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.