Party Rushing as I Watch Cutscenes

[nuyu11]

I'm lucky because I go with my FC mate that time they wait for me.
But that content can be considered old already, why don't SE give new player options to go with AI just for story purpose.

[Gyson]

I wish I could say it gets better, but it sadlly doesn't. I didn't get to the newest raid instance (Alex) until the second week it was out. There was a brief cutscene before at the start of the run - brief in that it completed by the time someone typed out "ugh watch the cs later in the inn plz". And then "thx" after noticing the cutscene icon was no longer above my head (as if I had ceased my enjoyment of the game's experience just for him). The two story instances you're referring to are probably the most cutscene heavy examples out there. But that won't stop impatient players from spitting on you later on down the line if you choose to take up even 30-60 seconds of their time with an introductory cutscene elsewhere. More often than not, the FFXIV community is just horrible like that.

My advice to new players (if you can manage it) - go with friends. I'm big on the storyline and was warned in advanced that the 2.0 story ended with some cutscene-heavy instances that were often a nightmare experience for new players. So, I went to my guild's forum and made a thread asking if a) anyone would be willing to go, with the understanding that we'd be pausing and watching the cutscenes as they happened, and b) (taking it a step further) we'd be doing the run with our ilevel 45-50 artifact gear/no equipment above i-level 55 (which is now even easier with the new dungeon sync options, something that didn't exist back then). People were actually nervous we'd suffer wipes trying to do the dungeon "at the intended ilevel", but we were more than fine.

I ended up having more people signing up for the run that I could take, with people in my guild donating their supplies and time to craft up ilevel ~50 accessories and weapons for our group. And we had a blast joking around on voice-chat the entire run. I could not have asked for a better finale to my 1-50 storyline, and that is honestly how everyone should try to experience it at all possible. Every time I hear of an experience like the original poster's or someone settling for watching the cutscenes later on in the inn (when the context of the moment is missing), it just makes my inner-gamer and RPG lover sad.

[EveK]

There's also an undersized party option that allows you to enter with less than eight people. You won't get XP for the fights, but you'll be able to do it with, for example, a level 60 friend or two. I recently had lots of fun doing CM as a 60 paladin with just a 50 white mage and 51 monk. Really let us master the fights' mechanics. Remember to repair =).

[PenelopeWinn]

As much as I would like to feel for you, after two years of playing the game the same place gets boring for many players. If your in the DF and not a premade group its honestly just something you'll have to live with. Most people would rather only waste 20-30 mins of their life than 40-60 waiting for only one or two people who haven't got to see it yet. (this is coming from someone who has never skipped a cut scene regardless of the hate I have gotten.)

[T2teddy]

There is one big problem with telling people to watch them if they want but the group continues on...you vets tend to avoid killing a lot of things and new people don't know where or how to avoid them. That happened to me in Castrum. The second cs started right in the middle of a damned fight [WTF!] and by the time I managed to get out of it everyone was gone and not even showing on my map. I stuck my head into the next room and promptly got killed by about 6 mobs. Someone finally realized and came back to show me the route.

[Niwashi]

There is one big problem with telling people to watch them if they want but the group continues on...you vets tend to avoid killing a lot of things and new people don't know where or how to avoid them. That happened to me in Castrum. The second cs started right in the middle of a damned fight [WTF!] and by the time I managed to get out of it everyone was gone and not even showing on my map. I stuck my head into the next room and promptly got killed by about 6 mobs. Someone finally realized and came back to show me the route.

The same thing happened to me at the beginning of the Praetorium. It was a Party Finder group that had "No cut-scene skipping" in the PF conditions. When I was asking in /shout for people to join my PF, I pointed out that it was for a full story run, with cutscenes. Once we had a full group, we discussed in party chat that it was to be a full story run and nobody should skip or run ahead. Everyone agreed to that. But by the time I completed the opening cutscene and entered the dungeon, everybody was gone. Well, everyone from my team, at least. All the mobs were still there. Apparently, if you know where you're going, you can just run past them to the exit, but of course, I didn't know where that was, and couldn't explore by myself to find it in a room filled with mobs designed for a full party to tackle.

I asked where everyone was, and eventually one person came back to find me, but by that point the rest of the team had finished the first boss, so one of those shortcut portals to the last finished area appeared by the entrance, and we just took that to catch up. (So I still have no idea where the actual exit from that first room is.) Through the whole run, the best I could occasionally manage was when I was able to keep the rest of the team in sight while I chased after them. I never got a chance to strike a single blow against anything, nor to see anything that happened through the whole dungeon, up until the final boss. At that point, they finally waited for me, and I did get to take part in the final boss fight. But after missing the entire rest of the dungeon, it seemed rather pointless to do that bit (which was, of course, completely out of context by that point).

And, as mentioned, this was on a "no cutscene skipping" PF run.