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