I-Level 55 requirement for Crystal Tower seems like a bad idea

[MasamuneBranford]

This is coming from a casual player who hasn't even completed the main story yet (so feel free to disregard). Here is my reasoning:

- This 24man battle only requires i-level 55, but you can obtain i-level 80 gear. To me, this is discouraging. The jump is too high. I could see myself completing the main story, buying my GC weapon, joining a CT match where i'm paired up with a bunch of people in i-level 80-90 gear and quickly start earning i-level 80 gear myself. What is point of Phil. Tomes if CT can be leeched at i-level 55 and you earn better gear than DL? Seems to make AK, WP, the new dungeon and the hard mode dungeons less meaningful (besides myth tomes). Titan hard mode probably won't be much of a challenge for anyone once they've done several CT runs.

[MasamuneBranford]

- Knowing that there will be i-level 55 players attempting the crystal tower and i-level 90 players attempting the crystal tower; I feel like the difficulty will be impossible to balance. Ultimately I feel like it's going to be too easy. I guess I kind of wish CT required a relic weapon like originally hinted at. That seems like it would have fit perfectly in the scheme of things. Now, crystal tower just seems like a way to fast forward past everything else. As a casual player I'd like to take on some of these challenges, but SE seems to erase them within a few months. Wouldn't CT requiring a relic make everyone happy?

[Zumi]

It's based on avg ilvl not just your weapon. In your time of running WP or AK to get the required 55 ilvl you will get some darklight for sure.

[Swishytail]

I'm personally pretty disappointed in CT. My motivation to run it has dropped, and the reasoning is pretty much
what you stated in the OP.

I'll probably end up running it once. I'm not about to get 8 geared people to go in and carry 16 iLvl 55's. People
are going to be queuing for CT in bare minimum gear because why not? iLvl 80 drops why bother getting DL or
anything above GC gear pretty much.

Bad, so bad. I'll do it cuz I wanna see it but it's very, very unlikely this will be a weekly event for me personally.
I said personally twice so nobody can say "You can't speak for everyone else raaaageeee!" This is my opinion, I
admit it.

I'm sure the 8-man only is only temporary, and you'll be able to make a 24-man premade at some point... but right
now.. ugh.. I think back to CM partial DF groups and the nightmares that happened there. Now triple that for CT.

[DarkBahamut]

Buying a GC weapon doesn't make any of the other gear you have any better though. You'd still want better gear in the rest of the slots to be running something like CT. I assume when he said ilvl55 he meant average, rather than just weapon.

That said, lets not forget how easy darklight gear is to get these days with WP. You can almost get a full DL set in a single day if you get a decent group to help. I would guess getting CT drops isn't going to be anywhere near as quick as farming DL gear, so that's where the balance comes in between the two.

[NyneAlexander]

CT is going to be the new spirit bond spot. watch!

[LloydShade]

Crystal Tower is supposed to be an easy 24 players dungeon. It is meant for players to gear up for Coil of Bahamut which is the hardest dungeon so far.

Right now, iLevel 70 is more or less the minimum to attempt Coil. You only need iLevel 70 and you obtain iLevel 90 gear (which will become iLevel 95), therefore a gap of 20 (soon 25 iLevel). This is not any different than Crystal Tower awarding iLevel 80 gear to iLevel 55 (a 25 iLevel difference, same as Coil).

As far as challenge goes, the true difficulty in 24 players dungeon is to organize said players. Difficulty-wise, each player is responsibly for 1/24th of the group success. On the other hand, in a 4 players dungeon, each player is responsible for 1/4th of the success or 6/24th compared to 24 players group. In a 4 players team, a dead weight in a challenging dungeon means automatic failure (unless the 3 others are over-geared for the dungeon). In a 24 players team, it takes 6 players for the same level of responsibility.

[Versiroth]

Crystal Tower is supposed to be an easy 24 players dungeon. It is meant for players to gear up for Coil of Bahamut which is the hardest dungeon so far.

Right now, iLevel 70 is more or less the minimum to attempt Coil. You only need iLevel 70 and you obtain iLevel 90 gear (which will become iLevel 95), therefore a gap of 20 (soon 25 iLevel). This is not any different than Crystal Tower awarding iLevel 80 gear to iLevel 55 (a 25 iLevel difference, same as Coil).

Great point. I wonder if people like Swishytail would be upset about people refusing them access to a coil group for only having Ilevel 70? It sounds to me that the progression will be WP/AK/CT/new dungeon and hard modes until you get Ilevel 80 and then on to coil. Crystal Tower, along with the new dungeon and the hard modes seems like just more options for end game to stop the repetitiveness. Now, you'll have tons more options to gear up and farm Tomes.

[Swishytail]

Great point. I wonder if people like Swishytail would be upset about people refusing them access to a coil group for only having Ilevel 70? It sounds to me that the progression will be WP/AK/CT/new dungeon and hard modes until you get Ilevel 80 and then on to coil. Crystal Tower, along with the new dungeon and the hard modes seems like just more options for end game to stop the repetitiveness. Now, you'll have tons more options to gear up and farm Tomes.

It's just my personal opinion that CT is going to be bad. People are going to AFK, people are going to be in there with
literally the lowest possible gear because they don't care. I think the 8-man queue only isn't right, but it is what it is.

I could very well be wrong, but right now from what I'm reading it has a very high chance of being a disaster every time
you decide to jump in.

[Kal-El]

ilevel 55 will be the minimum. It may be extremely difficult for anyone to achieve with ilevel 55. As said before I think the hardest thing about this dungeon will be the organisation of 24 players on DF.