Not being able to skip cutscenes...

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Originally Posted by Crystallis

You know you can see them at the Inn, right..? ^^

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This
Or if you or your FC has the Unending Journey furniture item. :B

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Originally Posted by Trensharo

The point of an RPG is to play a role. Not to be strung along on some long, drawn out, force-fed story. We should be creating our own story. I think obsession with the "story of the game" is kind of missing the point of why many of us actually play these types of games. I have literally no interest in whatever pre-fabricated story Square Enix has written for my character.

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Then you are playing the wrong game for your tastes - the major draw of FFXIV over other MMOs is exactly the story from SE. The story is the point of this game. The actual gameplay is of merely average quality.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

The story is the point of this game.

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If that is true however, then it being an MMO makes absolutely no sense.

Single-player games are vastly better suited to deliver a story than a MMO, as do movies and even visual novels. If the story is the point, they have chosen the worst possible format for it, one that requires excessive repetition with zero story reason, constantly throws you out of your immersion via other characters that act, look and speak in any way but lore conform, downright throws you out of duties due to instancing problems, completely disjoints gameplay and story flow by letting you move out and do your daily business while being "trapped" or threatened with immediate doom by the big bad and a slew of other issues that hinder immersion and simply don't exist in single-player games.

...then again, them having a penchant to do the worst possible implementation of an idea would explain some other features >_>

I'll bring up some stuff from a similar thread:

Most of my Main Scenario roulette runs do not have a single person. Ironically enough, we kind of enjoyed some chats about patches, story, gameplay, etc., during the cutscenes. In some other instances, I also check on my FC chat, linkshells, Discord, and other FFXIV forums.

As far as time spent on runs go, Castrum Meridianum isn't a problem in terms of time spent. It's still less than 30 minutes on average with a good group (faster than the most of my average Skalla runs.) Praetorium can be too long for repeated plays though.

YMMV on the return of poetic tomes and exp earned. The exp is satisfactory for me and I use poetic tomes for Shire Accessories to turn in to GC. I can get ventures, GC mats, food (for extra EXP and secondary stats), and various other items without breaking the bank (in this case, gil.)

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

Then you are playing the wrong game for your tastes - the major draw of FFXIV over other MMOs is exactly the story from SE. The story is the point of this game. The actual gameplay is of merely average quality.

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That's fine but some of use have seen the same story for 4-5 years now... :B
That part of the story is just a choir we grind to get tomes/exp/gil/whatever now. We want to get it over with as quickly as possible.

One of the things I really like in FFXIV is that compared to other MMOs it takes the time of the players into consideration.
Even the hardest grind is related to more doing and less waiting.

Changing the cut-scenes on the MSQ so that they can not be skipped completely ruins the idea of this content being repeatable, because as some have mentioned, people have been watching for this for years.

MSQ roulette was the most efficient way to gather light for the level 50 relic, due to it being very easy with 8 people and giving exceptional amount of light when there are first-timers (which was almost each time).
Now that it takes nearly 1 hour it is completely useless as roulette option.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

If that is true however, then it being an MMO makes absolutely no sense.

Single-player games are vastly better suited to deliver a story than a MMO, as do movies and even visual novels. <snipped>

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Totally agree. This "story is the point of the game" makes since for games like Witcher 3, not an MMORPG, because MMO players spend most of their time in post-story content.

Players who care only about the story, don't stay subscribed. They play the story content, an then they move onto other stories to play through; returning only for the expansions and perhaps some large content patch - WoW itself is a great example of this.

"The Story is the point of the game," makes no sense in an MMORPG. It's basically a rationale for creating a disposable game that isn't worth paying month-to-month for.

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Originally Posted by Crystallis

You know you can see them at the Inn, right..? ^^

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Wait there is an Inn?

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

Then you are playing the wrong game for your tastes - the major draw of FFXIV over other MMOs is exactly the story from SE. The story is the point of this game. The actual gameplay is of merely average quality.

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Please do not assume that the story is the major draw for everyone. There are lots of players who have joined because of many other draws, and the story became something they learned to enjoy along the way.

Here are a variety of draws people I know have joined for:
- Hearing that crafting is more than just hit "synthesize" all
- Hearing that raids don't take 5 hours
- Hearing that there are no pvp servers or pvp areas that can be accidentally walked into
- Just trying out something new after being tired of playing the same thing
- Friends/family recommended it

I know people who've never even played another FF game and thus have no association with the idea that FF games have good stories.

And in MMO culture, the stories have often taken a backseat. If anything it's amazing that there are as many people as there are who do care about the story (in a good way!), especially when those people came from other MMOs where they skipped through all the text.

People can join for a number of reasons - some good, some bad.
Why they stay (if they stay), is another question which often has a different answer.

I agree that the rewards should reflect the time it takes to complete it. I enjoy running them and I do agree with the devs for disabling the ability to skip cut-scenes so new players can enjoy the run. There is a lot of information in the cut scenes and new players shouldn't be rushed by players who could care less about new players. If you dont like it then dont run it.

The world doesn't revolve around you so get over it. With that said I do think there should be a boost to the rewards. Long queue time + long run time so there should be at least 3x's exp and tomes reward.... perhaps put in rare mounts that have a low percentage to drop in inventory. Mounts from the open world Stormblood areas would be cool or even old primal mounts from 2.x and 3.x.

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Originally Posted by teegees

Read the patch notes and don't be selfish.

There are million other things you can do if you don't like it but no other way to see the story. And it's not like the new rewards aren't exceptionally generous. 4x the xp and tokens for something that takes 3x as long.

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Praetorium usually takes 10-15 minutes, it now takes 50 minutes. It gives about 30ish% xp while leveling from 60-70. It was probably 20-25% before. This is noooooooooooooooowhere near being generous enough.

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Originally Posted by Iceoh

Praetorium usually takes 10-15 minutes, it now takes 50 minutes. It gives about 30ish% xp while leveling from 60-70. It was probably 20-25% before. This is noooooooooooooooowhere near being generous enough.

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Praetorium didn't take 10 minutes before. It took 15-20 minutes. I actually timed it several times using a real timer, not just guesstimates.

At 61/62, it was 21% before and now it's 50%. These were numbers that were actually recorded from real runs using the Completion + Roulette exp (not mobs).

From http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...17#post4559317

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Originally Posted by Squintina

Back on this thread (I was there before with numbers about Castrum), now I have numbers about praet.

Pre-4.2, level 61 White Mage
I have 2 runs recorded.
1 run took 22 minutes, insta-queue (22 minutes total)
2nd run took 19 minutes, 5 minutes queue (24 minutes total)
Both gave the same rewards obviously.
Once again I only recorded the exp after defeating the last boss (completion exp) and the roulette exp. This doesn't include other bosses or mobs.

completion (last boss): 66261 exp + 20 poetics (1.36%)
roulette: 963,915 exp + 120 poetics (19.78%)

Total: 1,030,131 (21.13%)
total poetics: 140

4.2 run - level 62 white mage
While the level is different, which means the numbers are different, since it's only 1 level it should only be a marginal range of error.

Wait time: 4 minutes, but I did queue with another healer because an FC mate asked and I figured at least then I'd have someone to joke with during the cutscenes.
RunTime: 52-53 minutes (I was a little late to put my timer on, but not by much). We didn't do speed running at the beginning to the teleporters. We actually killed the groups as they came.
Total time: 56-57 minutes

completion exp: 637700 (11.99%) + 200 poetics - holy carp that used to be less than 2%
roulette exp: 2053281 (38.62%)+ 200 poetics - another holy carp
Total exp: 2690981 (50.6%)
Total poetics: 400

New person bonus: 100 poetics - In theory this bonus should pop up more often now as more non-new people quit the roulette so it's worth a mention, even though I didn't add it up to the total.

Overall mood: We were having a blast honestly. I actually noticed a person's outfit for once and we were poking fun at each other and the cutscenes. It was a really fun run.

Conclusion
While the castrum rewards didn't impress me, the praetorium rewards are certainly much more in line with the extra amount of time spent. It took a little over double the time, and gave me a bit over double the exp and quite a bit over double the poetics (even if using only 400 poetics to compare). If someone just had a long day at school or work and was not in the mood for something that required much effort, getting exp to watch some youtube or chat with friends during cutscenes isn't so bad.

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My thing is I don’t recall anyone ever forcing new players to skip the cutscenes and if we did have new players we would either wait or clear the mobs while they watched the cutscene. I can’t recall a time EVER where someone said SE should make these cutscenes unskippable.

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Originally Posted by CSAustin2691

My thing is I don’t recall anyone ever forcing new players to skip the cutscenes and if we did have new players we would either wait or clear the mobs while they watched the cutscene. I can’t recall a time EVER where someone said SE should make these cutscenes unskippable.

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During most speedruns (i.e. most runs) new players were de facto forced to skip cutscenes if they wanted to actually do anything in the instance other than watch cutscenes while the rest of the part ran ahead and cleared all the content. Either that or be left hopelessly behind with no chance of catching up to the rest.
People willing to wait for the newbies while they watched cutscenes were a rarity. A whole DF party willing to do that basically wasn't happening.

They were forced to make a choice (not cool), but it was not always skipping.

On the contrary, if the run seemed to be going brutal with full veterans, I advised new players to watch the cutscenes instead of wanting to play the dungeon.

The story is a one time thing, while gameplay is just kinda always the same no matter the dungeon, same types of mobs, 3 or 4 bosses with no more respect of strat whatsoever with brainless trash pulls between them...

No, really, gameplay is not a good reason to skip cutscenes on "easy" content so a team of 7 veterans clearly didn't care carrying a sprout gameplay wise while he stood watching cutscenes.

Many of the cutscenes make less sense without the context of the dungeon. The story is the dungeon plus the cutscenes, not just the cutscenes.
This meant that newbies doing Castrum/Praetorium rarely got the full story if they did it with a DF party. Now they will get that.

Yes, a good thing and since they'll increase the rewards again (or so I thought I saw in LL42) I think these dungeons might not end up as deserted as some might think.

I won't be in there, but let's face it I never was, but I don't think it will turn off too many people.

I know after a million CS's in one of them last night, I'm definitely not going to do MS rou until they change it back. It's so silly, normally the new person would go ahead and see the cs and the rest of us helpers would just proceed and kill the stuff for them, what was the big deal?

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Originally Posted by Cinorine1

It's so silly, normally the new person would go ahead and see the cs and the rest of us helpers would just proceed and kill the stuff for them, what was the big deal?

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It wasn't just kill stuff. We did the instance for them. They would still be in a cutscene as the boss died. On Some speed Prae runs the new person would never be out of a cutscene.

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Originally Posted by Zephera

What's in it for players capped on Poetics and all combat classes at 70?

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Then there's literally no reason for you do run it anyway. Whether it takes 15 minutes or an hour, it's pointless for you. Only thing I can say is find something to spend poetics on and create room for the 200 plus any bonus. With this question of your's you're complaining about nothing.

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Originally Posted by Tango185

Then there's literally no reason for you do run it anyway. Whether it takes 15 minutes or an hour, it's pointless for you. Only thing I can say is find something to spend poetics on and create room for the 200 plus any bonus. With this question of your's you're complaining about nothing.

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Okay then. Already said earlier, but that's another player who won't be queuing up, and anyone like me as well, further extending queues, cya.

From one of the other threads:

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Originally Posted by Kad00sh

Would it not have made more sense to: Make Cutscenes manditory, if and only if, there is a new player in the party? I can safely say my friends and I refuse to run the MSQ roulette now as 200 poetics aren't worth a mandatory 45 min dungeon. Take it back down to 100 poetics with a bonus for a new player, but make it so if someone is not new, we can speed run it at will.

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It was always a pain to not being able to play and watch the cutscenes because other players weren't new. I'm sure asking a new guy to skip scenes and rush through the dungeon was very convenient to them but was it right? Now we can't even make the dialogues go faster which sucks but there is a lot of players coming to Eorzea for the first time. The only thing that sucks is getting castrum or praetorium with no new players in your party and still have to watch the bloody damn scenes.

Making mandatory cutscenes dependent on there being a new player around is a bad idea. That will only create incidents where the new player is vote kicked so the rest can speedrun the dungeon.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

Making mandatory cutscenes dependent on there being a new player around is a bad idea. That will only create incidents where the new player is vote kicked so the rest can speedrun the dungeon.

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In-spite of this....you can be damn sure vote-kicking a new player will cause GM Retaliation.....but people tend to not think past their own ego. (don't kid yourself - GM's will not think its funny or acceptable to do this - that being kicking a newbie because they don't want to see cut-scenes)

My experience since 4.2 in the Praetoriam

1. It still didnt stop veteran players from ignoring the dungeon and training all the mobs and warping through, resulting in newbie players to die. None of the veterans even spoke or apologised despite the newbie asking whats going on. When I explained to the newbie that he could Return and warp across to us instead of going through that part of the zone again, he was thankful but still confused. But heres what shocked me next: the other newbie started ranting at him for wasting everyones time and that she just wanted to get it done.... The veterans all the while just said nothing.

2. Furthering on, the veterans ran straight up the elevator and clicked it to ascend leaving the newbies below. At this point there was finally some comment from a veteran ("At least give them time to get on."). When the newbies did come up eventually, none had picked up magitek keys so went up and down the elevator multiple times. By the time we got to Nero, the newbies were locked out of the fight.

3. Another problem is the Bosses dont last long at all and mechanics are ignored completely. You dont see any or much of the flavour text during the fights.


Really, MSQ roulette should be removed and its rewards sprinkled elsewhere. And those Dungeons should be reworked as Solo Instances.

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Originally Posted by teegees

Read the patch notes and don't be selfish.

There are million other things you can do if you don't like it but no other way to see the story. And it's not like the new rewards aren't exceptionally generous. 4x the xp and tokens for something that takes 3x as long.

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What exp. boost all I got was 2,203,000 exp. from it. I could get that much from a lot other dungeons that take way less time to run. If it was 4x the exp. should get over 4mil from it. After seeing how little exp. get from it think just run potd and never run main story roulette again that ran everyday that i'm on. If they wanted to really fix it don't put new players in the roulette party for them or give you option where can let new players in roulette party you join and be prepared to watch cut scenes.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

What exp. boost all I got was 2,203,000 exp. from it. I could get that much from a lot other dungeons that take way less time to run. If it was 4x the exp. should get over 4mil from it. After seeing how little exp. get from it think just run potd and never run main story roulette again that ran everyday that i'm on. If they wanted to really fix it don't put new players in the roulette party for them or give you option where can let new players in roulette party you join and be prepared to watch cut scenes.

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Castrum Meridianum used to give roughly 1% the total exp needed to gain a level. Now gives 20% of a level. (more if your below Lv60 so I hear)
Its not an effective exp/hour method, but its a massive boost from the last time I ran it. (Some say its given more than 1%, and some say it was less, but there may have been a ninja boost at some point between the two points.)
Praetorium used to give 1.8% of a levels worth of exp, where as now it gives almost a full levels worth of exp at Lv69.

I'm sorry, but I'm more than happy with the current results, and if they want to boost the exp further, all the better, ill be running these things all the time, until I run out of things I enjoy leveling.
Only issue is that at Lv70, im not interesting in poetics, so I stopped having a reason to run it. (give us creation, and maybe 5 tomes of medacity, something tiny as a daily, and ill run my Lv70 alt characters through it when I wanna gear them up more)

Good luck with those que times how it is now. Soon there be over a hour from all players not running it anymore. I would rather have a low que time than very long one.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

Then you are playing the wrong game for your tastes - the major draw of FFXIV over other MMOs is exactly the story from SE. The story is the point of this game. The actual gameplay is of merely average quality.

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And the story of this game ISN'T of average quality? Let's be real here; it was basic af in 2013 and tbh that still stands. We all know Square aren't putting out any industry award level storytelling in this game because they haven't been able to do that in well over a decade now.

I'm also in the "never running MSQ Roulette again" group. I feel bad for the newbies because 50+ min queue time sounds like hell... but if Square really gave a crap about the newbies clearing this content without being harassed to "OMG skip plz" they'd implement CM and Praetorium as duty instances with NPC's to help out for the newbies to complete first time. They could then unlock the dungeon versions after, sort of like a mini tutorial. That way the newbie sprouts could watch the cutscenes in the duty and we would have avoided this whole thing.

To a lot of us here CM and Prae is redundant, played out content that we have done hundreds of times.... dropping it is going to seem like a no-brainer to many.

Well speed runners only have themselves to blame. That aside..

I've quite enjoyed the change. First time I managed to experience both the instance and the cut-scenes simultaneously without being forced to pick one over the other. Easily understandable after some time that it'd get monotonous. Just find something else to do. Switch over to another monitor perhaps? Grab some snacks? Take out laundry?

Wasn't the best solution, clearly. But in many regards it does beat the previous situation. With the best solution obviously throwing away the roulette entirely and making it a solo instance.

I really hate the forced cutscenes. I will never queue for main scenario roulettes again, and I dread ever having to do them on a fresh level 50.

But good going SE, you've made it now that people who need to do main scenarios are gonna be stuck in queues forever because the rest of us will not want to queue for it. You've solved one problem (that wasn't really a problem to begin with) by creating another even bigger problem.

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Originally Posted by SixtyLove

And the story of this game ISN'T of average quality?

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Compared to almost all other MMOs? Compared to those, this game has a really good story.
Better than average even when compared to single-player games, although clearly inferior to the best of those.

The story is only sub par 1-50, because they made a watered down version of 1.0, and tried to add a spin for those who already went through it. But it ended up a mess/ruined. But going from 50+ and onward, its really good in most cases, and one of the most memorable stories in any RPG for me. (There's still those which are better, but its easily in the top 20 for me)

So I'm new to both the forums and the ARR endgame. I just hit 50 and finished up the 2.0MSQ. So I did the MSQ dungeons,and my wait time was somewhere around 5-10 min. Admittedly, I was a healer. Since then, I've ran MSQ Roulette,and again I'm getting into groups in 5 minutes or less.

I say all this because the doom and gloom makes one think queues are ridiculous. Am I just lucky because I'm a healer?

Yes. You are lucky you are a healer.

I've DPS queued for it a few times since the update and it's been popping faster than 50/60 for me. 11-15 mins as opposed to 20+, sometimes as little as 8.
It's probably here to stay.

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Originally Posted by teegees

Read the patch notes and don't be selfish.

There are million other things you can do if you don't like it but no other way to see the story. And it's not like the new rewards aren't exceptionally generous. 4x the xp and tokens for something that takes 3x as long.

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I think as with other dungeons, you could opt to run it unsynched or with a friend. Alternatively just ask your party to wait for you to view them yourself. Don't make the rest of us suffer it though.

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Originally Posted by SixtyLove

And the story of this game ISN'T of average quality? Let's be real here; it was basic af in 2013 and tbh that still stands. We all know Square aren't putting out any industry award level storytelling in this game because they haven't been able to do that in well over a decade now.

If Square really gave a crap about the newbies clearing this content without being harassed to "OMG skip plz" they'd implement CM and Praetorium as duty instances with NPC's to help out for the newbies to complete first time. That way the newbie sprouts could watch the cutscenes in the duty and we would have avoided this whole thing.

To a lot of us here CM and Prae is redundant, played out content that we have done hundreds of times.... dropping it is going to seem like a no-brainer to many.

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So true.

FFXIV story is average most of the time (really dull pre 50, even) with shiny moments here and there. Anyone has the right to enjoy it the first time. But when it's the 100 th time ?
Seeing the same cutscenes over and over again, cutscenes that btw are not internet breaking ones ? We're talking about sprouts, but please people, also put yourselves in the shoes of veterans : the sane of mind reaction to what I just described, is not going in there anymore.

The real solution to not force anything down ANYONE's throat (sprouts and veterans alike) is to turn it in a solo instance.