Petition to Increase Old Alliance Raids' Difficulty

[negiman4]

Don't know where exactly to post this, as the "Feedback" section only covers the website itself. So I'll post it here and if it needs to be moved, I'll gladly move it.

Hear me out on this. I'm not asking for savage difficulty or anything. You know how the only dungeon you ever get in alliance raid roulette is the frikkin Crystal Tower? Yeah, it's getting on my nerves too. It honestly wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't such a faceroll, either. The Return to Ivalice and the Mhach raids are no exception, either. But Crystal Tower is the worst offender here.

Speaking for myself here, I loathe doing alliance roulette because it's so damn boring. It used to be that you had to actually do mechanics to beat Labyrinth of the Ancients. Ever since Heavensward released, you can just ignore all mechanics in Crystal Tower and burn the boss. In my opinion, this is the biggest flaw of alliance raids. Once they become irrelevant, they become too easy.

Now, if I'm speaking for others, I also worry about excluding new players from experiencing alliance raids properly. Crystal Tower is very often the first alliance raid new players will encounter, and will color their perception of what future alliance raids will be like. Many many times I've seen new players get lost in the Crystal Tower raids and get left behind. They can use the teleport function to catch up, sure. But I've also seen new players completely miss out on the final boss because they were watching a cutscene while the rest of the raid burned the boss down.

I guess my thing is, it's such an easy fix, too. If it were me, I would just lower the item level sync cap for each alliance raid so you can't just ignore mechanics. Alliance raids should be, at the very least, a little tougher than 4-man dungeons. I feel like all alliance raids should be somewhat on the same difficulty level. I don't want new players to have a bad experience their first time in an alliance raid anymore. I want them to genuinely enjoy their first experience and be a part of it, not excluded and expected to "keep up". On top of that, I won't be boring myself to sleep whenever I get Crystal Tower in the alliance raid roulette (read: always).

TL;DR: Alliance raids, especially the Crystal Tower in ARR, are way too easy when they become irrelevant. Item level cap should be lowered by 20 or so levels, or something else should be done so that they aren't mind-numbingly boring to do and new players won't be excluded and/or encouraged to skip everything to even experience the content. This could also apply to Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium.

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EDIT: Okay, so there's two main debates going on. The first is whether difficulty for raids should be increased or not. The second is whether rewards for alliance roulette should be increased or not. Let's explore these debates, and I'll post a strawpoll where people can vote so I can better understand where the community stands on these issues. I'll be honest, I haven't seen a whole lot of people argue against this idea. This is promising to me.

Difficulty Increase Debate

Arguments in Favor:
-Old alliance raids are far too easy to the point where they're boring to do when we get them in alliance roulette
-The Crystal Tower raids are often the first alliance raids new players encounter and alters their perception of how alliance raids work in the future
-New players are encouraged to skip various aspects of the game (cutscenes, mechanics, etc.), and this promotes laziness and sets them up for disappointment as they progress towards endgame
-Forcing players to at least do mechanics instead of skipping them is more representative of how the rest of the game works
-Some players avoid doing alliance roulette specifically because it's not fun, so increasing difficulty may make these players more willing to queue
-It would be a simple item level cap adjustment that could be implemented easily

Arguments Against:
-Old alliance raids should be easy as they're irrelevant, and it's part of natural progression
-Forcing players to do mechanics will increase time spent in alliance raids, decreasing some players' willingness to do alliance roulette if rewards are not increased to compensate
-Some want to get through content as quickly as possible to maximize reward potential, and increasing difficulty will decrease alliance roulette's time efficiency reward-wise
-Square Enix isn't well known for going back and altering old content in any shape or form, so odds of this happening are slim at best

Rewards Debate

As for the Rewards Debate, it pretty much speaks for itself. If old alliance raids' difficulty is increased, should rewards also be increased? Personally I don't think so. If old alliance raids' difficulty was increased, I would be willing to do alliance roulette even if rewards were not increased. This comes down to the individual though.

Arguments for no Increase:
-Alliance Raids should take roughly the same amount of time to complete, regardless of which one you get
-Copied Factory, the current relevant alliance raid, is also included in alliance roulette and takes roughly 45 minutes to clear, and people are often overjoyed to get anything other than Crystal Tower raids in alliance roulette in spite of this

Arguments for Increase:
-If one is going to spend more time in Crystal Tower raids (which is 90% of the time, and typically takes 15 minutes) due to difficulty increase, that person may expect more rewards to compensate for time spent
-People are overjoyed to get Copied Factory in alliance roulette because it gives them more Allagan Tomestones of Allegory

Strawpoll
Here is a strawpoll I put up. It includes three options:
-I want decreased item level cap, and don't require extra rewards
-I want decreased item level cap, but I want more rewards too
-I think the difficulty is fine as it is

There's no fourth option to simply increase rewards, for obvious reasons. Follow the link below and cast your vote.
http://www.strawpoll.me/19547195

[Gemina]

I'll gladly sign the petition. Though I will admit, I got Copied Factory in my roulette last night. It was the first time I got it since it was released into the pool, though I should mention I have been avoiding this particular roulette for the last week or so. However, the chat was filled with a bunch of comments pertaining to their relief of not getting thrown into LoTA or ST. Other comments talked about how they miss having to do mechanics in alliance raids.

I honestly don't think SE will ever touch those older raids, and their nerf to Cid in Orbonne doesn't hold any promises either. It's a shame too, and would require very little effort to simply lower the ilv sync for those earlier raids. If they did, it would almost be like releasing new raids because easily over half of the participants will have never seen those mechanics before, and won't know what to do.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Lower the item synch level so people have to actually do mechanics again. Let's be honest, how many people remember that Glasya Labolas even has mechanics beyond standard AoE markers?

[SDaemon]

While I honestly and truly dont see SE essentially buffing older Alliance raids. The main thing I see happening if this did happen is that without substantial buffs to rewards, I see this suggestion gutting the Alliance raid roullete queue, same with the MSQ roullete queue if they buffed Castrum and Prae.

[Moomba33]

I like this idea, though I think it's unlikely to happen.
Old mechanics not happening anymore is common for a lot of ARR content. I bet most players that started in HW or later have never seen the Satin Plume phase in Garuda HM for example.

I think a tighter ilevel sync would help make old content more fun and improve the learning curve for new players so everything isn't just a target dummy with some aoes on the way to level cap. But at the same time a lot of players enjoy being able to burn through dailies without having to put a lot of effort into content they've seen a hundred times before. I know some people in my FC who like being able to overgear and burn through things as it gives a sense of progression.

[negiman4]

I'll be honest, I was expecting a whole lot of backlash from players who actually like facerolling for roulette rewards and being called a moron for even suggesting that difficulty should be increased. I'm very happy to be proven wrong.

[Vaer]

I don't think they've ever made content harder after the fact, only easier. If they have, it would be really rare. So the chance of this happening is pretty low I would think. Increasing rewards of the other ones would cause other problems. I think they would rather have them easy vs. people fishing for the the higher reward ones if they increase the rewards of the 60+ ones. It would leave <60 jobs using it to level in an awkward position. People already left Castrum if they didn't get Prae.

[Gemina]

While I honestly and truly dont see SE essentially buffing older Alliance raids. The main thing I see happening if this did happen is that without substantial buffs to rewards, I see this suggestion gutting the Alliance raid roullete queue, same with the MSQ roullete queue if they buffed Castrum and Prae.

Rewards are already sufficient for alliance roulette. They are nearly identical to Main Story roulette, which is based on a approximate run time of 45 minutes. The same amount of time it takes to get through Copied Factory. What's been going on is players have been cheesing those rewards. If they buffed the older raids without buffing the rewards, trust me, players will queue into this roulette; and gladly so. There indeed will be many that will gripe and complain to no end. Those are the players currently cheesing this roulette.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I'll be honest, I was expecting a whole lot of backlash from players who actually like facerolling for roulette rewards and being called a moron for even suggesting that difficulty should be increased. I'm very happy to be proven wrong.

Give it time.

[SDaemon]

Rewards are already sufficient for alliance roulette. They are nearly identical to Main Story roulette, which is based on a approximate run time of 45 minutes. The same amount of time it takes to get through Copied Factory. What's been going on is players have been cheesing those rewards. If they buffed the older raids without buffing the rewards, trust me, players will queue into this roulette; and gladly so. There indeed will be many that will gripe and complain to no end. Those are the players currently cheesing this roulette.

Removing cutscene skip already turned off a lot of people from doing the MSQ roulette so SE buffed the rewards. I cannot see this not hurting queue times for both MSQ and Alliance roulette without buffing the rewards more due to the increase in difficulty and time spent.