Roulette Exploits

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Originally Posted by Leyllara

Considering we have 4 series of Alliances so far, 12 raids in total, every raid should have an equal 8.3% chance of showing up in a roulette queue, unless of course someone is exploiting a system mechanic to eliminate some of the possible results.

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Nope, never going to happen.

1. Alliance Roulette is one of the best sources of EXP, which means it's incredibly likely that those queuing for it are below level 90, very likely below level 80, fairly likely below level 70... etc.
So you're more likely to have players who cannot run the higher duties.

2. Many players don't unlock all of the side content. It's likely that at least one out of the 24 haven't unlocked the Mhachi raids, or maybe one hasn't unlocked Nier, and although Ivalice is required for Bozja even that is old content now, so it's not unlikely that someone doesn't have those unlocked.
Get one player of each and you're limited to the level 50 raids, the only ones everyone has to unlock.

Even if you eliminate this "exploit", the result isn't going to be much different.

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Originally Posted by computerquip

Well, I'm not saying that it effects the queue *that* much but it probably does effect the queue some given how many people are doing it. The exploit is pretty simple, take off clothes to lower ilvl so you get a level 50 alliance. They do this because those are faster. Simple as that.

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They also give memories.

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Originally Posted by Juun

They also give memories.

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A serious failure of the schedule design for the Resistance weapons. The Mhach and Ivalice raids should have been positioned so you continue to get something beneficial from them every time they come up in roulette, not forcing people to rush them multiple times on Day 1 and then never touch them again.

I'm at that step on an alt and I want to do it organically through the roulette, but the duties just don't come up often enough to get through it in a reasonable time. Needing one or two runs per weapon would have been much better than front-loading five of each. People would need to do more runs overall if they're collecting weapons, but at a steadier pace.

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Originally Posted by Leyllara

2PM Gmt -3 on Sunday, NA servers, Puppet's Bunker. It is included on roulette, so there's no reason it should take THAT long to find a party. Considering we have 4 series of Alliances so far, 12 raids in total, every raid should have an equal 8.3% chance of showing up in a roulette queue, unless of course someone is exploiting a system mechanic to eliminate some of the possible results.

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Roulette is there for whatever instance is in need of filling up right now and there are going to be far more lower level instances than higher level instances. Crystal tower is an msq requirement while none of the others are. I'm not denying that syrcus baiting isnt happening, I've seen it myself. But that is not actually enough proof that it's skewing anything. All you need for the roulette to force a syrcus or lota run is one person to either: be there for MSQ, have job level below 60, trying to get any of the relic stuff from there or not have the other raids unlocked. Those are all legitimate.

My guess is that the only thing ilvl cheese is changing is that it guarantees you a spot in lota or syrcus while possibly taking that spot away from someone else who will now get any of the other raids. I say this because for a bit I queued up with someone doing the ilvl cheese. Predictably we only got lota and syrcus. Whenever I didnt go with them, I never got either of these. When I queue with my max level jobs I frequently get one of the 70 or 80 raids.

Man, I guess those players right below level 60 are plotting against you, huh OP?

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Originally Posted by Azuri

So you are saying people actually don't want to run high level duties? Maybe SE should look into why players avoid those and not try to bully us into doing content we don't want to do... Just saying.

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If you're afraid of getting a challenging alliance raid then don't queue for the roulette. Period. Being able to force 23 other people into a lvl 50 raid is a loophole (exploit) in the roulette system, and has a negative effect on people who want to enjoy a variety of raids. If the exploit gets patched and forces people like you out of the alliance roulette, then that's just side bonus in my view.

I know several players who did not unlock anything beyond the ARR raids so they will only get those. The stories about the ivalice raids keep them from unlocking anything else.

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Originally Posted by Sacred-Oblivion

If you're afraid of getting a challenging alliance raid then don't queue for the roulette. Period. Being able to force 23 other people into a lvl 50 raid is a loophole (exploit) in the roulette system, and has a negative effect on people who want to enjoy a variety of raids. If the exploit gets patched and forces people like you out of the alliance roulette, then that's just side bonus in my view.

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I can get X reward for doing a 15-minute raid or the same X reward for suffering an hour long slog full of 60% gcd uptime heroes. The choice is obvious.

Also, roulettes are there to fill queues, not "enjoy variety of raids". May I advise to use direct queuing option for those?

There is an issue when the queue breaks and you are no longer be matched. This has happened to me 3 times since 2.0.

in your case, the problem is they need to queue people's highest content down.

However, they don't want to do this because they want as many new players to think the game is great with short queues.

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Originally Posted by Sacred-Oblivion

If you're afraid of getting a challenging alliance raid then don't queue for the roulette. Period. Being able to force 23 other people into a lvl 50 raid is a loophole (exploit) in the roulette system, and has a negative effect on people who want to enjoy a variety of raids. If the exploit gets patched and forces people like you out of the alliance roulette, then that's just side bonus in my view.

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If you hate the result you're getting so much, maybe you should stop queueing. ~Period~. If you want higher level raids so bad, you could even try queueing directly since you don't seem to understand there are more reasons than just this "exploit" that cause people to get CT.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Um no, some people like me go do other stuff like hunts, FATES or beast tribes while we wait for queue and usually I toggle between jobs while I'm at it.

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Then lock in the gear you que with so you can’t switch back to your highest one when it pops.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Easy solution to that is simply making it a prerequisite to access Alliance Roulette not unlike how Expert Roulettes gets locked every time patch that releases a new dungeon. How would that work? Put it behind finishing each expansion's final quest just like Crystal Tower.

For example sake on how this could work. If you have a level 70 job, you must have unlocked and completed all three Ivalice raids, and then meet the min ilvl for Orbonne Monastery to access Alliance Roulette.

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This... but I imagine it a bit differently.

A) Lose entire access to the roulette period, similar to expert, until the "current" raid is completed based on the players MSQ progress.
For example: at x.1, x.3, x.5 MSQ progress players lose access to the entire roulette until they complete the alliance raid associated with that current patch. So a player that has only progressed to say... 4.3 in MSQ, who then decides they want to try a different job for a bit need only have Ridorana completed to still have access to the alliance rouletted for leveling purposed on their next job (once it is above level 50).

B) Min ilvl to queue for the roulette based on the characters current level.
If level 50-59, min ilvl is WoD's min ilvl
If level 60-69, min ilvl is Dun Scaith's min ilvl
If level 70-79, min ilvl is Orbonne's min ilvl
If level 80-89, min ilvl is Tower's min ilvl
If level 90, min ilvl is the min ilvl of the highest alliance raid accessible via roulette atm.

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Originally Posted by Rowde

This... but I imagine it a bit differently.

A) Lose entire access to the roulette period, similar to expert, until the "current" raid is completed based on the players MSQ progress.
For example: at x.1, x.3, x.5 MSQ progress players lose access to the entire roulette until they complete the alliance raid associated with that current patch. So a player that has only progressed to say... 4.3 in MSQ, who then decides they want to try a different job for a bit need only have Ridorana completed to still have access to the alliance rouletted for leveling purposed on their next job (once it is above level 50).

B) Min ilvl to queue for the roulette based on the characters current level.
If level 50-59, min ilvl is WoD's min ilvl
If level 60-69, min ilvl is Dun Scaith's min ilvl
If level 70-79, min ilvl is Orbonne's min ilvl
If level 80-89, min ilvl is Tower's min ilvl
If level 90, min ilvl is the min ilvl of the highest alliance raid accessible via roulette atm.

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I think option A would be a much quicker thing to implement, though you will still end up getting people crying about how the 60+ raids are "too hard". Any content can be considered hard to someone who doesn't get it often.

Most of the reasons I see for people dying in the higher raids is because they have done them once, and never see it again(the other most common reason is because Netflix & XIV is the way a lot of people tend to play...)

I've been getting Syrcus like 80% of my daily roulettes. It's so boring at this point but at least it's mindless and stress-free. That said, about half of those runs also include a brand new player who gives tomestone bonuses so maybe also we just have more new players clearing for the first time.

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Originally Posted by Avatre

I think option A would be a much quicker thing to implement, though you will still end up getting people crying about how the 60+ raids are "too hard". Any content can be considered hard to someone who doesn't get it often.

Most of the reasons I see for people dying in the higher raids is because they have done them once, and never see it again(the other most common reason is because Netflix & XIV is the way a lot of people tend to play...)

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I wasn't presenting them as options, I think both things need to be implemented. A would ensure that players that want to participate in the roulette HAVE to eventually complete all the available alliance raids to continue participating in the roulette. B is an attempt to prevent ilvl exploits by higher level players to force participation in lower level raids in the roulette.

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Originally Posted by Leyllara

https://i.ibb.co/rwK9QxL/roulette.png

I don't know about you guys, but i'm getting pretty sick of people exploiting the Roulette matchmaking system to force low level duties. When is this getting patched out? I want to be able to actually play a higher level duty without waiting for hours.

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Randoms queu pretty quick especially for dps but yeah if your looking to do a specific one i wouldnt be surprised if your there a while. But thats not a glitch or exploit its just something that tends to happen if one narrows the options of what duties they want to run. Also take into consideration there is only one alliance raid that has to be unlocked as part of the story meaning it wouldnt surprise me if thats thd only one a some players actually unlocked.

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Originally Posted by Leyllara

2PM Gmt -3 on Sunday, NA servers, Puppet's Bunker. It is included on roulette, so there's no reason it should take THAT long to find a party. Considering we have 4 series of Alliances so far, 12 raids in total, every raid should have an equal 8.3% chance of showing up in a roulette queue, unless of course someone is exploiting a system mechanic to eliminate some of the possible results.

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Do you factor in that different raids unlock at different levels and factor in how many might have only unlocked the crystal tower series to come up with the number of 8.3%?

Meanwhile, in the land of fresh alts and some new peeps...

Life is good when you have a queue time and how people queue to complain about

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Originally Posted by Rowde

This... but I imagine it a bit differently.

A) Lose entire access to the roulette period, similar to expert, until the "current" raid is completed based on the players MSQ progress.
For example: at x.1, x.3, x.5 MSQ progress players lose access to the entire roulette until they complete the alliance raid associated with that current patch. So a player that has only progressed to say... 4.3 in MSQ, who then decides they want to try a different job for a bit need only have Ridorana completed to still have access to the alliance rouletted for leveling purposed on their next job (once it is above level 50).

B) Min ilvl to queue for the roulette based on the characters current level.
If level 50-59, min ilvl is WoD's min ilvl
If level 60-69, min ilvl is Dun Scaith's min ilvl
If level 70-79, min ilvl is Orbonne's min ilvl
If level 80-89, min ilvl is Tower's min ilvl
If level 90, min ilvl is the min ilvl of the highest alliance raid accessible via roulette atm.

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might not be a very popular opinion here but i think that would sort of be horrible idea being as how the ONLY alliance raid that is required for MSQ is crystal tower you are gonna have quite a few players road blocked from the story because i could be wrong but dont think they release a new alliance raid yet and in my roulettes i have seen a good amount of messages about someone being new to this instance. so the suggestion of locking it from players until they unlock and do the new one that would be spraying sprouts with plant killer because how many existing players would not be able to queu for a roulette now. not to mention that with the up coming changes to castrum and prea i hadnt heard it confirmed but it would stand to reason we are gonna be losing that roulette for leveling purposes. i personally would feel a bit shitty losing a second one too especially since alliance raid MS and leveling are the only ones i try to hit up daily. i get running the same stuff might get a bit boring but the same thing happens even in other roulettes where it seems i get the same dungeons over and over. the big difference with normal roulettes and expert and why it works with expert is you can only do expert with a max level toon so no xp involved and you will only get one of the "expert" dungeons which tends to be that very small poll. honestly i love how their roulette system works because at least until they make their changes adding trusts to MSQ dungeons it allows newer players to get groups to do the story while rewarding higher level players with XP bonuses/ gold/ tombstones for the daily. maybe what they can try is just having crystal tower as its own roulette set but that still might not work out too well.

I'm not denying that ilevel cheese happens because it does. But punishing everyone doing the roulette for the sins of a few by doing things like forcing them to unlock optional content isn't the way to go. Maybe the ilevel idea could work, assuming it's not going to negatively affect people who *aren't* ilevel cheesing.

Experience wise, I'm in the camp with those who aren't seeing an effect that much. When I get CT, there's a new person. When I get Orbonne like I have a lot lately, there's a new person. These are both raid series that are connected to some further story so it makes sense they will show up more. I also get Nier a lot and that's the one I i wish I could block. I hate those raids as much as others here hate seeing CT.

How many times have people gotten a CT raid and not seen the notification for new person? Then take into consideration other players levels. I would like to see my WT raid in the roulette. The rewards aren't really worth queing when you hit 90. But not going to get pouty about it being new people and CT.



Also SE needs to balance the roulette better. While individual encounters can differ. The overall length should not fluctuate more then 5ish mins. So if same group runs every raid if the fastest is 15 mins the slowest should be 20 mins. These are design issues. Not player issues. But if the longest takes 30 with all the same players. That is seriously broken double the time for same content. If you argue that it should be harder. It should be separate then.

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Originally Posted by xenahawk

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Nope.

Considering that when new alliance raids are relevant, I have zero issues queuing for them directly. I don't think the loss of players who have ignored completing all the other alliance raids thus far from the potential pool of players queuing for alliance roulette is going to be a big loss. I'd rather have the roulette feel like it has 12 options instead of 3.

I also think it's better to have an additional incentive to do the side content versus a handout gimme roulette that can be cheesed down to only 3 options.

Not just to prevent ilvl exploit, but also for their continuing narrative.
Keep in mind, CT was optional for most of the life of this game. It was retroactively made mandatory upon the release of patch 5.3
While the other 3 existing raid series are still entirely optional... Return to Ivalice has to be completed to access further optional content, the Save the Queen content.

While Yorha will probably always exist in a vacuum, the Void Ark series (along with the ShB Role Quests) could become necessary reading if they want to explore the 13th in future expansions. So why not gently encourage the completion of the alliance raids now with gating roulette access rather than suddenly forcing player completion at a later date to progress MSQ? There will still be other ways to level for those that really don't have any interest in larger scale content outside of an easy roulette for experience points.

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Originally Posted by Rowde

I wasn't presenting them as options, I think both things need to be implemented. A would ensure that players that want to participate in the roulette HAVE to eventually complete all the available alliance raids to continue participating in the roulette. B is an attempt to prevent ilvl exploits by higher level players to force participation in lower level raids in the roulette.

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That's a valid point. I hope they do something like that since getting those brain dead raids is very boring.

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Originally Posted by Moonlite

How many times have people gotten a CT raid and not seen the notification for new person? Then take into consideration other players levels. I would like to see my WT raid in the roulette. The rewards aren't really worth queing when you hit 90. But not going to get pouty about it being new people and CT.



Also SE needs to balance the roulette better. While individual encounters can differ. The overall length should not fluctuate more then 5ish mins. So if same group runs every raid if the fastest is 15 mins the slowest should be 20 mins. These are design issues. Not player issues. But if the longest takes 30 with all the same players. That is seriously broken double the time for same content. If you argue that it should be harder. It should be separate then.

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I've seen rarely it happen without a new player message. That's not the only legit thing forcing a CT raid however. Below level 60, others not unlocked or trying to farm shb relic stuff will also do it. It's not really feasable to prove any CT run was forced by only ilvl cheese and nothing else.

If the roulettes can't be locked or given different ilevel requirements dynamically, perhaps an option would be to have separate roulettes at different levels and limit the scaling of the rewards.

e.g. There would be a "Level 50 Alliance Roulette" with an entry requirement of i90, that would give useful EXP while you're in the 50-59 range but capped at that point. Then to keep getting decent EXP you have to move up to the Level 60 roulette which includes both the 50 and 60 roulettes and a requirement of i230 (or whatever Dun Scaith is).

Perhaps only the high-level roulette options would drop endgame tomes, and the others would be poetics only.

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Originally Posted by EgilTheStressedMage

Then lock in the gear you que with so you can’t switch back to your highest one when it pops.

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Also easily bypassed. Just buy an ilvl 70 set off the mb so you're guaranteed to get Syrcus/Labs, and you'll look normal. 99% of people don't check for gear anyway, and if someone does, you can just not say anything or just say 'best I had on me'. Nothing they can do about it since it's not a GM'able offense and good luck kicking them once that first chest is open and everyone just wants to get out of there ASAP.

The only thing your solution accomplishes is now rather than bringing their best gear, you have effectively punished the remaining players by forcing the run to take longer than it could have, while giving zero punishment to the person you wanted to target.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

Not going to lie, why does doing just Crystal Tower unlock the entire Roulette? Just like doing only Fist of the Father in Normal Raids unlocks the entire Roulette too. It's... not much of a roulette when there's only one option.

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Because newer players want/need access to the roulettes too? It ain't rocket science. If requiring more than CT was mandatory for the Alliance roulette, you're basically saying that ARR players don't have the right to access the roulette until they're all the way done with HW at the absolute minimum. It would also effectively hold the roulette hostage if someone really doesn't want to unlock the other raids for various reasons other than just wanting an easier alliance raid queue. People were already annoyed by CT being mandatory for MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Sacred-Oblivion

If you're afraid of getting a challenging alliance raid then don't queue for the roulette. Period. Being able to force 23 other people into a lvl 50 raid is a loophole (exploit) in the roulette system, and has a negative effect on people who want to enjoy a variety of raids. If the exploit gets patched and forces people like you out of the alliance roulette, then that's just side bonus in my view.

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You do realize that the people intentionally lowering their gear are likely one of the lesser issues of why you're getting CT correct?

-CT is the only instance required by MSQ. So anyone hard queueing it (which will be many times more magnitudes than people hard queueing the other raids) will automatically drag all 23 other players with them to CT.
-Any single person not level 60+ will automatically drag the other 23 people with them to CT.
-Anyone who doesn't have the other raids unlocked will automatically drag the other 23 people with them to CT.

I guarantee, you could remove this exploit and over 80% of your runs will still be CT purely for the reasons above. The raid has so many biases skewed towards it that focusing on people lowering their ilvl is wasting your energy when its merely a drop in the pond compared to how many other ways the roulette is biased to push you towards it.

Then there's just the logistical problem of the roulette itself that drives those people to unequip gear in the first place: the hugely in-proportionate rewards vs time spent for CT vs the other raids. CT offers the exact same rewards as getting Dun Scaith, Orbonne or Tower but at a fraction of the time spent, and this is a hugely glaring flaw. Even if you force ilvl checks based on your level, I have a feeling the only reality you're going to create is similar to castrum, where upon being presented with an unfavorable option, many of these same players who already unequip will opt to simply quit and try again in 30mins, which won't be helpful for anyone actually trying to do the instance if its late at night or a bad timeframe and the person(s) who leaves are crucial roles.

The truly best option is to repurpose the soon to be vacant MSQ roulette as a CT roulette, give it the same rewards as current alliance, and then move to buff alliance raid's rewards to entice people to go for it on top of CT roulette each day. Then everyone wins without having to do stupid draconian rules for the roulette.

There isn't an exploit here. For the longest time I only had the first two crystal towers unlocked on my character so if I went into alliance raid, I cannot possibly get anything else. There is likely a HUGE amount of the player base who haven't unlocked anything other than what they have had to in order to progress past story content. Mainly because there is never a need or even any indication given to a player that the other alliance raids are even options to unlock.

If you are going for one of the "higher level" ones, then you're going to wait a lot longer simply because you need enough people who have it unlocked who haven't already been pulled into a lower level one with people who only have those unlocked.

See now, I want a way to do this in reverse as well as narrow it down so I never get anything from normal raid roulette besides delta or sigmascape 1-3.

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Originally Posted by Rhysati

There isn't an exploit here. For the longest time I only had the first two crystal towers unlocked on my character so if I went into alliance raid, I cannot possibly get anything else. There is likely a HUGE amount of the player base who haven't unlocked anything other than what they have had to in order to progress past story content. Mainly because there is never a need or even any indication given to a player that the other alliance raids are even options to unlock.

If you are going for one of the "higher level" ones, then you're going to wait a lot longer simply because you need enough people who have it unlocked who haven't already been pulled into a lower level one with people who only have those unlocked.

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The way around that , which has already been suggested is that once you reach 60/70/80/90 your raid roulette daily task, becomes locked again (like expert does) until you unlock and finish the alliance raid for that level tier/expansion completely.