I think if everyone in the group has completed the content there's no need for mandatory cutscenes.
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I think if everyone in the group has completed the content there's no need for mandatory cutscenes.
Sadly this. There's no 'nice' way to fix this debacle. Every potential solution has huge drawbacks and in the end you're picking the lesser of many evils, instead of something that suits everyone. Personally speaking I'd prefer they just pony up the money and redo these instances as solo-dungeons or provide free, no GC required squadron members to run through in place of other players. Even though that comes with it's own issues, first and foremost the amount of money it would cost to even implement.
I think they mean if 8 people that did it already, it would allow be skipable. There is still a problem with that idea though..
7 people enter hoping 8 people would done it before, but someone is new.
so the 7 people just leave leaving the new person alone.
I gave ideas how to fix it, and it would most likely been less effort from a programing standpoint.
That is just leave it alone (or revert it back to the old way) while giving a small tutorial on the party finder, what unsyc is, and suggest going with a few friends to enjoy the story. If this cannot be done, the system would explain the duty finder is there to help you get groups, but also point out people will want to speed threw it.
Another proper fix would be preformed parties, be it sync (for daily bonus) or unsyc can skip cut scenes. This change everyone has to follow no matter the means of entry is a very weak, rushed, half baked idea.
Never understood why SE decided to implement cutscenes into an MMO like this. I have no issue with the cutscenes displaying after or before at all.
So long as everyone has completed it WITH all of those cutscenes in place first. I never had a chance to see either of those dungeons or find out what the story was until this change was added, and that's years after I was marked as having "completed" them.
This change to requiring the cutscenes is the best change SE has made to the game since it launched. We can finally see the climax of the story that was never available before.
*Undermines argument with Crystal Tower changes.*
They're changing how you can start the Crystal Tower line (removing the FATE requirements), so I can't really say they don't have the resources to change the dungeon.
I'm just considering now how they could go about doing something.
It can't be solo; from what I can recall, the Scions were engrossed in other things and you were tasked with a small strike force while everyone else kept the other places busy. We have Cid with us in the reaper, but with all of the other NPCs having a story reason for not being present, this undermines a reason to make it a solo instance. You are, also, breaking into a fortress; reducing the number of hostile targets also doesn't make sense. We were still gaining our stride back then (compared to now, we could probably 'easily' stride into the same citadel and level the place).
Streamlining the dungeon to have dialogue happen as you progress means reworking things and possibly creating new assets or completely rewriting how things got presented. It's not quite the same as simply removing flags for requiring FATEs and maybe sticking the required crystals at locations in each of those areas.
Basically, it doesn't exactly equate the same amount of work, but that's one quality of life change I hadn't expected to happen. I also don't want to force anyone to skip cutscenes for impatient donkeys ('cause I'm definitely a person that plays this game for the story and would still 100% watch that cutscene again on an ALT).
I don't get all the people that say "Just make it a solo instance!"
Like, let's think this through to its natural end point:
Castrum Meri + Prae are changed into solo instances -> No need to queue for those two 8-man instances -> SE removes MSQ roulette, as it's now obsolete. -> You never run MSQ roulette.
Compared to now:
Castrum Meri + Prae enforce mandatory cutscenes -> You feel it's not worth your time to run these with the mandatory cutscenes -> You never run MSQ roulette.
If you have a problem with these dungeons (which not everyone does, I supported this change from day 1) just...pretend SE did the first one, and the end result is exactly the same?
The point would be to cut out the MSQ roulette entirely. Get rid of it. Not much of a "roulette" with only two options anyway...
If it was solo, you could take your Squadron in there. Or the game could just assign you random NPCs, they've done that before. But you wouldn't be at the mercy of speed runners or cutscenes you can't control the pace of. It would be an individual experience that players could dictate how they want to go about- even if that means skipping them.
At the very least (as many others have said) SE could allow Undersized parties to skip them. That means pre-made, unsynched groups that aren't filling via PUGs in DF. If someone wants to watch the story, they can do that in DF. People who don't care about the story have no options now where some existed before (making a DF to watch the story, DF for just git 'er done).
I get the fear some people have of queuing mentor roulette and getting content they hate now- I'd take an EX primal any day over MSQ dungeons. Even if we're wiping I'm at least engaged in doing something most of the time.