The Crystal Tower is the first Alliance Raid in Final Fantasy XIV.
This is a group activity for up to 24 players at once.
When patch 5.3 came out in 2020, you had to finish the Crystal Tower series to move forward in the game’s main scenario questline.
If you just started adventuring in Eorzea recently, you might run into some trouble with the post-ARR quests.
It can be hard, and if you’ve already made a few friends in-game, they’ll probably tell you how great Heavensward is.
So you’ll have to push through a lot of patch content, talk to Minfilia a lot, and wait for the day when you can finally walk through those gates to Ishgard.
When you’re almost done with those quests, the game will suddenly tell you that you need to do more in the Crystal Tower series before you can move on to the main story.
Now, this is by no means a short side trip.
The Crystal Tower is an Alliance Raid, which means that it takes a team of 24 players to finish.
It has three “wings” that you’ll work on one after the other.
It also has a lot of story content.
In the past, this was where FFXIV ended.
Nowadays, it’s not so daunting.
It’s part of the Alliance Raid Roulette, and you’ll be doing it with a lot of high-level players.
Most likely, you’ll be taken through all three wings by people who know the fights well enough to do them all the first time.
Why Is The Crystal Tower So Important?
So, after all the political drama and scion drama, running off to explore a very dangerous relic from a long time ago seems like a strange way to spend your time.
The only Alliance Raid in the game that is required to move forward in the Main Scenario is Crystal Tower.
At that point in the MSQ, it doesn’t seem to be very important.
The Crystal Tower has only been required for a short time.
It was changed in patch 5.3, which was a big update that made a lot of the Realm Reborn questing process easier by getting rid of some quests and making others simpler, as well as changing the rewards for all quests.
So, if they wanted to make the start of the game easier, why did they change this part?
In a nutshell, the storyline of Crystal Tower is important to the plot of XIV’s expansion Shadowbringers.
It’s part of a story that’s been going on through the whole game.
Even if you’ve been listening to all the dialogue, parts of Shadowbringers wouldn’t have the same impact if you didn’t know what happened in the Crystal Tower first.
If you don’t care much about the story, don’t worry.
As long as you know where to go and how to start the raid, the long Duty Roulette wait time will be your biggest worry (for DPS players, at least).
So How Do I Get There?
After telling you to go find the Crystal Tower, the game doesn’t really point you in the right direction.
But it’s not too hard once you know where to go.
Go to Mor Dhona and look for a person named “The Outlandish Man.”
He will give you the “Legacy of Allag” quest.
He’s standing close to the Aetheryte, which is handy.
The Outlandish Man will tell you to go to Rammbroes, which is not too far away.
The story will then start to happen.
You won’t be able to jump right in, though.
You have to take care of a few things first, which have to do with elemental crystals.
But this is easy to deal with.
The story of Crystal Tower leads to some pretty big events in Shadowbringers.
It also shows a bit of Eorzea’s ancient past.
Even if you want to get to Ishgard, you should still pay attention.
It will help you in the long run.
