The Alliance roulette is unbearable

[RyuDragnier]

The actual problem with the Crystal Tower raid series and a lesser extent, void ark, is that the mechanics are so simple that someone could sleep walk through most of it. Only WoD has challenge to it in the original. Heck, I don't think people who do Ivalice realize this yet but those raids are also nerfed versions of the originals. The original TG Cid had bubble mechanics that required them not to touch one another or the raid would get a massive bleed. Not to mention there were other mechanical changes.

Actually, Labyrinth of the Ancients is the hardest Alliance Raid in the game at minimum ilvl. Zombie Dragon, if you don't keep the skeletons far away from each other and don't kill them, they'll rush down the dragon causing a wipe. The damage they do cannot be mitigated either. For the Bomb if you don't continually kill the bombs, they'll do massive damage to the raid and can easily cause a wipe if more than 1 blows up. King Behemoth you have to kill the bombs, have the tanks interact with the towers to weaken them, prevent the Iron Giant from breaking meteors, etc. All of which is incredibly hard to expect pugs to coordinate. If they dropped the maximum ilvl for LotA alone people would be terrified at just how difficult the place actually is.

[Kolaina]

If they dropped the maximum ilvl for LotA alone people would be terrified at just how difficult the place actually is.

Or even better, learn to get good.
But when people learn mechanics, it makes content easy. I doubt people would be “terrified” as you put it. But there’d be less excusing of incompetence

[RitsukoSonoda]

Or even better, learn to get good.
But when people learn mechanics, it makes content easy. I doubt people would be “terrified” as you put it. But there’d be less excusing of incompetence

We'd probably see a fair amount more quitting mid duty when too many lazy players are in the same duty paired with more whining on the forum from the ppl that don't want to learn how to play the game lol

[Kolaina]

We'd probably see a fair amount more quitting mid duty when too many lazy players are in the same duty paired with more whining on the forum from the ppl that don't want to learn how to play the game lol

You’re probably right. Coupled with more excusing of “they’re doing fine” and some variation of “you don’t pay my/ their sub”

[IdowhatIwant]

Actually, Labyrinth of the Ancients is the hardest Alliance Raid in the game at minimum ilvl. Zombie Dragon, if you don't keep the skeletons far away from each other and don't kill them, they'll rush down the dragon causing a wipe. The damage they do cannot be mitigated either. For the Bomb if you don't continually kill the bombs, they'll do massive damage to the raid and can easily cause a wipe if more than 1 blows up. King Behemoth you have to kill the bombs, have the tanks interact with the towers to weaken them, prevent the Iron Giant from breaking meteors, etc. All of which is incredibly hard to expect pugs to coordinate. If they dropped the maximum ilvl for LotA alone people would be terrified at just how difficult the place actually is.

Well then you wall off new players from the MSQ, and we get the same sort of complaint we had in ARR about Coil gate keeping story.

[Mesarthim]

Well the system definitely isn't working as it should seeing as both yesterday and today sent me to Crystal tower raids.

The catch? I've seen one tank each time magically double their hp after we enter. It's one thing if RNG sends me there because not everyone is obligated to unlock the higher level ones but it starts getting annoying if I'm being used to backfill a raid that someone gear cheeses.

[Atma]

Or even better, learn to get good.
But when people learn mechanics, it makes content easy. I doubt people would be “terrified” as you put it. But there’d be less excusing of incompetence

People were absolutely nervous during CT's original release.

Behemoth was a wipe machine.

The amount of gear people have absolutely trivializes these encounters AND their corresponding mechanics. When these first dropped and when people had level-appropriate gear, the difficulty involved was far more significant and the "12 minute Syrcus" was not a reality. Nowadays you just need to get at least 2 people in every hexagon for cloud of darkness and you're just fine - the encounters are now jokes, to the point mechanics are hyper-accelerated or completely bypassed.

I'm not saying this is bad or wrong, or it's a problem, just for reference - Just historically back during ARR, when people were in level appropriate gear and were using the alliance raids to actually gear up, the challenge level was definitely higher and we didn't have people blasting through them in 12-15 minutes while ignoring all the mechanics or the fights.

[IdowhatIwant]

I'd rather have a choice & do Ivalice raids & up.

Then it is no longer a roulette anymore is it?

People were absolutely nervous during CT's original release.

Behemoth was a wipe machine.

The amount of gear people have absolutely trivializes these encounters AND their corresponding mechanics. When these first dropped and when people had level-appropriate gear, the difficulty involved was far more significant and the "12 minute Syrcus" was not a reality. Nowadays you just need to get at least 2 people in every hexagon for cloud of darkness and you're just fine - the encounters are now jokes, to the point mechanics are hyper-accelerated or completely bypassed.

I'm not saying this is bad or wrong, or it's a problem, just for reference - Just historically back during ARR, when people were in level appropriate gear and were using the alliance raids to actually gear up, the challenge level was definitely higher and we didn't have people blasting through them in 12-15 minutes while ignoring all the mechanics or the fights.

This is the case with every 24 man release. They typically are not that easy at the recommended ilvl, by the end of the expansion they are all a joke. The reasoning is even with ilvl sync your stats end up being capped for that level/ilvl which isn't something the original content intended, and the content was never rebalanced to address this. In the end it's easier to defend making the content to easy than to hard as its hard to argue against the devs when they say they want this content accessible to all players. The time this issue was the most obvious was in heavenward went that stat jump from 3.0 gear to 3.5 gear was very high. By 3.5 you could 4 man most of the first section of savage alex. I remember healing A1S as a pally when farming light in 3.5.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Yeah this has always been a thing, it's just worse now because there's a lot more 24 man content around--not that you would know it by doing the roulette.

I posted about this last expansion (and probably the expansion before that too). The simplest fix is to simply move the CT raids to another roulette (MSQ raid roulette, as someone already mentioned). That's point blank the simplest solution. Another solution is to base the ilvl requirement on raid tier unlock and character level.

So you've unlocked Paradigm Tower? If you're queing with a lvl 80 job, then you don't get in unless you meet the ilvl requirement for that raid. Oh, you're queing as a level lower than that? No problem. Whatever the minimum ilvl is required on the highest raid you've unlocked is what you need to get in the roulette. Period.

I've also suggested to make Alliance Raids require full raid tier unlock but now that CT is required, thats really not feasible from a developer standpoint. CT just needs its own roulette. Otherwise they can just make cutscenes unskippable in CT like in the other MSQ content and watch how many people steer clear of it. XD (I mean I dont't want that either but it'd stop a lot of the ilvl lowering I'd bet).

[Mika_Zahard]

I wish we could opt out of doing crystal tower raids- I don't even fully participate anymore when I see Syrcus tower, lab or WoD.
I've always found it funny buying a new expansion just to go back & play old content so you don't even get to experience your class fully due to ilvl sync for most of the roulettes. It diminishes the experience of new content atleast for me.

I'd rather have a choice & do Ivalice raids & up.

I actually have an alt character that is unable to do CT on my AR since i havent bothered unlocking those (only have SB and HW AR unlocked), as i finished ARR in 2017 (long before before 5.3). The drawback is that i havent been able to finish 5.0 MSQ on it.

Im living AR dream hehe