How to fix Castrum and Praetorium

This problem is a necessary evil due to a little short sighted game design in my opinion. Those 2 dungeons form a road block to anyone who hasn't cleared them yet, a pretty significant one at that. In order to clear them they need help from people who have already done it (most likely) and being so heavily CS orientated it's boring to those who have done it 50+ times. Without their help though we would have people getting stuck at a very early stage of the game and SE clearly can't have that as players would quit.

They shouldn't have done the cutscenes they way they did, one long one at the end would have been better in hindsight but it can't be changed now. Ultimately I don't think there is an easy solution to this without radically changing the dungeon (by making them solo or fundamentally reworking the CS) so newer players will forever get these two dungeons ruined and it's not really the players fault, from either side of the argument. I do this roulette every day because it's 100 myth in about 30 minutes, Brayflox is faster but I like a little variety personally and I can do it on lesser geared jobs. If I was forced to watch all the CS I simply wouldn't do it anymore as it wouldn't be worth the time unless it was helping friends.

I'm repeating myself, but just skip cs only when everyone choose to skip, is more than enough. People who rage about that, needs to make a reason themselves for it or just don't queue DF for their speedrun and tomes, because DF scope is not that, but they refuse to understand it and the only way to let them understand how they are wrong, is forcing them to view cutscenes everytime someone want see them.

how to fix: scale down difficulty and make it solo content.

All of the suggestions you make for forcing other players wait - you do know that if que for story dungeons means 30 min of sitting and watching the screen - no one would que.

Right now newbies can run it because of those "evil" speed runners. Without them they'd have no party to run with anyway so making the runs less appealing for speed runners (or players in general) would hurt the newbies in the first place and contradict your whole intention when offering that solution. Meanwhile the speed runners will just find somewhere else to run.

Leave cutscene oriented content to solo. That's really the only solution to this endless saga lol

Anyway this thread pops every few days and is discussed with the same things... SE and other people will just ignore it like the rest of the threads... lol

/deadhorse.jpg

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Originally Posted by Razzle

Anyway this thread pops every few days and is discussed with the same things... SE and other people will just ignore it like the rest of the threads... lol

/deadhorse.jpg

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The beatings shall continue until morale improves!

As for your idea, that could actually work. Replace the full party with an army of NPC's, filling it in with noteworthy people like the Company of Heroes, and even throw in some folks from Ishgard as an added twist, and we'll actually get the finale the game deserves. At the moment, I don't feel like any number of incentives will be enough for vets to actually bother helping first timers in any useful manner.

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Originally Posted by Akujin

Honestly, with the amount of tomes you get out of it, I haven't bothered with either of those two for weeks, simply because Brayflox is just ridiculously easier and faster. A fraction of the time for the same amount of tomes. They screwed the pooch on both of those dungeons already with lowering the potential Myth reward in 2.2.

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They didn't nerf the myth reward...those dungeons never dropped myth to begin with. It's only right that they would drop less myth than they did philo because myth buys you higher level gear than philo did. Anyone who was expecting all the philo dungeons to suddenly drop equal myth when philo was abolished were dreaming. Even with philo gone myth tomes are worth more than philo tomes were. The intention is not for new 50s to farm CM/Prae and jump from i50 to i90 so they aren't going to put 100 myth or anything silly in those dungeons.

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Originally Posted by DoubleT

It's not our job to hold your hands through the 2 easiest dungeons in the game.

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They only feel easy because you've done them a million times and go in super overgeared. I remember my first foray into Praetorium...that was a new kind of Hell that only Aurum Vale really compared to. Oh and letting people watch CSs isn't handholding. They may be perfectly capable players but you won't know because you lock them out of every fight.

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Originally Posted by Razzle

how to fix: scale down difficulty and make it solo content.

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Do you remember some of the major complaints about the story progression? Too much solo content...I can't run the mission battles with my friends...etc... It's a double edged sword with SE getting crapped on no matter what they do. By the way I couldn't imagine Ifrit HM being my first foray into 8-man content. I remember just running that gigas guildhest with a team of people who had never done 8-man before. Tanks didn't know how to coordinate...DPS all over the place. The only godsend would be the fact most people would get at least half a party of veterans who rouletted into their Ifrit HM assuming they aren't a full premade of new players.

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Originally Posted by Lithera

Do you remember some of the major complaints about the story progression?

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I remember complaints. But not "major". I think the complaints we have now are much more "major".

If you don't like solo story content than too bad for you, it's an online MMORPG, not a steam multiplayer RPG lol

Game got plenty of non solo content - just not heavy story related - which is just fine for people that hate soloing. (btw I also don't like soloing)

That, or keep story party content but remove cutscenes from mid-runs.

1. An automatic cutscene skip option for those who have cleared Castrum and Praetorium would be appreciated.
2. Additional mythology tomes OR a handful of soldiery tomes would make Main Scenario roulette more worthwhile.
3. There is no need to change the party makeup or mechanics for these dungeons at this point.

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Originally Posted by Kyoraki

Wasn't the point of that to add an incentive for vets to help first timers? Amazing how bad it backfired.

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Castrum and Prae were pretty friendly to newcomers in 2.1 from my experience. The Duty Roulette added in 2.1 handed out a bunch of philo in different places, which made it more worthwhile to run a variety of content instead of just speed running castrum/prae over and over again. However, 2.2 added the myth grind for animus. There's more pressure to get their daily done for the bonus myth and get back to grinding other places. I think it's added to the level of impatience.

However, don't feel too bad if you miss the boss fights cuz you're watching the cutscenes. It's really that big a deal. This won't be the last time you run those dungeons, you'll have more than enough time to get tired of those bosses.

man... what happened? in 1.23, you have to have people help you get AF, and those helping people don't get anything cept a repair bill, but AF still gets done...

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Originally Posted by Sargthal

man... what happened? in 1.23, you have to have people help you get AF, and those helping people don't get anything cept a repair bill, but AF still gets done...

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Unfortunately this isn't FFXI anymore where people actually went out of their way to help. That went out the window when ARR's new style started drawing in the WoW crowd.

The big problem right now with speed running story instances is that the bosses can be initiated way before one or two people are even ready, or thus still in a cut scene. It creates a unjust way of forcing players through a dungeon, and possibly making them skip that said boss (which was my case in my first prea)

By locking out the boss until a cut scene is over, if players really want to speed run they can skip or burn the mobs to their hearts content, but can't bully you into forcing a fight you might not even get to be a part of. The large majority of bosses have very short cut scenes, its really just these two dungeons people have a issue with.

It should be understood that by queuing a story instance, YOU MAY HAVE TO SIT THROUGH SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO KNOW THE STORY.

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

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Couldn't you achieve the exact same thing just by doing a forced ready check on people before bosses? That way nobody can go in until everyone is marked as ready.

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

The big problem right now with speed running story instances is that the bosses can be initiated way before one or two people are even ready, or thus still in a cut scene. It creates a unjust way of forcing players through a dungeon, and possibly making them skip that said boss (which was my case in my first prea)

By locking out the boss until a cut scene is over, if players really want to speed run they can skip or burn the mobs to their hearts content, but can't bully you into forcing a fight you might not even get to be a part of. The large majority of bosses have very short cut scenes, its really just these two dungeons people have a issue with.

It should be understood that by queuing a story instance, YOU MAY HAVE TO SIT THROUGH SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO KNOW THE STORY.

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Cutscenes require user input to progress, they don't just end on their own. You could potentially have someone troll the entire group by just sitting in a cutscene and locking out the entire group from progressing.

This is a bad solution.

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Originally Posted by Kyoraki

Couldn't you achieve the exact same thing just by doing a forced ready check on people before bosses? That way nobody can go in until everyone is marked as ready.

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also not a good solution, see above

The dungeon without cutscenes is like 45 min, its ridiculously long with like 7 boss fights. And you want to add 30min+ of cutscene to that???


30min x 7 = 3.5 hours of peoples time
30 min x 1 = 30 min your enjoyment

you want people to give you a collective 3.5 hours of their time so that you don't have to be so burdened by the awful request that you watch them later?
I mean afterall its inconveniently located in every major city.... you would never have extra time to watch it there....

We are sooooo rude, how could we not think of you! I do apologize.

There is a fine line between helping someone/being nice, and being used.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

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This would be the downside true, I wonder what would help with this

I tried it both ways, I played once to watch the CS later in the Inn, and I tried it a second time watching them as they unfolded. TO be honest, neither really made a difference in the over all enjoyment of the game, I would prefer people just watch them later in their Inn since for the most part you may catch things you missed anyway later on.

But like it has already been said, anyone queuing for DR for Castrum/Praetorium for a speed run are kidding themselves and should not be doing that, those are the dummies that don't realize in the same time frame you can farm a lot more way faster in another dungeon.

It's not a speed run, its outdated content. That dungeon could literally be dragged out for 1.5 hours easily.

Skipping cutscenes does not = speed run

Geared 50s run it for the myth bonus, get over it. You would not have ANYONE running these dungeons if they did not give a myth bonus.

We are doing YOU a favor.

Stop acting like there are 100s of players just waiting to get in these dungeons and run them the "right way".
There are like 5 people, and they are all here on this forum complaining. Go make your own party of 5 and see how far you get.

It's just funny that in the 30 minutes people spend speed running this they could have easily gotten 250 myth from bray speed runs. But hey, I think overall you rather have speed runners than no people at all. The tone would change quickly when you're waiting in duty finder for 3+ hours because nobody wants to do the dungeon anymore.

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Originally Posted by MythToken

It's not a speed run, its outdated content. That dungeon could literally be dragged out for 1.5 hours easily.

Skipping cutscenes does not = speed run

Geared 50s run it for the myth bonus, get over it. You would not have ANYONE running these dungeons if they did not give a myth bonus.

We are doing YOU a favor.

Stop acting like there are 100s of players just waiting to get in these dungeons and run them the "right way".
There are like 5 people, and they are all here on this forum complaining. Go make your own party of 5 and see how far you get.

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Out of 2 million, only 5 que for prea? oh wow... glad no new players exist in this game

If we could give you back your hour long queue times we would.


Yes take the number 5 as literal, that's really smart.

I would say less than 1% of the entire game population actually cares about this non-issue.

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Originally Posted by MythToken

If we could give you back your hour long queue times we would.


Yes take the number 5 as literal, that's really smart.

I would say less than 1% of the entire game population actually cares about this non-issue.

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Sarcasm bud

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

This would be the downside true, I wonder what would help with this

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I don't know. For current content? Maybe have cutscenes play that will finish on their own, require no user input, everybody has to watch it. Then boost the participation rewards such that they're worth doing while watching cutscenes.

However, for future content, I think SE needs to learn that it can't put a bunch of long cutscenes interspersed into a long dungeon like that. They need to tell the story within a dungeon in a more interactive way, instead of having us sit back and watch 30 minutes worth of movie in the middle of it.

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

Sarcasm bud

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Using sarcasm like that just makes you sound dumb.

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Originally Posted by MythToken

Using sarcasm like that just makes you sound dumb.

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Enough, lets get back on topic.

This is a very real issue, and if we want future content to be resolved, so that players aren't forced to PF a no skipping CS (which shouldn't even really be a thing, never seen this in any other mmo) We need some sort of long Cut Scene either before or after the boss, and like Giant said, to allow it to be told in game, like how Giaus Talks during the elevator fight, just on a bigger scale.

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Originally Posted by Kyoraki

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As to how people handle those 2 dungeons there isn't a whole lot that can be done to curtail this behavior, though I'm hoping SE finds a way. I just consider myself lucky I was able to enjoy them myself the right way, and glad when a group allows it now for others (and yes, those groups DO happen.) Now, about Ultima Weapon's difficulty...it's the story mode's end dungeon, which means it shouldn't be overly difficult. There's the Minstrel's Ballad fight for it though which is more up your alley. That said, I do enjoy a good challenge every so often but I definitely wouldn't want to leave it to a DF party. Sometimes dealing with the party itself is challenge, let alone the mechanics of certain boss fights.

There's a problem on both ends.

1) All new players who do these missions via Duty Finder should understand that this means they are subject to potential speed runners and/or people who don't care to wait on them to watch cutscenes. If they wanted to do the runs and watch cutscenes, they could have created a Party Finder or had someone help them create one. There's an option specific to Party Finder, which has been added for people who want to watch cutscenes and enjoy the fights at a slower pace.

2) Older players and veterans should make more sensible and understanding choices when it comes to running these dungeons with completely new people. At least be courteous in explaining to them that they can watch the cutscenes later -- understand that it's their first time too. A lot of players who are vets now were new players back then; those who wanted to watch cutscenes and enjoy the "feel" (or "moment") of the final two dungeons for 2.0.

I've seen players flat out call other players idiots for not skipping cutscenes and rushing through the content, without having a second thought. These same uncaring people won't even take out the time to explain what's going on in the same dungeon as well.

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As a tank, I make it a point to allow anyone to view cutscenes, but I let them know that we will burn through most of the content quickly, so to them it will be one large on-going cutscene. All of Prae and CM can be completed with 1 good tank, 1 good healer and about 3 DPS. That includes the tank grabbing all of the adds on each boss. So essentially up to three others could be completely new and watch cutscenes while everyone else kills everything.

It's so sad that it's a problem. Had this been 10-15 years ago, dungeons like CM/Prae would be an absolute dream for players to run, even with the cutscenes. Chances are, those dungeons would have intentional blocks to slow player progress so that you couldn't rush through it too. It wouldn't be considered normal to SR anything... at all. The experience was going to almost always be awesome for everyone, whether you wanted to hurry through it or not.

Mentality has sadly changed and we have people who suffer from a self-imposed degree of ADD, which seems to even impact some folks who were around back then. We've gone from a gaming community that sought experience, memories, and action, to a community that's about the reward. If the reward isn't the experience/memories/actions, and it slows your progress to get said reward, it's not worth your stereotypical peers time. It's funny that we can stereotype others like this, but that's how it is. Some of us were like this from over a decade ago, where we played MMOs solo (whenever possible). A lot of these people (myself included) understand/understood that this comes at a price. You will not experience everything and you will encounter hardships that other players won't. It's our choice to do this, and again... we understood this simple fact. Today, given the self-imposed ADD audience, people can't grasp that fact. They just can't understand it. They're not stupid for this lack of understanding, they're just... ignorant.

The times have changed. Those of us that want the experience, have to seek it out for ourselves. It's currently about the rewards. It's no longer about the experience, as that time has come and gone. Short of forcing the player base to do so, the devs will not create content that our peers will find the patience to wait on you for. They will complain if forced to wait even a fraction of a second, and like anything they come in contact with, they will forget about what unique positives came from their time playing. Instead, they will simply focus on any negatives about it. The majority base is so predictable in what they think they want that it's not very funny to think about (anymore). There's a reason why memes are so funny and accurate. There's a reason why we have stereotypes that we can all relate to. We're simply too predictable. There's more money to be made in catering to the majority, so you can't quite fault a company like SE on that. We, the players, are the ones responsible for the bad behavior of our peers, and the direction a game goes toward. The sooner people understand that, the sooner change can come about.

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Originally Posted by necrosis

..The reason people do it in DF is for the roulette bonus. People are not doing CM/Pre out of the kindness of their heart. So doing it in PF is pointless because there are faster ways to get tomes.

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Right therefore i said "suggested new players use PF for story quests without any skipping" ^^;
because if a new player want faster queue, then he may group will people want faster tomes.

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Originally Posted by MythToken

We are doing YOU a favor.

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Yeah, you are doing them a favor and being rewarded for it... 30 minutes of your time could be spent getting 80+ myth tomes in other ways. If you're going to bitch about someone watching cutscenes then go speed run Brayflox for your 80 tomes. In the 30 minutes it takes you to clear the Story Roulette you would have got 225 myth tomes or so depending on your time.

Story Roulette is to help the new players, you are at their mercy. If you don't want to deal with new players... don't join the roulette... simple as that.

This isn't a hard solution, it's just a bunch of people who bitch that new people in the game exist and they want to watch cutscenes and enjoy the game as it was meant to be played. There have always been faster methods for getting tomes from the Story Roulette ever since it was added.

I always join the roulette under the assumption that someone might want to watch cutscenes. This is the same thing for all the tanks and healers that don't want to stick around for their 5000th run of Toto-Rak. Don't fucking join the roulette then. The amount of time it would take you to clear one of those dungeons could easily be spent speed running Brayflox for way more tomes than you'd get for a bonus.

If you're someone who leaves a duty because you get a dungeon you don't want in roulette or wants people to skip cutscenes, you should be banned from using the roulette.

Honestly it should be fixed I will admit I never got to see them :/ everyone rushed and I was lost enough as it was I didn't wanna get left behind and lost more so if anyone ever wants to run that for the cs make a pf or get up some friends who want to watch them with you if people on my df party watch I personally wait :)

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

It's so sad that it's a problem. Had this been 10-15 years ago, dungeons like CM/Prae would be an absolute dream for players to run, even with the cutscenes. Chances are, those dungeons would have intentional blocks to slow player progress so that you couldn't rush through it too. It wouldn't be considered normal to SR anything... at all. The experience was going to almost always be awesome for everyone, whether you wanted to hurry through it or not.

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Had this been 10-15 years ago, we would only re-run it to help people. We would not have had to rerun something like this so many times that it would have been a problem.

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Originally Posted by LeonBlade

Story Roulette is to help the new players, you are at their mercy. If you don't want to deal with new players... don't join the roulette... simple as that.

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The problem is if everyone took this advice then there wouldn't be many people helping new players clear this content. The queues would then take forever and newer players would be put off by that instead.

You have to take into account the needs of the roulette player as well as the new player if you want a solution to this problem, demanding the player base becomes more philanthropic simply wont work, that's life.

As along FF fan, I can say that my first time to finish the game with these two dungeons was round because of the overgeared player and the speedrunners. SE can and should fix this since their whole game is story driven line all other FF's. the final dungeons are 8 man’s party and it should be challenging by making ilev "synic", this should solve the problem by making ever single party member needed to progress. in my personal experience I missed 2 major fights because the other tank was ilev 90 and did not need me. I just want to say for all expert and high level player please remember the thrill and in the early dungeons, I really miss it at the end.!!

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Originally Posted by MohammadSaeed

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Sadly, the problem is, a great number of people who play the game are not Final Fantasy fans. They don't really care about the stories, or the time the developers put into things. They only want shiney armor and something to amuse themselves until the next 'big' thing comes along to take their attention. Think of a bunch of cats watching a laser pointer moving around a wall. Basically that, instead of questioning the reason for the laser pointer, its origin, its purpose. They only see the shiny at the end of the tunnel and go at it narrow visioned.

Those who did enjoy their cutscenes and now demand others push through the content because they can rewatch them at the Inn are simply hypocrits, plain and simple.

It's really just an ouroboros type of thing, the snake eating itself. On one end you have people who want to play content as it was meant to be played (the new players to the experience) on the end you have those who have ran it numerous times and just want to get it over with (the old players) and they conflict, because the old players are impatient and want everyone else to cater to their way of life, rather than accepting that the game was not made specifically for their enjoyment. As others have stated, there's plenty of other alternative methods to acquire the Myth tomes that can be gained from the game, rather than rerunning these two dungeons and potentially interfering with new players who want to experience it. For one reason or another, they choose not to take those alternative routes and want to bully people into doing it their way instead.

The only way this sort of behavior ends, is if SE purposefully does something to these two dungeons that requires total party participation at all times, so that no one can be left out. Such as, one person suggested for a system check that only unlocks a boss sequence once every member is out of the cutscenes. Or, a system check that monitors player positioning as the Map does for all 8 players in the boss arena itself before the next sequence begins. The first, would only prevent people from locking out others while in a cutscene, but would do nothing to prevent people from bitching in chat and demanding others skip cutscenes. The latter, would force everyone to be in the same area, which is independent of the cutscenes. The con on that, is you're very likely to have someone (or many) who will assume that someone who isn't always promptly up their ass and ready at the same time as them are intentionally holding the progress back for one reason or another and initiate a kick.

All in all, SE can place countermeasures in, but you can't really prevent assholes from being assholes. It's who and what they are, nothing is going to change that.

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Originally Posted by Akujin

Sadly, the problem is, a great number of people who play the game are not Final Fantasy fans. They don't really care about the stories, or the time the developers put into things

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No, the problem is that even the people who are Final Fantasy fans tire of running the same instance dozens of times. You're not exactly going to run CM and Prae multiple times and insist on watching the cutscenes in full every time, are you?!

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It's really just an ouroboros type of thing, the snake eating itself. On one end you have people who want to play content as it was meant to be played (the new players to the experience) on the end you have those who have ran it numerous times and just want to get it over with (the old players) and they conflict, because the old players are impatient and want everyone else to cater to their way of life, rather than accepting that the game was not made specifically for their enjoyment. As others have stated, there's plenty of other alternative methods to acquire the Myth tomes that can be gained from the game, rather than rerunning these two dungeons and potentially interfering with new players who want to experience it. For one reason or another, they choose not to take those alternative routes and want to bully people into doing it their way instead.

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I can't help but feel you're painting a quite inaccurate (and ugly) portrait of the playerbase there. That kind of thing helps nobody. You're basically saying experienced players are:
- Impatient
- Bullies
- Selfish
- Ignorant

Apart from that being a negative and destructive view, it's just not the truth for the majority of people out there. If someone wants to run Story roulette over spamming Brayflox, that's totally their choice. What kind of attitude they bring is another story though.

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Originally Posted by Akujin

All in all, SE can place countermeasures in, but you can't really prevent assholes from being assholes. It's who and what they are, nothing is going to change that.

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More or less that's the crux of the matter.

Both camps need to understand a few things:
- People are going to be running this dungeon for tomes. Everyone needs to be tolerant of that.
- "Speed running" is not "speed running" when you've done the instance dozens of times. To everyone else you're actually "slow running" if you're not familiar with the dungeon.
- There will be jerks who want you to skip cutscenes. There will be jerks who lock you out of fights. Jerks are a fact of life, you will come across them in CM and Prae too.
- Sometimes when people get locked out of fights it's actually an accident.
- There will be nice people who will wait around while you watch cutscenes. There will be nice people who make sure you don't get locked out of fights. There are plenty of people around like this. Be sure to thank them with a commendation or in party chat.

Just remove all the rewards from those two dungeons.

Negatives:

Hardly any vets will bother to run it. It will make que times extremely long. People might start selling runs to newbies who don't have FCs or friends. Some newbies will beg vets to go with them and then actually be grateful for their help instead of getting upset over the speed of the run. Others might quit the game over it.

Positives:

There will be a small chance that all-newbie runs will happen. No one will be overgeared or want to skip cutscenes if that happens. Well... the cutscene thing might not always be true.

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And we wont have as many complaint threads about speedrunning these dungeons.

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To be fair this is the first complaint thread in many months, seems to be working fine as it is for the most part.

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Originally Posted by Elim

Just remove all the rewards from those two dungeons.

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This will make Praetorium into living hell. Apart from insane queue times, people seems to forget just how hard Prae is for newbies in ~50 ilvl. Just look at AV - half of newbies parties can't get it, and AV significantly easier than Ultima.
3 hours of waiting, 1 hour of wipes on Ultima - and a lot of ppl will abandon option to "ignore high level helpers" leaving it only to most hardcore fans of self-torture.

This content is already old, it shouldn't be the same hard roadblock now as it was half an year ago.
And for those who can watch CS and bosses I always give the same advice - go there twice, once as carry who'll watch every CS, but probably skip most of fights and second time to skip CS and watch bosses. It's not really nice to others to force them wait for you because you want to get both in one run.