Criticism to SHB and Ally Raid Roulette [SPOILERS]

I had previous talked about how Ally Raid Roulette was broken in the sense that people were constantly cheesing the ilvl so they would only ever get LOTA, dragging anyone who participates to only ever do that raid. That thread was here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-Raid-Roulette

BUT now I kind of want to voice one of my bigger criticism for Shadowbringers, and that was using G'raha Tia in the story. Let me preface by saying that I love SHB as expansion. The story, world, art direction, raids, everything so far has been awesome and enjoyable. It's been a great ride. However in hindsight, I kinda wished that the expansion's story would be tackled in a different way.

1) G'raha Tia in the story.
With the G'raha Tia reveal there are two outcomes. 1) If you had done the CT raids before SHB, the reveal was a nice surprise. An old face that had been somewhat forgotten since ARR comes back! 2) The players who never touched CT raids have no clue who this person is or what their significance may be. And while 2 players don't really -need- to know who G'raha Tia is, it still puts an odd flavor. Over all it doesn't dampen the story, just slightly enhances it for those who did the content. The core elements of the story are still there.

I've talked to friends who didn't do CT and we mulled over how it affects the emotional beats of the story. It just seems odd that the writers would use a character that was in not required content. There are a lot of optional content in the game, and while one may assume that people want to unlock all the raids and have participated, there are many who still don't do them. Not only that but each expansion brings new players, and they often skip the older 24 man raids simply because the gear doesn't mean much to their progression when they are catching up to current content. So these folks miss out on the importance of G'raha Tia.

2) The Lv50 CT raids.
When ARR first introduced these raids, they were fun and cool! Time has passed and the devs learned over time what players may have enjoyed about the raids and what they didn't, and with that knowledge that would help shape how they do future raids. So now the Lv50 CT raids are pretty dated and kind of boring. It doesn't help that with the culling of abilities, the Lv50 rotation is really boring, so there's not much engagement depending on which job you are.

3) Ally Raid Roulette feels broken more than before.
If we observe the Ally Raids really quickly, and omit the fact that people cheese the ilvl, SHB introduces the need to have completed CT raids for the sake of the SHB story. People who missed out now go back and do those raids, and new players could have easily missed those raids.

BUT now SE has made it a requirement! New players are now forced to complete the CT 24 man raids as apart of the MSQ. This was done so that they could get their G'raha Tia reveal for SHB. This fix feels like a band aid, in the sense that they had to go and fix something in ARR so ensure it works slightly better in SHB. The reason why this is a band aid is because it introduces new problems.

-New players now heavily tilt the Ally Raid Roulette, a roulette that is suppose to toss players into a random 24 man, to which there are 10 different raids. LOTA has now become the bottle neck of this Roulette. While there is nothing wrong with helping new people clear new raids, it comes to the fact that the Roulette is now just this one raid. Once in awhile I'll get lucky and get a Lv60 or 70 raid, but that doesn't solve the problem that LOTA is still the most played 24man raid. This isn't the new players fault, but the fact that the game turned to force them to do this.

-New players arent forced to unlock the Lv60/70 24man raids. Again, it's easy for new players to skip these old 24man raids because the gear and rewards from them are out scaled by gear that is provided through MSQ and dungeons. Their leveling is accelerated (which is good), giving players less incentive to unlock and clear these raids, unless they wish to experience them. But since most new players may be told "You can skip this Lv60 24man raid since the gear wont be important", you now have players that only have the Lv50 raids unlocked. So again, these players are still bottle necking any Ally Raid Roulette down to the Lv50 raids. Nothing forces them to unlocked the other 24man raids to have that be in their list of Roulette content.

With that in mind, allow me to tackle a few counter points that folks tend to make.

-"If you want to play/experience the Lv60/70/80 raids then solo queue for those raids."
That's not how a roulette works. When you queue into a 50/60/70 Dungeon Roulette, you can get either one of the extra dungeons from those tiers right? Why should Ally Raid be the exception? Would you be satisfied if you only saw the same dungeon each and every day and you never got to see the myraid of other dungeons behind those other levels? When you spin a roulette wheel, the ideal is that all slots in that wheel have an equal chance to be selected. In this case, the wheel is mostly compromised of LOTA/Lv50 raids.

-"The SHB relic makes you do Orbonne Monastary."
Yes it does, but this is a temp band aid. There was a slight resurgence of seeing the Lv70 raids, but it was just that. Afterwards things reverted back to LOTA and friends. As time passes less people need the Orbonne clear and thus less individual queues for it. A temporary spike in change does indicate that the issue is fixed. This also places a gap with the Lv60 raids as, thus to my knowledge, there is no content that piggy backs off the completion of those raids.
The difference here is that this is side content that requires side content, while the MSQ (which is required content) requires what was side content.

-"LOTA is really easy I don't want to think or put in work I just want the EZ reward."
Okay sure that's fair. However not everyone is going to share that same line of thought. At the same time, you usually have to put in some form of effort for the concept of a reward. If you want to afk/idle during an Ally raid, thats on you and your team. It just comes across as a bit selfish to say "I don't want to work, therefore Ally Raid Roulette should only work to give me LOTA"

-"LOTA is fool proof. The other raids have insta wipe mechanics and people keep wiping. I don't want to waste time wiping"
No one likes wiping, I think that's something shared across every player. However, LOTA isn't fool proof. I have wiped so many times in LOTA to the zombie dragon, Atomos, Demons + bombs, Behemoth, and the final boss wipes so many times. That isn't fool proof.
The later raids have been nerfed to where failing a mechanic isn't as punishing as it use to be. And if you have new players, you can help them out by informing them of the mechanics. Much like you and your friends failed mechanics on the first week or two of the raid being released, these new players will fail the mechanics too, and that's fine. That's how they learn. You can teach them and help them out. There are plenty of times where I've been in Lv60s or 70s Ally raids and not a single wipe happens. People may die sure, but you just help them out, pick them back up, and keep going.

Over all, I hope that the devs find a way to fix Ally Raid Roulette to even out the playing field and the selection when one queues for it. I do think it was a rather large mistake to have G'raha Tia be apart of the story when he was in side content, as it eventually lead to further breaking the state of Ally Raid Roulette. I do like G'raha Tia, his place in the story feels great, but it still needs to be examined on how it affects the various features of the game. Hopefully these are criticisms and points that the teams can take with a grain of salt. I am by no means thrashing on them or the amazing work they develop and deliver, but rather sharing criticisms to help them with future development.