Reorganizing Roulettes: A suggestion for the future

[SaitoHikari]

I originally posted this in the massive Main Scenario restriction thread only for it to get predictably buried very quickly with no input, so I figured it was important enough to make a new thread for it instead.

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Watching new players get into this game, particularly those that choose to start as a DPS, is rather enlightening. And I mean that in a pretty bad way.

There's stories on mainstream gaming forums about new players quitting once they hit the two Main Scenario Roulette dungeons, because they're mandatory 8 player dungeons (and the only ones that exist in the game at that). They think that the queue times for those two dungeons are something they should expect throughout the rest of the game.

Worse still, I'm quite sure the vast majority of players just don't queue into MSQ roulette because the rewards from it are outdated most of the time, plus it's a complete mixed bag in terms of player experience (mostly regarding whether or not the party breaks into an argument about letting new players watch cutscenes without leaving them behind). Updating the rewards would also just be putting a bandaid on the problem.

I also don't believe that allowing players to jump levels or outright skip content is a good solution. The MSQ pre-HW could benefit a lot from being streamlined, but I'd also like to propose something that would cut down on roulette clutter and streamline all of the dungeons into two new roulettes to encourage more participation in earlier 'outdated' content, so that queue times don't end up getting progressively worse for certain types of content as more expansions are released. This is especially bad for Main Scenario Roulette, and I imagine 50 Roulette is going to suffer the same fate once we're into the 4.0 patch cycle.

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I'd propose getting rid of Main Scenario Roulette entirely, and overhauling Castrum Meridanum and the Praetorium in the following ways:

- For Castrum, the entire dungeon up until you confront Livia should be a player-instanced duty, with Grand Company NPCs accompanying you to stand in for the other players. This bypasses the dilemma of whether or not other players should wait for you to watch the cutscenes, because there won't be any other players with you.
- Livia becomes a Trial that people queuing for Trial Roulette can end up in. Of course, the fight may as well be overhauled for it to become a real trial.
- For Praetorium, the entire dungeon up until you confront the Ultima Weapon should be a player-instanced duty, with Grand Company NPCs accompanying you to stand in for the other players (up until you reach the Magitek Armor, in which the rest of the duty then becomes a solo affair). This bypasses the dilemma of whether or not other players should wait for you to watch the cutscenes.
- Ultima Weapon becomes its own trial that people queuing for Trial Roulette can end up in (justification being that Cid and the Grand Company NPCs in the meantime have managed to secure a path for reinforcements to join you).
- The Lahabrea portion becomes a player-instanced duty as well (or the entire thing just becomes a cutscene once successfully clearing the Ultima Weapon trial and leaving the instance).
- Main Scenario roulette rewards get merged with Guildhest Roulette (makes sense considering there are no post-50 Guildhests).

I'd also propose reorganizing Leveling/50/60 roulettes into two roulettes.
- Main Scenario Leveling roulette, for dungeons that are mandatory to progress in the main story.
- Optional Dungeon Leveling Roulette, which is exactly what it says on the tin.

The first would obviously be more important with rewards that function the same as 60 roulette currently does (if capped). If not capped, it functions the same way as Leveling Roulette currently does.
The second, if level capped, would combine the rewards of the old 50 roulette and the current leveling roulette. If not capped, it functions the same way as Leveling Roulette currently does.
That means if not capped, you now have two Leveling Roulettes worth of EXP.

(Plus this cleans up the mess of having to maintain a 50/60/presumably 70 dungeon roulettes and so on.)

Dungeons in each roulette would be as follows:

Main Scenario Leveling Roulette:
- Pre-50: Tam-Tara Deepcroft, Satasha, Copperbell Mines, Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, Haukke Manor, Brayflox's Longstop, Titan Normal, Stone Vigil, Gardua Normal
- 50-59: Snowcloak, Keeper of the Lake, Sohm Al, The Aery, The Vault, Great Gubal Library
- 60: Aetherochemical Research Facility, Antitower, Sohr Khai, Xelphatol

Optional Dungeon Leveling Roulette:
- Pre-50: Halitali, Sunken Temple of Qarn, Cutter's Cry, Dzemael Darkhold, Aurum Vale
- 50: Wanderer's Palace, Wanderer's Palace (Hard), Amdapor Keep, Amdapor Keep (Hard), Pharos Sirius, Copperbell Mines (Hard), Satasha (Hard), Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard), Halitali (Hard), Lost City of Amdapor, Hullbreaker Isle, Stone Vigil (Hard), Brayflox's Longstop (Hard), Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard), Haukke Manor (Hard)
- 51-60: Dusk Vigil, Neverreap, Fractal Continuum, Saint Mocianne's Arboretum, Pharos Sirius (Hard), Lost City of Amdapor (Hard), Hullbreaker Isle (Hard), Great Gubal Library (Hard)

There should also be a 24-man raid roulette, but that's a different topic entirely and it's something that should already be a given anyway.

[ZhaneX]

Personally still do the Main Scenario roulette myself (Poetics are useful for Anima and mid-tier Desynth leveling) but you do make a lot of valid points all the same, though personally I've never much had an issue with queue times for it.

Though you call it a "Band-aid", I'd like to see at the very least a straight update to both rewards and content of the roulette. I really don't see any reason why it doesn't include The Steps of Faith and/or Aetherochemical Research Facility, which similarly fill the niche of "Main Scenario Ending Events"...though in the latter case, I worry about it overtaking things entirely for level 60s (I already get it 4/5 times in 60 roulette lately). There's similarly speculation of a new End-Point Dungeon in 3.5 that'll lead into Stormblood which I'd say should also be included.

Not sure how I feel about your idea of a Main versus Optional system for reworking roulettes, but going back to the Main Story one, I do like your idea for reworking much of it into solo-instanced dungeons, and just having the big finale fights as Trials fought with a group. Would certainly fix the issue of people feeling like they don't get to enjoy the story because by the time they're done watching a cutscene, the bulk of their group is half done.

[Airget]

Changing the main story isn't worth the effort. it's easier to do now and at the end of the day it's just an 8-person instance. it would honestly take a lot of work to have to re-make them to fit how 3.0 did it and that honestly isn't worth the effort in which players can easily just get a friend to help them run through it if needed.

As for roulettes, there design works as intended, you are never intended to do all of them but they are put in place to give players of all levels options. When you are lower you only have the lower options to choose from, as you get higher you get the higher options to choose from. The roulettes as a whole offer a decent xp boost as well as an inventive for players to help people with X-content that they would otherwise pass if it didn't offer an xp boost. I don't see them changing that anytime soon since the range of roulettes provides incentive to help other players to content.

[Felis]

Just put a 5% dropchance minion in it. Solved ^^

[Istaru]

My FC handles it by doing movie night once or twice a week as needed for new members.

What is movie night?

We take the people through the content allowing them to watch the cutscenes and do the fights. If we can get a full party together, we may do it at min ilvl as well.

Is this solution awesome? Not really, but it is the best we can do as a group. IMO, more FCs should do things like that, help their members clear content that has issues.

Yes, those 2 dungeons are a problem. I think it is s problem that SE needs to address in some way other than a jump potion. Until then, we have ways to make it better for new players but for the most part, we don't.