Alliance Raid Roulette

At this point just rename it Crystal Tower Roulette. Please for the love of god, PLEASE do something about this. Make all AR mandatory or put CT in its own roulette or part of MSQ roulette.

Easier fix that just came to my brain, make Crystal Tower non-mandatory. That way less people do it, and it comes up less for those that are done with the story already.

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Originally Posted by Elephantality

Easier fix that just came to my brain, make Crystal Tower non-mandatory. That way less people do it, and it comes up less for those that are done with the story already.

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The problem with that is, CT is mandatory for SHB, so everyone who is done with the story has it unlocked, while they may still have some to none of the others unlocked, it would still pop up the majority of the time as that is what most people have. Having it on a different roulette altogether or part of msq roulette would be the optimal option imho, doubt it would happen tho.

increase the difficulty in Crystal Tower as well as the rewards to be fitting whatever level you are instead of being fed poetics all the time or something.

Crystal tower, if they lowered the synch to the requirement instead of allowing the max, would make these places quite a different story to deal with, and the same should be done with level 60-70-80-90.

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Originally Posted by Bhunivelze1992

At this point just rename it Crystal Tower Roulette. Please for the love of god, PLEASE do something about this. Make all AR mandatory or put CT in its own roulette or part of MSQ roulette.

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They don't even need to do that.

Just let us use our max level rotation and abilities. That's the real reason why I hate CT. Most jobs are neutered so hard (with BLM being the worst offender, where the "rotation" is completely different and totally unrelated to the max level rotation) that even the 15 minute run of Syrcus Tower is a slog where I struggle to stay awake.

Plus, there's the added bonus that if we're trying out a new class, it'll give us a place to practice the max level rotation on live content.

It's pretty ridiculous that this isn't a thing because it's not like Alliance Roulette is serious content. It's casual content with no serious repercussions on the overall story. Just slap a damage modifier on the damage calculations and we'd be good to go.

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Originally Posted by FasaiLeFaye

They don't even need to do that.

Just let us use our max level rotation and abilities. That's the real reason why I hate CT. Most jobs are neutered so hard (with BLM being the worst offender, where the "rotation" is completely different and totally unrelated to the max level rotation) that even the 15 minute run of Syrcus Tower is a slog where I struggle to stay awake.

Plus, there's the added bonus that if we're trying out a new class, it'll give us a place to practice the max level rotation on live content.

It's pretty ridiculous that this isn't a thing because it's not like Alliance Roulette is serious content. It's casual content with no serious repercussions on the overall story. Just slap a damage modifier on the damage calculations and we'd be good to go.

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i would love this so much. i want to level some other classes, but it feels like i'm not really learning when i don't have access to all of my abilities.

Doing the roulette starts CT in a few minutes. Queuing manually for an alliance raid can easily take 20 minutes. How is that even possible? Are there people also queuing manually and waiting that long for CT? Is it trial subs (no idea what those really have access to)? Something else?

And sure there are some new players now and then that need to run it for the MQ. But very often there aren't any achievement in chatlog for anyone.

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Originally Posted by aiqa

Doing the roulette starts CT in a few minutes. Queuing manually for an alliance raid can easily take 20 minutes. How is that even possible? Are there people also queuing manually and waiting that long for CT? Is it trial subs (no idea what those really have access to)? Something else?

And sure there are some new players now and then that need to run it for the MQ. But very often there aren't any achievement in chatlog for anyone.

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Alt job leveling is a thing

and players with lvl 60+ jobs who havent done Void Ark, Mhach and Dun Scaith will also get defaulted back to CT raids, same goes for later AR if they aren't unlocked

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Originally Posted by MikeCake

Alt job leveling is a thing

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That doesn't really explain it. For leveling you want to use roulettes I think? And roulettes should have some weighting towards lowering wait times. If player A is already waiting for 20 minutes, it should not push people that use the roulette into an ARR alliance raid because player B queued for a alliance raid roulette for 3 minutes with their level 51 character.

Or is it worth it to manually queuing, and waiting for 20 minutes, for the ARR alliance raids for exp? If so, that is should be be nerfed a bit.

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Originally Posted by aiqa

That doesn't really explain it. For leveling you want to use roulettes I think? And roulettes should have some weighting towards lowering wait times. If player A is already waiting for 20 minutes, it should not push people that use the roulette into an ARR alliance raid because player B queued for a alliance raid roulette for 3 minutes with their level 51 character.

Or is it worth it to manually queuing, and waiting for 20 minutes, for the ARR alliance raids for exp? If so, that is should be be nerfed a bit.

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AR roulette also gives huge exp compared to trials and normal raid, so yes players will use AR roulette to level their 51 + jobs

and for a reason the lower level the duty is the higher prio its gets in the roulette, try queuing for higher level AR at inactive hours, you will see the player count slowly build up and suddenly vanish, cause they have all been sent to do CT for someone else.

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Originally Posted by MikeCake

[...]and for a reason the lower level the duty is the higher prio its gets in the roulette, try queuing for higher level AR at inactive hours, you will see the player count slowly build up and suddenly vanish, cause they have all been sent to do CT for someone else.

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Not directed at you specifically (more toward SE tbh): so much for a system that's designed to help duties pop eh... the way I see it, they really need to do something as the system overtly favoring CT raids vs other ARs. Doesn't seem like they're doing their job decently.

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Originally Posted by MikeCake

and for a reason the lower level the duty is the higher prio its gets in the roulette

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Something like that would explain it. But we can't be sure if that is exactly what is happening, and even less so if it's intended. As far as I know there has never been any official statements about such a system. But if that is true, intended or not, that would be a terrible design. And should be changed yesterday.

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Originally Posted by aiqa

Something like that would explain it. But we can't be sure if that is exactly what is happening, and even less so if it's intended. As far as I know there has never been any official statements about such a system. But if that is true, intended or not, that would be a terrible design. And should be changed yesterday.

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If you would code a queue filler, this would be the optimized outcome. The lower levels would have more chance of filling cause there's lot more players that can fill it, so ideally it would be given a higher priority, so it can fill faster and the system can focus on filling the other queues.

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Originally Posted by MikeCake

If you would code a queue filler, this would be the optimized outcome. The lower levels would have more chance of filling cause there's lot more players that can fill it, so ideally it would be given a higher priority, so it can fill faster and the system can focus on filling the other queues.

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That is a bit to restrictive a view on optimization. A queue filler should also have some optimizations for lowest maximum wait time, not just lowest minimum.

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Originally Posted by aiqa

That is a bit to restrictive a view on optimization. A queue filler should also have some optimizations for lowest maximum wait time, not just lowest minimum.

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That is true, this is just an observation of how duty roulette queue behave in game. We might never know what little adjustments they make, but it sure does benefit lower content to fill faster.

It's also how we never get enough of Eden or Omega raids, but always get queued into Alexander raids for normal raids, other than that the current normal raids also come up and the ones from the previous expansion, cause we have people doing them for the alternative gear and the sword.
I had 40 minute + wait time for each of the Eden raid when I first done them, cause the queue kept resetting the people who were being added into mine.
The same problem with Nier Alliance raid which used to never pop in back in Endwalker, they fixed half of the issue with blocking people queuing without gear, but the problem still exists with how the system prefers to fill some duties faster than the others. Mathematically, lower leveled duties would end up filling faster as they have a bigger pool to collect users from.

But yeah the biggest problem here isn't the queue algorithm, but players not having the content unlocked, most of the new players will only have CT unlocked and a bit of Alexander raids, other than that they finish the MSQ then catch up with current raids while they do not do the side content from the previous expansion for the sake of catching up.

My solution would be different, rather than separating CT series into a different roulette, lock the Alliance Raid roulette back up when you have an alliance raid available to unlock, simple and to the point, you would still get CT sometimes, even a bit more than other raids simply because the barrier of entry means there will always be more characters with fewer raids unlocked than all raids, but it would prevent any form of cheesing the roulette by avoiding to unlock raids, or even just people who aren't trying to cheese things but rather can't be bothered to unlock all raids, from bogging things down, and significantly even out the raids. I'd argue the same should be done for Normal Raid roulette, and use that as the opportunity/excuse to lift the embargo they have on those storylines.

Make the AR requirement so that you need to complete the Alliance raids of each expansion you have completed the MSQ in. And each time you do, the itemlevel requirement also goes up along with it.

I agree with all the people who wanna make all ARs on your current level mandatory to unlock the roulette. There's duties in Trials roulette where I am grateful my friend didn't unlock them cause they suck (Hildibrand, Relic) but there's plenty of good mandatory duties to outbalance them. Frankly, I also think the Normal Raid series should be required up to your current level, because if I have to see A2 one more time, I might literally die.

They could fix the problem by making all 24 man raids mandatory before you get to the next expansion. But I know they will never do that.

and take 50-60 out of high leveling. Last i checked 50 is not high leveling that's like halfway to our max jobs. Thanks SE

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Originally Posted by Infindox

They could fix the problem by making all 24 man raids mandatory before you get to the next expansion. But I know they will never do that.

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Locking the alliance raid roulette until the ones available on the most recent expansion done is a valid alternate to persuade new players to unlock them, just like how mentor roulette requires the one who want to be mentor to be fully caught up with all the normal content in order to use it.

This would increase the pool of players the queue can pick players from for the higher leveled AR and not just push them all into CT as much.

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Originally Posted by SerephinaBlossom

and take 50-60 out of high leveling. Last i checked 50 is not high leveling that's like halfway to our max jobs. Thanks SE

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You're overthinking their wording too much. We all know those are CAP dungeons.

I think it's a good idea to make all ARs mandatory in order to access the roulette. I'd go as far as saying it'd be good if ARs and NRs were obligatory to do after you've finished the entire expansion or maybe an expansion after if you wanna give people some wiggle room, and the reason is super simple: so they can actually grab that lore and do something with it other than seasonal character cameos. At some point they gotta stop pretending Gaia only exists if you did the Eden quests...

Also certain content becomes locked if you don't do the AR tied to it. For example you you can't unlock bozja content unless you do all the Ivalice AR's. The issue with that is is that no one does the Ivalice raids because people aren't interested in doing it, or they simply have it unlocked it yet. No joke that I sat in queue for 90 mins to to do the rabanastre raid and it never queued.

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Originally Posted by Grimforth

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One issue here is that Free Trial players do not have access to Bozja. You can bet once Shadowbringers is included for them; you will see Ivalice raids much more often in the roulette. Now granted they will still not be as common as Crystal Tower; but it'll still be a more regular occurrence than now as the only time we ever see Ivalice frequently is if it's one of the options during Mogtome farm events.

Add super ilvl restrictions to CT. It's ridiculous, max ilvl should be 80/100/120.

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Originally Posted by Frankie03

The problem with that is, CT is mandatory for SHB, so everyone who is done with the story has it unlocked, while they may still have some to none of the others unlocked, it would still pop up the majority of the time as that is what most people have. Having it on a different roulette altogether or part of msq roulette would be the optimal option imho, doubt it would happen tho.

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Putting those in the MSQ roulette is the best. But I don't know if their messy code structure allows for 2 different party sizes to be mixed in the same roulette.

Maybe this is a hot take, but I wouldn't mind if the Crystal Tower raids were converted into Light Party duties with Duty Support feature, like how they changed the size of Praetorium and Castrum. I generally don't like what they did by dumbing down ARR dungeons with the streamlining rework, however I feel the MSQ roulette duties had it good, as they actually teach players telegraph awareness now instead of being just a blind faceroll to win, which is exactly the case with the Crystal Tower ARs.

They even have enough NPCs to populate those in a Duty Support.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Putting those in the MSQ roulette is the best. But I don't know if their messy code structure allows for 2 different party sizes to be mixed in the same roulette.

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Considering Labyrinth of the Ancients used to require 2 tanks per party and had to be adjusted to 1 each in order for Alliance Roulette to even be added; I doubt different party sizes could be mixed in a roulette either.

Crystal Tower should be considered for a rework in to Light Party duties though and then it can go in to the MSQ roulette with Praetorium and the others, probably with unskippable cutscenes too and what not so it fits the daily rewards.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Considering Labyrinth of the Ancients used to require 2 tanks per party and had to be adjusted to 1 each in order for Alliance Roulette to even be added; I doubt different party sizes could be mixed in a roulette either.

Crystal Tower should be considered for a rework in to Light Party duties though and then it can go in to the MSQ roulette with Praetorium and the others, probably with unskippable cutscenes too and what not so it fits the daily rewards.

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Yeah, not only the jobs are AWFUL to play at that level range, but the encounters themselves are also pretty meh. Maybe Cerberus and the Eyeball bosses can give you something extra with stuff, but barely. CT raids would benefit greatly from a 4-man edition rework if it's the same quality that Praetorium and Castrum had.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Putting those in the MSQ roulette is the best. But I don't know if their messy code structure allows for 2 different party sizes to be mixed in the same roulette.

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I don't think it'd be an issue. MSQ roulette duties used to be 8-man, now they're 4-man and one of them is a trial while 2 are dungeons. It looks like if there are any limitations, they come from SE not wanting to do too much mixing up unless it's necessary? Though I can imagine CT raids would struggle more to fill since it'd be easier for the game to sort everyone into multiple Porta Decumanas than one Labyrinth of the Ancients. rip sprouts queueing for this stuff.

One idea is to split the Alliance Roulette into two parts, like the leveling system. That is, there would be two full-fledged roulettes.

1. The roulette would be for level 50-70 Alliance dungeons, and they would award 150 P, 50 H, and 30M.
2. The roulette would be for level 80-100 Alliance dungeons, and they would award more new currency: 150H, 60M.

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Originally Posted by Shistar

I don't think it'd be an issue. MSQ roulette duties used to be 8-man, now they're 4-man and one of them is a trial while 2 are dungeons. It looks like if there are any limitations, they come from SE not wanting to do too much mixing up unless it's necessary? Though I can imagine CT raids would struggle more to fill since it'd be easier for the game to sort everyone into multiple Porta Decumanas than one Labyrinth of the Ancients. rip sprouts queueing for this stuff.

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Hence the idea about converting the CT raids into 4-man duties while also making the fights a little more engaging. And then they would also be available in the Duty Support if the sprout really wants to go through it to progress with the story ASAP.

Come to think of it, I'd love to have Nero and Archer G'raha fighting alongside in the Duty Support.

make all raids mandatory for the roulette at some point in the story. the roulette is to fill up raids right? then someone in SB should also help filling up HW raids.

not the absolute solution some wish for but still better than now

I wish I got crystal tower. I never get it when trying to do my Bozja relic phase.

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Originally Posted by Miradelle

I wish I got crystal tower. I never get it when trying to do my Bozja relic phase.

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Let's swap. I want more math bot and Dun Scaith, please!

I'd prefer if CT were in MSQ roulette where I never have to see it again.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Considering Labyrinth of the Ancients used to require 2 tanks per party and had to be adjusted to 1 each in order for Alliance Roulette to even be added; I doubt different party sizes could be mixed in a roulette either.

Crystal Tower should be considered for a rework in to Light Party duties though and then it can go in to the MSQ roulette with Praetorium and the others, probably with unskippable cutscenes too and what not so it fits the daily rewards.

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Mentor roulette fills 4 man, 8man and 24 man instances. The content/party size is not an issue.

I agree they should either do MSQ roulette for Crystal Tower since it's basically MSQ level requirement to finish the story. That and / or divide Alliance raid into High Level and Base (or whatever other fancy word here for content that is considered part of the base game and not part of expansions) so that it's 80,90,100,etc for high level alli raid and 50-60-70 alli raid for the "base" one.

Note: The issue I see with adding it to MSQ roulette is how it would probably never trigger CT raid since all it is basically a 4 vs 24 roulette. 4 man content will most likely fill first before any full 24 man content will unless 23 people are queueing directly to the CT raid and needs to fill only 1 person from the roulette.

I thought adding a minimum item level requirement to it was supposed to fix it but it really didn't. It made it slightly more likely to get higher stuff but about as more likely as the Mario Kart World changes made you get 3 lap races more, I swear.