As a new player I wonder whether the developers are completely out of touch with players like me. I wonder whether they have gotten any feedback about this atrocious experience upon reaching lvl 50 with a brand new character experiencing the game's story for the first time.
I am well accustomed to the duty finder, having used it for every pre-50 dungeon, trial and guildhest. And multiple times I have indeed skipped the cutscenes and chose to view them at the inn, but for the most part I enjoyed the story that was carefully weaved together.
Then, hitting 50, I wanted to enjoy the culmination of the story arc. Yes, you know it, I reached the point where I have to do Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium. Great, let's queue in the duty finder! Entering castrum, I viewed the cutscene, and because nobody COULD leave me behind, nobody did. It's only when I viewed the second cutscene that I realised, nobody cared what I was doing. It wasn't the case that they were annoyed that I was viewing a cutscene and couldn't progress without me, nor was it the fact that they were waiting for me to finish before continuing. They. Just. Moved. On. And didn't care at all if I was there or not. Rather than being left behind in the dungeon, I chose to skip the cutscenes. Either way I was going to have my first experience of the story ruined, I could choose to skip the cutscenes or not do the dungeon which is tied in with the story. I was annoyed when we were finished, but not enough to make my first post on the forums to rant about it.
Bracing myself for having to skip all the cutscenes in the Praetorium I entered duty finder again, how could it get worse? Well, it did get worse. They were doing a speedrun, and the method of doing it? Tank grabs aggro of all the mobs, runs for the exit. They were clearly notified that they were getting a bonus for having us new players along on the ride, and I was annoyed enough in castrum for having to skip the cutscenes to actually do anything in the dungeon, but I was even more annoyed here when nobody clued us in to what they were doing. Yes, US, because there was more than one of us who were new to the dungeon. I was one of the ones with quicker wits because I was able to figure out that I should die and respawn to access the shortcut. Some poor chump had been on the ground quite a while waiting for everyone until he realised that he had to respawn himself. Then came the point with the magitek armor. One individual was kind enough to mark out the terminal for us to use the id on, but not kind enough to mention it in chat. It was only after going up the lift to the magitek armor that i realised what was going on, and by that point everyone else, bar 3 of us, had gone off on their own leaving us behind. After interacting with the terminal, some random mobs aggroed me, I don't know where from. All I knew was that I was being attacked when i got into the magitek armor, everyone was gone, and I was lost. I hadn't actually failed a duty before, wiped, but never failed, but this one I just gave up and abandoned.
Partially, I abandoned in spite, so that they wouldn't get their bonus. But seeing as there were other two new 50s, they would probably get their bonus anyway. I guess it didn't really matter what I did because they'd carry on regardless.
This rant was brought to you by the amazing walking set of Allagan tomestones.
Whew, got that off my chest![]()