Please Reconsider MSQ Changes

[IntrovertAnt]

I haven't read the entire thread, and I'm not going to cuz it's really long. But I wanted to briefly put in my own experience with this before cut scenes were unskipable.

I remember having a really bad time in these MSQ ques because the first time I was there I was so engrossed with the story and wanted to watch everything as it was basically a finale for the ARR storyline. I remember coming out of the cutscenes and no one was around. I didn't know where to go. No one was responding via party chat when I asked what was going on and where everyone was. I was literally lost. Though I didn't know what was going on at the time, eventually the party would get to the next progression area and a new cutscene would play for me. I ended up watching all of the cut scenes without even fighting any of the bosses.

Needless to say my immersion was completely destroyed. I was so shocked that I went to the general FFXIV discord at the time (don't know if it was some unofficial or official one) to ask about it. And the respond from them was just "Tough man. Watch the cutscenes in the inn." Which wasn't even really a real response to my particular issue. I SAW all the cutscenes. My issue was that what was supposed to be a finale to the story that I was really into was destroyed by conflicting interests of players just wanting to get through the instance ASAP and not caring about some newbies immersion.

So to be honest, and I absolutely KNOW I'm in the minority here, but I appreciate the changed forced cutscene viewing (with greater rewards), for the sake of those new people who are legit into this really quirky game. That being said, I do agree the best option would be to make those two quests run with NPC's instead of players. But until that time, I think the change is better overall than what it used to be.

[Bright-Flower]

I haven't read the entire thread, and I'm not going to cuz it's really long. But I wanted to briefly put in my own experience with this before cut scenes were unskipable.

I remember having a really bad time in these MSQ ques because the first time I was there I was so engrossed with the story and wanted to watch everything as it was basically a finale for the ARR storyline. I remember coming out of the cutscenes and no one was around. I didn't know where to go. No one was responding via party chat when I asked what was going on and where everyone was. I was literally lost. Though I didn't know what was going on at the time, eventually the party would get to the next progression area and a new cutscene would play for me. I ended up watching all of the cut scenes without even fighting any of the bosses.

Needless to say my immersion was completely destroyed. I was so shocked that I went to the general FFXIV discord at the time (don't know if it was some unofficial or official one) to ask about it. And the respond from them was just "Tough man. Watch the cutscenes in the inn." Which wasn't even really a real response to my particular issue. I SAW all the cutscenes. My issue was that what was supposed to be a finale to the story that I was really into was destroyed by conflicting interests of players just wanting to get through the instance ASAP and not caring about some newbies immersion.

So to be honest, and I absolutely KNOW I'm in the minority here, but I appreciate the changed forced cutscene viewing (with greater rewards), for the sake of those new people who are legit into this really quirky game. That being said, I do agree the best option would be to make those two quests run with NPC's instead of players. But until that time, I think the change is better overall than what it used to be.

I agree, it's a change for the best.

Now, I could see SE maybe allowing for skipping if you form a full 8 man premade for them with no random people, but barring that, this is the lesser of two evils.

The ideal solution I think, would be to rework these two 8 man dungeons into solo instances with a trial fight for Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea at the end, but as that would take a lot of time and money, the current status quo works a good enough solution without redoing the whole thing.

[Reinha]

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My first time experience was similar except that my group finished so fast I almost timed out of the instance in the middle of a cutscene. After the change to the cutscenes I was finally able to experience this content the way it was intended.

There are some interesting fixes suggested in the thread but tbh if one involves taking away the cutscenes and increased rewards just because I'm not new anymore then I don't want it. There are enough fast roulettes to do for experience and poetics. You don't need to do this one if the rewards aren't worth waiting out the cutscenes.

[ArcIgnis]

More and more people in this roulette who simply cannot be bothered to sit through the cutscenes, are now simply leeching off of those who want it over with. People decide to AFK, unable to vote kick them for being in combat. They all get the same rewards for doing absolutely nothing. Others are also abusing the loophole of disconnecting/reconnecting to the game, to skip cutscenes and pressing onward.

My suggestion is to allow non-skippable cutscenes IF there are ACTUALLY FIRST TIMERS in the instance. If that's too complicated or hard to code, make a main scenario roulette that has skippable cutscenes that shares the seem daily reward lock-out.
If that is also too hard/complicated to code, remove cutscenes all-togehter like it usually was, or change up the instance in the first place, rebuilding it from scratch.

[Krotoan]

My suggestion is to allow non-skippable cutscenes IF there are ACTUALLY FIRST TIMERS in the instance.

I'm pretty sure we addressed this somewhere in the 100+ page thread.. But this would possibly encourage kicking 1st timers or leaving if 1st timers were in the run.

If that's too complicated or hard to code, make a main scenario roulette that has skippable cutscenes that shares the seem daily reward lock-out.

Why? It's in the roulette to allow people progression clears and story completion. The actual rewards for doing it are pretty minimal without the huge roulette boost and there's no reason to give the boost if you allow skipping, this would create a crazy shortcut to leveling. Simply don't do this roulette if you aren't ok with the time investment vs the rewards.

If that is also too hard/complicated to code, remove cutscenes all-togehter like it usually was, or change up the instance in the first place, rebuilding it from scratch.

.. usually was? It has always had the cutscenes since release. I also wouldn't consider going back to rework this a worthwhile investment of time vs working on new content everyone will enjoy. We've constantly been shown a limited resource pool for development being a thing with FFXIV, lets not sacrifice another instance or storyline to fix something that's easily ignorable and avoidable if you don't want to experience it more than once.

[Ardox]

I also wouldn't consider going back to rework this a worthwhile investment of time vs working on new content everyone will enjoy. We've constantly been shown a limited resource pool for development being a thing with FFXIV, lets not sacrifice another instance or storyline to fix something that's easily ignorable and avoidable if you don't want to experience it more than once.

I dunno, I'd really want to be able to recommend the game to new people without having to warn them about ARR's quality not being representative of the quality of the rest of the game.. (Not that that game needs an influx of player at the moment).
Also, the contention around those 2 duty really dims what's essentially the capstone of ARR's story arc

[Krotoan]

I dunno, I'd really want to be able to recommend the game to new people without having to warn them about ARR's quality not being representative of the quality of the rest of the game.. (Not that that game needs an influx of player at the moment).
Also, the contention around those 2 duty really dims what's essentially the capstone of ARR's story arc

ARR's big problem isn't those two MSQ though, their quality is fine and if you're at that part in the story it's actually interesting. Their implementation is just horrid for replay. When I warn people about anything when joining the game it's the desert of filler between ARR and Heavensward. THAT really could be lost or at least condensed with little to no impact on the story.

So far when I've introduced people to the game it's not the MSQ gruesome twosome that they balk at , it's that nothing under 60 seems to be a challenge at all. If they spent anytime at all on reworking old content I'd want them to make ALL old duties more challenging by at least heavily scaling gear.

[Emmanellain]

To those who liked the suggestion about enabling the duties for trust I've made a post for the live letter questions here I'll leave it here for those who wish to bump it.

[Iscah]

ARR's big problem isn't those two MSQ though, their quality is fine and if you're at that part in the story it's actually interesting. Their implementation is just horrid for replay. When I warn people about anything when joining the game it's the desert of filler between ARR and Heavensward. THAT really could be lost or at least condensed with little to no impact on the story.

Please do also tell them there is still a lot of important plot during that phase. It's not all tea leaves and smelly chocobos.

[Ardox]

ARR's big problem isn't those two MSQ though, their quality is fine and if you're at that part in the story it's actually interesting. Their implementation is just horrid for replay. When I warn people about anything when joining the game it's the desert of filler between ARR and Heavensward. THAT really could be lost or at least condensed with little to no impact on the story.

So far when I've introduced people to the game it's not the MSQ gruesome twosome that they balk at , it's that nothing under 60 seems to be a challenge at all. If they spent anytime at all on reworking old content I'd want them to make ALL old duties more challenging by at least heavily scaling gear.

Fair..
Maybe the fact I was dragged like a ragdoll during those 2 dungeons bias my opinion, I still believe the end of ARR lose luster from the poor experience you get from those dungeons..

I acknowledge there's a lot of quests in between ARR ends and HW start and I see a lot of new players complain. Thought, on a very personal note, I don't remember the gap between them being so terrible (maybe I just enjoyed that part of the story more that the average (?))

Now that I have read back my post, I don't even feel we have contradicting point: my original statement on the 2 MSQ dungeon applying to the last part of my post (sorry if it wasn't clear enough).