The Alliance roulette is unbearable

[YukikoKurosawa]

I'm at the point where I'm just gonna eat the 30 min deserter penalty if I get the crystal tower series again. I'm just done with people force-queing it. Just got into World of Darkness, zero people new to the duty. Just dropped immediately. I genuinely don't understand the mentality of people who just want to take the most boring, repetitive, easiest route because they want to save time. Ok, you naked qued so you could get CT raids only. You did your Crystal Tower faceroll run for the 3000000th time in 10 minutes. Now what will you do for the rest of your day? Log off? What are you in such a rush for? What are you doing that you need to get in and get out so fast? What is your end goal here?

This game isn't a job and I'm sick of people who treat it that way and as a result optimize the fun out of it not just for themselves but for other players. I like to que for my dailies not just for the rewards but for fun, but I like variety. And as a dps, queing for specific instances can take an eternity so I hope when I que for the roulette I have a much better chance of getting into what I want. If you're at the point where you're just logging in to do your daily tasks, and are intentionally making it as unfun as possible just to get it over quicker so you can then presumably log off, please just unsub and go play another game you actually derive enjoyment from. But while this keeps happening I'm going to keep dropping instance, regardless of what role I am, if I get into any of the CT series until people either stop force-queing it or Square actually does something about this.

[Toutatis]

I'm at the point where I'm just gonna eat the 30 min deserter penalty if I get the crystal tower series again. I'm just done with people force-queing it. Just got into World of Darkness, zero people new to the duty .

A lot of people have cleared CT yet don’t have access to any other raid, either because they haven’t completed HW or haven’t unlocked OPTIONAL raids too.

They need a roulette for CT and another for optional raids. The latter should bave modulated rewards based on duration. It would also encourage people to unlock the optional raids and increase the player base.

[BigHoffie]

This game isn't a job and I'm sick of people who treat it that way and as a result optimize the fun out of it not just for themselves but for other players. I like to que for my dailies not just for the rewards but for fun, but I like variety.

So you admit this is your idea of fun? And damned be those who have fun any other way right? I'm really glad you're not the arbiter of what this game "should" be but hey you keep talking like you are, maybe they're hiring.

[YukikoKurosawa]

So you admit this is your idea of fun? And damned be those who have fun any other way right? I'm really glad you're not the arbiter of what this game "should" be but hey you keep talking like you are, maybe they're hiring.

Nobody naked queing to get Crystal Tower all day every day is motivated by anything that could be construed as desiring fun. They're doing it because it's the most efficient way of completeing their daily, and for no other reason.

[BigHoffie]

Nobody naked queing to get Crystal Tower all day every day is motivated by anything that could be construed as desiring fun. They're doing it because it's the most efficient way of completeing their daily, and for no other reason.

I don't know how to say things in text louder and slower but i'll try. YOU... DON'T.. GET.. TO.. DECIDE.. WHAT... OTHERS... THINK... IS... FUN...

[Packetdancer]

I don't know how to say things in text louder and slower but i'll try. YOU... DON'T.. GET.. TO.. DECIDE.. WHAT... OTHERS... THINK... IS... FUN...

I think her point was more, "Pretty much everyone in this thread who has admitted to ilevel cheesing to ensure they get Labyrinth of the Ancients has said they do it because they just want out as quickly as possible with their roulette rewards."

Thus, by their own admission, no one engaging in this seems to be doing it because they think the Crystal Tower raids are fun, just that they're the fastest things to run in that roulette.

(Edit: Also, unrelated, I must high-five you on the First Law reference for your character name there. You see eight billion Kiritos and Sephiroths and other names around, as well as a solid number of references to the Wheel of Time or even the Stormlight Archive, but I think you're the first I've seen referencing Abercrombie's excellent series.)

[BigHoffie]

I think her point was more, "Pretty much everyone in this thread who has admitted to ilevel cheesing to ensure they get Labyrinth of the Ancients has said they do it because they just want out as quickly as possible with their roulette rewards."

Thus, by their own admission, no one engaging in this seems to be doing it because they think the Crystal Tower raids are fun, just that they're the fastest things to run in that roulette.

(Edit: Also, unrelated, I must high-five you on the First Law reference for your character name there. You see eight billion Kiritos and Sephiroths and other names around, as well as a solid number of references to the Wheel of Time or even the Stormlight Archive, but I think you're the first I've seen referencing Abercrombie's excellent series.)

Oh, by no means do I think the raid itself is fun... however, maybe I need to quickly level a role to raid with my friends; which I would consider fun. Or maybe I'm working on old relics (not my idea of fun but maybe somebody's) Either way, I think fun is relative and whether its doing the raid on it's own merits or using it to get to what they actually think is fun, he doesnt get to say what is or isnt.

(Thanks, most characters end up being named after what I'm reading at the time of creation. Some are boring like your generic WoT references, but I have a Rincewind tooling around on WoW too)

[Scaramouche]

I don't know how to say things in text louder and slower but i'll try. YOU... DON'T.. GET.. TO.. DECIDE.. WHAT... OTHERS... THINK... IS... FUN...

I mean your talking to someone who leaves WoD because there is no one new to the duty and thinks it means people are queueing nake.

Lots of new players who only have unlocked CT? Nope its the bloody ilvl cheeser ruining my day.

CT being mandatory and lowest entry level vs optional raid? Nope still the bloody ilvl cheeser ruining my day.

[Packetdancer]

I mean your talking to someone who leaves WoD because there is no one new to the duty and thinks it means people are queueing nake.

Lots of new players who only have unlocked CT? Nope its the bloody ilvl cheeser ruining my day.

CT being mandatory and lowest entry level vs optional raid? Nope still the bloody ilvl cheeser ruining my day.

To be fair, I think this thread has gone a bit off the rails; we're conflating two potential problems as the same thing.

Problem #1: The roulette is not functioning as intended because people queuing directly for later raids frequently must wait an inordinate amount of time.

I don't know if this is due to the (obvious) prominence of the Crystal Tower raids as the only MSQ-required raids (and one of only two raid series the free trial players can unlock). Nor do we really know the innards of how the roulette party creation logic works; is it just matching people into whatever group it can fill the fastest, or is it taking folks who can do the later raids and putting them into the later party piecemeal?

There's a lot of ways this could go wrong. But the fact that the stated purpose of roulettes is to backfill parties for people queued for specific content so they don't wait forever in the queue (in exchange for daily rewards), and yet people can queue for specific content and wait forever in the queue? That does sort of by definition mean this particular roulette is not working as intended, regardless of the reason.

Problem #2: People are admittedly manipulating the queue to get specific duties.

Leaving aside whether this is cheating or just "being clever", it definitely runs counter to the stated purpose of the roulettes. And while we have no proof that it is making the situation worse with regards to the roulettes, we can fairly definitively posit that it is not making it better.

After all, if it was always going to just dump the majority of people in Crystal Tower anyway, then ilevel cheesing changes nothing. If the number of people getting Crystal Tower is increased by ilevel cheesing, it makes the problem worse. Either of those is possible. But there is no situation in which people who can get later raids manipulating things to get specifically Crystal Tower makes it easier for the roulette to pop the queue for folks queued for later raids.

Sure, Problem #2 does not do anything towards solving Problem #1, so it can be at best a non-factor, and it could well contribute to it. However, they are separate problems and really should not be conflated as one when discussing "the alliance roulette system appears to be broken", because we have zero concrete proof that Problem #2 contributes to Problem #1.

( Though, we also have zero concrete proof that it does not make it worse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

[Scaramouche]

To be fair, I think this thread has gone a bit off the rails; we're conflating two potential problems as the same thing.

Problem #1: The roulette is not functioning as intended because people queuing directly for later raids frequently must wait an inordinate amount of time.

I don't know if this is due to the (obvious) prominence of the Crystal Tower raids as the only MSQ-required raids (and one of only two raid series the free trial players can unlock). Nor do we really know the innards of how the roulette party creation logic works; is it just matching people into whatever group it can fill the fastest, or is it taking folks who can do the later raids and putting them into the later party piecemeal?

There's a lot of ways this could go wrong. But the fact that the stated purpose of roulettes is to backfill parties for people queued for specific content so they don't wait forever in the queue (in exchange for daily rewards), and yet people can queue for specific content and wait forever in the queue? That does sort of by definition mean this particular roulette is not working as intended, regardless of the reason.

Problem #2: People are admittedly manipulating the queue to get specific duties.

Leaving aside whether this is cheating or just "being clever", it definitely runs counter to the stated purpose of the roulettes. And while we have no proof that it is making the situation worse with regards to the roulettes, we can fairly definitively posit that it is not making it better.

After all, if it was always going to just dump the majority of people in Crystal Tower anyway, then ilevel cheesing changes nothing. If the number of people getting Crystal Tower is increased by ilevel cheesing, it makes the problem worse. Either of those is possible. But there is no situation in which people who can get later raids manipulating things to get specifically Crystal Tower makes it easier for the roulette to pop the queue for folks queued for later raids.

Sure, Problem #2 does not do anything towards solving Problem #1, so it can be at best a non-factor, and it could well contribute to it. However, they are separate problems and really should not be conflated as one when discussing "the alliance roulette system appears to be broken", because we have zero concrete proof that Problem #2 contributes to Problem #1.

( Though, we also have zero concrete proof that it does not make it worse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

The roulette works perfectly fine whenever its your turn you're thrown wherever there is a party ready to go.


As for people using ilvl cheese first who cares. Second thanks to them its one less spot to a ARR raid.