The Castrum Meridianum/Praetorium Change

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Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

What crystal are you referring too?

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Cracked Crystals net you the rank VI gathering and crafting materia

I think it sucks if people can't watch the cutscenes. I think that a good measure though would to be to reduce the required party from 8 to 4 players. With players getting free i90 gear from job quests, they shouldn't have any problem tackling Castrum and Praetorium with 4 people, especially since SE would likely adjust the dungeons accordingly. There is really no reason at all that Cape Westwind/Castrum/Praetorium should still require 8 players.

The thing with the MSQ roulette is, only fresh 50s and the odd 60+ player working on a HW relic need enough poetics that just running some of the other roulettes isn't enough. So 200 poetics isn’t anything worth writing home about. More XP is only relevant to people that still have jobs under 70. IMO SE should have also added a bonus of the new tomestone for 70s doing the roulette, and also make it count towards tank mounts, at the very least. Otherwise I just see the next wave of complaints being that no one can even run it because the queues are too long.

If they threw in 50 tomes of whatever the newest is maybe more people would put up with it.

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Originally Posted by seraf

If they threw in 50 tomes of whatever the newest is maybe more people would put up with it.

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the problem is the dungeon gives u 50 tomes of the new one, this wont make ppl que up for it.

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Originally Posted by Akor

the problem is the dungeon gives u 50 tomes of the new one, this wont make ppl que up for it.

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I thought it was only Poetics they were giving?

Not all newbies want to watch the cutscenes when they hit. I like to go to the journal and watch them like one giant storythread, so it doesn't get broken up.

What SHOULD have been done to help fix or patch the resolve:

1) Instance for dungeon (though devs don't want to go back and make an old design)
2) Make TWO sets of the roulettes. 1 Skippable cutscenes, 1 unskippable. This way, you have two sets of players who want to enjoy or do their roulettes. Everyone wins. They can obviously add roulettes to the instances. I don't see why they can't just make them separate as well with the same rewards. >_>
3) Adding better incentives instead of tomes no one gives a flying moogle about. Why not add the new tomes to it? 80 tomes of the brand new tomes. I'd totally run it each day if it means having to run less dungeons in a week!
4) Making it an instance with 7 other NPC's instead of 7 other players
5) Making it with 7 other chocobos and just you. (no joke, I'd actually run this) xD

Otherwise, squeenix has given me every reason to never consider running this dungeon again. Our FC doesn't have new players anymore, since most of us are based out of the same state anyways in our social circle, and we've not been adding too many folks into the game that weren't already players post 50 (at least that I've seen). But unless I have someone who I desperately need to help? I'm not touching this roulette anymore on any job, tank or dps. Thanks Squeenix! That's one less dungeon roulette to cross of the list each day! :D

Watch them make an achievement and stick a mount/minion in there for clearing Prae/CM 1,000 times through the roulette to keep it from dying.

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Originally Posted by Miles_Maelstrom

Give it a patch. The massive reduced people queue for MSQ roulette will eventually make them revert, after the complaint threads start about new players not being able to advance the story due to not finding groups or insane queue times of several hours.

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Oh, I doubt they revert these changes. We all know how notoriously stubborn they are. Instead, they'll put both in Mentor Roulette (if it isn't already), 50/60 and/or Leveling.

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Originally Posted by Kallistra

Watch them make an achievement and stick a mount/minion in there for clearing Prae/CM 1,000 times through the roulette to keep it from dying.

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I don't think that'll give anyone any incentive. That's as bad, if not worse than pvp lol

I see it now They will try to give even more incentives in a patch. Or just revert the changes and leave it at 200 tomes, and w/e the new exp rate is. This changes does so much harm to new players.

I can't wait to see the new post.. "I been in Prae/Castrum queue for 2hrs and no pop."

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Originally Posted by Miles_Maelstrom

Give it a patch. The massive reduced people queue for MSQ roulette will eventually make them revert, after the complaint threads start about new players not being able to advance the story due to not finding groups or insane queue times of several hours.

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Nah, the queues will still be ok because the Mentor Roulette will be filling the "holes" in the MSQ roulette.

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Originally Posted by ChameleonMS

Nah, the queues will still be ok because the Mentor Roulette will be filling the "holes" in the MSQ roulette.

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To that end, I'm just waiting for someone to get Praetorium and instantly leave because the penalty for doing so will be shorter than all of the cutscenes combined. WILL that happen for sure? I don't know yet, let alone at what frequency, but I can see it coming, and possibly maybe impacting the Mentor Roulettes by extension.

Sorry but increasing the poetics by 80 is not enough to encourage players to do this roulette with completely unskippable cutsceens even if there are no new players in the group. No idea on whether or not the experience is increased as well or not since the notes say nothing about that. It would need a large chunk of the highest tier tomestones and a few of the crafting / gathering grade 6 materia to make it remotely tempting.

Roulette is going to die. Now new players will wait long queues again.

You know what really sucks is I've just carried newbie players through it unsync on my level 70 jobs, giving them time to watch CS and just burning everything at a pace so that they can see the whole dungeon.

All because of the fact newbies, even if told they can watch CS, get throttled but the CS's spamming them and end up left behind in these confusing dungeons while the experienced players keep going.

It's such a massive, climactic moment in MSQ that's forever janked by mid dungeon cutscenes.

I've seen the suggestion multiple times that they be retooled into a solo instance like the others, rather than a dungeon. That would be...a lot of work, but they did kinda get themselves backed into this corner. That said, if they did this, one of the positives would be that once you did these, you wouldn't have to do them again, and it would free up the load on the dungeon servers a bit with people running them less. I couldn't even guess how big a difference, if any, it would make, I assume not a lot, but at least it's something nice. Something aside from all the obvious benefits I mean. I'm not holding my breath of course, but regardless, forced cutscenes, when there are something like 15 - 20 of them in the dungeon, some just seconds apart, is not the answer.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Oh, I doubt they revert these changes. We all know how notoriously stubborn they are. Instead, they'll put both in Mentor Roulette (if it isn't already), 50/60 and/or Leveling.

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They are. I got an in-progress Castrum via Mentor Roulette. So mentors actually using that roulette will fill the spots.

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Originally Posted by Lilseph

They are. I got an in-progress Castrum via Mentor Roulette. So mentors actually using that roulette will fill the spots.

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It'll get the queue popped, arguably. As to how long they'll stay inside... although with gear power creep, that might just be all that it takes to get those sprouts to clear, just getting in there, lmao

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

I have never seen anyone be toxic towards players who wanted to watch the cutscenes, this change is literally the dumbest way possible to deal with it even if this were a thing.

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If by toxic, you mean harass them via party chat? I haven't either. What does happen to players who choose to watch the cut scenes is they get left in the dust.

That's not exactly what I would call toxic. It's kind of the the instances themselves that are toxic. Causing a massive amount of diversity and displeasure for both new player and veteran alike.

It's been my experience, generally, that new players are told to kick back and enjoy the cutscenes. What happened to that?

I will say, though, that this one change alone is probably almost akin to the story of Rome dousing Carthage with salt. Rather than people being reasonable and fixing any errors or conflict, Team Yoshi basically made MS Roulette barren, and the flow of new players into relevant content rather dreary unless you're a newbie that buys the story jump.

*le gasp* Could that be another reason behind their decision to do things this way? Could this be some elaborate ploy to make MORE new people spend money on jump ptions? (Gods I hope not, that would be stupid)

Anyone who quits running this roulette as a result of these changes is someone who should have quit running it a very long time ago.

That is all.

This is a really dumb change. Haha, what were they thinking?

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Originally Posted by Mahri

Anyone who quits running this roulette as a result of these changes is someone who should have quit running it a very long time ago.

That is all.

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Not necessarily. Many people did it for quick poetics and EXP. I would hazard a guess speed runners make up the overwhelming majority of people who queue. With the quickness eliminated, they no longer have any incentive to ever touch it again.

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Originally Posted by Mahri

Anyone who quits running this roulette as a result of these changes is someone who should have quit running it a very long time ago.

That is all.

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I'm not running it anymore. It was bad enough having to wait 30 minutes for the queue to pop with a dps. I'm not going to spend all that time in the actual duty while people watch a half hour of cutscenes. It was tolerable before, it certainly is a waste of time now. It's much easier to simply queue for a dungeon at my level for the experience.

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Originally Posted by Mahri

Anyone who quits running this roulette as a result of these changes is someone who should have quit running it a very long time ago.

That is all.

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Something tells me you won't be running it either.

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Originally Posted by Mahri

Anyone who quits running this roulette as a result of these changes is someone who should have quit running it a very long time ago.

That is all.

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Because making the queues harder for newbies is a good thing. Which is exactly what's going to happen right now.

I also feel a lot of you are, again, ignoring the newbies who don't /want/ to sit through cutscene hell. Where is their recourse? Before the ones who did could put up a PF or run with guildmates if they wanted to experience the full scenario and the ones who didn't were in and out in thirty minutes for both dungeons. Now both are stuck with a two hour slog fest that's going to be even worse with the queue times bloating due to a lack of people wanting to run it. Remember how it was back when MSQ roulette wasn't a thing? I do. I was a newbie back then and the fifty minute queues haunted me before I begged my FC for help.

Press F to pay respects to the Main Scenario roulette.

In all honesty, I'm going to queue up for this! I started at ARR launch day one and have never seen these cutscenes before. I'm super interested to get the experience I didn't get to have back then.

And after I've run them once, I'm never going to bother with these again.

This change was always going to eventually come down the line.The amount of threads being made over new players experience being ruined is clear evidence of it.
I agree that its not the best way to go about it.
You can blame the toxic players who rushed through with no regard for the people doing it the first time.There's a difference between politely asking someone or explaining they can watch cutscenes after as opposed to zerging though leaving the new player confused as to whats going on.
I know ill still help new players as will others.I dont see it be an issue to be honest,The only difference we will see a lot more of it up in party finder and being done by fc's.
There's a bit of an exageration as to how much roulettes are needed here.

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Originally Posted by Metalwrath

This change was always going to eventually come down the line.The amount of threads being made over new players experience being ruined is clear evidence of it.
I agree that its not the best way to go about it.
You can blame the toxic players who rushed through with no regard for the people doing it the first time.There's a difference between politely asking someone or explaining they can watch cutscenes after as opposed to zerging though leaving the new player confused as to whats going on.
I know ill still help new players as will others.I dont see it be an issue to be honest,The only difference we will see a lot more of it up in party finder and being done by fc's.
There's a bit of an exageration as to how much roulettes are needed here.

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To be fair though newbies have had alternative ways to get these instances done for awhile now. Asking one's FC for help being the foremost help like I ended up doing, or outright just making a cross world PF. I can /guarantee/ those PF's fill up because there's always people in this game who want to lend a helping hand and don't mind killing two hours to do it. Likewise in all my time running these instances I've never had a newbie speak up asking to watch the cutscenes. Whether that's through shyness or resignation is unclear, but I don't think people zerging through the content to their detriment was near as prevalent as some people were making it out to be.

Now we're right back to where we were before the MSQ Roulette was even implemented. A slog fest where most of the players who would have run it no longer have the incentive to do so, and where the average queue times are going to be nigh impossible to surmount. Which, is inevitably going to push newbies to ask their FC or put up a PF request. The same exact thing that would have worked in the first place. There's no winning here. Ultimately SE needs to make these two dungeons solo instances with randomized NPC's or leave well enough alone. Their AI has improved since ARR, so it should be more than doable. Because I can say right now if the queue times go back to how they were pre-roulette, /especially/ for DPS, it's going to turn into a nightmare. Back when I had to do it during 2.3-2.4 it was an average of fifty minutes for /healers/. I can't imagine what it was for DPS.

The cutscenes are basically 30 minutes long, so it's not really hard to see why they would just leave them behind and continue running the dungeon without them. The changes will most likely just cause player ques to become really long.

It would be better to redo them in a similar way as Alexander, but make sure to pad it out with new mechanics and rebalanced enemies and bosses,and maybe using dungeon mechanics from previous bosses too.

Fun, I wonder how many of the people being vocal -actually- even do main story roulette?
Give me a break, whine whine whine...

Whining about people whining isn't much better, of course.

The bigger picture is that, while there are better ways to go about this, SE decided to not just go with a big, easy fix, they did so in a way that can hardly be considered a fair compromise for both. Nope. Everybody watches, no one skips.

It speaks of very ill problem solving methods, not unlike silencing everyone - the bad AND the good - in the Feast.

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Originally Posted by Odstarva

Fun, I wonder how many of the people being vocal -actually- even do main story roulette?
Give me a break, whine whine whine...

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I do do main story roulette. I have a friend that drags me in whenever we're doing roulettes together. When I'm on my own, I prefer to avoid it though. It's a bit tiring.

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Originally Posted by Enla

or outright just making a cross world PF. I can /guarantee/ those PF's fill up because there's always people in this game who want to lend a helping hand and don't mind killing two hours to do it.

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Yeah, I'll occasionally join a PF for it, if it states "No cutscene skipping" or similar, I know right off the bat they wanna watch cutscenes, or "For MSQ" I'll check with them if they wanna watch cutscenes. I don't mind chucking in a couple of hours but with the roulette, most people just wanna bumrush it. Heck, I'd even be OK with doing it min ilvl synced, if anyone wants that challenge.

[R.I.P. Duty Roulette: Main Scenario]

You may or may not be missed.

This change will only hurt the players who want to do MSQ roulette for the experience bonus and newcomers who are forced to finish it to progress the storyline. 80 more Poetic will not result in bringing the players back, one can simply do another dungeon and take less then 20 minutes to get the poetic.

Unless they add more incentives, pets, mounts, the latest tomes etc. I just can not see why anyone (unless they are helping someone) would want to spend waiting 30-45 min on cutscene alone (assuming someone is not a slow reader) + the extra time needed to kill the mobs. As for me, I used to do MSQ, because I queued with a friend who needed it for exp, but with this change, I wont be entering anymore, the rewards are not worth 30-45 minutes of waiting for someone.

I could see it work if they do buff the reward to something ridiculous like triple or quadruple. Or they could also make it so the new changes are only in effect if there's newbie in party.

Worst case vets just stop queuing for msq roulette and all the newbies can group together to beat it.

This is my own perspective so feel free to refute it, but do people past 60 really still use the MSQ roulette for appreciable exp? A level appropriate dungeon awards more exp for equal or less time spent doesn't it? Again this is just me asking, cause I find the dungeons a much better use of time. If someone has the math on it, I'll gladly accept the numbers saying one way or the other.

Also this will hurt the newbies that don't know how or care to communicate with a FC or LS for help. Or know how PF works. But with the many ways to get help or easy clears for older content nowadays, maybe this won't be so much damaging to newer players as it is to those who still use MSQ for the exp bonus?