As a new player, running through the Praetorium dungeon was the worst

[BigRed5392]

Perhaps you ought to take your own advice.

Castrum - 14:39
Praetorium - 31:21

Even assuming your GF reads fast, there is no way you both didn't spend over twenty minutes just watching cut scenes in Praetorium.



As noted, do this and no one will ever touch either Castrum or Praetorium again. The sheer length of the later's cut scenes is essentially asking upwards of seven other players to do nothing for twenty-five minutes so you can watch cut scenes. If you find a group willing, give them a hug but don't expect it.

poor excuse showing a youtube vide made for showing the cs. Those are made to showcase the cs, and are slowly viewed so people can read it.

why not film yourself doing a run of both showing cs at your pace and clock in the time.

[Skivvy]

but did they make you? Did they tell you skip or else? did they tell you to suck it up?

asking the both of you, how many threads of this coming up do you need to read before getting a wake up call to how rude it is to just speed run dungeons with out people of your group.

No, they did not ask me. I skipped because I valued their time and help more than my own needs. They were doing me a huge favor by running through content they had no need of, and in turn I respected their time and skipped CSs.

And how many times does this topic need to come up before you realize that an MMO is a collective effort. 1 person's needs do not outweigh anyone else's. Unless a group was intentionally formed through PF or with friends/FC mates with the intent to watch all CSs, do not expect anyone to sit idly by and waste 15-30+ minutes of their time on them. MSQ roulette benefits both veteran and new players alike, and I don't understand why people are choosing to ignore this little tidbit.

[Paladinleeds]

asking the both of you, how many threads of this coming up do you need to read before getting a wake up call to how rude it is to just speed run dungeons with out people of your group.

there could be 500 octodecillion threads about it, but you have to remember that generally speaking, NA/EU communities are more individualistic. I don't consider it rude, just a difference in upbringing. A difference in perspective. New players are the lifeblood of an MMO yes, but they eventually become veteran players so IMO it's not the worst thing in the world to steel them early on for what they'll deal with. Sure, it's not my approach, but for any modern MMO you need a thick skin. If they can tolerate it, great. If not, perhaps MMO isn't for them. I'll try to be supportive but at the end of the day, majority rules. And in my experiences, it has been 1-7 (newbie-veteran), or 2-6. Until Square Enix change it to a solo instance (maybe with an NPC party to simulate that 8-man duty feel), then nothing will change. It sucks, but we need to accept it.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

poor excuse showing a youtube vide made for showing the cs. Those are made to showcase the cs, and are slowly viewed so people can read it.

why not film yourself doing a run of both showing cs at your pace and clock in the time.

... that's the whole point. People who want to watch cut scenes aren't going to speed read through them. They'll want to enjoy it, which takes longer.

Because I don't have the equipment nor desire to waste an hour on this? When I did Praetorium way back when, it took over forty minutes after accounting for bosses and etc. Even if you cut that time by half, you're still asking potentially seven other player to do nothing so you can watch cut scenes. They aren't going to.

[Fynlar]

The cutscenes in Castrum Meridianum are about 15 minutes long and the cutscenes in Praetorium are about 35 minutes long. If you don't believe me, you can look up videos on Youtube that are nothing but the cutscenes from either dungeon.

I've run Praetorium for someone recently who did not skip any of the cutscenes, and the dungeon (plus the cutscenes) did not take more than 35 minutes. As such, I'm inclined to doubt that these cutscenes were 35 minutes long.

Pretty sure you are adding the closing cutscene (the one after the dungeon is complete) to the length of the dungeon. Which... you shouldn't be doing, obviously.

[AphraelAmarantha]

I just watched the cut scenes my first run and participated in the dungeon on my second. Yeah it sucks but too many people are in a hurry these days or don't care about the story.

We do have an opportunity to change this though. Another Letters with the Producer Live is coming up. Why don't we all that have complaints about Meridian and Praetorium bring it up during that? If enough complaints get to SE's ear maybe they will finally change it. Ik, idealistic thinking but its better than just complaining on the forums and being ignored or flamed, mew.

[missybee]

Pretty sure you are adding the closing cutscene (the one after the dungeon is complete) to the length of the dungeon. Which... you shouldn't be doing, obviously.

Per the YouTube videos that Bourne_Endeavor linked, the closing cutscene at the end of Praetorium only adds three minutes, so if you are able to watch around 28 minutes of cutscenes and do the dungeon itself in about seven minutes, that is pretty impressive.

Even if you have a turbo speed reader watching the cutscenes, that would still be a minimum of like 20 minutes wherein the rest of the party is just standing around.

If it were just 10 or so minutes, I really don't think most people would care, but Praetorium with the cutscenes is really egregiously long.

[Averax]

You're right to be angry. This has been a long going problem, which is the reason why they changed how the final dungeons happen in Heavensward and Stormblood. Unfortunately, this is the norm for people now. People will actually kick others if they want to watch the CS. It's disgusting, and I really wish they'd do something like split the dungeon into a bunch of trials or something.

I've never seen anybody get kicked for watching. People don't stop bolting through the place long enough to notice or care.

They should convert it to a solo instance for first timers.

[RhaegarFFXIFenrir]

snip

Really? I've never seen more than 2 newbies in a CM/Praet run. So I guess over the 100s of times I've run these dungeons over the last several years I always had a "rare" run. Maybe it was that way near the end of HW, but with the new expansion people are running these roulettes for XP again. The only response here that's been rude is yours. You've got your view and you're trying to make the rest of us conform to it. Get off your high horse, you are in a very tiny minority here. I'm going to toss your words right back at you: Speak for yourself and not others. Why do you play MMO if you aren't even interested in what's best for EVERYBODY.

[Aeeninwen_Taldel]

I didn't get kicked or anything else, but that was the first dungeon I got lost in from watching some of the cut scenes my first go at it. For the most part, I haven't had any issues if I were to watch cut scenes, but I tend to leave them for the Inn or if I'm in a party of my friends. Just so I can enjoy them on my own. It does suck that you had one asshole that decided to spoil other things for you, that was uncalled for. But then again, there are tons of rude people out there. I hope this is the worse experience you end up facing, and everything else goes smoother.