The Cutscene Skipping Debate - Change of View

[Foo01]

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If the cutscenes were mandatory then players would not get a group for days... some new players would rather just get the clear than queue for days....

The reward is still really good even if cutscenes are mandatory in the 1 out of 20 runs (the odds you get a 1st -timer). People will whine, because they can, but they will still do the DR main scenario because 19 out 20 they get quick myths. People are taking the reward for granted is problem. The no cutscene skipping option exists on the PF, but it is really wishful thinking that anyone can figure that out and then use it.

Asking a first timer to use the PF is a non-starter. They can not know what they do not know. Some of them do not even know how do operate journal in the inn.

[Mahri]

I leveled a tank so I can go to Castrum and Praetorium and tell everyone of those speed runners to wait for the 1st-timers. I queue main scenario roulette regularly to do exactly that. And it is like a 1 in 20 chance that I get a 1st-timer, the other 19 times I get fast myths, so you are really get 19x the rewards to sit thru the cutscenes once. This deal is more than fair and you still can't care about that 1st-timere. Talk about elitist attitudes! Taking everything and everyone else for granted.

Same. It's a shame that being a tank is practically required if you want to get the most out of story dungeons (or help out others who do), but so be it.

I don't have a problem if a whole group wants to do a speed run -- and in fact, they can be pretty fun to do.

But, if someone's new, I'll always call that out first and let them decide if we should go fast or go easy. This is basic courtesy.

[Velo_Vandore]

I missread. I thought you were saying the cutscenes should always be mandatory, but now see you're saying only if a new player is present.

I actually think that would be worth a try to see if people still come. My concern would be that most players would just leave the duty after the first scene, but maybe I should be more optimistic.

EDIT: I suppose even if they did leave that's not worse than right now, unless the new player is frustrated that everyone is leaving even though they wouldn't mind skipping the scenes.

[OPneedNerfs]

Let's face it, the people who actually care about "muh immersion" and wish to watch all cutscenes while having the whole party wait for them are a fringe minority right now.

Yes, I say right now because the game has moved on.

Where there used to be a large pool of players who wished to do Storyline missions (CM + Prae) for the storyline, are now replaced with players who are doing it for the roulette bonuses.

Anyway with the introduction of pre-made full party roulettes, I already foresee even longer waiting times for new players who want to clear those missions.

Sooner or later, playing the game fresh as a DPS will become less and less viable due to there being a lack of players to pull from to create a full party for them to run dungeons to begin with.

So after facing hours and hours in the queue you think these new players will still complain about being forced to skip cutscenes? I think not. It's either skip cutscenes or go back to waiting if you're unlucky enough to get kicked.

Sure you can report them for kicking you but end of the day the biggest loser is still the new player as he/she is now stuck waiting in queue for hours again.

Now the luckier people who choose to go tanks/heals for their first classes would face less of such problems but at the end of the day, I doubt people expect everyone to start the game off as a tank or healer right? If that were the case, there'd be no issues such as "long DPS queues" in the first place. Then there's people who can't/won't ever want to play tanks or healers. What about them then?

So yes, roulettes are there to help new players. But not in the way most people miscontrued it. Roulettes were originally added to ease up long queuetimes on older dungeons. If you get a group that's willing to be helpful and will wait for you to watch cutscenes, congratulations you just won the ffxiv DF lottery.

I say the devs should come up with a poll for new players when they reach level 50 before they unlock CM and Prae with the question:
"Would you rather wait longer for uninterrupted cutscene viewing?"

and see the results.

Pretty sure most players just want to get those dungeons out of the way and progress further in the storyline than sit on their asses waiting for a dungeon to pop.

[Foo01]

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"Would you rather wait longer for uninterrupted cutscene viewing?"
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The assunmption that people will wait longer is false. The myth rewards has attracted people to run Praetorium and CM as it is, when they do really nothing else for them. The odds of getting a 1st-timer is low. We should actually celebrate the fact that there are first timers because that means the game is picking up new players instead of treating them like crap and forcing them to skip. So if cut scenes skipping is blocked if there are 1st-timers, this block will really only engage 1 out of 20 times. People will run the for the reward they take for granted and whine about it, but there will be no longer wait times, they still want those rewards they take for granted.

... My concern would be that most players would just leave the duty after the first scene, but maybe I should be more optimistic.
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Some people do leave and some people cuss me out for trying to help the 1st-timer. If they keep up the harassment, I have all the evidence to report them and I have reported them and talked to the GM for the investigations. The people that leave, it is their choice, and I could care less, and fact remains it is almost always instant refilled. I can solo tank CM or Praetorium, and you can run 1 healer no problem. The DPS refills are guaranteed instants. So the reward as it is more than attractive enough.

And sometimes I get a nice surprise from people saying how they finally get to play thru and seeing everything as it should for the first time out their all their numerous of runs and finally get to appreciate it.

[OPneedNerfs]

snip

The queuetime argument was against people saying the roilette bonuses are negligible or even if cutscenes were made unskippable, they'd still do it.

Your post actually proves this point further by saying if people want faster tomes, just do bray sr. With roulette bonuses and skipping of cutscenes and maybe speedrunning them, cm and prae could turn out to be more tome efficient. However, if anything was done to the tome rewards or time taken to finish said dungeons, more people will gravitate towards bray sr for their tomes.

That ends up with the queuetimes getting longer for newer players. It just isn't happening yet as nothing is done nor can be done to discourage cutscene skipping.

[Foo01]

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Your post actually proves this point further by saying if people want faster tomes, just do bray sr. .

19 out of 20 times you can be more efficient with CM or Pratorium, people will still do it. Beside most new level 50s can't run Bray SR even if they wanted to. So for a while they will do that just time. My point in no way says people will all run Brayflox SR. People want to change things up at times, want different mix. DR is roulette. the odds of you landing a 1st-timer is like 1 in 20, good odds in favor of the gambler.

Just to be I am not against the speedrun, nor am I asking for cutscenes to be mandatory all the time. The only tweak that is needed is the 1st-timer no skip. That happens less than 5% of the time, but it is a world of difference for the 1st-timer. Nobody is going to fuss after they've seen it once and can access it in the inn to review to their hearts content. The problem is the speed runners forcing speed run on everyone all the time ignoring the fact that for that 5% odds you got a 1st-timer. Be nice to the new guy, getting new players help keep the game alive and helps it grow. The other 95% of the time you get quick myths that gets taken for granted.

[IndigoHawk]

Roulette tomes are a reward for helping people. Helping people means sometimes you get noobs. When you get a noob, earn your tomes by helping them have a good experience, which means encouraging them to watch cutscenes.

If you don't think the reward is worth helping people, then don't use duty finder. You can SR Brayflox no problem.

OP, you feel your view has evolved, but actually you've lost sight of the purpose of the roulette reward.

[LalaRu]

As long as the thread turned to a discussion about what DF is, let's face the facts.

- DF is a tool to create parties.
- it is written nowhere it is intended for newbie's sake
- on other side, it is written nowhere it is intended for veteran's sake

So, DF is just a game tool, that everyone uses for any reason, and no reason is more or less legit than another. So, unless SE states something about it, we cannot say the use of DF must enforce one rule or another.

There are players who:
1- enjoy cutscenes only the first time, then want skip them if doing same duty again
2- enjoy cutscenes always
3- always skip cutscenes
4- skip them but have no problems on wait players viewing them

Type 4 is out our discussion, they just don't care if cs or not cs.

The only problem to address is when a party have type 2 and 3 (and 1 on repeating duty) mixed together.

As things are now, with the fact that kicking out players for watching cutscenes is a bannable conduct, the only thing you all can do when someone watch a cs, is either wait him, or go ahead.

Waiting others, is something that is part of "living in a community", a thing that some people have problems to do, but they must adapt to. Waiting someone watching a cs, is the same as waiting in queue in a public office, or somewhere else.

When you want make things fast but at the office there is someone slow ahead you, you just call it bad luck and wait. The same is with duty parties, if you get mixed you call it bad luck and wait.

Shouting frustration on forum about the bad luck of finding bad people on DF parties, maybe can distress the shouting one, but does solve nothing.

[Foo01]

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- it is written nowhere it is intended for newbie's sake
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It is not written because it does NOT have to be. And everyone gets something out of the DF anyways, all those bonus reward being taken for granted are not accessible to the newbie. It doesn't take a genius to know why that is incentivised that way. A reward to experienced players to help the newbie, only that 19 out 20 times there is no newbie/1st-timer and people still get the freebie reward.

Additional bait can be used to encourage people to watch cutscene, like rolls for loot drops that include a change for iLevel50 gear or something, these drops are only available for need or greed for players that watch the cutscenes, those that skip are treated as a pass.