Since Stormblood is bringing new players: can we please get a warning on Castrum/Prae

[Finnfinite]

My proposal:

I'm well aware that redesigning Castrum/Praetorium is not possible, and that the devs have learned from their mistakes and will not repeat them. However, these two dungeons are still required for every player. I propose a simple solution.

Before sections of long cutscenes in the game, there is a popup warning stating that multiple cutscenes will play, and please make sure you have enough time to view them. I propose another popup, upon unlocking access to these two dungeons. Something along the lines of "These dungeons are a cinematic experience, best enjoyed with people willing to take the time to enjoy them. We recommend forming a party via Partyfinder for these experiences."

[Finnfinite]

I started the game due to my girlfriend, and she warned me to watch the cutscenes on youtube. I did. I told my group that I was new, but that I would be skipping cutscenes in hopes of keeping up.

I got laughed at.

The group ran so fast that I got locked out of the 2nd boss fight - EVEN SKIPPING CUTSCENES. The load times alone made me fall behind.

My girlfriend said that she would be staying with me, so if they wanted a healer they could afford to wait the literally 3 seconds for me to catch up.

They locked us BOTH out of the final battle and laughed at us for being upset.

I know that "there are always bad apples, you just had rotten luck", but if I hadn't had my girlfriend right there reassuring me that it would never happen again, I would have quit the game. The experience completely soured the victory I should have felt at finally beating ARR.

If it was that bad for me, how would it be for all these new players coming in?

[PotatoTree]

They should just make that dungeon single player. I mean it doesn't even make sense to do it with a party, as you get like 8 ppl riding the mount that only your character should know about.

A lot of new players get those two dungeons and leave extremely dissapointed, mainly because the game builds it up to be the finale. Imagine grinding 50 levels thinking this is the end of the story and you get those two trainwrecks...

[JCharms]

I'm well aware that redesigning Castrum/Praetorium is not possible, and that the devs have learned from their mistakes and will not repeat them.

Personally, I don't accept this.
If I had a dollar for every time a dev said something is too hard or not possible, only for them to turn around and do it anyway when it fits with their narrative, I wouldn't have a bag big enough.
Its possible, don't let them ever try and BS you into thinking its not.
The real reason is, they don't think its worth the time spent doing it.
It's a horrible mess that no new player should have to endure and it's a blight on the game that should be fixed in a reasonable time frame.

[Melondra]

Put a forced cap on that dungeon but give 2000 tombs as a bonus. Lv50 Cap IL50 Cap. Diable Cutscene skipping.

[Antonio_Xul]

.......Or have all players locked in place until cutscenes end.

Another possible solution from being locked out is that only if you haven't been in the fight, you can't get locked out. You're only locked out if you leave the fight after you die and you teleport to the beginning and the fight is still going on.

[Finnfinite]

Snip

As a game dev myself, I accept that it's not worth the time investment. The cutscenes as they are would make no sense chained at the beginning or end, and cutting those cutscenes kills the entire experience. They would need to animate entirely new cutscenes for the dungeon, and I can absolutely accept that focusing on new content takes priority over animating something that only new players will even SEE, and even then only once.

I'm proposing a fix that's literally like... five lines of code, in hopes that they can tack it in before SB hits.

[Belhi]

Personally, I don't accept this.
If I had a dollar for every time a dev said something is too hard or not possible, only for them to turn around and do it anyway when it fits with their narrative, I wouldn't have a bag big enough.
Its possible, don't let them ever try and BS you into thinking its not.
The real reason is, they don't think its worth the time spent doing it.
It's a horrible mess that no new player should have to endure and it's a blight on the game that should be fixed in a reasonable time frame.

Its a damn mess but the question you should ask is what content are you willing to give up for them to spend time reworking those old ones. Are you happy to get no dungeons for a patch while they do the rework?

The reality is that for them to do something about this they need to take people off working on new content and the community isn't particularly patient when it comes to consuming content. Its not like they can magically pull more developers out of thin air.

There's been a number of decent suggestions to fix this over time, the best I heard was similar to Antonio_Xul said a few posts up, lock it so it cant be skipped, but also update the rewards so its still very enticing for end game players to endure the extra time of having to sit through it.
Probably the same amount of code as your suggestion, but also keeping relevant and popping regularly in DF.

This would actually probably be the best fix. The rewards even now aren't particularly enticing.

[JCharms]

I'm proposing a fix that's literally like... five lines of code, in hopes that they can tack it in before SB hits.

Your proposal wont work though, the warnings will achieve nothing and the queue times would at times get astronomical.
I for one would forgo sniffing another Choco's rear end and handing out uniforms to randoms to allow them time to fix it.
There's been a number of decent suggestions to fix this over time, the best I heard was similar to Antonio_Xul said a few posts up, lock it so it cant be skipped, but also update the rewards so its still very enticing for end game players to endure the extra time of having to sit through it.
Probably the same amount of code as your suggestion, but also keeping relevant and popping regularly in DF.

[Saccharin]

Or enforce the cut scenes for all players.