Crystal Tower and fears that it will bring out the worst out of people

A sudden thought just popped in my mind about CT. Which I was amazed that I didn't think about it until now. Mostly because the weekly loot lockout got more attention than anything. But onto what this topic is/will be about.

24 men alliance. Composed of 3 parties of 8 people. With no choice to choose who the 2 other parties will end up being. They could be randoms or other premade. By now I'm sure that everyone can agree on the following thing I'll be saying.

Bigger parties = Bigger chances of having people being a liability to the group.

We've all seen it happen in all of the DF groups. Even in the small 4-men instances. Most of the time there is one person that ends up being awful. These number of people and chances tend to grow bigger when said parties become larger. Example: Titan(Hard mode)

Most of the time we somewhat manage to bear with it by simply filling the shortcoming of said person(s). Others will go into a rage and sometimes those that are a liability will simply quit during the instance(or those that rage).

You can see where I'm going with this...

Crystal Tower - 24-men instance

- 3 x parties of 8 people
- To eventually be split in 3 groups inside the instance to do god knows what
- group A+B is succesful and never/rarely wipes
- group C fails all/most the time preventing group A+B from completing CT
- Group A+B starts whining to Group C
- Group C starts complaining back and will most likely turn into an internal conflict inside the group to point fingers at their weakest link(s).
- Result: People ragequitting
- Rinse and repeat

I'm really fearing the above situation. And I'm 100% sure that I'll see the above situation happen all too often. At least during the first few days/weeks. Until people actually become familiar with it.

You forgot to add kick abusers lol

Let's not mention if players are mixed with japanese and eng

Well, not only that.

When I did castrum the first days by DF It was rare the day I didn't find someone just.... Letting his character AFK to make the others get the tomes for them. They moved their character from time to time, but did nothing for the dungeon.


I still find people trolling like that from time to time, and I rarely use DF now, so... This people is still out there.


With 16 random people..... Chances that one of those doesn't show up are...slim.

Hehe afkers will have a lot of fun on CT abusing of every possible trick running when last boss is at 20% for chest :D

Well, if you report people (in particular for greifing), the GM's contact you in like 20 mins...

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Originally Posted by UBERHAXED

Well, if you report people (in particular for greifing), the GM's contact you in like 20 mins...

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Good luck with GM service :rolleyes: Sure sure, they will ban that guy, keep believing it :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Teon

Good luck with GM service :rolleyes: Sure sure, they will ban that guy, keep believing it :rolleyes:

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This



/somuch10

"players are free to engage the mobs at their will". (Or do not)

I'm sure that some comunity rep or something said that. I reported them the first days. I reported bugs. I never got any kind of answer for any GM... Maybe the situation about that is better now.

Honestly, the DF situation seems to have gotten better since that horrible (truly, truly horrible) first month. I can't say I've encountered any jerks in the last month or so and I do at least four WP runs most nights.

While with 24 people you are more likely to run into bad players/jerks they are also less likely to be able to significantly affect the run. At the end of the day you have 6 tanks and 6 healers. If one of the jerks is a tank, but one of the other parties have 2 i90-geared tanks in them, donate one to the underperforming team and have their healers focus him.

Personally I'm hoping for at least sections where all 24 people are together and the place just floods with enemies. That would be more fun to me than splitting into three teams of 8.

I think that you want be able to help other groups donating them a tank.


And anyway, I recognice that I don't like to complete dungeons for afk people. If someone is afk I'll probably leave. I don't have problems with people playing bad or being bad geared as long as they try. But I won't carry people trolling being afk or getting nude and running around (Yeah, I've seem that too)

Bigger party = less impact if that 1 person is useless


for example, if there is a raid that requires 800 people, i am sure 799 people who does well and the last remaining guy can probably just follow and do nothing and can still be won


As opposed to if your dps is not doing a thing in your typical AK run, the impact is much much bigger

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Originally Posted by diulalasing

Bigger party = less impact if that 1 person is useless


for example, if there is a raid that requires 800 people, i am sure 799 people who does well and the last remaining guy can probably just follow and do nothing and can still be won


As opposed to if your dps is not doing a thing in your typical AK run, the impact is much much bigger

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That depends on the instance and the actual person who is the liability. In most cases, healers and tanks = wipe.
But in the case of Garuda + Titan (HM). This could mean bad dps, dps dieing before the critical phase. Meaning, garuda's sisters or Titan's heart not being killed fast enough. You can indeed be lucky and have the least important person in the party be the weakest link.

Besides, strength in numbers seem to even fail in this game most of the time. Looking at Behemot and Odin fate, although that one is mostly blamed on many bugs related to overcrowding.

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Originally Posted by diulalasing

Bigger party = less impact if that 1 person is useless


for example, if there is a raid that requires 800 people, i am sure 799 people who does well and the last remaining guy can probably just follow and do nothing and can still be won


As opposed to if your dps is not doing a thing in your typical AK run, the impact is much much bigger

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We are mostly split into 8 parties, 24 areas or interactions are sporadics. Do you enjoy to carry someone on a 8 man raid (when split)? :)

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Originally Posted by Aegis

Honestly, the DF situation seems to have gotten better since that horrible (truly, truly horrible) first month. I can't say I've encountered any jerks in the last month or so and I do at least four WP runs most nights.

While with 24 people you are more likely to run into bad players/jerks they are also less likely to be able to significantly affect the run. At the end of the day you have 6 tanks and 6 healers. If one of the jerks is a tank, but one of the other parties have 2 i90-geared tanks in them, donate one to the underperforming team and have their healers focus him.

Personally I'm hoping for at least sections where all 24 people are together and the place just floods with enemies. That would be more fun to me than splitting into three teams of 8.

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We are split. If the tank is trolling, cannot be replaced / helped

CT, glorifications of jerks on this game. God save us :rolleyes:

If those people are in a different group there's nothing you can do while waiting for them to catch up. So yes, this is going to be a pretty bad experience for quite a few people. While I never found the DF as "toxic" as the forums wanted you to believe, but the moment you go somewhere with 16 randoms the odds of things going bad are getting pretty damn big.

All you need is one party having some issues and the other 16 people are screwed, because they have to wait (at least that's how I understood CT worked) forever for a group that barely is geared/keeps wiping/has afks/leavers/trolls and so and so on to finally catch up to the point where the three parties are together.

Add to that the loot lock out and there's very little reason for me to really bother with this instance. Can't run it for fun since there'll be plenty of frustrating runs due to randoms, can't run it for gear because of lockouts and can't run it as a full 24 man group to just go in there, chill in TS and have some fun. Don't think I've ever seen a piece of content that was this shunned by the community before it was even released.

I am very concerned about the design of CT. The fact that you can only go in as an 8 man group and, as far as we know, MUST depend on the other two groups to progress is a big problem unless the dungeon is easy. I really am imagining a scenario where this will be just slightly harder than AK because otherwise, what is the point? An 8 man group who is coordinated can go into Coil with DL gear and beat it, so CT can't be very hard because of all the random people you are forced to pick up.

Maybe this is just their plan though. To make true end-game content require static 8 man groups and be difficult, and have a parallel progression tree for more casual players with lesser loot rewards that is easier and has much larger parties/alliances to ensure most people get to access the content thereby attempting to keep everyone happy.

If just we had a real GM service, and griefers are instabanned/ put in jail for a week (hoping he will not resub anymore), how different would have been this community, mopped out of junk with this troll attitude :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Teon

Good luck with GM service :rolleyes: Sure sure, they will ban that guy, keep believing it :rolleyes:

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Cause your cynicism is a solution instead? At least reporting it puts his name on their list. Not reporting it does absolutely nothing. I'll go with the option that provides at least a small chance of success vs the one that does absolutely nothing.

People who are in endgame guilds are going to get pissed at carrying people in AK gear and ifrit weapons through Crystal Tower.

SE is forcing this on people. First off the mandatory pug needs to be removed that is the stupid design ever for endgame. SE continuing on their quest to break up guilds in XIV for what ever reason. 2nd SE needs to raise the min item level to 70 to enter this.

This is going to be a negative to the community big times. Because I almost garentee serious endgame guild groups that get stuck with ultra casuals with absolutely no endgame gear will not mix well. A group having to wait 10-20mins for a lesser group to catch up or beat their part is just 100% unacceptable. That and people will want to "Watch the Story" EVERY TIME....... which is also unacceptable to most endgame groups.

So SE better have made this stupid faceroll easy or they better fix the horrifically designed grouping feature for this event quicker then patch 2.2.

Aren't you all forgetting that CT is tuned to ilevel 55? That's WP gear and way back on the progression curve.

Do people still, legitimately, wipe on WP? I'm not talking about speed runs, I'm talking about your run-of-the-mill WP attempt. Heck, I fully expect to clear CT on the first try - even with 16 PUGs. I seriously doubt it will be even a slight challenge and to boot - I don't need a single piece of gear from it.

Even if it sucks, won't impede many of us that are already on Coil T4+.

This, along with people dropping group after they've gotten their piece of loot, would be what I'm afraid of. I'm willing to give it a chance though.

If these kinds of problems appear in the game, they will fix it.

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Originally Posted by FinagleABagel

Aren't you all forgetting that CT is tuned to ilevel 55? That's WP gear and way back on the progression curve.

Do people still, legitimately, wipe on WP? I'm not talking about speed runs, I'm talking about your run-of-the-mill WP attempt. Heck, I fully expect to clear CT on the first try - even with 16 PUGs. I seriously doubt it will be even a slight challenge and to boot - I don't need a single piece of gear from it.

Even if it sucks, won't impede many of us that are already on Coil T4+.

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It's what I like to tell myself. Yet I still see people wiping at Garuda. Not to mention that this will be new content with gimmicks in the instance itself. Add randomness of alliance members to that and possible lag issues that some people occasionally might have.

Also CT was originally deemed too difficult. All I can hope that they balanced it properly to make it challenging without making it Titan/Coil punishing on mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Freakiie

Don't think I've ever seen a piece of content that was this shunned by the community before it was even released.

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Speak for yourself. I can't wait for Crystal Tower and everything else in 2.1. I'm going to enjoy the dungeon and enjoy collecting the new armors (yes, one piece per week at a time).

Isn't Crystal Tower only open for queuing if you have a full premade of 8 people? Assuming that's still the case, I'm hoping all these worrywarts will do their part and shame the idiots from their servers who end up in their groups. And assuming you don't... well, why are you complaining? Building a better community doesn't happen without work, chop chop.

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Originally Posted by Teon

Good luck with GM service :rolleyes: Sure sure, they will ban that guy, keep believing it :rolleyes:

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My experiences with GMs have been nothing but good. I can only go by my own experiences. But by those I would say they do a very good job handling griefers.

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Originally Posted by Raminax

Isn't Crystal Tower only open for queuing if you have a full premade of 8 people? Assuming that's still the case, I'm hoping all these worrywarts will do their part and shame the idiots from their servers who end up in their groups. And assuming you don't... well, why are you complaining? Building a better community doesn't happen without work, chop chop.

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No it isn't. From what I have heard you can solo queue aswell.

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Originally Posted by Raminax

Isn't Crystal Tower only open for queuing if you have a full premade of 8 people? Assuming that's still the case, I'm hoping all these worrywarts will do their part and shame the idiots from their servers who end up in their groups. And assuming you don't... well, why are you complaining? Building a better community doesn't happen without work, chop chop.

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I generally read "up to 8 people". Also knowing how everything must be accessible to everyone I highly doubt SE would do something like forcing you into 8 mans.

Also, shame people on your server? ... Really? Yeah, people are totally gonna give a damn about that!

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Isn't Crystal Tower only open for queuing if you have a full premade of 8 people? Assuming that's still the case, I'm hoping all these worrywarts will do their part and shame the idiots from their servers who end up in their groups. And assuming you don't... well, why are you complaining? Building a better community doesn't happen without work, chop chop.

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If thats the case I am done. I have a small FC and most arent on when I am except weekends. If this is the case then there is no point, and with loot lockouts on top of that, if they go the way I am forseeing them going. This game has been fun up till now, I havent done coil, cause of time I am on, and I am waiting for FC, but if this patch goes this way see ya later, and dont worry the door wont hit me on the way out.

In addition to the vote-to-kick I thought they were implementing an AFK kick for dungeons as well as part of 2.1?

We'll have to see how coordinated or not CT ends up being to know what it'll be like, but I expect a few rough first weeks ^^;

Well, I suppose I might've misread, but I remember there being quite a fuss about queuing for Crystal Tower at least. Though I suppose it was mainly the big FCs wanting to bring 24 players from the same FC in the same run. :p

And yet another well, I seem to have had mostly positive experiences with people in XIV. Do the usual greetings and salutations and I get the entire group to do the same 99% of the time. Only three people out of hundreds of premade and DF groups stick out in my memory for being exceptionally wroth. Either karma is real or I'm amazingly good at blocking out all the angsty teenagers who just got to Nietzsche in Philosophy class. :)

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Originally Posted by Raminax

Either karma is real or I'm amazingly good at blocking out all the angsty teenagers who just got to Nietzsche in Philosophy class. :)

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I think it's more that people are more likely to come to the forums to say something negative than to say something positive (in general), so the forums tend to be more negative than the actual game. Or at least a combination of that and negative experiences being more prominent in the mind, so they seem more frequent. You're right though, the majority of groups I've ran with in game are polite, and even when wiping, will follow the dungeon through to the end with little complaining.

The fear here, is one in every 8 runs may have a bad member in regular dungeon runs (higher frequencies if you're running Titan pugs, or CM.. bad member being defined as highly impatient, derogatory, and overall impolite, not just people who don't talk). So, that's 1 our of every 24 people. CT is 24 people.. so just by having a bigger pool of people, you're likely to run into those jerks more often. In addition to that you're mixing the folks that want to watch cutscenes, or do speed runs, or have practiced everything and perfected it, or who are just running to run it and don't really care. None of these groups can make a full pre-made, so they don't have a choice in being mixed with others. A lot of those personalities clash. Usually they avoid grouping together (for the most part) by doing pre-made runs. That isn't an option yet.

I understand the concerns, and understand where people are coming from in that regard. It won't keep me from the content once it keeps out.. I'm still going to try it, and hopefully all the worry is for nothing and everything is perfect. :)

A lot of it will be fixed at some point in the future when they actually allow full pre-made groups.

The inevitable less skilled players you're gonna get grouped with or people that drop after they get their loot (still no info if it's one chest at the end or spread throughout) don't bother me as much as only being able to get one piece of loot per week.

There will be 4 bosses, each boss drops one treasure chest per party. I can bet that after initial clear ppl will be leaving after getting loot. I wonder if ct last boss will be clearable with 15 players instead of 24.

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Originally Posted by Vydos

A sudden thought just popped in my mind about CT.

Bigger parties = Bigger chances of having people being a liability to the group.

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I'ma go out on a limb here, and say this is your first MMO where you've played with a large group of people?

Really what's the solution for not getting grouped with jerks and unskilled players? Should they turn the game in single player so we don't have to play with other people? Isn't this the risk of any MMO? Or communicating with other human beings period? Personally, I can't use any social function (forum, chat room, game, comments on a news article, etc) on the internet without running into some jerk, troll, or general idiot.