Crystal Tower raids still way too common in roulette

The ilevel Alliance raid fix did absolutely nothing from what I can tell. In the past 2-3 weeks of AR roulette, I've had Crystal Tower about 15 times, most of which were LotA. Only about 5 were non CT raids. I haven't gotten Nier raids a single time in that time span .

At this point, I feel like just skipping the AR roulette because I'm so sick to death of CT raids, but then I miss out on the XP and rewards from it.

They really need to fix this. I'm not sure how, maybe make all Alliance raid unlocks required to complete the MSQ? Or make it so the higher your level, the less likely you are to pull CT.

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

At this point, I feel like just skipping the AR roulette because I'm so sick to death of CT raids, but then I miss out on the XP and rewards from it.

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You were so close.

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

At this point, I feel like just skipping the AR roulette because I'm so sick to death of CT raids, but then I miss out on the XP and rewards from it.

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Go ahead and skip it. There are plenty of other sources of XP and tomestones.

I realize this is anecdotal, but I feel like a lot of people said that getting CT was still going to happen frequently, and that the ilvl cheesing was not the biggest cause of those raids to pop. I feel like at least twice a day during my queuing, I get sprouts, so it seems like there is still a lot of new characters that can skew the odds towards that.

While it's still common for me due to being required for MSQ and by virtue of being lower level and thus more accessible, Myth of the realm appears quite frequently too.

The irony in this case is that the level 90 raids actually start to take even less time to clear than a Laby/WoD run (which can actually wipe a raid not like the baby park myths of the realm is lol).
All they did is bring in an inconvenience to those who outleveled their content and cannot buy tome gear of their expansion to actually get into the raids.

No one seriously thought it would remove CT from the roulette. It's the only one required for msq. It did make it much less frequent for me though

CT was the most common one even before it was required for the MSQ.

As it logically should be.

MSQ Required Content is always going to take precedence, especially since it’s also Free Trial content. The iLv Req for Alliance Raid pushes people to unlock those raids so they aren’t sitting there dead with barely any players.

Its because they're the only non optional raids, they're the most early ones, so most new players will also be queued for them.
Personally I always felt like they should have split off the alliance raids into a separate roullete (like msq), I can even argue that for a lot of ARR content where it feels bad to get a lot of the time, but is popular because it's where a lot of players start out (ARR is usually the most played stuff even though its the least fun to do)

Personally I'd just make a new roulette section That consists of ARR content, which would reward a lot of exp/coins/tomes. I'm sure theirs issues with that too though?

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Originally Posted by Menriq

I realize this is anecdotal, but I feel like a lot of people said that getting CT was still going to happen frequently, and that the ilvl cheesing was not the biggest cause of those raids to pop. I feel like at least twice a day during my queuing, I get sprouts, so it seems like there is still a lot of new characters that can skew the odds towards that.

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It has reduced a bit, but since CT is still msq required, those 3 raids will always be more common.

This mostly helped for those that wanted to do the later raids, as now those queue times has been massively improved as ilvl cheese no longer takes away players.

And the first few weeks the ivalice raids also has shown up a lot more due to becoming f2p. But by now it has mostly settled

The fix they did wasn't to address always getting CT. It was in response to everyone saying ilvl cheese is the reason. They got rid of the biggest complaint but still have the secondary complaint left intact (the fact it's mainly CT).

The moment SE made it part of the MSQ is when they kinda screwed themselves with the alliance roulette.

It was to fix IL cheese, not always getting CT.

To bring my own anecdote, it worked too. I've been getting CT raids far less often and have instead been getting a pretty good mix between them all.

Because ilevel cheesing was not and never was the cause. It's because CT has so many reasons for someone to do it and no other alliance raid matches that amount of content tied to it in some manner. Which any number of people on these forums and other places in social media stated and nobody wanted to listen. Now you want to push yet another "cause" that isn't a cause since it does nothing to fix that imbalance.

Aside from new players doing MSQ people will still queue for it to get Wonderous Tails done.

CT raids are the ones that people will 100% sure have unlocked, so it's logical that we see it often. Not saying it's good that we do, but it is what it is.

The only real way to fix this is simply putting the CT raids in the MSQ roulette, since it appears to be the outlier among the alliance raids - as they implied that they're not interesting in making more optional content mandatory in the future.

I think they could do something like locking you out of Alliance Raid Roulette if you move on to a new expansion in MSQ without unlocking the previous expansion's raids. For example, you finished Stormblood and are about to move on to Shadowbringers... but just as you are about to accept the next quest you get a pop-up warning message. It tells you that if you progress further in MSQ, you will not be able to queue for Alliance Raid Roulette until you unlock the Stormblood raids. It's up to you if you want to continue or hold off until you update your roulette standing.

Another way they could do it, is bake it into endgame gear progression. In addition to the normal requirements to upgrade armor or get each tier of relic weapon, you need a special coin that drops from doing Alliance Raid roulette. However, you only get the coin if you have every Alliance Raid completed up to the current content.

Ultimately, though, Crystal Tower is always going to come up the most often. That's just how it is, being the lowest common denominator among all players. I'm in favour of steps to encourage more players to unlock more content, but at the same time it's not a "problem" that can ever be truly "solved." It's just a function of the greater population's demands. It's like saying "How come it's almost always some 2 year old's birthday, but it's hardly ever a 95 year old's birthday?" That's just life, my dude.

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Originally Posted by Zairava

It was to fix IL cheese, not always getting CT.

To bring my own anecdote, it worked too. I've been getting CT raids far less often and have instead been getting a pretty good mix between them all.

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It really was because of that. Looks like far too many people complained about it, otherwise they wouldnt have thought to change the roulette ilv rules.

Too bad the downside are that casual slow MSQ new players wont be able to queue up for this roulette due to the very highly occurrence that they'll be overleveled for whatever changing ilv requirement asks of them. Had this happened to a buddy of mine, who's gotten into the game recently

It's not at all surprising when anyone who is level 59 and below can only access CT. As other people have said, this is functioning as it should. Go into alliance roulette assuming you're going to be helping new people get through MSQ, and be pleasantly surprised if it's something else. If you're not in the mood for CT, go do a hunt train or grind PVP or something.

Fixing the ilv cheese had very little to do with addressing the frequency of getting CT raids. The complaint that they were chiefly responding to were the drastically long queue times to get into an AR that fell between CT and current. They've also increased the rewards for the in between ARs as well to help entice players to do them. Still though, it is nice to know that if you do get a CT raid that it isn't because of some cheese head.

The reason why CT comes up so much is due to their low level and MSQ progression requirements. It just takes one player at level 59 or below and/or not having any other ARs unlocked, and off the other 23 players go right into CT. They have yet to truly respond to this complaint, and at this point it is highly doubtful they ever will.

Due to this, the real problem with AR roulette is not the frequency in which players will get CT per se, but rather ilv bloat makes the mechanics completely redundant. This is a non-factor for the last AR released in an expansion which is why ARs like World of Darkness, Dun Scaith, Orbonne, etc. still play out almost like they did on release day. Assuming they weren't nerfed like Orbonne was. The roulette wouldn't be nearly as bad if the bosses of LoTA and ST weren't pushovers who can't even get into the second phase of their mechanics, or provide any level of a threat at all.

It’s been a while since the change and it’s definitely now the Aglaia raid that I get the most. Probably 5 times a week I’ll get that one. The last 2 I got were the 2nd & 3rd Nier raid for the 1st time, but it’s almost always Aglaia. I get Crystal Tower on the rare chance now. I got a totally opposite experience than the OP.

Now the HW are so rare to get while the rest are alright.
At least the cool thing is seeing actual fresh faces in CT

I'm so sick of it lmao. I'm sick of every group ignoring the Doga and Unei adds, or the summoning crystals in WoD and making the fights draaaaaaaag it drives me mad -_-

SE could always make the other Alliance raids be required to do to continue the MSQ. Just have an NPC go "hey so while we figure things out there's someone over there who seems to need your help/why not finish helping X out?"

except myths. myths can stay out of the msq

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

The ilevel Alliance raid fix did absolutely nothing from what I can tell. In the past 2-3 weeks of AR roulette, I've had Crystal Tower about 15 times, most of which were LotA. Only about 5 were non CT raids. I haven't gotten Nier raids a single time in that time span .

At this point, I feel like just skipping the AR roulette because I'm so sick to death of CT raids, but then I miss out on the XP and rewards from it.

They really need to fix this. I'm not sure how, maybe make all Alliance raid unlocks required to complete the MSQ? Or make it so the higher your level, the less likely you are to pull CT.

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They tried to fix it. For a while there were people making this already bad situation even worse by forcing CT, but now they can't quite do that like they used to. It was a good start, but it's obvious that there're lots of things holding that roulette back. None of the fixes already applied changes the fact that crystal tower is required for so many reasons and it's also just a "lowest common denominator" type of thing. There are people who legit never unlock anything else and all it takes is 1 guy like that to spoil the roulette for everyone else. Or maybe some guy queues up on a job that's level 51. Well, now he's dragging everyone into CT. The roulette is simply doomed, so I don't bother with it anymore. Instead I just queue ivalice/nier directly. In the past, when the ilvl cheese was really bad, I'd queue alliance raid roulette before bed. If it was crystal tower and there weren't any first timers, I'd simply leave and go to bed. This also granted anyone else the ability to leave without a penalty since I'd taken the L for them.

The only benefit the current system has, is that at least we're rid of those people who would undress before queuing up. Hated those people. They'd load in totally naked too, so you knew they were the reason you were there. Then it'd load in and sure enough, no first timers, group's a bunch of level 70, 80, 90 dudes. Could've had a good time tonight, but thanks to this asshole it's labyrinth of the ancients for the 12,000th time. The benefits may have been miniscule but I'm glad we at least got rid of that.

One solution to this problem would be to tie the other raids to a later MSQ. This leads to having to complete all.

Laughs at everyone who thought this "fix" was going to change anything. It should have been obvious the moment it was announced that it was barely going to make a dent.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Fixing the ilv cheese had very little to do with addressing the frequency of getting CT raids. The complaint that they were chiefly responding to were the drastically long queue times to get into an AR that fell between CT and current. They've also increased the rewards for the in between ARs as well to help entice players to do them. Still though, it is nice to know that if you do get a CT raid that it isn't because of some cheese head.

The reason why CT comes up so much is due to their low level and MSQ progression requirements. It just takes one player at level 59 or below and/or not having any other ARs unlocked, and off the other 23 players go right into CT. They have yet to truly respond to this complaint, and at this point it is highly doubtful they ever will.

Due to this, the real problem with AR roulette is not the frequency in which players will get CT per se, but rather ilv bloat makes the mechanics completely redundant. This is a non-factor for the last AR released in an expansion which is why ARs like World of Darkness, Dun Scaith, Orbonne, etc. still play out almost like they did on release day. Assuming they weren't nerfed like Orbonne was. The roulette wouldn't be nearly as bad if the bosses of LoTA and ST weren't pushovers who can't even get into the second phase of their mechanics, or provide any level of a threat at all.

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I do agree with this. I think CT raids would be less awful if they weren't such pushovers and you actually had to do mechanics. The only boss I still find fun in CT is Angry Mango in WoD since people still die a lot to that encounter.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

SE could always make the other Alliance raids be required to do to continue the MSQ. Just have an NPC go "hey so while we figure things out there's someone over there who seems to need your help/why not finish helping X out?"

except myths. myths can stay out of the msq

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The only issue with that is then it becomes a problem for the group of people who already have been complaining the MSQ is too long.

You could say just skip the alliance raid roulette and just queue for the raid you want. The main reason for roulettes is to help out new players.

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Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

It’s been a while since the change and it’s definitely now the Aglaia raid that I get the most. Probably 5 times a week I’ll get that one. The last 2 I got were the 2nd & 3rd Nier raid for the 1st time, but it’s almost always Aglaia. I get Crystal Tower on the rare chance now. I got a totally opposite experience than the OP.

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Aglaia is the perfect example of why the problem with AR roulette isn't necessarily the frequency in which players get CT, and more to do with continuously getting content that just isn't fun to do because the bosses don't pose any kind of significant threat level, and ilv bloat will have players kill these bosses before things actually can get interesting. Players now defeat Byregot before he has a chance to execute his exaflares, Azyema goes down before her triangle mechanic and x3 copy arena burn, and Nald'Thal doesn't even make it past his scales of judgment. The hardest part of his fight comes after this.

Not only have the devs not listened to their playerbase, they quite literally made the same mistake all over again with Myths of the Realm. I would rather get WoD than both Aglaia and Euphrosyne.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

You could say just skip the alliance raid roulette and just queue for the raid you want. The main reason for roulettes is to help out new players.

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No, it's not. And queueing for the raid you want is dismissive of the problem. Please stop parroting and learn to show empathy to your fellow players. Roulettes exist to help keep old content alive, and everyone benefits from them. New players and veterans both. Players typically don't have a specific instance in mind when using a roulette, and are happy when they get an encounter that is well designed and not a snorefest.

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

The ilevel Alliance raid fix did absolutely nothing from what I can tell. In the past 2-3 weeks of AR roulette, I've had Crystal Tower about 15 times, most of which were LotA. Only about 5 were non CT raids. I haven't gotten Nier raids a single time in that time span .

At this point, I feel like just skipping the AR roulette because I'm so sick to death of CT raids, but then I miss out on the XP and rewards from it.

They really need to fix this. I'm not sure how, maybe make all Alliance raid unlocks required to complete the MSQ? Or make it so the higher your level, the less likely you are to pull CT.

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At least you managed to resolve the situation on your own. You are light years ahead of most of the "people" that post here.

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

The ilevel Alliance raid fix did absolutely nothing from what I can tell. In the past 2-3 weeks of AR roulette, I've had Crystal Tower about 15 times, most of which were LotA. Only about 5 were non CT raids. I haven't gotten Nier raids a single time in that time span .

At this point, I feel like just skipping the AR roulette because I'm so sick to death of CT raids, but then I miss out on the XP and rewards from it.

They really need to fix this. I'm not sure how, maybe make all Alliance raid unlocks required to complete the MSQ? Or make it so the higher your level, the less likely you are to pull CT.

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I'm not really sure there's a definitive fix so long as they keep it a lvl 50 roulette. I don't think I'd want them to make it gated behind MSQ, either. It's already long enough even without every AR being required for new players.

Maybe...they can implement something that will read if you have complete an X.0 patch (3.0, 4.0, etc) and upon reading that the player has completed said base expansion, their access to the roulette gets locked until they complete the alliance raid series for that expansion?

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Originally Posted by Reap00

At least you managed to resolve the situation on your own. You are light years ahead of most of the "people" that post here.

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It's absolutely amazing you haven't been banned yet. You remind me of FireMage just more unhinged.

I just suck up the penalty, as for a fix, they should just make all the Alliance Raids mandatory. I don't know why they don't just do it that way.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

I just suck up the penalty, as for a fix, they should just make all the Alliance Raids mandatory. I don't know why they don't just do it that way.

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None of the others have anything to do with msq is probably why.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

At least you managed to resolve the situation on your own. You are light years ahead of most of the "people" that post here.

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The dehumanizing language on this one...

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Originally Posted by Majatok

All roulettes have the issue that certain dungeons/raids come up more often than others. But it's most extreme with alliance raids. I often saw sprouts complain about waiting for hours and still not getting in ivalice/nier raids.

The main purpose of roulette is to ensure that you can always get players no matter what content you are doing. The alliance roulette failed in that regard.

So if we want to figure out if these changes were successful, we need to look at the queue times when you directly select specific alliance raids.

Did the average queue time decrease compared to from before the changes?
If yes than the changes did fix it.

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Anything not MSQ takes ages unless you're a Healer, and even then the minimum waiting time for some of the post SB optional content takes long compared to anything else. Yesterday I queued for Suzaku Normal as Healer during high activity period and, I'm not kidding, it took 23 minutes to find a group. Eden Refulgence took 40 minutes as a Tank during the weekend.

There's two main reasons why we get CT raids often: it's MSQ required, and it's usually the only AR most people seem to be bothered to unlock. Only this week I've been in three groups with one to zero sprouts.

Honestly I don't blame people who don't unlock stuff. The game does little to guide you towards said content and the rewards for doing it are just "the thrill of it" fire all the time invested in queues and doing their respective stories.

This is only gonna be solved once they either make raids part of the story or give better rewards. The reward adjustment also did little as it's easier to run CT several times in auto pilot than Nier/Ivalice once in that time-frame.

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Originally Posted by Thurmnmurmn

The only issue with that is then it becomes a problem for the group of people who already have been complaining the MSQ is too long.

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That's only an issue for people who haven't done any of the other AR's on the way to 90 (if they start from level 1 as of now). If SE did implement all AR's into the MSQ, then anyone boosting would automatically have every alliance raid from 50-80 unlocked. If implemented after the expansion comes out, then all Alliance Raids from 50-90 would be unlocked if players boost.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

That's only an issue for people who haven't done any of the other AR's on the way to 90 (if they start from level 1 as of now). If SE did implement all AR's into the MSQ, then anyone boosting would automatically have every alliance raid from 50-80 unlocked. If implemented after the expansion comes out, then all Alliance Raids from 50-90 would be unlocked if players boost.

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Sure, it's not a problem cuz you can just throw money at it. . . Alrighty then.

I know for myself I've had them all unlocked forever but if I were to make a new char and go through the MSQ again, I would be pissed if they added an extra 10 hours (just a guess for the time) to the MSQ just to try to fix a roulette.

Maybe ten hours if you don't skip the cutscenes. Probably 4-5ish hours if you do skip cutscenes. Hours may also vary depending on how good/bad your alliance is.

Alternatively, they could just move the CT raids into MSQ Roulette and only have HW, StB, ShB, and (once available) DT in Alliance Raid Roulette.