Please equalize rewards between Castrum and Prae

[Packetdancer]

Looking as you joined forum in 2019 I'm assuming you started playing not much earlier (can be wrong as somebody who joined forum more than a year after starting playing).

*raises hand* I started in 2.0 -- actually I started in 1.0, but quit and then lost that account because it was tied to a dead email, so started over with 2.0 -- and only bothered to join the forum in like, late 2019.

Anyway...

Cutscenes were skippable in the past. This game's playerbase's toxic attitude towards new players became exactly the reason why it was changed and now they are unskippable. Thank the gang that was kicking players from dungeon if they wanted to watch cutscenes and kept saying "watch it in the inn" even though new players deserved to watch it right in the dungeon just as we did when the game came out.

I'll note that in addition, back in the day, the cutscenes had dialogue options; for instance, when Gaius asks "Tell me, for whom do you fight?" you got to actually choose what to say. (Which makes his response of "Hmph, how glib." to your silence in the current cutscene somewhat unintentionally hilarious.) So even if people were watching the cutscenes, they'd finish at different times. To add to this, for some reason (possibly because of that dialogue option), the Gaius elevator scene did not appear in the inn book at the time, so if you skipped it in the dungeon you would never see it.

So you'd either watch the scenes (and have people charging on ahead, leaving you all alone and confused when you finished) or you had to insta-skip the cutscenes to stick with everyone (thus being unclear what the actual ending of A Realm Reborn was)... or you had people who saw you were a first-timer and kicked you so they wouldn't have to wait.

That roulette is there not for the benefit of endgame players; it's for the benefit of new players going through that instance, to ensure they can fill out a party. The rewards for the roulette are not for running the instance, they're for making yourself available to fill the instances where needed. As such, that's why cutscenes are no longer skippable.

And this is also why every time someone suggests "the cutscenes should be skippable if no one is a first-timer", I wince; if that were the case, I absolutely believe people would see a first-timer bonus at the beginning and either quit (so they could rejoin a new instance later where there'd be no newbie), or if there was an obvious sprout, just kick them to get a replacement so they could skip all the cutscenes.

[van_arn]

*raises hand* I started in 2.0 -- actually I started in 1.0, but quit and then lost that account because it was tied to a dead email, so started over with 2.0 -- and only bothered to join the forum in like, late 2019.

Anyway...



I'll note that in addition, back in the day, the cutscenes had dialogue options; for instance, when Gaius asks "Tell me, for whom do you fight?" you got to actually choose what to say. (Which makes his response of "Hmph, how glib." to your silence in the current cutscene somewhat unintentionally hilarious.) So even if people were watching the cutscenes, they'd finish at different times. To add to this, for some reason (possibly because of that dialogue option), the Gaius elevator scene did not appear in the inn book at the time, so if you skipped it in the dungeon you would never see it.

So you'd either watch the scenes (and have people charging on ahead, leaving you all alone and confused when you finished) or you had to insta-skip the cutscenes to stick with everyone (thus being unclear what the actual ending of A Realm Reborn was)... or you had people who saw you were a first-timer and kicked you so they wouldn't have to wait.

That roulette is there not for the benefit of endgame players; it's for the benefit of new players going through that instance, to ensure they can fill out a party. The rewards for the roulette are not for running the instance, they're for making yourself available to fill the instances where needed. As such, that's why cutscenes are no longer skippable.

And this is also why every time someone suggests "the cutscenes should be skippable if no one is a first-timer", I wince; if that were the case, I absolutely believe people would see a first-timer bonus at the beginning and either quit (so they could rejoin a new instance later where there'd be no newbie), or if there was an obvious sprout, just kick them to get a replacement so they could skip all the cutscenes.

My issue is we've tried Square's hamfisted attempts to keep this self-admitted mistake alive without them doing what they actually need to do: don't require 8 people to run this.

If the cutscenes can be skipped, then new people get left behind. If the cutscenes can't be skipped, then people dodge to wherever they get the most XP-- and leave new people behind.

We're in a situation now where no matter who you are, if you're in Castrum/prae you're skipping the fights-- they've been nerfed into oblivion. Just take it a step further and make it a cutscene gallery to end ARR with some solo fights and be done with MSQ roulette entirely. Don't make new players wait at all to get their clear.

[Ultimatecalibur]

they've been nerfed into oblivion.

Not nerfed; just completely overgeared because there is no ilevel sync like LotA, ST and Camp Westwind. I'm now actually wondering what the time requirements would be like for both Prae and Castrum if they had ilevel syncs of say i70.

[van_arn]

Not nerfed; just completely overgeared because there is no ilevel sync like LotA, ST and Camp Westwind. I'm now actually wondering what the time requirements would be like for both Prae and Castrum if they had ilevel syncs of say i70.

Outcome is the same. Nerfed.

Whether this nerf was a direct change or a result of the ilvl overgearing is immaterial; they are nerfed to the point of irrelevance by the sync settings. They are cutscene galleries now, not dungeons.

Cutscene galleries shouldn't need 8 people. Square can do better.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Outcome is the same. Nerfed.

Whether this nerf was a direct change or a result of the ilvl overgearing is immaterial; they are nerfed to the point of irrelevance by the sync settings. They are cutscene galleries now, not dungeons.

There is actually quite a bit of difference. The methods of fixing them are a significant factor. Castrum and Prae are pretty much the exact same as they were at release and just setting an effective ilevel sync would make Prae and Castrum more engaging and less face roll. True Nerfs would require those modifications to be reverted.

[TaleraRistain]

I'll note that in addition, back in the day, the cutscenes had dialogue options; for instance, when Gaius asks "Tell me, for whom do you fight?" you got to actually choose what to say. (Which makes his response of "Hmph, how glib." to your silence in the current cutscene somewhat unintentionally hilarious.).

Haha, yes! I feel like I'm the only person who ever remembers this. That always makes me chuckle in Prae runs because it is pretty funny and I've filled my party mates in many a time about why that seems so oddly done. Also the original reason why we all ran behind the columns.

To the OP, if you make them equal then people will just fish for Castrum. It's shorter and would give the same reward.

They're also not going to make cutscenes skippable again unless they reduce the rewards they boosted when they made them unskippable back to the levels they were when cutscenes were skippable. But it's highly unlikely they would make them skippable for all the reasons Packetdancer outlined. People being shits to newbies ruined that ability for everyone because they couldn't handle it like adults.

I'd miss MSQ if they took it out like some are asking for here. I run it just about every day I'm on. My favorite Prae groups are the ones where we spend the entire run MST3King it. Or saying all the popular lines in all-caps. Sometimes there is a very quiet run and that's sad. Sometimes someone tries the exploit and we laugh when we get out of the cutscene and see them dead and make them do the walk of shame back. But most times we're all just in there to lay back and chill and have fun. If we get a newbie, the newbie is our little cinnamon roll to protecc.

And Castrum can be really entertaining because of the bailing issue. I did a run where both tanks bailed, and our tank was a ninja. Couldn't do insane pulls but it didn't really slow us down too much. When we finally got a tank right before the last fight, the ninja playfully said "Imma have to ask you to leave. I'm the tank now" and we all had a good laugh, even the new tank once we explained what the deal was.

There is so little communication in groups in this game. I would hate to lose the one place where we're all chill enough to be sociable.