The Castrum Meridianum/Praetorium Change

[Tsurayu]

Would it be that hard for them to turn that into a squad like mission? Just put 8 man with 7 AI with scripted text as well as a message at the beginning like "this mission is done with AI, yadiyada, the party will explain you bosses.
And when you get in front of a boss you have one AI telling roughly what the boss does (not that it would be necessary tho)

Suppose not, but it would lose the sort of grandiose feeling the whole instance had.

Can't speak for everyone, but I remember the first time I was clearing Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium was a big deal, it felt like I was really doing something major in the game for the first time with friends and random players alike (correct me if I'm remembering wrong but it was only your second ever eight-man instance after Cape Westwind, yes?). Anyway, that feeling of being part of something bigger is lost on a lot of us now that have played the game for awhile, but you don't really want to cheapen that first experience for new players by turning it into some squadron mission with glorified bots.

[Derio]

Need to just turn it into a solo mission

[Hasrat]

Would it be that hard for them to turn that into a squad like mission? Just put 8 man with 7 AI with scripted text as well as a message at the beginning like "this mission is done with AI, yadiyada, the party will explain you bosses.
And when you get in front of a boss you have one AI telling roughly what the boss does (not that it would be necessary tho)

Can the AI handle all the cannons? Will it be up to the player to actually do most of the Livia mechanics? Will the AI understand when to stop hitting near invulnerable enemies?

You've got a good start, remembering that new players won't know how to handle bosses and such, but still, the level of handholding that would likely need to go into this would definitely blunt the impact. The WoL shouldn't need to be guided through the entire mission.

Needs to be done, I agree. But I think it's more complicated than it might seem on the surface.

[Enla]

Can the AI handle all the cannons? Will it be up to the player to actually do most of the Livia mechanics? Will the AI understand when to stop hitting near invulnerable enemies?

You've got a good start, remembering that new players won't know how to handle bosses and such, but still, the level of handholding that would likely need to go into this would definitely blunt the impact. The WoL shouldn't need to be guided through the entire mission.

Needs to be done, I agree. But I think it's more complicated than it might seem on the surface.

Actually they probably would be able to. The 70 SCH quest shows extremely advanced AI, to the point that while running it I actually felt like I was running it with a proper group instead of a bunch of brainless NPC's. Squadrons have been hit or miss by comparison, but that instance is why I'm firmly of the opinion that they do have the capability to make the instance runnable with NPCs. Hell, if that part of the coding causes issues then just remove it as well. There's nothing to say they can't trim these instances down for a solo run.

[Hasrat]

I don't disagree. But "trimming it down" still takes more time and resources than they're willing to put in. There's no quick/simple fix, I don't think.

Something needs to be done, though. Until these are changed, they'll continue to be a black mark on the player experience. Once they're finally fixed for good, that's one less major criticism to weigh them down.

[Skivvy]

I don't disagree. But "trimming it down" still takes more time and resources than they're willing to put in. There's no quick/simple fix, I don't think.

Something needs to be done, though. Until these are changed, they'll continue to be a black mark on the player experience. Once they're finally fixed for good, that's one less major criticism to weigh them down.

They've had 4 years to figure something out, and the best they could do was make CSs unskippable. Doesn't instill much confidence in them coming up with a solution.

[NellMoshroca]

Ultimately the best solution is to just scrap main scenario roulette entirely and just make the two solo instances.

[Driskus]

As much as people are gonna hate on me for this, this should have been done from the start. They should also make it so you can't just pull an entire section and then click a teleport to move to the next one, leaving everybody behind in hopes that they manage to click the button before they get murdered. The only reason I haven't done MSQ roulette except a couple times with FC groups is because of not wanting to contribute to the problems new players have with it, which is a perfectly valid concern on their part. I weas also one of those players that got left behind back in the ARR days when I did both of these dungeons because of the "every dungeon must be a speedrun, screw the story" mentatlity people have.

[AriaFairchild]

"I'm just gonna sprinkle some of that PvP salt over here." - Yoshi-P, probably.
And yes, that salt has some of my tears.

[BillyKaplan]

As much as people are gonna hate on me for this, this should have been done from the start.

Not everyone cares about cutscenes though, that's why you can skip cutscenes you never watched before.

They should also make it so you can't just pull an entire section and then click a teleport to move to the next one, leaving everybody behind in hopes that they manage to click the button before they get murdered.

If that's how your tanks pull that dungeon, they don't know what they're doing which is always a problem in and of itself.