Please Reconsider MSQ Changes

[BillyKaplan]

it's set up to let them experience the story, not feel forced to either skip the cutscenes or miss out on experiencing the battles which are also part of the story of that event.

See, the irony is that before no one was really forced to do anything. Newbies could ask to watch cutscenes and sometimes they'd be granted that. If they were lucky enough to have an FC at the time, they could've ran through it synced and proper and still be let to watch the cutscenes. Now no one has a choice at all and people really are forced to experience the story, whether they want to or not, and in a very specific way, and at a specific pace. So, to repeat a horse beaten well into its fifth death by now, this so called solution also doesn't really cater to the needs and wants of the very same demographic it claims to have been created for but only works for a very specific subset of it.

I think that may not have been brought in until later in the game's development. The first time you get that warning is for the scenes at the very end of post-ARR leading into Heavensward.

The question is, if such a system is already in place, why not add it to the existing relevant cutscenes if they're already changing things in that area? Is it that difficult?

On the other hand, if I am going into the almost-definitely-final-dungeon of a game, I would absolutely expect to need to set aside a fair chunk of time for beating the dungeon and watching any associated cutscenes (regardless of whether they occur during or after the dungeon instance itself).

And yet two expansions later and they have not repeated that design, leaving cutscenes at worst after the final boss fight (Keeper of the Lake) if not after you click the Exit and they're not awfully long when that happens. Both ARF and Ala Mhigo were low on cutscenes and you had a break between them and the main expansion's final trial. This is SE admitting, by implementation, that they made a mistake with our two culprit dungeons here. There is no reason to defend them.

Forced cutscenes are not going to be an issue for a first-time player who has gone into the dungeon intending to experience the story, because they won't be intending to skip them in the first place.

1. The issue of pace
2. The juxtaposition between being forced to watch cutscenes after an entire game's worth of cutscenes you can click through if not skip outright. It's a jarring experience.
3. Again, #NotAllFirstTimers

I do agree that it would probably be helpful to add in a "time warning" to the description of the MSQ roulette though

They did. Absurdly, they didn't add it to the separate dungeons. Funny because the change was made to the dungeons, not the roulette. And when you stop to think about it, that's exactly why this entire situation is entirely backwards and also shows how inappropriate SE's "solution" was - they tried to fix a problem with the roulette by changing the instances themselves. And I kind of get why, because newbies have no choice but to queue through the DF directly so how are you going to enforce the cutscene watching on the rest of the roulette-goers? But that only further highlights how lazy and hasty this solution is. Solo queueing, be it a full party or undersized, should've been given the choice to have it be like before. But that would've likely required they implemented a new mechanism (which for all we know might've taken less time than to make it a solo duty, wouldn't that be grand?)

Last point, before I return to my hole, is my amazement at the core dissonance in this debate. Not enough people queued for duties. Roulette was implemented to supplement queues. Change made that makes people queue less. By the very concept of it, why does it seem like a good idea to people? It doesn't even matter how a newbie experiences a story they might not even want to experience if they can't get into the duty in the first place. And we've already seen in this very thread 1. newbies who already declared they will not return the favor after they have gotten their clear, 2. good souls who tried and have given up. I reckon we'll only see more of these.

[MistakeNot]

See, the irony is that before no one was really forced to do anything. Newbies could ask to watch cutscenes and sometimes they'd be granted that.

They could ask, but by the time they had finished typing the question, the rest of the group would have sprinted ahead and likely already be at the first boss - leaving the poor newbie lost.

Alright, I am exaggerating slightly, but only slightly....

[wildbill]

I wish everyone was forced to watch the cutscenes when it was my first time through. I skipped them because I knew what would happen. I read all of the posts about it. Just a terrible experience altogether. It didn't matter what I did... it would have been bad either way.

But of course, after my first time through... I would understand why you wouldn't want to watch the cut-scenes all of the way through. I never gave anybody a hard time when they watched the cut-scenes, but I knew there was a good possibility that they were going to have a bad experience after the fact.

It really is a double-edged sword. A catch 22.

That is why it needs to be separated into two queues for each Dungeon. Leveling Mode and Story Mode. Give Story Mode huge rewards. Way bigger than what it is now. Make it worth it so people new to the content can really enjoy it and veterans will want to run it to earn sweet bonuses. Make Leveling Mode exactly what it was before 4.2 except remove the cut-scenes. Make it so that you can't do Leveling Mode without first doing Story Mode. This way every player sees the content at least once.

Maybe something like that would make everyone happy. With enough incentive of course.

[Krotoan]

Last point, before I return to my hole, is my amazement at the core dissonance in this debate. Not enough people queued for duties. Roulette was implemented to supplement queues. Change made that makes people queue less. By the very concept of it, why does it seem like a good idea to people? It doesn't even matter how a newbie experiences a story they might not even want to experience if they can't get into the duty in the first place. And we've already seen in this very thread 1. newbies who already declared they will not return the favor after they have gotten their clear, 2. good souls who tried and have given up. I reckon we'll only see more of these.

Because for every loud voice stating "I hated this and I will never do it again" or "I ran it once my first time and never again" we have NO IDEA how many are still plugging away at it for easy (not quick) rewards and just to help out.
LESS people are queuing for duties, no doubt. But less people queuing if the combined cross data-center pool is enough is still fine. We don't know anything right now other than It's gotten a little longer than some people say is usual but some other people are saying it's the same.
You're assuming the negative, most of the opposing camp is saying "wait and see".
There is no dissonance, there's anticipation of a result without presumption.