Yes, raids are end game content. In order for your character to reach max light you should have to complete the raid. Once you've completed the raid, achieved max light you've essentially beat the game. Now it's your decision whether to remain on the hamster wheel or move onto something else. In short, D2 will have an endpoint. You could argue that there wasn't an endpoint with D1. Round and round the hamster wheel.

easy. It absolutely should. And much like the OP I have not completed a few bosses too, so i understand teh "left out" feeling. However. This is not a competitive genre game such as call of duty or battlefield where you just cannon fodder until you unlock the best gear eventually through points accrued in pvp combat. this is an RPG shooter in the same genre as borderlands just a bit more pvp added in to allow the call of duty players to feel justified in the purchase. If you play this game like you play BF or CoD you will never experience it's glory or end game. you could do the light house over and over again like many cheaters(and legit *insert pronouns here*) this past year have. but you still miss the essential Destiny Experience. As an [b][u]RPG[/u][/b] shooter. See those titans with the kool raid helmet from kingsfall? That was the War-priests HEAD! i don't see a story quest capable of making you feel that good about your new gear as needing 6 people to aid you in murdering this monstrous ....thing...That is and always has been(since before many of you were born) an essential element to the single player and multiplayer RPG experience, even single player RPG's tend to develop group events where you battle some redonckulous boss and you will need several characters help to get there(ala Final Fantasy*really almost any historical Squaresoft series*, dragonage, ultima, wow, mass effect, PoE, etc,etc,etc...) take that away, and you have left the RPG fans looking else where for that experience. To make them"optional" or "unnecessary" again, I don't feel connected with the experience, or fulfilled by the achievement if it does not relate to the completion of the game itself. I i wanted to get Kneed in the face all day by Peregrine greaves, well, that is a whole other kind of mental masochism. If this bothered the Cod/BF crowds badly and they left, well PVP would suffer[temporarily], but the rest of the game would thrive again like it did in the beginning before nerfpocalypse happened. I don't think the people who consider the PvE side of the game important would be too saddened by this, I mean that Population is probably the majority of the "I have been to the lighthouse 100 times"(not because i flood the ports of your IP address when you join my game)" crowd. so TBH good riddance. Yes we all knew at least one of those people. TL:DR; Yes EndGame Raid IS and WILL ALWAYS be the Epoch for RPG style games to earn endgame and top tier gear and weapons, the alternative is Pay-to-win CoD/BF type games. Cannon-Fodder = Experience, Experience(and microtransactions) = Endgame gear. That is not fun to an RPG player.

No they shouldn't be required to finish the campaign. I made it through all raids in D1, All Hard Modes, I think all Challenge modes too and I'm saying this. I believe Luke said only 50% of the player base got through or did raids (no I don't have the exact stat but it was low) and I think it's just a bad idea to cut off that much of your player base to something that is obviously such a split appeal. It would be like requiring Crucible for campaign progress, I hope they don't do that as well because a lot of us just don't care for it. Let the stuff that appeals to specific portions of the population be outside the storyline, games that FORCE you to do things you don't like are meh.

Ghaul is killed at the end of the campaign. You didn't think he was gonna back down or run off with his tail tucked between his legs, did you? Nope. In the wake of his defeat, it sounds like we'll either retake the original Tower or build a new one, though that's largely conjecture. The really big shocker is with regards to the Traveller. At the end of the game, it wakes up, and a new Golden Age begins. As far as endings go, I think this is right up there with "Master Chief, you mind telling me what you're doing on that ship?" "Sir, finishing this fight" in terms of cliffhanger-ness.

Whether you think its a pro or con this doesnt happen in d2 already been leaked ghaul dies before raid. Raid is seperate cabal boss

I think it's simple... Have the story be seperate, but have a questline/story missions (WITH CINEMATICS) to get you ready for the enemy. Think of it as a new encounter/enemy that is very important that you meet and is a very deadly enemy, which will then be killed off in the raid. I don't really want to fight Ghaul in the raid, I'd rather him have a cool and cinematic death, not just something that dies over and over again.

Personally no, because I want that first raid experience to be like VOG. 10 hr plus experience trying to figure everything out.

You answered the question yourself. The raids are how you defeat the main bad guys. The lack of matchmaking made D1 raids more prized and coveted but it's players patting themselves for doing something everyone knows not everyone can or will do. It was basically a circle jerk. Lore wise it's a contradiction. I've never completed Kings Fall. Why am I called the slayer of Oryx? I didn't kill him. So having raids being optional is, technically, game breaking. Guided games and Clan being integrated into MM should make raids viable enough to make them focal points in actually besting the game.

No because there are those that can't won't or are just loners, and they wouldn't be able to complete the campaign.

I still feel like raids should end the story but make Ghaul last the whole year. The raid that comes out from release and dlc make the raids lead up too the end of Ghual. Like bosses of his Red Legion, drag out the story and add more story with each dlc that comes out in that year. Then went year 2 comes change the story. I like Ghual, dnt want to defeat him a month after game releases.