Casturm Merdidiam/The preatorium need to change or go.

[LeslieCottontail]

Seriously, I weep for any new player that has to go through this -awful- experience. (I'm a returning player, I've done it before but after being gone for two years a lot of this seems new to me again.)

I get that its routinely ran through by players that have done it a million times before, but it is just an absolute FUBAR situation for anybody that's not done it before.

(character limit, continued in second post)

[LeslieCottontail]

-The cut scenes are to many, and to long. It's not so much there length, its the frequency and how they are triggered. They trigger at the worst possible times, sometimes leaving people to be left behind. (I usually skip dungeon cut scenes and watch them at an adventures guild inn room, which quite frankly ruins the experience, but I do it because I know most of the people in the group have done it a million times.)
-The layout is absolutely confusing if you get left behind, which happens quite frequently (at least to me due to that wonderful 9002 error that only seems to happen in dungeons)
-Completely missing half the dungeon and boss battles due to these issues.

I think their needs to be a separate, single player story version at this point, honestly. That is my suggestion, and this is my venting rant thread. Sorry.

[Tempest222]

I got left behind and lost in one of those my first time through even though I was skipping cut scenes in hopes of keeping up with the group. In the time it took one of the scenes to load to the point where I was able to click skip the group had already rushed ahead. So basically if you lag behind for longer than about 2 seconds you are getting left. Luckily there was another player who was nice enough to come back for me and show me the way.

At least it doesn’t seem like any of the other dungeons have such obtrusive cutscenes. I doubt they will alter such old existing dungeons, but it would be nice for the newbies if they did.

[Shizomaru]

I've always thought that dungeons important for the story need a different way to be completed if experiencing the story for the first time. Maybe smaller cutscenes at the beginning and the true long ones after defeating the last boss or something.
I had luck when I did Castrum for the first time because the other WHM guided me and told me what to do (even if I didn't ask her, so I appreciated it).

With the Praetorium, however, it was a complete nightmare... I skipped the cutscenes because I always watch them later, so no prob. Problem was I couldn't use the magitek armor and I panicked, I didn't know I had to touch the authorization thing and no one told me anything, so I was left behind and they went through the dungeon with just one healer. I was like "okay, I'm just gonna stay here and do nothing while I watch the cutscenes"...

[Melondra]

Everything is fine the way it is. In my opion the cut-scence skippping should be disabled during Castrum Meridiam and the Pratorium. When you ran that dungeon your first time im sure all of you watch the cutscenes, should have the same respect the new players as well. You are playing a Final Fantasy MMO, that is heavily based off of story-telling. you are also playing with a group of players, your opions doesnt nessitate the opions of the group. They have the right to enjoy the story-telling fluently as they play it with out the fear of relash from other players. Now i agree those that are helping should get a lot higher compensation for there time for doing it. But the person who has never ran it before should not have the enjoyment of the story ruined for them because the rest of the players want to rush through it. They need to cap that dungeon at level 50 and at IL 50 to prevent people from doing it. If that concept desnt appeal to you, shouldn't be playing story driven MMO.

[Maeka]

And my personal "Favorite" is that stupid key that you MUST, ABSOLUTELY MUST grab to get on the Magitek Armor in the 2nd dungeon.

Of course in the RUSHRUSHRUSHGOTTAGOGOGOGOGOGO new players might follow everybody desperately trying to keep up, only to figure out they forgot the key and have to go back and get it, and by then, everybody's on the Emperor and welp. They miss out on half the whole freaking dungeon.

So badly designed.

Honestly, they should just change the dungeon to make it a solo thing with lots of NPCs, at least then the player can actually take it slow. Replace these two with something else or just remove them.

[NephthysVasudan]

Yeahhh...im in favor of a rewrite on these two....just to put a total end on the idiot speed runners and all their petty excuses. The Newbies suffer too much here.

[MistakeNot]

Congratulations on making thread #10,000 on this exact issue and with the exact same complaints as all the 9999 threads before.
Yes, we know. Yes, we all agree that the problems mentioned are indeed problems.

Considering that this has been a problem since approximately the day after the very first group made it through those instances, and that SE still haven't changed them despite complaints ever since - I very much doubt anything will change this time either.

[Rilifane]

They know about the flawed design which is why they never did something like that again.
However rewriting it to make it a solo duty with NPC adventurers helping out would be cool.
Some groups are nice enough to let you watch all the cutscenes and still join the bossfights in time, sometimes one player even stays back to guide you through the dungeon - and to remind you of the damn magitek key XD
But many have no sympathy for new players at all. Watch it later in the inn my butt. That's just not even close to actually experiencing the dungeon.
And being forced to rush and skip your way through one of the most epic moments in a story-driven MMO is a real shame. :/ Flawed as the concept was, they did put a lot of work into making the dungeon really feel like the epic conclusion of a large-scale military operation that would decide the fate of Eorzea.

[Rufalus]

Congratulations on making thread #10,000. I very much doubt anything will change this time either.

It's worth complaining about. Sometimes they surprise you and fix things that have been a problem for years, just when you gave up hope. Who would have thought years after ARR that they would add an aethernet shard to the market area of Ul'dah, or change chocobo companions to pets so they don't interfere with duty finder, or completely overhaul the glamor system (coming early 2018). Better late than never, and some things do change very late, especially if they get a large volume of feedback. Housing got so much angry feedback that they fast-tracked adding more wards again next patch along with a rethought method to purchase them.