Alliance Raids and players not waiting for Cutscene Watchers

[YukikoKurosawa]

Unfortunately, expecting players to behave like humans online is unrealistic.

Forcing cutscenes in the MSQ is probably the correct decision, but generally waiting in alliance raids for cutscene watchers just isn't going to happen. The good news is that there's not actually any penalty for joining a fight in progress once you get out of the cutscene (beyond your opener being scuffed and your rotation being out of sync with the fight that first time).

It's just not that big of a deal, honestly.

If the community isn't going to wait and respect people who want to watch the story then why even bother putting the story in there to begin with? That's the logical conclusion from this. Are we going to have this problem with the new Alliance raids coming soon and people who don't even care about the story at all just auto-pull on day 1? Because that's going to happen. 100% guaranteed. The community is expressing they don't care or respect people who want to experience the story in Alliance raids so just take out story from Alliance raids going forward. Story mixed with MMO only works when the community is interested in said story and or willing to respect those who do and it seems that's no longer the case. It's why an MSQ in WoW would never work because 99% of that community doesn't care about story and would bully anyone who watched cutscenes in group content. It seems we're becoming like WoW's community now.

[van_arn]

If the community isn't going to wait and respect people who want to watch the story then why even bother putting the story in there to begin with? That's the logical conclusion from this. Are we going to have this problem with the new Alliance raids coming soon and people who don't even care about the story at all just auto-pull on day 1? Because that's going to happen. 100% guaranteed.

The solution is to not have long cutscenes inside the dungeon. Make them short enough to where if someone misses the first few seconds of a fight, no one feels left out.

[Illmaeran]

The real problem with that idea is that other players just bully the person watching cutscenes into skipping so they can continue. That's why Praetorium is now the way it is. What I'm curious about is why players are very consistent with respecting new players watching the story in all other content but suddenly stop caring in Alliance raids.

You're 100% correct. It's been so long since I played ARR, I went back through it on an alt (a tank) and in one of the dungeons heard combat music and sound not long after starting the CS. It had been literally 7 years since I went through that dungeon as part of the MSQ and remembered nothing of the story, so it was essentially new. The character had the Sprout icon and the First Time Player warning went off at the start.

I had to exit out of the CS (essentially pressured into it) because I couldn't not help with the fight, being the tank and all. It was really upsetting as there was no way anyone in the group could tell if I were a brand new player or on an alt. Since this particular dungeon had important MSQ stuff in the CS, I was pretty upset about it.

It's an unfortunate thing that people can't get outside themselves enough to let folks have the few extra minutes needed to experience the story as it is, in the order it was intended to be in without having to go back to an inn and watch it there.

[Denji]

the easiest solution to this is to just expand the trust NPC system so that if you don't want to be rushed through things the first time and learn how things are meant to be done rather than the data-centre specific mechanics, you have that option.

[YukikoKurosawa]

The solution is to not have long cutscenes inside the dungeon. Make them short enough to where if someone misses the first few seconds of a fight, no one feels left out.

Well they were doing that until ShB where they decided to sort of go back to ARR-style with lengthy cutscenes in the middle of the content, along with unskippable intermission scenes (though that doesn't really count since it stunlocks everyone even if everyone has already watched it). But combine that with a community that seems increasingly saturated with people who don't care about story (which is likely due to the recent influx of WoWfugees) and have no patience for those who do and it's a recipe for this kind of problem. The new Alliance Raid launch day/week will be incredibly toxic no doubt.

[Saraide]

If the community isn't going to wait and respect people who want to watch the story then why even bother putting the story in there to begin with? That's the logical conclusion from this. Are we going to have this problem with the new Alliance raids coming soon and people who don't even care about the story at all just auto-pull on day 1? Because that's going to happen. 100% guaranteed. The community is expressing they don't care or respect people who want to experience the story in Alliance raids so just take out story from Alliance raids going forward. Story mixed with MMO only works when the community is interested in said story and or willing to respect those who do and it seems that's no longer the case. It's why an MSQ in WoW would never work because 99% of that community doesn't care about story and would bully anyone who watched cutscenes in group content. It seems we're becoming like WoW's community now.

The prior to final boss cutscene is neither important to the story nor are you going to miss anything from just watching it and joining into the fight half a minute after it has been pulled or however long it takes.

[MilkieTea]

Well they were doing that until ShB where they decided to sort of go back to ARR-style with lengthy cutscenes in the middle of the content, along with unskippable intermission scenes (though that doesn't really count since it stunlocks everyone even if everyone has already watched it). But combine that with a community that seems increasingly saturated with people who don't care about story and have no patience for those who do and it's a recipe for this kind of problem. The new Alliance Raid launch day/week will be incredibly toxic no doubt.

I fixed your statement so you could avoid lumping a group of people together!

[YukikoKurosawa]

the easiest solution to this is to just expand the trust NPC system so that if you don't want to be rushed through things the first time and learn how things are meant to be done rather than the data-centre specific mechanics, you have that option.

I don't think a 24-man Trust would work, if they managed to make it 8 or 4 man for Trusts specifically it could be fine but they'd have to redesign the entire Alliance raids content which is designed around 3 groups of 8 people so I don't think it could be done realistically.

[TheMightyMollusk]

And then the rest of the party just bullies the one person watching cutscenes into skipping and then we have another Praetorium situation.

Yes. As I said: unless the game enforces it.

[YukikoKurosawa]

I fixed your statement so you could avoid lumping a group of people together!

I'm saying as someone who came from WoW (I quit before ARR even launched however), that community does not care about story and would NEVER tolerate story-watchers because it's a very, very different game. And there has been a large influx of players from that game since last summer. It's reasonable to suspect part of the reason for the shift in player attitude towards story recently is partly because of that. Not that such players didn't already exist here beforehand. I see the same attitudes from that game in this game more than normal lately and to say it's a coincidence would be disingenous.