As a new player, running through the Praetorium dungeon was the worst

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Originally Posted by Indefiinable

No one is "forcing" anyone to do anything. If the new player wishes to watch the cutscenes they can. However the rest of the player base will continue on. If it were not for "entitled" players like me running main rou daily there would be no df runs for the new players to join.

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This. The underlined part is only partially accurate. The MS rou would take a MUCH longer time to pop, and would be probably 90%+ new people when it does. Not saying that's a bad thing as they would get to learn the whole fight themselves, but it would definitely be a much longer experience(and probably much more frustrating and likely to quit) for many of them as well.

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Originally Posted by Rawrrior

Jeeze. People still pulling this crap? It would tick me off when they pulled the "just skip it, you can watch it at the inn" line. Uh excuse me? I have every right to watch cutscenes to a game i pay monthly for as you do to skip them and be in a firey bum rush. I rememeber people doing this to be back when ARR released. You know what i did?

I ignored them.

Best part of ignoring them?

I was their healer.
>____>; keep on telling me to skip my cutscenes and bum rush into packs of mobs! Cause if ya do, this kitty ain't gonna heal yer arse. Don't be a douche.

Aanyways.. May the rest of your experience in the game be douche-free! Not everyone in dungeons are their butts on fire like those people.

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That's not much of a threat. A sprout once got lost in Praetorium and was complaining. I was being sympathetic towards him and trying to explain to him how to get to us and he responded with "Fine. I'm not healing any of you." The other healer, in a show of solidarity, likewise made a stink about how they'd refuse to heal us too. We booted both of them in under 10 seconds. We didn't actually wipe from them refusing to heal us either. In fact, nobody died on Nero or Gaius because lolPraetorium and we had new healers by the first round of Ultima Weapon.

If people want to watch the cutscenes, cool, but don't be a snot about it.

I mean, your funneling players that are grinding for tomes, lvls, or whatever into content for new players. What do you expect? SE knows they done goofed with these, thats why you dont see dungeons like this in HW or SB.

Sorry, but the onus is on a new player to get their own group if they want to experience these as originally intended. Asking a group of people to give you an hour of their time so you can experience the game like you were there when it was new in the DF is selfish. Expecting it without even asking is ridiculous at best.

Its been this way for 2 years and only getting worse. I'm levelling an alt and decided to enjoy cutscenes but the group went so quick it skipped them. I ended up having only 4 to watch in the inn and had to redo it. I think square need to make these 2 dungeons solo scenarios.

Someone who wants to watch the cutscenes certainly can. That's their right.

But it's not their right to tell everyone else to wait for them. If the rest of the group decides they can continue without you, then that is THEIR right.

I personally think it's far more selfish to expect to hold up 7 other people than it is for those 7 other people to expect someone to skip the cutscenes. That's half the reason for the cutscenes being available in your room to begin with. That being said, watch the cutscenes if you want.

I always advice my friends to run these twice. Once watching all cutscenes, another skipping everything and keeping up with the party.
If you got a newbie in your party deal with it. You too had the right on your first play-through. This is after all a RPG on top of being MMO, people WILL play for the story too.

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Originally Posted by PharisHanasaki

If you got a newbie in your party deal with it.

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What do you mean? They are obviously more than welcome to watch the cutscenes, but expecting the other seven party members to wait on them before starting fights is just silly.

With regard to the people threatening to withhold their oh-so-important healing/dps/tanking - okay?

Being down a couple of people isn't going to prevent the run from proceeding forward.

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Originally Posted by missybee

What do you mean? They are obviously more than welcome to watch the cutscenes, but expecting the other seven party members to wait on them before starting fights is just silly.

With regard to the people threatening to withhold their oh-so-important healing/dps/tanking - okay?

Being down a couple of people isn't going to prevent the run from proceeding forward.

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Did you even read my full comment. Where did I mention waiting for newbies on fights?

At least read the OP. He said someone spoiled the story for him for watching cutscenes.

A friend of mine started up recently, and I was going to try and run this with him, and soem friends, to avoid this, but he logged on earlier than expected, and had the same issue, he had ppl threatening to kick him, and so he skipped CSs.
He then continued on with the storyline, not knowing what transpired, and not knowing about the Inn, until we got on.

Needless to say, he was upset enough he stopped playing.

I wont sign up for the main story queue, unless I plan to let new ppl watch the CSs. I also ask if they dont mind us killing the trash etc as we wait, as thats usually not a big deal.

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Originally Posted by PharisHanasaki

Did you even read my full comment. Where did I mention waiting for newbies on fights?

At least read the OP. He said someone spoiled the story for him for watching cutscenes.

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I have read both, yes ಠ_ಠ? I asked for your clarification since saying "If you got a newbie in your party deal with it," is pretty vague.

What are we expected to "deal" with?

With regard to your other statement, I agreed earlier that having someone spoil the story is shitty. I don't think anyone has or will defend that.

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

I wont sign up for the main story queue, unless I plan to let new ppl watch the CSs.

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That is very noble of you. However, if everyone had this attitude the duty would have twice the que time or longer.

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Originally Posted by missybee

I have read both, yes ಠ_ಠ? I asked for your clarification since saying "If you got a newbie in your party deal with it," is pretty vague.

What are we expected to "deal" with?

With regard to your other statement, I agreed earlier that having someone spoil the story is shitty. I don't think anyone has or will defend that.

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If you take it out of context like that, then yes, it's pretty vague.
But my comment includes more than just that. If you notice next to that I mention this being a RPG, that is Role Playing Game, and that you should explect people who will actually play for the story because of this. Story. Where did I mention fighting, bosses, waiting for newbies. If you read my first pharagraph I even said I tell my friends to run these dungeons twice. Once WATCHING CUTSCENES, another SKIPPING EVERYTHING. How is that not clear enough?

So basically, you made me write my comment again :>

Can we all just move along from this thread now please. I didn't mean for an entire argument to start up based on what I typed up. Clearly it's my bad for bringing up a sore subject that's been ongoing since the start.

Yes, I completely forgot about the Party Finder so I just automatically queue'd up through the Duty Finder like I did for everything up to that point. No, I do not feel entitled because I am a new player to FFXIV. No, I was not expecting someone to get so irritated they would type up spoilers. Yes I know being in a group of random people = different priorities and that is fine if at least there is some form of communication from the get go which we had none.

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Originally Posted by Dahwoon

Can we all just move along from this thread now please. I didn't mean for an entire argument to start up based on what I typed up. Clearly it's my bad for bringing up a sore subject that's been ongoing since the start.

Yes, I completely forgot about the Party Finder so I just automatically queue'd up through the Duty Finder like I did for everything up to that point. No, I do not feel entitled because I am a new player to FFXIV. No, I was not expecting someone to get so irritated they would type up spoilers. Yes I know being in a group of random people = different priorities and that is fine if at least there is some form of communication from the get go which we had none.

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You're not at fault here.

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Originally Posted by Dahwoon

Can we all just move along from this thread now please. I didn't mean for an entire argument to start up based on what I typed up. Clearly it's my bad for bringing up a sore subject that's been ongoing since the start.

Yes, I completely forgot about the Party Finder so I just automatically queue'd up through the Duty Finder like I did for everything up to that point. No, I do not feel entitled because I am a new player to FFXIV. No, I was not expecting someone to get so irritated they would type up spoilers. Yes I know being in a group of random people = different priorities and that is fine if at least there is some form of communication from the get go which we had none.

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As Nixxe said. You're not at fault for venting your frustrations over these two dungeons. They are awful for all the reasons said. And there is no excuse for assholes purposely spoiling later parts of the game. For whatever it may be worth, try not to let it cloud your opinion of the game going forward. All cut scenes onward happen before or after dungeons. So you won't have this happen again. For add assurance, pick Scholar for your dungeon job. If someone tries to pull early, well, sucks for them. :D

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Originally Posted by Chronons

That is very noble of you. However, if everyone had this attitude the duty would have twice the que time or longer.

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I dont see why, I usually dont pick it unless I want to actually be lazy for a run, which is often enough.

Plus when I needed to get through on an alt, and at the time no one was running it, I just shouted for some ppl, and like 2 friends, and went in within a min or so.

When content is easy, its pretty common to find ppl willing to help.

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

I dont see why, I usually dont pick it unless I want to actually be lazy for a run, which is often enough.

Plus when I needed to get through on an alt, and at the time no one was running it, I just shouted for some ppl, and like 2 friends, and went in within a min or so.

When content is easy, its pretty common to find ppl willing to help.

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You dont see why waiting for cutscenes as the standard would make people que for things like Preatorium less? You know there is like 30mins worth of cutscenes right? That doesnt include the time actually running the dungeon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VPLbImc084

Glad you have time to waste, I dont.

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Originally Posted by Chronons

You dont see why waiting for cutscenes as the standard would make people que for things like Preatorium less? You know there is like 30mins worth of cutscenes right? That doesnt include the time actually running the dungeon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VPLbImc084

Glad you have time to waste, I dont.

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As I said, I kill all the trash on the way, and personally never seen it take 30mins just for cutscenes, they would have to be rather slow to read. (which is very possible)
If anything, Ive seen 1st timers watching CSs take 30misn for the whole run, not just cutscenes alone.

Praetorium is one of those where's it's painful to be a new player. I recently did it on an alt for the first time, and there was another first timer there. As chance had it, we were the two healers. I was skipping all the CSs, but the other healer wasn't. The party didn't wait, and the other healer never even got to participate in some of the fights at the end. Pretty sure they were still in CSs when we went into the final boss.

I see both sides of the coin. I remember my first time through I tried to watch the CSs, but it became quickly clear there was going to be a problem, so I started skipping them. To this day I've no idea what happens in that dungeon storywise. I tried watching the CSs in my inn room, but without the context of the run the CSs just didn't make sense to me.

It's just bad dungeon design to have that many interstitial CSs, especially since some of them are in the middle of fights. Thankfully they've learned from it, and you usually get a long CS as you unlock an instance, and then another once you've completed it. I do wish they would go back to Praetorium and Castrum and redesign them to remove those CSs; or, at least, specific ones. Just give you some online text that pops up on screen to let you know what's happened, like LS messages.

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Originally Posted by Naberrie

I see both sides of the coin. I remember my first time through I tried to watch the CSs, but it became quickly clear there was going to be a problem, so I started skipping them. To this day I've no idea what happens in that dungeon storywise. I tried watching the CSs in my inn room, but without the context of the run the CSs just didn't make sense to me.

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You could always just unsync solo it and watch the cutscenes, but having done both that and simply watched the cutscenes in the in after I ran it, I don't really think the fights add anything to the cutscenes. They really just wrap up some plot points with Cid, flesh out the tribunes a bit more, and of course wrap up the major story arc of the MSQ up to that point.

A contentious subject to be sure. My personal approach is just sit back and watch the cutscenes and let the other 7 people do the work. The fights are uninspiring, the sfx are annoying, and nobody will stop and tell you how to do the fights anyway, so you don't miss much. Think of it as a movie, but you also get some tomes and experience. All the "2kool4skool" veteran players won't even notice you're gone.

Its easier to just tell them how the story ends.

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Originally Posted by Chalbee

A contentious subject to be sure. My personal approach is just sit back and watch the cutscenes and let the other 7 people do the work. The fights are uninspiring, the sfx are annoying, and nobody will stop and tell you how to do the fights anyway, so you don't miss much. Think of it as a movie, but you also get some tomes and experience. All the "2kool4skool" veteran players won't even notice you're gone.

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To be honest though, unless you're running it with minimum ilvl gear equipped, you won't be seeing any of the mechanics these days that people who ran it when it was a brand new, end of the patch, dungeon. Even then, you probably would be pushing some of the phases.

I had a pretty similar experience to OP just last week. I was playing healer as well. It was easily one of the worst experiences I had in ANY game. I had been warned to skip cutscenes beforehand, so I was doing so, but the other players refused to explain even basic mechanics and instead just made fun of me when they took off without me on the elevators, with me having no idea how to progress as I had not seen the cutscenes and no idea what to do with the robot. I also had to watch the ending on youtube, as I accidentally skipped through the ending cutscenes, and didn't realize you had to turn in a quest in order to be able to see it in the inn. It honestly made me stop wanting to do the story, and I almost uninstalled the game. If I didn't have a super supportive FC, I would have definitely quit the game. It is still going to be a while before I have the stomach to do story quests again, I will just focus on crafting in the meantime.

Honestly, "hardcore" players who try to rush newbies to endgame content should be removed from the game IMO. I have been directly harassed on more than one occasion by such players in my tells. I get that people want their stupid tomestones so they can get their minimal gear improvements, but it is not fair to people who actually want to play the game. It is extremely easy to help newbies, and there should be a system for punishing people who dont, particularly on the MSQ duty queue. Either that, or the level sync should be made more aggressive so people cant finish without party members so easily.

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Originally Posted by execool

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The good news is that the Praetorium and Castrum Meridanum are the only two instances in the game that are like this. I ran into the same thing and essentially missed most of the fights in my first run through them. Like I said, two are the only two instances like this. Square learned their lesson from this and at long last, they are supposed to be fixing somehow with 4.2 or around 4.2. Dunno what they're gonna do, but a fix is coming. Don't get discouraged from two instances that are known to be a pain for all sprouts.

That being said, from what I understand, this has been the thing for a while....people only go through this for the tomestones and exp bonus. I'm guilty of this as well, though I don't rush anybody, I do prefer to rush through these two dungeons personally.

I had the exact same first time.
I was just watching cutscenes, did absolutely nothing in the dungeon despite me being a tank. XD

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Originally Posted by execool

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You're on my server. I absolutely LOVE helping newbies, because I'm a relative newbie myself (having just started playing in July). My sister is also working her way through the game now (she's just about to the middle of Heavensward) and when she got to Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium, I went in with her and unsynced them with a friend of mine so she could enjoy the cut scenes. I'm a huge proponent of watching important cut scenes like those as they happen as for me, watching them later on tends to lose their allure. Normal dungeon intro scenes I have always skipped, but anything integral to the story I watch and be damned what anyone else thinks.

So, if you ever want any help on anything, please look me up! I have BLM at 70, AST at 70 and I'm working on DRK right now.

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Originally Posted by execool

Honestly, "hardcore" players who try to rush newbies to endgame content should be removed from the game IMO. I have been directly harassed on more than one occasion by such players in my tells. I get that people want their stupid tomestones so they can get their minimal gear improvements, but it is not fair to people who actually want to play the game. It is extremely easy to help newbies, and there should be a system for punishing people who dont, particularly on the MSQ duty queue. Either that, or the level sync should be made more aggressive so people cant finish without party members so easily.

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It is hard to comment without knowing the full story so ill try my best.

There is not any mechanics to really worry about outside 2 places, and I seen people manage short length important instructions for them. "LB pull this" "do not do anything, not even heal till the flash" "fire the cannons then run to the waymark" So in your group where they simply unable to do that ? I also seen people kicked for being rude at the elevator thing.

People are doing those runs for exp daily, not tomestones, it is really not efficient if tomestones is the only goal.

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Originally Posted by Vstarstruck

People are doing those runs for exp daily, not tomestones, it is really not efficient if tomestones is the only goal.

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You sure that's not backwards?

15 minute run with 140-240 poetics looks pretty good to me. The exp on the other hand... I don't even get 2m from it once SB turns its head.

That really SUCKS! If you ever need someone to party up with to avoid crap like this reach out to me, I'll join, so that'll be one less person making you feel rushed. We all deserve to dig into this game, that person was once where you were. Sorry that happened to you.

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Originally Posted by execool

I had a pretty similar experience to OP just last week. I was playing healer as well. It was easily one of the worst experiences I had in ANY game. I had been warned to skip cutscenes beforehand, so I was doing so, but the other players refused to explain even basic mechanics and instead just made fun of me when they took off without me on the elevators, with me having no idea how to progress as I had not seen the cutscenes and no idea what to do with the robot. I also had to watch the ending on youtube, as I accidentally skipped through the ending cutscenes, and didn't realize you had to turn in a quest in order to be able to see it in the inn. It honestly made me stop wanting to do the story, and I almost uninstalled the game. If I didn't have a super supportive FC, I would have definitely quit the game. It is still going to be a while before I have the stomach to do story quests again, I will just focus on crafting in the meantime.

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That sucks too...If you need a friend I'll team up with ya. No pressure here, you can ask the members in my FC lol. I've poured all my being into helping the young sprouts grow into strong oak trees. I can help you or anyone else needing it the same way:) I enjoy helping new people and watching players grow. Growing together and bonding with friends is always a great added bonus too!

Thank you so much!! KaivaC, Kakiko, OMega_ARcane, everyone with a positive response, I really appreciate it! I hope I run into you Kakiko! :-) I am doing WHM of course, and will do astro and warrior. good luck with DRK! My FC is Stuff N Things, ie <<Shop>>. I always watch the scenes, except for this one and castrum which I was warned about, so what you did for you sister sounds really cool :-). I actually thought the ending was pretty neat when I got around to enjoying it.

Vstarstruck, I was following the first tank closely, and wiped when he did when he overextended into the trash. When I caught back up again, they were at the elevator and took off on it when I was right next to it, mocking me. After that, I was trying to to make it through the room with the magitech armor, but had no idea what to do, and didn't catch up until the final boss so I never really got to fight any fights. I love difficult battles, so I was really looking forward to it!

TBH, I totally get people grinding... I just wish I had gotten to participate at all, especially since I was already scene skipping. For reference, I did Crystal Tower with my FC a few days after, and World of Darkness was a lot of fun, so difficulty was not the issue.

I've only gone into MSQ roulette a few times, but it should be done with the understanding that giving new players a full experience of the dungeon is the #1 importance. Getting the whole story and pacing, and seeing your own character there in the cutscenes is always going to be better than watching someone else on Youtube.

Perhaps the tomestone reward needs to be given only if you're standing near the new person when they get to the end of the cutscene....? Or just lock everyone's movements, like the circle at the start of dungeons prevents people from moving if someone is watching the opening cutscene.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Perhaps the tomestone reward needs to be given only if you're standing near the new person when they get to the end of the cutscene....? Or just lock everyone's movements, like the circle at the start of dungeons prevents people from moving if someone is watching the opening cutscene.

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Before I say this I want to mention I'm not saying "F THE NEW PLAYER"

But in reality... locking players to have to wait on the new person is going to dramatically hurt the queue. People want to go in, get their stuff, and get out. They don't want to be in there for over double the normal time. It's why it has it's own queue in the first place, with a very meaty poetics bonus on the stick.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

That being said, from what I understand, this has been the thing for a while....

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Just for curiosity's sake I decided to check a few dates to see how long this has been going on. On 12/14/2013 I got the achievement for Mapping the Praetorium. Early access started on 8/24/2013.

I was being rushed...As a SCH...Back when the dungeon was still actually somewhat hard.

Less than 4 months after the game went live.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

But in reality... locking players to have to wait on the new person is going to dramatically hurt the queue.

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On the other hand, not-locking players is dramatically hurting first-time players' experience of an ending that, when played as intended, is amazing - but frustrating and underwhelming if they are forced to choose between skipping cutscenes or being abandoned by the rest of the group and missing out on any actual game content.

I'm also not sure - the other day when I was in the Praetorium, we were seriously close to beating Lahabrea while the new player was still watching the pre-battle cutscene. I asked everyone to stop and stall for time, and they did, but if we hadn't.... if we beat him and trigger the post-battle cutscene, does the new player see the ending play immediately after the other cutscene ends, or do they miss the trigger and not see the scene at all?

I'm asking this because my first run of Praetorium - despite my specific effort of getting FC friends to do it unsynched with me and wait for the cutscenes - turned out to be a horrendous mess of server disconnections and missed scenes. I'd watch half a scene, get kicked out, log back in, participate in half a battle, get kicked out... and the ultimate effect of all this was, when I went to the inn afterwards to "watch all the cutscenes I'd missed" they actually weren't all there. If I hadn't been present for a cutscene trigger, it wasn't unlocked in the book. I missed out on the scene before battling Lahabrea and the epic finale afterwards, and I didn't even know they existed until the next time I got into the dungeon.

In summary: missed cutscene triggers = missed cutscenes in the book, and I don't know what happens if you're in one cutscene when another starts. It may be locking first-time players out of seeing important parts of the story.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

It's why it has it's own queue in the first place, with a very meaty poetics bonus on the stick.

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I thought that's (theoretically) meant to be compensation for the time you're spending helping people through their story experience...

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Originally Posted by Iscah

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I'm not denying it's terrible. I've done enough though, with multiple characters to make me look like the newbie too, to know people stopping for the whole dungeon isn't going to usually happen. For one boss? Sure, but at every cutscene? I got yelled at for asking for 2 cutscenes.

The best I can offer right now is Party Finder, but it's not the first thing that pops up in someone's head when they hit that point. My concern is making it too much of a hassle for the not-new person and making them just not queue at all, which could result in really long queue times. Just doing the story on an alt with my GF we had a 12 minute queue with a TANK of all things. I almost never see tanks wait that long for anything else.

Personally, I think many helpful minded players avoid that queue, and that is why the wait is so long even with the bonus. I too had a ~10 min wait with a whm. I probably would have hit that queue several times by now if it weren't for my bad experience. I mean its not THAT long, listen to a podcast and chill out while the noobs watch the scenes. I would do it, but I know I would be left behind and chewed out as well if I try to wait for newbies, and I don't want to participate in that blood bath. I also dont want to help cruel players get tomes.

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Originally Posted by Dahwoon

Just ran through the Praetorium dungeon to finish up the ARR story and it was rushed the whole way until the last boss. From my experiences with previous dungeons, I've just given up completely on watching cutscenes and now watch them prior/after.

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I'm sorry you also have a horror story about speedrunatorium, and it sounds like your first time was worse than mine. If you're looking for friends on your server being new and all look me up though! :D