Remove Praetorium

[Jojoya]

Look at it this way - if they made the cutscenes skippable since they can be done with Duty Support, they would roll them into the 50/60/70/80 roulette and remove the MSQ roulette altogether.

Is that what you really want?

[TaleraRistain]

Yeah, no chance. These cutscenes used to be skippable. New players were "encouraged" to skip, and sometimes kicked from groups. If they didnt then the other players in the group would leave them behind, speed-run the dungeon, and they would get stuck going straight from one scene to the next without any actual "dungeon". The "new player friendly" advice on the forums/in NN back then was to do both these dungeons for the first time with a group of friends who were willing to wait with you, let you enjoy the cutscenes, and still participate in the run. There were hundreds(this is not an exaggeration) of threads complaining about the issue. The "fix" that was decided on was to make the cutscenes unskippable and then to up the reward for the roulette until it was high enough that people still qued regularly enough that new players werent forced to wait overly long. They will not go back to the days of skipable scenes and new players having bad experiences in what is supposed to be the climax of the 2.0 story. If you feel the rewards are too low for the time investment the content requires, do not run the content. Full stop. History shows that if people stop queing and their internal metrics show that the time to complete for new players gets excessive then they will boost the rewards again. Everything else is just hot air.

It was common on Jenova to put together cutscene watching PFs (I did it a lot after my Castrum run got ruined by this) and we would instantly boot anyone who tried to sneak in and hurry or was nasty to the new folks.

[Nicola_Kunu]

I was sadly part of that experience when the cutscenes were skippable back in 2017 - Bosses would be killed in the middle of the cutscene I wanted to watch and I wouldn't get to actually *play* the content. I can see via my achievements that I basically took a 2 week break after that miserable experience (Mapping the Realm: Praetorium).



I remember I was absolutely miserable after being told to go watch the cutscenes at the inn. I didn't want to do that as that divorces me from the fights that connect each cutscene.

Whilst I came back, Devs don't want players to quit the game after a negative experience with their game - especially a game that has a subscription model.

I also didn't know what Party Finder was back then (because I hadn't done any content that required Party Finder before, and PF is one of several dozen interaction-heavy menus in this game). There was no way before going into the dungeon beforehand to know that that would have been better.

Looking back, do I understand why people skipped cutscenes in Duty Finder? Of course, the dungeon was like 40+ minutes with cutscenes, 10-15 minutes if you skip everything, and I don't recall if there was any added loot bonus to the MSQ dungeons like Prae.

Some part of the design had to change.

I am happy that MSQ roulette exists in its current form so new players do not have the same awful experience I had.

[KatiaRelanah]

It just baffles me how (veteran) people are only worried about how it affects THEM, when the entire point of the MSQ roulette (roulettes in general, to be sure, but especially MSQR) is to support players who don't have a friend group or whatever to play through the game with them... And then they're mad at the AUDACITY of these filthy new players maybe actually caring enough about the story to wanna watch the cutscenes?

I dunno who needs to hear this, but 9 times out of 10, maybe 10/10 (idk if the matchmaking will just select a random dungeon 4 players queued up have unlocked if all 4 pick roulette without someone in need?), ANY roulette is essentially you signing up, sight unseen, for a party leader-to-be who has queued up for a specific dungeon - first clear, rerunning it manually for exp or relics or whatever else, etc. With that in mind, you're there at the behest of/in support of the person who picked the duty. Are they a new player who really wants to watch the cutscenes and go read all the lore interactables? Well, it's their party (literally) so you support them doing so. And if you're not comfortable with these pace-slowing behaviors, don't queue up for roulettes.

The bonuses exist PRECISELY BECAUSE they are incentivizing you, the experienced player with plenty of other stuff you could do, to spend your time instead helping someone do a specific duty. If these rewards didn't exist, then experienced players running less-than-endgame content would fall off a cliff, in turn locking many newbies out of progression through the game. Very much a "screw you, I got mine" mentality that would have adverse effects on the incoming population of the game.

[Toutatis]

Prae is fine. It’s about 20 minutes, not anywhere as long as it was, the daily gives a lot of tomes and XP. That XP is useful, particularly when levelling a job between lvls 50-70 where there isn’t lots to do. When there’s a tomestone event, it also gives decent rewards with a fast queue (the only thing better for that event is a premade party of Blue mages). I don’t mind the cutscenes as the tradeoff is pretty decent.

Prae is key to the MSQ and new players shouldn’t be forced to go watch cutscenes at the inn because op just wants to be done with his mentor roulette ASAP.

[Arohk]

Prae is fine. It’s about 20 minutes, not anywhere as long as it was, the daily gives a lot of tomes and XP. That XP is useful, particularly when levelling a job between lvls 50-70 where there isn’t lots to do. When there’s a tomestone event, it also gives decent rewards with a fast queue (the only thing better for that event is a premade party of Blue mages). I don’t mind the cutscenes as the tradeoff is pretty decent.

You don't get any of these in Mentor roulette, which was the point of the discussion btw.
I'd say the other two dungeons are....fine~ but Praetorium is still terrible to get over and over.

[DPZ2]

You don't get any of these in Mentor roulette, which was the point of the discussion btw.
I'd say the other two dungeons are....fine~ but Praetorium is still terrible to get over and over.

You may have been focused on mentor roulette, but, in the words of the Original Post: "Can we just remove it in the dailies/duties/mentor roulette?"

Pretty much everyone except you has been focusing on why the inconvenience is fine for what you get in return. You're the only one in the thread who specifically mentioned problems getting it in Mentor roulette.

[Toutatis]

You don't get any of these in Mentor roulette, which was the point of the discussion btw.

There are some tomes for the mentor roulette and there are always tomes for events.

Also, this is a key dungeon for people doing their story. Mentor roulette is for support and filling. The former takes precedence over mentors grinding for the mount. If Prae pops, it’s because there is demand. Besides there’s quick and brainless Guildhests in Mentor roulette to balance it out (and a somewhat high chance to get one when queuing as dps at certain hours).

As pointed out above, OP wasn’t exclusively talking about mentor roulette either.

[tsuchii]

It just baffles me how (veteran) people are only worried about how it affects THEM, when the entire point of the MSQ roulette (roulettes in general, to be sure, but especially MSQR) is to support players who don't have a friend group or whatever to play through the game with them... And then they're mad at the AUDACITY of these filthy new players maybe actually caring enough about the story to wanna watch the cutscenes?

I dunno who needs to hear this, but 9 times out of 10, maybe 10/10 (idk if the matchmaking will just select a random dungeon 4 players queued up have unlocked if all 4 pick roulette without someone in need?), ANY roulette is essentially you signing up, sight unseen, for a party leader-to-be who has queued up for a specific dungeon - first clear, rerunning it manually for exp or relics or whatever else, etc. With that in mind, you're there at the behest of/in support of the person who picked the duty. Are they a new player who really wants to watch the cutscenes and go read all the lore interactables? Well, it's their party (literally) so you support them doing so. And if you're not comfortable with these pace-slowing behaviors, don't queue up for roulettes.

The bonuses exist PRECISELY BECAUSE they are incentivizing you, the experienced player with plenty of other stuff you could do, to spend your time instead helping someone do a specific duty. If these rewards didn't exist, then experienced players running less-than-endgame content would fall off a cliff, in turn locking many newbies out of progression through the game. Very much a "screw you, I got mine" mentality that would have adverse effects on the incoming population of the game.

Except that they don't have to be locked out of it. It could be ENTIRELY removed and exclusive to solo duty. Noone genuinely likes doing Prae. If they tell you, they are lying. It's not content, it's not gaming, it's a waste of time, rewatching cutscenes forced to my face.

It's not screw you, I got mine mentality when there are ALTERNATIVES.

[tsuchii]

Prae is fine. It’s about 20 minutes, not anywhere as long as it was, the daily gives a lot of tomes and XP. That XP is useful, particularly when levelling a job between lvls 50-70 where there isn’t lots to do. When there’s a tomestone event, it also gives decent rewards with a fast queue (the only thing better for that event is a premade party of Blue mages). I don’t mind the cutscenes as the tradeoff is pretty decent.

Prae is key to the MSQ and new players shouldn’t be forced to go watch cutscenes at the inn because op just wants to be done with his mentor roulette ASAP.

Misinformation. A prae run averages at 30mins. I would know, doing a lot of them while grinding my mentor mount (thank god I'm done). It is key and I didn't say new people SHOULDNT be able to watch them without forcing other people who have seen it. STOP assuming and putting words in my mouth. Jesus.