Chaotic Alliance Raid: More Content for Professional Gamers

[SkankyRoe]

what? you misread the duty finder. the content is item level synced to 735, which means it will become easier first when 735 dungeon gear is released, then when gear that caps 735 substats is released.

I didn't misread it, it's literally right there in the info, along with the sync icon.

"This duty is item level synced. All item levels will be adjusted to the level indicated"
"While synced, all item stats are adjusted"

[Jeeqbit]

I didn't misread it, it's literally right there in the info, along with the sync icon.

Item Level Sync means sync down. It does not mean sync up. So it is only relevant if your gear is above item level 735 (currently impossible).

The only content that "syncs up" to my knowledge is Bozja and Zadnor, which allow you to enter below level 80 and level up, whilst being level 80 within the area itself.

[SkankyRoe]

Item Level Sync means sync down. It does not mean sync up. So it is only relevant if your gear is above item level 735 (currently impossible).

The only content that "syncs up" to my knowledge is Bozja and Zadnor, which allow you to enter below level 80 and level up, whilst being level 80 within the area itself.

I thought it went both ways, the way it's worded implies it as such. So that means for example if I enter Jade Stoa(Unreal) in 690 gear, it won't be synced up to the 695 listed?

[Avoidy]

Dear gods, THIS is literally the game's own official advertisement, put out by SE. It's a combat game? Are you sure?

Oh man, can we talk about how this is what they expect nonraiders to enjoy and how it's all shallow or short-lived?

Gathering and crafting ... like, really? Oh boy can't wait to run up to a node and "interact" with it. Click click click click click. What fun. Or repeat the same crafting macro ad nauseum, even have to manually rev up each new craft because god forbid we get a convenient system in this game. Gotta keep tabbing back in to renew each craft cycle. Want to make 100 consumables? Hope you're ready to sit here and manually restart your macro 100 times. There's a reason people just bot this stuff (and the market is crap as a result). I knew some people who did the expert crafts "for fun," but in practice all they did was bitch about it the entire time. They never seemed like they were enjoying themselves to me.

Gold saucer is lucky to get 2 new prizes a year to spend your tokens on. People have wanted irl card games like poker or BS or blackjack added or maybe something ambitious like blitzball, can't have that. can't have any of that. Keep doing the same minigames you've had for the last 10 years. Or learn to play mahjong. If you're new, the prize list is extensive. There's a lot to earn and a lot to do. But then you realize that there are only so many ways to even earn MGP, and you realize quickly that you're just repeating the same monotonous minigames over and over and over for some of the gaudiest rewards in the game. If you have any taste at all, 80% of the rewards won't even be things you want to buy.

Free companies that no one will even join because everyone's in a solo fc for submarine money and a house. Thanks for incentivizing that btw yoshi, loved losing half our members to housing and submarine money, that was real nice, loved when that happened. Why would you even join a community fc when you can have all the same buffs by yourself, as you want, along with a literal money printer that goes to you exclusively. Then if you do make a community FC, good luck keeping it alive when the game goes nearly 5 months without a patch and everyone goes inactive. Not to mention it's world-locked, in a game that's had DC travel for years now. It's so limited with no attempts made to modernize it -- and it's this game's answer for guilds. Like, this is our guild system, in an mmo, and you're punished for even joining somebody else's. Nice job.

Housing's cool until you remember that you started on a populated world and will likely never get one. But let's say you do, or maybe you actually go to dynamis or some dead world for one; well, the system is full of arbitrary limitations that stop creative types from actually doing what they want to do unless they abuse floating glitches or use third party stuff. Otherwise you can't even put a bed on a mounted loft, game just stops you. Then there're the arbitrary limitations, 200 furniture pieces for a small house, 10 items for your front yard; soon as you're in the groove, you just run out of space. Now you're out here removing stuff you love so you can furnish your basement. What's that? Want to quit? Hope you're not gone longer than 45 days or you lose your home! Gone longer and your expensive furniture vanishes into the abyss!

What else is there? Fashion? Half the time when a dungeon gives gear, it's a reskin of existing outfits. Or you can't even dye it. New to the game and spotted someone wearing something cool in 2024? Odds are, it's either from a seasonal event that you missed and won't have the "opportunity" to purchase for another year, orrrrrr it's from the cash shop exclusively! I can't speak for everyone, but I haven't seen actual outfit glams that I've wanted to farm in game since shb, and the last time I saw a weapon I liked were in the earliest endwalker savage raids. I hope you like dark, spiky, edgy crap because that's all we're getting from here on out I guess. Fashion is great when you're new. There's a lot to collect. It's probably the only thing on that list that isn't short lived. But once you hit that wall, once you get the outfits you're interested in, you're stuck waiting months for any kind of new outfit and it seriously blows. And that's just talking about clothing. Don't even get me started on how storing all this gear is a huge headache and how we have multiple races that still can't wear HATS or even change their hair properly, or how you can't change your eye color without spending 10 dollars, and how the devs are so terrified of "clipping" that we can't get a nice long hairstyle to save our lives. Clipping! Of all the "quality" moments to suddenly take a stand on. All the other things I talked about have been issues for years and they just let it ride. But hair clipping through an outfit? Oh no no no. Cancel long hair for years.

If this is what the casual players are meant to engage with, it's all been seriously neglected. Meanwhile, raiders get their slop right on time patch after patch and they're not even super happy because at the end of the day what do they get? Four savage fights that they can do once a week? Sound the alarm! Like... what are the devs even doing, lmao. Who are they actually pleasing? Because from where I'm sitting, the only people who seem truly happy are the gooners who log in to blow their load, and the dead-eyed raid streamer who sits in silence mashing his buttons and then breaks the silence 15 minutes in to be like "wow what a raid guys." And before some genius tells me to quit if I don't like it, my sub lapsed four days ago. I legit don't even care anymore. If you don't like banging your head against PF, there's legit nada for you in this game until March 2025 at best, because like idiots Square once again spent the first year of the post-patch experience releasing high end raiding content that an objective minority of the population enjoys, while leaving the content that most players replay (forays, relics, etc.) off the table until Later(tm). "Please don't retire" though. Just keep paying for nothing! Log in and stare at your fashion! Log in and dance in some guy's basement! Log in and wait 3 hours for a PF to fill.

[Mawlzy]

if anything the game lacks content overall for too long. there is a solution for casuals though. try yourself in the next higher difficulty.

And be told if I slip up that I only have two brain cells? Hard pass.

Based on the extra rewards for clearing with first-timers, SQEX did want the CAR to encourage people to try harder content. Look how that has panned out. I don't recall the schism between high-end raiders and the rest of the player base ever being so wide. The raid is an abject failure for that reason alone.

And I'm guessing many casual players will be questioning why they are subsidizing the content for a minority who hold them in complete contempt.

[ovIm]

Dear gods, THIS is literally the game's own official advertisement, put out by SE. It's a combat game? Are you sure?

Well - the advertisement is very much a targeted ad, when you think about it. It definitely does not target people that join a game because of its combat content, thats for sure.

Fact of the matter is, however, that the game does have a lot of combat content. We level our class to level 100 to earn the possibility to press buttons that do (more or less) cool shit. There is a plethora of dungeons, boss fights, pseudo roguelites, field instances, some variants, and the PvP. Combat is part of the core gameplay part of this, well, game. Its pressing buttons that lets us interact with the game. Hells, even crafting is build like the combat system, with combos and rotations.

I feel like the one big problem this game has is that almost all of the meaningful combat content (at this moment of time) for the high level player is a boss fight. The game is like: "here is a room, there is a boss, the difficulty is how much I expect you to remember the moves to a dance that I have decided needs to be danced."
Thing is, not everyone does well with this kind of challenge, and the way this game works makes it very hard to compensate for people having trouble, which in turn creates friction within the community, as we can even see here with the Chaotic release.

[Gurgeh]

And be told if I slip up that I only have two brain cells? Hard pass.

Based on the extra rewards for clearing with first-timers, SQEX did want the CAR to encourage people to try harder content. Look how that has panned out. I don't recall the schism between high-end raiders and the rest of the player base ever being so wide. The raid is an abject failure for that reason alone.

And I'm guessing many casual players will be questioning why they are subsidizing the content for a minority who hold them in complete contempt.

This 100% I'm not paying £9 month to subsidise dev for ultimate savage raiders, so that they can shit on me because I've seen P2 and "I" want, "need" "good" P1 practice, so now I'm joining P2. But they want me to stay in blind P1 parties working out how to organise into light parties until I never take a doom, when I'm not even sure that will ever happen. Yet I know I can get better, can have fun, want to learn the fight, and can eventually clear. Can I have fun doing it though with these Aholes chasing this 75 though?
It's like Zepla said. You want to do it 75 times easy guaranteed. Not 30 times with noobs and spend an hour coming away with nothing. But this content is Fckd long before clear parties. Joina a discord. Fck me.

[Ajisaii]

I accept your opinion but I agree with the OP as anybody with the rewards from the 24 mostly have ultimate titles or full savage gear.

Is it really surprising that people who play a ton of battle content would clear this fight faster than people who don't?

[Voidmage]

if anything the game lacks content overall for too long. there is a solution for casuals though. try yourself in the next higher difficulty.

Given how they are treated in chaotic PF (even in its descriptions already being called dogs) or being called slackers, dead weight and Lima afkers in this forum I can‘t blame them for not trying harder content.

Chaotic was full of them trying it out at the start just to be told they don‘t show effort because they are barely above the min ilvl instead of actually telling them WHY that is a problem and so they left and probably won‘t return again.
And that was the most harmless of comments I have seen ingame.

Yes this game has a problem with content overall but while the normal modes exist like you listed it’s kinda obvious that they are only there because that has always been the case and honestly they are often just an afterthought because the harder version was designed first so raiders get the shiny new mechanics while casuals get the things that was always there pretty often.
Also high end raiders get both (because they also do the MSQ and want to wind down).
Same in EW. The ultimates where awesome as far as I heard and the devs went out of their way to make sure to make up the one missing in Shb.
Island sanctuary was thrown in and just abandoned and Eureka Orthos was probably the most shortlived content I have ever seen.
Variant also while fun they went out of their way to tag 2 additional far higher difficulty settings on it.

These discussions pop up now because chaotic is new content that is also yet another higher tier content while the rest gets the same as always.
I think if field zone and chaotic switched places then we wouldn‘t see such an unrest now.

When even the raider content creators like Happy (and I think even Xenos mentioned it at one point) are starting to say that the raiders eat very good this expansion while the rest gets almost nothing than I think there is at least some spark of truth in those words.

[Jeeqbit]

I thought it went both ways, the way it's worded implies it as such. So that means for example if I enter Jade Stoa(Unreal) in 690 gear, it won't be synced up to the 695 listed?

Exactly. This item level is meant to be the bare minimum you have for the expansion (690 job gear/dungeon gear + 700 tomestone gear). So being below that item level would mean you are in pre-level 100 gear... which is strange and unlikely.

The idea of syncing down that low is it makes it the most entry-level high end duty there is. It's the same with Eureka, which syncs you to the lowest expected item level for a level 70 player (300, since job gear was 290 and uncapped tomestone gear was higher).

In a lot of cases, Item Level syncs are applied retroactively (example, the current expert dungeons will get one in 7.2).

So they just added the Item Level sync in advance to basically future-proof it. It'll be relevant to us after 7.2 and not before.