Enforce ilvl-sync to Alliance Raid Roulettes to put a stop to the Crystal Tower Spam

[Kolaina]

ilvl cheesing is an easy scapegoat, it's much harder to accept that this is just the way the game is designed

I believe this to be true. The ilvl cheese has minimal impact on what others get for roulettes. With the systems in place, the mandatory CT, and the lack in popularity of the other raids creates this. It’s not just 1 thing that people can point a finger at. It’s a system at work.

[BristolRuss]

Don't worry, most people are too stupid to put the right gear on after queuing, so they absolutely will get caught by anyone with eyes. I've reported many for doing it because it was extremely obvious.

Well congrats on wasting yours and GM's time I guess?

[Avoidy]

Tying CT to MSQ was one of the worst decisions. Now ilvl cheesers have a legit excuse. "It's not me, it's just CT is mandatory".

I think making CT mandatory was actually necessary, since it obviously ties into the MSQ later. But the moment it became necessary for the MSQ progression, it should've been lumped into MSQ roulette instead. Furthermore, HW, SB, and ShB should all just require alliance raid completion in order to pass through to the next expansion. In this way, we won't get people queuing the roulette who don't even have 90% of the roulette unlocked. Once that's accomplished, you fix the ilvl cheese so we're not just getting void ark every day, and bam boom suddenly you have an actually varied roulette that helps people who need orbonne to pop or something.

There was some comment in here about crystal tower being boring because the mechanics are inconsequential. I can't be bothered to go back to dig it up but I think the reason CT is so undesirable is because you're working with a stripped level 50 kit that has like 4 buttons to work with. All the job identity stuff has been pushed way up into the 70s at this point. Level 50 feels awful in 2023. The only thing that could fix crystal tower is a total revamp of how level syncing works in roulettes, but then you get people who literally cheese their way into this stuff because they hate pressing buttons, so yeah.

[Denji]

I'm honestly shocked they have yet to do this along with the whole soul stone problem.

If I see one more pugilist or thaumaturge in any level 35+ content I'm starting a cult to summon an endsinger primal to end it all.

[Packetdancer]

It’s not just 1 thing that people can point a finger at. It’s a system at work.

I mean, first let's just put it on the table that the Crystal Tower raids are required to progress into Heavensward... and Heavensward is part of the free trial, so all free trial players who play through the entire trial will have Crystal Tower unlocked. The level 60 Shadow of Mhach alliance raids are not required for anything that I can think of until the post-Endwalker Tataru questline, which means trial users (and plenty of non-trial users!) will never do them. Ivalice at level 70 is required for Bozja, but folks who are playing now may not bother with it, while the YoRHa raids at 80 are not required for anything. And neither of those two are in the free trial.

This means Crystal Tower is the one alliance raid series that everyone (who can do alliance raid roulette at all, anyway) is guaranteed to have unlocked. So it's always going to have an outsized presence.

Where stuff gets weird is that there are countless possible ways to implement queuing/matching, and we have no idea how the roulette matchmaking works behind the scenes. To elaborate...

Let's say that we have a player, Becky. Becky is level 90, and has all alliance raids unlocked, and queues in level 90 gear for the roulette. We also have a player named Duncan; Duncan is freshly level 70, loved Final Fantasy Tactics, and has cheerfully queued up for his first run of Ridorana Lighthouse with a couple of friends.

There are also a whooooole bunch of people who can only get Crystal Tower in the queue, waiting for those last slots in their party to be filled.

The matchmaking system might prioritize popping parties faster, in which case if you can do both Ivalice and Crystal Tower, it's going to match you to Crystal Tower because that group's likely closer to popping. If it does things that way behind the scenes, if Becky chooses to ilevel cheese it probably doesn't make the situation worse; she was going to get matched into Crystal Tower anyway, and poor Duncan keeps waiting.

The matchmaking system might prioritize putting people into parties where they are able to fill the role, in which case if you can do both Ivalice and Crystal Tower and there's a pending Ivalice group, it'll probably try to stick you there first (because there's a smaller group of people to draw from who have it unlocked and are geared and leveled appropriately, thus can be matched into it). In which case, if Becky chooses to ilevel cheese her roulette, she has actively made it worse by removing one person from that matchmaking algorithm; she would've been matched into Duncan's group, but instead she's opted for Crystal Tower Roulette and Duncan continues to wait.

(Obviously the matchmaking algorithm is a lot more complex than either of those scenarios, but...)

The key is that we don't know whether or not ilevel cheesing makes the situation actively worse. It might! But it might be that the Crystal Tower has such an outsize presence and the matchmaking works in a specific way and as a result it's always going to dominate. There are only two things we can say for certain:

1. Whether ilevel cheese makes things worse or has no effect with regards to people trying to queue for later alliance raids, we can be certain it does not improve the ability to queue into later alliance raids, and...
2. As the stated goal of the roulette system is to incentivize running content you've already done in order to ensure that there are enough warm bodies to fill out parties so that people who queue specifically for Content X to actually run said content, and queuing specifically for the Ivalice raids can entail an hour-long wait in the queue, it is safe to say that the roulette system is not working where alliance raids are concerned.

[kaynide]

almost like it's an ongoing issue or something

My complaint is not discussing the issue, but rather the weird need to post new, almost weekly clones.

I get it, you get it, everybody gets it. And hopefully by now everybody understands why it is the way it is, and why CT is purposefully easier than anything else, and why CT will pop 95%of the time due to reasons beyond iLvl cheese.

If somebody has a new idea or solution that actually works, I’m sure SE would be all ears. Keeping in mind that above all else, SE cares about retaining customers…especially the candy crush casuals.

And ideally people could just add to the previous posts and discuss rather than come blazing in ignorant of what’s involved and why the things are as they are.

[Absimiliard]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
The second they fix this, the forum is going to flood with a bunch of people malding because Thunder God Cid turned their rectal region from an innie to an outie twelve times in the same day before they finally managed to complete the Alliance roulette.

[NymeriaEld]

Every time Syrcus pops and that high-pitched singing starts at the beginning, I want to die.

[Supersnow845]

@kolaina is 110% correct though, we love to point fingers at the burger kings with 15 jobs at 90 cheesing for circus tower but the problem with the alliance roulette is that CT is the lowest level alliance raid, the only one MSQ required and with 24 people the chance you get even 1 playing a job below 60, hasn’t unlocked any other raids or is cheesing is insanely high

The only way I could see them kinda fixing them is a two pronged force ilvl synch a la STQ and also locking the alliance roulette each time you reach a point where you could unlock another raid in it until you finish that raid

It’s the same problem as the normal raid roulette and people who unlock it by doing A1N and A2N then never unlocking anything else

[RitsukoSonoda]

I'm starting to wish SE would do it just so I could read the complaints when players still get Crystal Tower 95% of the time.

We'd probably miss those complaints due to the flood of "mechanics are hard" and "I don't want to learn how to play the game to progress" complaints. :P

I'd probably take it further and make it so you must unlock all available alliance raids and meet the ilvl requirement for every raid your current job meets the job level requirement for in order to queue alliance roulette.