About new MSQ Roulette reward

[KisaiTenshi]

One does not imply the other. It would require they revisited old content which they hate doing, but we've seen on more than one occasion they have the technology. They can even use the dungeons as they are with arguably minimal tweaks to the enemies.They just need to decide they want to do it.

It would be denying new players the opportunity to play it as it was designed if it became solo. Such is the same argument that can be had for all level 50 content that can be soloed at level 60. SE kinda dropped the ball on this, and should have gated "level 50/60/70" behind completion of each MSQ, but that was defeated with the scenario skip cash shop item.

Likewise, I've played other MMORPG's that HAVE gone back and made multiplayer-mandatory story dungeons into solo dungeons, and the fun of those is greatly diminished, as they basically nerf it (eg lower the difficulty of the enemies,) while simultaneously making it harder for specific jobs (since now dieing results in failing the duty/reset of the boss room.)

Now what might be a less-irritating way to solve this is to combine the two. They have a 2 hour time limit, break those into 20 or 30 minute parts, and then have "AI party" in the menu next to "undersized party", selecting the AI party brings you to a second menu:

Slot T/T/H/H/D/D/D/D/D (yes 9, for duties that have two tanks or one tank 5 dps)
If you have a command squadron, you can place them in any of those slots they fit the role for.
If you do not have a command squadron (or none are leveled to this point,) it instead allows you to put specific NPC's (eg Alphinaud,Alisaie,Y'shtola, Thancred, Yda, Papalymo, etc) that are available at that point in the storyline (to avoid confusing cutscenes.)

So whenever you pick a non-roulette duty that you haven't completed, you can either "wait for more party members" or "play using AI party" (no tomes rewarded) just to see the cutscenes without players being obnoxiously wanting you to skip it.

[BillyKaplan]

It would be denying new players the opportunity to play it as it was designed if it became solo.

Take it from someone who's been in development for over a decade - sometimes, clinging to the way things were originally designed is the single worst thing you can do. Especially when that very design is something SE has admitted, both openly and by virtue of never once repeating it, was a very, very bad idea.

the fun of those is greatly diminished

Subjective. I personally enjoy the solo instances the game offers, and the idea of what these dungeons could've been makes me tingle a bit.

So whenever you pick a non-roulette duty that you haven't completed, you can either "wait for more party members" or "play using AI party" (no tomes rewarded)

I should hope they don't go that route in an MMORPG. And no, my advocating for two specific problematic instances to be made into solo instances in order to promote smoother completion of MSQ doesn't contradict that stance.

[basketofseals]

It would be denying new players the opportunity to play it as it was designed if it became solo.

And is that a bad thing? Praetorium/Castrum is considered the worst instance in the game aside from Steps of Faith.

Not to mention they're a joke even at proper gear levels.

[Pyroxene]

Did it a few times, the first run was pure torture for me until I settled in and just accepted it was going to be a slow run, the auto scroll was like pulling teeth without anaesthetic, even after I had accepted the overall speed, however, it did get me the tomes I needed. Once I had farmed enough for a full augmented ironworks outfit though I never touched it again. Overall not the worst thing I ever seen in an MMO but not something I'd willingly subject myself to again.

[KisaiTenshi]

Take it from someone who's been in development for over a decade - sometimes, clinging to the way things were originally designed is the single worst thing you can do. Especially when that very design is something SE has admitted, both openly and by virtue of never once repeating it, was a very, very bad idea.



Subjective. I personally enjoy the solo instances the game offers, and the idea of what these dungeons could've been makes me tingle a bit.



I should hope they don't go that route in an MMORPG. And no, my advocating for two specific problematic instances to be made into solo instances in order to promote smoother completion of MSQ doesn't contradict that stance.

See that's where we differ on this. In a MMORPG, any time you change old content, you permanently erase any ability to play it as it was designed. In some cases that original design was just awful (eg, I can recall one F2P game that gated the "storyline" behind paying for service, thus you pretty much couldn't play anything but the race-specific rubbish PvP, until they got rid of that too.) But for storyline content, it has to stay the same relative difficulty, or it simply becomes content that is farmed for the reward rather than played for storyline. You only know what's missing by checking youtube from when the content was new.

Like the best real/immediate solution is to decouple the storyline if people want to just farm it. Add the "Duty Incomplete"/"Duty Complete" flag into the Duty finder, if "duty incomplete" is set, cutscenes are not skipable, if "duty complete" is set, you only get matched with other players who have "duty complete" or neither box selected (which is taken to mean "I don't care") and cutscenes are automatically skipped, even if not set in the players options. It may result in only newbies matching with each other for MSQ, but perhaps that would be the fairest way of playing it. The problem is that before MSQ roulette, this was something that took 1-3 hours for DPS to sit in. Before any of the roulette's, ALL queues were like that.

As for the Solo instances, I actually like some of the late HW solo instances, but up to that point ARR and early HW solo instances, as well as many of the job Solo's do not have equal difficulty, as you're often paired with just one or two other dumb-as-bricks AI characters, that tend to be squishy, and their entire purpose is to act as a punching bag. But most of these Solo instances are also things that don't last more than 15 minutes.

Like I'd really Square-Enix consider allowing an AI party for content that people can't get a party for (*cough*old raids*cough) that have storylines attached to them. MSQ is one of these with the unskippable cutscenes. Because the SAME problem is present with that content. Then while we're at it, give us a way to re-play old solo/storyline content, even if there is no reward for replaying it. As much as I like going back and playing another character, I'd rather just have a "replay/reset this quest" so I can re-read the text that provides the context to some of the cutscenes.

[BillyKaplan]

See that's where we differ on this. In a MMORPG, any time you change old content, you permanently erase any ability to play it as it was designed.

They already nerfed all pre-SB dungeons. Furthermore, you can't possibly play it the way it was 'intended' because: 1. AST, DRK, MCH, SAM, RDM didn't exist at the time this was introduced. I'm not sure SCH and NIN did for that matter, either. 2. all jobs underwent many changes since that content was introduced. 3. power creep. You couldn't play the content the way it was 'intended' for literal years.

But for storyline content, it has to stay the same relative difficulty, or it simply becomes content that is farmed for the reward rather than played for storyline.-

But that's the core of the problem, the joining of story which people should rightly enjoy (or ignore) at their own leisure and pace with a dungeon. That's the conflict, the dilemma, and ultimately the paradox - because it is a dungeon, you need people to run it. Because you need people to run it, there's the roulette. Boom, there, done, you made it a source of farming rather than the pure ideal of a story-bit. In order to fully turn this into true story content, you have to turn it into a solo duty. Breaking it into numerous small raids which aren't even really worth the instance they're in (seriously, your boss fights are glorified triple trash pulls) will only make it laughable, especially for dps - you'll have to undergo the dps queue 4-8 times in order to have the experience in full. A dungeon that queue+unskippable cutscenes took you, what, two hours? Would take you that arguably that much more. It's really not worth it.

if "duty incomplete" is set, cutscenes are not skipable, if "duty complete" is set, you only get matched with other players who have "duty complete"

So whoever wants to farm farms it with a speed run, leaving the queues for the duty completion all the emptier. Bad idea.

As for the Solo instances, I actually like some of the late HW solo instances, but up to that point ARR and early HW solo instances, as well as many of the job Solo's do not have equal difficulty, as you're often paired with just one or two other dumb-as-bricks AI characters, that tend to be squishy, and their entire purpose is to act as a punching bag. But most of these Solo instances are also things that don't last more than 15 minutes.

Well they have much better technology for that sort of thing now than they did before. Look at the 4.1 solo instance - the NPCs performed mechanics much better than most pugs I run with. And if they insist on not trimming down the content to abide with 15~ minutes long instances, then this is where I'll snatch your idea and suggest they broke it into several solo duties, while you're in the overall area of the Castrums. It won't even be that immersion breaking to have other adventurers running around because lore wise you can say they're the team you brought with you and you ARE storming the place. Think Omega and the Rift, but fully embracing the fact this thing needs help with queues so it's still ultimately solo instances. I mean Delta is already dead on queues, so this?

(*cough*old raids*cough)

They're supposedly working on a raid roulette.

MSQ is one of these with the unskippable cutscenes.

It's the ONLY one with the unskippable cutscenes, and it's already dungeon-length instances on top of it all.