Please Reconsider MSQ Changes

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

See, the irony is that before no one was really forced to do anything. Newbies could ask to watch cutscenes and sometimes they'd be granted that.

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They could ask, but by the time they had finished typing the question, the rest of the group would have sprinted ahead and likely already be at the first boss - leaving the poor newbie lost.

Alright, I am exaggerating slightly, but only slightly....

I wish everyone was forced to watch the cutscenes when it was my first time through. I skipped them because I knew what would happen. I read all of the posts about it. Just a terrible experience altogether. It didn't matter what I did... it would have been bad either way.

But of course, after my first time through... I would understand why you wouldn't want to watch the cut-scenes all of the way through. I never gave anybody a hard time when they watched the cut-scenes, but I knew there was a good possibility that they were going to have a bad experience after the fact. :)

It really is a double-edged sword. A catch 22.

That is why it needs to be separated into two queues for each Dungeon. Leveling Mode and Story Mode. Give Story Mode huge rewards. Way bigger than what it is now. Make it worth it so people new to the content can really enjoy it and veterans will want to run it to earn sweet bonuses. Make Leveling Mode exactly what it was before 4.2 except remove the cut-scenes. Make it so that you can't do Leveling Mode without first doing Story Mode. This way every player sees the content at least once.

Maybe something like that would make everyone happy. With enough incentive of course. :)

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Originally Posted by urban

Annoying after the cutsceen my pld hp is 1/2.....if you do a speed pull and the healer not on par with what going on guess what a wipe and do it again but w/o the cs more time added..

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Regardless of what you think of the changes, if this is how they’re going to be from now on, I think the dungeons need to be “relearnt” to a degree. Know where a cutscene lockout will occur, and stop to deal with whatever gathered enemies you’ve got before that point. Or as a non-tank, know that you can’t run too close to the trigger-point in the middle of a fight.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Regardless of what you think of the changes, if this is how they’re going to be from now on, I think the dungeons need to be “relearnt” to a degree. Know where a cutscene lockout will occur, and stop to deal with whatever gathered enemies you’ve got before that point. Or as a non-tank, know that you can’t run too close to the trigger-point in the middle of a fight.

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The integration of cutscenes and fights was poorly designed to begin with. It's not impossible in a regular dungeon (pull adds all the way to the final boss room) but it was about that one specific instance. This sounds like far too much of a hassle for these two specific dungeons a lot of players won't even touch after they run it one for story. Yet another reason why it would've been better for them to redesign the entire thing if they were already revisiting it.

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Originally Posted by Usho

Have fun watching the same cutscenes over and over again. The exp gain just isn't worth going through that torture of being forced to see the same cutscenes everyday. You can get relatively the same if not more exp from doing alliance raid roulette.

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As a long time player, it doesn't bother me. It is an optional roulette, and stress free as a duty for easy experience. And I already run alliance roulette, just not on my tanks.

If you don't like the changes, don't run it. Problem solved. I will continue running it. See how easy that is?

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

Last point, before I return to my hole, is my amazement at the core dissonance in this debate. Not enough people queued for duties. Roulette was implemented to supplement queues. Change made that makes people queue less. By the very concept of it, why does it seem like a good idea to people? It doesn't even matter how a newbie experiences a story they might not even want to experience if they can't get into the duty in the first place. And we've already seen in this very thread 1. newbies who already declared they will not return the favor after they have gotten their clear, 2. good souls who tried and have given up. I reckon we'll only see more of these.

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Because for every loud voice stating "I hated this and I will never do it again" or "I ran it once my first time and never again" we have NO IDEA how many are still plugging away at it for easy (not quick) rewards and just to help out.
LESS people are queuing for duties, no doubt. But less people queuing if the combined cross data-center pool is enough is still fine. We don't know anything right now other than It's gotten a little longer than some people say is usual but some other people are saying it's the same.
You're assuming the negative, most of the opposing camp is saying "wait and see".
There is no dissonance, there's anticipation of a result without presumption.

There was a post the other day on reddit, if you disconnect while in a MSQ cutscene, it will still skip it. XD I'm considering doing this on the next character I need to run either Prae or CM with.

But even then, it's ridiculous that I would have to find some round about way just to get my alt through those dungeons in a timely manner.

Still hoping for a fix for premade parties SE.

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Originally Posted by Coratanni

As a long time player, it doesn't bother me. It is an optional roulette, and stress free as a duty for easy experience. And I already run alliance roulette, just not on my tanks.

If you don't like the changes, don't run it. Problem solved. I will continue running it. See how easy that is?

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I don't run it anymore now anyway with this latest patch, but if you wanna waste an hour of your time on one roulette (which btw in the timeframe it takes to finish it now, you can get 2 other roulettes done) for minimal gain in return then by all means...Enjoy. :D As for me, I value my time, and sitting through 5 year old forced cutscenes everyday is just torture and no one should have to go through that hell.

With lack of interest in these changes that SE has done to this roulette, the sprouts will sadly end up suffering because of this more than anyone else. If you don't mind SE's badness and bad design in this overall, then well...more power to ya dude.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

Designing a roulette in a way that makes people not want to do it is already able to be seen as terrible design. Yes, I can't just not do it. Yes I understand I'm not held at gunpoint to do MS roulette. I'm not saying people are forced to queue, I'm saying it's bad to force people to watch a bunch of cutscenes every time.

Also, yes, I do babysit. The toddler never pays attention to the television anyways so we just put it on Paw Patrol and leave it alone for the day. Every now and again he'll look but not exactly pay attention.



It didn't warn you about cutscene skippers because every dungeon before Cast and Prae let you skip already. And no I'm not saying, "DUR HUR LET IT SKIP IT ALL BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANNA DO DUNGEON!" I'm saying now it's inconsistent. Now there are cutscenes with the "this take a while" warning that are shorter than Prae's forced watching. You'd think you'd want to mention that to your player since 15 minutes was considered long enough in other cases to net a warning.

Also, my "45 minutes later" was not the queue time. I never stated how long the queue would go, but since you want some information... I do level alts. Removing any skip potion characters from the list, I believe I've put about 5 through the story. The tank queue during prime time with a PLD was 11 minutes for Castrum. So already double what you said for your example. And I'm going to use the tank example because that was in 4.1, so just a little bit before these changes. And the changes no matter what will make less queue, so... that would get even longer.

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+1

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

They aren't making you do ANYTHING. Don't do them. That's my point. If you are the kind of person who can't stand it. DON'T DO IT. It's not required for you. You're not some sort of selfless martyr if you DO do them, but you're also not evil if you decide that roulette queue is not for you anymore. This is how we find out if there are enough of the kind of people who CAN deal with it to keep the roulette sustained.

On a side note, you've never babysat before have you?




I've already mentioned I think people should have the choice when queuing them solo or PF, but it also doesn't warn you that "people may skip the cutscenes and leave you behind , but you can watch them later at the inn. However you will not have the context of the fights or ingame text to frame these.". You think this is a matter of warning? If they just added a text box with your proposed warning it'd be OK then? Or would people just click on it anyway and progress because you have to? Maybe a box that you click "nah" and it skips the entire dungeon and gives you no XP. Nobody has a choice whether they do it the first time or not, warning or not.

You're also using an example of a longer time that may or may not happen. The queues have gone up yes, but unless I'm horribly uninformed primetime has only gone up to about 20 minutes for a DPS and is still within 5 minutes for healer or tank.

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You missed the point completely. When you are selecting the quest manually, the DF notes say nothing about the forced CS on you like the roulette does.This tells me SE thinks ALL new players want to watch then, when more often then not, they don't and those people never complained or post because they had no reason to. I bet you SE does not even know what the majority wants because of that, they only hear one sided complaints. It is also bad it does not come with a warning like other content in the game that those 2 runs have a lot of cut scenes in them.

Sorry I am in disagreement still in forcing cutscenes to be watched. You treat adults like adults, not babies.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Because for every loud voice stating "I hated this and I will never do it again" or "I ran it once my first time and never again" we have NO IDEA how many are still plugging away at it for easy (not quick) rewards and just to help out.
LESS people are queuing for duties, no doubt. But less people queuing if the combined cross data-center pool is enough is still fine. We don't know anything right now other than It's gotten a little longer than some people say is usual but some other people are saying it's the same.
You're assuming the negative, most of the opposing camp is saying "wait and see".
There is no dissonance, there's anticipation of a result without presumption.

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I need to ask why you are white knighting a bad change. Is it because you do not want to lose your get exp and afk? Is it because you think a select monitory has more important then majority of the player base? If that is the case there needs to be a lot of QoL changes that needs to be done, that have more impact to those select few, then this minor problem that SE made into a bigger problem. You like the idea people used to do something and now they can't because it takes too long?

Just increase the reward till people do it.

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Originally Posted by Kewitt

Just increase the reward till people do it.

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To what? 200 tomestones of mendacy (200 of current one that is capped ofof at 450 a week), 300 tomestoones of creation (end level common one), 400 tomestonoes of poetics?

I want SE to poll every single player (in game mandatory poll at log in) in what they feel is worth it to watch these CS over and over if they want this change so much.

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Originally Posted by Vstarstruck

To what? 200 tomestones of mendacy (200 of current one that is capped ofof at 450 a week), 300 tomestoones of creation (end level common one), 400 tomestonoes of poetics?

I want SE to poll every single player (in game mandatory poll at log in) in what they feel is worth it to watch these CS over and over if they want this change so much.

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For me no reward would ever be worth it. Mendacity? You get to weekly cap fast with better roulettes. Creation? Still get them easily with far better runs. Poetics? Unless you're a fresh 50 it's easier getting them than spending them alraedy. Maybe something like xp for 5 levels at once? But that would be useless for 70s and also crazy. Scrips? But then not everybody cares about DoH/DoL. Honestly, I see no rewards big enough to justify running such a thing, right now.

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Originally Posted by Tlamila

For me no reward would ever be worth it. Mendacity? You get to weekly cap fast with better roulettes. Creation? Still get them easily with far better runs. Poetics? Unless you're a fresh 50 it's easier getting them than spending them alraedy. Maybe something like xp for 5 levels at once? But that would be useless for 70s and also crazy. Scrips? But then not everybody cares about DoH/DoL. Honestly, I see no rewards big enough to justify running such a thing, right now.

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Ik, hence the second line.

I feel there is 2 possibilities no matter what they do.

1. It will be too low where it is not worth running like now.

2. Or it has to be so absurdly high there is no way in heck SE will do it.

I really do not see a middle ground with this outside having 2 different roulette and reverting the Inn and premade (not just undersize, people MAY want to do min ilevel without CS, BS) to what it once was

Just wanted to pop in and note that according to unofficial translation of the Live letter, they're increasing the rewards for Main Scenario roulette, but I didn't see anything about them fixing it otherwise. Look forward to the official translation in the LL thread soon.

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Originally Posted by Anarnee

Just wanted to pop in and note that according to unofficial translation of the Live letter, they're increasing the rewards for Main Scenario roulette, but I didn't see anything about them fixing it otherwise. Look forward to the official translation in the LL thread soon.

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I’m thinking they will probably add in Cracked Crystals Clusters to it; I don’t think they’ll add in capped tomestones, and, if they do, it won’t be more than 50. But, maybe I will be wrong. We’ll have to see.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I’m thinking they will probably add in Cracked Crystals to it; I don’t think they’ll add in capped tomestones, and, if they do, it won’t be more than 50. But, maybe I will be wrong. We’ll have to see.

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Cracked Crystals, or Clusters? If it's the former then people might have a choice then of crashing the market on VI materia for crafters and gatherers, versus letting the prices stay high whilst avoiding those cutscenes. If it's the latter, well... There are plenty of ways to get those already. Hmm that's interesting though.

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Originally Posted by Aster_E

Cracked Crystals, or Clusters? If it's the former then people might have a choice then of crashing the market on VI materia for crafters and gatherers, versus letting the prices stay high whilst avoiding those cutscenes. If it's the latter, well... There are plenty of ways to get those already. Hmm that's interesting though.

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Clusters, I meant. Trying to type while also talking with people doesn’t always work well lol. I mean, if they dropped the Cracked CRYSTALS in there, maybe I would consider running it. Clusters, though, aren’t really worth it for me. I can just do Hunts for them.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Clusters, I meant. Trying to type while also talking with people doesn’t always work well lol. I mean, if they dropped the Cracked CRYSTALS in there, maybe I would consider running it. Clusters, though, aren’t really worth it for me. I can just do Hunts for them.

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Exactly. Hunts, Leveling with AiN (usually tank), rng-based drops from the Canals, and a weekly trip through Rab-disaster - these are all, even the last one, more worth it for people wanting their Clusters.

If they dropped cracked crystals it would become my new favorite dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

If they dropped cracked crystals it would become my new favorite dungeon.

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Seriously, I'd end up gritting my teeth and sitting through those cutscenes, in additions to people not doing the cannons properly in Castrum, eight or so times so I can finally get cracking on improving the melds on my crafters' offhands (which I thought we'd see upgraded by now). Then a bunch more times in the month before 4.3 because of the likelihood of the next gear set for crafters and gatherers.

Then I'd unsub at the start of 4.3, because there's only so much even I can take.

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Originally Posted by Vstarstruck

To what? 200 tomestones of mendacy (200 of current one that is capped ofof at 450 a week), 300 tomestoones of creation (end level common one), 400 tomestonoes of poetics?

I want SE to poll every single player (in game mandatory poll at log in) in what they feel is worth it to watch these CS over and over if they want this change so much.

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1million gil

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

1million gil

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Because inflation isn't bad enough

I mean I'd do it if it would cap my mendacity for the week, but even then, only like every other week cause I'd still rather take more time actually doing something rather than watching cut scenes OVER and OVER.

But that still wouldn't change the point that I don't want to have to run it like that on alts.

The official translation from the LL says -

Q13: Cutscenes can no longer be skipped in Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium main scenario dungeons to accommodate for new players. Are there any other dungeons or trials that are scheduled to be adjusted like this?

A13: We stopped including cutscenes within content, so we don’t feel we need to make further changes. We think the reward for Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium aren’t balanced enough, so we’re planning to enhance the rewards.

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Originally Posted by Aster_E

Seriously, I'd end up gritting my teeth and sitting through those cutscenes, in additions to people not doing the cannons properly in Castrum, eight or so times so I can finally get cracking on improving the melds on my crafters' offhands (which I thought we'd see upgraded by now). Then a bunch more times in the month before 4.3 because of the likelihood of the next gear set for crafters and gatherers.

Then I'd unsub at the start of 4.3, because there's only so much even I can take.

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SB did not hit the "ironworks" phase of HW yet, where there be new specialist locked synths for all slots, but no new combat gear. Then the last wave of combat gear is released with the 3rd and last section of omgea. It is the same treadmill for each expansion.

Well if they plan to increase the reward because its not balanced enough..isnt that just kinda showing that the reward was not enough for people to run it thus showing that this change did chase of quite a bit of people.

A13: We stopped including cutscenes within content, so we don’t feel we need to make further changes. We think the reward for Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium aren’t balanced enough, so we’re planning to enhance the rewards.

So pretty much, the non skip is staying as it is, they'll just up the rewards.
Personally I'd be interested in seeing the numbers for this, because the couple of times I've tried it after the first few days, the que time as a dps was within 5 minutes, even though it didn't have adventurer in need.

Said before, say again, I think the option it needs is to cut the scene, but only if everyone in the group agrees/clicks on yes.

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Originally Posted by NaoTenbe

So pretty much, the non skip is staying as it is, they'll just up the rewards.

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I think when they said no further changes were needed, they meant to any other content because no other content suffered such poor design. I should hope that if the new awards don't help as much as they hope, that they'd go back to the drawing board.

Again, it'll come down to complaints and numbers. But I'm getting the feeling that it'll take at least 3-5x as many complaints about the non cutable scenes for them to make a change, vs the change they made as a result of complaints about being pressured TO watch them.

In all honesty, I had not heard of anyone actually complaining about this at all. It's... annoying, yes, especially for first time users. And going back to the inn to watch the stuff just doesn't feel the same. But I fixed this by asking some friends of mine to run this unsynched so we could watch it all. Praetorium is the one that you need to watch the most to get the story, and that's the one we did. I've also seen people making PFs just so they can do a full watch run, as well. Thus, this was a solution that wasn't a problem except for a few.
Now it's a problem that's a problem.
And from the response, it looks to me like they're not interested in changing it back. Just... up the rewards.

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Originally Posted by NaoTenbe

And from the response, it looks to me like they're not interested in changing it back. Just... up the rewards.

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Any alternative would require they actually changed something on a system level, which I damn well think they should, yet understand why. Think it's dumb, but I get it. The fact they're even changing the awards means two things, however: 1. we're looking at a noticeable negative change in roulette goer numbers (to anyone here who said we needed to wait and see, there it is, right out of Yoshi's mouth), 2. they're constantly on the lookout. The question now is what'll happen, will they cave and give the kind of ridiculous awards that'll get people to run it (*cough*cracked crystals*cough*) or will they say no, we can't give such high awards, and do something else - which most likely will be just a revert of this change rather than anything worthwhile. Because a clear + watching scenes at the inn is arguably better than content with cutscenes you can't even get into to get that first clear for.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

If people can't have a satisfactory experience playing the MSQ roulette, guess what happens? People will stop queueing that roulette.

Care to explain how the sprouts will DF those MSQ roulette dungeons once no one bothers doing the roulette anymore?

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Patch has been out nearly two weeks now. Still waiting for it to happen. Until it does, it's working as intended. At some point, you need to stop predicting doom and show that there's a real problem.

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Originally Posted by Vstarstruck

To what? 200 tomestones of mendacy (200 of current one that is capped ofof at 450 a week), 300 tomestoones of creation (end level common one), 400 tomestonoes of poetics?

I want SE to poll every single player (in game mandatory poll at log in) in what they feel is worth it to watch these CS over and over if they want this change so much.

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You need to run it once a week to keep your house.

Great way to punish the people sitting on 15 houses. ;)

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Originally Posted by Vstarstruck

SB did not hit the "ironworks" phase of HW yet, where there be new specialist locked synths for all slots, but no new combat gear. Then the last wave of combat gear is released with the 3rd and last section of omgea. It is the same treadmill for each expansion.

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Isn't that more or less what I'm saying in regards to the next set for crafters and gatherers coming out in 4.3? The BiS gear for DoL/H tends to come out before the last set of craftable combat gear (which will be 4.4). IIRC the Mogmenders came out as a tribe in 3.3, and crafters wanted to have that Ironworks gear, with melds, before the very next patch came out.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Patch has been out nearly two weeks now. Still waiting for it to happen. Until it does, it's working as intended. At some point, you need to stop predicting doom and show that there's a real problem.

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They're upping the awards on the roulette. I'd say we got our proof.

With forced cutscenes I kind of feel bad for new people who are queuing as DPS, I feel they actually get punished because of a massive drop in people queuing because a good amount of people aren't going to want to watch the same cutscenes over and over.

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Originally Posted by TitaniaYaerem

With forced cutscenes I kind of feel bad for new people who are queuing as DPS, I feel they actually get punished because of a massive drop in people queuing because a good amount of people aren't going to want to watch the same cutscenes over and over.

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I think its time people stopped with this. I've queued as a DPS for MSQ everyday and the queue times haven't changed. Your doom and gloom has been proven false, get over it already.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

They're upping the awards on the roulette. I'd say we got our proof.

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Not really. That could also show they're sick of listening to people complain about it and are throwing some candy out to make the complaints go away. We don't know what they're adding, it could just be more XP to make the time you spend in there productive on par with other roulettes.

People are still predicting massive queue times where newbies can't get it done, and that hasn't happened. At this point, predictions don't mean anything.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Not really. That could also show they're sick of listening to people complain about it and are throwing some candy out to make the complaints go away..

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People have complained longer and harder about much more crucial things that haven't been changed. Also you can't really say 'queue times haven't seen a hit' when you only have your own personal experience while SE has all the numbers.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

They're upping the awards on the roulette. I'd say we got our proof.

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I hope it's something meaningful. A significant chunk of the most relevant tomes, for instance as well a high chance of receiving the orchestrion rolls for the tracks that play in each dungeon that have yet to be added. Given that most of the run is likely to be spent tabbing out and waiting for the cutscenes to advance I'm not entirely opposed to queuing up but my time is valuable.

If they really wanted to go all out they could add new stuff over time. Gaius, Livia and Ultima Weapon minions, perhaps?

I didn't read patch notes and did MSQ roulette. I was trapped in the final Story dungeon of ARR for 50 minutes. To say I'm not happy does not reflect my rage...

Well, I queued up for MSQ roulette yesterday, as I needed the poetics. The bright side was that the cut scenes gave me enough time to go to the bathroom and then go get something to drink.