Crystal Tower raids should moved to Main Scenario Roulette

[PyurBlue]

I understand that the are new players and as u know that at the start of the raid it will let people know that there are new players, and i also know that people are leveling other jobs, but i'm just telling through my own experience, i have gotten ct so often with 24 people that are way over level 60 that i have said and will keep on saying that item cheesing was a problem . but i will admit that the 10.000 could be overkill but it just has happen that often that i have lost count and i did said was not the only thing. and i am not buying that every people forget to equip from being naked to max gear seeing that u need be in the same gear that u que for the roulete unless they have change that

I'm not trying to deny your experience, but it's harder to evaluate than raw numbers. Manipulation of the roulette is without a doubt responsible for some CT runs, but the real question is how often did it really matter? Not even the spreadsheet I posted can answer that definitively but it certainly helps in trying to understand why roulettes turned out as they did.

The experience of any given person could differ from the sheet but with the amount of alliance raids run it's probably safe to conclude that CT simply has more new players running it than other content. I also didn't want to imply that every instance of someone gearing after entering a raid wasn't a manipulation attempt, but that it's actually difficult to know. Even if everyone is above level 60, that doesn't mean CT can't be randomly selected. Just like you can get all 90's in Sastasha leveling roulette.

Rather than spending 5 years trying to artificially work around the CT issue.......why not just solve it?

Reduce max ilvl so players aren't severely overpowered to the point they can ignore mechanics.
Rework some of the less interesting encounters (e.g. Thanatos, Glasyla, trash mobs)

Make CT actually fun to run........and people will willingly que for it...crazy I know

From my view a separate roulette is the solution. A rework won't meaningfully change anything because CT will remain level 50, which means it will remain 1-3 button content for most classes. Level 50 has become so depreciated that it's closer to level 1 than level cap and when DT releases this will even be the case by the numbers. I think some kind of significant rotation is necessary to make FF14 content engaging. It's not just about the encounter design, class design matters just as much and 50 offers nothing in that area.

[sindriiisgaming]

Hot (and not at all new) take, perhaps, but even with the ilvl fix from way back when the Alliance Raids roulette has been dominantly CT. You have to unlock and do CT for Main Scenario, never have to touch any of the other raids and you still have access to the roulette which sucks. Why is this a thing? Why not just move it to Main Scenario and have Alliance be lv60 and up like Normal?

I wouldn't mind helping new players with the raids, but more often than not there are no first timers. We have 12 other fun raids with more on the way, please let me play them too. >:[

EDIT: where's the "be" in my title :'(

The msq roulette should be removed. Its a loot pinyata that makes the entire arr section of the game feel more despicable/despisable. The presence of the other 3 players inside the dungeon adds nothing to there importance and doesn't even make sense. Isn't it about you and cid vs Gaius.. so why is Tom riddle from cerberous here? Just pointless. Make it a solo instance and remove the whole thing. Would also give people something else to have to do for exp... like idk.. pvp and fates.

Alternatively, revamp msq to be a roulette of anything and everything in msq. Now you've made more people que to help sprouts and you've taken away 30 minutes of afk.

[KisaiTenshi]

Hot (and not at all new) take, perhaps, but even with the ilvl fix from way back when the Alliance Raids roulette has been dominantly CT. You have to unlock and do CT for Main Scenario, never have to touch any of the other raids and you still have access to the roulette which sucks. Why is this a thing? Why not just move it to Main Scenario and have Alliance be lv60 and up like Normal?

I think the right fix has to be requiring equipping gear that is equal to your level to enter roulettes. If you are level 90 in that role, then you must be wearing all level 90 gear to enter the roulette. The ilevel requirement would still apply to do the harder content, but players should not be able to cheese the roulette by removing gear to bring down the ilevel.

Because CT is specifically required for Endwalker storyline reasons, the system should only be selecting players from the roulette who are in the queue but under level 60 in the queued role. Only when there is not enough players to fill, then select 70's, 80's, 90's that have been waiting the longest. etc. If a roulette does not find players that haven't cleared the content, then the system will pick the hardest content every player has cleared before considering backfilling. eg it will pick EW raid's, and when there's not enough, it will go down.

If players are cheesing it like they do now, eg level 90 but wearing ilevel 130 gear, the system will not let them queue the roulette, only select the raid manually and no rewards from roulette.

At any rate, the problem is the roulette itself. I tried to queue for 24-player and 8-player raids at 10pm pacific and had no fills till the queue resets at like 2am. Certain content (Eg Coil) will NEVER fill because it has no roulette. For this, there should be a "ALL content (min ilevel)" roulette, that considers all content cleared. For the player this just means "put me in the first thing open, and ilevel lock me to minimum ilevel."

I'm sure some people would balk at that, but that would offer rewards for not cheesing anything.

[Toutatis]

I think the right fix has to be requiring equipping gear that is equal to your level to enter roulettes. If you are level 90 in that role, then you must be wearing all level 90 gear to enter the roulette. The ilevel requirement would still apply to do the harder content, but players should not be able to cheese the roulette by removing gear to bring down the ilevel.

where were you in the past months? Because they did just that but as many had predicted it changed nothing.

The problem was not iLvl cheese. CT comes back often because it is the only mandatory raid and the only raid someone can do until they reach a certain point in msq. You could be in full 660 gear and you would still be able to do only CT if you haven’t unlocked the other raids. Also, a new player who reaches lvl 60 may still not be able to unlock the next raid series as it is locked behind MSQ. They have to finish the expansion before that, same for the other lvl 70, 80 and 90 raids. The player base is simply much broader for CT.

Unlocking all the raids takes time. If someone started years ago, it’s a non issue but for a new player, just doing MSQ to get to engame is already quite long. Unlocking optional raids is probably not a priority.

Personally, I purchased a character upgrade to play with friends on a EU DC and nothing besides MSQ was unlocked, not even glamours or chocobo fighting beside you…there were blue markers all over the map. It took a me while to unlock ARs as you have to run some quest chain, queue, wait and then do the raid (I have not unlocked the last Nier raid and will never do so on that character as it gives me a migraine). Repeat x 11. SE has also put the quest givers in the middle of nowhere: a new player who is doing MSQ will not think of going back to Kholusia to speak to that dwarf away from everything on the map. Several new players to whim i have spoken didn’t even know there were other alliance raids besides CT.

There are lots of new players with xbox and there’s going to be even more with DT so CT will keep popping. The only way to fix this is to start giving real incentives to unlock the other raids and maybe move the initial quest givers to more obvious locations and give the quest markers a different colors as atm it’s just another blue marker among many.

[kaynide]

The problem was not iLvl cheese. CT comes back often because it is the only mandatory raid and the only raid someone can do until they reach a certain point in msq. You could be in full 660 gear and you would still be able to do only CT if you haven’t unlocked the other raids. Also, a new player who reaches lvl 60 may still not be able to unlock the next raid series as it is locked behind MSQ. They have to finish the expansion before that, same for the other lvl 70, 80 and 90 raids. The player base is simply much broader for CT.

Just to add, some people (like me) have multiple alts. As I have experienced the story of all the raids, and don’t particularly want or need anything that drops from any of them on my alts, I will never, ever…ever.. unlock anything but the CT raids.

[SigmarrIrenesch]

Just to add, some people (like me) have multiple alts. As I have experienced the story of all the raids, and don’t particularly want or need anything that drops from any of them on my alts, I will never, ever…ever.. unlock anything but the CT raids.

This is why we need a higher power to smite us all.

[Luluya]

Just to add, some people (like me) have multiple alts. As I have experienced the story of all the raids, and don’t particularly want or need anything that drops from any of them on my alts, I will never, ever…ever.. unlock anything but the CT raids.

Interesting, I have many alts but more often than not I do the reverse of what you do and unlock all the alliance raids I can.

I like to put together themed glamour plates for my different characters and I find the best glamour pieces often come from alliance raids. (Especially Weeping City/Yafaemi and Ivalice everything). I did do the whole Shadow of Mhach on one character just for the scarf, which is a nice glam to have, and (while not technically glam) I did ivalice questline to completion on several characters just for the cute hairstyle.

I don't ever progress my alts past my mid-shb main though I am looking forward to Nier.

[KisaiTenshi]

Just to add, some people (like me) have multiple alts. As I have experienced the story of all the raids, and don’t particularly want or need anything that drops from any of them on my alts, I will never, ever…ever.. unlock anything but the CT raids.

I like the CT raids, I just don't like getting ONLY CT. And really that needs to be fixed by making it not a faceroll so people don't use it just to farm tomes.

[DPZ2]

Because CT is specifically required for Endwalker storyline reason...

Lest anyone else repeat this mistaken belief: The Crystal Tower raids are specifically required for Shadowbringers storyline reasons, not Endwalker.

This is one of the many reasons that complaints about CT are nearly 5 years old, not something that just happened this expansion.

As for the poster's suggestion that follows: "pick the hardest content every player has cleared ..." could very well be CT, which is, again, why that particular set of raids comes up so frequently.

[Supersnow845]

I abuse the roulette for my own gain at the expense of others because I have too many alts is definitely one of the stances on this issue of all time