Please Reconsider MSQ Changes

[Jellybums]

I cannot believe some people in this thread literally don't have the capacity to realize why this is a bad change. the education system has seriously failed this generation, since it apparently no longer teaches any kind of basic critical thinking to those who need to be taught it.

Sorry, not understanding why this isn't the right thing to do. Why should any decision maker let two climactic MSQ dungeons in ARR be broken by players who want to farm it for tomes they can gather elsewhere? You mean to say it's better for any new player to have a faster queue to a sh|tty ride than wait it out a bit alone or form a party for a better experience? Two years ago my partner queued two hours for Prae only to get left behind for watching cutscenes. That impression sticks. These dungeons are ARR's main highlights and the devs worked hard providing quality content to make a good impression. And you actually want no one to enjoy MSQ dungeons the way they're intended to be experienced so you can farm poetics. You're free to uninvite yourself from the MSQ roulette party.

[BillyKaplan]

You mean to say it's better for any new player to have a faster queue to a sh|tty ride than wait it out a bit alone or form a party for a better experience?

Literally no one is saying the way things are now is alright. Everyone knows those dungeons are broken and cannot be kept the way they are. We simply vehemently disagree with the way SE has chosen to go about it, there's a difference.

devs worked hard providing quality content to make a good impression.

Badly designed content is not the fault of the players and no amount of effort invested into development can change how good or bad content actually is. And SE agrees it is badly designed because no other piece of group content in the game after a certain point has cutscenes in the middle of it, heck at some point they moved post-content cutscenes to after you click exit instead of right after the fight (Vault vs. Keeper of the Lake, for one). The problem is fixing this the right way would take too much time and effort they would rather spend on recording trials and Perform for some reason.

[Sylvina]

Literally no one is saying the way things are now is alright. Everyone knows those dungeons are broken and cannot be kept the way they are. We simply vehemently disagree with the way SE has chosen to go about it, there's a difference.

Exactly this. Theres a problem with these dungeons of course, but this is literally the stupidest way they could possibly try and "Fix" it.

[Jellybums]

Badly designed content is not the fault of the players and no amount of effort invested into development can change how good or bad content actually is. And SE agrees it is badly designed because no other piece of group content in the game after a certain point has cutscenes in the middle of it, heck at some point they moved post-content cutscenes to after you click exit instead of right after the fight (Vault vs. Keeper of the Lake, for one). The problem is fixing this the right way would take too much time and effort they would rather spend on recording trials and Perform for some reason.

I for one can't say it's badly designed without even experiencing it in its entirety ever. Same with most everyone, we don't have qualified opinions on them for sure. However, these dungeons don't sound like something I would do on the daily. But if it's a one time thing for everyone and they're essential to the story, they're worth a go. The queue times people are worried about, with a little creativity, they can be improved. Some folks already said their piece on how. At this point we can't all say it's a bad solution when all the host does is stop some guests from ruining the experience for other guests. And we are all guests here, are we not?

[BillyKaplan]

I for one can't say it's badly designed without even experiencing it in its entirety ever. Same with most everyone, we don't have qualified opinions on them for sure.

You just proved it's horribly designed that such a thing is even possible. And no, strong-arming anyone who goes in there to go through the entire experience when even a lot of newbies don't care about the cutscenes is not the way to fix this.

However, these dungeons don't sound like something I would do on the daily. But if it's a one time thing for everyone and they're essential to the story, they're worth a go.

You've brought up the problem while ignoring it completely. No one will have that proper experience with full cutscenes if the queue doesn't pop, and the queue won't pop because no one will queue for that roulette with those changes to begin with. You just said as much yourself, after a fashion.
You know what's good for taking it at your own pace and only run through it the once? Solo instances :^) just saying. Also solves the queue issues if you don't have the entire game trying to break through Raubahn (Savage) at the same time so the instances server crashes.

[Jellybums]

You just proved it's horribly designed that such a thing is even possible. And no, strong-arming anyone who goes in there to go through the entire experience when even a lot of newbies don't care about the cutscenes is not the way to fix this.

You've brought up the problem while ignoring it completely. No one will have that proper experience with full cutscenes if the queue doesn't pop, and the queue won't pop because no one will queue for that roulette with those changes to begin with.

Sad to say I wasn't able to experience it fully because of the player base, not the content itself. Maybe on another datacenter the outcome would have been much different, now I'll never know. We are actually talking about two different things here. You are talking along the lines of it's a bad movie, make a new one. And I'm saying I've never seen it and who knows how many times people would watch the same movie that's worth seeing anyway. Because it is a movie for its length, and you think it won't be seen at all because of queue times.

There's the problem, expecting someone to decide on spending considerable company time and money on assumptions such as yours. How do you justify a budget for revising content from assumptions? That's someone's neck on the chopping block. They at least need actual numbers because real money has very real numbers. Is it really a content issue, player issue, or a selling issue? So, no, these changes are not stupid. These changes are serious questions that need to be asked and tried especially when real money is involved.

[BillyKaplan]

Sad to say I wasn't able to experience it fully because of the player base, not the content itself.

But that's exactly my point - no content at such length should be integrated into a duty. It doesn't matter how good it is, it's the integration itself that's badly designed.

So, no, these changes are not stupid.

These changes are tone deaf. It's possible that the queues won't be hurt as badly as we say they will be, but from a development standpoint, they did the single most intrusive, violent thing they could've done. Forcing your userbase to do anything when it comes to content is the #1 biggest no-no. I'm a software engineer. You only do that sort of thing if you want your users to not use your product. A lot of people in this thread already said they'll never bother again. You yourself said you don't see the point to going in there more than the one time. And from a developer viewpoint, that's the worst outcome regardless of how bad the queues will or won't be. Because it shows your users just how deep in the sand your head is as a developer, and leaves a roulette that will see a lot less usage besides. And when they created an entire new roulette and locked a shiny mount behind 2000 runs of it because they need people to run content, I don't think that's something they could afford, really.

[Jellybums]

But that's exactly my point - no content at such length should be integrated into a duty. It doesn't matter how good it is, it's the integration itself that's badly designed.

These changes are tone deaf. It's possible that the queues won't be hurt as badly as we say they will be, but from a development standpoint, they did the single most intrusive, violent thing they could've done. Forcing your userbase to do anything when it comes to content is the #1 biggest no-no.

I said it's just not something I would do daily. But after actually trying it today with sprouts and vets, it's not as bad as people are making it out to be. I've had longer runs in 50/60 and leveling with non-sprouts. How are these two dungeons flawed just because veterans can't do speedruns on them anymore? A lot of people in this thread won't bother with Toto-Rak either which is a staple to new characters and would rather eat penalty. Is it then flawed, too? Judging content from the standpoint of someone it's not even designed for in itself is flawed. Anyway the numbers will speak for themselves. Business decisions are based on data, stats, numbers, not just some value judgment and unsupported claims especially when real money's at stake. If the memo reads budget request for revamping old content, what is this, new toys not enough? Good luck getting money for the we think and it will. Is what you're asking for within reason and is the premise of it even sound/solid/backed by data? SE doesn't exactly have fairy godmothers on staff.