Alliance Raid Now iLvl Locked, Why??

[Raven2014]

Oh thats a good solution for it. Also didnt realize there were players being that stupidly petty

Why is that considered be stupidly petty? Full disclosure: I have 4 char, and my youngest chars, and they don't have most of the 24men unlocked, and I use Alliance Roullete to level them from time to time. My two older chars have everything unlock, but I don;t do alliance roullete on them. Why is that me being stupid? In my own opinion I think I'm pretty smart actually.

The better solution was to force anyone looking to use alliance roulette to have unlocked at least two full alliance raid series(doesn't have to be Shadow of Mhach, could be Ivalice, Yorha, Myths) AND change the roulette rewards to scale based on how many raids total were unlocked. So at the minimum you would only get 6/15 * the old alliance raid roulette rewards.
.

Nope, if you think SE's current solution is bad, then your solution is also equally as bad because they both base on the same premise

The point is, a real solution will always be "make the players want to do the content", instead of coming up with way to "force the player to do the content". Your solution ain't gonna make me go unlock the other raid so I can pop the roullette, I just stop doing it altogether.


It's not like we haven't seen an example before. Remember Castrum vs Pret? Originally people would drop Pret if they got it in favor of Castrum, but after Pret got buff, it became the "preferred" choice. This show that length/difficult of an instance isn't really the biggest factor, but the compensation. I don't unlock Ivalice on my alt not because it was difficulty or long, it's because I don't feel I'm compensated for doing it. And until that sentiment of mine change, neither you nor the dev will be able to force me into anotther Ivalice raid.

[ForteNightshade]

Why is that considered be stupidly petty? Full disclosure: I have 4 char, and my youngest chars, and they don't have most of the 24men unlocked, and I use Alliance Roullete to level them from time to time. My two older chars have everything unlock, but I don;t do alliance roullete on them. Why is that me being stupid? In my own opinion I think I'm pretty smart actually.

While I certainly wouldn't call it stupid, you are intentionally exploiting a loophole that was never intended for roulettes. They exist to facilitate queues and offer variety not so you can force braindead easy mode on potentially twenty-three other people. Getting Satasha in Leveling Roulette when you're above 50 is a straight loss of EXP due to mob scaling. The bonus from the roulette doesn't compensate you enough to offset the difference. This gap gets increasingly larger the higher you go, though never enough to make it worth taking a 30 minute penalty. The thing is though, because every single dungeon is required, you can't force easy mode options on people. The roulette is a complete randomization of every dungeon available, and every single player will have to unlock them all if they ever want to progress. Which is the purpose of roulettes.

The point is, a real solution will always be "make the players want to do the content", instead of coming up with way to "force the player to do the content". Your solution ain't gonna make me go unlock the other raid so I can pop the roullette, I just stop doing it altogether.

Okay? This achieves the same end result for players wanting actual variety. Your refusal to queue won't make even the slightest dent in overall participation. So, to be blunt, why should anyone care?

Realistically, there is nothing SE can do to compensate players enough to incentive the later roulette short of completely overhauling Crystal Tower and then slapping a proper ilvl sync so we can't rolfstomp it. This isn't a Castrum/Prae scenario but the comparisons aren't the same. Orbonne would have to offer an absurd amount of EXP or tome rewards to overcome just how braindead simple Syrcus Tower is. Otherwise, people will level cheese because they want easy mode. While you say that isn't your rationale, it certainly is others.

At the end of the day, forcing players to unlock every Alliance raid to access the roulette is simply enforcing the actual purpose of said roulette: variety. If you dislike that, then go ahead and stop queuing. I hate being level synced below 70, which is why I hardly ever touch Leveling. Like I said above, I'm reasonably certain the queue hasn't suffered for my absence.

[Brynne]

I don't unlock Ivalice on my alt not because it was difficulty or long, it's because I don't feel I'm compensated for doing it. And until that sentiment of mine change, neither you nor the dev will be able to force me into anotther Ivalice raid.

They did increase the compensation for Ivalice, though. Per the patch notes, completing an Ivalice raid now gives the following:

100 Allagan tomestones of poetics
80 Allagan tomestones of causality
10 Allagan tomestones of comedy

Previously, it only gave the poetics. This is in addition to the roulette bonus.

If you don't find it to be enough compensation, then that's something to voice your feedback on. They may listen, since they've listened enough to increase the compensation already.

The fix for this thread's issue is pretty simple, SE just needs to base the ilvl requirement on the highest level raid the player has unlocked, not the player's level. Sure, you'll have some people not unlocking some raids, but that's already happening anyway. Hopefully increased rewards for the higher level raids will incentivize more people to not do that.

[Raven2014]

While I certainly wouldn't call it stupid, you are intentionally exploiting a loophole that was never intended for roulettes. They exist to facilitate queues and offer variety not so you can force braindead easy mode on potentially twenty-three other people.

Which is a moot and irrelevant point. It does not matter what the intend or the purpose of the "system", it has to be balance and well-thought out so people can choose to engage with it. Thiis is like saying you expect people to just follow the rule because it's the rule, and you know that's not how most human behave.

A good rule is one most people would happily and volunteerly follow. Make a bad rule and you can bet a lot of people will try to get around it, and no amount of gaslighting (i.e braindead) gonna change that one universal fact.

Getting Satasha in Leveling Roulette when you're above 50 is a straight loss of EXP due to mob scaling. The bonus from the roulette doesn't compensate you enough to offset the difference. This gap gets increasingly larger the higher you go, though never enough to make it worth taking a 30 minute penalty. The thing is though, because every single dungeon is required, you can't force easy mode options on people. The roulette is a complete randomization of every dungeon available, and every single player will have to unlock them all if they ever want to progress. Which is the purpose of roulettes.

This example actually serve as a reinforcement, not a rebuttal to my point like you seem to think it to be. The length and difficulty does not matter as much as the effort/compensation ratio

The point here is, even if I get Satasha on a high-level, I would still be ok with it. Yes I get less reward, but at the same time, I also spent less time and effort. In fact, for me the roulette bonus itself is enough of a compensation itself. Can you say the samething for Alliance roulette?

So to re-emphasize the point in case you miss it again:

- Leveling roullete doesn't have the issue not because it require every dungeon to be unlocked, but because it is the most popular roulette. And reason it is the most popular because regardless whether you queue into Satasha, or Library, or Azem step or all the way to , you are always reasonably compensated. I hate it when I get ARR trial in my lvl roullete, the reward suck, but at the same time, it's in and out within 2-3min.

- Alliance roulette has NONE of that balance.

. So, to be blunt, why should anyone care?

And ... did I say anyone should care? It's a discussion, no need to get personal, yes? :P

My post simply to point out if the previous poster accuse SE of providing a bad solution, in my view the solution they propose is equally as bad because it based on the same premise, rather using a more holistic formula. You claim it's not possible, I think it is. It doesn't matter if they need to rebalanbce the reward, or rebalance the raid, or changing how ilvl sync work. Especially that last point about ilvl sync, they have proved that they can fix thing with it ... if they choose to. It's the job of the dev to figure that out if they want players to volunteer engage with the content.

My point is not that different than a certain school of thought: reward player for doing your content, do not punishing them for not doing it.

And to be blunt? I find it's often counter productive for the players to claim something as impossible on behalf of the dev. They get paid to figure thing out, we don;t. So don't give them a license to think less hard.

[ForteNightshade]

- Leveling roullete doesn't have the issue not because it require every dungeon to be unlocked, but because it is the most popular roulette. And reason it is the most popular because regardless whether you queue into Satasha, or Library, or Azem step or all the way to , you are always reasonably compensated. I hate it when I get ARR trial in my lvl roullete, the reward suck, but at the same time, it's in and out within 2-3min.

That's the point though. You aren't reasonably compensated. It's objectively worse and several of the earlier dungeons are actually longer than higher level ones. It fluctuates all over the place but due to the sheer amount of dungeons no one really pay attention. Leveling Roulette also lacks the same enormous ilvl discrepancy of Crystal Tower, which is the major issue at play. I can assure you even though Vanapanti is better than Satasha for EXP gains, if people could force the latter, they absolutely would because it's braindead. You're ignoring the other factor here, and why I said SE can't properly compensate rewards. People force CT not only because of efficiency but because it's impossible to fail. I also highlighted it's "impossible" without a full on rework and/or rescaling, something they aren't going to do for Crystal Tower.

So given the choice, I'd much prefer they force everyone to unlock all the raids so we actually have a roulette and not CT spam even though it will obviously remain the most frequent due to new players leveling. If that means some people refuse to touch Alliance Roulette again because they only want easy mode. Cool. Don't queue.

[nivada]

There are a lot of casual players like myself that just enjoy playing and exploring the world, and for us this restriction is a slap in the face. I started my character about 3 years ago when they changed the ARR MSQ line to cut the excessive filler. I'm currently running the post stormblood but pre-shadowbringers arc. In 3 years I've only completed 3 expansions because I enjoy taking my time and seeing the world. I spend more time crafting, gathering, dungeoning, doing dailies, and whatever piques my interest. I'm a completionist and I've been grinding the crafter and gatherer "I found/made" that achievements, hunting all the achievement fates, doing side quests. Furthermore, my main job is warrior and I run that most often for the fast queue times. I reached level 90 around the time I finished the stormblood shinryu finale.

So now I'm being penalized for taking my time by not being able to queue up my favorite job for my dailys. I like to queue up the alliance roulette for irregular tombstone campaigns. I usually got shuffled into one of the ivalice raids on the last campaign. Sure, I can still hard queue a specific raid, but the randomness of the roulette was just as much of the enjoyment as the event and the rewards themselves. Sure, I could just buy some of the Ilvl 610+ crafted gear off the market board, but I take pride in crafting my own gear and wearing a grid of signed items with my name on it. Buying the gear and skipping the grind doesn't provide the same sense of accomplishment. And I like the roulette because I enjoy not knowing what I'm gonna get until I enter the instance and see the opening cinematic playing. I like doing side content and pacing my progress. I don't want to participate in the latest ultimate's or extremes, and don't have the time to commit to joining a raiding linkshell. I play an hour or two when I have some time a couple days of the week. But I still enjoy the time I spend that way. So this new restriction is a real inconvenience me.

I almost never post on the forms. Most people here discuss topics from the mindset of what's best for the game and it's classes and battle systems only taking into account how it would affect end game extremes and ultimates. I bet there are more players than you realize who don't care for that and just want to play a few hours when it's convenient. Forcing us to just buy whatever's on the market board that fits the level quota just to meet an end is extremely irritating and unsatisfying, but the alternative is exclusion from something that I was freely allowed to participate in up till now. Neither of these options feels good.

Blame the Ilvl cheesers for this, who forced ct, via ilvl cheesing. They ruined it for everybody else and sadly the solution to it has hit innocent, but would never have been needed if they didn't ilvl cheese

[Raven2014]

People force CT not only because of efficiency but because it's impossible to fail. I also highlighted it's "impossible" without a full on rework and/or rescaling, something they aren't going to do for Crystal Tower.

Then tell them to fix that, in fact SE can fix CT using multiple options at once. I'm here long enough to remember CT was hard, that people need to actually kite the add on the first boss, or watch the tower on the third. And SE had shown they have the ability to do that.

- Give the roullete an improved flatbonus that make it worldwhile to be a daily item onto itself (like the Lvl roullete)
- Sync the CT raid to 80/100/120
- Slight neft the damage/HP on the Ivalice/Nier rad.
- Make the boss in the 24men drop a book for their savage equivalent raid boss. Make this a daily only drop attached to the roullete reward itself.

If I'm a level 68, obviously I prefer a lvl 67 dungeon over Satasha. But the reward for Satasha isn't so bad that make me want to avoid it. It's the samething thing, you create a sufficient bias that make people "incline" more toward the unpopular raid, but at the same time not completely loftside that it makes the other raid become undesirable. If Alliance can be a way for me to get old savage glamour on my alt without having to wait 5+ years for it to become soloable ... hell yeah I'll go and unlock them today.

Basically, I think there are lot of creative way to encourage people to gravitate toward the unpopular raid, but ....

So given the choice, I'd much prefer they force everyone to unlock all the raids so we actually have a roulette and not CT spam even though it will obviously remain the most frequent due to new players leveling. If that means some people refuse to touch Alliance Roulette again because they only want easy mode. Cool. Don't queue.

... Gaslighting is never a good solution to ... anything. Just saying.

[Eastwall]

They did the right thing by increasing the reward of harder alliance raid, but then put an item level lock on it is just a bit too much..

[ForteNightshade]

Then tell them to fix that, in fact SE can fix CT using multiple options at once.

We have. Numerous times. Much like the healers and their continuously complaints, there is only so many times people want to reiterate the same talking points that have been ignored. It took them well over a year to finally implemented the current change. Which, hey, credit where it's due and all that but yeah...

Nevertheless, I'll bite. My preferred change wouldn't be limited to Alliance Roulette but to leveling syncing as a whole. Every piece of content syncs to the highest obtainable level at the time of its relevance. This means Weeping City is now i240, for example because that was the Savage ilvl of its time. Unfortunately, this wouldn't work for Crystal Tower and Void Arc due to Ironworks gear being insanely overpowered and the latter simply poorly tuned. Your purposed ilvls for CT raids would be fine while VA needs to be rescaled entirely. Sadly, even this wouldn't be enough to compensate for all the job changes giving how far too much power but rescaling to that degree is a wholly different discussion.

There no reason to nerf the HP values on Ivalice. What they've done to Orbonne is, frankly, what turned arguably the best 24 man into a shell of itself as now the bosses can barely touch you. Thunder God was impacted the worst due to being separately nerfed previously. Now he's a target dummy and little else. But I digress. Nier could definitely benefit from HP reduction though.

Dropping Savage books wouldn't really do anything. That gear is all since been irrelevant. When the game barfs poetics at you, getting drops for i240 gear when you'll already have i270 is meaningless. Although, it certainly wouldn't hurt to have it, I'll grant you that.

... Gaslighting is never a good solution to ... anything. Just saying.

In what universe is telling you not to queue if you dislike something gaslighting, my guy? Come on.

[Tsumdere]

It's a great change. It's working as intended. It was taking close to 2-3 hours (kinda off timezone) to queue for Nier raids while leveling on my alts, and now it has dropped significantly to 15-20 minutes.

If you don't like it stop doing alliance raid roulette or go unlock the other raids. If you don't want to unlock the other raids but enjoy doing CT, queue for them directly. You don't need the roulette for that.