Idea Bag: How to get players to unlock older content (eg Raids)

[kaynide]

**Edited to make it a quicker read/give a summary of ideas**

Problem:
Even with ilvl fix, CT is still gonna get pulled in roulette because of people simply haven't unlocked later raids. Assuming people do daily roulettes, how can SE encourage unlocking these raids sooner than later?
1) There is not enough motivation to unlock later raids when compared to giving up what is an extremely easy method of leveling quickly/lazily. Humans gonna human.
2) There is not enough visibility of where or how to unlock raids.
3) There is other content (eg. 8-man raids, Manderville, Eureka) which might be more appealing and delay unlocking and therefore increase the amount of daily roulettes doing CT.


Potential Solutions:
1) Offer very useful rewards (eg increased flying speed in that expac), but not so vital as to cause spite/"gatekeeping".
2) Scale XP (more unlocked = more roulette xp)
3) Place NPCs in key locations to point players in the right direction. Possibly have the NPC give an overview of what the 24 man raids are for.
4) Rework icons (color, design, etc) to make them easier to see.
5) Cutscenes in early expac patches that point to #3 NPC to remind players of further adventures.
6) Rework CT into an NPC-able dungeon/raid of sorts (a la Prae/Castrum).
7) Make a separate roulette just for CT (a la old Prae/Castrum)

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RANT ON (original post of my specific situation)
Ok, so full disclosure…
I have alts. (My personal rant on not doing old raids):

I level these alts almost exclusively via Crystal Tower roulette and MSQ (they only really have 1 or 2 jobs so it’s enough).

The problem is, as is I will never ever unlock the 3.0 or later raid series. This means, even if the roulette requires a higher ilevel, my alt will still only pull the CT series.

So, while the devs have done a good job to get rid of ilvl cheese, they still haven’t motivated players like me to unlock them in the first place.

I feel this is a similar stance to new players- if they aren’t specifically interested in the glams or old relic grinds, there really is no motivation to unlock the old raids, especially if it potentially “penalizes” them by having potentially harder roulettes.

Doubly true I would wager that they don’t even bother with the older raids until they’ve finished the MSQ and are now sifting through content to decide what looks fun to do.

Things they have tried:
3.x series (along with 4 lords) unlocks Tataru’s Grand Endeavor. This is just story afaik, so not worth on alt, and maybe not so interesting for a new player when 7.0 or 8.0 comes along.
4.x series eventually unlocks Bozja, which is relic stuff; ultimately skins.

Suggestions?
What I would suggest is core things that you “wouldn’t want to be without”. Enough to get new players/alts to run the raids just once. The goal being that ultimately if when they do try to do alliance roulette, they would have an equal chance at pulling any particular roulette.

My suggestion, something as big a deal flying in 2.x like…

the upcoming 2-channel dye system.
Flying mount speed increase could be a thing. (Do all raids = faster fly speed for that expac)
A 4 man mount for doing all 2.x to 6.x raids.
Significantly more xp for roulette-ing into higher raids.
I dunno.. discuss!

So there it is: what could devs do to entice new players (who don’t want to run the old raids) to do them and ensure more roulette variety?

Discuss!

[Renalt]

You know I never thought about it. All other raids are optional with exception being CT. So if it's not even unlocked it will never be one to be picked.

[kaynide]

You know I never thought about it. All other raids are optional with exception being CT. So if it's not even unlocked it will never be one to be picked.

Yup; basically on my main I’ve done them all for the easy gear, but my wife generally refuses to do raids (she barely plays the game with strangers now that trusts exist). She doesn’t enjoy them and doesn’t care about or need the gear…so if/when we do roulettes she will only go with my alts which guarantee CT series.

If doing them unlocked something useful, I might be more inclined on my alts…as is, nope!

[Shurrikhan]

While there are plenty more incentives that could be arbitrarily attached... to start with, they could just have the roulette rewards in some way scale with the number of raids unlocked, and note as much on the Alliance Raid Roulette's description pane itself?

[kaynide]

While there are plenty more incentives that could be arbitrarily attached... to start with, they could just have the roulette rewards in some way scale with the number of raids unlocked, and note as much on the Alliance Raid Roulette's description pane itself?

That’s pretty good right there. Especially if the gap was significant (like it giving a max of whatever level 59’s reward is if you only have CT series…which would be a pittance at, say, 70-80)

[TaleraRistain]

Things they have tried:
3.x series (along with 4 lords) unlocks Tataru’s Grand Endeavor. This is just story afaik, so not worth on alt, and maybe not so interesting for a new player when 7.0 or 8.0 comes along.

This one isn't done yet so we don't know that it's just story. It's possible since it's Tataru we may get some nice glam out of it.

[Iscah]

Things they have tried:
3.x series (along with 4 lords) unlocks Tataru’s Grand Endeavor. This is just story afaik, so not worth on alt, and maybe not so interesting for a new player when 7.0 or 8.0 comes along.
4.x series eventually unlocks Bozja, which is relic stuff; ultimately skins.

Desirable glamour and exclusives can be a big driver of things, but some of them are still in motion here.

Rewards for the individual parts of Tataru's Grand Endeavour have been inconsistent, ranging from "nothing at all" to "that really cool samurai glamour for doing only the Four Lords follow-up". It's possible that they're going to put something big behind total completion. The series as a whole has been geared towards providing reasons to do the side stories that otherwise have no ties to further plot thus far.

Bozja has some appeal as a content type in its own right, though I feel like it could do with a boost in how quickly you progress through the story (or else a larger number of skirmishes in each zone so you don't do each one quite so many times by the end of the levelling process). It does lock a number of desirable glamours behind progress – not just the relics, but multiple sets of gear. The Blade's (FFXII) gear is nice enough that I've dragged multiple alts through it for that. Plus there's the gear in Ivalice itself, and the hairstyles locked behind completion. (Orbonne's Knight and Mystic outfits are a selling point in themselves.)

I guess the question is, how to make it appeal to people who aren't swayed by glamour, but... what can possibly do that besides convincing them to do the content for content's sake? If they don't want to unlock duties and experience all the fights that the game has to offer, and aren't interested in glamour, then nothing will make them do optional content besides making it non-optional.

Back on the glamour train, though – I think it would be really helpful to expand the Dreamfitting mode to cover not only store-bought items, but also to let you try on all the items that can be acquired inside the game as well. Maybe people could be swayed into doing more content if they could see the cool outfits they can get out of it.

I feel like general awareness about what gear comes out of dungeons and side content is very low.

[kaynide]

snipped.

You’re not wrong- people who want the glamours are gonna do the raids- sure.
Your idea of being able to preview all available gear with info on where to get it is good.

Sometimes I’ll alt tab to google and check, but that extra step is often enough for me to not really care to check beyond the market. Being able to check in game with info is a solid start.

But how to hook those who don’t care about the specific glamours, or don’t really care about the content offered aside from the xp reward…

And more importantly how to future-proof the content?

[CaptainLagbeard]

Make the Roulette require everything you can unlock (based on level and progress through the raids) to be unlocked, even if it is just the first raid and alliance raid of each expansion.

[Jeeqbit]

Problem: even with ilvl fix, CT is still gonna get pulled in roulette because of people like me. How can SE motivate people like me to unlock other raids so people (like you, maybe) don’t keep getting CT?

Make them required for MSQ. But that makes the MSQ longer and it's long enough already, so that is the problem with doing that.

Things they have tried:
3.x series (along with 4 lords) unlocks Tataru’s Grand Endeavor. This is just story afaik, so not worth on alt, and maybe not so interesting for a new player when 7.0 or 8.0 comes along.
4.x series eventually unlocks Bozja, which is relic stuff; ultimately skins.

I know that Bozja worked. It made people do the HW and SB alliance raids and they came up in the alliance raid roulette all the time in Shadowbringers. But probably doesn't help as much now that Shadowbringers isn't current and the relics no longer matter for stat purposes.

I don't know if Grand Endeavor worked or not because I haven't done the alliance raid roulette since those quests released.

What I would suggest is core things that you “wouldn’t want to be without”.

AKA blue quests, that players recommend new players do.