Rename the game to the Crystal Tower?

[Jeeqbit]

surely they can put something in to make people unlock the other ones as well, right?

More they do that, the longer the road to endgame. Moreover, while dungeons have duty support, trials and alliance raids don't so it increases the barrier to progressing MSQ with 40 minute waits or worse.

when it is a REQUIRED roulette for the Aetherwell step of the DT relic. There are no alternatives - no options. They are FORCING endgame players into Alliance Roulette and we are ALL being funneled to CT where we get ~ 300 points out of 10,000 every time we run it.

It's a temporary problem. You do the runs. Then you can go back to not-doing the roulette like I did.

I don't get this acting like it's a massive problem when it's like being asked by a family member to do the washing. You do it reluctantly, then it's done, all forgotten.

[Gwenkatsu]

Then there are people like me that do not raid - except when the game forces them to. Which means that each raid roulette with any new char I create will always be CT, since this is the only raid series that I *have* to do.
And believe you me, when you wipe in CT 5 times in a row at the 3 Atomos - since some people cannot count to 4, and don't read chat - you surely don't want to meet those same people in a raid with real mechanics.

[Aidorouge]

Making all alliance raids mandatory would likely just cause an even bigger player drop-off than we already have. Crystal Tower was already a notorious "sprout killer" on Dynamis where new players would either end up:

A. Intimidated by the idea of doing a "large" raid and refuse to do it because they thought they would mess up and make everyone else angry.
B. Would be willing to do it, only to find out they can't even get 11 other people together for an unsync run to continue the MSQ because veteran players hate doing it.

The end result was a whole lot of new players either ending their FF14 run right there or having to data center hop all over the place looking for a queue that would pop... the result was the same though, their MSQ progress was stalled out and they learned real quick "avoid unlocking other alliance raids if they don't have to". Personally speaking, if you had told me I needed to finish the Nier raids to enter Endwalker I would have laughed in your face and unsubbed because I didn't think it was possible to make fights that were even worse than the Ivalice ones, and I still haven't completed Puppet's Bunker because I don't queue for PVE content to be PK'd by idiots and trolls all day.

Square-Enix's ACTUAL mistake was making Crystal Tower mandatory at all, just because they insisted we NEEDED to know some random catboy before entering Shadowbringers. The better solution would just be to make a solo duty/Trust-version that people can clear to progress the MSQ while overhauling the original Crystal Tower to be more engaging for everyone else. If necessary, go back and DISABLE everyone's access to Crystal Tower and require them to voluntarily unlock it again (but keep the MSQ progress obviously) once the overhaul is complete to cut down on the vast number of people who will get pulled into it, but with the expectation (or even a warning) as well that if they do unlock it again, it won't be the same as before so be prepared.

[Shialan]

You do realize that you are just unlucky, yeah?

I haven't seen any Crystal Tower raid for 2 weeks now.

[Gember]

The best way for the developers to help this is to simply make the other alliance raid series mandatory for MSQ.

There is a lot of people who haven't unlocked those raids, thus only letting them get Crystal Tower when they do their alliance raid roulette. It won't fix all of the problems since CT is early game, but it will help a lot.

[VeyaAkemi]

The best middle ground in my opinion would be not to make the other raids mandatory to the MSQ, but to access the roulette itself, based on MSQ completion, if you completed the quest called Heavensward, which marks the end of the 3.0 story? then you can no longer access Alliance Raid Roulette until you unlock all 3 of the Shadow of Mhach raids, same for every expansion, until you are current, and re-locking as new raids are added to the roulette.

This should make sure it applies retroactively, you couldn't bypass that by simply being past those locks in the MSQ already, and also that people don't have MSQ progress blocked by what is admittedly fairly lengthy side content.

[LeCorbeaux]

Then there are people like me that do not raid - except when the game forces them to. Which means that each raid roulette with any new char I create will always be CT, since this is the only raid series that I *have* to do.

I do the same, with the one difference that the only daily roulette I do is Frontlines - because I really can't stand any of the other ones. Maybe the "you can't skip the cutscenes" MSQ one once or twice a week when I want something to wind down. So at least I'm not dragging anyone else down.

[Ankhira]

You do realize that you are just unlucky, yeah?

I haven't seen any Crystal Tower raid for 2 weeks now.

You do realize that you are just lucky, yeah?

I haven't seen anything but Crystal Tower for 2 weeks now.

It goes both ways.

[Ankhira]

More they do that, the longer the road to endgame. Moreover, while dungeons have duty support, trials and alliance raids don't so it increases the barrier to progressing MSQ with 40 minute waits or worse.

Oh nooo, people actually have to engage with the content of the game!! The horror. I'm not saying to lock it behind MSQ. But add perks that makes people WANT to unlock them. Add a small quest that gives a mount or minion, people will unlock them.

[Daralii]

WoD can still sometimes be fun if enough people are new or checked out to create some chaos. If the roulette comes up with LotA or Syrcus Tower, it's time to abandon duty and do something else.