Yeah it's way late to mention this now but, still no rework for this, Square...?

Well, by this I mean... the end of the 1.0 story line for ARR, needs to have their cutscenes or dungeons reworked to enjoy the ending in it's entirety.

Long story short, my girlfriend finally got to the end of the 1.0 ARR story line. We did Castrum and Praetorium tonight, and it's just utterly disgusting how rude and impatient people are in those places, even STILL when it's not even relative to Tomes anymore.

Most people pass on the bulls**** excuse that you can watch the cutscenes in the inn later, but please tell me why do I have to suffer from wanting to enjoy the game in it's full effect for your impatient ass, when you've done it millions of times already?

It defeats the purpose of even doing the dungeon at all.

Sure you can run with FC members, but Duty Finder is there to help those who either are in not in an FC, or might have members that aren't around at the time.

This is partially Square-Enix's fault AND a player community fault.

So my question is, does Square plan to do some work around this to make the cutscenes. Preferably FORCE those to watch them so people can actually PARTICIPATE in the battles?

Yes, force others. My gf didn't even get to enjoy the boss fights in Praetorium tonight because they all rushed ahead!

Duty Roulette versions of the instance should be separate from the Regular duty finder for those specific newcomers.

If people seriously can't wait for new people in those dungeons today, then, yes, you're a jacka**.

No one cares about your speed records or l33t dps in these already easy dungeons now. Just allow new people to freakin' enjoy the content without you having to order them to watch it in the inn, because of your "not on my time." pompous ass attitudes.

You answered your own question. The content is so old and outdated, it's not really worth going back to find a way to "fix" it. The only ways they could resolve the issue would probably wind up doing more harm than good anyway.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

You answered your own question. The content is so old and outdated, it's not really worth going back to find a way to "fix" it. The only ways they could resolve the issue would probably wind up doing more harm than good anyway.

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It's still very relevant content, as it's the intro into the new story lines after, and is very important to the rest of the lore. So a rework is still needed in my opinion.

I would personally support the idea of locking players in cutscenes when playing with first-time members. Don't even give them the option to skip! The only drawback I can see with this is that some less tolerant players would drop as soon as they see that 'new player' message, but at least you'd have one less idiot to contend with.

When I ran an underlevelled Castrum with friends, I was the main tank, so they couldn't exactly rush off. I intentionally watched every single cutscene so that the party couldn't run on ahead and spoil the experience for our newer players.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

I would personally support the idea of locking players in cutscenes when playing with first-time members. Don't even give them the option to skip! The only drawback I can see with this is that some less tolerant players would drop as soon as they see that 'new player' message, but at least you'd have one less idiot to contend with.

When I ran an underlevelled Castrum with friends, I was the main tank, so they couldn't exactly rush off. I intentionally watched every single cutscene so that the party couldn't run on ahead and spoil the experience for our newer players.

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I'm honestly surprised the other tank or a DPS didn't just go and tank it themselves, I've seen that happen plenty in those two dungeons.

If SE changes it so everyone is forced to wait for people to finish the cutscenes, there are two problems. First, a troll can just stay in the cutscene. Second, the queues become increasingly longer because less people are willing to do it. The entire point of the MSQ roulette is to give an incentive for players to do it again, the reward would need a great increase if cutscene waiting was to be forced and may people still wouldn't do it anymore.

SE's solution was to not do the same mistake again in the future and fill a dungeon with long cutscenes after every objective.




Either way, it's been over two years, this same thread has been posted here multiple times. http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/up...dead-horse.gif

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Originally Posted by Sove92

If SE changes it so everyone is forced to wait for people to finish the cutscenes, there are two problems. First, a troll can just stay in the cutscene. Second, the queues become increasingly longer because less people are willing to do it. The entire point of the MSQ roulette is to give an incentive for players to do it again, the reward would need a great increase if cutscene waiting was to be forced and may people still wouldn't do it anymore.

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Hence why I said, make the MSQ Roulette and the Normal Duty Finder version of the dungeon have different principals...

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Originally Posted by 8710SqualI

It's still very relevant content, as it's the intro into the new story lines after, and is very important to the rest of the lore. So a rework is still needed in my opinion.

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You're welcome to keep asking for it, but change is unlikely to come. You're asking for a difficult change for a subset of a subset of players. As you already mentioned, there's the option of going with your FC. SE also gave us the Party Finder feature which even has an option to specify that you want to take your time and watch cutscenes specifically for situations like this. Given those two options, it's unlikely that SE would bother to revamp something so old that would only impact a small number of players. So far as they're concerned, the available tools are enough and the issue has been settled.

But let's say that did decide to change it. Using your suggestion to force people to go at a slow pace would only have the effect of shooting new players in the foot by skyrocketing the queue times. There aren't enough new players to always fill the queue and veterans only queue in the first place because the dungeons are so quick and easy. Take that away and you're going to have a problem even getting into the dungeon. You would have a very similar effect if you made two different versions where most players wouldn't bother even queuing for the slower option, again resulting in crazy queue times. You're also making the false assumption that all new players coming through would care enough about the cutscenes to bother watching them.

Unless you like infinitely long queue times you're going to have to put up with dickbags sometimes winding up in your groups; that's true no matter what content you're queuing for and there's ultimately nothing SE can do about it.

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Originally Posted by 8710SqualI

Hence why I said, make the MSQ Roulette and the Normal Duty Finder version of the dungeon have different principals...

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That roulette is there to help newcomers find the players to do those dungeons in the first place.

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Originally Posted by 8710SqualI

If people seriously can't wait for new people in those dungeons today, then, yes, you're a jacka**.

No one cares about your speed records or l33t dps in these already easy dungeons now. Just allow new people to freakin' enjoy the content without you having to order them to watch it in the inn, because of your "not on my time." pompous ass attitudes.

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The problem is that if they're run at their normal pace with cutscenes intact, those dungeons take 45 minutes to an hour each. When even the more challenging dungeons can be completed in 20-30 minutes, asking people to wait so you can watch something (that you can just watch again later in the inn) is rather absurd. Most people who are there are in it to get experience and Poetics in the most efficient way possible, which unfortunately clashes with new people who might wish to enjoy the cutscenes and the story (because admittedly, they are incredibly epic).

I agree, though, that SE really should do something to fix it, and in a sense they have; no content since then has had cutscenes in the instance like that. But to repair the instances themselves would require a somewhat massive change - and that's something that I don't know if they can do. Just about everyone agrees that it's no fun to be told at the beginning of a long instance: "For your own sanity and to keep up, be sure to skip all the cutscenes." But the problem is that no one can figure out what they should do about it.

My advice that I always give to people who are about to do those instances is to watch the cutscenes beforehand on YouTube, or afterwards in the Inn. It's not as immersive, but it will help your run go much more smoothly.

Oh, and PS: You can bypass the character limit by editing your post.

This is why I end up doing undersized party runs for FC mates or friends that need the story. Actually, my group of friends and static members loves doing stuff like that so we frequently end up with 10+ people that want to go and only room for 8. The fact that this design decision (cutscenes interspersed through content instead of at the beginning and/or end) hasn't been repeated is very telling. While I seriously doubt that SE is going to go back and fix them, they've obviously learned from the error and won't be repeating it.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

This is why I end up doing undersized party runs for FC mates or friends that need the story. Actually, my group of friends and static members loves doing stuff like that so we frequently end up with 10+ people that want to go and only room for 8. The fact that this design decision (cutscenes interspersed through content instead of at the beginning and/or end) hasn't been repeated is very telling. While I seriously doubt that SE is going to go back and fix them, they've obviously learned from the error and won't be repeating it.

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I strongly suspect this is why the final boss of HW (You know who I mean), is in a trial separate from the final dungeon of the story.... though I'm still not sure why the dungeon leading up to him isn't in any roulette.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

The problem is that if they're run at their normal pace with cutscenes intact, those dungeons take 45 minutes to an hour each. When even the more challenging dungeons can be completed in 20-30 minutes, asking people to wait so you can watch something (that you can just watch again later in the inn) is rather absurd.

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Absurd? Hardly.
Furthermore so what if they take 45min-1hr to do? Those dungeons are under a very specific category so if you queue up for the Main Scenario anything the expectation should be that you will run into newbies who want to experience the storyline and the cutscenes- NOT the opposite.
Nobody put a gun to their heads and told them to queue up for those fights. There are MUCH faster ways of getting Poetics than going into those fights, there have been for a while now.

OP, I will not tell you to resort to YouTube or the Inn to watch your cs. I recommend that you go in as an undersized party. You don't even need a full 7 people, you can get away with 2-3 people easily. It may even make the dungeon a lot more fun for you. In fact, when my sister's alt got to CM and Prae we duoed it. Granted, I was stupidly over geared- and to be honest with you it was a lot of fun.
On the bright side, you won't have this problem after CM and Prae.

Again OP, I'm sorry you had such a frustrating experience.
The people who rushed ahead were jerks and they really had no business queuing for Main Scenario roulette if they weren't going to accommodate players who want to experience the story.
However, don't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch. The main storyline gets pretty epic and it sounds like you guys were enjoying yourselves up till other people decided to be unkind.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

I'm honestly surprised the other tank or a DPS didn't just go and tank it themselves, I've seen that happen plenty in those two dungeons.

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Underlevelled party. I was the only tank, and the only level 60, so I was sort of the lynchpin.

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Originally Posted by Sove92

a troll can just stay in the cutscene.

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Cutscenes don't last forever, and it doesn't need to be something that kicks in every time you run the dungeon. It only needs to be for first time players (When that little message pops up telling you about bonus tomes for the newbies).

after farming for darklight on multiple classes. then more so for other tomes and exp or whatever reasons people may of ended up in castrum/ praetorium, there are likely many people who have run these well over a couple hundred times. now imagine being forced to wait for cutscenes, or for a person enjoying their cutscenes to catch up to experience the fights each and every time someone is new. people would have even less patience than they do now, if anyone even bothers running it at all, in which first timers can enjoy their hours in queue

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Originally Posted by Anapingofness

Absurd? Hardly.
Furthermore so what if they take 45min-1hr to do? Those dungeons are under a very specific category so if you queue up for the Main Scenario anything the expectation should be that you will run into newbies who want to experience the story line and the cutscenes- NOT the opposite.
Nobody put a gun to their heads and told them to queue up for those fights. There are MUCH faster ways of getting Poetics than going into those fights, there have been for a while now.

OP, I will not tell you to resort to YouTube or the Inn to watch your cs. I recommend that you go in as an undersized party. You don't even need a full 7 people, you can get away with 2-3 people easily. It may even make the dungeon a lot more fun for you. In fact, when my sister's alt got to CM and Prae we duoed it. Granted, I was stupidly over geared- and to be honest with you it was a lot of fun.
On the bright side, you won't have this problem after CM and Prae.

Again OP, I'm sorry you had such a frustrating experience.
The people who rushed ahead were jerks and they really had no business queuing for Main Scenario roulette if they weren't going to accommodate players who want to experience the story.
However, don't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch. The main storyline gets pretty epic and it sounds like you guys were enjoying yourselves up till other people decided to be unkind.

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Thanks! Yeah. She's enjoying it alot. I'm level 57 myself, and I'm on the HW stories at the moment, and wanted to revisit the older stuff with her, since she ain't there yet...

Nice to know there's people supporting of it though! ^^

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Originally Posted by 8710SqualI

Thanks! Yeah. She's enjoying it alot. I'm level 57 myself, and I'm on the HW stories at the moment, and wanted to revisit the older stuff with her, since she ain't there yet...

Nice to know there's people supporting of it though! ^^

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You guys will be fine to go in undersized then all the way up to 3.0 stuff. Granted, you may not be able to duo all of the fights but at least for most of them she'll have a lot of fun doing.
I suggest that you get some friends together for Chrysalis and Steps and go in as half a group or some such. I don't know why people still get squirrely about those fights- especially Steps, it's not that difficult at all but they're learning lol...
-feeds cookies-

They really should revamp Main Scenario Roulette to make it so if there's a new person you can't move through the dungeon or begin fights until they're caught up on cutscenes. In return, getting a new person would give you (once a day or so) a grab bag that has cool items in it. Shove some of the cash shop stuff in there as a rare reward and you'll get people queueing up Main Scenario Roulette every day for a chance at their Minfillia boob costume or whatever.

Cash shop rewards, rare dyes, materia, tomestone tickets (item that you use to gain tomestones so you can take it easy for a week or something), maybe outdated glamour items like allagan gear. Something other than just "uhhh exp and tomestones."

I understand the issue - and SE has been addressing it with HW instances/dungeons...

But this is just rude. Most of the time 6/8 people have run the dungeon before. They want tomes. They don't owe anyone anything - in fact they are giving people shorter queue times. They should be thankful people are populating the story dungeons.

Take away MSQ roulette, no one will do it, queue times will spike, people will complain no one does it. Put it in? People complain people are doing it fast. They can't win. They obviously can't change it at this point. So 'Watch it at the inn' is the most reasonable thing to do.

Why is your time more important then anyone elses? Because they've done it before? No. Regardless of how many times a person has run it their time holds the same amount of value as yours.

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Originally Posted by 8710SqualI

Long story short, my girlfriend finally got to the end of the 1.0 ARR story line. We did Castrum and Praetorium tonight, and it's just utterly disgusting how rude and impatient people are in those places, even STILL when it's not even relative to Tomes anymore.

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End of 1.0 storyline was the fight against Nael van Darnus and the pilgrimage quest.

Praetorium is part of 2.0

I agree with you OP, something does need to be done.
I've done CM and Prae recently and so have a few members of my FC (sadly there weren't enough of us to do an FC run). Not one person found the experience enjoyable.
The choice seems to be watching cutscenes at the inn, which is really disjointed or watch them but expect the group to run ahead without you and, if you are really unlucky, expect somebody to throw a tantrum about it, too.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

They really should revamp Main Scenario Roulette to make it so if there's a new person you can't move through the dungeon or begin fights until they're caught up on cutscenes. In return, getting a new person would give you (once a day or so) a grab bag that has cool items in it.

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If they implemented something like this, I honestly think the problem would be solved.
Leaving things as they are just facilitates impatient people who want their speed-run. While experiencing those instances in the rushed manner that most new players have to at present, is unpleasant and probably losing them a few subscriptions, too.

Being required to wait for a new person's cutscenes and forcing the 20 minute dungeon into a 40+ minute dungeon would stop people from running MSQ roulette at all. The daily bonus is just not worth the EXP when you can get that much running a dungeon normally in half the time.

Then you'll have wait times loner than the ones that already exist for the level 60 HW dungeon, because that's not in any roulette. At least ARF is still somewhat relevant given the expansion is new-ish and only requires 4 people instead of 8.

I'd rather have a longer queue for a good experience than a guaranteed short queue for something I don't enjoy at all.
As Brannigan said above, make the cutscenes mandatory and throw in a really good reward for more experienced players so they feel it is worth their time.

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Originally Posted by Pence

snip.

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No. Let's be clear. It's no one ELSE that owes impatient morons anything, not the other way around. These people who refuse to help newbies and purposefully choose an inefficient tome farming method, I feel no sympathy for. The question is also wrong. Why the hell is THEIR time so important? Because "muh tomes D:"? No one cares. If the prospect of dealing with newbies in a dungeon that most people will only run once (especially nowadays), then you need to reexamine your priorities. So no. It's the new players that don't owe YOU anything.

Unless they give at least 100 esoterics no one will be willing to join that roulette if you enforce watching cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by RyuRoots

No. Let's be clear. It's no one ELSE that owes impatient morons anything, not the other way around. These people who refuse to help newbies and purposefully choose an inefficient tome farming method, I feel no sympathy for. The question is also wrong. Why the hell is THEIR time so important? Because "muh tomes D:"? No one cares. If the prospect of dealing with newbies in a dungeon that most people will only run once (especially nowadays), then you need to reexamine your priorities. So no. It's the new players that don't owe YOU anything.

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Because there's more of them than you.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I'd rather have a longer queue for a good experience than a guaranteed short queue for something I don't enjoy at all.
As Brannigan said above, make the cutscenes mandatory and throw in a really good reward for more experienced players so they feel it is worth their time.

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I don't know about that, as of now the last time I queued for whatever the level 60 dungeon was called I sat in queue for 1 hour and 10ish minutes, now, force people to watch 20 minutes of cutscenes in a dungeon would stop being people from queuing for it altogether. You'd have close to literally no chance of getting into that content, at best your queue times would range from 2-3 hours, and at most significantly longer. I know I'm unable to be at my computer consistently for that long, and even if I were able to there are things like bathroom breaks, grabbing a snack, etc. that could end up with you missing the pop. As someone who had to skip the cutscenes, I don't find it impacted very much, just an incredibly, incredibly tiny bit.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

As someone who had to skip the cutscenes, I don't find it impacted very much, just an incredibly, incredibly tiny bit.

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It's not just the cutscene it's the huge rush and general impatience of the community. I skipped cutscenes and still got locked out of one fight because I wasn't quite quick enough.
Personally, I'd take an hour queue over that.

I still think mandatory cutscenes couple with a good incentive for more experienced players to run those instances might work.

Can't you just do the dungeons unsynced? I'd wager a lvl 60 WAR can solo them these days, so you don't really have to rally a huge crowd.

Alternately, you can start a PF group:"Castrum + Praetorium with cutscenes, please help!"

I mean, especially the latter takes a whole lot longer than just queuing for it in the DF, but people have said themselves they wouldn't mind that, so...yeah?
Realistically, enforcing cutscenes is pretty much going to kill off the dungeons and you'll have to resort to these options anyway. Only difference is people who don't mind watching them later will have to do it as well.

I started playing about a month before 2.3 and people didn't wait then either. The dungeons themselves are 20-40 minutes, the cut scene total can be 15-20 minutes long if you read slow. Expecting people in the DF to nearly double the length of the dungeon for one person is not going to happen. Especially when people do the roulette everyday for 200k EXP to level classes.

As the experienced player in this situation, OP, you have done this content. I'm sure you must have at least done the Main Scenario Roulette at least once and you should have seen this coming from a mile away. If you and your girlfriend wanted to do a full story run of CM/Prae, you should have known that hosting a party in the Party Finder (or undersizing with a smaller party), would have been a much more successful idea than expecting 6 strangers to be compassionate and patient on a whim.

I usually let people watch the cutscenes but still go ahead and go through the duty. Main Scenario roulette is a roulette I do every day for the exp, not for the tomes. Letting people watch the cutscenes and waiting for them every time people do MSR actually takes a very long time.

I understand people want to experience the content fully but without roulette, nobody would even queue for those dungeons, and sorry, but it's unrealistic to think everyone is going to wait every time someone is new. As I said, I have no problem with people watching cutscenes, but I'm still going to run the dungeon while they do so. It not just the new players time that we have to respect but the other people in the dungeon.

I don't really see a problem with that. The first time I ran Castrum and fought Ultima, I watched all of the cutscenes.

Yes, I stood there in the entrance the entire run, given the sheer amount of CS, and not only nobody even cared, but they were nice enough to give me 7 commends when the duty was over and I even saw some jokes about it in the chat later. After that I just exit it and got in again so I could actually do the instance.

At least from experience, if you wanna watch the cs, just do it. Hardly anyone will complain in such place. But dont expect other 7 people to wait for you, they all have their individual priorities.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

They really should revamp Main Scenario Roulette to make it so if there's a new person you can't move through the dungeon or begin fights until they're caught up on cutscenes. In return, getting a new person would give you (once a day or so) a grab bag that has cool items in it. Shove some of the cash shop stuff in there as a rare reward and you'll get people queueing up Main Scenario Roulette every day for a chance at their Minfillia boob costume or whatever.

Cash shop rewards, rare dyes, materia, tomestone tickets (item that you use to gain tomestones so you can take it easy for a week or something), maybe outdated glamour items like allagan gear. Something other than just "uhhh exp and tomestones."

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Rare dyes would be enough for me to put up with that. Indeed, it'd be perfect for me. Then I can use rare dyes on my Thavnairian Bustier set and not worry about the dyes running out as much or having to use my Gold Chocobo Feathers.

August 2013: When CM and Prae got released, we still skipped cutscenes. Why? The content was tuned so that our ilvls 45-50 would actually run out of time if we'd watch them. No, seriously.

Asking seven strangers to wait for one? It's just not going to happen. Expecting otherwise simply is unrealistic.

As others said, there are alternate methods: The Party Finder, or an Undersized Party. Indeed, I'm pretty sure a level 60 tank with ilvl170+ can actually solo CM and Prae.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I agree with you OP, something does need to be done.
I've done CM and Prae recently and so have a few members of my FC (sadly there weren't enough of us to do an FC run). Not one person found the experience enjoyable.
The choice seems to be watching cutscenes at the inn, which is really disjointed or watch them but expect the group to run ahead without you and, if you are really unlucky, expect somebody to throw a tantrum about it, too.

If they implemented something like this, I honestly think the problem would be solved.
Leaving things as they are just facilitates impatient people who want their speed-run. While experiencing those instances in the rushed manner that most new players have to at present, is unpleasant and probably losing them a few subscriptions, too.

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Just make an undersized party. You don't need 8 level 60's to wreck either of these dungeons.

These dungeons probably won't change because they've been outdated for over a year now.

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Originally Posted by RyuRoots

No. Let's be clear. It's no one ELSE that owes impatient morons anything, not the other way around. These people who refuse to help newbies and purposefully choose an inefficient tome farming method, I feel no sympathy for. The question is also wrong. Why the hell is THEIR time so important? Because "muh tomes D:"? No one cares. If the prospect of dealing with newbies in a dungeon that most people will only run once (especially nowadays), then you need to reexamine your priorities. So no. It's the new players that don't owe YOU anything.

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Who the hell even farms tomes in Praetorium and Castrum anymore? Poetics are so last level cap.

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

Unless they give at least 100 esoterics no one will be willing to join that roulette if you enforce watching cutscenes.

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Pretty much this. I don't mind if people watch the cutscenes, but odds are the party is going to go on without them. If there's a general agreement to wait for them, that's cool, but enforcing it is just going to make the queue for those roulettes ridiculously long since less people will do it. 40-50 minutes for 200k exp and a pile of nigh-worthless poetics tomes isn't really much of a deal.

If they force people to watch them, only people who need the dungeon will queue. So you can have it as is, or you can wait 24 hours for your queue to pop.

How are they actually supposed to rework those dungeons with the way they are set up? Without redoing the whole thing from scratch? tbh, the last thing anyone wants is to give up two new instances, so the few new people can enjoy their cutscene the one time.

Honestly, the only reason you got into the dungeon in an amount of time that didn't make you quit the game was because of those speed runners doing their daily for the millionth time. And that is the only reason why the daily is there, forcing them to watch the cutscenes everytime, for your one time enjoyment, means the daily is no longer worth it. Its barely worth it as is.

Also, these dungeons were made for people at around ilvl 50, given that you can have ilvl 115 the moment you reach level 50 now, means that undersizing with four people is an entirely feasible and reasonable option.

Alright then OP. Sure, we can enforce watching cutscenes in those dungeons or split them into their own queue. I hope you enjoy your 10-hour queue time because absolutely nobody will waste their time with it as the only reason anyone does it NOW is because it gives decent XP if you run through it quickly. Force people to watch cutscenes and it won't take people long to figure out that their time is better spent grinding FATEs for 30 minutes instead of waiting for other people to watch cutscenes.

Nobody rushes through those dungeons because they care about "speed records or l33t dps", they just want to get the dungeon over with because they have probably run it 50+ times by now. You should be happy you even get people to run it with you.

They should turn those into solo experiences, I feel. Or let you load in with friends, and it fills in the holes with random npc's.