Please consider option to exclude unlocked (not yet completed) contents from Roulette

[LazuliteKouha]

I was playing through the MSQ until I reached a certain Trial.
I want to do it with my friends, but people have different schedules, so the plan was to do it during night time or on weekends.

In the meantime, we still want to do our daily roulette.
And for whatever luck, I got that Trial pops on my roulette.

Of course I could just abandon, but I was too flustered by the fact I got it popped on my roulette and telling the party that it's my first time, to the point I forgot abandon is even an option. (besides, it wasn't really prime time, so I might screw the rest of the players to wait/re-queue by abandoning)

I could think of other examples for how people could find this option useful, but I also understand there are arguments for how this option is unnecessary.

I just hope if the devs read this, they will consider adding an option to exclude unlocked but not yet completed contents from the Roulettes.

[Rongway]

This option is too easy to abuse for too little benefit when someone could just not run their roulette if they're saving a duty for a particular friend.

[Seera1024]

This option is too easy to abuse for too little benefit when someone could just not run their roulette if they're saving a duty for a particular friend.

How could it be abused?

Not seeing how so not sure what the problem is.

I had been avoiding normal raid queue as I didn't want to do Alpha 4 without my friends. Not sure how me having an option to not have Alpha 4 in roulette could be an abuse when I could have not unlocked it and achieved the same thing.

[Rongway]

How could it be abused?

When the Duty Roulettes were introduced in ARR Patch 2.1, the requirements for what was then called "Duty Roulette: High Level", were just unlocking two duties that belong to the roulette. At the time, Pharos Sirius had a reputation for being (a) difficult and (b) long, so many people avoided unlocking it at all so that they wouldn't have to do it in roulette. To combat this, ARR Patch 2.2 changed the requirement for DR:High Level to be "completion of all duties" instead of just "unlock two or more duties". This forced the people who were avoiding Pharos Sirius to unlock it or give up the roulette.

Registration for Duty Roulette: High Level now requires the completion of all associated duties.
The above changes to Duty Roulette requirements have been made in light reward adjustments, and to give players further incentive to complete all the duties within each category. Furthermore, because a great number of players who register for Duty Roulette have not cleared all duties within a given category, the above changes should also improve average waiting times for players who register for duties directly.

* All players will be required to fulfill the completion requirements of each Duty Roulette category even if they were able to register prior to patch 2.2.

Since then, DR: High Level has become DR:50 then DR:50/60 and now DR:AllOldCapLevels and the requirement re-relaxed to just unlocking of duties because it spans multiple cap levels and one might want to use it on a character that is, e.g., Lv60 and therefore unable to access Lv70 duties.

If given an option to exclude any duty from a roulette for any reason, some people will use it to avoid doing a duty ever. If anything, the current roulette requirements are already too lax--people can unlock just MSQ-required dungeons and never have to run any others in their roulette. The roulette should require unlocking all duties up to your current job's level so that people can't tailor their roulettes to a specific duty set.

At any rate, adding an option to exclude unlocked but incomplete duties from a roulette so that people can save certain duties for certain friends is not worth the implementation time when you consider the abuse potential and that people who want to save certain duties for certain friends can already do so by simply not running their roulette until they've run the certain duty with the certain friends.

[Seera1024]

When the Duty Roulettes were introduced in ARR Patch 2.1, the requirements for what was then called "Duty Roulette: High Level", were just unlocking two duties that belong to the roulette. At the time, Pharos Sirius had a reputation for being (a) difficult and (b) long, so many people avoided unlocking it at all so that they wouldn't have to do it in roulette. To combat this, ARR Patch 2.2 changed the requirement for DR:High Level to be "completion of all duties" instead of just "unlock two or more duties". This forced the people who were avoiding Pharos Sirius to unlock it or give up the roulette.



Since then, DR: High Level has become DR:50 then DR:50/60 and now DR:AllOldCapLevels and the requirement re-relaxed to just unlocking of duties because it spans multiple cap levels and one might want to use it on a character that is, e.g., Lv60 and therefore unable to access Lv70 duties.

If given an option to exclude any duty from a roulette for any reason, some people will use it to avoid doing a duty ever. If anything, the current roulette requirements are already too lax--people can unlock just MSQ-required dungeons and never have to run any others in their roulette. The roulette should require unlocking all duties up to your current job's level so that people can't tailor their roulettes to a specific duty set.

At any rate, adding an option to exclude unlocked but incomplete duties from a roulette so that people can save certain duties for certain friends is not worth the implementation time when you consider the abuse potential and that people who want to save certain duties for certain friends can already do so by simply not running their roulette until they've run the certain duty with the certain friends.

I understand the reasoning for those. But not all roulettes require that. I'd be fine with the ones not set like that to be allowed to exclude unlocked but not completed. And I know not all of them are set that way, as I only have MSQ required dungeons and trials unlocked mostly, especially post-ARR. And the only roulette I can't do is Level 80.

I do feel that it's not something that should be high priority, but it's not something that I would be upset if they added to the game.

[LazuliteKouha]

I'm a bit confused, how does not doing sidequest/optional content considered abuse?
If I didn't do any sidequest/optional content, shouldn't that "punish" me instead?
I'll have less content on my roulette pool, thus longer queue time for me.

If given an option to exclude any duty from a roulette for any reason, some people will use it to avoid doing a duty ever.

I would like to emphasize that I didn't mean the option to pick what duties to exclude from the roulette, just the option to exclude not yet completed duties.
I'm assuming if people unlock any optional duty, they plan to complete it.
If I didn't care about a certain optional duty/content, I wouldn't even touch the NPC.
(I personally haven't found any situation/reason where I'd unlock an optional content but don't want to complete it, if there's any that people actually do, please let me know)

In my opinion, putting not yet completed duties inside roulette pool doesn't really make sense.
If someone want to complete a duty that they've unlocked (but not yet completed), they'd queue that particular duty directly anyway.
And the roulette is there to incentivize people to "help" them.

If anything, the current roulette requirements are already too lax--people can unlock just MSQ-required dungeons and never have to run any others in their roulette. The roulette should require unlocking all duties up to your current job's level so that people can't tailor their roulettes to a specific duty set.

I assume you mean the roulette should require unlocking all duties, including optional ones.
So, only people who unlock everything can access the roulette? How is this any good for the game?
I understand if your point of view is "roulette is to incentivize people to login daily" etc., but roulette is also there to incentivize people to "help" others who want to complete their duty with matchmaking.
If you make it so that only those who unlocked all duties can use the roulette, you'll reduce the amount of people they can matchmake with, longer queue time for them, and for you too cause there'll be less people who can use said roulette.

people who want to save certain duties for certain friends can already do so by simply not running their roulette until they've run the certain duty with the certain friends.

I knew this is coming.. I could also think of a 'simply...' solution for what you think is an abuse of the roulette system, but it'll most likely just goes back and forth and turn nasty, so I'll stop there.

[LazuliteKouha]

Having said all that, I'm still genuinely curious about your opinion.

If we're talking about abusing the roulette, aren't people already abusing it by intentionally using low level gears and/or unequipping pieces of their gears?
And adding an option to exclude unlocked but not yet completed duty from roulette would not affect this. (unless I'm missing something?)

I never experienced the Pharos Sirius example that you mentioned so CMIIW but that sounds more like a case of badly designed roulette, way too small pool of duties (and that is already including optional ones).
Could you give another example based on the roulettes that we currently have?
If we implement the option, what kind of abuse potential, how and on which roulette do you think it will be abused?

[Rongway]

I'm a bit confused, how does not doing sidequest/optional content considered abuse?
If I didn't do any sidequest/optional content, shouldn't that "punish" me instead?
I'll have less content on my roulette pool, thus longer queue time for me.

The way things currently are, a player can unlock only the minimum required number of duties, never unlock anything else, and reap the daily roulette reward with a 50% probability of getting either duty in some roulettes. A player should not be able to by their own action or inaction affect the outcome of the roulette to a point of predictability or exclude content from the roulette when the primary purpose of the roulette is to increase participation in the duties that make up that roulette.

If the roulette required a player to unlock every duty in the roulette up to their current level and MSQ progress, they would have an incentive to unlock--not even a requirement to complete, just to unlock--more content, and then they would have much more content for their roulette to select from, and everyone who was, e.g., Lv60 would be able to roulette into any Lv50 or 60 dungeon, thereby increasing the roulette fills for people queuing for specific Lv50 or Lv60 dungeons, shortening queue times for people running optional dungeons.

Sticking with the Lv60 example, only 2 out of the 17 Lv50 dungeons and only 5 of the 13 Lv60 dungeons are required. Which means 77% of the Lv50/60 dungeons are not required to unlock the roulette; thus people who want to run those optional dungeons face increased queue times.

If instead the roulette required all the side dungeons up to the current point in MSQ to be unlocked, it wouldn't be a major burden for a player to unlock a few dungeons at a time as they become available, but it would be a major benefit to the roulette and people queueing for those dungeons directly because more people would have those dungeons unlocked. Further, requiring more unlocked duties in the roulette for everyone could justify an increase in the roulette reward, increasing roulette participation by another factor.

I would like to emphasize that I didn't mean the option to pick what duties to exclude from the roulette, just the option to exclude not yet completed duties.
I'm assuming if people unlock any optional duty, they plan to complete it.
If I didn't care about a certain optional duty/content, I wouldn't even touch the NPC.
(I personally haven't found any situation/reason where I'd unlock an optional content but don't want to complete it, if there's any that people actually do, please let me know)

I understand your intent. Your proposal could still be used to avoid duties in a roulette. Of course people intend to complete things they unlock, at the time that they unlock them. They don't necessarily continue to intend to complete every duty after experiencing the duty once. A bad experience in a duty, such as a vote abandon after multiple wipes to The Thunder God or certain raid floors--can change someone's mind about completing the duty tonight or this week. I have seen people decide to put off completion of a duty they had unlocked until some time in the future when a specific friend would be online because the duty was too hard for them without their friend.

In such an event, they should not be allowed to run their roulette with the incomplete duty excluded. They should avoid running the roulette or deal with the possibility that they might roulette into that duty.

In my opinion, putting not yet completed duties inside roulette pool doesn't really make sense.
If someone want to complete a duty that they've unlocked (but not yet completed), they'd queue that particular duty directly anyway.
And the roulette is there to incentivize people to "help" them.

And yet the roulette currently allows players to run a roulette with only two duties unlocked, with no incentive for players to unlock additional duties, and that doesn't help people running most of the duties in the roulette at all.

I assume you mean the roulette should require unlocking all duties, including optional ones.
So, only people who unlock everything can access the roulette? How is this any good for the game?
I understand if your point of view is "roulette is to incentivize people to login daily" etc., but roulette is also there to incentivize people to "help" others who want to complete their duty with matchmaking.
If you make it so that only those who unlocked all duties can use the roulette, you'll reduce the amount of people they can matchmake with, longer queue time for them, and for you too cause there'll be less people who can use said roulette.

No. See above.

people already abusing it by intentionally using low level gears and/or unequipping pieces of their gears?
And adding an option to exclude unlocked but not yet completed duty from roulette would not affect this.

Could you give another example based on the roulettes that we currently have?

If we implement the option, what kind of abuse potential, how and on which roulette do you think it will be abused?

Coercing a roulette result through gear is a separate example but it's still the same example. Even if the roulettes were fixed so that one could not force Labyrinth of the Ancients by removing gear, there are people who would unlock and attempt the Ivalice or YorHa raids, have a bad experience, nope out of them, and use the option you're proposing to avoid doing them in roulette.

[Seera1024]

Coercing a roulette result through gear is a separate example but it's still the same example. Even if the roulettes were fixed so that one could not force Labyrinth of the Ancients by removing gear, there are people who would unlock and attempt the Ivalice or YorHa raids, have a bad experience, nope out of them, and use the option you're proposing to avoid doing them in roulette.

But why is what the OP suggests a bad thing? Why is excluding non-completed but unlocked duties in roulettes where there are more than a small handful of options a bad thing?

OP's suggestion would benefit the game more than your solution.

Your solution means they don't enter that roulette. Which means they don't get put into any duty. So if more people are queuing directly for the ones they do have unlocked, they face longer queue times if the person not wanting to do the optional dungeon is a healer or tank.

So if say a healer is not wanting to enter Kugane Castle without their friend but has unlocked it in anticipation of their friend coming on that night for them to do after they did their roulettes that night (assuming Kugane Castle didn't pop in the roulette). If said friend didn't come on and no one who was queueing for Kugane Castle directly, then the healer not entering the roulette actually slows queue progress down for everyone else.

Also what does your solution offer people in roulette that the OP's doesn't? Either solution means the people who are queuing for the optional dungeon aren't getting in any faster. Your solution just also happens to slow down people queuing for anything else that that player has completed that's in that roulette.

This option would make me more likely to go do the blue quests that unlock dungeons knowing that I would be able to go into the dungeons or trials when I'm ready to tackle new content and not just wanting to do a duty that I've done a number of times. Because I like to watch a video right before entering a new dungeon so that I know what I'm getting into. I may not necessarily have time the day I'm starting the quest to do the dungeon and I may not for a couple of days. And I may not want to do something new when I have time for queuing and doing a dungeon. Sometimes I gambled, especially if it was an alliance raid as so many people cheese their iLvl to try to get Labyrinth.

Personally, I wouldn't want someone who had a bad experience in any content to be forced to do it again before they are ready to retry it. Because they aren't in the right mind state that they can do it. They'll be more likely to mentally check out the first time they mess up a mechanic or the group messes up and wipes. I'd rather they try it again when they are ready.

[Adeacia]

(I personally haven't found any situation/reason where I'd unlock an optional content but don't want to complete it, if there's any that people actually do, please let me know)

I do that all the time. I unlock the savage and extreme content when it becomes available but never actually run it. Not sure I ever will either. Why do I unlock it then? Because I can. I try to unlock all the games content, even if I never end up running it.