why is castrum and praetorium not an instance

[Leknaat]

As others have already stated, try running it undermanned with a couple of friends and ask if you can watch the cutscenes.

^ So much this.

I get that SE was trying to make it a memorable experience. I think they regularly underestimate how willing people are to grind/farm till they puke/are sick of the content and reach the point where they ruin it for everyone else because they're sick of grinding it.

I remember timing it once. Praetorium took like 3x longer with the cutscenes (I know I'm overexaggerating but it was slow lol). I know one time we left the 2 people watching the CS's behind... and we destroyed the dungeon with 6 people and were exiting around the time they'd reached the 2nd boss cutscene they might have made it to the third boss cutscene. It was extremely poor design on SE's part and I am baffled as to why they put so many long CS's into an instance instead of making it a more intimate solo experience. CM was a little CS heavy (I have no idea why you would NEED a cs showing lamps being turned off instead of just leaving it as a message lol)

Funny story, once I was running Praetorium with my FC (so they could enjoy the CSs and see the fights) back in 2.x before the undersize option and other changes... we had a random WAR that didn't want to watch the CS's. He tried to pull early once but since we had the other tank and 2 healers we didn't budge. So he left... 30 mins later after the abandon debuff he ended up queueing back into our group... lol we were at like the 2nd or 3rd to last fight so... he decided to not take another 30 min penalty and finished it with us.

I've also been in parties the other way where they had both tanks and healers but the ilevel bloat had made Praetorium a joke so the dps beat the first Prae boss without any tanks/heals. So yeah undersized party is the way to go.

[bswpayton]

I thank you guys for the comments but I still feel as tho the meaning is being missed here. My thing is this if you have to do I don't how many quest it is 130 plus quest to get to the last three instances and because its old content people want to tell u to go watch it in the inn room something is wrong, you might as well have a skip potion cause nobody even seems to care for those that actually play the game for the story. And se doesnt seem to care literally the 1 to 50 content is what saved this game , without it then we would have no game. It is insane to me that u have to even consider the option of skipping this because u decided to play the game three years after its release. The lore was mention se must not care about this lore because its old these two dungeons have been reduced to nothing more than a farm for tomes. There should never have to be a choice do I get left behind , or do I watch the cut scenes I actually paid to watch cause this game is story based.

[bswpayton]

And also to add I dono how many people have actually used the journal but it is a flawed issue to say the least it is nothing at all like watching the cut scenes in dungeon and it actually doesn't even play everything. So any new player please don't listen to anyone that says watch something in the inn room , because it will cut scenes and wont play others , if you wana see the whole thing you will literally have to watch a youtube video from another players point of view.

[Nezerius]

And also to add I dono how many people have actually used the journal but it is a flawed issue to say the least it is nothing at all like watching the cut scenes in dungeon and it actually doesn't even play everything. So any new player please don't listen to anyone that says watch something in the inn room , because it will cut scenes and wont play others , if you wana see the whole thing you will literally have to watch a youtube video from another players point of view.

I'm assuming you checked the Unending Journal, looked at the Main Scenario Quests tab, saw only one cutscene related Castrum Meridianum and four cutscenes related to the Praetorium (The Ultimate Weapon), then concluded that the system is flawed because it's missing a lot of cutscenes?
Or perhaps you forgot to check the Duty tab, which has the cutscenes from dungeon content (CM/Prae included), showing 12 cutscenes from the Castrum, and 13 from the Praetorium.

As for redesigning these two dungeons into solo ones, I think they'd rather spend resources on new content, rather than going back to fix something that's now a minor issue. Even more so now that you can grab one or two lvl 60 friends to run through it unsynced, and if you don't have those, the party finder is still an option (whether for an unsynced or a synced run).

[Lunafreya]

Yoshi already admitted this cutscene dungeon thing was terrible game design and that's why there aren't any dungeons like this in Heavensward with long cutscenes. Unfortunately, as it is outdated content, people will just want to speed run it for their tomes and gil. My first time in there was nightmarish. I got called a loser and an idiot for watching the cutscenes. I told them I was new and they are arseholes and I even told them to wait but nothing. Eventually, I was just fighting ultima weapon without even understanding what happened. I agree that it is frustrating but trust me... when you are a veteran, you'll agree it was terrible game design and want to speed run it too. I feel bad when I speed run it but honestly it was a huge mistake to put long cutscenes in a dungeon. After my horrible run.... I just ended up doing the dungeons with some of my close friends and they allowed me to watch the cutscenes.

[bswpayton]

I'm assuming

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I clicked on that also still didn't work and I,ve gotten the point that nobody cares. People are clearly missing my point there is 0 reason for this to be a tomes dungeon please give me a reason its like 18 others. Like its not a minor issue viewing the cut scene in a freaking inn room I'm sure has prob never been done in any other game period. That option literally makes the content worthless why did I watch the other cut scenes if I had to skip the last ones. If you would go find a youtube video on said dungeons it happens far to often. So are you saying you dont want new players to enjoy the game , like all content is relevant because I would hope you always have new players joining the game. So the whole this is old content is played out , because its new to someone,no other game does this at least none that I have played to skip those cut scenes is like skipping the whole msq nobody wants an unfinished product.

[bswpayton]

Yoshi already admitted this cutscene dungeon .

I don't even blame the players I get it , but people are acting like it would cost a ton of money to change them into an instance to where you just solo each boss , like every single new player will have to deal with the same stuff. Because any party in duty finder will do the samething , the game is literally full of solo instances and i know each one of them did not cost a million dollars. Its just laziness point blank , they could fix it they just wont and by them not doing so unless u have the perfect friends that wana do it with then ur just out of luck witch makes the whole first part of the story worthless. The journey 1 -50 is meaningless because its all about sixties is what im getting, now that sounds crazy, and if thats the case then with new expansion they will care even less about new players that come to the game.

[Nezerius]

I clicked on that also still didn't work and I,ve gotten the point that nobody cares. People are clearly missing my point there is 0 reason for this to be a tomes dungeon please give me a reason its like 18 others. Like its not a minor issue viewing the cut scene in a freaking inn room I'm sure has prob never been done in any other game period. That option literally makes the content worthless why did I watch the other cut scenes if I had to skip the last ones. If you would go find a youtube video on said dungeons it happens far to often. So are you saying you dont want new players to enjoy the game , like all content is relevant because I would hope you always have new players joining the game. So the whole this is old content is played out , because its new to someone,no other game does this at least none that I have played to skip those cut scenes is like skipping the whole msq nobody wants an unfinished product.

What exactly "didn't work"? I was able to view those cutscenes without issue, perhaps your game files are corrupt/bugged?
You do know you have to click on the arrows in the bottom right of the Unending Journal to select which cutscene you want to watch, right?

I think you're missing the point here, instead of everyone else. Castrum and Praetorium were designed as a full party dungeons (8 players), remove the tomestones and you remove the incentive for players to run it more than once. Remove the incentive, and you'll be able to enjoy sitting in a queue for hours because not enough players are queueing for it.

It is a minor issue because there are ways to do these dungeons while still being able to watch the cutscenes and experience the fights. It's called using the party finder, or asking a friend or two to help out. It'll be even easier when they add the cross-server party finder.
Was it mistake for SE to make these two dungeons cutscene-heavy? Sure, they even agreed to this, and they learned from it. How many complaints have you seen about cutscenes in the Heavensward MSQ dungeons?

I don't even blame the players I get it , but people are acting like it would cost a ton of money to change them into an instance to where you just solo each boss , like every single new player will have to deal with the same stuff. Because any party in duty finder will do the samething , the game is literally full of solo instances and i know each one of them did not cost a million dollars. Its just laziness point blank , they could fix it they just wont and by them not doing so unless u have the perfect friends that wana do it with then ur just out of luck witch makes the whole first part of the story worthless. The journey 1 -50 is meaningless because its all about sixties is what im getting, now that sounds crazy, and if thats the case then with new expansion they will care even less about new players that come to the game.

Those solo instances were designed like that right from the start, while Castrum and Praetorium weren't. They'd have to redesign the boss fights to make it soloable, which might be simple for the earlier ones, but how are you gonna change a boss like Ultima?
If you think the 1-50 MSQ is meaningless just because you ignore the other options to get a good first time run (party finder, unsynced with higher lvl friends), then that's on you.

[bswpayton]

[QUOTE=Nezerius;3921188]What exactly "didn't work"? I was able to view those cutscenes without issue, perhaps your game files are corrupt/bugged?
?
I was saying what other game would even force that option on you , if im playing a game I want to see the ending in the game if its there in real time, also I said make it solo the other stuff leading up to it was solo so why not this. The escape when u break out the group it could of been exactly like that, it was ok in the past when it was fresh to the majority of players well its not anymore so why make new players have to go the extra mile to view something they should be able to see witout any hassle. Serioulsy what other game does that please tell me one. I shouldnt have to go out of my way to ask other people to do the whole meaning of the 1 -50 story line thats crazy talk. If they said it was a mistake then they should of changed it.

[bswpayton]

Ur basicly telling thousands of people to go out of their way to watch cut scenes that should have 0 hassle to watch the ending of their 1 to 50 journey when se admitted it was thier screw up so why is it on the player and not on se. Like I said count the hundreds of comments on youtube of the cutscenes where player after player mentions how they got left behind.