Cutscenes for Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium: A Suggestion

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Originally Posted by van_arn

While we're at it, just delete the first half of the 2.x series of fetch quests because they're useless padding that keep new players away from the good content and decent storyline.

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They are not mere fetch quests, and they are not useless, nor are they any worse than the rest of the game.

Could you not just make this a solo-dungeon or a solo-instance or replace the party members with npcs ala FFXI's trust system? It would make more sense having the whole band of scions there anyway to do it with you. That would mean the new players see the cutscenes and the older ones aren't stuck in 25 mins of hell.

You currently have 2 options for dealing with CSs. Either D/C, and you're no longer in the CS, or change the audio language to something other than english, since the extra fluff words add extra time to the cutscenes. (Changing the clients base language seems to help cut extra time as well. Not sure how its set up, if its a combo of written words and voice acting, or what)

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Originally Posted by MetisWyatt

Could you not just make this a solo-dungeon or a solo-instance or replace the party members with npcs ala FFXI's trust system? It would make more sense having the whole band of scions there anyway to do it with you. That would mean the new players see the cutscenes and the older ones aren't stuck in 25 mins of hell.

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You can already solo it as a Lv50 healer. (I Already did this)

You can duo it as a tank + DPS as well.

SMN probably can solo it as well.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

They are not mere fetch quests, and they are not useless, nor are they any worse than the rest of the game.

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Hes not saying delete all of the quests. Hes saying JUST the fetch quests. (Or at least tone them down, and streamline them)

I think you do not get the reason why the story roulette gives a lot more rewards than the other roulettes.

I haven't done these dungeons for the last three or four weeks, because I haven't been playing much (too caught up with the HD remake of FFX that I just recently started). But a month or so ago —well after the change was made to them— I was running them daily for quite a while. Queue times tended to be around 15 minutes or so, sometimes less. (Of course, if I'd been doing it at off-peak hours they might have been longer but that's always been the case.) So, to everyone trying to argue that "forcing" people to watch cutscenes would drive away experienced players and make the queue times impossible for new players, sorry to burst your bubble, but you're clearly wrong on that point. There are plenty of people still wanting to run them this way. Please quit reiterating an argument that's now been proven wrong.

I do actually support the OP's suggestion about unsynced runs. So long as you're doing an unsynced run with a pre-made group who have all done the dungeon before, I don't see a problem with letting people skip the cutscenes. Just don't start clamoring for roulette rewards while running it that way. Roulette rewards were added in the first place to ensure old content got run enough for new players to get a chance at it, and then this specific roulette had its rewards massively raised to ensure players could get a chance at doing it properly, with its story intact. To get the rewards that are specifically for doing a full run with cutscenes, you should be doing a full run with cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu

Also, most of my Castrum Meridianum runs even with cutscenes (25 minutes on average) are faster than most of the Expert Roulette dungeons I've been running as of late because of Zero DPS healers, DPS who don't use AoE attacks, and/or tanks that can't hold aggro.

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Sorry bro, we'll be back in 4.4

@thread

I haven't ran MSQ a single time since the changes were made. Though I never ran them much before, mainly just if I was leveling up a job or if a friend needed it. Given the age of these particular dungeons I think the best solution would be to make them solo duties. Add some helper NPCs and adjust HP levels on mobs and viola, problem solved. There is no real reason to run this dungeon after you do it for story, take away the MSQ roulette all together and boost the tome/exp drop on other roulettes to make up the difference.

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Originally Posted by Lunavi

I think you do not get the reason why the story roulette gives a lot more rewards than the other roulettes.

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Greater rewards to bribe players into getting into a queue is an admission this is substandard content.

Delete the requirement for substandard content.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

I haven't done these dungeons for the last three or four weeks, because I haven't been playing much (too caught up with the HD remake of FFX that I just recently started). But a month or so ago —well after the change was made to them— I was running them daily for quite a while. Queue times tended to be around 15 minutes or so, sometimes less. (Of course, if I'd been doing it at off-peak hours they might have been longer but that's always been the case.) So, to everyone trying to argue that "forcing" people to watch cutscenes would drive away experienced players and make the queue times impossible for new players, sorry to burst your bubble, but you're clearly wrong on that point. There are plenty of people still wanting to run them this way. Please quit reiterating an argument that's now been proven wrong.

I do actually support the OP's suggestion about unsynced runs. So long as you're doing an unsynced run with a pre-made group who have all done the dungeon before, I don't see a problem with letting people skip the cutscenes. Just don't start clamoring for roulette rewards while running it that way. Roulette rewards were added in the first place to ensure old content got run enough for new players to get a chance at it, and then this specific roulette had its rewards massively raised to ensure players could get a chance at doing it properly, with its story intact. To get the rewards that are specifically for doing a full run with cutscenes, you should be doing a full run with cutscenes.

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There is no way for a new player to do these dungeons properly in a queue. The combat encounters have been nerfed to the point of irrelevance.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

Greater rewards to bribe players into getting into a queue is an admission this is substandard content.

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Actually, it's just an admission that it's time consuming content, more so than it used to be. People were saying they wouldn't run it if the time to reward ratio didn't work out with cutscenes included. SE increased the reward along with time to maintain that ratio players care so much about.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

Actually, it's just an admission that it's time consuming content, more so than it used to be. People were saying they wouldn't run it if the time to reward ratio didn't work out with cutscenes included. SE increased the reward along with time to maintain that ratio players care so much about.

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Meaning, people are running for no other reason than the reward. This means they are not attracted to the content itself.

It's a pavlovian response. You're trained to like it because the rewards are nice. You do not enjoy the content itself, in fact you're probably watching Youtube instead.

This is a bad dungeon.

I don't understand why this wasn't the first thing they worked on for the A.I. NPC/Trust/Squadrons. In the future, e.g. 5-10 years from now when the playerbase is considerably smaller you will need that technology/programming to clear a lot of the content Why not priortise the instances that people don't like running now and fix it so its the most productive then work on the more popular stuff later that has less of an impact on players?

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Originally Posted by van_arn

Meaning, people are running for no other reason than the reward. This means they are not attracted to the content itself.

It's a pavlovian response. You're trained to like it because the rewards are nice.

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So, in other words, this is an MMORPG. I think we all knew that.

Sure, I might play an occasional game of solitaire that doesn't offer any rewards, but that's something that can be finished in a matter of minutes. Nobody sticks with a single game for years on end if it's not rewarding them regularly along the way. Everything in the game has rewards, because nothing that didn't would get played much.

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Originally Posted by Lubu_Mykono

I don't understand why this wasn't the first thing they worked on for the A.I. NPC/Trust/Squadrons.

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It's a good idea, and maybe they'll do that eventually, but I think they'll first have to shift where Squadrons are introduced for it to work.

Currently you cannot even start recruiting members for your squad until you're a 2nd Lieutenant, which in turn requires Aurum Vale, which requires level 47. But then once you unlock squadrons, it takes a while to recruit them and then a while to train them. I'm guessing most people will hit their initial storyline run of Castrum and Praetorium before their squadrons are ready to help.

If they make a change so that you only need to be a Chief Sergeant, or Sergeant First Class to begin recruiting your squadron, it might be a clue that they're going to add squadron use in these two dungeons a patch or two later.

Honestly i love the dungeon as it is now. i still think it needs tweeks, but i run it far more now, than i ever did before the forced cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

Meaning, people are running for no other reason than the reward. This means they are not attracted to the content itself.

It's a pavlovian response. You're trained to like it because the rewards are nice. You do not enjoy the content itself, in fact you're probably watching Youtube instead.

This is a bad dungeon.

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So Van, tell me what do you exactly define as content that you would be attracted to? You can't exactly assume every person runs the MS roulettes strictly for rewards alone or pav-whatever-the-heck the response is.

If we went by logic of doing roulettes that are worth it, people could just run Expert Roulette daily, and a few Extreme Primals/Savage raids here and there to cap their tomes, and call it a day. There would have been no need to run the other roulettes because of the inferior rewards compared to the higher roulettes.

Having fun and enjoying things are in the eyes of the beholder. At the end of the day, you'll just have to respect the fact that people run MS roulette. These 2 dungeons and the roulette rewards won't be going away any time soon.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

Meaning, people are running for no other reason than the reward. This means they are not attracted to the content itself.

It's a pavlovian response. You're trained to like it because the rewards are nice. You do not enjoy the content itself, in fact you're probably watching Youtube instead.

This is a bad dungeon.

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After you have run any dungeon a few times you have seen the content already. Any future runs are just for potential rewards. The MSQ dungeons are no different.

The first time I ran Castrum Meridanium and Praetorium I did it with my FC so I could watch the cutscenes in peace (this was long before the cutscenes became unskippabale). At that point I found the dungeons to be pretty awesome.
Today I run the MSQ roulette occasionally - just because it is the easiest way of getting tomestones.

After a few runs the cutscenes become rather tiresome, true. But the cutscenes are not aimed at repeat runners.
The cutscenes are there for first time players. The rewards are there to make people do repeat runs.

The dungeons are good for what they are meant to be - a climax of the 2.0 story.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

After you have run any dungeon a few times you have seen the content already. Any future runs are just for potential rewards. The MSQ dungeons are no different.

The first time I ran Castrum Meridanium and Praetorium I did it with my FC so I could watch the cutscenes in peace (this was long before the cutscenes became unskippabale). At that point I found the dungeons to be pretty awesome.
Today I run the MSQ roulette occasionally - just because it is the easiest way of getting tomestones.

After a few runs the cutscenes become rather tiresome, true. But the cutscenes are not aimed at repeat runners.
The cutscenes are there for first time players. The rewards are there to make people do repeat runs.

The dungeons are good for what they are meant to be - a climax of the 2.0 story.

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Then let new players see the climax at their own pace and don't waste a pool of mentors who have other people that actually need help.

These dungeons are a waste of 7 people as currently nerfed.

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Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu

So Van, tell me what do you exactly define as content that you would be attracted to? You can't exactly assume every person runs the MS roulettes strictly for rewards alone or pav-whatever-the-heck the response is.

If we went by logic of doing roulettes that are worth it, people could just run Expert Roulette daily, and a few Extreme Primals/Savage raids here and there to cap their tomes, and call it a day. There would have been no need to run the other roulettes because of the inferior rewards compared to the higher roulettes.

Having fun and enjoying things are in the eyes of the beholder. At the end of the day, you'll just have to respect the fact that people run MS roulette. These 2 dungeons and the roulette rewards won't be going away any time soon.

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If you're not playing the game to get through content, as in this case where people are watching Netflix while unskipable cutscenes fire off, then you are not playing this game.

I will never respect the opinion of someone who considers not playing the game to be engaging content. They have an invalid opinion by mere definition.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

So, in other words, this is an MMORPG. I think we all knew that.

Sure, I might play an occasional game of solitaire that doesn't offer any rewards, but that's something that can be finished in a matter of minutes. Nobody sticks with a single game for years on end if it's not rewarding them regularly along the way. Everything in the game has rewards, because nothing that didn't would get played much.

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This being an mmo justifies nothing.

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Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu

You can't exactly assume every person runs the MS roulettes strictly for rewards alone or pav-whatever-the-heck the response is.

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I think this case is an exception. NO ONE would run unskippable cutscene MSQ roulette if it wasn't for the rewards. Hell, SE knew that and increased the rewards as a result. Pretty obvious.

Adding more rewards doesn't turn "bad" content into "good". Actually it's not even so much that the content is bad, the content is fine, it's the time consumption that's not justified (IMO).

And Van alluded, the content is not so hard as to require 7 other max level players. Even without nerfing it.

The absolute only value I can find on these 2 dungeons, for the new players it's probably the first 8-man content they'll encounter. And that first time feeling of camaraderie and adventure should be awesome and memorable, like you finally jumped into the deep end and realized you can swim just fine.

So IDK, that's worth something I suppose, and I think you'd lose that if it were made a solo instance. At the end of the day, I don't run it and I likely never will unless they change cutscenes, so it doesn't really affect me. If other people want to waste time in there it's their own prerogative.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

If you're not playing the game to get through content, as in this case where people are watching Netflix while unskipable cutscenes fire off, then you are not playing this game.

I will never respect the opinion of someone who considers not playing the game to be engaging content.

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True and irrelevant, since nobody has suggested not playing is engaging content. If you're not playing, you shouldn't be there. If you're going to watch Netflix instead, you shouldn't be there. Those of us who are really playing and enjoy it, because it IS engaging content would prefer if you weren't there. Quit griping about something you shouldn't even be doing in the first place.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

This being an mmo justifies nothing.

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You complained about it having rewards, but rewards for content are an integral part of MMOs. If every piece of content in the game that has rewards associated with it were gone, how much of a game do you think we'd have left? Why pick on this piece and declare that the existence of rewards proves it's bad content? Wouldn't that argument work just as well applied to pretty much everything else in the entire game?

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

True and irrelevant, since nobody has suggested not playing is engaging content. If you're not playing, you shouldn't be there. If you're going to watch Netflix instead, you shouldn't be there. Those of us who are really playing and enjoy it, because it IS engaging content would prefer if you weren't there. Quit griping about something you shouldn't even be doing in the first place.



You complained about it having rewards, but rewards for content are an integral part of MMOs. If every piece of content in the game that has rewards associated with it were gone, how much of a game do you think we'd have left? Why pick on this piece and declare that the existence of rewards proves it's bad content? Wouldn't that argument work just as well applied to pretty much everything else in the entire game?

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If you consider rewatching the same cutscenes over and over that you've seen a dozen times before engaging, you have no taste and aren't really qualified to hold an opinion over what's worth holding onto.

Those that run the msq roulette do so only paying attention to the game in a cursory sense, or mistake spamming chat as running a dungeon.

All of the above are a sign the dungeon needs to be removed or retooled.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

If you consider rewatching the same cutscenes over and over that you've seen a dozen times before engaging, you have no taste and aren't really qualified to hold an opinion over what's worth holding onto.

Those that run the msq roulette do so only paying attention to the game in a cursory sense, or mistake spamming chat as running a dungeon.

All of the above are a sign the dungeon needs to be removed or retooled.

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So Van, who are you to judge about opinions around here? If Niwashi says he wants to run Main Scenario Roulette for rewards, helping others, and/or having fun on his own accord on several occasions, you're gonna have to respect that. Niwashi expresses how I feel about Main Scenario Roulette better than I can to be honest.

Van, you still haven't answered my question on what kind of content you find engaging, especially with the content being spread out over patches and sporadic content droughts.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

...you have no taste and aren't really qualified to hold an opinion...

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And someone who spends this much time arguing against a dungeon he only had to run once(per character) has no sense of proportionality. So does that invalidate your opinion too? A single player instance would have been the best solution, but at this point i dont want the devs spending another minute altering these dungeons(aside from maybe giving pre-formed parties the option to skip scenes which i still think is fair). I want them working on giving me more NEW content. Dont "fix" 5 year old content, give me an extra dungeon or side quest line in the next patch.

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Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu

So Van, who are you to judge about opinions around here? If Niwashi says he wants to run Main Scenario Roulette for rewards, helping others, and/or having fun on his own accord on several occasions, you're gonna have to respect that. Niwashi expresses how I feel about Main Scenario Roulette better than I can to be honest.

Van, you still haven't answered my question on what kind of content you find engaging, especially with the content being spread out over patches and sporadic content droughts.

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Me? I play the game, often with sprouts, because they tend to make an entertaining mess of things. "Play" does not apply to Praetorium because watching Netflix while an hour of cutscenes fires does not qualify as "playing ffxiv."

An hour in Praetorium being engaging, when the fights themselves are weaker than dungeons both before and after, is not a tenable position. They are trash, and need to be removed as queued content if their only purpose is to act as cutscene corridors. In this situation, there is no justification for 7 other people to be brought in to watch cutscenes, let alone requiring a sprout to wait another hour for the queue to find 7 other people.

None whatsoever. And yes, an hour queue for this trash is not uncommon for sprouts queued as DPS.

Also, don't fool yourself into thinking you're helping anyone by running these. When I say trash, I meant it: they teach sprouts nothing about how to play their class better or how to contribute in a meaningful way. The only reason these dungeons need butts in the seat is because Square can't be assed to maintain them.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

Also, don't fool yourself into thinking you're helping anyone by running these. When I say trash, I meant it: they teach sprouts nothing about how to play their class better or how to contribute in a meaningful way. The only reason these dungeons need butts in the seat is because Square can't be assed to maintain them.

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I agree with you on the latter part, but what's done is done and people like me make the best of it.

At least the new people get to watch the cutscenes of Praetorium and enjoy the ending of ARR similar to how some us did it during the 2.0 time. At the end of the day, if people are satisfied with the gameplay, story, and/or the situations they're dealt, who are we to tell them what to do and how to do it?

As far as improving stuff goes, that is also on the player's initiative. If they want to improve their game, fine. If they don't, it's going to be a tough run. The game can't hold on to our hands forever like Final Fantasy XIII did. We got stuff like the Balance Discord, the FFXIV reddit, linkshells, and other things. Oh, and did I mention the "Balance Discord"?

Everyone mileage may vary in the end.