Yet Another Alliance Raid Roulette Suggestion

Time to throw my hat in the ring and line out a way of balancing out Alliance Raid roulette to not be as horribly skewed toward Crystal Tower raids.

1. Assuming a brand new player, each time they complete an expansion's last quest (for x.0), the alliance raid roulette gets locked until you complete that expansion's alliance raid series. And I don't mean "just do Void Ark after 3.0 and it's back", I mean the entirety of the Mhach raids. Once that's done, until you complete the 4.0 MSQ, the roulette is open again. As soon as 4.0 MSQ is done though, time to do the entirety of the Ivalice raids to access it again until 5.0 MSQ is done.
   
2. With the above in mind, make an item level requirement depending on the level range you're trying to go as. Have a level 50-59 job you want to run as? Cool, Crystal Tower is all you can do anyway, so be at least i90 for World of Darkness to be included. (Crystal Tower raids are required for MSQ anyway, so why limit the roulette to just 2 out of 3 of them via item level cheese?) Trying to level a job in the 70-79 range? Can't lower your item level for just Crystal Tower, you have to at least be the item level for Orbonne Monastery (365). Again, this assumes the above point, so this would mean you have the possibility of any Crystal Tower raid, any Mhach raid, or any Ivalice raid.
   
3. Or maybe you're already level 90 on everything and just want to join for the tomes and fun? Since Aglaia is the only 90 alliance raid at this time, you only need to meet that item level requirement (565). Then once the next one releases in 6.3, presumably with an item level requirement of 595, the roulette is locked until you clear the second 90 alliance raid, then it'll require i595 as opposed to i565 like it did before. Then it happens again in 6.5 with the assumed requirement of i625.

Effectively, this would make every alliance raid a requirement to even have access to the roulette. I'm sure this comes with its own can of worms, one that comes to mind being that requiring not-required raids to have access to a roulette may result in less people even bothering to do alliance raids at all. In a worst case scenario, I can see that being the case. I'm even sure there's better ways of boosting the possibility of more than just Crystal Tower.

If anyone can add to this suggestion or even explain another possible glaring negative to this that I'm not aware of, without outright dismissing the notion with no further input, I'd appreciate the insight.

Sincerely, a level 90 player that does roulettes for fun but doesn't even touch alliance raid roulette anymore unless helping friends level their jobs, and even then we don't really bother with it unless we really want the xp alongside the mind-numbing Crystal Tower roulette

In some ways, this precedent was already set. Way back in 2.2, SE added a requirement to Duty Roulette: High Level where you had to complete all possible dungeon options in order run it. Side note: Duty Roulette: High Level was simply level 50 dungeons, but not necessarily the Duty Roulette: Expert ones. This isn't all that different than what you are talking about. Your recommendation is more lenient. Players can run Alliance Roulette if they have completed all alliance raids for the expansion that they have completed. That seems fairly reasonable to do.

On the other hand, roulettes were initially put in place to help players fill spots in the queue for a desired dungeon/trial/etc. The key world being "help." In exchange, the helping players get a bonus for doing content they wouldn't do otherwise.

I suppose if SE wants the system to function how they want it (is it working as intended?) then they'd need to see if players just open Crystal Tower and nothing afterwards. Then simply run CT over and over not because they want to clear it for a quest requirement, but only for the alliance roulette bonus.

But the thing to keep in mind is... what is the benefit of running 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 raids? It isn't for gear. Sure, some of it is required for MSQ, but not all of it. The vast majority of players are doing it for the roulette bonus (exp, tomes). A tiny minority are doing it for MSQ and another smaller minority are doing it for the 24-man raid story or maybe for the TT cards. Given that, if the point of Alliance Roulette is to get exp, then just expect CT.

I only agree with your middle point. Locking the roulette would be very restricting and wouldn't be worth it imo.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

But the thing to keep in mind is... what is the benefit of running 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 raids? It isn't for gear. Sure, some of it is required for MSQ, but not all of it. The vast majority of players are doing it for the roulette bonus (exp, tomes). A tiny minority are doing it for MSQ and another smaller minority are doing it for the 24-man raid story or maybe for the TT cards. Given that, if the point of Alliance Roulette is to get exp, then just expect CT.

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If we should expect to only ever get Crystal Tower raids, I feel like that wouldn't fix the problem with queues for other alliance raids. Even if they're not required, or even give relevant gear anymore, there's still players out there unlocking these newer raids and potentially struggling to even get queues to pop, regardless of if they're doing so for the raid plot or even for glamours. While I get that's pretty much why the roulette exists in the first place, to help those queues out, it seems made out to be more difficult to do because, either no one else has these other raids unlocked, or they're perfectly content with only having the bare minimum unlocked to have an easier time, at the cost of boring others. I remember making an alt character and tried making my way through the Ivalice raids during Shadowbringers, only to be met with 1 hour+ queue times, during peak hours.

Again, I'm sure there are better ways to help boost the odds of anything other than Crystal Tower, which is difficult to do since it's the only raid series required for MSQ. Ivalice is required to even do anything related to Bozja and the resistance weapons, but that wasn't really enough to fix the disparity. Mhach and YoRHa, as far as I'm aware, are not a requirement for unlocking any piece of optional content. The one-time resistance weapon steps helped Mhach and Ivalice queues for a bit but that didn't last at all, though to add insult to injury, that's after Crystal Tower raids being a much more accessible option for an earlier repeatable step in that weapon series.

At this point I'm sure I sound frustrated about this, and to be honest, yeah I am. And it definitely is as easy a personal fix as "then don't queue if you don't want Crystal Tower", but I also know I'm not the only one who feels this way. The devs can do what they want, if they feel the way things are are perfectly fine now, that's cool. I just feel this level of loose requirements will lead to less and less people even trying to do more content later down the road, especially as more and more things become irrelevant, all for the sake of never leaving their comfort zone. Then again, that's all up to the player.

I suppose another personal fix is to queue for non-Crystal Tower raids directly to help out, buuuuut I can only select up to 5 duties unfortunately lol.

What they'd need to do is either tweak the crystal tower raids to take longer. Nerf the others to be faster. Or alternatively add scalable rewards.

If you clear ct raids then maybe you get a million exp bonus at the end.

Cleat ivice raids in the roulette and maybe you get 3 million exp bonus or 5 million for near raids.

Scale the tomes to. Crystal tower raids the basic 50 tomes.. nier raids could be 150...

If it takes triple the time then dish out triple the rewards. Kinda thing.

Would at least reduce the amount of players who bait the roulette by dropping ilevels for the sake of speed.

I think all Raid Roulettes should have a toggle that enables min ilvl and no echo (counts as seperate queue) which grants better Rewards and EXP (it should also include all the Coils of Bahamut, even if noone queues for them actively).
Also, Squeenix really should fix the ilvl requirement of 24 Man-Raid Roulettes to be at least 235, so that the Heavensward Raids get included at least, as well.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

should also include all the Coils of Bahamut, even if noone queues for them actively).

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That would be brutal. Outside of ultimates you could argue Coil was the hardest set of raids ever in the game. the basis for this being that every raid since the devs continuuisly make easier and easier in an attempt to be "more accessible" and pull more players in continuously lowering the bar that coils set instead of raising it.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

That would be brutal. Outside of ultimates you could argue Coil was the hardest set of raids ever in the game. the basis for this being that every raid since the devs continuuisly make easier and easier in an attempt to be "more accessible" and pull more players in continuously lowering the bar that coils set instead of raising it.

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Thats why i suggested it as being a optional toggle function. One that keeps things the way they are, and a harder, optional path that also gives you increased rewards. By doing one of the two options, it will mark the counterpart as cleared as well, until the daily reset happens.