A "Raid", as known in the world of online multiplayer games, especially of the MMORPG variety, is a type of content or game mode that features players cooperating in a specific, instanced location and fighting against bosses. What differentiates Raids from similar combat content is their difficulty, often requiring a higher level of preparation, organization between players, and knowledge of the game mechanics.
To compensate for this generally higher level of difficulty, Raids often have the best rewards the game can offer at that time to encourage players to go through with them - though it's often coupled with Anti Poop-Socking features like limited attempts for a certain amount of time bosses can be fought to avoid people from going TOO hard on them. Also, depending on how difficult they are, the actual rewards may be more being able to brag about beating them than anything practical.
While what exactly a 'Raid' entails changes from game to game, a few common features pop up:
- The players are 'raiding' a specific location (thus the name of the mode), often an extremely climactic, elaborate setpiece that gives an overall 'theme' to the fights within.
- They often require a higher amount of players than normal, though this number can vary wildly from game to game - it can range from anywhere between a dozen or so players to around 40-50 at once!
- The Raid often features several different bosses, fought in sequence. These bosses often have abilities or special gimmicks that make them significantly tougher to fight than anything else in the game - although it should be noted that Raids that only feature one, extremely tough boss are fairly common.
Another type of 'Raid' that has been getting popular in recent times is the 'World Raid' - a singular boss with an absurdly huge healthbar. Cooperation is still present, but instead of being a direct group of players fighting the boss at once, it's a bunch of separate players slowly whittling down the boss's health bar in unsynched multiplayer.
As Raids are often considered 'endgame' and 'hardcore' content, expect a lot of Casual-Competitive Conflict whenever the topic comes up.
Examples:
Action RPG
- Destiny and Destiny 2 have Raids as the main endgame content. They are six-player instances that are near entirely focused on boss encounters, and are linear paths from start to finish. Loot chests are found in out-of-the-way locations that allow for another chance at Spoils of Conquest (the currency for raid loot) or extra rolls on armor or weapons that have been acquired already. Completing certain challenges when they're active in a week allows for an extra loot drop on a boss kill.
- The Borderlands series have Raid Bosses, powerful enemies usually fought after the main story of their respective product (either the main game or a DLC) is completed.
- Borderlands has Crawmerax the Invincible, a giant Crab Worm that is usually found three levels above the highest leveled player. It's fought at his own stage, "Crawmerax's Lair", unlocked by completing the main story of the The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC. He's the main source of Pearlescent weapons.
- Borderlands 2 has several of those, usually one or two per productnote . Each of these bosses has an Eridium cost, starting from 8 all the way to 100 depending on the boss, and in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, they can drop specific loot in addition to other Legendary, Pearlescent, and Effervescent-tier gear, and in the DLCs most of them also drop Seraph crystals and Seraph-tier weapons.
- Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! has The Invincible Sentinel, a powerful Eridian Guardian fought after clearing the main game's story mode. It's a beefed-up version of the game's final boss.
- Borderlands 3 features three Raid Bosses fought at the end of the Takedown DLCs: Wotan the Invincible (fought at the end of Takedown at the Maliwan Blacksite), Scourge the Invincible Martyr (fought at the end of Takedown at the Guardian Breach) and Hemovorous the Invincible (a Dual Boss fought alongside the returning Vermivorous the Invincible from 2, and it requires the Director's Cut DLC).
Fighting Games
- Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 has Crystal Raid Battles, where multiple people join on one team to fight one fighter, who has a very large healthbar and has abilities to stop the players in their tracks, like a move where the enemy will convert anybody near them to an enemy, and the players converted must fight themselves to get their playability back. Players can also play as the raider online.
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
- EverQuest is the Trope Namer, although it initially lacked many of the features (such as formal raid groups and a master looter role) that have come to be expected in raids.
- Final Fantasy XIV features several different types of Raids:
- Trials and Extreme Trials are singular boss fights featuring 8 players against a single powerful opponent, often fought in the middle of the main story or a specific side storyline - normal mode Trials are mandatory for story progression but don't have much in the ways of reward are casual-oriented, while Extreme Mode Trials are much more difficult, always optional, and have rewards like weapons, crafting materials and mounts.
- 'Regular' Raids have their own storyline divided into three distinct tiers for each expansion, each tier having 4 'floors' each, divided into Normal and Savage difficulties, and each floor is an instance with its own boss, which needs a group of 8 players to take down. Also, the name of the Raid storyline is more often than not an Antagonist Title, with the titular character often featuring as the overall final boss. Raids of this type include but aren't limited to the Binding Coils of Bahamut, Alexander, Omega, and Eden. Older raids like Coils and Alexander used to have exploratory sections featuring wanton slaughter of Mooks, but from Omega onwards they were streamlined into teleporting you directly in front of the boss when you enter a floor. Savage Raids are considered the true 'endgame' fights, as they drop the best available gear in any patch cycle.
- Alliance Raids require an 'Alliance' of 24 players divided into three parties of eight each - unlike normal raids, Alliance Raids are more scenic, often featuring large exploreable areas. Such Raids include the Labyrinth of the Ancients, the Void Ark, the Royal City of Rabanastre, and more. Ironically, despite requiring more players, they're actually considered easier and more casual-oriented content than regular Raids.
- Ultimate Raids are Raids on crack - while still requiring 'just' 8 players, Ultimates are considered by far the most difficult content in the game, as each is a Boss Rush remix of an entire Raid storyline into a singular instance, tuned to be as brutally difficult to clear as humanly possible and requiring a severe level of coordination between players to clear. The weapons they drop, however, are little more than a shiny Bragging Rights Reward due to being not that much statistically better than a weapon you can get through the latest Savage Raids - and if you can clear an Ultimate, you don't really need it in the first place.
- There are also a couple of special instances that aren't technically raids but function very close to one, and usually have their own special gimmicks and gameplay features. Such raids include the Baldesion Arsenal, Castrum Lacus Litore, Delibrum Reginae, and the Dalriada.
- Star Trek Online went through several names for these, which take the form of 5-player runs through scenarios that typically take somewhere in the range of 10-20 minutes to complete, and give out marks as prizes that are used as currency in fleet stores and the reputation system. Originally there was the "Special Task Force" (STF), which ostensibly applied just to a group of Borg-related raids; later the entire list was rebranded as "Task Force Operations" (TFO). These can be accessed through a menu in the user interface.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic has four-player "flashpoints" and 8- or 16-player "operations", the latter of which are restricted to subscribers.
- World of Warcraft is the Trope Codifier, although the concept precedes it by quite a bit. Due to the game's age, the concept of a "Raid" has changed considerably during the years - in vanilla and early expansions, Raids were big ordeals that often could only be reasonably challenged by organized Guilds, if only through the player count requirement of around 40, with some exceptions, and were often brutally difficult compared to anything else the game had to offer. Over the years, raids changed to fit a wider range of players and additional difficulty modes - though of course, only the highest difficulty allows you to get the highest level rewards. In general, Raids are used as capstone instances in an expansion and the climax of whatever storyline is happening at the moment, most famously the final confrontation with Arthas, the Lich King in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
Rhythm Games
- Patapon 3 has multi-floor multiplayer dungeons that can only be completed with multiple Uberheroes which contain extremely powerful threats but exceptional loot as an incentive. There are also randomly occurring superbosses that spawn out in the world, and while these can technically be killed in single-player the experience will be much easier with other players.
Role-Playing Games:
- Dragalia Lost: Raid Battles were a multiplayer format in which each player utilized their full team against a powerful boss as opposed to simply the lead party member for most other types of quests.
- Raid Battles were first utilized in Raid Events which featured a free adventurer to claim along with a powerful boss for players to team up against with multiple difficulties. Omega difficulties feature versions of these bosses that could be fought solo.
- Astral Raids featured raid bosses from past events up to Chronos. The Astral versions functioned similarly to how they did in their original events.
- Due to being a Harder Than Hard version of a raid boss, the multiplayer mode of Morsayati Reckoning is done in the raid battle format.
- While the regular fights against the sinister dominion were done in the basic format for multiplayer, their fights in Trials of the Mighty were done in the raid battle format.
- The Ur-Dragon in Dragon's Dogma is of the world raid variant - being a gigantic dragon with an absurdly high amount of HP (estimated to be in the billions) and a limited time it can be fought before it flies away, with the trick being that it keeps all the damage it takes from every single online-connected player that fights it. Subverted with the offline version of the boss, however, which is more of a classical Super Boss balanced around being fought by one player.
- The now defunct mobile RPG Grimms Notes had Boss Rush multiplayer events, which pitted a group of 4 players against a series of Damage Sponge Bosses with highly souped-up stats, including teams of 2 or 3 bosses. Trying to solo these events was pretty much asking to get your ass kicked.
- Pokémon:
- * In Pokémon GO, a raid is when an unusually powerful Pokémon takes over an existing gym for a limited amount of time. These Pokémon range from powerful legendaries that are otherwise unavailable and require large teams of players to beat, to weak one-star Pokémon that a player could feasibly handle alone. Players can access these raids by either going to the location in real life, or by using a Remote Raid Pass to complete the raid at a distance. Along with normal raid types, there are also Shadow Raids, which require a player to be in that specific location and do not work with remote raid passes. You're given a chance at catching the raid boss after defeating them.
- Taking a cue from their success in Go, Pokémon Sword and Shield offers "Max Raid Battles" with up to four players taking on a wild Pokémon in a permanent Dynamax state.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet similarly have "Tera Raid Battles", again with up to four players taking on a wild Pokémon in a permanent "Terastallized'' state. The five- and six-star raids are incredibly difficult encounters, while rare seven-star raids offer event-only Pokémon, which is always a starter Pokémon from a previous game.
- In Star Trek Timelines, members of a fleet can participate in fleet boss battles against the Doomsday machine, a boss with high attack stats and enormous health. Defeating it nets parts to level up the Captain's bridge, giving bonuses to ship abilities and other rewards.
- Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes: In Guild Raids, all members of a guild cooperate to take down the raid boss and beating its four phases to obtain raid currency, high-tier gear (for upgrading toons), and exclusive character shards (for unlocking toons). The raids include The Pit (where players face the Rancor), The Sith Triumvirate (where players face the Sith trio from KotOR II), Tank Takedown (where players destroy an AAT vehicle), and The Pit (Challenge) (where players face a juiced up version of the first raid).
