Rethinking Dungeon Roulettes

Now that the duties in Main Scenario Roulette have Duty Support, I think it is time to retire Main Scenario Roulette and move those rewards elsewhere.

The 50/60/70/80 Dungeons Roulette now contains MANY dungeons over a large range of levels, and the rewards seem lackluster. I would love to see it broken up (maybe separated into a 50/60 roulette and a 70/80 roulette) and have their rewards increased.

Since many parts of the story are locked behind trials, which cannot be done with Duty Support, it is important that people feel motivated to queue for roulettes containing story trials. Adding more incentives here could be a good idea, too.

It stands to reason that if they retire the MSQ roulette(which for the record im not against), then they wouldnt re-assign those rewards elsewhere. The rewards would just cease to exist. When they changed the cutscenes in Castrum and Prae to be unskippable(years ago, long before the instances were re-worked and split into the 3 we have today) they tweaked the rewards for that roulette several times(raising rewards repeatedly until the internal data said the ques were popping at their desired frequency for new players) to make sure those instances didnt stand as a roadblock to new players finishing ARR. So the rewards werent added as a "players need this" sort of thing, but rather as a "heres a bribe for sitting through unskippable cutscenes" sort of thing.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

It stands to reason that if they retire the MSQ roulette(which for the record im not against), then they wouldnt re-assign those rewards elsewhere. The rewards would just cease to exist. When they changed the cutscenes in Castrum and Prae to be unskippable(years ago, long before the instances were re-worked and split into the 3 we have today) they tweaked the rewards for that roulette several times(raising rewards repeatedly until the internal data said the ques were popping at their desired frequency for new players) to make sure those instances didnt stand as a roadblock to new players finishing ARR. So the rewards werent added as a "players need this" sort of thing, but rather as a "heres a bribe for sitting through unskippable cutscenes" sort of thing.

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i agree, just throw it to leveling roulette and give that the bonus it would've gotten from msq

also if i may add i rather see 5/6/7/8/9 roulette just change to adventurer's roulette lol

At this point I feel that all 4 player content up to 50, MSQ or otherwise, should be folded into a single category and they should just remove the cutscenes interrupting the content. Push the exposition to after the boss fights.

Things don't need to be removed just because you don't want to do them. You can just not do them. That's fine.

I'd probably suggest that 51-89 all be folded into one category and just be permitted multiple times per day.

I think the separation of the top level into 2 tiers makes sense to not lock people out every time a new dungeon comes out and give them a chance to reach any new iLvl reqs.

Our current roulette system is definitely bloated and weird. Why guildhests roulette? Guildhests roulette should exist only for Sprouts and Mentors. Why not all pvp maps are included in frontline roulette?
Some priorities are just...weird

From a roulette called "expert roullete" i would expect V&C, Reginae and Hard Modes and not normal 90 dungeons. There is nothing expert about them lol

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Originally Posted by Elissar

Why guildhests roulette? Guildhests roulette should exist only for Sprouts and Mentors.

From a roulette called "expert roullete" i would expect V&C, Reginae and Hard Modes and not normal 90 dungeons. There is nothing expert about them lol

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Many of them are poorly labeled, for sure. Not sure I'd come up with better or more concise labels myself though. Although Level 50/60/70/80 Dungeons is also not at all concise. Maybe =<50 could be Adventurer Dungeons as suggested by kingskye and >50 could be Warrior of Light Dungeons. The two top level categories could just be High 90 Dungeons and Low 90 Dungeons. Not that anyone is actually reading this for feedback...

Also agree on the Guildhests. They probably don't belong in the roulette. Maybe just for mentors, as you say. It's counterproductive. That should probably be the next Duty Support target. Hests are for tutorial purposes directed at new players. They don't serve any practical purpose once you start partying with other players. Not that anyone is actually reading this for feedback...

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Originally Posted by Elissar

Reginae and Hard Modes and not normal 90 dungeons. There is nothing expert about them lol

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The 'hard' is very misleading in their name (Hard Mode dungeons), and probably should be branded 'Another', because it's technically a new dungeon that uses some of the assets from the original and the actual difficulty range isn't anything, because it's about the same of the other common dungeons from the same level range.

I agree on pvp maps, and also... why not a CC daily roulette? It would give more incentive for people to do it after they have all of the pvp rank rewards.

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Originally Posted by Elissar

Why guildhests roulette? Guildhests roulette should exist only for Sprouts and Mentors.

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I really do not understand why you would take a roulette away from players after they unlock it. It is its own roulette. If you do not want to do it, you do not need to do it. Sometimes people want to experience that again, or try a new class, or play with their friends who are new to the game. It even has a Challenge Log entry. Also, since it's optional, people can lose their sprout status without completing it. You would have them be unable to do that content? It is you who has weird priorities.

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Originally Posted by Elissar

Why not all pvp maps are included in frontline roulette?

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The maps cycle for everyone, whether you use the "roulette" or not. No maps are excluded, just which map you get is based on a schedule. If you mean why are Crystalline Conflict and Rival Wings not included: those have very different numbers of participants and different allowed party sizes for queuing. If they were to have daily bonuses, I would want them to be separate from each other and Frontline.

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Originally Posted by Korbei

Many of them are poorly labeled, for sure. Not sure I'd come up with better or more concise labels myself though. Although Level 50/60/70/80 Dungeons is also not at all concise. Maybe =<50 could be Adventurer Dungeons as suggested by kingskye and >50 could be Warrior of Light Dungeons. The two top level categories could just be High 90 Dungeons and Low 90 Dungeons. Not that anyone is actually reading this for feedback...

Also agree on the Guildhests. They probably don't belong in the roulette. Maybe just for mentors, as you say. It's counterproductive. That should probably be the next Duty Support target. Hests are for tutorial purposes directed at new players. They don't serve any practical purpose once you start partying with other players. Not that anyone is actually reading this for feedback...

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Capstone roulette.. since its keeps all the dungeons from when your at the level cap..

Capstone is not a term used in this game. I'd never even come across that term until this week on this forum. You might as well call it Bungscrew Roulette. It would be just as intuitive.

I was actually thinking about the name "capstone roulette" yesterday, and I'm glad someone else had the same idea! It makes a lot more sense than expecting "Adventurer Dungeons" and "Warrior of Light Dungeons" to be meaningful distinctions, since all player characters are always both adventurers and warriors of light. I would much rather see "Story Dungeons" and "Capstone Dungeons." (The crowning points of the story are capstone, though, so maybe keeping the "Leveling" name is fine, or finding a better word for "not capstone.") I hope you realize that words have meaning, and "the game does not already use that term for something else" is a good thing.

I'm not claiming my suggestions are good. I even said as much when I suggested them. But the terms "Adventurer" and "Warrior of Light" are actual nomenclature used within this game and they're delineated pretty clearly by time. You're a lowly everyday Adventurer when you start out. You become known as the Warrior of Light by the end of ARR. Therefore ARR = Adventurer. Post-ARR = Warrior of Light.

Capstone is not a term that is used in this game. It's a term that is used in one other game that is a few months old and doesn't mean anything here. We have not adopted this term in the larger vernacular of video games.

I'd like to see some sort of rework of the roulettes. Nobody is queueing up for the Shadowbringers trials, which makes them impossible to do in the Duty Finder. I had to ask my FC for help with Crown of the Immaculate last weekend, and it looks like I'll have to ask them for help again with The Dying Gasp.

Am I correct in guessing that this is just how it's going to be going forward? Nobody queueing for MSQ trials from level 79 on? This must be really rough for people who aren't in a nice, big, active, friendly FC.

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Originally Posted by BiffWellington

Nobody queueing for MSQ trials from level 79 on?

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I think all the MSQ trials are part of both Trials Roulette and Mentor Roulette. I have done those trials you named through the Duty Finder as a DPS, and I was not queuing unreasonably long. I do think trials can be incentivized more, though.

Your particular issue might have more to do with your data center. Am I correct in saying you were queuing on Marilith, one of the Dynamis world servers? The Dynamis data center is the newest and least-populated of the data centers for the Americas, and in my experience, queuing for trials, alliance raids, and PvP is not popular there. People tend to rely on the Party Finder more heavily for finding groups for specific content, and the Phoenix Down Project plans events as if the entire data center was one big free company.

I have no idea what the infrastructure looks like, but I wonder if improvements can be made to the way the duty servers behave, so data centers within the same region can act like one big data center rather than having jarringly different user experiences.

Ive always said it sucks to put ALL the x0 dungeons into one roulette... you get dragged down too far and the rewards are lousy.. id much rather have more rouletts split up and a choice.
Lets face it, either ppl just wont do the roulette (i knew many ppl back then that would refuse to do 50/60 because they hated the lv 50 ones) or force cap their tome by hunts/doing the highest dungeon X times.

If someone wants to level he will do stuff. If he wants to cap tome, we will do so.


Id also much rather have the alliance raids split up into their own rouletts... and maybe an real MSQ roulette where all the story relevant stuff gets put.


But overall i miss the 2 ex dungeons per patch too much... having one always for two patches makes me not wanna do the 90 roulette at all...

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Originally Posted by BiffWellington

I'd like to see some sort of rework of the roulettes. Nobody is queueing up for the Shadowbringers trials, which makes them impossible to do in the Duty Finder. I had to ask my FC for help with Crown of the Immaculate last weekend, and it looks like I'll have to ask them for help again with The Dying Gasp.

Am I correct in guessing that this is just how it's going to be going forward? Nobody queueing for MSQ trials from level 79 on? This must be really rough for people who aren't in a nice, big, active, friendly FC.

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It's a data center issue if you're queuing on Dynamis. Most of the endgame players head to Aether to do things, leaving few higher level players behind that are queueing for the roulettes that usually fill duties.

There are several mentors that try to keep an eye on Dynamis Party Finder for players trying to get first time clears for MSQ so if you list the trials in PF going forward, you'll have a lot more luck than queueing solo for a trial. If a mentor joins a party that is filling slowly, they'll announce to other mentors in Novice Network.

If trying to do it through Party Finder isn't comfortable for you, your best bet would be to use data center travel to Aether to do a trial.

Thanks for the information, Zatoh and Jojoya! I'm glad to hear that it's not affecting everyone everywhere.

In some ways, though, it might've been better for me if it were affecting everyone everywhere, because then there would be a need to fix it by improving the incentives to do the Trials Roulette. But if it's just a part of my server's culture... ugh, there might not be such a need to fix it. Different servers prioritize different facets of the game, after all.

Thanks for the tip about trying Party Finder instead of Duty Finder, Jojoya! I hadn't considered that as a possibility. I may or may not look into that when I reach the next trial in the post-Shadowbringers quests. Depends on how busy my stronger FC members are at that moment, I guess.

My wishes for a Dawntrail Roulettes Rework:

- Level 100 Dungeons and Expert Roulette should be folded into the same thing entirely. It barely made sense to keep the two apart, it makes less sense now that Expert is only ever 2 dungeons.
- Main Scenario Roulette can stay, fold Crystal Tower raids into it (make it two tanks again. Not like it really matters that much.) OR start making the other Alliance Raids, bar maybe the Nier ones, mandatory. Not immediately, just over time.
- 50/60/70/80/90 Dungeons should just be folded into Leveling Roulette.
- Daily Challenge: Frontline becomes a general PvP roulette. Loading into Rival Wings, Frontline or Crystalline.
- Abolish Guildhests Roulette
- Normal Raids and Trials stay the same. Trials Raid Max Level Tomes bonus increases from 15 -> 20 because I don't like uneven numbers :)

Now for some more "out there" suggestions:
- Add a charge system to the duty roulettes so you're not punished for missing one or two days. 2 or 3 charges max, keeping you playing for longer if you missed a day and populating the queues slightly more on the other day if you did.
- If not a Charge System, add a system where you can do a roulette multiple times but get diminishing returns. Get 100% Bonus for first clear, 40% Bonus for Second Clear, 10% for Third Clear onwards.

I agree they gotta look into it, in my opinion they should rework Expert roulette so it includes ALL THE (normal) CONTENT from Current Expansion, be it Alliance Raids, Normal Raids, Trials and Dungeons. Level 90 (or level cap) roulette is something I always skip.