Has it always been like this or...?

[Viridiana]

It was a lot better than AK pre-nerf and didn't take much longer than WP to speed run when people only had i70-90 gear, especially if you were in a pre-formed party who used cannons effectively.

Except that AK and WP also drop gear. Which means you don't need as much DL gear to defeat the content you're gearing up for. And better than AK before which nerf?

[DoctorPepper]

Only, not really. Don't think CM or Prae is faster than speedrunning any of the experts, which would also give you Poetics.

Some people like to do all of their duty roulettes in order to add variety to what they're doing.

Also, you get 140 soldiery from the roulette and it generally takes 15-20 minutes max because people are so over geared. If soldiery is what you're after it's just as fast as running an expert a lot of the time which only gives you 100 and you're less likely to get a slow group. The only option that can sometimes be significantly faster is farming hard mode primals for first time bonuses and that's not a sure thing.

Except that AK and WP also drop gear. Which means you don't need as much DL gear to defeat the content you're gearing up for. And better than AK before which nerf?

AK and WP both dropped low ilvl gear which was essentially useless given that DL was i70. They nerfed the original AK significantly by making the demon wall easier (removed adds) and by removing quite a bit of the trash. The trash and lower average ilvl across the playerbase is what made the original AK slower, even when speed running it. Most DF groups would take 30+ minutes to complete AK and it rewarded less philosophy than CM did. I'm not sure why you're asking which AK since there was only one AK at launch.

There were really only 2 viable options for fast philo at launch and they were WP and CM.

[Andevom]

Except that AK and WP also drop gear. Which means you don't need as much DL gear to defeat the content you're gearing up for. And better than AK before which nerf?

AK was nerfed by having fewer mobs (the few right after the Demon Wall before the first Succubus were some I know off-hand), and the Gnat adds were removed from the Demon Wall fight. It made the place significantly easier, but before that, the two main scenario dungeons were the safest way to get philo tomes.

[NekokoCatseye]

Apparently this is quite the hotly contested topic. I'm glad to find so many people who support my feelings in this (and I even understand those who feel differently a little better). My faith has been renewed somewhat, and I will try out each of your suggestions when I retry the second dungeon tonight. Maybe I'll even redo the first one so I can try and participate in the boss fights.

[TruebladeNuke]

Apparently this is quite the hotly contested topic. I'm glad to find so many people who support my feelings in this (and I even understand those who feel differently a little better). My faith has been renewed somewhat, and I will try out each of your suggestions when I retry the second dungeon tonight. Maybe I'll even redo the first one so I can try and participate in the boss fights.

Oooohhhh yes this is a hotly contested topic. It's been this way since... I signed up for this forum, lol. There's quite a few other hot topics around here too. Expect said threads to burst up to like... 10 pages in a single day (perhaps 2) if they're brought up.

[DoctorPepper]

Apparently this is quite the hotly contested topic. I'm glad to find so many people who support my feelings in this (and I even understand those who feel differently a little better). My faith has been renewed somewhat, and I will try out each of your suggestions when I retry the second dungeon tonight. Maybe I'll even redo the first one so I can try and participate in the boss fights.

The main thing to take from this is that SE learned from their mistake and stopped adding long cutscenes to the middle of dungeons so you won't have to worry about it being a continuing trend moving forward. Don't let this small handful of story dungeons sway you away from this fantastic game, there is lots of fun to be had.

[Viridiana]

AK and WP both dropped low ilvl gear which was essentially useless given that DL was i70. They nerfed the original AK significantly by making the demon wall easier (removed adds) and by removing quite a bit of the trash. The trash and lower average ilvl across the playerbase is what made the original AK slower, even when speed running it. Most DF groups would take 30+ minutes to complete AK and it rewarded less philosophy than CM did. I'm not sure why you're asking which AK since there was only one AK at launch.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but the way to speedrun AK at launch was to sac pull. Which means that the number of mobs didn't really matter beyond whether the tank could make it to the boss room. And I'm not talking about DF speedruns. Because if you really want a lot of tomes fast, the solution has always been to get a group and farm so that you don't have to wait on queues. I wasn't asking which AK, by the way, I was asking which nerf. Since they've alternately nerfed the difficulty and nerfed the ability to speedrun. Also, AK gear was only "useless" in the same way that i120 is currently "useless." It would get you pretty much anywhere you needed to go up until maybe T4 (and maybe even then, I don't know).

As to the rest of your point, sure, if you only need a few hundred duty roulette is the way to go. If you need, say, a few thousand, you've always been better off farming a dungeon.

[Mugiawara]

Bad things.

Please stop queuing for the storyline. Just stop. If you aren't going to take the time to deal with the CS/newbies.
STOP doing it. We all know it has long Cs's...Save yourself the time and friggin' DON'T QUEUE FOR THEM. Very simple!
This has been a problem since release...I hope SE doesn't add something like this anymore though because if people
are getting harassed to death and beyond and kicked because of them watching a CS and nothing can really be done then it's not worth it anymore.

[Duuude007]

Please stop queuing for the storyline. Just stop. If you aren't going to take the time to deal with the CS/newbies.
STOP doing it. We all know it has long Cs's...Save yourself the time and friggin' DON'T QUEUE FOR THEM. Very simple!
This has been a problem since release...I hope SE doesn't add something like this anymore though because if people
are getting harassed to death and beyond and kicked because of them watching a CS and nothing can really be done then it's not worth it anymore.

The same argument could be made against new people using a player roulette and expecting that the majority would cater to them And harassing the majority even though they are in the right...

There are demons on both sides of the argument.

[Viridiana]

The same argument could be made against new people using a player roulette and expecting that the majority would cater to them.

Except that the new people aren't using the roulette. They're queuing for that specific dungeon. You know, to finish their story.