PLEASE fix the older ARs

[KiraRavens]

Dear SE,

My friend started the game a couple years ago and is now finally done with EW. We have been trying to get her through the Myths of the Realm quests for 2 days now and Euphrosyne just won't pop in DF.

We spent 7(!) hours queued in DF yesterday during prime time (started around 7:30pm) and have spent another 2.5 hours in DF today and nothing. Meanwhile AR roulettes are popping every few minutes - just never to fill the queue that I created hours ago. How?

It's a bit hard to believe that in 2.5 hours there weren't 22 people running AR roulette that you could have matched with us. How does this system work? Or not work, more accurately.

Please fix this - especially if you want new players to catch up to current content without growing so frustrated they'll quit the game before that.

[Alicie]

A lot of people don't bother unlocking alliance raids or doing roulette on lower level jobs for the sake of levelling.
What's the incentive to actually unlock higher level ARs? Do they give more exp? No. Do they give more tomestones? No. Do they even provide unique rewards that are worth farming? Save for first Nier raid that had glamour gear set, no. The most efficient way to do alliance roulettes is to enforce crystal tower, one way or another, and most efficient way will be the way most of the people will do it.

[Asari5]

they adjusted exp gain from some a-raids at some point during EW. especially the lvl 90 raids are pretty good on the exp side

but people dont care, they just wanna go fast and braindead.

[KiraRavens]

A lot of people don't bother unlocking alliance raids or doing roulette on lower level jobs for the sake of levelling.
What's the incentive to actually unlock higher level ARs? Do they give more exp? No. Do they give more tomestones? No. Do they even provide unique rewards that are worth farming? Save for first Nier raid that had glamour gear set, no. The most efficient way to do alliance roulettes is to enforce crystal tower, one way or another, and most efficient way will be the way most of the people will do it.

Yes, which is exactly a factor that could be addressed...

It's just such a pity that there's so much dead content in this game that's actually not bad at all - just boring or even impossible to play without others. Myths of the Realm is REALLY good, in fact.

At the very least add more NPC support?

Also, if anyone saw this here and queued - thank you very much.
The queue finally popped half an hour ago.

[GraceHorizon]

Some of the old alliance raids have excellent glam (looking at Shadowbringers and Endwalker here; a couple pieces from the 2nd EW raid make it into my glams frequently, and I like the combat gear from the 3rd ShB raid), although the loot system makes it harder to get them than I would like. Also I find most of the old alliance raids pretty fun to run. So I welcome them when they show up in roulettes.

Advice for the OP: if you’re on Dynamis (I get a feeling you are), do a datacenter travel to a more populous server. I recommend Primal or Crystal. Your queue time will be much better. Generally if you’re queuing for anything optional, and to a lesser extent even required MSQ content at a high level, you’ll have an easier time the more populous the datacenter you’re on.

[KiraRavens]

I'm European, and this was on Light (our busy one), so already where I figured we'd have the best chances - but thanks anyway!

[VictorSpoils]

We spent 7(!) hours queued in DF yesterday during prime time (started around 7:30pm) and have spent another 2.5 hours in DF today and nothing. Meanwhile AR roulettes are popping every few minutes - just never to fill the queue that I created hours ago. How?

It's a bit hard to believe that in 2.5 hours there weren't 22 people running AR roulette that you could have matched with us. How does this system work? Or not work, more accurately.

What gives? People say the roulettes are designed to help people in queues! I guess this is "working as intended"

[Aidorouge]

Alliance raid roulette requires other people to unlock said alliances, with only Crystal Tower being mandatory. Getting people to unlock the rest can be tricky though because you have those that:

A. Don't know the other ones exist and miss getting them.
B. Don't want to unlock the rest on purpose for one reason or another.

Personally I'm not a fan of ARs myself and kinda regret unlocking Mhach/Ivalice/Nier, to the point I just stopped using the roulette to avoid being dragged into them.

Some have suggested making all ARs mandatory like Crystal Tower for MSQ progress, but this is a terrible idea because putting aside how most of the ARs have no relevance to the MSQ to justify forcing people into them (Myths of the Realm being perhaps the only other one next to Crystal Tower), it would more than likely cause a drop-off in players as people get stuck behind an AR they refuse to do. I never finished Nier myself, and if you told I HAD to do it to get out of Shadowbringers, I would have just stayed trapped in Shadowbringers then.

An alternative and far better idea would be to make unlocking ARs mandatory to use the ROULETTE ITS SELF as its purpose was to help fill queues where one literally gambles to be placed anywhere in exchange for bonus rewards. This would inevitably push both those who don't know or purposely skip other ARs to seek them out (like it or not) if they want to continue using the alliance raid roulette function.

I would even go a step further in improving alliance raid roulette rewards (to make it harder to pass up) and would be so bold as to say ALL ROULETTES should work this way (so no more just unlocking the first two Alexander fights to use normal raid roulette). Mentor roulette already works this way, no reason the others shouldn't too. Just make the "required fights" MSQ dependent (IE: If you have finished Shadowbringers, you must have everything up to Nier and Eden unlocked along with any other optional dungeons and trials) rather than making it level or ilvl locked because its entirely possible for a person to be 80+ and not be done with Endwalker or Dawntrail yet, especially on data centers with the Preferred status XP boost, so a person shouldn't be blocked out of the roulettes if they've been unlocking everything properly so far (and will keep unlocking as they finish EW and DT).

[Jeeqbit]

The reason this occurs is because the probability of 1 in 22 people being on a level 50-59 job is extremely high, combined with the sheer number of people that queue for Crystal Tower for the MSQ and due to it being the lowest level one to unlock.

It's similar to why more often than not, Normal Raid roulette is Fist of the Father - the very first and lowest level one possible.

In both cases, the main exception is the max level ones, which also pop quite frequently in roulettes due to the sheer number of direct queues for max level raids.

It's not something that SE can really fix without reducing the number of people required for old Alliance Raids, or implementing NPC complements for shortages.

[VeyaAkemi]

Some of the old alliance raids have excellent glam (looking at Shadowbringers and Endwalker here; a couple pieces from the 2nd EW raid make it into my glams frequently, and I like the combat gear from the 3rd ShB raid)

I am personally hyper fond of the YoRHa glams, and one of my long term goals is to gather all of them, I already have all Type-51 sets, and I am glad I have them.