Eorzean Evening Post: Light Raiding in FFXIV .

Let’s talk about raiding in Final Fantasy XIV.

Wait! Wait! I don’t mean those massive old-skool raids that took all night to finish and almost just as much time to coordinate beforehand. I’m talking about a more casual kind of raiding that has introduced the concept of raids to folks who may have never set foot in a raid before. Including me.

Am I nuts to use the word “casual” and “raids” in the same sentence? Maybe a few years ago, I’d have thought so. Somehow, FFXIV makes it work, and can even entice players such as myself into trying things that previously sounded too big and scary.

 

Once a Casual Player

I’ve played numerous MMOs before FFXIV came along. Up until this point, I’ve considered myself a pretty casual gamer. I’d put a few hours here and there into a MMO, either solo or duoing with a friend. This time was usually filled by exploring, doing quests, sometimes joining a guild of sorts, and generally avoiding anything that seemed to require a group or significant time sink to play.

This meant that dungeons were commonly ignored, and raids were only things I heard other people mention. Before I played FFXIV, I might have PUGed once in a very full blue moon. Many times, I never even reached a game’s level cap, never had anywhere close to the best-in-slot items, and never cared about it, either.

I’m a player who loves to experience a game’s lore and world. If a MMO can weave a good story and give me an environment that pulls me in, then I’m hooked.

FFXIV managed to do both, but with one condition. In order to move through the story, I was forced to do group content in the form of dungeons along the way. This was a big shift in gaming mentality for me, and a sharp nudge out of my normal, casual solo-questing safe zone.

At that point, I could have decided to slowly back away from the world of Eorzea and quit the game. Or, I could muster up the courage to push through it because, darn it, I want to see what’s going to happen to these characters that I’ve come to care about!

 

A Casual Progress

FFXIV does a good job of slowly easing players into dungeons, including those who may be new to playing in a trinity group setting. These instances teach and build on each other as the player levels and earns new skills. There is a point after level 30 where you feel the game is asking for progressively more skill and attention to mechanics, but it’s usually not something a PUG can’t handle.

Add to that the fact that FFXIV is extremely good at enticing experienced and higher level players to return to low level content in the form of daily roulettes. High level players get a reward for helping newer players in the form of Tomes that allow them to gear up at end game. In turn, they can provide a solid tank, healer or DPS who has run the instance before, and may even give advice on how to clear it.

This experience doesn’t stop when you hit the previous level cap, 50. In fact, this was the point where the game started to introduce you to 8-man dungeons and trials. Then, eventually the 24-man raid known as the Crystal Tower.

Turning Midcore

Being of the casual mindset, I didn’t attempt the Crystal Tower until well after the third phase, World of Darkness, was released. By that time, Labyrinth of the Ancients and Syrcus Tower were much more easily run, and part of a weekly upgrade system for end game gear.

It was the folks in my Free Company that talked me into trying them, and I thought I was nuts for being a casual player walking into a 24-man raid. The experience was amazing, though. Three full parties of players. Massive FFIII themed locations and bosses. Mechanics that prompted players to work together to progress.

The Crystal Tower was a fantastic first raiding experience, and something that further encouraged me into end game content I didn’t expect to tackle. It also provided a way to gear up at level cap, which I’d never done in a game before.

Some people might turn their nose at the Crystal Tower calling it an ez-mode raid. After all, there’s no time spent struggling to gather the 24 people in the raid. Your party just hits it up in the Duty Finder, and the game matches you with other people who also want to play the raid.

While I’ve seen my share of wipes in Crystal Tower, I never felt the difficulty was over the top for the average player. You do have mechanics to pay attention to. But, often, you run in a group of 23 other folks who are over-geared. This means even if you stumbled your way through the run, you usually weren’t going to cause a wipe.

Once I became more accustomed to running Crystal Tower, it was the thing to introduce all new FC folks to, back before Heavensward launched. It was good for gearing, good to teach new level 50s what the game asked for in terms of mechanics and group play, and just fun because the whole FC could do it together.

Crystal Tower is one thing I miss most from the pre-Heavensward days. Sadly, unlike leveling dungeons, the raids didn’t receive an upgrade or incentive that would cause players to want to run it at level 60. It’s a real shame, because it has an amazing atmosphere and some fun boss battles.

However, the FFXIV team has mentioned that new 24-man raids are on the horizon. And for the first time ever, I’m looking forward to the raiding content.

 

Meeting Alexander

Despite all this positive talk, the truth is, I still have not attempted any of the Coil raid content. Back when this was released, it was touted as some of the most difficult content in the game, and that turned me away from trying it out.

The only problem with this was that a significant story line is locked behind progressing through Coil. So if you want to experience that story outside of YouTube, then the raid gates your chance to see it. Now that Coil allows you to enter unsynced, the story-loving folks in my FC have discussed going in as a group to do that. I like that this option is here, but am still a bit grouchy that good story is not more available to the average player.

The FFXIV team must have heard my internal grouching – or maybe more vocal folks on the forum grouched about the same thing – because the newest raid in Heavensward was designed a little differently. Alexander has two modes: normal and savage. Normal mode is designed to be similar to Crystal Tower in difficulty, there to allow more midcore folks to access the story and gear up.

Savage mode is aptly named, and intended to be the challenge that the hardcore folks crave. It provides better rewards for more risk and time invested. And while I don’t see myself playing savage mode any time in the future, I’m very happy that those who enjoy that kind of gameplay have a mode of their own.

Overall, I’m pleased that FFXIV has continued to make strides to encourage players to try gaming modes they may have never tried in the past by making it more accessible. I personally feel that when I started to play Crystal Tower, and now Alexander, that my own skills at playing my class have improved, as has my overall confidence in handling grouping situations.

I’m better at dodging. I’m learning better timing. I put effort into learning and executing proper rotations. But most of all, I’m learning how to be a better group member.

If you asked me to run a FFXIV raid a year ago, I would have laughed and noped my way out of the conversation. A lot has changed for me, and I owe it all to the way FFXIV has designed a game that sincerely works to balance the needs of the casual, midcore and hardcore players.