New player dungeon experience is bad

[ChameleonMS]

Yep, it sucks. It was terrible for me too. I missed out on two boss fights just trying to skip the cut scenes because I was on a PS3 back then and it just took nearly 45 seconds for the CS to start before I could tell it to skip. I watched the CS later at the inn.

[Garlyle]

The Praetorium experience, so to speak, is why Square saw to it that there's extremely few story-relevant cutscenes contained during instances anymore. It frustrates returning players that are running content for other reasons to have to wait on players going through long cutscenes; it frustrates new players when the returning players just charge on ahead, etc.

Unfortunately there's no real functional solution to this. If it wasn't incentivized to return to it, you'd pretty much never be able to finish the ARR story, so in a way it's still a "Lesser of two evils" solution.

The good news is that with Heavensward, you can do Castrum/Praetorium with undersized parties instead of needing to fill via Duty Finder. I'm pretty sure I could probably solo Praetorium as a level 60 healer; you could probably find friends in an FC or LS (if you've joined any) that could do so with you.

[ShaneDawn]

Yep, it happened to me too on my first run of it. I was pretty pissed back then, but I can understand people joining the MSQ roulette not wanting to spend an hour watching cut-scenes when the whole instance can be ran in 15mins.

There's nothing as bad cut-scene-wise as the Praetorium, but you may want to skip cut-scenes and watch them at the inn if you don't want people rushing easy content without you.

[Dinadan]

Well it's likely that you wouldn't have been able to play the Praetorium how it was intended even if you kept up with the group. Groups nowadays skip most of the trash by running past the mobs and interacting with the console that will take you to the next section of the dungeon. For any non-skippable trash, they just get aoe'd down to oblivion from being overgeared. The bosses also quickly melt from being overgeared.

[Shurrikhan]

Mandatory ilvl sync would be nice, perhaps atop a slight increase to the bonus. The geared players should still *hopefully* have the advantage of better knowing their jobs. I'll admit that anything else, whether waiting, mowing down the fights, or being left out of the fights during cutscenes, feels depressing and/or anticlimactic at best.

[OPneedNerfs]

Mandatory ilvl sync would be nice, perhaps atop a slight increase to the bonus. The geared players should still *hopefully* have the advantage of better knowing their jobs. I'll admit that anything else, whether waiting, mowing down the fights, or being left out of the fights during cutscenes, feels depressing and/or anticlimactic at best.

I don't think most players would rather wait for hours in queue thanks to nobody running msq roulettes due to ilvl sync than to progress and still have the option to view cutscenes later.

[Jonnycbad]

Yeah, nobody is going to sit around and wait 40 minutes for you to watch your Praetorium cutscenes. No exaggeration, it's really about 40 minutes. I was kicked for watching my cutscenes because I suppose there's a part where nobody can advance until everyone is there, i said i didnt want to rush, so i was kicked lol.

[Mishini_Dracoto]

There are ways square could improve the experience for new players without a lot of work.

Things Square-Enix has done to improve this issue :

• Future content design has been changed. Less cutscenes in dungeons. (Full, realistic/long term solution)
• Made sure you can create a party with Friends / Linkshells / Free Company to complete a Duty. (How I do things in most online games)
• Implemented / improved Party Finder :: you, yourself, can utilize the party finder to find a group who wants to play the dungeon the same way you wan to play.
• Ensured that even if you can't find people to run it the way you want to, at least there will be people, in the duty finder, so that you are not blocked from continuing the main scenario quests simply due to not being able to find a group of 8 people.
• In the event you are unable to watch the cutscenes during the instance, you are able to rewatch the cut scenes from your room at an inn, later on. (Need this furnishing available in FC/Personal House/Personal room still!!!)

Edit#1: Also, unrelated solutions: [list][*] countered spam on the Forums by implementing post & character limits[*] Real players can bypass the character limit by posting a short note (I use "POST INCOMING") then click edit on the post and paste in the original message. Click save, and the whole post is there. notice, my post is over 1,000 characters.

Edit#2: So, this came off very aggressive and white-knightey. the problem is real. I get it. I have friends who quit the game over this very issue. Honestly though, I realised that while my IRL friends quit over this issue, I can't really say I want to play an MMO with them . . . . since I had offered to find a full preform party to run it, before they even got to that part. They had just been warned about that behavior. We were all in a FC where almost every member would drop what the were doing if new players needed CM & praetorium.

Ultimately, my post was just to make you (the OP) aware that there are solutions. As far as instance design goes, this is now a non-issue. While Square-Enix has little control over the community that chooses to play their game, they can change the design. With regards to the community at large, they have given us the tools we need to ensure we experience content the way it was intended. (Including now giving us the ability to level sync when it's unnecessary, etc)


So, you have bested Praetorium, and defeated the Ultima Weapon. Welcome adventurer,k to the lands of Eorzea. May the twelve guide you, and may you ever walk in the light of the Crystal.

[Dererk]

Wait a minute.

I can swear IV seen this exact post the exact wording the exact complaint posted months ago.