I think " raiding", which could means tons of different things, has a place but it's just not the norm anymore. For me what ultimately killed it, like I believe so many on this board, was that my life changed and I could no longer adhere to a schedule....or didn't want to if I physically could. Kind of like any casual activity that involves others, softball games on the weekend, book club discussions, beer and poker nights...whatever. You need everyone to attend, take it mostly seriously, and have fun. But just like these casual activities and the real thing the group ends up split.
You have some folks who want to be super elite world first never fall below 90% hp and the ones who just want to have fun. I have insane playtime in EQ, moderate in WoW, and then a sprinkle in about 10 other MMOs I've tried with FFXIV being the next in line. I just have zero desire to be part of the world first club anymore. None, but I do like seeing content, else why bother playing the game. WoW really opened my eyes to this, that everyone should be able to see or do the zone, but just make some achievement with an extra reward for beating the boss with all slugs up or whatever. The hardcores have a carrot and I get to play.
I think the common misconception is that you cannot have a good strategy or fight in small groups. It has some merit because 1/5 fucking up is statistically worse than 1/30 or whatever. But I thought FFXIV did an awesome job with making small group fights unique and challenging. I'd compare to modern day WoW but I have not played that in a long time. But in FFXIV you can outgear something and still lose because you fucked it up. Obviously uber players find it easy and the casuals sometimes hard, but overall it's not a terrible balance.
I do like the idea of FATE/RIFTs from their respective games. Where anyone can just join and participate without forming this elite strat raid team. I also liked WoW's 10 mans which were 2 groups sizes. That to me is big enough to add complexity but not so huge it becomes stupid to manage. FFXIV has this with some of their 8-10 mans, but then they also had the huge raids and those are just not as fun!
I think the major thing companies can do to make raids fun is eliminate prep time and make mistakes less costly(to a degree).
1.) what I mean by eliminate prep time is make buffs auras that anyone in group/raid gets, repairs are stupid, find a better money sink, and have less trash unless it is there because it's part of the encounter. 30 people killing a few goblins that are the same as 5 man goblins but stronger is stupid. They can also put lots of tools in game to monitor things like who loots, attendance, dkp or whatever system people use now, etc.
2.) I won't touch on the make mistakes less costly thing because it gets too complicated but 1 person fucking up should not make lose the encounter....maybe it just makes you lose that uber achievement of doing the encounter while wearing a penguin hat or whatever.
