Petition to Increase Old Alliance Raids' Difficulty

[negiman4]

The only real way to get the communities opinion is to just do it and see the results. You could make a poll on Twitter or on these forums, but you're likely to only get a small fraction of the numbers you'd actually want.

Now me personally, I think buffing the raids difficulty but not the rewards would just hurt the roulette more. Speaking for myself, the current rewards for MSQ isn't even worth it outside of the leveling experience and I'd honestly rather do anything than do the MSQ roulette. As such if the raid roulette took as long as the MSQ could on average, it'd be reduced to a "If I have another job to level" roulette and then it'd only be done if I was that bored.

Regarding MSQ roulette, I think it needs to be removed entirely. MSQ roulette only encompasses Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium. If a new player encounters it, I'd rather them queue up for it and only get in with other new players (because then there'd be no reason whatsoever for people to do it again after they've beaten it). Either that, or they could use the Party Finder to get a group together. But as was said above, Crystal Tower raids in particular only take about 15 minutes to do. MSQ roulette takes considerably longer due to unskippable cutscenes. Or, even better, redesign Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium to be regular 4-man dungeons. They really have zero need for 8 players.

The typical Copied Factory run takes about 45 minutes, yet people still do it because it's relevant, but also because it's fun. If the Crystal Tower raids took about that long, I don't think it would be a huge deal, because that's how long a typical alliance raid already takes when it's relevant. Keep in mind, you can get Copied Factory in Alliance Roulette, and nobody's complaining about it being too long. In fact, players rejoice whenever they get anything other than Crystal Tower. MSQ roulette typically takes 45 minutes to complete as well. But it's also not comparable. People hate MSQ roulette because watching the same cutscenes over and over is boring as hell. At least when you queue for alliance roulette, you don't have those massive amounts of down time. Alliance roulette is hated for an entirely different reason: old raids are far too easy to be enjoyable. That's why I believe MSQ roulette needs to be deleted and there needs to be stricter item level caps on alliance raids.

[Wiccan026]

I would be inclined to agree with you. However, there is a distinction between easy and too easy. Crystal Tower in particular is too easy. And this is pure speculation, I admit, but I believe the vast majority of people would support a more fun version of Crystal Tower as opposed to the boring version it currently is. I'm not advocating for a major increase in difficulty here. Only so that it's comparable in difficulty to Copied Factory, or more likely less difficult, for the sake of the feeling of progression. This would, in proxy, make older raids more fun, if the difficulty adjustment is just right. Is this not the whole point of playing a video game?

Crystal Tower was actually a face roll when it was out. I understand that we do less mechanics now than when it was new but it was always a face roll. Crystal Tower, even though it is further along in that quest chain, has always been easier than LOTA.

I don't think this would really go overall with main player base because if they didn't make it optional I think folks would struggle at this point and thus be frustrated and than complain.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Crystal Tower was actually a face roll when it was out. I understand that we do less mechanics now than when it was new but it was always a face roll. Crystal Tower, even though it is further along in that quest chain, has always been easier than LOTA.

I don't think this would really go overall with main player base because if they didn't make it optional I think folks would struggle at this point and thus be frustrated and than complain.

Someone doesn't remember groups getting timed out on scylla the first week. Yes. Timed out.

2nd boss wasn't much better due to people not handling adds right

[negiman4]

Crystal Tower was actually a face roll when it was out. I understand that we do less mechanics now than when it was new but it was always a face roll. Crystal Tower, even though it is further along in that quest chain, has always been easier than LOTA.

I don't think this would really go overall with main player base because if they didn't make it optional I think folks would struggle at this point and thus be frustrated and than complain.

Yeah I'm gonna have to agree with Valkyrie_Lenneth here. That's simply not true. Crystal Tower was definitely easy when it launched, especially when compared to the Binding Coil of Bahamut. But it was by no means a faceroll. Also, Crystal Tower encompasses LoTA, Syrcus Tower, and WoD. I'm pretty sure you meant Syrcus Tower. But yeah, throughout ARR, wipes in all three alliance raids were not uncommon. It was the same as it is now. Mechanics are much more complex now, but the mechanics we had to do back then were also less forgiving, though there were fewer of them.

Also, nobody here is advocating for making alliance raids mandatory. Only an item level cap decrease for all alliance raids so people don't just skip all mechanics.

[Nutrafin]

Give me min ilvl roulettes for trials, and both types of raids and I'd be happy. Bigger rewards for more effort, not required if you just want face roll wins in normal roulettes.

[KDSilver]

Give me min ilvl roulettes for trials, and both types of raids and I'd be happy. Bigger rewards for more effort, not required if you just want face roll wins in normal roulettes.

If only...

[Wiccan026]

Someone doesn't remember groups getting timed out on scylla the first week. Yes. Timed out.

2nd boss wasn't much better due to people not handling adds right

By timed out do you mean frozen when she casts the one spell when people don't set everything up correctly for her, because that happened on week one and even after that for less than a month. I however, have had four wipes in Crystal Tower across all bosses since that raid opened up. I have had more wipes in LOTA back when it first came out, and even during parts of heavensward due to some mechanics.

Again the only thing that could tie for "easy" raids would be the snooze fest of void ark (which really only had "issues" the first month and even than I don't recall having many wipes in that month). Again every other second tier raid hasn't been easier than the first one, with the exception of Crystal Tower. People were still having issues with Ancient Flare and the Behemoth in Heavensward and before that and Crystal Tower was a breeze... again my point.

[negiman4]

By timed out do you mean frozen when she casts the one spell when people don't set everything up correctly for her, because that happened on week one and even after that for less than a month. I however, have had four wipes in Crystal Tower across all bosses since that raid opened up. I have had more wipes in LOTA back when it first came out, and even during parts of heavensward due to some mechanics.

Again the only thing that could tie for "easy" raids would be the snooze fest of void ark (which really only had "issues" the first month and even than I don't recall having many wipes in that month). Again every other second tier raid hasn't been easier than the first one, with the exception of Crystal Tower. People were still having issues with Ancient Flare and the Behemoth in Heavensward and before that and Crystal Tower was a breeze... again my point.

I'm confused here. Why are you singling out Syrcus Tower? We're talking about all raids, especially the Crystal Tower raids. Crystal Tower means Labyrinth of the Ancients, Syrcus Tower, and World of Darkness. You seem to think the second alliance raid in ARR is called Crystal Tower when it's not. Crystal Tower is all three. There's a breakdown of communication here.

[OskarXCI]

I’m very much in favor of them adding an item level sync to the old alliance raids. ARR and HW more so than StB.

Take the min iLv of LotA, Syrcus Tower, Void Ark and Weeping city of mhach and add 45. Then you will have the same experience as for World of Darkness and Dun Scaith.

[Avidria]

By timed out do you mean frozen when she casts the one spell when people don't set everything up correctly for her, because that happened on week one and even after that for less than a month. I however, have had four wipes in Crystal Tower across all bosses since that raid opened up. I have had more wipes in LOTA back when it first came out, and even during parts of heavensward due to some mechanics.

Again the only thing that could tie for "easy" raids would be the snooze fest of void ark (which really only had "issues" the first month and even than I don't recall having many wipes in that month). Again every other second tier raid hasn't been easier than the first one, with the exception of Crystal Tower. People were still having issues with Ancient Flare and the Behemoth in Heavensward and before that and Crystal Tower was a breeze... again my point.

I'm curious how many times you've run these raids. Not as a dig, to be clear, but because I'm pretty sure I've had more than four wipes in LotA and ST just within the last four months, let alone since I started playing around when HW came out. I mean the raids are an absolute joke now but people still manage to screw up, usually because they decided to ignore mechanics and didn't have the damage or luck to scrape by despite it.

My favorite are the wipes from people pulling the three Atomos in LotA before four people are in the room for B or C. I've seen that twice since ShB launched. Hilarious every time.

Edit for on topic thoughts... I'd be good with a min ilvl requirement or something tbh. I like these raids but good Lord it gets boring sleeping my way through them every time my alliance roulette dumps me in one. The most interesting part of running any of them at this point is the chat, if people actually talk without flaming each other. Which seems to be a bit rare.

I did have a WoD run where the damage was so low we actually saw those shadow worm things come out on cloud of darkness. I think that might have even been after ShB came out, but if not it was late Stb. Didn't even know that mechanic existed before then, so that was a pretty interesting run :P