Crystal Tower has to go

[Havenchild]

Meh, I still think people favor crystal tower raids as do I because of the speed at which you finish the roulette. 15mins versus the 40+ Nier raids will always favor the former. They could easily help this issue by actually increasing the Nier and Rabanastre Raid EXP much higher, cause its pretty crappy considering the time sink.

A quick roulette is infinitely better. If I wanted something else, I'd queue for those individually but if you doing alliance roulette atm for the EXP / Crystals, odds are you want something quick and that seems to be the mindset of the playerbase overall.

[Doozer]

Meh, I still think people favor crystal tower raids as do I because of the speed at which you finish the roulette. 15mins versus the 40+ Nier raids will always favor the former. They could easily help this issue by actually increasing the Nier and Rabanastre Raid EXP much higher, cause its pretty crappy considering the time sink.

A quick roulette is infinitely better. If I wanted something else, I'd queue for those individually but if you doing alliance roulette atm for the EXP / Crystals, odds are you want something quick and that seems to be the mindset of the playerbase overall.

Not everyone plays the game to get through things quickly. I personally hate getting CT and will take the penalty for leaving if I have to because I'd rather do anything else besides mindlessly pressing 3 buttons for 15 minutes. Using more of my kit and having to actually pay attention for twice as long (or longer) is way more fun to me. I'm in it for the rewards same as the next person, but I also want to feel engaged by the game.

I also like the randomness of roulettes. It's not that random when it's CT every day. If I wanted CT, I'd queue for those individually, as you put it.

[Midareyukki]

I also like the randomness of roulettes. It's not that random when it's CT every day. If I wanted CT, I'd queue for those individually, as you put it.

Is it bad that I queue for Dun Scaith and the Ivalice Raids because they're my favourite ones? I do them completely out of fun. Sometimes I see a handful leave the instance, but more often than not I see comments say "Oh thank god it's not CT!". Plus, unlike CT in the Alliance Roulette, I'm actually helping people clear optional content for the first time by adding to their queues. CT wait times are likely to be short since it's tied to the MSQ now. The others not so much. And people tend to be vocally pleased that it's not CT.

Does it make me no different than the guys who trick the roulettes into slotting them into CT? Maybe. Or maybe it's balanced.

[Doozer]

Is it bad that I queue for Dun Scaith and the Ivalice Raids because they're my favourite ones? I do them completely out of fun. Sometimes I see a handful leave the instance, but more often than not I see comments say "Oh thank god it's not CT!". Plus, unlike CT in the Alliance Roulette, I'm actually helping people clear optional content for the first time by adding to their queues. CT wait times are likely to be short since it's tied to the MSQ now. The others not so much. And people tend to be vocally pleased that it's not CT.

Does it make me no different than the guys who trick the roulettes into slotting them into CT? Maybe. Or maybe it's balanced.

I like queuing for Dun Scaith or higher raids because I also thoroughly enjoy them, though sometimes the wait is so long, even as tank or healer. So I just pray for them in roulettes. I got Puppets' Bunker the other day for the first time in at least a month. That was cool.

[SturmChurro]

I'd say I dislike most, if not all, of the raids in the alliance raid roulette that pop more regularly. At least CT is short.

Is it bad that I queue for Dun Scaith and the Ivalice Raids because they're my favourite ones? I do them completely out of fun.

To each their own, but I don't find really any raid 'fun' on it's own. Some of them can be enjoyable when they first come out. I'll really only queue directly if I am looking for rewards. Moogle, minion, glamour, whatever else.

[Havenchild]

Not everyone plays the game to get through things quickly. I personally hate getting CT and will take the penalty for leaving if I have to because I'd rather do anything else besides mindlessly pressing 3 buttons for 15 minutes. Using more of my kit and having to actually pay attention for twice as long (or longer) is way more fun to me. I'm in it for the rewards same as the next person, but I also want to feel engaged by the game.

I also like the randomness of roulettes. It's not that random when it's CT every day. If I wanted CT, I'd queue for those individually, as you put it.

Before disagreeing, understand the mindset behind my comment. The reason beyond the MSQ Requirements / (Forced Unlock) CT is preferred IS because of the time investment / EXP acquisition. Which is your main problem. If people knew you could get explosive amounts of EXP from Rabanastre / Nier raids, they would stop the ilvl dropping by significant margins and the diversity of the Roulette would improve. It's the same situation that happens with Castrum Meridiam vs Praetorium in MSQ roulette. People did PREFER Prae despite its length because of the huge EXP it gave.

Perhaps not EVERYONE plays the game to get through things quickly but I definitely said the majority, because as mentioned before ilvl cheese exists and people take advantage of it regularly, for obvious reasons.

[Iscah]

When you think about it, SE exacerbated this issue the moment they made CT a requirement for MSQ progression as that damn tower became such an integral part towards the story. And now they have done the same thing with Mhach.

They haven't done the same with Mhach at all. CT didn't become required as soon as it was tangentially relevant to MSQ, but when they wanted to build on specific events and characters involved in it.

The current void storyline is only relevant as far as involving voidsent, really. Shadow of Mhach dealt with a specific set of voidsent characters who already made their way to the Source centuries ago. There's no need to involve them in this plot, and if they really wanted to they could make something up about voidsent splitting their essences or something. The Diablo Armament in Zadnor seems to have paved the way for that already.

You'd only need to make Mhach mandatory to bring the sky pirates into it, and they don't seem useful for the current quests at all.

[Gemina]

They haven't done the same with Mhach at all. CT didn't become required as soon as it was tangentially relevant to MSQ, but when they wanted to build on specific events and characters involved in it.

I know. I should have double checked before making the statement. The latter part of your statement though is why I say that they could make Mhach a requirement in the future, and because it still is a requisite for progression, albeit a side story questline, it has me lean that way.

The current void storyline is only relevant as far as involving voidsent, really.

That's pretty relevant. Like really relevant. They are the only life forms we are currently aware of on the 13th, with the exception of Azdaja and Zero. We are also made to assume that Golbez is a voidsent as well. The dev team even went as far as to not create a plot hole with the voidsent we encounter in the WoD dying after learning they can't die during our venture to the 13th this patch. Interestingly enough, they changed the death animation of the enemies in the WoD to match those in Troia.

I'm not saying that they should definitely make alliance raids a requirement for MSQ progression, and I just saying it is one they could tackle the ilv cheese as not meeting level requirements will also reduce the number of instances available in the roulette.

[Iscah]

That's pretty relevant. Like really relevant. They are the only life forms we are currently aware of on the 13th, with the exception of Azdaja and Zero. We are also made to assume that Golbez is a voidsent as well. The dev team even went as far as to not create a plot hole with the voidsent we encounter in the WoD dying after learning they can't die during our venture to the 13th this patch. Interestingly enough, they changed the death animation of the enemies in the WoD to match those in Troia.

None of those things seem like reasons why would need to involve a small number of specific individual voidsent in this plot, and even less reason why we would need to involve the sky pirates.

As I said, they wouldn't make you do Mhach just because it's tangentially relevant. We would have to be dealing with Scathach or Diablos directly in the plot to make it necessary to see their past story.

[Gemina]

None of those things seem like reasons why would need to involve a small number of specific individual voidsent in this plot, and even less reason why we would need to involve the sky pirates.

As I said, they wouldn't make you do Mhach just because it's tangentially relevant. We would have to be dealing with Scathach or Diablos directly in the plot to make it necessary to see their past story.

I'm not disagreeing with you. What I am saying is that the MSQ could quickly head in a direction that would then require completion of the Shadows of Mhach raid series. Pre-ShB, CT was not required for MSQ progression; an expansion that came years after ARR's inception. And if my memory serves me correctly, they continued to make connections well into ShB, and even EW with tying Hermes and Amon together. This is considering that we were thrusted into the First, opposed to the current situation where the WoL has made multiple incursions in the 13th at this point.

My comment also pertains to address players reducing the number of instances available due to not having other raids unlocked, so if they wanted to eliminate that, they could make them a requirement for MSQ progression, but would have to somehow tie them to it. I basically mentioned it could be done with Mhach, Ivalice, and Aglaia, but YoRHa would definitely be an issue as there is absolutely nothing to tie it to the MSQ that I can think of, so I kind of already deflated my own suggestion anyway.

tl;dr? I am just as frustrated as the next person for continuously getting CT. My main suggestion remains, and that is to just tune up the older raids. Again though, this does not take care of the players who refuse to unlock the other raids.