Guys, there's a big difference between how a game CAN be played and how you CHOOSE to play.
I see people complaining about raiding becoming like a job, hating the schedules and all that - Why not stop? Why let it get to the point where you are?
You don't NEED to have the best gear, you want to have the best gear. In wanting to have the best gear you put up with seemingly unreasonable things.
Just about anything can be harmful to you if you overdo it. Aspirin, for example, will kill you if you take too many. MMOs and video games are no different. Some of you people 'overdo' MMOs and then complain like the game has somehow wronged you.
As for 'schedules' - I think MMOs need them. What makes MMOs fun is the more massive scale activities. At least instanced games you can make your schedule. Imagine games where you have to camp mobs or something like EVE where your space can be attacked during Australian timezone if your enemies want.
It's not ABOUT "overdoing" anything. It's about the only choice for endgame is raiding. It's not like most games give you a lot of other choice or even ANY other choice.....what....grinding dailies is an option, I guess....a bad option, but an option no less.
The anger toward the game, at least for me, is that it's lazy of the developer to just expect people (everyone) to endlessly repeat dungeons over and over and over and over and over....I mean COME ON! It's mind numbingly boring AND resembles a job.....one I'm not getting paid to do. Or if the "loot" is considered pay....it's a meager existence when you're rolling for it.
Raiding just sucks because it's an ONLY option. Like I said....I wouldn't wish it away from the people that enjoy it, but I think there should be some other options.
Options other than raiding such as?
Things to do at endgame BESIDES raiding:
A larger assortment of smaller group dungeons....say with different paths (ala GW2 dungeons).
Player housing that can be customized endlessly and maybe even crafted for....this has been a great endgame boon for me in EQ2.
Collections...a large variety of collections you can find by picking up sparklies on the ground or some other method,
Hidden caches hidden at explorable places in the game that are hard to get to
Mini games are good, at least for a while, even though they would bore me eventually too.
That's four things, but if I sat here for five minutes longer I could think of more. I'm just sick of raiding being the ultimate end all choice. And I don't consider daily quests....much of a choice. People do those just for the gold, not because you ENJOY them after the 20th damn time.
Let's use WOW as an example. I LOVED playing the game when I was at the part of the game where you can level, do quests, collect pets, etc... but once I made it to end game and joined a raiding guild (made up of real life friends), shite hit the fan.
In order to keep up with "end game", this is what I needed to do:
1. Raid Monday - Thursday from 7:30 - 11:30 each night. This was considered an raiding guild for people with jobs/family.
2. I needed to do dailies in order to get my enchants needed to survive raids.
3. I needed to go fishing and cook food for raiding (mage I played)
4. I needed to make sure my DPS was top notch since there were 10 other mages begging to get into the raids daily.
5. I needed to chane play styles and cater to the "build of the week".
6. I needed to depend on others to log in on time so we could get stuff done
7. I needed to listen to friends who leveled for months together turn into bickering enemies.
Raiding turned into another job. Once I found out my wife was preggo's and I realized that I couldn't dedicate my entire life to continue playing a game, I quit. I LOVED playing before I got to the raiding aspect. Once It turned into a necessary job, I had to abandon ship.
Also, It would be awesome if I can get "end game" items in other ways than raiding. Why can't I start a LOOOONNGGG and time consuming quest to get the same items?? Blizz stated that raiding gives you the epic items as a reward for completed the hard content. I think that completed a long and tedious quest can be just as "hard" as running the SAME exact dungeon over and over and over and over again until your eyes bleed.
This is why GW2 is definitely on my radar. I want to explore and adventure, not clock into another job with a time card.
This is where I dont understand your beef with raiding.
You only need the gear (and why you say the only way to progress your character is with that gear I dont really know) is to get better gear for more and harder raids.
So, if you dont like raiding, and DONT raid cant you continue to collect pets/achievments and do more quests lvl and alt and keep playing the game?
Or that gear is REALLY necessary for stuff you dont want to do?
I played mostly PVE on a PVP server (When the game started, I was under the impression that PVP and PVE gear would be balanced, boy was I wrong). Gear mattered more than skill in my opinion. If I didn't have "similar" gear to the ganker making my daily/questing/exploring life hard, I would almost always lose. Plus, an MMO is about advancing your character. Adding improvements to your character whether they are from gear or fluff is the whole point. I just wish that there were alternative routes to obtaining these rewards. I promise that killing the same bosses every week for fun isn't the only "respectable" way to show you are a dedicated player. Like I said, give me a challenging quest line that I can complete at my own pace (not a schedule) and I will have earned my reward just as respectable as the player who decided to make MMO end game their second career.
I would also like to add that end game raiding was getting so serious that the whole experience took me out of the immersion. In order to raid I would have to talk on vent and download add-ons. Some people like that route, but it wasn't my cup of tea. 90% of the game didn't need schedules, ventrillo, add-ons, etc.....then all of a sudden, GAME CHANGE!
Guys, there's a big difference between how a game CAN be played and how you CHOOSE to play.
I see people complaining about raiding becoming like a job, hating the schedules and all that - Why not stop? Why let it get to the point where you are?
You don't NEED to have the best gear, you want to have the best gear. In wanting to have the best gear you put up with seemingly unreasonable things.
Just about anything can be harmful to you if you overdo it. Aspirin, for example, will kill you if you take too many. MMOs and video games are no different. Some of you people 'overdo' MMOs and then complain like the game has somehow wronged you.
As for 'schedules' - I think MMOs need them. What makes MMOs fun is the more massive scale activities. At least instanced games you can make your schedule. Imagine games where you have to camp mobs or something like EVE where your space can be attacked during Australian timezone if your enemies want.
It's not ABOUT "overdoing" anything. It's about the only choice for endgame is raiding. It's not like most games give you a lot of other choice or even ANY other choice.....what....grinding dailies is an option, I guess....a bad option, but an option no less.
The anger toward the game, at least for me, is that it's lazy of the developer to just expect people (everyone) to endlessly repeat dungeons over and over and over and over and over....I mean COME ON! It's mind numbingly boring AND resembles a job.....one I'm not getting paid to do. Or if the "loot" is considered pay....it's a meager existence when you're rolling for it.
Raiding just sucks because it's an ONLY option. Like I said....I wouldn't wish it away from the people that enjoy it, but I think there should be some other options.
Options other than raiding such as?
Things to do at endgame BESIDES raiding:
A larger assortment of smaller group dungeons....say with different paths (ala GW2 dungeons).
Player housing that can be customized endlessly and maybe even crafted for....this has been a great endgame boon for me in EQ2.
Collections...a large variety of collections you can find by picking up sparklies on the ground or some other method,
Hidden caches hidden at explorable places in the game that are hard to get to
Mini games are good, at least for a while, even though they would bore me eventually too.
That's four things, but if I sat here for five minutes longer I could think of more. I'm just sick of raiding being the ultimate end all choice. And I don't consider daily quests....much of a choice. People do those just for the gold, not because you ENJOY them after the 20th damn time.
These aren't alternatives to raiding though. You appreciate them because of the fact that they are added on top of the raiding that you obviously take for granted. What you're looking for with all of that is fluff, that's not really an alternative to raiding for end-game. What you mentioned would be welcome by most, but not if it were to replace raiding.
Yep, I gave up Raiding over 10 years ago. It feels more like a chore than actual relaxation. Too many people have no clue and won't even listen to friendly advice and several people invariably don't even turn up on time (if at all) and then there's always one or two AFK'ers where Mummy tells them they have to do chores, eat a meal or go to beddy-byes. Then there's all the drama, tears, ninja-looting and whining during the raid... Nah, no way I'll ever go back to Raiding, no matter WHAT the MMO is. If I haven't missed it in ten years I never will.
Guys, there's a big difference between how a game CAN be played and how you CHOOSE to play.
I see people complaining about raiding becoming like a job, hating the schedules and all that - Why not stop? Why let it get to the point where you are?
You don't NEED to have the best gear, you want to have the best gear. In wanting to have the best gear you put up with seemingly unreasonable things.
Just about anything can be harmful to you if you overdo it. Aspirin, for example, will kill you if you take too many. MMOs and video games are no different. Some of you people 'overdo' MMOs and then complain like the game has somehow wronged you.
As for 'schedules' - I think MMOs need them. What makes MMOs fun is the more massive scale activities. At least instanced games you can make your schedule. Imagine games where you have to camp mobs or something like EVE where your space can be attacked during Australian timezone if your enemies want.
It's not ABOUT "overdoing" anything. It's about the only choice for endgame is raiding. It's not like most games give you a lot of other choice or even ANY other choice.....what....grinding dailies is an option, I guess....a bad option, but an option no less.
The anger toward the game, at least for me, is that it's lazy of the developer to just expect people (everyone) to endlessly repeat dungeons over and over and over and over and over....I mean COME ON! It's mind numbingly boring AND resembles a job.....one I'm not getting paid to do. Or if the "loot" is considered pay....it's a meager existence when you're rolling for it.
Raiding just sucks because it's an ONLY option. Like I said....I wouldn't wish it away from the people that enjoy it, but I think there should be some other options.
Options other than raiding such as?
Things to do at endgame BESIDES raiding:
A larger assortment of smaller group dungeons....say with different paths (ala GW2 dungeons).
Player housing that can be customized endlessly and maybe even crafted for....this has been a great endgame boon for me in EQ2.
Collections...a large variety of collections you can find by picking up sparklies on the ground or some other method,
Hidden caches hidden at explorable places in the game that are hard to get to
Mini games are good, at least for a while, even though they would bore me eventually too.
That's four things, but if I sat here for five minutes longer I could think of more. I'm just sick of raiding being the ultimate end all choice. And I don't consider daily quests....much of a choice. People do those just for the gold, not because you ENJOY them after the 20th damn time.
These aren't alternatives to raiding though. You appreciate them because of the fact that they are added on top of the raiding that you obviously take for granted. What you're looking for with all of that is fluff, that's not really an alternative to raiding for end-game. What you mentioned would be welcome by most, but not if it were to replace raiding.
Actually, EVE provides for all of those activities listed above and then some, yet all without 'raiding' in the traditional sense, although one could argue that large fleet fights are the EVE equivalent of organized raiding, just without all the fancy dance moves.
There is nothing wrong with raiding as one of many alternatives to advancement/fun in an MMORPG, but when the gameplay is designed so that the only real way to progress your character (to the top) is to participate in raiding, then they've lost me.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I like raiding. I raided for a long time in EQ1 and led raids which is probably more stressful than raiding in any other game due to the size of the raids.
However, I lose interest when I reach the point that the only thing for me to do in a game is raid. I recently played RIFT for about four months. While I enjoyed the game, it quickly got to the point where the only way to advance my character was to raid, which caused me to cancel my account, becuse I want to do other things to, not just raid.
Let's use WOW as an example. I LOVED playing the game when I was at the part of the game where you can level, do quests, collect pets, etc... but once I made it to end game and joined a raiding guild (made up of real life friends), shite hit the fan.
In order to keep up with "end game", this is what I needed to do:
1. Raid Monday - Thursday from 7:30 - 11:30 each night. This was considered an raiding guild for people with jobs/family.
2. I needed to do dailies in order to get my enchants needed to survive raids.
3. I needed to go fishing and cook food for raiding (mage I played)
4. I needed to make sure my DPS was top notch since there were 10 other mages begging to get into the raids daily.
5. I needed to chane play styles and cater to the "build of the week".
6. I needed to depend on others to log in on time so we could get stuff done
7. I needed to listen to friends who leveled for months together turn into bickering enemies.
Raiding turned into another job. Once I found out my wife was preggo's and I realized that I couldn't dedicate my entire life to continue playing a game, I quit. I LOVED playing before I got to the raiding aspect. Once It turned into a necessary job, I had to abandon ship.
If you were spending all this time getting ready to raid and then finally raid how did your wife get pregnant?
I love wow still course i love to re roll alts. That said i love to raid also. I dont seem to get bored with it although i can get bored of heroics.
i think tor has a good idea in that its gonna have a whole planet devoted to end game pve that is for the solo player. They have a planet devoted to pvp also for the pvp enthusiast who wants something other then bgs for pvp.
I think the story in tor will make rerolling a lot more fun. I am getting a bit bored in cata ill admit. while i lilke the revamped old world there are things about cata that havent appealed to me and alot of my freinds have abandoned ship so im not playing with people i used to anymore which sucks
That said raiding can be fun as long as people dont take it to seriously. In tor u wont have to do heroics to enter a raid either your class story gear is good enough to get u into the raid at its low difficulty setting so less of a barrier to entry may help with that. Pugs will be easier to get for those that dont wanna make it a job.
Raiding can be fun if its not a job and used as another means of having fun with freinds.
I raid to get better equipment so I can raid to get better equipment so I can raid to get better equipment because my game sucks.
Such a terrible system.
Very well put!
I agree. Very well said!
second that. Its an old model, time for mmorgs to evolve again. chop chop Archage
I third it!? ( haha ) Yes, I agree with that as well. People moan about the "same quests, kill this, kill that return with this".. and many (not all) Dont see that, raiding the SAME dungeons is the same friggin thing, but in many cases, ya dont get the drop you want or need.
What I find dumb is joining a guild before you join a guild. Really?.. Yes really, many times I heard people leaving their guild they've been with since they first started to join a bigger "RAID" guild. Gee, thanks for showing your devotion to yourself rather than the people who helped you when you were down and out, bored and unsure where to go , what to do. Yes, play the game cause you want the things, play how you desire cause your paying for it, but .. some things and ideas, are just plain sad in a game. ( As always, opinions , be nice! )
I feel the same way. I have not done any RAIDS since I left WoW, and in fact I stopped after my first several RAIDS in WoW due to would you believe "grown ups" who treated everyone like they were 3 year olds.
Thast and the fact it takes too long to organzise, and only a few minutes to fail from people coming and going. Its a waste of time.
Well, I must say the OP has summed up exactly what I feel. The most recent example of this is WOW. I came back after a 4-year hiatus and had an absolute blast for four months while leveling up my primary and a few alts. I eventually reached the same point (must raid to progress) and became incredibly bored with the game. I raided for two months and remembered why I quit in the first place. It was liberating to quit again.
I simply don't raid. It's boring for me. I can think of many different timesinks that are a heck of a lot more fun.
I feel the same way. I have not done any RAIDS since I left WoW, and in fact I stopped after my first several RAIDS in WoW due to would you believe "grown ups" who treated everyone like they were 3 year olds.
Thast and the fact it takes too long to organzise, and only a few minutes to fail from people coming and going. Its a waste of time.
It is not a waste of time for people who likes raiding.
The problem really isn't raids but the fact that your alternatives at the endgame is too few. Raiding, dailies and battlegrounds gets boring after a while. And it doesn't help that raiding really is the only alternative for PvE players that wants good gear either.
I don't mind that a game have raids, they can be fun at times. But they are no excuse for having only easy content with low award for regular groups.
MMOs should be about choices and the more choices you have the better. Taking away raids is bad since it would further limit the choices, adding more stuff to do in the endgame is better.
They really enjoy a game, questing is great, pvp, dungeons, crafting. This entire time your doing what you want to do and how you want to do it.
You group when you want, you play solo or in a small group and advance your character when you want to.
That is until you hit this wall and are required to raid if you want to continue to progress.
You're not alone. mmorpg enthusiasts are looking for more content, pve and pvp breadth and depth of game-play, as opposed to game-play and supposed content being relegated to repeating the same content over and over and over again.
Perhaps a contributor to many mainstream mmorpg's selling close to 1 million boxes, yet only retaining ~70% of their player-base 6-months to a year out. I'm sure Raiding the same content ad nauseum, as a smoke-screen for entertainment and game-play, is considered a waste of time to many of them.
Raids shouldn't be removed, but improved-upon; improved into something that warrents continued instanced and open-world community-centric game-play, incentivised world and community-involvement meaning, with purpose, risks, rewards.
But my experience is that that improvement doesn't exist yet. It certainly can't be accomplished by repeating the same content constantly in an attempt to get a purple item from an npc as the incentive. That I dont get.
I am with the OP raiding is a chore. Not saying take it out but give us options. Maybe even crafting or exploring alternatives with a different appearance and stats. Like if you complete the epic explorer set you get special mounts, perm speed buffs, a title and whatever. I have tried raiding but frankly in alll my experiences I have seen inmates with more respect for humanity. I have firends who love to raid and i know them enough not to talk to them on raid nights as the are in raid mode and as such are not capable of behaving in an acceptable manner. Perhaps I have just been unlucky but I have yet to fiuind a riad guild that did not feel like a second job epeen flex fest.
I loose interest once my character stops leveling and gear farming is the only way to progress. Since leveling doesn't really mean anything anymore I loose interest pretty quickly.
Comments
Things to do at endgame BESIDES raiding:
A larger assortment of smaller group dungeons....say with different paths (ala GW2 dungeons).
Player housing that can be customized endlessly and maybe even crafted for....this has been a great endgame boon for me in EQ2.
Collections...a large variety of collections you can find by picking up sparklies on the ground or some other method,
Hidden caches hidden at explorable places in the game that are hard to get to
Mini games are good, at least for a while, even though they would bore me eventually too.
That's four things, but if I sat here for five minutes longer I could think of more. I'm just sick of raiding being the ultimate end all choice. And I don't consider daily quests....much of a choice. People do those just for the gold, not because you ENJOY them after the 20th damn time.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
.
I played mostly PVE on a PVP server (When the game started, I was under the impression that PVP and PVE gear would be balanced, boy was I wrong). Gear mattered more than skill in my opinion. If I didn't have "similar" gear to the ganker making my daily/questing/exploring life hard, I would almost always lose. Plus, an MMO is about advancing your character. Adding improvements to your character whether they are from gear or fluff is the whole point. I just wish that there were alternative routes to obtaining these rewards. I promise that killing the same bosses every week for fun isn't the only "respectable" way to show you are a dedicated player. Like I said, give me a challenging quest line that I can complete at my own pace (not a schedule) and I will have earned my reward just as respectable as the player who decided to make MMO end game their second career.
I would also like to add that end game raiding was getting so serious that the whole experience took me out of the immersion. In order to raid I would have to talk on vent and download add-ons. Some people like that route, but it wasn't my cup of tea. 90% of the game didn't need schedules, ventrillo, add-ons, etc.....then all of a sudden, GAME CHANGE!
These aren't alternatives to raiding though. You appreciate them because of the fact that they are added on top of the raiding that you obviously take for granted. What you're looking for with all of that is fluff, that's not really an alternative to raiding for end-game. What you mentioned would be welcome by most, but not if it were to replace raiding.
Yep, I gave up Raiding over 10 years ago. It feels more like a chore than actual relaxation. Too many people have no clue and won't even listen to friendly advice and several people invariably don't even turn up on time (if at all) and then there's always one or two AFK'ers where Mummy tells them they have to do chores, eat a meal or go to beddy-byes. Then there's all the drama, tears, ninja-looting and whining during the raid... Nah, no way I'll ever go back to Raiding, no matter WHAT the MMO is. If I haven't missed it in ten years I never will.
Actually, EVE provides for all of those activities listed above and then some, yet all without 'raiding' in the traditional sense, although one could argue that large fleet fights are the EVE equivalent of organized raiding, just without all the fancy dance moves.
There is nothing wrong with raiding as one of many alternatives to advancement/fun in an MMORPG, but when the gameplay is designed so that the only real way to progress your character (to the top) is to participate in raiding, then they've lost me.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I raid to get better equipment so I can raid to get better equipment so I can raid to get better equipment because my game sucks.
Such a terrible system.
It's all about the numbers.
We should make a PSA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fordPXp06h4
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Yep that's pretty much raiding right there. Braincell death included.
Pretty much yeah.
Also...carrots.
I like raiding. I raided for a long time in EQ1 and led raids which is probably more stressful than raiding in any other game due to the size of the raids.
However, I lose interest when I reach the point that the only thing for me to do in a game is raid. I recently played RIFT for about four months. While I enjoyed the game, it quickly got to the point where the only way to advance my character was to raid, which caused me to cancel my account, becuse I want to do other things to, not just raid.
Very well put!
I agree. Very well said!
second that. Its an old model, time for mmorgs to evolve again. chop chop Archage
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I love wow still course i love to re roll alts. That said i love to raid also. I dont seem to get bored with it although i can get bored of heroics.
i think tor has a good idea in that its gonna have a whole planet devoted to end game pve that is for the solo player. They have a planet devoted to pvp also for the pvp enthusiast who wants something other then bgs for pvp.
I think the story in tor will make rerolling a lot more fun. I am getting a bit bored in cata ill admit. while i lilke the revamped old world there are things about cata that havent appealed to me and alot of my freinds have abandoned ship so im not playing with people i used to anymore which sucks
That said raiding can be fun as long as people dont take it to seriously. In tor u wont have to do heroics to enter a raid either your class story gear is good enough to get u into the raid at its low difficulty setting so less of a barrier to entry may help with that. Pugs will be easier to get for those that dont wanna make it a job.
Raiding can be fun if its not a job and used as another means of having fun with freinds.
I third it!? ( haha ) Yes, I agree with that as well. People moan about the "same quests, kill this, kill that return with this".. and many (not all) Dont see that, raiding the SAME dungeons is the same friggin thing, but in many cases, ya dont get the drop you want or need.
What I find dumb is joining a guild before you join a guild. Really?.. Yes really, many times I heard people leaving their guild they've been with since they first started to join a bigger "RAID" guild. Gee, thanks for showing your devotion to yourself rather than the people who helped you when you were down and out, bored and unsure where to go , what to do. Yes, play the game cause you want the things, play how you desire cause your paying for it, but .. some things and ideas, are just plain sad in a game. ( As always, opinions , be nice! )
I feel the same way. I have not done any RAIDS since I left WoW, and in fact I stopped after my first several RAIDS in WoW due to would you believe "grown ups" who treated everyone like they were 3 year olds.
Thast and the fact it takes too long to organzise, and only a few minutes to fail from people coming and going. Its a waste of time.
Well, I must say the OP has summed up exactly what I feel. The most recent example of this is WOW. I came back after a 4-year hiatus and had an absolute blast for four months while leveling up my primary and a few alts. I eventually reached the same point (must raid to progress) and became incredibly bored with the game. I raided for two months and remembered why I quit in the first place. It was liberating to quit again.
I simply don't raid. It's boring for me. I can think of many different timesinks that are a heck of a lot more fun.
It is not a waste of time for people who likes raiding.
The problem really isn't raids but the fact that your alternatives at the endgame is too few. Raiding, dailies and battlegrounds gets boring after a while. And it doesn't help that raiding really is the only alternative for PvE players that wants good gear either.
I don't mind that a game have raids, they can be fun at times. But they are no excuse for having only easy content with low award for regular groups.
MMOs should be about choices and the more choices you have the better. Taking away raids is bad since it would further limit the choices, adding more stuff to do in the endgame is better.
You're not alone. mmorpg enthusiasts are looking for more content, pve and pvp breadth and depth of game-play, as opposed to game-play and supposed content being relegated to repeating the same content over and over and over again.
Perhaps a contributor to many mainstream mmorpg's selling close to 1 million boxes, yet only retaining ~70% of their player-base 6-months to a year out. I'm sure Raiding the same content ad nauseum, as a smoke-screen for entertainment and game-play, is considered a waste of time to many of them.
Raids shouldn't be removed, but improved-upon; improved into something that warrents continued instanced and open-world community-centric game-play, incentivised world and community-involvement meaning, with purpose, risks, rewards.
But my experience is that that improvement doesn't exist yet. It certainly can't be accomplished by repeating the same content constantly in an attempt to get a purple item from an npc as the incentive. That I dont get.
LMAO
The following statement is false
The previous statement is true
I am with the OP raiding is a chore. Not saying take it out but give us options. Maybe even crafting or exploring alternatives with a different appearance and stats. Like if you complete the epic explorer set you get special mounts, perm speed buffs, a title and whatever. I have tried raiding but frankly in alll my experiences I have seen inmates with more respect for humanity. I have firends who love to raid and i know them enough not to talk to them on raid nights as the are in raid mode and as such are not capable of behaving in an acceptable manner. Perhaps I have just been unlucky but I have yet to fiuind a riad guild that did not feel like a second job epeen flex fest.
I loose interest once my character stops leveling and gear farming is the only way to progress. Since leveling doesn't really mean anything anymore I loose interest pretty quickly.