I-Level 55 requirement for Crystal Tower seems like a bad idea

This is coming from a casual player who hasn't even completed the main story yet (so feel free to disregard). Here is my reasoning:

- This 24man battle only requires i-level 55, but you can obtain i-level 80 gear. To me, this is discouraging. The jump is too high. I could see myself completing the main story, buying my GC weapon, joining a CT match where i'm paired up with a bunch of people in i-level 80-90 gear and quickly start earning i-level 80 gear myself. What is point of Phil. Tomes if CT can be leeched at i-level 55 and you earn better gear than DL? Seems to make AK, WP, the new dungeon and the hard mode dungeons less meaningful (besides myth tomes). Titan hard mode probably won't be much of a challenge for anyone once they've done several CT runs.

- Knowing that there will be i-level 55 players attempting the crystal tower and i-level 90 players attempting the crystal tower; I feel like the difficulty will be impossible to balance. Ultimately I feel like it's going to be too easy. I guess I kind of wish CT required a relic weapon like originally hinted at. That seems like it would have fit perfectly in the scheme of things. Now, crystal tower just seems like a way to fast forward past everything else. As a casual player I'd like to take on some of these challenges, but SE seems to erase them within a few months. Wouldn't CT requiring a relic make everyone happy?

It's based on avg ilvl not just your weapon. In your time of running WP or AK to get the required 55 ilvl you will get some darklight for sure.

I'm personally pretty disappointed in CT. My motivation to run it has dropped, and the reasoning is pretty much
what you stated in the OP.

I'll probably end up running it once. I'm not about to get 8 geared people to go in and carry 16 iLvl 55's. People
are going to be queuing for CT in bare minimum gear because why not? iLvl 80 drops why bother getting DL or
anything above GC gear pretty much.

Bad, so bad. I'll do it cuz I wanna see it but it's very, very unlikely this will be a weekly event for me personally.
I said personally twice so nobody can say "You can't speak for everyone else raaaageeee!" This is my opinion, I
admit it. :)

I'm sure the 8-man only is only temporary, and you'll be able to make a 24-man premade at some point... but right
now.. ugh.. I think back to CM partial DF groups and the nightmares that happened there. Now triple that for CT.

Buying a GC weapon doesn't make any of the other gear you have any better though. You'd still want better gear in the rest of the slots to be running something like CT. I assume when he said ilvl55 he meant average, rather than just weapon.

That said, lets not forget how easy darklight gear is to get these days with WP. You can almost get a full DL set in a single day if you get a decent group to help. I would guess getting CT drops isn't going to be anywhere near as quick as farming DL gear, so that's where the balance comes in between the two.

CT is going to be the new spirit bond spot. watch!

Crystal Tower is supposed to be an easy 24 players dungeon. It is meant for players to gear up for Coil of Bahamut which is the hardest dungeon so far.

Right now, iLevel 70 is more or less the minimum to attempt Coil. You only need iLevel 70 and you obtain iLevel 90 gear (which will become iLevel 95), therefore a gap of 20 (soon 25 iLevel). This is not any different than Crystal Tower awarding iLevel 80 gear to iLevel 55 (a 25 iLevel difference, same as Coil).

As far as challenge goes, the true difficulty in 24 players dungeon is to organize said players. Difficulty-wise, each player is responsibly for 1/24th of the group success. On the other hand, in a 4 players dungeon, each player is responsible for 1/4th of the success or 6/24th compared to 24 players group. In a 4 players team, a dead weight in a challenging dungeon means automatic failure (unless the 3 others are over-geared for the dungeon). In a 24 players team, it takes 6 players for the same level of responsibility.

ilevel 55 will be the minimum. It may be extremely difficult for anyone to achieve with ilevel 55. As said before I think the hardest thing about this dungeon will be the organisation of 24 players on DF.

I'll admit, I haven't read much on CT yet, but is this a case where if one of the parties fail everyone fails? I can see that not going over well at all unless the dungeon is easy and no one fails because it would take some epic stupidity to pull that off.

Right now I'm not really seeing the point of Dark Light Gear. People can just pug for CT and skip to ilvl 80 gear. Also, extreme primals will be giving out ilvl 90 weapons. So... what does that make my relic +1 now? Will there even be a reason to bother get your relic weapon? I mean if you get an extreme weapon, the next upgrade would be Allagan weapon since it would be i95. I'm just a bit confused about all these gears being thrown out xD. I'm glad CT will help me gear my sub classes but it seems it might just make my other gear obsolete in no time.

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Originally Posted by LloydShade

Crystal Tower is supposed to be an easy 24 players dungeon. It is meant for players to gear up for Coil of Bahamut which is the hardest dungeon so far.

Right now, iLevel 70 is more or less the minimum to attempt Coil. You only need iLevel 70 and you obtain iLevel 90 gear (which will become iLevel 95), therefore a gap of 20 (soon 25 iLevel). This is not any different than Crystal Tower awarding iLevel 80 gear to iLevel 55 (a 25 iLevel difference, same as Coil).

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Great point. I wonder if people like Swishytail would be upset about people refusing them access to a coil group for only having Ilevel 70? It sounds to me that the progression will be WP/AK/CT/new dungeon and hard modes until you get Ilevel 80 and then on to coil. Crystal Tower, along with the new dungeon and the hard modes seems like just more options for end game to stop the repetitiveness. Now, you'll have tons more options to gear up and farm Tomes.

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Originally Posted by xXHalloweenTrixXx

Right now I'm not really seeing the point of Dark Light Gear. People can just pug for CT and skip to ilvl 80 gear. Also, extreme primals will be giving out ilvl 90 weapons. So... what does that make my relic +1 now? Will there even be a reason to bother get your relic weapon? I mean if you get an extreme weapon, the next upgrade would be Allagan weapon since it would be i95. I'm just a bit confused about all these gears being thrown out xD. I'm glad CT will help me gear my sub classes but it seems it might just make my other gear obsolete in no time.

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I don't think this came out in the official translation, but in the Reinhartv translation, it seemed like YoshiP mentioned Allagan AND Relic +1 weapons initially when he talked about the bump up to i95. I can't be certain, but I think it would make sense, for your reasons above.

Also RE: Darklight, depending on how long CT takes, and the fact that you can only grab 1 piece of gear per run, it might just be that getting Darklight will be substantially faster.

Sounds more fun than farming for tomes. The only people complaining are the ones who wasted the last two months doing just that. Though it's on Square for having such backwards progression right out of the gate.

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Originally Posted by Versiroth

Great point. I wonder if people like Swishytail would be upset about people refusing them access to a coil group for only having Ilevel 70? It sounds to me that the progression will be WP/AK/CT/new dungeon and hard modes until you get Ilevel 80 and then on to coil. Crystal Tower, along with the new dungeon and the hard modes seems like just more options for end game to stop the repetitiveness. Now, you'll have tons more options to gear up and farm Tomes.

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It's just my personal opinion that CT is going to be bad. People are going to AFK, people are going to be in there with
literally the lowest possible gear because they don't care. I think the 8-man queue only isn't right, but it is what it is.

I could very well be wrong, but right now from what I'm reading it has a very high chance of being a disaster every time
you decide to jump in.

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Originally Posted by xXHalloweenTrixXx

Right now I'm not really seeing the point of Dark Light Gear. People can just pug for CT and skip to ilvl 80 gear. Also, extreme primals will be giving out ilvl 90 weapons. So... what does that make my relic +1 now? Will there even be a reason to bother get your relic weapon? I mean if you get an extreme weapon, the next upgrade would be Allagan weapon since it would be i95. I'm just a bit confused about all these gears being thrown out xD. I'm glad CT will help me gear my sub classes but it seems it might just make my other gear obsolete in no time.

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It's going to take a lot of CT runs to get geared in full ilvl80 and the queue times are probably going to be fairly long (assuming you don't make a premade). Also having full DL will probably help make CT runs smoother. ilvl55 is probably the bare minimum, in the same way AF gear is the bare minimum for AK, and you know how that goes.

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Originally Posted by xXHalloweenTrixXx

Right now I'm not really seeing the point of Dark Light Gear. People can just pug for CT and skip to ilvl 80 gear. Also, extreme primals will be giving out ilvl 90 weapons. So... what does that make my relic +1 now? Will there even be a reason to bother get your relic weapon? I mean if you get an extreme weapon, the next upgrade would be Allagan weapon since it would be i95. I'm just a bit confused about all these gears being thrown out xD. I'm glad CT will help me gear my sub classes but it seems it might just make my other gear obsolete in no time.

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Let me answer your question with a question. CT needs a relic(from previous dev letters). How are you going to beat Titan HM without darklight without some DL? Beg for a run, ask FC, etc, etc?

In the end, the min requirement is just to toll the body count average up. You probably won't be seeing i55 much in CT if you need to beat the gatekeeper that is Titan first.

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Originally Posted by xXHalloweenTrixXx

Right now I'm not really seeing the point of Dark Light Gear. People can just pug for CT and skip to ilvl 80 gear. Also, extreme primals will be giving out ilvl 90 weapons. So... what does that make my relic +1 now? Will there even be a reason to bother get your relic weapon? I mean if you get an extreme weapon, the next upgrade would be Allagan weapon since it would be i95. I'm just a bit confused about all these gears being thrown out xD. I'm glad CT will help me gear my sub classes but it seems it might just make my other gear obsolete in no time.

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You get relic + 1 by beating titan HM. You get the new ilvl90 weapons by beating titan HM and then the extreme primals so basically you do need to do relic quest to get the new ilvl 90 weapons. They have the same stats as relic + 1 but with different secondary stats and different skins.

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

Let me answer your question with a question. CT needs a relic(from previous dev letters). How are you going to beat Titan HM without darklight without some DL? Beg for a run, ask FC, etc, etc?

In the end, the min requirement is just to toll the body count average up. You probably won't be seeing i55 much in CT if you need to beat the gatekeeper that is Titan first.

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The relic requirement would appear to have been thrown out the window. It was said during today's live letter that the requirement to enter is merely I-level 55 (an uncharged relic is I-level 80). It was also said that CT awards i-level 80 gear.

It's gonna be slow at 1st but YoshiP said (at some point before the recent live letter) The crystal tower is going to keep going up later on, plus as far as gear goes... lotting between 8 people for an item is going to make it take a while to even get a full il80 set anyway not to mention other people on the same/similar jobs your lotting against as well.

LOL I thought CT will help players to get gear for Coil. But from 55 to 80?? wtf thats too easy!

ilvl 55 requirement for a ilvl 80 8 man dungeon? way too low.

How about this:

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Q10: Will you be able to form your own alliances and enter Crystal Tower?

A10: In patch 2.1 you will not be able to form your own alliance. You can enter with a party of eight.

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WHAT

its funny how theres a lot ppl thinking that they will be able to clear extreme primals easily and why the need for relics..

i bet it will impossible or near impossible to clear extreme primals without a lot of ilvl90/95 and relic+1.

progression is very clear.

- get 50 and AF
- do WP/AK/New dungeons for ilvl55/60 and tokens for ilvl70/90
- do CT for ilvl80 and tokens for ilvl 70/90
- get relic weapon and farm tokens for +1
- Coil and Extreme primals when you have all other stuff

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Originally Posted by Belzeboss9

LOL I thought CT will help players to get gear for Coil. But from 55 to 80?? wtf thats too easy!

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Yeah, I know it would only be more ridiculous if people could just go from 70 to 90.

An average item level of 55 is 660 total item level; that's not going to happen without having some amount of gear from AK (or Pharos or HM Copperbell or HM Manor) or Darklight. No one in just AF and a Grand Company weapon is going to make that number without at least item level 60 gear in every other slot.

I'd support these graduate systems more if I didn't have to farm philo in a dungeon. Feel free to leave them there but I want another option.

The only thing crafting had going for it was, it was an alternative to dungeons. Yes I am beating a dead horse. No, I won't stop.

Philo dungeon lock in and Shards are my biggest complaints in this game.

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Originally Posted by Mitternacht

Yeah, I know it would only be more ridiculous if people could just go from 70 to 90.

An average item level of 55 is 660 total item level; that's not going to happen without having some amount of gear from AK (or Pharos or HM Copperbell or HM Manor) or Darklight. No one in just AF and a Grand Company weapon is going to make that number without at least item level 60 gear in every other slot.

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^^this.
iLvL 55 average means that if you have a level 49 ring equipped, you need LvL61 of something else to compensate the average. A full set of iLvL55 with one iLvL49 will not be enough to enter. Now, based on this i'd rather it be iLvL56 so to slightly tilt it in that way just a smidge more, but it still does not wipe out the need for the iLvL55-60 dungeons as others have mentioned. Even if you had somehow equipped an entire set of 55 gear prior to running any of those dungeons, your one lvl49 ring would require that you have two lvl60 items to compensate.

Then i also imagine that being the bare minimum, there's no harm in being a little higher. Again, i'd rather it's lvl56 or 57 average, but 55 still needs AK and similar to be run a few times.

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Originally Posted by xXHalloweenTrixXx

Right now I'm not really seeing the point of Dark Light Gear. People can just pug for CT and skip to ilvl 80 gear. Also, extreme primals will be giving out ilvl 90 weapons. So... what does that make my relic +1 now? Will there even be a reason to bother get your relic weapon? I mean if you get an extreme weapon, the next upgrade would be Allagan weapon since it would be i95. I'm just a bit confused about all these gears being thrown out xD. I'm glad CT will help me gear my sub classes but it seems it might just make my other gear obsolete in no time.

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I am hoping we will be able to upgrade our relics in the future. I do not think they would just abandon relics.

As long as CT doesn't turn into WoW's LFR I'll be fine. I would like the ilvl to be slightly higher, mainly because all the people attempting this in ilvl 55 gear will be right back here Dec 18th demanding a nerf to CT.

I remember Yoshi say that Relic weapons may be required to enter CT is this still true or just ilvl55 Avg?

EDIT well if its ilvl55 then relic won't be required so..... The ilvl needs to be raised you can buy ilvl70 weapons and gar off the market board. LMAO SE so sad

As long as CT doesn't turn into WoW's LFR I'll be fine. I would like the ilvl to be slightly higher, mainly because all the people attempting this in ilvl 55 gear will be right back here Dec 18th demanding a nerf to CT.

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Originally Posted by Arkista

I remember Yoshi say that Relic weapons may be required to enter CT is this still true or just ilvl55 Avg?

EDIT well if its ilvl55 then relic won't be required so..... The ilvl needs to be raised you can buy ilvl70 weapons and gar off the market board. LMAO SE so sad

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Yes, so sad that people might want to buy crafted gear to help them meet item level requirements. I mean that's crazy, that would be like people doing Coil buying crafted accessories to meld vitality or accuracy in order to give them an edge on progression content. I mean what is the world coming to if all these terrible terrible new 50s can just buy all their gear to enter Crystal Tower with their 1+ million gil from leveling.