Crystal Tower has to go

I'm sorry. It sucks and is bad.

Why does it suck?

I say it should be part of the MSQ Roulette now that...well...it's part of the MSQ. That way people still do it but the Alliance Raids are going to be something I actually have to be awake to do.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

Why does it suck?

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Because even after the number squish...it's so brain dead easy and extremely boring.

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Originally Posted by Renalt

I say it should be part of the MSQ Roulette now that...well...it's part of the MSQ. That way people still do it but the Alliance Raids are going to be something I actually have to be awake to do.

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Half the dungeons in the game are required for msq, but they aren't in msq roulette.

It's a very specific roulette for the end of arr.

It's fine being in alliance roulette. If you want a specific alliance raid that's what direct queues are for.

Now, I'm all for requiring an ilvl req on alliance roulette equivalent to the ilvls of the raids of the lvl your job is that you queue with to prevent cheesing.

Cuz whatll happen is you just get void ark as people avoid mhach, or orbonne, the nier raids, etc.

I don't know that it needs to go, but it does need some adjusting. Most of it's been a joke since Heavensward.

It's actually really good. The only problem with it is that it's only good minimum item level and the areas could be connected up more to reduce loading screens because PS3 isn't supported anymore.

It's not going to be be removed because it's a part of the MSQ now.

It's your own problem for doing it a lot. I don't do it and I can't see a reason why it's necessary to do it that much, even for relics, because there are alternative ways for relics. I don't even normally get it in Mentor Roulette.

I would instead wish they'd do a rework rather than just banishing it to the shadow realm. Because lets not kid ourselves, they'll NEVER do such a thing due to how interwoven Crystal Tower is to the main plot.

But yeah retooling the raid to be more interesting is something I want to see. They've updated some of the aoe markers for some of the bosses which is good


...but lets go beyond that!

Crystal Tower is great. It shields me from the misfortune of queueing into an Ivalice raid every other time I do the roulette.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's your own problem for doing it a lot.

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It's my own problem for doing it a lot against my will in Alliance Roulette? Also: lol at it actually being good. That's a real knee slapper.

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Originally Posted by Renalt

I say it should be part of the MSQ Roulette now that...well...it's part of the MSQ. That way people still do it but the Alliance Raids are going to be something I actually have to be awake to do.

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I agree with you. I agree with you so hard right now. They gotta do something before I go insane.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Crystal Tower is great. It shields me from the misfortune of queueing into an Ivalice raid every other time I do the roulette.

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One time I forgot that I unlocked the first Ivalice raid, and I queued up for Duty Roulette...
Never again will I make such a foolish mistake.

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Originally Posted by Ishe-P

It's my own problem for doing it a lot against my will in Alliance Roulette?

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Yes, you did Alliance Roulette. I avoid it personally.

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Also: lol at it actually being good. That's a real knee slapper.

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Have you ever done it minimum item level?

from my recent experience in roulettes, maybe its because of Aglaia being added to the alliance roulette that perhaps changed the rng algorithm for which raids you get but Ive been getting CT less frequently than before.

they really should either:
1) heavily ilv lock it and slap it into MSQ roulette (lota ilv75, st ilv90, wod ilv110) so that the first two raids actually have mechanics (they could keep wod at ilv130 ig) or
2) make it a set of solo instances thereby allowing everyone to once again never fear being bored senseless during their daily alliance

I still don't know why OP doesn't like it.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I still don't know why OP doesn't like it.

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Probably the same reason as those who do not like it as well. With the exception of World of Darkness (though that does fall flat on its face with the final boss. Did you know she has snake adds?), every boss in the CT raids are just bigger trash mobs that do less mechanics than HW-EW dungeon bosses.

Heck, you could argue they have less mechanics than Ifrit in the story mode trial.

Retool it into a single light party, and nothing of importance would be lost.

You'll still have enough story to lock the cat up inside it's cage.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

Probably the same reason as those who do not like it as well. With the exception of World of Darkness (though that does fall flat on its face with the final boss. Did you know she has snake adds?), every boss in the CT raids are just bigger trash mobs that do less mechanics than HW-EW dungeon bosses.

Heck, you could argue they have less mechanics than Ifrit in the story mode trial.

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I mean, most of the bosses do have mechanics. They just melt so fast now that you'll never see them unless the group is sandbagging. Glasya Labolis is especially bad; I haven't seen a group actually have to face the platform mechanic since 3.1.

I've stopped Alliance Raid duty altogether just because this is the same shit that I get every time. I grew tired of idiots purposefully removing gear to scale down just for that. That series of raids needs to be its own duty finder category.

What it needs is a Praetorium-level rework.

The problem is NOT crystal tower.

The problem is that you are sick of it because every time you do the roulette, that's where you go.

The solution is... pretty horrific. Takes multiple steps.

1. When you complete an expansion automatically unlock everything that is in a roulette up to that level (do not remove the quests).
2. Roulettes need to automatically have an ilvl requirement equal to the highest ilvl that is unlocked.
3. Punishment for leaving has to be for everybody who leaves in the first 5 minutes, not just the first person who leaves.
4. Reward for Alliance roulette will have to double.


Remove any of those steps and you'll just be inviting new abuses.

(they COULD remove some of the nerfs they did to make the tower easier, so you'd actually have to do mechanics in the fights, but remember when the tower was first made required at level 50 and we had all the undergeared sprouts who made it hard to pass.... that just trades one problem for another)

All I know is if I get the CT set...I just take the penalty. I'll just be a degenerate in Uldah as the penalty ticks down because that is a way better use of my time than doing CT yet again.

Not like my party will miss me. They could probably do it just fine if half the alliance left.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I mean, most of the bosses do have mechanics. They just melt so fast now that you'll never see them unless the group is sandbagging. Glasya Labolis is especially bad; I haven't seen a group actually have to face the platform mechanic since 3.1.

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I always wondered why those platforms were there and what they were supposed to do, lol.

The Crystal tower is fine, what that need to be done is that people will be synched to the max ilevel they can be for the tier, no matter if they go in without clothes on.

That would solve most of the problems, it will still pop in more frequently than others, but less if so.

Reason, people exploit and put lower tier gear so they can force to get the Crystal Tower series, if you are level 80 you would then be synched to the max level 80 ilevel when you use Alliance roulette, meaning, you would of course queu for all, but you can't pick which one you want to get by removal of gear and the likes, highest tier not needed to do such, due to you would need gear from all the level 90 Alliance raids when at max anyway and to queu in manually as it is.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Crystal Tower is great. It shields me from the misfortune of queueing into an Ivalice raid every other time I do the roulette.

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If I dont get a CT raid, I pray its not Ivalice, Weeping City, or the Copied Factory.
Cant stand those Raids. Everything else Im good to go.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

With the exception of World of Darkness (though that does fall flat on its face with the final boss. Did you know she has snake adds?), every boss in the CT raids are just bigger trash mobs

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They have lots of mechanics. They are just being ignored or skipped because of being a higher than the item level it was designed for. The only reason you see mechanics in World of Darkness is because it was released in the final raid tier and we get synced to a final raid tier item level.

LOTA part 1 mechanics
LOTA part 2 mechanics
Syrcus Tower part 1 mechanics
Syrcus Tower part 2 mechanics

Thanatos has different parties get a buff to attack different enemies. It sends adds to kill the magic pots and the right party has to kill them and protect the party from the other adds. Meanwhile, the healers need to heal the magic pots and protect them. Behemoth plants meteor drops on people and then does an attack that requires you to hide behind them to survive, but the adds try to destroy the meteors and attack people so they need to be tanked or killed. It's pretty obvious how many mechanics the last boss has and although a lot of them can be ignored, we still have to do Ancient Flare and fight off the Magitek Claws that stun us. Most of this gets ignored because of item level really.

In Syrcus Tower, the first boss has lightning orbs that you take to the beams otherwise they explode and kill people. Ice orbs freeze people up, leaving behind a puddle that you can stand in to survive Ancient Flare. The flame orbs should be dragged to the people who are in ice to free them. There are lots of adds that spawn that can get overwhelming. Then there is a Daybreak cast that works like Ancient Flare in LOTA if all the lightning pillars are charged (this is about where most of us usually died minimum item level).

The next boss in Syrcus spawns adds that you can stand in so others can kill them. It does a big aoe attack. It spawns 3 adds that you drag to intercept the tethers so that you can use the jump pads. Then you can jump to the surrounding platform to survive and kill all the adds by jumping from platform to platform like in A12 and then you can return.

The next boss, Amon, casts aoes on themselves and others and some of them give debuffs so you can avoid them. It cleaves in front in case someone is trying to spend time with the tank. The first set of adds need to be killed or they give us lots of debuffs. You get some purple orb tethers that can make things mini which can be used on the adds to make them easy to kill. There is a bomb debuff on someone that you can use Esuna on so it doesn't hit everyone. Eventually it freezes people and turns some people into frogs. The frogs can break the ice, but you need at least one of the iced people to remain so you can hide behind them for Curtain Call. Some snakes will spawn and they need to die quick.

All of these can be quite rough fights or even wipe without being overgeared. Then we have the final one, which you still see the mechanics for but the aoes don't hurt as much or need as much healing and there isn't even close to a serious DPS check. The mechanics mostly kill sprouts that don't have good gear.

If it is so mind-numbingly easy I think its probably a case of :
"Oh no! Crystal tower is too easy at level 90 wth my ilvl 500+ gear!"
Possible solution: mayhaps if they set a maximum ilvl and you need to be below a certain ilvl to participate could add to the challenge.

or you have run it so many times you know the mechanics by heart and never fail them.
Possible solution: have bosses switch between 3-4 mechanics randomly each run might make it a bit more challenging to run.

IDK I've died countless times in these alliance raids because I didn't know the mechanics.

"Oh, group B needs to get swallowed by Cerberus!"
.. oh ok.. *dies horribly*
"Oh, you need to stand in one puddle of vomit to get shrunk then stand in the other puddle of vomit.."
.. Oh. Ok..

Adjust it so that it lasts the same time as the others. This will reduce the amount of ilvl cheese. But I think it's statistically more probable that you get CT regardless.

Also slightly retool encounters (personal experience, but its more common to wipe to Ancient Flare or look-at-me-and-get-Doom than say, post-nerf Thunder God)

We will run into the "oh the poor newbs will think is too hard", but, in my opinion: Nah.

Don't the devs want the MSQ and all its dungeons and trials to be soloable eventually? Doing a 24 player raid completely goes against that ideology. Time to gut the Crystal Tower and give it the Praetorium treatment.

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Originally Posted by XiRon

they really should either:
1) heavily ilv lock it and slap it into MSQ roulette (lota ilv75, st ilv90, wod ilv110) so that the first two raids actually have mechanics (they could keep wod at ilv130 ig) or
2) make it a set of solo instances thereby allowing everyone to once again never fear being bored senseless during their daily alliance

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Yeah, the ilvl cheese makes many old expansion fights a complete joke.

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Originally Posted by JRat

If it is so mind-numbingly easy I think its probably a case of :
"Oh no! Crystal tower is too easy at level 90 wth my ilvl 500+ gear!"
Possible solution: mayhaps if they set a maximum ilvl and you need to be below a certain ilvl to participate could add to the challenge.

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They are not item level 500+. People get synced to level 50 and its associated item level (130). But that is still too high and makes it too easy.

If only people below 130 could participate then new players would not find a party to help them clear it as quickly.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I mean, most of the bosses do have mechanics. They just melt so fast now that you'll never see them unless the group is sandbagging. Glasya Labolis is especially bad; I haven't seen a group actually have to face the platform mechanic since 3.1.

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Sad thing about ST is that you could start skipping Scylla and Glasya's big mechanics before HW even came out. Heck I'm pretty sure you could start skipping them before 2.4 came out. That raid was severely undertuned.

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Originally Posted by Ishe-P

I'm sorry. It sucks and is bad.

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A lot of things have to go.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They are not item level 500+. People get synced to level 50 and its associated item level (130).

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I don't think the raids need to be adjusted to cater to these players because "It sucks and is bad".
I favor making it challenging but still doable by the players who actually Need it for the MSQ.

Also.. can a lvl 50 get 130 gear if they haven't made it to Ishgard yet?

** Yes.. derp the augmented ironworks tombstone gear..**

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Originally Posted by JRat

I don't think the raids need to be adjusted to cater to these players because "It sucks and is bad".
I favor making it challenging but still doable by the players who actually Need it for the MSQ.

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I think it's perfectly doable even at minimum item level. There just might be a wipe or two and everyone will learn from it. It's a lot like how the latest normal mode trials and raids can wipe everyone but they will get it after a few pulls.

Everyone in an alliance raid is a bit of a dorito. The reason a lot of alliance raids don't wipe is actually because the people new to it or who forgot it just follow everyone else. Another reason they don't wipe is because alliance raids are designed to allow a certain percentage of people to not do the mechanics (example, not everyone has to be on a pad for Ancient Flare, just most people) so if a few sprouts don't do the mechanic they will just get a rez after it.

I'll tell you why I don't like it.

#1. I've run this thing well over 100 times, easily. Without tracking or quantifying it at all, I know that ~100 human hours of my time has been spent in this shitty ass raid. I am sick of it and want off the ride.
#2. I get synced to level 50 every time I do it. It's so goddamn awful to play level 50 at this point. It doesn't matter the class or the job, all the cool stuff is gutted, all the muscle memory that has been built for the later stuff is rendered completely unnecessary. I tend to raid as Ninja; it plays so bad at 50, I know other classes do as well.
#3. If I wanted to run it by name, I would. And I would tolerate it if I didn't run it during the roulettes 6 out of 7 times per week. Have you queued in before, to see some dickhead change their HP from like 2000 to 10000 because they queued with a low item level? Yeah, that's why the roulettes are jacked. I do get that a larger portion of the playerbase cannot run 60+ alliance raids because of circumstance, but it is painful to be constantly dragged down to that level, day after day. It sucks, it is bad, and anyone who purposely messes with system to enforce level 50 raids is a giant douche that should be banned.
#4. I think it's crazy that people think Ivalice and HW raids are harder. Do you know why they're harder? It's because people aren't running them as much as running stupid Crystal Tower.
#5. It is disingenuous to suggest that anyone should run CT at minimum ilevel to get the full effect of the raid. That's crazy talk. Only lunatics would run it minimum ilevel on a regular basis, and that does not solve alliance roulette being corrupted by people who can only do or only want to do crystal tower and will find a way to drag randos into doing it.
#6. Yeah, maybe the gameplay is compelling at minimum ilevel, but it isn't anymore. I would never expect anyone but the sproutiest sprout to come in at minimum ilevel, and even they will probably have some level of augmented sprout gear.
#7. Of all the controversial opinions, this could be the worst one: It's not the playerbase's fault at all. SE is so proud of the CT raid that each expansion requires running a CT raid, either optionally, or as a requirement to complete some task: relics in particular, and famously ShB making it an MSQ requirement. [edited for length] After all wasn't Amon such a good character?

At this point CT is beneath my contempt. I've put a ton of time into it and have tolerated it for so long that I finally had to say something. It sucks and is bad; I have to keep doing it, and it sucks, and every time I go through it, it is bad. I hope this is to your satisfaction.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

... The reason a lot of alliance raids don't wipe is actually because the people new to it or who forgot it just follow everyone else. ... so if a few sprouts don't do the mechanic they will just get a rez after it.

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so much me...

“Your ilvl equipped is much lower than the highest level that you have equipped before. You will be queued with players of similar circumstances.”

Jack up the rewards of raids 60+, all of them give multiple materia clusters, chonky as hell xp, this only happens if you queued in your highest ilvl available.

Shouldn’t be removed, but cheesing the queue with ilvls should be, I haven’t seen an ivalice or nier raid since I left aether, and maybe 2? Mach raids. Seeing one person’t health shoot up as they put on lunar envoy gear is deflating.

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Originally Posted by Ishe-P

#5. It is disingenuous to suggest that anyone should run CT at minimum ilevel to get the full effect of the raid. That's crazy talk. Only lunatics would run it minimum ilevel on a regular basis, and that does not solve alliance roulette being corrupted by people who can only do or only want to do crystal tower and will find a way to drag randos into doing it.

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It doesn't solve people removing their gear to get into Crystal Tower and maybe if people do that you will see Crystal Tower a little more, but I think we would see it a lot no matter what because it's the first alliance raid, it's required for the MSQ and the lower level you get, the more people haven't quit the game due to MSQ bloat and every one of those new players had about 20 alt jobs to level and their first alliance raids they would qualify for on each of those jobs is Crystal Tower. The roulette matches you with people who queue directly for the content in most cases and where nobody is new or queues directly for it, again the chance that 1 out of 24 people are genuinely leveling a job that is below 60 is high.

Syncing to minimum would solve it for the people who claim the mechanics are boring and don't exist. Is it fun to do mechanics always? Not always, but if people are coming into this thread and saying not doing mechanics is boring then that's the logical solution, not getting rid the raid.

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SE is so proud of the CT raid that each expansion requires running a CT raid, either optionally, or as a requirement to complete some task: relics in particular

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CT is not required to complete the relics because you've always been able to farm Critical Engagements in Bozja.