while its certainly possible square messed up here or there on a general level no, alliance roulette if anything went quicker the 2 times i did it so far, so yea, anecdotal evidence i'll admit but if i had to take a guess than i'd say 90% you're imagening things, 10% square messed up some calculations.

that aside, you manage to play this game and actually feel weak ? pretty much the only thing in this game that offers any kind of challenge are literal gods, and yes, that does mostly reflect in gameplay aswell. heck, savage mode isn't even "real" so while these fights are hard the game quite literally tells you "hey, just play along and act like this was a really hard fight for you so the story i'm telling sounds more epic, okay ?" quite literally the only content in this game that offers any real challenge is make believe in story.