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

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Just because you wouldn't, doesn't mean there's not plenty out there that would... Never underestimate the power of shineys!
A more apt question is, are you doing the MSQ roulette daily now? and if so, why? and if not, why not?

Not doing any of the roulettes I cap them via a slower method albeit fun pvp,dun scaith, ex primals etc. Although I may pop in to them if a friend/FC member needs help. Only thing you will find happen is a lot of players will go afk and not return after the first CS. People are not afraid of actually doing the dungeon over and over again it's the cutscenes thats the issue. For some people that could be 2 runs of Aetherchemical - 300 lore (pre made/good parties).

[Spiroglyph]

I do think something should be done in regards to these two dungeons... I mean, with all the effort SE's putting into facilitating things for new players, somehow fixing this shouldn't be much of an issue (I personally quite like the idea someone else posted before of making this a single player instance - or at least make it so it's possible to clear solo, and leave roulette as is if you want)... with SB we're getting jump potions to help players who are not all that interested in story and that's OK, but giving some thought to players that DO want to experience story should be done too :/

I'm leveling an alt right now, and a couple of days ago I did castrum and praetorium (skipping cutscenes because I'd seen them before, this not being my first character), and even skipping cutscenes was sorta hard to keep up... it wasnt quite bad enough that I got locked out of bosses, but annoying enough that I would lag behind and had to resort to sprint whenever it was available - also shout out to my teammates who were kind enough to not run TOO far ahead (wish all pople running these two dungeons were half as considerate as you guys were), and it wasn't very nice... there's a cutscene you need to try to escape out of literally every coupld of minutes, and they're so on top of each other that even if a new player wants to watch the cutscenes and the team is okay with going on ahead leaving a player behind, it will still be a crap experience for the new player... the CSs are so on top of each other that if a new player is watching one and the team goes onto next boss while the player is watching a previous CS, he'll miss out on one :/ yeah okay, they can watch those things at the inn or choose to stay behind and watch, but they'll still be robbed of the expericne they could've had to the fullest.

[Culfinrandir]

Easy (?) fix would be to make it solo but include 7 other NPCs "Squadron" style. They've already said that is what they intended Squadrons to become so why not make the two dungeons/raids use the programming (they've suggested is) already complete?

People could run as slow or fast as they wanted, with the support of obedient & willing team mates. Make them a one time thing or make them drop zero rewards after first completion so that no new player has to suffer speed running again. Also remove the roulette, of course.

[Serilda]

Not doing any of the roulettes I cap them via a slower method albeit fun pvp,dun scaith, ex primals etc.

Main Scenario roulette's rewards are junk though (poetics and cash, IIRC). Yet people are still turning it into a grindfest which is actually worse than using it as a way to teach newbies to seek parties themselves when DF queues won't fill, since being dragged through a parade of stressful cutscenes is the opposite of fun. Remove the poetic reward entirely in my opinion; if the queues are long the game needs to communicate the alternatives to the new player and encourage them to use Party Finder as the OP suggests. As it is I just camp Party Finder to find the actual new players to help instead of the grinders, because who really needs poetics that badly?

If someone doesn't want to actually help with the main story, they shouldn't be joining the main story roulette. Direct them elsewhere for their desperate speedruns.

[ideamonster]

(...) and even skipping cutscenes was sorta hard to keep up... it wasnt quite bad enough that I got locked out of bosses, but annoying enough that I would lag behind and had to resort to sprint whenever it was available (...)

When I did the Prae a second time the cutscenes skipped automatically (via settings) but I still got left behind, because it's such a rush. I found myself standing alone in the middle of 10 enemies, because there was a teleporter I couldn't see and didn't remember so I just died. Everbody else rushed into it and I was late. Second time was I forgot to grab the magitek key and stood in front of the robot. So even without cutscenes this dungeon is horrible for people who don't know 100% where to go yet.

[ffchampion]

just make it so in every instance boundaries are locked until cutscene has finished for all players. we already have this at the beginning of trials

[Zojha]

If someone doesn't want to actually help with the main story, they shouldn't be joining the main story roulette.

And that's easy to facilitate: Remove the XP and tome bonus from it. The only motivation why someone might be queuing for it left is to help newbies.

The issue, then, has been that not enough people are willing to do that to facilitate decent queue times. Same reason why they tacked rewards onto mentor roulette. And the same thing would happen if you forcefully kept people back.

There's no fix to this issue other than to turn it into a solo duty like that aetherochemical research facility part. And then watch as people cry bloody tears when they get wiped by the second Ultima weapon and have to go through 40 minutes of dungeon again >_>

[Serilda]

And that's easy to facilitate: Remove the XP and tome bonus from it. The only motivation why someone might be queuing for it left is to help newbies.

The issue, then, has been that not enough people are willing to do that to facilitate decent queue times. Same reason why they tacked rewards onto mentor roulette. And the same thing would happen if you forcefully kept people back.

I feel like this is why the OP's suggestion has merit. If those newbies are directed to Party Finder they can connect with the more eager-to-help people, and at least we can take matters into our own hands now and undersize it with a couple of FC buddies if we want to get people through in a less soul-destroying way than speedrunning. I don't queue Main Scenario roulette because I hate being part of these speedruns, but I'm more than happy to run through Castrum casting Holy and giving someone encouragement as they try to save the world.

It only takes a couple of insane people with no life per datacenter - I'm reasonably confident this can be achieved given the playerbase - to cater to most of the incoming newbies without a problem. And newbies can also flock together (and heaven forbid, ask in the NN) to pad their numbers and make it feel more worthwhile.

[LunaSnowfield]

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...

This.

Every new player in the game can't watch any single Cutscene on dungeons because we are farming them in less than 10 minutes.

[LalaRu]

With the current ilevel, if even half party goes away with cutscenes, it will not bother me and those duties can be ended with ease, so to me is np if people sits to watch them.

I think it may happen they will miss a couple cs while all other party is steamrolling the duty progression, but at least no one other have so much to complain about it, and everyone will reap the bonus.