Can something be done about alliance raids?

[MaxCarnage]

This is a cautionary take. Remember that the playerbase is hundreds of thousands of people, and it's only a minutely small % that actually use the forums (and by its nature, those few are the ones most likely to be complaining about something). Ask virtually any question, and you will have a "large number of people" taking any side you look at simply because of how large the playerbase itself is. These forums represent the smallest iota of a % of that community, and topics appearing here aren't necessarily representative of anything regarding the playerbase in general.

I'm not talking about the amount of people on the forums talking about it. I'm well aware only about 5% or so of the player base uses the forums. However, some of those 5% wouldn't be complaining about how certain content is avoided like the plague if the player base did it. Queues for Nier raids wouldn't take over an hr if the majority or heck, even 40% of the player base found it fun and wanted to run it just to run it.

I'm not going by what people here are saying. Because the people here are suggestion punishments rather than incentives. Suggesting to make things grindier and worse. I'm going by the experience in game, which is a more accurate reflection of how things are and how people generally feel.

People on the forums can swear up and down that certain content is super fun and things should be a certain way, but if the in-game experience reflects an opposite opinion of that, then that's a more accurate reality.

[Striker44]

I'm not talking about the amount of people on the forums talking about it. I'm well aware only about 5% or so of the player base uses the forums. However, some of those 5% wouldn't be complaining about how certain content is avoided like the plague if the player base did it. Queues for Nier raids wouldn't take over an hr if the majority or heck, even 40% of the player base found it fun and wanted to run it just to run it.

I'm not going by what people here are saying. Because the people here are suggestion punishments rather than incentives. Suggesting to make things grindier and worse. I'm going by the experience in game, which is a more accurate reflection of how things are and how people generally feel.

People on the forums can swear up and down that certain content is super fun and things should be a certain way, but if the in-game experience reflects an opposite opinion of that, then that's a more accurate reality.

I see where you're coming from - unfortunately, I'll need to add another cautionary note, this time about anecdotal experience. I do AR roulettes fairly often, and my own personal experience is different from the personal experience you claim. Frankly, I don't tend to get CT raids all that often when I queue on my 90 for tomestones. I've found a fairly nice spread from the different expansions tends to be the norm. So my own in-game experience, which apparently is what should be the "accurate reality", is that the raids do in fact pop with a good variety. Again, when you have hundreds of thousands of players, trying to take any one person's (or select few people's) experience as if it's the norm isn't reliable.

Oh, and if you've been around the forums enough, you'll see that people absolutely would complain about, well, literally anything. Some people's sole existence on these forums seems to be trying to find things to complain about *shakes head in amusement*.

[MaxCarnage]

I see where you're coming from - unfortunately, I'll need to add another cautionary note, this time about anecdotal experience. I do AR roulettes fairly often, and my own personal experience is different from the personal experience you claim. Frankly, I don't tend to get CT raids all that often when I queue on my 90 for tomestones. I've found a fairly nice spread from the different expansions tends to be the norm. So my own in-game experience, which apparently is what should be the "accurate reality", is that the raids do in fact pop with a good variety. Again, when you have hundreds of thousands of players, trying to take any one person's (or select few people's) experience as if it's the norm isn't reliable.

Oh, and if you've been around the forums enough, you'll see that people absolutely would complain about, well, literally anything. Some people's sole existence on these forums seems to be trying to find things to complain about *shakes head in amusement*.

I do agree with you. Anecdotal evidence isn't very sound, because ultimately it depends on your data centre and your play time. So even with the people saying that is is only ever CT, that's obviously not entirely accurate, either. These people demanding change (usually negative change, but I digress) are doing so based on their own select experience.

Unfortunately though, sometimes you have to use a census. There's no way to ask every single person in a community and have them answer to get a 100% accurate result.

All I can say from playing on my own data centre, and even data centre travelling to try to get different experiences, it seems to all be the same feel. I usually only get CT or the current raids in AR during my play time.

The people I talk to don't like Nier or Ivalice. When I do get those duties in AR, people tend to complain. And while that isn't solid evidence of anything, it does support, in some degree, that there are people who don't want to do them. And when there are people who can queue for these raids at any given time on their DC and have to wait for long queues, it also supports in some degree, that at least in their community, those raids aren't very popular.

It's like how at least on my DC, there's a discord that arranges the weekly Rival Wings. If you queue for Rival Wings outside of the weekly run time, you will not get in. So while that may not be the case on other DCs, it does go to show that Rival Wings isn't very popular on my DC.

But yes, I do know the forums tend to be hyperbolic and nitpicky.

TLDR; while not 100% accurate, censuses show how certain communities feel towards certain things. And different communities can have different experiences.

[R041]

Fun is subjective, I have more fun by spending 15min in CT follow by another 15-20 min in Frontline. For me that's more fun than spending 30-40 min in a Ivalice or Nier raid. Again, not up to you to decide what is fun for me

Also I play savage and ultimate ... so reach just gonna reach. Like ... seriously, the way some people their argument in this thread it's like because they see someone take it easy on the weekend, they hyperbolic it into that person must be a lazy bump who never interest in doing anything worthwhile in the whole week.

I mean...you kinda HAVE to play the game in order to get that exp and level up.
How fast and rewarding the content is, is a different argument...kind of like saying how someone like me is on a Limited Gaming Schedule, because I have other things going on in my life (Job, sleep, Social life, Family, etc)

I don't really blame either of you, but there definitely is something to be said about how SE just dumps all of their content into a roulette cycle every expansion that continues to incentivize only re-running ARR content over and over no matter what new content is pushed into it. They're trashing their own content every expansion cycle.

It's been 10 years, I'm sick of running the same shit over and over. If that content were even a LITTLE bit fun then sure, but it's not. We see it as the most rewarding thing because the only thing SE ever gives us for a reward in this game is our Time vs EXP (and Materia..), so there's not much to pick from there when they also continue to neglect the power creep in ilvl.

You also bring up that you're doing Ultimate, so that's kinda where we're at here with the content gap right? We have 2 types of playstyles that we've catered to:

1. Bleeding Edge that spend their time doing Savage and Ultimates
2. Limsa/House AFKers

Neither of those want their average time wasted. And I'd argue that Savage isn't actually being catered to.. Just strung along.

We want the 3rd playstyle again, the Mid-Core, the casuals that still enjoy difficult and rewarding content but don't want to bash their heads against Ultimate or AFK. At least with Eureka and Bozja it kinda scratched that itch, but this expac is just.. So bad for us, there's 0 incentive to do anything anymore and we don't even have the luxury of queueing for 'Fun' raids because it's just a bunch of CT for Exp.

It's like the only fun Mid-Core players are allowed to have is within the first 2 months of each expansion, and the first week of each major patch.

So again, I don't blame you - I'm just salty in general.

[Raven2014]

Again, lot of assumption ...

If that content were even a LITTLE bit fun then sure, but it's not.

Just because you don't have fun doesn't mean other don't.

You also bring up that you're doing Ultimate, so that's kinda where we're at here with the content gap right?

No.

We have 2 types of playstyles that we've catered to:

Just because that how you classify it doesn't mean that how other classify it.

And I'd argue that Savage isn't actually being catered to.. Just strung along.

Don't even know what you're saying here. So I just gonna say: I'm very happy and enjoy the time I spent in savage, enough that I raid in 4 char. Last tier I had 2 characters that had every glam from the raid.

We want the 3rd playstyle again, the Mid-Core, the casuals that still enjoy difficult and rewarding content but don't want to bash their heads against Ultimate or AFK.
It's like the only fun Mid-Core players are allowed to have is within the first 2 months of each expansion, and the first week of each major patch.

And there is, probably more than 3. From Expert roulette to Ultimate there are a tone of content spread in between. If casual and hardcore are the two end point, the game certainly have a tone of thing in between those no matter how you want to classify it.

I'm just salty in general.

Now this is something I can respect.

There is nothing wrong with simply state what you want because ... it's just what you want. I hope more people realize that it's perfectly ok to simply state what they desire without the need of hiding behind pretenses of majority or window-dressing as if it's for a greater cause.

I disagree with pretty much every thing you said in this post, but I still gave you a like for. Keep fighting the good fight.

[R041]

...

I'm glad you're having fun in CT, I'm not. I also don't believe POTD 3.0 is going to be enough to stop the nosedive we're in for the next year of content lulls.

If 7.0 doesn't hit a higher peak than even the WoW Exodus and break off from the current formula, then we're in for a bad time.

But that's good you're still playing CT 10 years from now and enjoying it.

[Remolia]

I have more fun by spending 15min in CT

I have more fun by sweeping floor in lumsa for 30 min, than by loosing my last brain cells in CT for 10 min.

[Raven2014]

I have more fun by sweeping floor in lumsa for 30 min, than by loosing my last brain cells in CT for 10 min.

That's why I spend 10min in CT and you spend 30min sweeping the floor in Limsa. We do we, I'm certainly not complaining about people sweeping floor in Limsa.

[TaleraRistain]

All I can say from playing on my own data centre, and even data centre travelling to try to get different experiences, it seems to all be the same feel. I usually only get CT or the current raids in AR during my play time.

If your character and Striker's are accurate, then all three of us are on the same DC. I do AR pretty much every day. I play in eastern prime time and rarely get CT. Got Rabanastre tonight. Got Dun Scaith yesterday. Been getting a whole lotta Nier and Aglaia. If your char isn't accurate, then yeah it's probably a difference in DC.

[PyurBlue]

I mean, the fact that this is a topic at all indicates that a large portion of the community don't find them fun and don't want to do them. If so many people found them fun, this wouldn't be up for discussion. Because it wouldn't be an issue. You'd be able to queue and not have to wait for an hour.

This is still ignoring the fact that the game is heavily biased toward one set of content over another. Players don't really have control over that. At least before Shadowbringers I could avoid unlocking CT on my alts. It's not an option anymore.

The game also doesn't revolve around Alliance Raids, so even those people who find them fun aren't going to queue for them at every opportunity. The waiting problem is purely a game design issue. No consideration is really given to people who want to avoid CT.

Surrounded by people that don't even want to play the game, they just want their roulette exp.

This is another problem, it seems like so many players just want to chase rewards and those rewards don't include having fun. I would love to run content for the sake of it, even if I didn't get anything in return, but I wonder how many other people would enjoy the same.