Enforce ilvl-sync to Alliance Raid Roulettes to put a stop to the Crystal Tower Spam

[Rehayem]

People cheese CT because it takes the shortest time for completion in relation to the other alliance raids, and since we need tomestones again for the relic weapon, the choice is pretty clear: do CT in 20 minutes or Nier in 40 for the same reward. There's fixes to this of course, but it doesn't seem SE is keen to fixing it anytime soon for the same reason people use the excuse of "new players gotta experience it". It's not about new players, and we all know it, c'mon.

[Toutatis]

What would that accomplish? They’d just take longer to complete. I don’t think stripping down is that much of a problem anyway. Removing them from roulette? It would just hinder the progress of those who need to complete them and Void Ark would become the new CT. Also, I just levelled my last 3 jobs and there really wasn’t much to do between lvl 50 and 60. That daily raid was welcomed and worth it for xp.

For those that say everyone was above level 60, well other raids are optional and keep in mind that the next raid series isn’t tied to only to level but to story. You can’t unlock them before the end of HW. The old tome gear is also locked behind the MSQ (which is silly as I was lvl 70 by the end of HW) and there is no reason to spend on better MB gear either as the content on which you could use it is locked too. I have a lvl 60 something char in lvl 50 tome gear running CT because she is still in post ARR quests and has no access to higher lvl content.

If there is something they should work on, it is incentives to unlock the other raids. They could also make unlocking them a bit less tedious.

I recently purchased a story skip on a new character to play with friends on another DC and it only unlocks the MSQ. No side content at all is unlocked. Glamours, chocobo fighting, retainers, aesthetician, WT, extremes, raids, etc have to be unlocked playing the game. When it comes to extremes and raids, some have pretty long introductory quests. Not only I have to find them (there are tons of purple markers on my maps) but once I find them, it will take a lot of time to unlock all that content. I would have loved an optional npc I could have talked to to unlock all of those or at least unlock them by series. Atm my priorty is to get to the end of EW and unlock the newer content. The old raids are pretty low on my priority list and for the time being, until I get to Aglaia, CT is the only thing I can queue for.

Also, for a new player starting at level 1 today, this game has a lot of content. The quest givers for the old post CT raids can be fairly out of the way, require people to do back to old areas once the expansion MSQ is complete. Why would they go back if they are trying to progress MSQ? This is not like unlocking one raid at the end of the current expansion patch when there is nothing else to do. There are lots of purple quest markers on maps and not only it is time consuming, it is easy to miss/ignore some.

Reworking how the old raids are unlocked (maybe make them become available as soon as the player reaches the location and not just at the end of an expansion, same with old tome gear) or moving the quest givers to more “in your face” locations, giving them a different color marker, could be a start to increase the pool of available players. They should also work on rewards.

That being said, it’s not much of a problem on my DC when queuing on a high level character: I regularly get other raids.

[TaleraRistain]

CT is the only raid series that grants light for ARR relics, so someone may be inclined to cheese for that purpose instead so they can double dip.

This one might also be a little unintentional cheese because you need to have your relic equipped (at least at the end) and that drops your ilevel way down. Not CT-only levels down but it knocks off a good 100. And it's a bit risky to zone in with your good weapon and try to swap at the end so I end up just using mine through the entire run to assure I get the update. Though, when I'm working on light and sick of seeing Aurum Vale I just queue direct for Syrcus. Which is another thing that is going to pull people to that specific raid.

[RitsukoSonoda]

I'm running through the raids in my head and I can't think of any mechanic that really requires two tanks per party. There's several points where there's two adds the tank in each party has to take care of, but for the most party a single tank can easily handle them, and I don't think an ilvl sync would make it overly difficult.

In the past when it was new the 2nd tank of each party basically served pulling duty on the Atomos fodder section pulling them to the switch plate for the ppl standing on it to kill. That's kind of the only instance I can think of where the extra tank wasn't just a blue DPS.

[Astrahime]

-The Allagan Catalyst item that drops in the CT raids has a very wide range of uses from being useful for crystal sand acquisition in the HW relic, to crafting the replica high allagan glamours, etc.

It hasn't since the free trial was expanded to Heavensward. This is due to the fact that you need an item that used to drop upon completion of Void Ark that was removed due to the fact that non-current tomestone gear now comes pre-augmented.
It's also used in replica allagan/high allagan glamours. certain crafted (50****) gear, a few housing items, and a minion. Wow, this must be in high demand if it's used in a lot of things! Let's check Universalis.

CHEAPEST NQ
6 x 11

Oh. Well, how much does it sell for to vendors?

Allagan Catalyst
Value: 26 Gil

People want rid of this enough much that they're selling at a loss over NPC Vendors.
I guess the game's dragged you into Crystal Tower so much that you haven't done any other non-current raid since 5.3? That really shows how bad this issue is.

[AshtonCrowe]

At this point, they need to just completely revamp Labyrinth and Syrcus. I understand the need for players to do them over other raids because they're tied to the MSQ, but that doesn't mean they should be a face roll. I miss actually seeing mechanics in these dungeons.

Should just remove them and make it into a cutscene of WoL and certain characters clearing it. Unfortunately, Nobody willingly runs this content you gotta go to Crystal to get it done on fresh account. Just gunna get worse when we get more content and less people run Alliance raid. I'm already at point i haven't done one in weeks cause i know it'll be CT.

[Chrisie]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds CT (and other ARR raids I puke by) every damn day annoying. They really gotta do something with it.

[Themarvin]

Yes please, make the rewards higher too... and add a ilevel lock you need to reach so if you are 60 your ilevel need to match the minimum requirement for what is needed to do Dun Scaith for.... and same when you reach 70... minimum needed for Orbonne.

And before everyone say something about that it cannot be done... then all this stuff has been done in the game as it currently is... eg.. you need x amount of ilevel to do certain things even in roulettes when you unlock them on the way up to be able to enter them at all, which is based off the minimum ilevel, making it more sophisticated would be nice.

Crystal Tower is really not fun being the only stuff we get in alliance roulette, due to people exploit the system by just lowering the ilevel of their characters before queing in.

Also... add a lock onto gear, if you queu in with ilevel 120 or less... then wont be able to put on better ilevel during the duty would seem like a good option as well...

Playing Crystal Tower on minimum ILL is not as easy as it may seem.

[Kolaina]

Yes please, make the rewards higher too... and add a ilevel lock you need to reach so if you are 60 your ilevel need to match the minimum requirement for what is needed to do Dun Scaith for.... and same when you reach 70... minimum needed for Orbonne.

Funny that you think this will solve it. The actual impact of stripping down for alliance roulette isn’t as big as you believe. But keep that dream alive

[Asako]

Not until they buff the rewards of the ones that take twice the time. You can easily spend 40 minutes in the Neir or latest ones. Why am I getting the same rewards for something that can be done in 15 minutes. Just split them into 2 different roulettes, 50-70 and 80-100. Job done.