I think Crystal Tower queues need a new Band-Aid fix (or preferably, a real fix)

[Eorzean_username]

Yesterday, I waited 89 minutes for World of Darkness, then 45 minutes for LOTA. Today, I just gave up on a 126 minute Syrcus Tower queue, and now I have all 3 checked and I'm up to 34 minutes.

I'm just trying to complete this Weekly Quest for Relic Oil. I can't even imagine what this is like for a player that's trying to get something like a full set of CT Glamour, or a minion.

It's not very nice to leave content like this with massive queue times, and the best attempt at a solution so far being a short-term bribe for one step of the Anima Relic.

Compare this to something like ARR EX Trials, or Coil Turns, which also have queues often approaching ∞:

• I can't Undersize / Unsync CT.
• I can't even PF CT, because of the requirement of finding 3 groups of 8, especially without a Poetics bonus to bribe them (and even then, waiting for an entire Alliance to fill for 50 Poetics is worth no one's time).

The design itself is also a mess: One queue redundantly requires 6 Tanks and 12 DPS. The other two queues require 3 Tanks and 15 DPS. So queue balancing is a mess if someone checks all 3 raids at once (and most will if they're doing the Weekly, etc).

SE, could you please do... something? Preferably with longer-term vision than a single Relic step that can be skipped with Eso farming and, even in a best-case scenario, most players would be done with in about 5 weeks?

Please understand, I very much enjoy FFXIV, and I enjoy running the CT raids. My sole frustration here is the same issue that drives me away from PvP content — the idea that it's somehow okay to let players sit in queue for 60+ minutes, and still not get to actually play something.

Just rip off the Band-Aid and do something like:

• Alliance Roulette (Yes, just do it, you know you want to)
• Allow Undersize CT.
• Re-tune CT raids for fewer players (such as 1 Full Party).
• Scale CT raids like Frontlines (if 24 players available, 24 version; if 8 players available, 8 version)
• Allow partially-filled Alliances to begin (No CT raid really needs 3-6 Tanks, 6 Heals, or 12-15 DPS, especially at the beginning).

I just want to play your game's content. Please help that happen?

[LalafellDown]

Replay in this game is bad. I wouldn't run any of the old content unless I had too, which makes it even worse. Even though they force us to run old content in order to bring life into them it fails. Once everyone has their shiny item they don't care about the dungeon anymore and we go back to the old long queue times. Just like the 5 Aether Oils step on the Anima, why would I run the Crystal tower anymore? I don't need anything from there and doing it feels like a chore. Just like every dungeon in this game it feels like a chore. If only they made dungeons fun, I would run them all the time, just like in other MMO's.

Easy fix: Duty Roulette 24 man raid

Then again I probably wouldn't even do the Roulette. I haven't even capped my Law stones in 2 months. They really need to change the dungeons to make them more fun.

[LunaFaye]

we don't need another quest that forces us to run the stupid towers, including world of darkness. Just add it to the list of dungeons that can be done undersized/unsync and we should be alright.

[Parawill]

Does raid finder work for this? It is classified as one under duty finder, but I have yet to dabble into raid finder since I have no need for it presently.

we don't need another quest that forces us to run the stupid towers, including world of darkness. Just add it to the list of dungeons that can be done undersized/unsync and we should be alright.

I would honestly prefer it become a roulette type thing.

[SendohJin]

Does raid finder work for this? It is classified as one under duty finder, but I have yet to dabble into raid finder since I have no need for it presently.

nope, Raid Finder is probably not what you think it is, it's not what i thought it would be.

[Eorzean_username]

we don't need another quest that forces us to run the stupid towers, including world of darkness. Just add it to the list of dungeons that can be done undersized/unsync and we should be alright.

I know, I'm sorry. I know that a lot of veteran players are tired of being forced back in to content they burned-out on a long time ago.

Maybe Undersized really is the best compromise. It makes me sad to see great fight designs thrown away to three-shot kills and overgearing, but if players don't want to do old stuff any more, forcing them to do it isn't a very nice solution either.

I think a lot of this tension could also be alleviated if SE added a separate pool of incentives to Sync or Minimum Level content, so players that are up for running older stuff can feel motivated and rewarded for doing it, while everyone else can just Unsync and move on with their day (or avoid the old content entirely).

[HyperiusUltima]

Well, it's not necessarily possible to three-man a certain boss. Take into account the boss's mechanic in LoTA. You have to stand on the pads, but I'm certain one person is not possible unless they adjust to it being based on the party. Also to note, Alliances are only capable of being made with other 8-man parties. This would make it difficult unless they allowed Alliances to be any amount(max 8 people).

The thing you have to note is CoD's Dark Cloud mechanic. The amount of clouds is large, and also get heavied when a bunch of people(i.e. 3 Alliances) are all in front of them whaling on them. 3 people attempting this would not be feasible, as CoD would get too many damage stacks and wipe the party regardless of iLv.

CT was made for 24-man raid specifically, and it's been that way for a long time. The best way SE can reimplement CT now is add more quests linked to other things. They linked it to the relic for that reason because it was collecting lots of dust despite people legitimately trying to get into the queue itself and play it. #MakeCTGreatAgain

[Ilan]

Well, it's not necessarily possible to three-man a certain boss. Take into account the boss's mechanic in LoTA. You have to stand on the pads, but I'm certain one person is not possible unless they adjust to it being based on the party. Also to note, Alliances are only capable of being made with other 8-man parties. This would make it difficult unless they allowed Alliances to be any amount(max 8 people).

The thing you have to note is CoD's Dark Cloud mechanic. The amount of clouds is large, and also get heavied when a bunch of people(i.e. 3 Alliances) are all in front of them whaling on them. 3 people attempting this would not be feasible, as CoD would get too many damage stacks and wipe the party regardless of iLv.

CT was made for 24-man raid specifically, and it's been that way for a long time. The best way SE can reimplement CT now is add more quests linked to other things. They linked it to the relic for that reason because it was collecting lots of dust despite people legitimately trying to get into the queue itself and play it. #MakeCTGreatAgain

No one said something about 3 people. If you have some friends you'll get probably 8-12 people together and that should be enough. Don't forget, that most players are 100+ ilvl above the max ilvl from that time and of course 10 level higher which means more powerfull skills.

It would be nice if it would be possible to do the CT's in a undersized party, even if i don't want to go in there anytime soon. Maybe if i could do it unsync with some friends, who knows.

[Eorzean_username]

Well, it's not necessarily possible to three-man a certain boss.

Well, Undersize option does not guarantee completion, it simply puts matters entirely in the party's hands to figure out how to clear the content. For example, Coil T9 still needs a certain minimum number of players (and Savage T9 most definitely does). It's just something parties work around when forming.

SE has also changed some mechanics already to make content more friendly to Undersize parties. For example, reducing the number of players required to activate the pads in Coil T11.

The best way SE can reimplement CT now is add more quests linked to other things.

See, I personally would be fine with this, because I love all content and I don't mind an excuse to do anything from ARR, even Sync'd (or Min Level, if anyone was ever interested).

But, as someone earlier posted to indicate, not everyone is fine with this. Some players loathe, or at least are increasingly-frustrated by, being jammed back into old content they feel 'done' with. And I think the feelings of that portion of the community (which by indications, may be a majority) do need to be considered as well.

[Eorzean_username]

Another possible adjustment would be to allow CT raids to begin with a partially-filled Alliance.

For example, today our WOD queue stalled for 30 minutes at 3/3 Tanks, 6/6 Heals, and 14/15 DPS. I mean, really? Usually 2-3 DPS in a CT run are either AFK or auto-attacking, we could easily have started with 14 DPS and let the 15th back-fill in later.

Players with In-Progress selected are already prepared for this, and if someone is only queuing for, eg, the Weekly Oil, or the Minipet from the last boss, I don't think they'd even consider it a bad thing to get backfilled into a run.