Raiding is becoming less and less optional

[Iscah]

I think the recent digest for the Last Live Letter actually answers this to a degree. For new Players going through the story, once they finish the quests in 2.55, they will get a notification to complete the Crystal Tower story if they have not already. It was not specified if players would be blocked from entering Heavensward, or that block would be in place for only 5.3 quests, but with the way it is worded I believe it is in fact the latter.

If that's the case then I suspect the updated 2.X quests might highlight the start of the quest line, a bit like more recently they've made a point of things like the Four Lords and Sorrow of Werlyt quests within MSQ. It could be as simple as "that man over there is giving you odd looks; maybe he wants to talk to you."

[Lambdafish]

It could be as simple as "that man over there is giving you odd looks; maybe he wants to talk to you."

Its actually even more fitting than that. If I were the devs, I would have crystal tower require the player to be on 2.1 (the same as four lords and sorrows of werlyt requiring 4.1 and 5.1). As part of the 2.1 MSQ the scions relocate from the waking sands to the rising stones, theres no reason why that subplot can't link briefly with the CT quest in mor dhona

[Iscah]

Its actually even more fitting than that. If I were the devs, I would have crystal tower require the player to be on 2.1 (the same as four lords and sorrows of werlyt requiring 4.1 and 5.1). As part of the 2.1 MSQ the scions relocate from the waking sands to the rising stones, theres no reason why that subplot can't link briefly with the CT quest in mor dhona

Depends whether they're going to tweak the start of the CT quests alongside the MSQ. Currently it starts with the "Outlandish Man" (who is totally not Nero in a paper-thin disguise) loitering around the plaza who tips you off about the expedition - apparently with the hope that you'll do all the hard work of breaking in there for him.

[Lambdafish]

Depends whether they're going to tweak the start of the CT quests alongside the MSQ. Currently it starts with the "Outlandish Man" (who is totally not Nero in a paper-thin disguise) loitering around the plaza who tips you off about the expedition - apparently with the hope that you'll do all the hard work of breaking in there for him.

Perhaps you can have "outlandish man" have a brief cameo in the MSQ, he does appear in the post-credit scene after all.

[Xtrasweettea]

I don't see a reason to see it as some kind of conspiracy - and given the number of complaints about too much Syrcus Tower in alliance roulette, I have a hard time believing it would be out of a need to increase participation levels in low-populated content.

They didn't force CT for 5.0 because - as much as it is highly recommended for story comprehension - it isn't needed to keep the sequence of events straight. (I'll spoiler-tag the rest of this just in case.)

The story will not reference side story events as having happened if the individual player hasn't played the story to "make it happen", which is why side content doesn't usually link back into MSQ, as the story can't build on something that might not have happened yet.

5.0 carefully steps around this rule because the time travel element negates the need for the player to have made those events happen at the point when the story plays out. It doesn't matter if the events of CT, Alexander and Omega are still in your future, because the Exarch has come back from an even further point in the future, so those events happened somewhere between now and then. (It's a flimsy excuse if you stare at it too hard and try to make sense of the altered timeline, but enough to scrape through.) The story can play out the same whether you completed CT or not, therefore they didn't force it.

Obviously whatever they've got planned will for 5.3 will be a different story. Something we'll be doing in the here and now will rely on the state of something changed by those events.

The obvious possibility is that we might need to wake up G'raha Tia again - which is rather hard if he was never sealed in the tower to begin with. So we would need to complete CT to ensure that has happened.

Or maybe the solution to our problem lies in the World of Darkness - and again, to ensure that world is in a particular state (Xande's covenant and the voidgate destroyed, Unei and Doga maybe still in there somewhere, Cloud of Darkness still rather furious at us?), we need to have completed CT.

Eureka would feel forced because it has had no direct recent links to MSQ. Its gameplay is also a fair bit further away from FFXIV's usual play format of story quests and battle instances.

CT isn't a "tough endgame raid" - it's practically a dungeon. Would you complain if 5.3 gave you a new MSQ chapter with three new dungeons to play through? Because level synch aside, this really isn't any different or more challenging. But put the label "raid" on a thing and suddenly it's something else entirely.

I think we had more wipes to the Mist Dragon when the Burn was newly-launched than I've ever seen happen in a single CT run. Even World of Darkness. Might get one or two on a specific boss, but people learn from mistakes and it goes better on the next attempt.

If you work in corporate world like I do, you would understand where I am coming from with my "conspiracy." Also, just because people run a piece of content constantly does not mean that it is popular among the majority. This was an argument that was applied against Eureka back when it was relevant. That argument can be applied here as well.

You assuming I would think CT would be difficult is misplacing my disinterest for the content. I did 18+ man end-game content for years in FFXI and raided in WoW for a few months. Due to the constant grid of that content, I ended up burning out and decided to not participate in anything greater than 8 man content when I joined FF14, unless I know I could end up enjoying the content (like Eureka). I knew before doing CT it wouldn't be difficult. It is completely possible to be just not interested in content beyond 8 man in this game. Just like it is completely possible to not be interested in crafting.

The hardest part of CT was pressing that skip option on the cut-scenes.

As for the MSQ and Eureka example, if you took in what I wrote then "recent story links" would apply in that scenario

[Xtrasweettea]

So in this scenario, they told us over a year ago that finishing Eureka would enhance our ShB experience(with extra dialogue and whatnot) and now we're finding out that it will actually be required? I wouldnt feel forced at all. In that scenario, i probly finished Eureka last spring. If somehow i hadnt found time for it then, id have certainly found time by now. Ive been(slowly) leveling classes i dont care about for months, i could carve out time for an important story beat to happen. And i say this as someone who went into Anemos when it was new, stayed for maybe an hour, and never went back. Yeah, id "suck it up" and not come to the forums to complain about it.

That would be you. Though, basing on your join date on the forums, you should have seen the many complaint threads about Eureka when it was relevant. I am very sure that if this scenario became true (which it would never, thank goodness), you would see the same amount of threads complaining about now Eureka being a requirement.

What is ironic is that there will be an expectation from people who enjoyed the content, like me, to be empathetic towards those who don't like Eureka. "Understand where we are coming from," they would say (which they said in those past threads towards anyway who stated they enjoyed Eureka). Yet, there is no level of empathy towards those who have had no interest in doing CT from those who at least are neutral towards CT.

[EaMett]

That would be you. Though, basing on your join date on the forums, you should have seen the many complaint threads about Eureka when it was relevant. I am very sure that if this scenario became true (which it would never, thank goodness), you would see the same amount of threads complaining about now Eureka being a requirement.

What is ironic is that there will be an expectation from people who enjoyed the content, like me, to be empathetic towards those who don't like Eureka. "Understand where we are coming from," they would say (which they said in those past threads towards anyway who stated they enjoyed Eureka). Yet, there is no level of empathy towards those who have had no interest in doing CT from those who at least are neutral towards CT.

I mean, CT raids take you under an hour and require little to no effort. Eureka on the other hand...

[Xtrasweettea]

I mean, CT raids take you under an hour and require little to no effort. Eureka on the other hand...

I know, that is why in my original post, I stated that they are not comparable for completion.

The whole point of that scenario was "How would you feel by now having to do something that was originally optional to now mandatory and you had at least no interest in doing the content." It was to have people to stop and think for a second about another point of view outside of their own point of view.

[Rosenstrauch]

I mean CT raids take you under an hour and require little to no effort. Eureka on the other hand...

Seriously. If you went at a reasonable pace with Eureka, it would probably take at least a month, if not two, to get all the way to the end. By contrast the entirety of the CT storyline, raids included, can be completed in half a work day at worst. I'd even go as far as saying Eureka requires far more coordination with other people than the Crystal Tower raids and is more difficult in general, especially when it comes to each zone's higher level FATEs.

[Stepjam]

I know, that is why in my original post, I stated that they are not comparable for completion.

The whole point of that scenario was "How would you feel by now having to do something that was originally optional to now mandatory and you had at least no interest in doing the content." It was to have people to stop and think for a second about another point of view outside of their own point of view.

As long as it wasn't a major investment, I probably wouldn't mind. Might even be an excuse to check out parts of the game I had ignored until that point. The game is encouraging you to play it, I don't see what's wrong with that.