Castrum Meridianum is ruined.

[Frizze]

The best parts of the story are past level 49, thats a bad place to stop. These dungeons are poorly designed. That doesnt directly relate to the story and whether or not people play for it.

[Baingoleth]

The best parts of the story are past level 49, thats a bad place to stop. These dungeons are poorly designed. That doesnt directly relate to the story and whether or not people play for it.

I watched all of the cutscenes. Every time I made it to a boss, it was locked out. What really bothered me was that the party had barely started a boss when I made it there. I am a fast reader. They literally would have had to wait 1 minute at each of them. I wouldn't have left Lord of the Rings Online to come play Final Fantasy XIV if it LotRO didn't have a lot of other issues and granted LotRO has a much smaller player base but this sort of behaviour doesn't happen there. If someone wants to speed run a dungeon, they don't do it with PUGs; they form private parties. PUGs were usually friendly and people waited for everyone. I keep hearing troubling things about using the duty finder in the late game. I sure hope the stories about late game players being unkind and impatient is not as bad as I keep reading about in these forums.

[Frizze]

SO i have good news and bad news i guess. Most groups(and yes im including PUGs) will default to running all dungeons fast. Pulling multiple trash packs at once and AoEing everything down. This isnt speed running, its just being efficient(the speedkill community here mostly do harder trials, and they always bring full groups so no unexpecting people wind up with them). And Praetorium has over 20 mins of cutscenes in a dungeon that takes less then 20 mins to complete. That is what most people would call bad design. Most of the people queing for these instances in DF are doing so via the MSQ roulette, which drops you into only these two dungeons. There are people who do that daily for the bonus exp and the tomes, and they do tend to just want to get it over with(often to get to the next que in their daily list). If you ask them(you never made it clear if you asked and they said no or if you just assumed people would wait for you), some of these people will slow down for you. But in these two dungeons, not everyone is willing to wait. People have complained about it for years(this was an issue back at launch), and so far no official solution is forthcoming. If youve only run Castrum so far, take the advice i gave on page 1 and run Prae either with a group of friends or via Party Finder(not duty finder). Youll remove any of the questions and enjoy the run more.

So there was the bad news. Good news? The devs learned from this mistake. As of today(obviously i cant predict future releases but this seems like the pattern), none of the dungeons past Prae are cutscene heavy. You might go through a ton of scenes before you enter the que, and you might get dropped into more scenes the second you leave the instance - but your time IN the dungeon/trial is focused on working with your team to defeat the enemies and not watching exposition(some of the raids follow a different set of rules, but this still more or less applies). So this wont be an issue for you going forward. For the instances that they wanted to use a ton of dialogue they now put you with NPCs who dont have a choice but to wait for you. And more good news, the boards tend to exaggerate any problems there are(while minimizing most good points). Sure, you will run into the occasional jerk(as in all aspects of life), but most players are very nice. Late game isnt the wasteland the forums would have you believe.

[Baingoleth]

If you ask them(you never made it clear if you asked and they said no or if you just assumed people would wait for you), some of these people will slow down for you. But in these two dungeons, not everyone is willing to wait. People have complained about it for years(this was an issue back at launch), and so far no official solution is forthcoming. If youve only run Castrum so far, take the advice i gave on page 1 and run Prae either with a group of friends or via Party Finder(not duty finder). Youll remove any of the questions and enjoy the run more.

I asked, yes. They wanted to run as quick as they could anyway.

I started a PF request for The Praetorium. A nice player, Lad's Quote responded and offered to take me through unsynced. Wow, end game players are strong. Anyway, it went well and he was great. I'll be paying it forward for sure.

Thank you for the advice!

[Kisagami]

I was spoiled by my boyfriend and guild mates running it for me so I could feel like a heroic badass in the cutscenes and battles. We ran it unsynced. My guild has tried to make it a habit to not let our other friends go through duty finder alone. When you get groups like this, it really ruins the experience.

Not only that but if people click the elevator too fast before everyone gets there you’re locked out of getting the mech :/

[Jellybums]

Would it be too much to make another duty roulette thing, especially MSQs, where cut scenes will play for everyone regardless? Just give more bonus to those who've done them before and choose the "scenic" run. Dunno if this was ever done before but I think it's only fair.

[Blanchimont]

Would it be too much to make another duty roulette thing, especially MSQs, where cut scenes will play for everyone regardless? Just give more bonus to those who've done them before and choose the "scenic" run. Dunno if this was ever done before but I think it's only fair.

This would unfortunately divide the player base even more and probably make it even harder to find a group to run it.

[Akor]

I've seen more ppl who was first timers being douches, like, why are u speedrunning it, im first timer here. Like being real """toxic""". lol You can always take it easy and watch all the CS, you will do this millions of time to learn the fight, if u dont know anything about some of the mechanics (theres literaly only 1 mechanics you need to know is from fighting Livia sas Junius in the first phase) ppl will tell you what to do, how to do, if your willing to read the chat, or ask if u see any mark on the middle of the map whats that for.

Sadly new players needs to accept this, and probably if SE dint fixed this issue with 4.x on MQSC than they will never fix this at all. And blaming ppl for not waiting etc. is wrong.

[winsock]

And them blaming you for a wipe is total BS. The dungeons can be completed with 2 or 3 people missing, so your not being there isnt why they failed.

^ truth
I've heard CM can be soloed and can confirm the other can be completed with 3 people....
Can't blame a SMN for that.

[Baingoleth]

Would it be too much to make another duty roulette thing, especially MSQs, where cut scenes will play for everyone regardless? Just give more bonus to those who've done them before and choose the "scenic" run. Dunno if this was ever done before but I think it's only fair.

What if there was some kind of check if all the players were in the boss arena before pulling the boss? If they were, then there could be some desirable reward that would make it worth the party's time to wait for new players. I could see some people still getting irritated that they would be waiting but the players who want to watch the cutscenes would have some bargaining power.