Low effort Praetorium improvement

I think the low effort praetorium improvement is removing the click to register as a magitech armor pilot. This adds nothing to the story, and I've seen way too many sprouts miss this.

Or just remove some cutscene..... at least the magitech part is unique and we actually click or do something.... the problem is the cutscene....... cut 25% of cutscene and add 100% hp on the bosss so they felt like an actual boss

make cutscenes skippable again.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

make cutscenes skippable again.

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if cutscenes are skippable, then you don't get any rewards. that's the trade-off.

I have to wonder if it's something weirdly hard-coded to require the individual authorisations, because it seems like an obvious thing to fix quickly if they could.

I think they could streamline these dungeons. I believe they plan to do that for Endwalker anyway, I think I read something to that effect, but I could be wrong... in that case, it's probably already done.

That being said, I do enjoy Meridianum/Praetorium. They're low effort and a big boost in exp for alt chars after the reset. I can see how they're not for everyone, but they're optional, so no harm done. If they did change them in EW, it'll be one less activity I do routinely every night :/

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

make cutscenes skippable again.

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The reason they made them unskippable was to not screw over new players progressing the story for the first time. The high rewards are there to serve as incentive for people who've already done them to queue up so sprouts can complete them, but are secondary to the main purpose of the roulette.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

make cutscenes skippable again.

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The unskippable cutscenes are there so people can experience the story properly.

And the Tomestones and experience are there as compensation for the extra time it takes to go through the dungeons because of the cutscenes.


So either you get nobody doing it because of a lack of rewards, or you get the cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by Ravor

add 100% hp on the bosss so they felt like an actual boss

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To make the bosses take longer it could just item level sync. There was a hint of that happening to Cape Westwind or it may be some other change like a quest battle.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

To make the bosses take longer it could just item level sync. There was a hint of that happening to Cape Westwind or it may be some other change like a quest battle.

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I think the cape westwind battle was accessible at lv 49 so it resulted in lv 50 players melting the boss in about 25 seconds when max ilvl climbed up a bit. Prae was tuned originally for something like ilvl 60 or 70 I think. I can't remember that far back as to what was "endgame" at that time but I'm thinking it was something like Darklight.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

I think the cape westwind battle was accessible at lv 49 so it resulted in lv 50 players melting the boss in about 25 seconds when max ilvl climbed up a bit. Prae was tuned originally for something like ilvl 60 or 70 I think. I can't remember that far back as to what was "endgame" at that time but I'm thinking it was something like Darklight.

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Ilvl 45 actually.

That's what it's tuned for.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

I think the cape westwind battle was accessible at lv 49 so it resulted in lv 50 players melting the boss in about 25 seconds when max ilvl climbed up a bit. Prae was tuned originally for something like ilvl 60 or 70 I think. I can't remember that far back as to what was "endgame" at that time but I'm thinking it was something like Darklight.

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Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium were meant to do basically as soon as you hit 50, so you were equipped with the level 45 armor, and level 50 chest from Job quests. Weapon, belt and other accessories being whatever you had...

(Un)realistically, the best you could have really done... Get the Job Quest gear, grind out Grand Company as you level for an ilvl 55 weapon, grinded out Aurum Vale for Aetherical ilvl 49 accessories... You'd be looking at an ilvl of around 49 or 50... And it was kind of meant to be easy with lower than that.

No cutscene = reward cut. The time you stay with unskipable cutscene in one Castrum/Prae dungeon = the time you do 3 dungeons for similar rewards, but with more attention-demanding. In fact, if you are lucky to get Castrum, you only spend the time of clearing 2 dungeons for the reward of 3 dungeons, tome-wise.



It is like a long shopping trip that you get a lot of things for the time you spend, exp, tome, and moogle tome.


Another way is nuking the MSQ roulette and add the two dungeons with skipable cutscene to leveling roulette. New players will have people to run with, and the reward is just your standard leveling bonus. But do you really want less daily options and less rewards this way?

I don't even know why they keep this roulette.
If the goal is story, good job it worked, I forgot everything else in 2.0 but these dungeons are drilled into my brain.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

I don't even know why they keep this roulette.

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So that there is a supply of people to help new players clear them.

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Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

Another way is nuking the MSQ roulette and add the two dungeons with skipable cutscene to leveling roulette. New players will have people to run with, and the reward is just your standard leveling bonus. But do you really want less daily options and less rewards this way?

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The problem with making it a dungeon is the lore implies that you have something resembling an army, or part of one, to raid it with. 4 people does not feel like quite the raid 8 people do. They would have to fill the rest with trusts to fit with the lore better and if they are doing that it may as well be a solo battle, which they haven't found time to do yet.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

I don't even know why they keep this roulette.

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I'd miss its exp reward if its not there

They should make it where you can skip the cutscenes if no new players are detected in the party. That seems like it would be a fair compromise.

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Originally Posted by OMG

They should make it where you can skip the cutscenes if no new players are detected in the party. That seems like it would be a fair compromise.

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Also, halve the rewards and it would most definitely be fair.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

make cutscenes skippable again.

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This a horrible idea. I get it once you've done it alot you wish you could skip but people that do it alot will ruin it for people that have not.
Because then everyone will skip the cutscenes and leave the new player behind and lost and no people are usually not considerate enough to wait. My expierence with dungeons that let you skip and go have pulled me out of a cutscene that was story related and started a boss fight and yelling/wipe because again I wanted to see the scene I have never ever seen before that was part of the story.

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Originally Posted by Ashliet

This a horrible idea. I get it once you've done it alot you wish you could skip but people that do it alot will ruin it for people that have not.
Because then everyone will skip the cutscenes and leave the new player behind and lost and no people are usually not considerate enough to wait. My expierence with dungeons that let you skip and go have pulled me out of a cutscene that was story related and started a boss fight and yelling/wipe because again I wanted to see the scene I have never ever seen before that was part of the story.

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Unskippable is the best thing dev done to this two dungeons

When I first ran those two, I was told to skip it and rewatch it in the inn. Was lucky (sort of) the best gear that time was dark light and it got weekly tome cap. So I still could enjoy the epic fight despite not knowing the what the story.

Then one day we all out gear it by a mile and each boss melt in less than a minute. Many new players either never able to anticipate in the fight or lose inside the maze.

It should not be skippable and if like some people suggest make it skippable if there is no first timer, any bonus reward like exp/gil/tomestone should be remove, otherwise we will start seeing “MSQ roulette no first timer” showing up in PF

Start a blind survey in the beginning. When everyone says skip, cutscenes will be skipped and reward lowered. If at least one guys says no skip, we have the current approach. Everyone needs to wait. But high reward like always. But nobody should see, who voted which.

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Originally Posted by Varilyon

Start a blind survey in the beginning. When everyone says skip, cutscenes will be skipped and reward lowered. If at least one guys says no skip, we have the current approach. Everyone needs to wait. But high reward like always. But nobody should see, who voted which.

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but what would be the point then
only do prae/castrum for the big rewards so you'll just get people who want the huge rewards and never skip
so youll just annoy the one person who clicked skipped a

Just delete the roulette already and turn them into solo MSQ duty.

Don’t forget to add “Very Easy” mode, too.

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Originally Posted by Varilyon

Start a blind survey in the beginning. When everyone says skip, cutscenes will be skipped and reward lowered. If at least one guys says no skip, we have the current approach. Everyone needs to wait. But high reward like always. But nobody should see, who voted which.

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The problem with this, and with all the people saying things like "if no sprouts you can skip", is that it fails to manage expectations.
When you queue up for main story quest roulette (or praetorium specifically) you know exactly what to expect. The cutscenes cannot be skipped, so allocate the time necessary to complete the dungeon. Otherwise you end up with people having a 50/50 chance of speed running it, and they're bitter whiners if they can't run it the way they prefer.

As far as my original post, people are calling for big major changes to how the dungeon works and what not. The original post I made was specifically about skipping the step to authenticate yourself for magitech armor because that's something that trips up a lot of new players, and adds nothing to the experience other than (sometimes) frustration.

Taliesin (a YouTuber/streamer) had some pretty good suggestions in this video: https://youtu.be/mKJ3q8qae3g

For those who understandably don't want to watch a 35 minute video, the summary is:

1. Buff boss health to improve the combat/cut scene ratio
2. Move most of the dialog out of cut scenes and into dialog bubbles that pop up in the middle of the trash clears so that we're not standing around for several minutes listening to a monologue

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

Taliesin (a YouTuber/streamer) had some pretty good suggestions in this video: https://youtu.be/mKJ3q8qae3g

For those who understandably don't want to watch a 35 minute video, the summary is:

1. Buff boss health to improve the combat/cut scene ratio
2. Move most of the dialog out of cut scenes and into dialog bubbles that pop up in the middle of the trash clears so that we're not standing around for several minutes listening to a monologue

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Number 2 would be great for castrum IMO. Not so much with Prae since they really want that movie cliche of villians giving speeches while talking about their evil plans while the heroes just stand there watching instead of just punching them in the face. Also the prae cutscenes are good for snacks and usage of the litterbox.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Just delete the roulette already and turn them into solo MSQ duty.

Don’t forget to add “Very Easy” mode, too.

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I think they could do a sort of Trust system. Get you 7 other NPCs, some pulled from Grand Companies, other Scions (great place to introduce Arenvald), and still others from various quests.

It's be a butt to program it, but it would allow them to remove the roulette, let people watch the cutscenes on their own time, break the dungeon into smaller chunks, and have new players experience it a bit closer to how it was intended rather than have 7 overgeared level 80s mow everything to the ground.

I can't make quotes appear on silly old phone-posting, but I agree with Ronduwil's mentioned suggestion of making some un-voiced or less relevant conversation shifted to overworld dialogue. Even as a new player while I enjoyed the thrilling run of going through big lore moments in the way they were presented, some things like Cid's dialogues in CM really broke the flow. I like you, Cid... But why make me stand rigid in place while you talk? The situation is urgent,.and you know it too!