itself actually is right now. If anything I think they should implement steps to shave off filler content from the msq to lower the huge amount of time it can take to actually get it done rather than forcing players to do side content when all they might want to do is get caught up with the story to experience the game's current end game. None if this is to say that I think there's any problem with the game's story or its story telling only that the cost of such a good story is a massive time sink, so much so that i don't think it unreasonable for someone playing though at a moderate pace to take over 600 hours to get though to the end of the game. I know it took me quite a bit longer than that to get to the end of SHB and endwalker took me well over 150 hours.
I feel like a good compromise to this would be that when we get to certain points in the MSQ, the game gives us a pop-up that recommends we do the side content, but also gives us the option to just skip it. If you choose to skip it, then the questline would be flagged as complete, and therefore doable in new game +, if people decide later they do want to do it. The game would of course however, act like you did do it, but since you CHOSE to skip, you'd just have to deal with it, as it's your own fault for being lazy.
I understand both sides of the argument, in that on the one hand people don't want more things, especially raids, to be required. However on the other hand, for people who enjoy the lore, having such great world building mostly left to the way-side and not being able to be brought fully to the fore-front of the msq (when relevant) hinders the main story, and lacks a greater feeling of a more interconnected world. It saddens me as someone who has done all this content, that things from side stories that are heavily tied to the msq (like for example currently, the Nullstone from the Void Ark raid, or Unukalhai and Cylva/Cyella from the Shadowbringers role quests) will either never get acknowledged, or may only get a tiny bit of extra dialogue because it would be too confusing or complex to introduce those things for players that haven't done those storylines. I think maybe for normal raids atleast, there could be a story mode option where you get to see the cutscenes and experience the dialogue, but NOT have to do the fights. The fights in and of themselves don't usually matter much to the story, and if you show the entry and death cinematic you've basically got all the story beats you need. If something like that was required, sure it would be a little extra hurdle for people who don't care for story to fly around the world a bit and smash the skip dialogue button, but doing it would really open up more potential for the main story in terms of what lore threads it can bring in without alienating players.
My friend got so confused while leaveling out in Heavensward, he was seeing the Void Ark in the background and didn't understand shit, until i told him that was a raid
Man, I understand the sentiment, a lot, and I personally wouldn't mind that change too much, but this is a terrible idea when put into the perspective of the development team. Remember when they made CT required content because it was just too important to the story? Yes, obviously you do, you mentioned it. Do you remember the community's reaction? OVERWHELMINGLY negative. So overwhelmingly negative in fact, that I could have sworn the developers said something along the lines of they weren't going to do that again because of how negative the reception was. Guess what the community's reaction will be if more raids are made mandatory, especially Coils since it's still technically ARR content, which was specifically trimmed down to avoid being as long as it used to be and is still complained about for being a slog. Overwhelmingly negative. Perhaps even more negative than before, because again, I could have sworn the development team said they weren't going to do that again when responding to all that backlash the first time around. I've played all the raids so far. I find them all very fun (except the Nier ones tbh, feels just a little too far removed from FF14's general vibe for my taste), and I love the lore that we get out of them. But at NO point in the MSQ did I ever think "gee, I'm so glad I did (insert raid) so I understand what's going on." The only time during the MSQ I ever saw a raid directly, *explicitly* referenced aside from CT and their little teaser trailers at the end of each expansion's main story, was freaking Zenos with a throwaway soliloquy line in Stormblood calling us "Bahamut's conqueror." And at that point, it would be far easier to just change the line to "Eorzea's champion" or even "The Echo" or something more appropriate for Zenos to say about us anyways. Now, do playing the currently optional raids make the story more enjoyable? Yes. I'd personally agree with that, and I'd encourage players to go out and play the raids when they have the chance. All the raids are fun and interesting (except maybe the Nier ones imo). My personal favorite would be the Alexander raids from HW, which, as far as I can tell, is never referenced again. Is playing the currently optional raids a requirement to understand and enjoy the story? No. Not even a little bit. So, if the story can already be enjoyed and understood, there is no reason to invite the same kind of community backlash that happened with CT becoming mandatory, especially for no immediate payoff somewhere else. With CT and patch 5.3, you as a player needed to have completed the CT raids for the ending of 5.3 to make any sense at all. That was why it was made mandatory, not just because of the lore tie-in, but because of a direct plot tie-in. All the other raids only amount to lore snippets here and there when it comes to the MSQ. I'm sure the developers want people to play those raids, because starting at the end of EW, they we start seeing implicit references to the Omega raids and even some tiny hints back towards Eden. Curious players will find and play those raids, likely enjoy extra knowledge about the lore surrounding the world and story, and encourage others to play them, perhaps by making entertaining lore videos about them. Incurious players will continue along without a second thought and won't find their enjoyment of the story diminished for it. Meanwhile if they make the raids mandatory... Those same curious players will probably mostly still stick around. Some might leave, but that would probably be a small number. but the incurious ones? Far more of them are going to leave, complaining about game length, or que times, or just being forced to do something they weren't being forced to do before. And the unfortunate truth of the matter is, that second group is far larger in number than the first one. TL;DR: It's a financial hit the devs have no good reason to take, because the part of the player base that would react positively to this change are almost all already able to play these raids whenever they want, and probably aren't going to leave over it not changing. Meanwhile, there is a significant portion of the player base that likely will give up and leave if the raids are made mandatory, namely the people who didn't do them and just wanted to focus on the story. There's just not enough of a net-benefit to justify that risk.
it would be the mayority of us causal(90%of the players ) we dont want to raid imagen not getting that sameway we way dont want it to be a open wolrd pvp game just becuase some randoms would want it to . if you want mandatory raids play wow(agamethat the most anti casual and anti solo freindly mmorpg ) dont force 90%of the players to do content you like sameway we dont force other players to do our conent.
@@henryjones411 we arebut you make it seem like the majority of ppl would be find with raiding when most wouldnt . "Meanwhile if they make the raids mandatory... Those same curious players will probably mostly still stick around. Some might leave, but that would probably be a small number." this is what i am pointing out too.
@@anteprs7908 The players who are dubbed curious in that comment are those that would go do the raids already anyways, because they are curious enough to go out of their way to find it and do it. Players casual enough to not do the raids are grouped in with the "incurious" players, which I make a note to mention are the majority in quite literally the next paragraph.
There is no good reason to force players to do content they dont want to do. period. the best you could do is incentivize it and make it easier to access by making it give progressively better exp and by disabling the ilvl manipulation people use to get crystal tower for fast runs. all youre going to do is build resentment in people who just want to get to endgame and dont care as much about the story where otherwise they couldve gotten bored one day and decided to do it in their off time and be more receptive to the experience. Dont force people to do content they dont want to do if your goal is wanting them to enjoy the content
This is a complicated issue. Also there will be spoilers below, so be warned. Spoilers for just about all of FFXIV. I love the raids, but I also make alts and would hate to get them all full completion. I think it's also interesting when and why they make raids mandatory, because it isn't /Just/ crystal tower, it's also the four archfiends. You might say "But the archfiends are MSQ" to which I will say that's the point. Every ex pack we get 3 tiers of normal raid, 3 alliance raids, and 3 optional trials, each with their own self contained plot going on. In EW we haven't gotten a trial series, but we have gotten the same number of trials, and I think EW might be worse for it. By bundling the patch msq and the trial series together it feels like less content, and it's hard to separate out which bits would belong to what half of their content. Vrtra and Golbez are very clearly patch msq, and The hecteye talking about the archfiends are very clearly part of the trial series, but what about Zero and the dungeons? Fell court could easily be mapped to Hells Lid, or Anamnesis Anyder. You can say it doesn't matter and that content is content, but rather than getting two separate stories that each have unique themes and plots, we get one that is twice the size, and that sucks if you don't like what the current story is doing. ShB had it's grand build up of the Fandanial and the towers, and it had a sick homage to gundam and some old ff bosses. EW has Zero, and the void. Ok, but what if they kept making these stories as they had, self contained bubbles, but just made them mandatory? Alright where do we draw the line? You say just raids, but some of the best stories are trial series, and the waring triad series is a prerequisite for the void story on the first, one that seems like it is begging to interact with msq content. What about Eureka and Bozja? Are we going to ask that for 7.0 people run island sanctuary to max, so that players aren't lost when Hyllfyr invites the WoL to a getaway on his island? The only mandatory raid we have now is crystal tower, and it wasn't made mandatory until 5.3, and I think that's telling. Shadow bringers doesn't actually change all that much if you haven't run it. The only plot hole is G'Raha not being sealed away, but you want to know what /is/ narratively affected by not running it? End walker. A big reveal early on in EW is that Fandaniel was Amaon from the crystal tower. I think that Yoshi P and crew looked at the G'Raha reveal, saw how it didn't hit for some people, and then looked at the Amon reveal, and thought "We should preempt this." Why do I think it's about Amon and not the crystal tower itself? Because the crystal tower is only one third of the important information needed to justify the shenanigan's in ShB. If they wanted to make sure everyone 'got it' they would also make Omega and Alexander mandatory. The devs know that if people want context they will do the side content, the only time it is mandatory, is if specific characters are involved, and even then, only if they are critically important to understand. I was leveling an alt for raiding and basically went through ew having done no side content. The call back scene at the docks was hilarious, because it actually didn't change, sure a few characters were replaced by faceless npcs, and it wouldn't have hit as hard, but it works fine because the main focus was on people that were in the msq. Omega isn't required for EW even though it is super relevant. Gaia is referenced in the EW patches off hand, and Eden isn't mandatory. I think the only reason they will make a piece of MSQ mandatory is if they are staking an emotional beat on it. Otherwise they'll just assume you know where someone came from, or hand wave it.
I completely understand why they are not mandatory, but it is a huge bummer that the lore in these raids cannot be touched upon in the msq anymore than they already are. I feel the same way about the related 13th shard stuff, but that's asking a lot of people haha. I will say to anyone with raid anxiety that the raids are very accessible in FFXIV, and the vast majority of people will not notice your mistakes, and even if they do, they will not say anything. And luckily being an asshole is reportable. Just let people know it's your first time, and they'll let you know if there's anything important to the flight. Most of the raids really enhance the story!
They absolutely can be. 'This story has backstory covered in X story series so if you want to find out the back story, go do that' Boom. Done. People wilding that the easy thing can't be done, like they're not playing a game where a job quest villain didn't get snuck in as a major character.
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow .
I'm beginning to wonder, from just how MSQ lore-relevant Eden and Pandaemonium are (and their stated concerns on accessibility for everyone), if SE isn't going to go with a majority-accessible path going forward by writing the MSQ and dialogue assuming that you have played optional content (even if you haven't), because of how much time it would take to keep track of every permutation of completed content. SWTOR had so much early optional content that by the time of Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne, they gave up and just treated the dialogue and options as if you had done everything including the optional stuff ( depending on who was coding that dialogue tree, they might have given you an extra dialogue option to say "I forgot, refresh my memory?"). ESO just outright lampshades that stuff ("Oh, yeah, you chose to sacrifice me, but I got better! No hard feelings!" No, seriously, that is almost literally what an early major character says upon a reintroduction two expansions later where they are a central NPC).
I don’t think this side content should be mandatory. I think that people should be made aware that things add richness and depth to the story so that they will feel encouraged to try them, but I don’t think they should be required to do them. I say this as someone who has done all of the side content other than savage. Don’t make it feel like a chore. But I also don't think that they should ignore anything from side content in the main story. You don't need to know Gaia's backstory for Ryne to have a pouty goth girlfriend. If they want to bring some element from side story content into the main story they should just make us aware of the thing it has come from so we can go check that out if we are interested. Edit: just noticed I forgot to include the "don't" at the beginning of the last paragraph.
TBH I would be ok with another crystal tower situation. Even if I dislike the alliance raid called ''Who cares of the realm''. Let's be honest the heavenward trial will be probably mandatory for next expansion.
No, raids being optional was a major draw to 14, while I do play all the normal raids, I appreciate that it was not shoved down my throat like in WoW, let players do what they want, the raids add to the msq, but is not needed.
They should be required...to a degree. I believe that the Eden Raids should've definitely been mandatory as it builds on how the flood of light began and it's during the Shadowbringers post-story. And there's a resolution at the end, so that should've been possible. Coils...though I feel it should be necessary, it was made to be very difficult...especially turn 9...
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow .
They should probably all be required as all of em seem to have info about things we'll likely to run into. Mhach for the void stuff, Ivilice for auracite and the resistance movements in dalmasca and the like. Omga info about other stars, and the omicrons. I guess doing alexander explains a little about how time travel got the CT to the first. Only one that doesnt need to me mandatory is the neir one. Its dumb and doesnt fit into anything.
I hope the developer of Final fantasy will fix this problems of endlees waiting to find enought player to do the raid. Like i said before. I spend at least 4 or 5 hours to wait after 2 days and still find not enought player to lauch the raid of Cristal tower.
SHB and crystal towers, as wlell as the ties with the ivalice raids and pand all really make the point on why this should be at least heavily encouraged content. All of it is interconnected and builds on itself, and there is so much good storytelling opportunity that I feel they shy away from because so much of it is sourced in optional content.
as much as I would love this, I think making MSQ even longer than it already is, and will be in 7.0, would be a serious detriment to the game. it's hard enough to get new players to invest 200 hours into a game before they can do endgame, tack on another 40-50 hours for all the raids and it gets even harder. which is a real shame, because often the raid stories are referenced in future cutscenes, and if the raids were done inside of MSQ it would allow for so many more MSQ-related stories to continue on those raid stories.
@@StoutHelm I hope they do figure something out, because another 10 year of story will be crazy to cram in. I'd worry about losing much of the story to too much culling. Maybe they can release like, a full film trilogy, telling the story of ARR-Endwalker, and let newbies pick up at 7.0 and have 2.0-6.5 be "legacy" content? 🤔 Mostly I'd just love large budget film or tv series 😅
I would agree with them making those changes. If we're going to Meracydia in 7.0 people are going to probably need to complete the 4.0 alliance raids to understand some things.
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow .
I have played for over 2 years and have done all trials (except coils) up till the start of endwalker, i have always seen the trials and alliance raids as a reward for completing the expansion and they are fun since you get to show off your glam and then get all the commends, aaww yeah Ps. Im only 50% done with endwalker since i accidentally farmed 2: "300 frontline pvp win tittles" for myself and that takes a long time
I look at this from a different angle - I don't mind extra context being in optional raid series. Sure, Lahabrea sort of sucks unless you do Pandemonium, and you get a whole new look at Elidibus, but that's fine. If someone is happy to not have that context the game shouldn't force them. For someone like me who's here 99% for the story, it's almost more rewarding to go out of my way to do this optional stuff and be surprised with storytelling that's so relevant to the MSQ and improves my enjoyment of it. At the same time, if they introduce things that the MSQ heavily leans on in the future in side content, I also have no issue with that being made mandatory later a la Crystal Tower. Eden really looks like it might be going that way, for instance so if 8.0 or whatever suddenly makes the concepts introduced in Eden absolutely central to the story, or if Ryne and/or Gaia wind up joining the Scions full-time in 9.0 or something then they shouldn't hesitate to make Eden mandatory - maybe you now have to complete it before you're allowed to start the 5.5 MSQ or whatever. I do legitimately think there's value in there being very significant stories - even ones that somewhat relate to the MSQ - that aren't compulsory. Part of the joy of gaming is forging your own path, and the fact that I CHOSE to go do Omega and then 2 expansions down the line I get the Omikron stuff in the MSQ out of nowhere is rewarding in part because I had to go out of my way to do Omega - It was Endwalker, I was doing ALL the major story content, and my effort was paid off. I also think it provides a toxic incentive. If every major story thing is compulsory, then every single story thing should feel like it's important to the MSQ, which means you can't get stories like Alexander, the Void Ark or stuff like the Four Lords - great side stories that are legitimately skippable if you only care about the MSQ. That makes the world feel small and cramped, like everything ultimately ties in to this one storyline. It's very important for FFXIV's world to feel as alive as it does to have the possibility of creating high-effort, high-production stories about weird side things that don't matter that much in the grand scope of things.
I'm going to be honest final fantasy 14 is my favorite game but I hate the raids and I would have never beat the game if they forced me to do the raids. I just find the raids to feel super padded and the encounters are just over complicated instead of making them truly difficult. They need to find away to give you the story from these raids without forcing people to play them in my opinion. The vast majority of players are not raiding, and forcing people to do stuff they don't want to will never make sense and will only hurt the game and it's player counts.
It's not mandatory because casual players don't learn mechanics enough to survive a real 8 man raid, even on normal. I think mandatory alliance raids should be made from now on though.
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow . also casual players play just fine shitting on ppl becuase you think you a raider is beyond stupid .
@@anteprs7908 raids haven't been "forced" since ARR with crystal tower. I did eden (shadowbringers raid) for the first time in my life 2 days ago (as I considered myself a bad player up until then- having avoided any raids since black temple) and it was actually not as hard as I'd been fretting, but yet so many people still don't understand a basic stack mechanic and wipe. people just label raids as impossible as a gatekeeping tactic and so most casual players don't do them. alliance raids are extremely casual and have far more people to help you if you don't know what you're doing. they're actually fun and they have some great story which is what ffxiv thrives at.
@@StoutHelm I agree with you, but loads of players in any content don't bother to learn mechanics even when they've been taught since the early levels like 30-50. Stack is the most generic mechanic that even in endwalker dungeons, people don't get right. Raids just aren't as forgiving as a trial in terms of 3-5 people dying to a single mechanic. I feel like most normal trials you can heal/res through. Though I only just started doing raids in ffxiv a few days ago.
@@jmhmikey nobody is saying they are hard it just we dont want to do them simple as that. raiding is the most toxic activity in most mmos after pvp and in ffxiv raiders are worst then pvpers . Also alliance raids are midcore content .
My take-away here is not that raids need to be a part of the MSQ, but that the story for the MSQ this patch cycle has been exceptionally weak. There's more interesting lore/potential story implications going forward associated with Pandemonium or Myths of the Realm than there is in whatever is going on with the 13th.
Its the kinda weird sort of limbo inbetween major story-arcs, We'll have to see if 6.5 ties into 7.0 or this will be branded as the filler arc between one major arc and the next
I don't disagree here, I think the side stories have been much better than 6.1 and beyond. But we are in that period waiting for the megaton drop for 7.0.
While the raids do provide a lot of lore about the world and game, the only reason they made CT mandatory was because of the MSQ tie in, like you said. I could agree about potentially having Pandaemonium be required, but something like Ivalice, which I'm not too sure if it's even Canon, wouldn't make sense UNLESS the next parts of MSQ are around it. Omega would make sense too considering the Omicrons, but since there is nothing left to really tie it in to the story, it wouldn't make sense anymore to me.
Not even 'msq tie in' but 'the msq is literally in a place where it cannot be done without CT being done' and that's a very high bar. 'The MSQ could reference it' is insufficient. if people don't want to do side content and interrupt the msq story to do completely different story, they shouldn't have to. And... CT as mandatory was probably a mistake.
@@Amooseable Return to Ivalice isn't a crossover event for FFTactics or FF12, any more than Crystal Tower is a crossover event for FF3. Return to Ivalice is an incorporation of ideas and themes and character names in FFXIV, while changing details of those characters in order to subvert expectations and tell a completely different story, which then segues into a followup for one of the oldest plotpoints in FFXIV, the Bozja Incident. Anyone who told you RtI is a crossover never played Tactics and never played 12, or never played RtI and has no clue what happened in any of those. They didn't recognize that FF12 references have been in 14 since ARR (what, do you think Lahabrea, Elidibus, actually all the Ascian names came out of nowhere?!) so you should not listen to them about it. Further, Return to Ivalice actually gave the origin country of Garlemald, and Dalmasca gets referred to multiple times in the MSQ, including as one of the members of the Doman Alliance. Anyone saying it's not canon literally does not know what canon means--they're making shit up.
While not outright forcing us to do the content, it feels like they are at least pushing us to do it to unlock other new things. Want the previous Relic weapons? Better of done Ivalice! New Relics? Hildebrand! Here is a while questline, Tatarus Grand Adventure. Want any lore or glams? Start unlocking them old raids and trial series or you will miss out. So it feels like a sort of comprimise... but I agree, some things are definatly being held back. Look how much extra info about the 13th is missed out if somone hasnt done both the Warring Triad raids from Heavensward, and done all the Shadowbringers role quests.
I disagree. While I love the story and the bits of story hidden off of the msq, turning optional content into required content turns into a massive can of worms. Where do we draw the line of what is and isnt required content then? Do we force people to play the Dark Knight questline so they better understand the hardships and struggles our protagonist is going through? Do we force the Dragoon questline so that people know who Estinien is? Do we force Palace of the Dead so that people get closure on Edda Pureheart? What about the Warring Triads so that people can get like maybe 2 mentions of it later and some vague inkling of an idea about Elidibus? Do we force them to partake in PvP to understand how the grand companies are staying on their toes for the next threat? Do we force Hildibrand because its just so fun and nonsensical? If people really want to engage in the story more, they will go to participate in the various optional content when it becomes available on their own. The game makes a big deal of whenever those quests and such open up so that players who are interested know "Ok, theres something going on there, lemme go check it out." It would be an absolutely terrible experience and pacing killer to force people into raids/alliance raids when the story is picking up as it just grinds everything to a stand still as you sit there for hours waiting for a raid queue to pop. On top of that, you then start mixing the people who actually know the raid and want to be there to play and do the content mixing in with the people who really just do not care and want to get it done and over with. Crystal Tower being made mandatory was a good thing for Shadowbringers purely because of Graha and Amon, and their relevance to the plot. And they even made it something they would touch base on later at its conclusion unlike most other optional content once you beat it. It made narrative sense to make CT mandatory, but that doesnt stop people from hating having to play it if they hate raiding. While its a great idea to have story for the raids and such to give them meaning and purpose with eventual callbacks and references later, forcing optional content just seems like a really bad idea, especially if people can choose whether they want to partake in those raids or continue with just the content that they want to do.
It's okay to make some of the raid content to be mandatory but some are too hard for ... some people .. like one time I queued for AR ended up in WOD and wiping 3x on the first boss and people already leaving coz of it. I've seen some people playing FFXIV aren't really made to do raids imho that's probably one reason the devs don't wanna make some raids mandatory, you should see vids of people cant do roulette raids wiping on Void ark etc 😂
The issue with the raids in the alliance raids is its content that lasted for literally a half an hour or more just to complete and the keep someone's attention for a whole half an hour doing mechanic over and over and over again for a half an hour really pisses off a lot of people real fast. But I get some of them are not like that like Alexander raids which literally only take up the 10 minutes if you're not doing Savage which I have recently completed and I am so happy that I did because that was actually some fun content. But then you also have examples like the Crystal Tower and the dark Ark that will literally take you a half an hour to complete and it's boring as f*** and I have seen people wiped on the Crystal Tower and then part of those groups where they wiped usually against the very last parts of the crystal tower that usually leads to that giant eye monster that has the clicking clock and Cerberus being the two that come in mind that I have seen many people get wiped at. Me personally when I was told that I had to do the Crystal Tower before I got into shadowbringers because I was currently still in storms blood when this happened I just kind of sucked it up and just did it and it wasn't really happy about it because again the content takes a half an hour to complete. If they want us to complete raids don't waste our time let us get in do we need to do and then get out that requires either 24 people or eight to complete in do the same exact thing as we're already doing with the dungeons they throw at us. But this is also coming for a person that has only done raid content from A Realm Reborn and heavensward and hasn't even touched storms blood content when it comes the raids
have you ever tried to get 24 people together on this game? Making 24 man content mandatory would just see players stuck and unable to progress MSQ, this is already an issue with new players that get trapped in ARR hell because they can't get queued for crystal tower and have to hope a dozen veterans will come and help them unsync it. requiring this type of content would require a large, and more importantly ACTIVE playerbase that this game does not have. Forcing more 24 man content would just push new players away
The only raid out of both normal and alliance raids that is somewhat unnecessary are the Nier ones, the rest are pretty plot-important and good to learn
personally with how the game is right now, I don't think making the raids mandatory is needed. The ivalice raids only really lead to bozja things and I think for that its cool. Omega and alexander raids add to endwalker and shadowbringers but not enough that I feel players should be forced to play them. Omega especially is mostly a random collection of mediocre jokes and references to other FF games. Pandemonium and myths are maybe ones I could see argued should be mandatory i really think making them mandatory will just do more to force people to pay ridiculous amounts of money to actually get to play the newer content, and having done the entire msq now 6 times, and maybe will make another character some day, having to do almost all content in the game in order to reach the end would be horrible
I haven't done Pandaemonium yet. Why? Because I'm a new player with less than four months in FFXIV and I'm still catching up on content as a whole, not just raids. I did the MSQ up to 6.4 and now I'm working on whatever I find more or less on a daily basis with a focus on "meaningful content" when it comes to achievements. So no just slaying Ifrit 2000 times for the Thrillseeker IV achievement, instead it'll be mount farming, higher difficulty content, and the like. I found the quest that unlocks Pandaemonium, but I didn't get around to doing those just yet. I'll get there eventually.
As a solo player I cannot recomend making in madatory. The reason is using duty finder for Omga was hell for me. Each one took at minium an hour to get people to play sometimes longer. I feel they need to do a better job letting people know about the raids instead. I didn't know about The Void Ark saga until I watched a UA-cam video. If a person is a lore nut like me they will do them as long as they are aware of them.
I'll agree for only one reason: so I can finally queue for Alliance Roulette and SOMETIMES get something else than Crystal Tower. As it stands, I just manually queue for ShB and EW raids every day then gaslight myself into believing I did my daily Alliance Roulette already. I'm sick of Crystal Tower. Towards the end, I'd leave and take a 30 minute penalty out of sheer spite for those raids.
The problem with forcing people into these contents is that not everyone is interested in it as it just doesn't fit or work for everyone including the time for new players that really want to get into the next expansion to play with friends. Its not like I don't understand where you are coming from but how often do you queue for a trial and someone says "no idea whats going on I skipped lol", like its cool to be ignorant of whats going on. They should probably keep things loose until they run into another point where content will we required.
The Alexander raids from Heavensward should also be mandatory AT A MINIMUM. It's just as key to understanding how something is possible in Shadowbringers (If you did the Twinning, AND Alexander then you know.) The argument for all of it to be mandatory is reinforced because Alphascape is also important to understanding part of zone 6 of Endwalker, the Four Lords was a fantastic ending to Stormblood AND also comes up in Endwalker. The Ivalice raids are required for the ShB relic weapon and some other story beats (maybe in the future??) The Eden raids are a love letter to the ARR trials and an end to (REDACTED)'s story... I think the only raids that are agnostic of the MSQ are the Nier raids, but even they have a great story with some fun moments (The dwarves breaking the fourth wall, for one) I put off doing the raids myself because I was afraid of it being like the toxicity in WoW, but 99% of the people I've encountered in Raids are pretty warm and awesome. I agree these should absolutely be mandatory.
@@StoutHelm It's been my experience too. In wow there was tryhards who'd scream in freaking LFR about memchanics and how people were dying, and I had a mage friend who would hang out in the back, throw a couple arcane bolts, and then start browsing on her phone. *shrug* As a result, when I came to XIV I avoided raids until the end of Stormblood, and when I found out it wasn't life ruiningly toxic, I ended up going back to coils and downed all the available content and had a blasty blast. 10/10 recommend
Nice vid I heavily agree. We got 1 of the best characters in the game from the crystal tower, imagine if someone else was the exarch, how much less great his character and reveal would be
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow .
The Pandaemonium raids also referenced the Ivalice storyline too. I loved that alliance series and it gets referenced so often still, from Bozja, Zandor, and now Panda.
You’re right!
Omega has huge ties to Endwalker near the end. ironically.
Exactly my point.
And with the end of heavensward/start of stormblood when you see Omega for the first time
@@thed4rknss673 honestly that scene was amazing to me, i’ve played most of the franchise.
seeing those two finally duke it out was incredible.
@@TheAuron32 even me that didn't play most final fantasy games, thinks that scene was epic
I’m so surprised that the Binding Coils of Bahamut are optional! There’s so much important story stuff in there and it made certain stuff make a lot more sense since I didn’t do the until after I finished Shadowbringers. The only thing that sucks is that no one queues for older raids as much so the wait time is terrible. I’d love some kind of Duty Support system for the older raids at least 😭
I think the only reason its optional is due to its difficulty. They would need to be reworked and made easier before its made mandatory.
To be fair, Coils was designed to be pretty hard iirc and the general Design was way more boring trash heavy. Can't just force that down every ARR Player's Throat without nerfing it a good chunk. Duty Support would be neat but would clearly do just that, nerf it to the ground.
I was legit going to say something about Coils especially since that is where you really interact with Alisea since she just peaces out after at level 15 until the Heavensward Post Patches. When everyone was freaking out in the cutscense I was just like "who is this?"
If they make coils mandatory they will have to completely rework the raid to have a normal and savage mode. Coils isn't as hard as current savage raids, but it's much harder than normals.
you dont que for those you go to party finder and find or make one
my friend and I really wish they'd add coils to the roulette system because it really has a cool story, but nobody really does it unless you put it up on party finder.
The reason for this is that they're the equivalent of Savage raids(though a lot of the mechanics inside are basic by modern savage standards) so they'd have to rework coils or make an easier version of them.
Also it’s super easy to solo do it with a high level player, usually the people im fc.s are helpful with it
Coils is also tough if you’re scaling to level.
Probably would be nice if they offer incentives to the Coils like a mount. Maybe then, people might come back to the old content. It’s a shame they didn’t couple it with the Crystal Raid series.
@@bananagher7555 i don't see why they can't just scale things down to make it easier so that they can add it to roulettes
Having Alisae comment on not finishing the coils while I was doing the prequests for Stormblood made me feel so bad, but having gotten carried up to Nael and being unable to get a group to do it the rest of the way since then, I admittedly still feel pretty bad about it. The fact they never did it with the Normal Trial roulette is a goddamn crime.
do you still need the clear?
Coils should be mandatory-
@@ikeaira8701 the person who solo'd the stuff up to Nael never picked it back up after I hit Heavensward endgame so basically yeah. Not a huge biggy but as just started Stormblood recently the dig feels a bit fresher than most.
Man I wish I had known at the time I totally would have carried u all the way thru to the end if u asked
I think what kills me the most is knowing that whatever Raid content, non-msq trials, or beast tribes I do they will never be mentioned or made relevant later on in the story.
In a story that really tied every single bit of its characters and plot points up in the final chapters of Endwalker, it sucked that more then half of the content I did in my time playing will never be mentioned in the grand scheme of things because it was designed to be optional from the start.
That’s the big reason I want this change to happen. I hate how things are disconnected when some details are super relevant.
Forcing people to play content they may not want to play is never the way. Options are always good and they always have the option to play if they want and not play if they don't care about that content. Choice is always better than force.
I see what you mean, but it doesn’t feel that different from having to do trials in MSQ. Valid point though, if it was crafting required I’d avoid it like the plague. It’s just a shame some fun stories are locked behind it.
@@StoutHelm and they can do the fun locked stories if they WANT to. Some people don't evne enjoy the msq grind. now imagine you have to do MORE stuff you might not wanna do ontop. (i am not saying that cause i am that way, i did EVERY quest in the game including the side quests that give almost no exp in the open world) cause if you start with stuff like that it could become stuff like "you have to level all jobs to a certain point" or "you need crafter xy storie for that cause it involves character form it"
Choice or not, people will find ways to complain. Just look at the situation with the Hildy relics. They want the weapons, but hate the storyline. They rant about the grind being too easy while complaining at how exhausted it made them. They made a choice to do what they didn't want to do while crying a river about doing it. Despite the fact that the content is completely optional, they complain as if it's mandatory. *_There are times in which you need to make decisions for people._*
bingo. You REALLY can't expect player to have the patience to be stuck and unable to progress because getting 24 players in a queue in this game is a big ask
I didn't know about Coils of Bahamut until like 3 years into the game D:
Honestly the Eden raid are looking like they might need to be required soon too, and the role quests tbh (though I understand not making that a requirement, it is WILD how much important stuff is behind them)
I think Eden will be necessary from understanding the larger story given where 6.5 is heading.
I honestly feel it'd be a harm to the game to make things hard required, because as it is now, if you're mostly in it for the story of the quest, after completing msq the raids and some trials are the only large new things to do. Having to do them between times you might be more interestied in actually playing msq would I think lead to content exhaustion and after its all done, seeing thats it, that was all of what the game had, and dropping it
@@HoneyDoll894 i mean, raids take about as long as a dungeon, and the story between them are really no longer than a trial series. I get where you're coming from but the devs are kinda hamstringed if they cant ask players to do msq relevant story heavy side quests with a handful of 10-20 minute duties
@@rosacetus none of the trials series except arr are required by msq, and being told after completing stormblood for example to go complete an two entire raid series before you can progress the main story, which will likely take multiple days for most people, is a pretty big ask imo. This would also happen after every expansion. The yorha series even while skipping cutscenes and dialogue, takes about 20 minutes to just get to the first raid
I think this change would be ABSURDLY unpopular, and that people like us are blind to that because we're the type that are doing this stuff voluntarily anyway. To us, 'do Omega before Shadowbringers' isn't even an ask, because we did that on reflex for fun.
But the people who haven't done it? They don't want MORE barriers in front of them before getting to the content people have actually recommended to them. Crystal Tower is loathed in large part because it's mandatory now (of course, it's not exactly standing up for itself well).
You’re probably right, I’m super biased toward the story and I don’t really see normal and alliance raids being that difficult. I guess I’m not exposed to sheer number of solo players because they’re solo. Until now anyway, comments have tons of em!
@@StoutHelm casuals to we dont raid only midcore and hardcore players raid by default anybody else doesnt
Forcing it would be a bad idea and alienate way too many players. If players want lore, they'll make the effort. I'm one of those players that have extreme anxiety when doing trials and raids with other players, but I do so for the lore (and pretty gear). Best option will be if they make trials/raids available to do with some type of scaled down version with Trust/Duty Support system.
Now that’s not a bad idea. Trusts could fill the gap like with dungeons and the Hydaelyn fight. The tricky part would be 23 bots for the Alliance Raids but that’s a start. Good suggestion.
The ivalice and omega raids should 10000% be obligatory for msq.
Void ark as well, considering how it ties into a lot of other story content.
Though forcing future raids to be tied into msq could end up ruining them by making them more of the same story instead of banching out into different story.
The 6.0 trials being all msq is the main point of contention for me, considering we could've had something good or interesting instead of what we got 💀
Making the raids mandatory to progress in the MSQ is a terrible idea! The post-arr questline and the crystal tower roadblock almost made me quit the game. It was so tedious. Walk to npc A, watch a cutscene, walk to npc B, watch a cutscene, load into the next cutscene right after. Go back to npc A, watch a cutscene. Wait 20 minutes in queue as a dps for the raid to pop... "I just want to hit lvl 90 so I can play with my friends." If you had told me that I had to do the same thing again, at lvl 60, 70 and 80, I would have quit the game right there and never looked back. And I am sure, many other new players would quit too.
Sure you can buy level boosts and skip all that, but that would defeat the point of making these raids mandatory in the first place.
fact brofact
As someone who loves the lore and story, I don't think anything should be required. If someone wants to just enjoy the game socially, or focus on crafting, or whatever, they should be allowed to do that. Flipping this on its head: imagine you want to do the next MSQ. But first, you have to get a certain rank in a Triple Triad tournament, or be forced to grind a certain amount of money, or attend a social event. Just because YOU enjoy something, doesn't mean everyone will. If people want to experience the story, they will. Don't force people to.
I love triple triad but crafting, I would cry. The difference for me is you’re not really asking the player to do something they haven’t already done. Normal raids and trials are super similar.
@@StoutHelm So look at it the other way around. You have already forced the players to do this kind of content once, telling them hey, this is a thing in this game. They know this kind of content is there, so if they enjoyed it they can seek out more. And if they didn't, then they don't have to. But now you're saying "oh, you didn't enjoy this? Well tough luck, here's more of it. Have fun! Or not, we don't care. Because we know better and we have deemed this mandatory". You really think every bit of story content in this game is so important, so essential, that somebody has to be forced against their will to experience it? Everything in this game is gated by the msq. If you cram everything onto the critical path you will just lose players. I would have been one of them. I don't enjoy the raids, so I don't do them. I think FF14 is successful precisely because it has a lot of different content and you can do what you enjoy. That's why this is such a bad take to me. I don't care if I miss "nuggets of information". That's my decision, whether you can imagine that or not. And thank you for calling disagreeing with you "whining" in advance, it's always nice when someone is mature enough to accept that other's opinions are equally valid.
Maybe they don't need to force players BUT... they should 100% use the content/lore anyways. Don't know where this is from? Well do the content to find out. Maybe give a heads up like "recommended quest completion". The only thing I don't like is that some content lose "weight" because you know it is side content so you don't expect much from it. For example the Voidquest series on the first. They don't wanna make every player level 4 roles to 80 to complete the quest + Warring triad? Fine. BUT don't waste those characters and lore potential there. Personally I'd love for the 7.0 main cast to be Voidquests gang + Unukalhai + Gaia and Ryne.
I think Coils, Omega, Pandemonium, and Eden are all important story wise. But I wouldn't force Alexander, Ivalice, or NieR on anyone. I wish I could undo the NieR Alliance Raids so I wouldn't draw them on roulette anymore.
I agree 100 percent
Not only is it tied heavily to Shadowbringers but Endwalker too. You need to know Graha, and Amon. They’re both key players in that raid. I almost see the possibility the Stormblood raid becoming central to the story in 7.0 possibly. The set up is there.
Yeah I agree make people do the story raids before moving to the next expansion. just the story difficulty obviously, normal
Wish they updated Pharos Sirius, one day before I get old. Mostly just the first boss.
They’ve given a lot of things face lifts, it could happen.
I understand where you're coming from, and I do empathize , but the thing is that people who want the lore WILL seek them out, and they WILL do those content, hell I know of lore nerds who did DSR groups just to "see what would it have been". That's the beauty of FFXIV's model, you can if you want, but you don't have to; if you want to sink your teeth into the lore of the land, you can, and you'll more likely than not fall deeper in love with the game, but if you are purely a casual fan (think about the people who know what the Avengers are, but can barely list who the members), and more than likely don't really care, that's fine too. Are they missing out? Yeah, but again, that's up to them to engage in.
We need to do the Syrcus Tower series, so your premise is a little flawed.
However, as a disabled gamer -- and there are a lot of us -- I suck at raid content. I play the game for story and crafting.
I go to the metagame to up my lore literacy. Spoilers are my friends.
Players like me count, too.
You absolutely count, my intention behind this suggestion wasn’t to diminish anyone based on performance. And I did mention the tower situation in this video. I just wish they did it with a few other raid entries since they feel reallt important to the larger story.
@@StoutHelm So every raid at Hard or whatever the base level might be is suitable and friendly for people who essentially need to be carried?
I mean, most of the group content, you have to go through so damn fast with a group aiming for a speed run, your opportunity to notice the lore aspects are minimal. It was perhaps 5y into playing the game when I decided to unsync the very first dungeon to read the notes and see all the area. No group I was ever in did that.
So doing raid content with a group, being carried, being battered about, with people who are rushing... I don't see how that really accomplishes your ideal.
Since I realized that about Sastasha and completed it, I've done most of the ARR and Heavensward content and some onward from that, either solo or with a FCmate, to stop and smell the roses.
But mandating MSQ raids isn't going to fix that. Perhaps adding a story mode to replace the lemming mode? ;)
p.s. I'm been a subscriber and fan for quite a while. I just think you aren't walking in everyone's moccasins here.
@@shavanerad9038 I think that’s an okay compromise. At the end of the day, it’s just strange that important narrative pieces are gated off. And I’d like to avoid another MSQ roulette situation, even though it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I know there are players who don’t want that level of commitment to the game for a variety of reasons. And I’m certainly biased because I find most of the story fascinating. I’m willing to concede there are elements of this issue I haven’t considered. Lots of folks have been vocal about aspects I missed, and I really appreciate them for that! Including you
@@StoutHelm Yet, I feel more gated off by being required to traverse difficult content.
Not just raids. For example, Worthy of his Back had me blocked for months. I have double vision from my stroke. If you can imagine doing that content with something that looks a lot like stereoscopic graphics without a VR headset, that's where I operate from. Xenos makes me more insane that he makes most people. The Badaam was hard for me.
I am not a typical case. Comparable to many others, though. There are a lot of folks who have blocking obstacles in different ways.
But there are plenty of spoiler rich videos of cutscenes from raids.
e.g. ua-cam.com/video/PY6LGbmMLD4/v-deo.html
Everyone has the option to pursue these, regardless of ability.
I can catch up in the metagame. Why do you think it's "gated off" content? It's simply not compulsory to fight your way through it.
Appreciate your flex. ;)
Making raids mandatory isn't a good idea. Alliance raids take too long (both for joining and clearing) for most people who don't have all day to play the game. I could see the devs making the normal raids included into the MSQ but that would add so much more bloat to the MSQ that spans over four expansions and base game plus whatever gets added in 7.0. If people really wanted to learn more about the lore they could do it without being forced to. Best thing they could do is show new players that the raids are available as a recommendation pop up whenever a player completes said expansion (maybe give the NPCs that unlock the quests for raids have a special icon). The way they do it now is fine, if they have to make certain raids mandatory for specific plot reasons that are central to that expansions story like with Crystal Tower.
i love raiding but Optional >>>>> mandatory.
I wouldnt want someone force me to do the crafter quest XYZ just because the story is good.
Raids have their own story. when i was playing the MSQ i wanted to know what happens next and not be forced to check out whats going on in some robot sitting in a lake.
ty wish more ppl understood that most casuals dont wanna raids
Regardless of whether you liked it or not, being forced to go through YorHa is something I would not wish on my enemies. Particularly as it contributed nothing at all to XIV's world and lore. (Before I get blasted, I do love the Nier games).
However, I reckon there's a balance that can be struck. If you did the Ivalice content, you get a bonus scene at the end of Pandaemonium which is super relevant to the games' lore. The balance can be struck when the next MSQ storyline is confirmed and has a connection to previous content. The devs clearly want new players to get through the MSQ as succinctly as possible, and I think required 8/24 player raids are a bit of an obstacle.
Pandaemonium could end up being mandatory content going forward, but the conclusion leaves it so that it doesn't leave much of a mark on the status quo if you missed it. There has to be some reward to be earned for investing in "side-content" like the extra cutscene in Aporia if you did Ivalice, or P12s second phase. I think players need incentive to chase these things rather than them being mandatory.
That's just me, though!
Nier could definitely be left out of that required column, and a few others could too. I think like some have suggested, putting a trust party option for some raids, could be a happy medium. Or maybe an in-game notification that recommends players go unlock these raids if they want more story related to what they just did.
Maybe the solution here is to make another 'type' of quest. MSQ is required. Blue is 'unlocks'. Maybe we need to have a quest marker for 'strongly suggested'.
I can see advantages and disadvantages to making the raids mandatory, but I feel that the advantages may outweigh the disadvantages. With all due respect to those who play the game for savage and ultimate content or who like to focus on the social or crafting aspect (and more props to you, you wonderful people), FFXIV is a strongly story based game. Making the raids mandatory gives the writers the ability to bring in loose plot threads and tie them back into the MSQ as well as expanding the story in new directions.
SPOILER FOR 6.x MSQ
One thing I am thinking of in particular is the Warring Triad. If you have done Warring Triad and all of the role quests in Shadowbringers, then there is another quest that is heavily tied into the fate of the 13th and the lost heroes who tried to save it. But since that content is not mandatory, there is no way that it can be brought into the 6.X MSQ, which is also heavily tied into the fate of the 13th. The only way that they can finish that storyline and not leave it hanging is make a questline that unlocks only if you have made all of the requirements, rather like Tataru's Grand Endevour. But given that the raid series is not mandatory, that content can't have any real impact on the overall storyline and the fate of the 13th.
I think they've been trying to get more people into older raids, by tying it to other optional content, which i think is the best compromise without stepping on peoples toes,
Like hildibrand for relic, or Ivalice to unlock Bozja, or the tataru sidequest requiring 1 raid from each expac, or how they made bozja and eureka relic steps have older raids as a way to get the items and so on
I mean, prior to this relic, the relics basically allowed them to revitalize older content, idk why they just made it level 90 tomes this time because that only keeps people in level 90 content. As much as I dislike the Nier raids, having relic steps that need it would revitalize the content for sure, instead of people waiting 30m+ queues for it.
@@bananagher7555 they did. you have to do All hildi storys for them.
I thoroughly disagree. I've done all of them and love them but it's just too much content to ask new players to go through to get to endgame. The burden is already heavy just getting through MSQ. You will drive a good chunk of new players away from the game if you put that requirement on them.
I think that’s just part of jumping in to an MMO that’s been churning out content for a decade. I will concede some raids could be left optional like Coils and Nier. But some feel so important to MSQ, I can’t imagine skipping them. But I know not everyone will feel the same way.
@@StoutHelm you know all the aspiring glam a holics gonna do atleast the first nier raid for that juicy plump butt 2b legging lmao to have in their dresser.
The MSQ is already a massive barrier of entry to not just the endgame, but everything in later expansions. They're never going to do this with normal difficulty raids while they're also trying to make the game more accessible and solo-friendly with trust support and stuff like that. They only did it with the Crystal Tower after what was clearly a lot of hesitation and a really important story continuity problem. Being pushed into a raid as a casual low-skill player and being unable to clear with a reasonably low number of attempts or being dead the whole time is a quit moment for people.
It's a filter that's potentially worse than getting through slow ARR quest progression. Filters lose you new players. Crystal Tower just barely gets away with this by being extremely easy and clearable with 10 sprouts dead on the floor so long as the other 14 know what they're doing and include at least 1 tank and a healer or two. Imagine pushing whichever of your friends or family has the least MMO experience into Dun Scaith or Weeping City relatively early on while trying out the game; let alone any part of Coils even earlier still. They're trying to get rid of their filters and you're proposing a new one.
100% agree! Raids, Alliance Raids and even Trial Series are REALLY important for the story! And Coils are straight up best part of ARR!
I beat EW last year doing relatively little side content raidwise and enjoyed it. Then, i made an alt and took my time to do a 100% completionist playthrough where i did just about every job, raid, and side quest and realized full well the scale of things i missed out on. Msq tie ins aside, seeing references to or recurring npcs in various questlines really expanded the world and made it feel alive. Although i originally disliked alliance raids and 8 man trials, by sb i was wanting more of it. They ended up being excellent ways to develope secondary charas that dont get a lot of screen time as well.
I've got fibromyalgia and arthritis in my fingers and hands, and I realize, of course, I'm an edge case, but I can't do things like the 8-person raids very easily -- mechanics past what are in expert dungeon bosses are super difficult and, frankly, painful, for me. If it weren't for the grace of bumming 10 minutes every major patch off some good friends to bring along with me as ringers for the trial fight to make up for my vuln-stack-collecting self to the rest of the team, I'd likely still have the boss from The Dying Gasp story mode t-bagging me instead of past my ceremonial one clear of The Voidcast Dais story mode and done with 6.4's MSQ.
The fights in stuff like Eden and Omega and Pandaemonium are not trivial, and there're 12 fights each. I recognize that there's a practically unlimited amount of time to do them in, but it's still forcing a LOT of difficult content on people that may not be up for it. Again, I know I'm an edge case as a disabled player, but we're out there and if we want the story for those raids, UA-cam is a thing. Just saying...
Maybe not force, but definitely have a little notification on the Main Scenario tab telling players what raids they should complete and where to find them. Similar to job quests. Then, if the players choose not to do the raids, then let them be lost in the MSQ while the rest get to enjoy everything tying in together.
good points but no thanks, optional is better. The lore is still in the game if you want to enjoy it. The barrier of entry will be too high and annoying. Your opinion on when a story is complete is skewed because you enjoy the lore and want people to enjoy it in full but that is too much for normal players.
Absolutely not. You see how forcing CT is? Raids have never been important to the game. What they should do is give players a journal that highlights post story content and lets them do it if they choose too.
Maybe an in game notification telling people there is a story related raid available and where to go get it?
@@StoutHelm Yeah, that way people who care about some of the great side stories can choose to do them at their pace. People in general dont like to be forced into doing something. So I think a journal or a pop up, (Like the story and class quest thing) would be a good way to inform people. Plus a lot of new players wouldnt know about them to begin with until directed, so it would be a good way to get new players aware of the optional content.
Like personally I dont think any of the side stories from raids 24 man or 8 really effect the main story all that much. Maybe Eden with current situations in MSQ. But outside of call backs and good story you dont need any of the alliance raids outside of wanting more world building done. Like even CT raids arent needed. I feel like they wanted people to know the cat boy so they force it, but the story still works without it. Since regardless if you helped or not, he would have still read your story.
@@MrListerTheSisterPhister I disagree about CT. If you haven’t touched those quests, the Crystal Exarch’s big reveal in Shadowbringers simply doesn’t work. Players are left scratching their heads asking “am I supposed to know who that is?” That’s how I was before it was made mandatory.
I understand your point but making them mandatory is just absolute agony. Imagine having to run through Coils after all of ARR. How much more do you want to prevent people from breaking out of the most unfun section of the game? Yeah, sure, they can probably adjust some things to make it less grindy but you already have to go through the first Alliance Raid to progress the story... which is fine in itself but not after barely making it out of ARR. Having another mandatory questline just kills the last bit of strenght people may have had after finally seeing some teasing of HW.
Coils would need some adjustments if this change went through, absolutely. They are higher on the difficulty curve compared to other normal raids.
I agree, especially with Coils still not being tied into the Story WHILE being tied directly into the Story. It blows my mind, especially when I saw they made Crystal Tower mandatory, that was the perfect time to implement Coils imho.
Edit: I'd go as far as to say the Alliance Raids should be implemented into the MSQ as well(besides Nier for Obvious Reasons. I love Nier/Drakengard, but it has no ties to XIV's story/world. It was just fanservice that I thoroughly enjoyed). Or maybe do something with a "flashy" notification via Two Cards pop up over the Screen showing 2 Paths: Continue the Original Path, or Alliance Story Path, when the player hits those patches where those Alliance Raids & Normal Raids were implemented. Gives the illusion of Choice and of "branching pathways" imo and that illusion almost always makes a game feel/play better
yeah expect most ppl dont raid or want to in game
@@anteprs7908 that sucks lol
@@ikeaira8701 nah it fine most pol dont like to raid
Should they require them... no. There are a lot of people who wouldn't appreciate it and who wouldn't stick around. They have to take into account that there are a lot of people who don't want to be forced down that road. I say this as a person that reached the crystal tower raids right after 5.3 and I was outright angry that I had to complete the raids to progress. Now, yes, I love the story and I'm pretty obsessed but at that time, I skipped the entire raid story as fast as I could and ignored the content because I didn't want to be there. People that don't want to be there won't be paying attention anyway.
What, in my opinion, they should do is no longer omit "optional" content from the main story going forward. It feels silly that we've spent the last 3 patches with Y'Shtola going nonstop on finding a way to open a portal to the 13th and I can't once mention that I know a kid that can just do it at will and he's hanging out with two people who are from that very world or that I saw a giant flying ship that can rip open void gates with ease and I know the familiar of the mage that created it. The raid content and side content will always be available and if people reach a point in the story that they're lost on, they should absolutely be encouraged to go back and complete the relevant story but forcing raids isn't the right option. Especially since not all of them are really integral to the story (Alexander was peripherally in an optional dungeon in SHB but otherwise it's damn near non-canon). They should move forward with the main story assuming that you have completed it and then nudge the people that are confused to go back and catch up. Also, incorporating an "Active Time Lore" like FF16 with information on what source the story is drawing from would be very helpful.
In other words, incorporate all of the stories in the central arc entirely but lead players into filling in the gaps with the carrot rather than the stick. Otherwise it holds us all back for the decisions of a few.
I remember in the lead-up to the release of Shadowbringers, the devs were heavily hinting that players should go and finish the Crystal Tower raid series. They made it mandatory in 5.3 because the way the MSQ ends would have run up against a hard paradox if you hadn’t completed CT. So far, I haven’t even seen them make hints about completing some optional content, which is unfortunate. I feel like we’ll be seeing Ryne in 6.5, and having Gaia be missing from this will feel weird.
I’m so excited to see the first have some kind of impact on 6.5. Which could create some necessities for players to do the Warring Triad, the Shadowbringers job quests and Eden.
No this would be a bad change. I think at most they should change Coils of Bahamut by making the current normal "Hard" mode right underneath Savage while making a normal mode version to slot into the roulettes. While I see where you are coming from it is a place of knowing the quality of the story telling in XIV. Unless they fully remade ARR and got the new English cast to redub it and added voice acting to all of those raids to make it so there are not gaps in quality I am not for this. Also the already bad gameplay to cutscene ratio would increase with it as they also have to deal with the MSQ patches which do not provide new locations to take in.
I personally think it should be pick and choose for whats Mandatory cuz there are some that aren't SUPER relevent (but are still extremely relevant aka Void ark raids) but some can probably be passed over. This being said they need to reintroduce Binding Coils. It's just barely behind CT for relevance but unless you have people to unsync it and help you, (even then with the amount of 999,999 damage things still means probs a wipe or a few) you just can't do it as a sprout, something needs to change about it.
I think this is an okay way to approach it. You’re right, not all of them have heavy MSQ ties.
Understand that people don't raid for a number of reasons. I personally have severe anxiety around doing trial/raid content with other people. I also have physical challenges where I don't react as quickly to mechanics which leads to floor tanking which piles onto my anxiety. Raiding can also be physically painful depending on it it's a good or bad fibro day. I have done raiding content in the past (WoW vanilla and BC). We paused a number of guild raids so that someone could deal with a baby's diaper change or tuck the kids in for the night. Also understand that those of us with anxiety telling us all of these logical reasons on why we should/can raid are very frustrating. We might agree with many of your points but trying to use logic vs an emotional response is just a lose/lose argument. The person making the "logical" points is frustrated because to them we aren't trying. The person with the anxiety is frustrated because we don't feel heard/understood. Do I want to almost have a panic attack before/during every required trial? No no I don't. But I am who I am. I accept that I won't have the coolest looking gear, that I will miss very interesting story content, etc. I'm just one example of the myriad of constraints people bring with them to the game. I know it's hard to really put yourself in someone else's shoes if you have never experienced their issue even once. My husband has no issue with raiding so even he struggles with completely understanding how I feel. But rather than push the issue, he tries to help in any way he can. I love the idea of bringing the trust system to at least the 8 man raids. The difference in the level of stress I had between doing The Mothercrystal vs The Voidcast Dias was HUGE. I will get off my soapbox now but I do ask that we stay open minded and kind.
I’m right there with you! On top of my anxiety and forcing myself to raid for the lore, I made the brilliant idea to main a healer. Anxiety levels through the roof, haha. I have to keep reminding myself that the FFXIV team made this game to enjoy any way you want to, so I try not to stress myself by not doing everything. Yoshi P himself has said they wanted to make the game casual and not have to play everyday. Stay kind to yourself and enjoy your way.
I get that, 100 percent. I don’t push progression savage because I’m just not on that level as a player. You’re right, it can be demanding and frustrating. Toxic at times. I do think trusts for normal raids would be a viable option. I really enjoy doing the dungeons first with trust members. Maybe that could help as they guide you through some of the mechanics.
Thank you for your insight on this discussion, I really appreciate what you brought to the table.
I went through to the end of 6.0 without doing any optional raids. I actually regretted it and I’m now doing everything as I play through again on an alt. Doing the raids really adds so much more to the overall story of FFXIV.
That’s how I feel about it too.
I didn't even know they existed. There are a million blue quests and this was my first MMO, so I left a lot of things alone simply because I didn't know better.
Given that the most common question I hear is always "How can I solo FFXIV?" forcing raids is always going to be a tough sell.
I hate raids, hate the toxicity in the community during raids. That made me put the game down for best part of a year. I don’t think it has got any better the elitism from these players still shows today and thats why i never do them now.
I haven't done a savage in months, so if that's what you are referring to, sure. I personally haven't encountered much toxicity at all in Normal Raids & Trials, but that's only my experience. Maybe its a Crystal thing.
@@StoutHelm I don't think that potentially forcing players into doing raids and subjecting them to potential toxicity is a good idea would potentially put off new players. although toxicity has somewhat declined in normal raids and trials.
And then assholes speedrun the stuff and get annoyed by people watching the cut scenes...
Come on this argument is a total bust, when you can't enjoy the story the way you guys speed run it all.
I've gotten locked out of boss fights for watching the cut scene or getting lost not being able to find my party.
That is bad behavior on the player’s part. I know I’m always willing to sit through cutscenes and wait, others should be too. Though I know that isn’t always the case unfortunately.
This reason is exactly why they moved to have savage be released a week later
I disagree, nothing needs to be mandatory beside the MSQ. If the MSQ manage to hook you with it's story, if it makes you interested in the lore you will try the other content in search for more information. If the MSQ doesn't manage to make your thirst for more information than it doesn't matter how great the stories are in the other content because you won't pay attention to it anyway. Also don't under-rate word of mouth in the community, if some content is amazing and feels like necessary knowhow of the game the community will bully their friends to try it out =P
make them mandatory to save roulettes. there's no way a 95% chance of crystal tower is a good experience for players
So many comments saying they’re sick of CT, I think you’re on to something.
Unfortunately, that's not going to change any time soon, sadly. People literally remove their gear to basic to make sure they can game the roulette so only Labyrinth or Syrcus Tower show up, since they are so easy to just face-roll speedrun to get the daily bonus tomes. I've gotten to the point I don't even do alliance roulette anymore, cause I'm just plain tired of the Crystal Tower trilogy.
@@etainapgwynnedd827 tbf, the pretty easy fix for this is to adjust the endgame tome reward so that there's a min ilvl for it, not just a level requirement. It's both intuitive (use an endgame ready character eligible to q for endgame content to get endgame rewards) and, if more raids are made mandatory, justified as a q health measure to ensure a better new player experience (which is true! waiting 30-60 minutes at peak times for an alliance raid is offputting)
@@etainapgwynnedd827 that’s a thing? Had no idea people did that to game the system on roulettes.
@@StoutHelm It can be done on normal raid roulette aswell to only get put into alexander.
God no. We already have enough bads in the queue. Forcing people to do things that they don't want to do will just put more bads in the queue.
In advance of Endwalker, we were specifically told that the Omega raids would offer some lore, but the devs left it to individual decision to go learn it.
Keep it optional! Those who are lore whores will do the content. Those who don't care won't.
I feel so called out right now. “Lore whore” I feel unclean. Also normal and alliance raids are easy even with first time players. I don’t think it would be a big deal. Savage, don’t make that required.
@StoutHelm I'm a lore whore too, but I don't want to force people to do things they don't want to do. I've run every raid and optional story content, but not everyone plays like me, nor should they be expected to.
I've thought for a long time they should have an option in the character settings that defines where your interests lie. Story or Progression. If story, the MSQ will fit in the raid content automatically where appropriate, and progression will simply not.
im surprised alexander and omega aren't required, since they give the context of how on earth the ironworks team was able to figure out how in the fresh hell to traverse time and space in the way that they did. which was essentially via reverse-engineering a god. and then omega and its backstory get brought up in one of the *most climactic* scenes ever in Endwalker itself. it boggles the mind
One thing to note is that the post-EW 6.0 trials have all been tied into the MSQ. Previously, with the Warring Triad, the auspicious beasts, and the Weapon trials were all side content. Now, I feel like the devs are trying to nudge players into the 8-man content more firmly than before. I do wonder if the devs will find a way to add the raids into the MSQ for 7.0 now that they've added the post-MSQ trials back into the storyline.
New player here, I had to buy a story skip just for crystal tower cause for 2 days no one queued up for the last raid so this is probably not a good idea.
Really? That surprises me for Crystal tower. Not so much for some of the other ones. Sorry you had a tough time with that one friend.
I don't see a reason to make them mandatory personally. The prerequistes to unlock them are quite soft and progressing though them requires close to no investment past actually doing the raids. Yes I agree that they should be done and that they are great content but I see no reason that they need to be tied even more than they currently are to the msq especially considering how long the msq itself actually is right now. If anything I think they should implement steps to shave off filler content from the msq to lower the huge amount of time it can take to actually get it done rather than forcing players to do side content when all they might want to do is get caught up with the story to experience the game's current end game. None if this is to say that I think there's any problem with the game's story or its story telling only that the cost of such a good story is a massive time sink, so much so that i don't think it unreasonable for someone playing though at a moderate pace to take over 600 hours to get though to the end of the game. I know it took me quite a bit longer than that to get to the end of SHB and endwalker took me well over 150 hours.
I’m kinda glad I had a friend to tell me about crystal tower and the raids else I wouldn’t have been able to fully enjoy shadowbrings 😂
The implications of the last quest in 6.4 having the First involved seems like an Eden raid involvement.
Definitely, and I’m totally down for it. Bring Unukalhai and Cylva into the fold.
I feel like a good compromise to this would be that when we get to certain points in the MSQ, the game gives us a pop-up that recommends we do the side content, but also gives us the option to just skip it. If you choose to skip it, then the questline would be flagged as complete, and therefore doable in new game +, if people decide later they do want to do it. The game would of course however, act like you did do it, but since you CHOSE to skip, you'd just have to deal with it, as it's your own fault for being lazy.
Lots have suggested the same and I think that’s good common ground to land on.
I understand both sides of the argument, in that on the one hand people don't want more things, especially raids, to be required. However on the other hand, for people who enjoy the lore, having such great world building mostly left to the way-side and not being able to be brought fully to the fore-front of the msq (when relevant) hinders the main story, and lacks a greater feeling of a more interconnected world.
It saddens me as someone who has done all this content, that things from side stories that are heavily tied to the msq (like for example currently, the Nullstone from the Void Ark raid, or Unukalhai and Cylva/Cyella from the Shadowbringers role quests) will either never get acknowledged, or may only get a tiny bit of extra dialogue because it would be too confusing or complex to introduce those things for players that haven't done those storylines.
I think maybe for normal raids atleast, there could be a story mode option where you get to see the cutscenes and experience the dialogue, but NOT have to do the fights. The fights in and of themselves don't usually matter much to the story, and if you show the entry and death cinematic you've basically got all the story beats you need. If something like that was required, sure it would be a little extra hurdle for people who don't care for story to fly around the world a bit and smash the skip dialogue button, but doing it would really open up more potential for the main story in terms of what lore threads it can bring in without alienating players.
My friend got so confused while leaveling out in Heavensward, he was seeing the Void Ark in the background and didn't understand shit, until i told him that was a raid
This change would fix those sort of situations, though I get not everyone is down with the idea.
I loved the transition from crystal tower into p12
They already made Hildabrand mandatory for the relic so why not?
Solid point
Relic is optional content.
Man, I understand the sentiment, a lot, and I personally wouldn't mind that change too much, but this is a terrible idea when put into the perspective of the development team.
Remember when they made CT required content because it was just too important to the story? Yes, obviously you do, you mentioned it. Do you remember the community's reaction?
OVERWHELMINGLY negative.
So overwhelmingly negative in fact, that I could have sworn the developers said something along the lines of they weren't going to do that again because of how negative the reception was.
Guess what the community's reaction will be if more raids are made mandatory, especially Coils since it's still technically ARR content, which was specifically trimmed down to avoid being as long as it used to be and is still complained about for being a slog.
Overwhelmingly negative. Perhaps even more negative than before, because again, I could have sworn the development team said they weren't going to do that again when responding to all that backlash the first time around.
I've played all the raids so far. I find them all very fun (except the Nier ones tbh, feels just a little too far removed from FF14's general vibe for my taste), and I love the lore that we get out of them. But at NO point in the MSQ did I ever think "gee, I'm so glad I did (insert raid) so I understand what's going on." The only time during the MSQ I ever saw a raid directly, *explicitly* referenced aside from CT and their little teaser trailers at the end of each expansion's main story, was freaking Zenos with a throwaway soliloquy line in Stormblood calling us "Bahamut's conqueror." And at that point, it would be far easier to just change the line to "Eorzea's champion" or even "The Echo" or something more appropriate for Zenos to say about us anyways.
Now, do playing the currently optional raids make the story more enjoyable?
Yes. I'd personally agree with that, and I'd encourage players to go out and play the raids when they have the chance. All the raids are fun and interesting (except maybe the Nier ones imo). My personal favorite would be the Alexander raids from HW, which, as far as I can tell, is never referenced again.
Is playing the currently optional raids a requirement to understand and enjoy the story?
No. Not even a little bit.
So, if the story can already be enjoyed and understood, there is no reason to invite the same kind of community backlash that happened with CT becoming mandatory, especially for no immediate payoff somewhere else.
With CT and patch 5.3, you as a player needed to have completed the CT raids for the ending of 5.3 to make any sense at all. That was why it was made mandatory, not just because of the lore tie-in, but because of a direct plot tie-in. All the other raids only amount to lore snippets here and there when it comes to the MSQ.
I'm sure the developers want people to play those raids, because starting at the end of EW, they we start seeing implicit references to the Omega raids and even some tiny hints back towards Eden.
Curious players will find and play those raids, likely enjoy extra knowledge about the lore surrounding the world and story, and encourage others to play them, perhaps by making entertaining lore videos about them.
Incurious players will continue along without a second thought and won't find their enjoyment of the story diminished for it.
Meanwhile if they make the raids mandatory...
Those same curious players will probably mostly still stick around. Some might leave, but that would probably be a small number.
but the incurious ones? Far more of them are going to leave, complaining about game length, or que times, or just being forced to do something they weren't being forced to do before. And the unfortunate truth of the matter is, that second group is far larger in number than the first one.
TL;DR: It's a financial hit the devs have no good reason to take, because the part of the player base that would react positively to this change are almost all already able to play these raids whenever they want, and probably aren't going to leave over it not changing. Meanwhile, there is a significant portion of the player base that likely will give up and leave if the raids are made mandatory, namely the people who didn't do them and just wanted to focus on the story. There's just not enough of a net-benefit to justify that risk.
it would be the mayority of us causal(90%of the players ) we dont want to raid imagen not getting that sameway we way dont want it to be a open wolrd pvp game just becuase some randoms would want it to . if you want mandatory raids play wow(agamethat the most anti casual and anti solo freindly mmorpg ) dont force 90%of the players to do content you like sameway we dont force other players to do our conent.
@@anteprs7908 Please calm down, re-read my comment, and realize we're on the same side of this issue, thank you.
@@henryjones411 we arebut you make it seem like the majority of ppl would be find with raiding when most wouldnt .
"Meanwhile if they make the raids mandatory...
Those same curious players will probably mostly still stick around. Some might leave, but that would probably be a small number." this is what i am pointing out too.
@@anteprs7908 The players who are dubbed curious in that comment are those that would go do the raids already anyways, because they are curious enough to go out of their way to find it and do it. Players casual enough to not do the raids are grouped in with the "incurious" players, which I make a note to mention are the majority in quite literally the next paragraph.
@@henryjones411 fine enough
There is no good reason to force players to do content they dont want to do. period. the best you could do is incentivize it and make it easier to access by making it give progressively better exp and by disabling the ilvl manipulation people use to get crystal tower for fast runs. all youre going to do is build resentment in people who just want to get to endgame and dont care as much about the story where otherwise they couldve gotten bored one day and decided to do it in their off time and be more receptive to the experience. Dont force people to do content they dont want to do if your goal is wanting them to enjoy the content
I see your points. Thanks for sharing them!
I recall, I did the crystal tower because friends told me that it had some relevance to the xpack.
Good on them for looking out for you.
This is a complicated issue. Also there will be spoilers below, so be warned. Spoilers for just about all of FFXIV. I love the raids, but I also make alts and would hate to get them all full completion. I think it's also interesting when and why they make raids mandatory, because it isn't /Just/ crystal tower, it's also the four archfiends. You might say "But the archfiends are MSQ" to which I will say that's the point. Every ex pack we get 3 tiers of normal raid, 3 alliance raids, and 3 optional trials, each with their own self contained plot going on. In EW we haven't gotten a trial series, but we have gotten the same number of trials, and I think EW might be worse for it. By bundling the patch msq and the trial series together it feels like less content, and it's hard to separate out which bits would belong to what half of their content. Vrtra and Golbez are very clearly patch msq, and The hecteye talking about the archfiends are very clearly part of the trial series, but what about Zero and the dungeons? Fell court could easily be mapped to Hells Lid, or Anamnesis Anyder. You can say it doesn't matter and that content is content, but rather than getting two separate stories that each have unique themes and plots, we get one that is twice the size, and that sucks if you don't like what the current story is doing. ShB had it's grand build up of the Fandanial and the towers, and it had a sick homage to gundam and some old ff bosses. EW has Zero, and the void.
Ok, but what if they kept making these stories as they had, self contained bubbles, but just made them mandatory? Alright where do we draw the line? You say just raids, but some of the best stories are trial series, and the waring triad series is a prerequisite for the void story on the first, one that seems like it is begging to interact with msq content. What about Eureka and Bozja? Are we going to ask that for 7.0 people run island sanctuary to max, so that players aren't lost when Hyllfyr invites the WoL to a getaway on his island? The only mandatory raid we have now is crystal tower, and it wasn't made mandatory until 5.3, and I think that's telling. Shadow bringers doesn't actually change all that much if you haven't run it. The only plot hole is G'Raha not being sealed away, but you want to know what /is/ narratively affected by not running it? End walker. A big reveal early on in EW is that Fandaniel was Amaon from the crystal tower. I think that Yoshi P and crew looked at the G'Raha reveal, saw how it didn't hit for some people, and then looked at the Amon reveal, and thought "We should preempt this." Why do I think it's about Amon and not the crystal tower itself? Because the crystal tower is only one third of the important information needed to justify the shenanigan's in ShB. If they wanted to make sure everyone 'got it' they would also make Omega and Alexander mandatory. The devs know that if people want context they will do the side content, the only time it is mandatory, is if specific characters are involved, and even then, only if they are critically important to understand.
I was leveling an alt for raiding and basically went through ew having done no side content. The call back scene at the docks was hilarious, because it actually didn't change, sure a few characters were replaced by faceless npcs, and it wouldn't have hit as hard, but it works fine because the main focus was on people that were in the msq. Omega isn't required for EW even though it is super relevant. Gaia is referenced in the EW patches off hand, and Eden isn't mandatory. I think the only reason they will make a piece of MSQ mandatory is if they are staking an emotional beat on it. Otherwise they'll just assume you know where someone came from, or hand wave it.
I completely understand why they are not mandatory, but it is a huge bummer that the lore in these raids cannot be touched upon in the msq anymore than they already are. I feel the same way about the related 13th shard stuff, but that's asking a lot of people haha.
I will say to anyone with raid anxiety that the raids are very accessible in FFXIV, and the vast majority of people will not notice your mistakes, and even if they do, they will not say anything. And luckily being an asshole is reportable. Just let people know it's your first time, and they'll let you know if there's anything important to the flight. Most of the raids really enhance the story!
They absolutely can be.
'This story has backstory covered in X story series so if you want to find out the back story, go do that'
Boom. Done. People wilding that the easy thing can't be done, like they're not playing a game where a job quest villain didn't get snuck in as a major character.
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow .
This is where I’m at Kima.
I think just the raids that are directly relevant to MSQ should be required. Which right now, I think is just Omega.
I’d argue Ivalice and Pandaemonium should fall in that category too. Maybe Alexander. And depending on what happens in 6.5, Eden.
I'm beginning to wonder, from just how MSQ lore-relevant Eden and Pandaemonium are (and their stated concerns on accessibility for everyone), if SE isn't going to go with a majority-accessible path going forward by writing the MSQ and dialogue assuming that you have played optional content (even if you haven't), because of how much time it would take to keep track of every permutation of completed content. SWTOR had so much early optional content that by the time of Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne, they gave up and just treated the dialogue and options as if you had done everything including the optional stuff ( depending on who was coding that dialogue tree, they might have given you an extra dialogue option to say "I forgot, refresh my memory?"). ESO just outright lampshades that stuff ("Oh, yeah, you chose to sacrifice me, but I got better! No hard feelings!" No, seriously, that is almost literally what an early major character says upon a reintroduction two expansions later where they are a central NPC).
All the 8 mans feel like required content. The 24 mans currently are a different story.
Less so than the 8 man’s, for sure.
I don’t think this side content should be mandatory. I think that people should be made aware that things add richness and depth to the story so that they will feel encouraged to try them, but I don’t think they should be required to do them. I say this as someone who has done all of the side content other than savage. Don’t make it feel like a chore.
But I also don't think that they should ignore anything from side content in the main story. You don't need to know Gaia's backstory for Ryne to have a pouty goth girlfriend. If they want to bring some element from side story content into the main story they should just make us aware of the thing it has come from so we can go check that out if we are interested.
Edit: just noticed I forgot to include the "don't" at the beginning of the last paragraph.
Notifying players of the content would probably be a good compromise towards this.
TBH I would be ok with another crystal tower situation. Even if I dislike the alliance raid called ''Who cares of the realm''. Let's be honest the heavenward trial will be probably mandatory for next expansion.
No, raids being optional was a major draw to 14, while I do play all the normal raids, I appreciate that it was not shoved down my throat like in WoW, let players do what they want, the raids add to the msq, but is not needed.
They should be required...to a degree. I believe that the Eden Raids should've definitely been mandatory as it builds on how the flood of light began and it's during the Shadowbringers post-story. And there's a resolution at the end, so that should've been possible.
Coils...though I feel it should be necessary, it was made to be very difficult...especially turn 9...
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow .
Coils is a hard sell. Story is important but yeah, it’s not easy, and players with anxiety would struggle. Hell, even decent players would.
@@StoutHelm yep
They should probably all be required as all of em seem to have info about things we'll likely to run into. Mhach for the void stuff, Ivilice for auracite and the resistance movements in dalmasca and the like. Omga info about other stars, and the omicrons. I guess doing alexander explains a little about how time travel got the CT to the first. Only one that doesnt need to me mandatory is the neir one. Its dumb and doesnt fit into anything.
no NEVER force people to do content. thats the best hting about ff14. all besides msq is optional. and it should stay that way.
Fair point
I hope the developer of Final fantasy will fix this problems of endlees waiting to find enought player to do the raid.
Like i said before.
I spend at least 4 or 5 hours to wait after 2 days and still find not enought player to lauch the raid of Cristal tower.
Yeah something needs to change on the back end. That and other raids shouldn’t take an eternity to clear just once.
SHB and crystal towers, as wlell as the ties with the ivalice raids and pand all really make the point on why this should be at least heavily encouraged content. All of it is interconnected and builds on itself, and there is so much good storytelling opportunity that I feel they shy away from because so much of it is sourced in optional content.
as much as I would love this, I think making MSQ even longer than it already is, and will be in 7.0, would be a serious detriment to the game. it's hard enough to get new players to invest 200 hours into a game before they can do endgame, tack on another 40-50 hours for all the raids and it gets even harder. which is a real shame, because often the raid stories are referenced in future cutscenes, and if the raids were done inside of MSQ it would allow for so many more MSQ-related stories to continue on those raid stories.
I get the concern about time investment. Maybe it’s time for another quest culling like they did for between ARR and Heavensward.
@@StoutHelm I hope they do figure something out, because another 10 year of story will be crazy to cram in. I'd worry about losing much of the story to too much culling. Maybe they can release like, a full film trilogy, telling the story of ARR-Endwalker, and let newbies pick up at 7.0 and have 2.0-6.5 be "legacy" content? 🤔
Mostly I'd just love large budget film or tv series 😅
I would agree with them making those changes. If we're going to Meracydia in 7.0 people are going to probably need to complete the 4.0 alliance raids to understand some things.
which are already mandatory for Bozja
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow .
I have played for over 2 years and have done all trials (except coils) up till the start of endwalker, i have always seen the trials and alliance raids as a reward for completing the expansion and they are fun since you get to show off your glam and then get all the commends, aaww yeah
Ps. Im only 50% done with endwalker since i accidentally farmed 2: "300 frontline pvp win tittles" for myself and that takes a long time
I look at this from a different angle - I don't mind extra context being in optional raid series. Sure, Lahabrea sort of sucks unless you do Pandemonium, and you get a whole new look at Elidibus, but that's fine. If someone is happy to not have that context the game shouldn't force them. For someone like me who's here 99% for the story, it's almost more rewarding to go out of my way to do this optional stuff and be surprised with storytelling that's so relevant to the MSQ and improves my enjoyment of it.
At the same time, if they introduce things that the MSQ heavily leans on in the future in side content, I also have no issue with that being made mandatory later a la Crystal Tower. Eden really looks like it might be going that way, for instance so if 8.0 or whatever suddenly makes the concepts introduced in Eden absolutely central to the story, or if Ryne and/or Gaia wind up joining the Scions full-time in 9.0 or something then they shouldn't hesitate to make Eden mandatory - maybe you now have to complete it before you're allowed to start the 5.5 MSQ or whatever.
I do legitimately think there's value in there being very significant stories - even ones that somewhat relate to the MSQ - that aren't compulsory. Part of the joy of gaming is forging your own path, and the fact that I CHOSE to go do Omega and then 2 expansions down the line I get the Omikron stuff in the MSQ out of nowhere is rewarding in part because I had to go out of my way to do Omega - It was Endwalker, I was doing ALL the major story content, and my effort was paid off.
I also think it provides a toxic incentive. If every major story thing is compulsory, then every single story thing should feel like it's important to the MSQ, which means you can't get stories like Alexander, the Void Ark or stuff like the Four Lords - great side stories that are legitimately skippable if you only care about the MSQ. That makes the world feel small and cramped, like everything ultimately ties in to this one storyline. It's very important for FFXIV's world to feel as alive as it does to have the possibility of creating high-effort, high-production stories about weird side things that don't matter that much in the grand scope of things.
I would do the raids anyway. As long as I know about them, I’ll do them.
Maybe an in-game notification suggesting where to go to begin a raid series.
I'm going to be honest final fantasy 14 is my favorite game but I hate the raids and I would have never beat the game if they forced me to do the raids. I just find the raids to feel super padded and the encounters are just over complicated instead of making them truly difficult. They need to find away to give you the story from these raids without forcing people to play them in my opinion. The vast majority of players are not raiding, and forcing people to do stuff they don't want to will never make sense and will only hurt the game and it's player counts.
There are a lot of players like you, I get where you are coming from.
@@StoutHelm i appreciate that
It's not mandatory because casual players don't learn mechanics enough to survive a real 8 man raid, even on normal. I think mandatory alliance raids should be made from now on though.
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow . also casual players play just fine shitting on ppl becuase you think you a raider is beyond stupid .
A lot of them are on par with trial difficulty though. Just longer. Not all, but some.
@@anteprs7908 raids haven't been "forced" since ARR with crystal tower. I did eden (shadowbringers raid) for the first time in my life 2 days ago (as I considered myself a bad player up until then- having avoided any raids since black temple) and it was actually not as hard as I'd been fretting, but yet so many people still don't understand a basic stack mechanic and wipe. people just label raids as impossible as a gatekeeping tactic and so most casual players don't do them. alliance raids are extremely casual and have far more people to help you if you don't know what you're doing. they're actually fun and they have some great story which is what ffxiv thrives at.
@@StoutHelm I agree with you, but loads of players in any content don't bother to learn mechanics even when they've been taught since the early levels like 30-50. Stack is the most generic mechanic that even in endwalker dungeons, people don't get right. Raids just aren't as forgiving as a trial in terms of 3-5 people dying to a single mechanic. I feel like most normal trials you can heal/res through. Though I only just started doing raids in ffxiv a few days ago.
@@jmhmikey nobody is saying they are hard it just we dont want to do them simple as that. raiding is the most toxic activity in most mmos after pvp and in ffxiv raiders are worst then pvpers . Also alliance raids are midcore content .
My take-away here is not that raids need to be a part of the MSQ, but that the story for the MSQ this patch cycle has been exceptionally weak. There's more interesting lore/potential story implications going forward associated with Pandemonium or Myths of the Realm than there is in whatever is going on with the 13th.
Its the kinda weird sort of limbo inbetween major story-arcs,
We'll have to see if 6.5 ties into 7.0 or this will be branded as the filler arc between one major arc and the next
I don't disagree here, I think the side stories have been much better than 6.1 and beyond. But we are in that period waiting for the megaton drop for 7.0.
While the raids do provide a lot of lore about the world and game, the only reason they made CT mandatory was because of the MSQ tie in, like you said. I could agree about potentially having Pandaemonium be required, but something like Ivalice, which I'm not too sure if it's even Canon, wouldn't make sense UNLESS the next parts of MSQ are around it. Omega would make sense too considering the Omicrons, but since there is nothing left to really tie it in to the story, it wouldn't make sense anymore to me.
Not even 'msq tie in' but 'the msq is literally in a place where it cannot be done without CT being done' and that's a very high bar. 'The MSQ could reference it' is insufficient. if people don't want to do side content and interrupt the msq story to do completely different story, they shouldn't have to.
And... CT as mandatory was probably a mistake.
Why should Ivalice not be canon if I may ask?
Given that characters from Ivalice and Bozja have appeared in MSQ, no, it's canon, and pretending its not for some absurd reason doesn't change that.
@DracoSuave from what I had heard, crossover events aren't Canon in the FF14 world, but I suppose any of it could be changed whenever they decide.
@@Amooseable Return to Ivalice isn't a crossover event for FFTactics or FF12, any more than Crystal Tower is a crossover event for FF3.
Return to Ivalice is an incorporation of ideas and themes and character names in FFXIV, while changing details of those characters in order to subvert expectations and tell a completely different story, which then segues into a followup for one of the oldest plotpoints in FFXIV, the Bozja Incident.
Anyone who told you RtI is a crossover never played Tactics and never played 12, or never played RtI and has no clue what happened in any of those. They didn't recognize that FF12 references have been in 14 since ARR (what, do you think Lahabrea, Elidibus, actually all the Ascian names came out of nowhere?!) so you should not listen to them about it.
Further, Return to Ivalice actually gave the origin country of Garlemald, and Dalmasca gets referred to multiple times in the MSQ, including as one of the members of the Doman Alliance.
Anyone saying it's not canon literally does not know what canon means--they're making shit up.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow very good music choice
While not outright forcing us to do the content, it feels like they are at least pushing us to do it to unlock other new things.
Want the previous Relic weapons? Better of done Ivalice!
New Relics? Hildebrand!
Here is a while questline, Tatarus Grand Adventure. Want any lore or glams? Start unlocking them old raids and trial series or you will miss out.
So it feels like a sort of comprimise... but I agree, some things are definatly being held back. Look how much extra info about the 13th is missed out if somone hasnt done both the Warring Triad raids from Heavensward, and done all the Shadowbringers role quests.
I disagree. While I love the story and the bits of story hidden off of the msq, turning optional content into required content turns into a massive can of worms. Where do we draw the line of what is and isnt required content then? Do we force people to play the Dark Knight questline so they better understand the hardships and struggles our protagonist is going through? Do we force the Dragoon questline so that people know who Estinien is? Do we force Palace of the Dead so that people get closure on Edda Pureheart? What about the Warring Triads so that people can get like maybe 2 mentions of it later and some vague inkling of an idea about Elidibus? Do we force them to partake in PvP to understand how the grand companies are staying on their toes for the next threat? Do we force Hildibrand because its just so fun and nonsensical?
If people really want to engage in the story more, they will go to participate in the various optional content when it becomes available on their own. The game makes a big deal of whenever those quests and such open up so that players who are interested know "Ok, theres something going on there, lemme go check it out." It would be an absolutely terrible experience and pacing killer to force people into raids/alliance raids when the story is picking up as it just grinds everything to a stand still as you sit there for hours waiting for a raid queue to pop. On top of that, you then start mixing the people who actually know the raid and want to be there to play and do the content mixing in with the people who really just do not care and want to get it done and over with. Crystal Tower being made mandatory was a good thing for Shadowbringers purely because of Graha and Amon, and their relevance to the plot. And they even made it something they would touch base on later at its conclusion unlike most other optional content once you beat it. It made narrative sense to make CT mandatory, but that doesnt stop people from hating having to play it if they hate raiding. While its a great idea to have story for the raids and such to give them meaning and purpose with eventual callbacks and references later, forcing optional content just seems like a really bad idea, especially if people can choose whether they want to partake in those raids or continue with just the content that they want to do.
It's okay to make some of the raid content to be mandatory but some are too hard for ... some people .. like one time I queued for AR ended up in WOD and wiping 3x on the first boss and people already leaving coz of it. I've seen some people playing FFXIV aren't really made to do raids imho that's probably one reason the devs don't wanna make some raids mandatory, you should see vids of people cant do roulette raids wiping on Void ark etc 😂
Coils wouldn’t work. Valid point lol
The issue with the raids in the alliance raids is its content that lasted for literally a half an hour or more just to complete and the keep someone's attention for a whole half an hour doing mechanic over and over and over again for a half an hour really pisses off a lot of people real fast.
But I get some of them are not like that like Alexander raids which literally only take up the 10 minutes if you're not doing Savage which I have recently completed and I am so happy that I did because that was actually some fun content.
But then you also have examples like the Crystal Tower and the dark Ark that will literally take you a half an hour to complete and it's boring as f*** and I have seen people wiped on the Crystal Tower and then part of those groups where they wiped usually against the very last parts of the crystal tower that usually leads to that giant eye monster that has the clicking clock and Cerberus being the two that come in mind that I have seen many people get wiped at.
Me personally when I was told that I had to do the Crystal Tower before I got into shadowbringers because I was currently still in storms blood when this happened I just kind of sucked it up and just did it and it wasn't really happy about it because again the content takes a half an hour to complete.
If they want us to complete raids don't waste our time let us get in do we need to do and then get out that requires either 24 people or eight to complete in do the same exact thing as we're already doing with the dungeons they throw at us.
But this is also coming for a person that has only done raid content from A Realm Reborn and heavensward and hasn't even touched storms blood content when it comes the raids
have you ever tried to get 24 people together on this game? Making 24 man content mandatory would just see players stuck and unable to progress MSQ, this is already an issue with new players that get trapped in ARR hell because they can't get queued for crystal tower and have to hope a dozen veterans will come and help them unsync it.
requiring this type of content would require a large, and more importantly ACTIVE playerbase that this game does not have. Forcing more 24 man content would just push new players away
The only raid out of both normal and alliance raids that is somewhat unnecessary are the Nier ones, the rest are pretty plot-important and good to learn
personally with how the game is right now, I don't think making the raids mandatory is needed. The ivalice raids only really lead to bozja things and I think for that its cool. Omega and alexander raids add to endwalker and shadowbringers but not enough that I feel players should be forced to play them. Omega especially is mostly a random collection of mediocre jokes and references to other FF games. Pandemonium and myths are maybe ones I could see argued should be mandatory
i really think making them mandatory will just do more to force people to pay ridiculous amounts of money to actually get to play the newer content, and having done the entire msq now 6 times, and maybe will make another character some day, having to do almost all content in the game in order to reach the end would be horrible
You've done MSQ SIX TIMES???? I couldn't handle that haha
@@StoutHelm yeah heh.. I've made many characters and i don't have a lot of money so i just go through the msq to open up content and stuff
I haven't done Pandaemonium yet. Why? Because I'm a new player with less than four months in FFXIV and I'm still catching up on content as a whole, not just raids. I did the MSQ up to 6.4 and now I'm working on whatever I find more or less on a daily basis with a focus on "meaningful content" when it comes to achievements. So no just slaying Ifrit 2000 times for the Thrillseeker IV achievement, instead it'll be mount farming, higher difficulty content, and the like. I found the quest that unlocks Pandaemonium, but I didn't get around to doing those just yet. I'll get there eventually.
Pandaemonium (Savage) is a higher difficulty content
As a solo player I cannot recomend making in madatory. The reason is using duty finder for Omga was hell for me. Each one took at minium an hour to get people to play sometimes longer. I feel they need to do a better job letting people know about the raids instead. I didn't know about The Void Ark saga until I watched a UA-cam video. If a person is a lore nut like me they will do them as long as they are aware of them.
I'll agree for only one reason: so I can finally queue for Alliance Roulette and SOMETIMES get something else than Crystal Tower. As it stands, I just manually queue for ShB and EW raids every day then gaslight myself into believing I did my daily Alliance Roulette already.
I'm sick of Crystal Tower. Towards the end, I'd leave and take a 30 minute penalty out of sheer spite for those raids.
I hardly do that roulette for the same reason.
The problem with forcing people into these contents is that not everyone is interested in it as it just doesn't fit or work for everyone including the time for new players that really want to get into the next expansion to play with friends. Its not like I don't understand where you are coming from but how often do you queue for a trial and someone says "no idea whats going on I skipped lol", like its cool to be ignorant of whats going on.
They should probably keep things loose until they run into another point where content will we required.
The Alexander raids from Heavensward should also be mandatory AT A MINIMUM. It's just as key to understanding how something is possible in Shadowbringers (If you did the Twinning, AND Alexander then you know.) The argument for all of it to be mandatory is reinforced because Alphascape is also important to understanding part of zone 6 of Endwalker, the Four Lords was a fantastic ending to Stormblood AND also comes up in Endwalker. The Ivalice raids are required for the ShB relic weapon and some other story beats (maybe in the future??) The Eden raids are a love letter to the ARR trials and an end to (REDACTED)'s story... I think the only raids that are agnostic of the MSQ are the Nier raids, but even they have a great story with some fun moments (The dwarves breaking the fourth wall, for one)
I put off doing the raids myself because I was afraid of it being like the toxicity in WoW, but 99% of the people I've encountered in Raids are pretty warm and awesome. I agree these should absolutely be mandatory.
Raiding in XIV has been much different for me than it was in WoW. Not saying there isn't toxicity, but I've encountered far less.
@@StoutHelm It's been my experience too. In wow there was tryhards who'd scream in freaking LFR about memchanics and how people were dying, and I had a mage friend who would hang out in the back, throw a couple arcane bolts, and then start browsing on her phone. *shrug*
As a result, when I came to XIV I avoided raids until the end of Stormblood, and when I found out it wasn't life ruiningly toxic, I ended up going back to coils and downed all the available content and had a blasty blast. 10/10 recommend
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play.
and please for the love of god buff the crystal tower bosses. its not really a boss when it melts within less than a minute :/
Nice vid I heavily agree. We got 1 of the best characters in the game from the crystal tower, imagine if someone else was the exarch, how much less great his character and reveal would be
no it should stop forcing raids down our trough 90%of ppl dont do raids in modern mmorpgs we should be force to because some ppl think it a must play. this is ffxiv not wow .
@@anteprs7908 I mean it’s basically just more MSQ and trials, don’t gotta do savage. It’s easier too than some trials are
@@MrDurant123 MOST OF US DONT WANT TO RAID SIMPLE AS THAT . should we pvp and erp and rp and craft to for the msq.
ERP is a player construct but I get where you’re coming from