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

[Bourne_Endeavor]

If cs are mandatory, kicking a member I guess does not speedup anything.

Oh, I misinterpreted that to mean everyone has to simply be out of a cut scene before you can progress. If they make cut scenes mandatory regardless of player preference, Castrum and Praetorium die. No one will run them. If you got it in a mentor roulette, it would actually be faster to leave, eat your thirty penalty and try again. They can't force cut scenes onto people.

[Iscah]

No amount of tomestones will make people watch almost 30 minutes of cutscenes in one dungeon.

Nobody will queue for it, no amount of incentive will make people queue for that.

If they make cut scenes mandatory regardless of player preference, Castrum and Praetorium die. No one will run them. If you got it in a mentor roulette, it would actually be faster to leave, eat your thirty penalty and try again. They can't force cut scenes onto people.

Two things here. Firstly it's not true that "nobody" will run them - drastically less, perhaps, but not nobody, and it will be the people who are willing to wait for newcomers now. (Which may also have the side effect of multiple newcomers in the party, making it more of a challenge and less "epic boss killed in twenty seconds".)

The other option is to make the EXP/rewards equivalent to what you could earn in that time elsewhere, for less work.

Furthermore, if cut scenes do become mandatory. How likely do you think people are to patiently wait versus simply kicking the person slowing them down? It already happens. Just imagine what it'll be like if the roulette offered 4-5 million EXP.

If it's possible within the game infrastructure, I would hope they create a "first-time player cannot be kicked" rule if they're implementing mandatory cutscenes in an 'only until all players opt to skip cutscene' way.

---

Ultimately a "solo mission" mode would be the best solution.

[Venoshock]

Two things here. Firstly it's not true that "nobody" will run them - drastically less, perhaps, but not nobody, and it will be the people who are willing to wait for newcomers now. (Which may also have the side effect of multiple newcomers in the party, making it more of a challenge and less "epic boss killed in twenty seconds".

yeah as in hardly anybody. Queues are already horrid for MSQ roulette and that's WITH tomestones. the queues will be shot dead the moment you force cutscenes onto people. That's a problem. We aren't talking about non mandatory content like old pvp map, binding coils, old extremes. We're talking about content you have to do to get to the endbloodygame. Not that many new players even know about pf, so even though that's an option, its an option many newbies are unaware of.

Also, you're forcing cutscenes onto everyone....you forget that not every newbies cares about cutscenes and story, they just wanna get to the endgame asap without buying the damn potion and msq skip book thing. I was one of them, i didn't care about story, i don't even know what XIV is about, i bought the game because i liked the steampunk design of alexander and wanted to do that back in 2015 so i skipped everything until got to alexander. If i was forced to watch 30 minute cutscenes idgaf about, I'd be pissed off. I just want my fast queue, get in, complete duty and gfto.

[RitsukoSonoda]

There is a reason SE has not done a CS heavy multiplayer duty since these 2 from ARR. At this point I do not expect them to make any adjustments to it. The roulette was made an option just so players could queue it outside of pre-making a party in PF for it though at the time PF wasn't across data center so you had to find 7 people on your world that wanted to do it because almost no one would queue them as a single duty.

[Hestzhyen]

There is a reason SE has not done a CS heavy multiplayer duty since these 2 from ARR. At this point I do not expect them to make any adjustments to it. The roulette was made an option just so players could queue it outside of pre-making a party in PF for it though at the time PF wasn't across data center so you had to find 7 people on your world that wanted to do it because almost no one would queue them as a single duty.

They will be making adjustments to Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium in 4.2 but we don't have any idea as to what they mean by that so far. The next Letter from the Producer might give us some insight.

It really should be a solo duty- it was designed like a single-player JRPG dungeon. I hope that's what they're going to do.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Two things here. Firstly it's not true that "nobody" will run them - drastically less, perhaps, but not nobody, and it will be the people who are willing to wait for newcomers now. (Which may also have the side effect of multiple newcomers in the party, making it more of a challenge and less "epic boss killed in twenty seconds".)

The other option is to make the EXP/rewards equivalent to what you could earn in that time elsewhere, for less work.

Semantics. Rival Wings will eventually pop mid-morning, it just takes several hours. If new players have to wait upwards of 60+ minutes for two mandatory dungeons, they will be less inclined to keep playing.

The EXP would need to be equivalent to a full level. And if first-timers were unable to be kicked, not only does that open the door for rampant abuse, it forces people who may otherwise not be interested in the story to watch it. None of this even touches on the fact, if experience values were that enormous, people will simply make PFs, lock out new comers and insist everyone spam click through the story. Any solution beyond making the instance solo will only cause problems. Try all they fancy, the devs can't force us to do something.

[Mixae]

Yea it's messed up for someone to type out all these spoilers...how spiteful I would be mad too wow

[LineageRazor]

Threads like these are a little funny.

Yeah, neither side is in the wrong, really. I'm totally sympathetic to newbies who want to watch the story the way it was intended, and I'm also totally sympathetic to the fact that folks wouldn't want to watch the same cutscenes a hundred times, or stand around doing nothing while yet another batch of newbies watches the show. What's particularly hilarious is how short a time it took for this problem to arise - speed runs and pressuring folks to skip cutscenes were the norm within a MONTH of ARR's initial release (due in part to many folks coming in from 1.0 with fully-leveled characters).

This is why SE made the sensible decision of "never again". The question is what to do about the original mistake; it's too deeply ingrained to just cut the whole thing out. Up to this point, SE's stance has pretty much been to do nothing about it. It's kind of surprising that they've chosen to do something about it now.

I'll be watching this with interest. Maybe I'll even run a Roulette or two to help out. Unfortunately, though, it's been a long, long time since Main Scenario roulette has had anything to offer me; exp is plentiful from other sources, and I've little need for Poetics.

[Lord_Zlatan]

I find it to be an extremely easy(read: brain dead) way of getting 1.2m EXP on a level 63-64.

exactly... i know of no better way to grab a quick mil + in xp that requires absolutely no attention whatsoever. Sometimes, u just want it easy.

[Mahri]

Yeah, neither side is in the wrong, really.

Nah.

No sympathy for those forcing new players out of cutscenes.

If you're whining about it, you're burnt out on it. Stop queueing it.

Make the tomes or XP through any of the other million ways you can do so and cease imposing your burnout on players who are new and having fun.