Thread: Labyrinth Raid Required for 5.3 MSQ?

Originally Posted by Daniolaut

You might think it’s not that bad but when someone’s pushed though 15 Dungeon queues as a DPS just to find out they have to do three 24 person raids that are 6+ years old and every battle they have done to that point is absolutely trivial it might just be the last straw.

The queues for the raids are shorter for DPS than the dungeon queues, the raids are quick and easy and there is a lot of story connected to them. That they are 6+ years old is completely irrelevant..

No, I really don't see that making the Crystal Tower raids mandatory is a problem. Perhaps not a perfect solution, but not a problem. Certainly not more of a problem than having any other dungeons or trials or other group instances mandatory.

Originally Posted by Daniolaut

I personally felt making dungeons part of the main story was a bad choice but they tacked them on after someone suggested it all they way back in beta testing of 2.0...

Mandatory dungeons in an RPG! How terrible.

If we reach a point where getting into CT is difficult, the rest of the game is going to be in just as much trouble and the devs will either have to deal with it or the entire game will grind to a halt, not just this one corner of it.

Originally Posted by Stepjam

Edit: Also I feel MOST players who actually want to play the game are less likely to think "Oh god, more to do" and more likely to think "Oh cool, 24 people? That's new!" At least I know that's how I felt. I can imagine some people being initially turned off by it being called a "raid" but beyond that, I'm sure most players will be excited for a change of pace.

Prettymuch this.

The game was exciting as a new player, and post-ARR is where it suddenly opens up. So many new dungeons! Sidequests! Trials! Things are new and different and I wanted to try them out.

That's not to say the game isn't enjoyable now, but it's harder to get that same thrill of excitement from something completely new that you haven't approached before. The excitement comes more from the lore side than the new-gameplay side.

Labyrinth seems dull and rote to us when we've done it so many times, but walking in there for the first time is great - the music is epic and you're at the head of a small army.

The way they wrote the end of the Shadowbringers story, this became a mandatory story beat(or necessary evil if you dont like it). You are free not to like that decision, but it was never yours to make. Ill go into a spoiler block for a sec, just incase.

Time travel always complicates storytelling. When they started ShB, they werent sure exactly how they were ending it. As such, they could get away with the recommended but not required bit. If you hadnt done the raids, then the Exarch says that its something you would do in the future. You doing the raids at some point is required for him to exist, but him being from the future means it didnt matter when you did them. Then he ended up being a super popular character, and they decided to add him to the scions team going forward. The end of 5.3 sees you reopening the sealed tower, and reawakening G'raha. You cant reopen a tower that you never opened/sealed in the first place, nor can you awaken someone who hasnt gone to sleep. And while the workaround of 2 dialogue options for certain scenes worked ok for 5.0, you cant write a whole expansion with 2 versions of every scene that include and exclude a major character.

So since they forced themselves into making it required, the only question is when the roadblock should go up. You can argue if you like, but it makes sense that a level 50 piece of content that you need to do should be done with the rest of the level 50 parts of the story. Which is pre-HW - where they put it.

And as a final note Dani, maybe refrain from putting your personal feelings on to all of the "10's of millions of people who quit". Ignoring how many of those are RMT accounts that were banned(and then remade, and rebanned, and on and on), i think i can safely say that most of the people who quit between 2014 and 2018 didnt do so because they were afraid the CT raids would be added to the story-required instances at some point in the future.

Originally Posted by Stepjam

Edit: Also I feel MOST players who actually want to play the game are less likely to think "Oh god, more to do" and more likely to think "Oh cool, 24 people? That's new!" At least I know that's how I felt. I can imagine some people being initially turned off by it being called a "raid" but beyond that, I'm sure most players will be excited for a change of pace.

I'm defs one of those players that was curious why my MSQ quest marker was red and upon finding out (through Google and not through any of the in game material), that I have to regress to an ARR raid due to a dev thinking it'd be a "cool call back", instead of making it just a side quest thing that players invested in the story want, got tilted and groaned "Oh god, more to do!..." Unfortunately, (bad game dev design aside) I now have to queue up for a Duty Roulette, I considered just Party Finding an undersized, non-synced party, but unfortunately, Atomos requires multiple people and can't be 3-manned.

I frankly could care less about the story at this point. I had high hopes for "Weaboo Adventures" (Stormblood), but instead got a garbled back and forth mess that could have used more time, clarity and a different path than was taken. But I was fine, I thought I could just plow through ShB and get to End Game content with my FC, now I have to find a time that a majority of them are on, in order to do content because "this will be a cool callback", or chill in queue while watching the new end game Extremes on Youtube.

So, just like how every Mentor mentions to the party to look up the current fight on YT, can we get the general player base to remind fresh 50's to do LotA to avoid further groans and moans, or at least have devs make it mandatory at 50 cause "Oh cool, 24 people? That's new!".

-Cheers

Originally Posted by doGehT

So, just like how every Mentor mentions to the party to look up the current fight on YT, can we get the general player base to remind fresh 50's to do LotA to avoid further groans and moans, or at least have devs make it mandatory at 50 cause "Oh cool, 24 people? That's new!".

-Cheers

it already is required to pass into HW though, that same change was made when it was made required to do 5.3 MSQ. So you're asking them to do what they already did.

Originally Posted by doGehT

So, just like how every Mentor mentions to the party to look up the current fight on YT, can we get the general player base to remind fresh 50's to do LotA to avoid further groans and moans, or at least have devs make it mandatory at 50 cause "Oh cool, 24 people? That's new!".

It already is mandatory at Lv50 now for anyone coming through - you were just past that gate when they implemented it. The second gate at 5.3 is only for people like yourself who missed out on that, so instead you're forced to do it at the last point before it stops being just a "cool call back" and becomes an event that needs to happen for the story to make sense chronologically.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't look like OP has posted since page 1?
Are they still monitoring this thread or did they just throw in the towel and quit 14?