It's Been Weighing On My Mind. So...

[Novaura]

A few days ago, I took my third avatar through the Praetorium to complete the first Realm Reborn storyline. Even though, half of the party was my third avatar and my FC friends who wanted to join me, the other half ran through the cutscenes and I was hoping that the improved odds would allow me to enjoy the place in its complete format. It worked for a while but eventually, the other half had enough and did the fighting without us so my FC group had no choice but to finish it off.

Knowing that so many are resigned to watching the cutscenes in the inn, I have been thinking about starting a linkshell or something to that end that offers to take people (because this will be a neverending problem) through Praetorium in its entirety without getting left behind or feeling rushed because of others and do what Yoshi-P wanted us to do during the Rising and enjoy everything that the game has to offer and I want the work that he and his team put into this game to be honoured because they worked so hard on something that no one ever sees. And people deserve a chance to see everything the way it was meant to be.

The other reason I want to do this is because when you go to a theatre to watch a big blockbuster movie, you don't watch the movie for 5 minutes, then leave for 5 minutes then come back and repeat the process until the movie is over. It is dumb to do that and you don't enjoy the movie as a result and you lose the purpose of why you went to watch the movie in the first place.

I know what people will say but this is more practical now because thanks to the "unsynced/undersized" party option, this would make doing this a lot easier because the unsynced/undersized option means that bosses die much faster thus giving players more time to enjoy the cutscenes while going through Praetorium. I don't care how much hate this thread gets because I just can't sit idly by knowing that this problem will be the one that the game has that will never have a resolution. So since it will never go away, I would like to turn this into a positive rather than a negative and give players the option to do this. For me, it's the least I can do to honour what Yoshi-P wanted us to do and given the wonderful game that this has been, it's time to give people what they want (even if they don't admit it) so that we as a community can enjoy everything this game has to offer.

[Sylkis]

I don't think starting a linkshell would help since cutscenes are a one time thing, people join your linkshell then probably leave after. Unless you want to start a charity

They messed it up, the game model (cross-server DF/weekly tomes/repeat grind) doesn't work with cutscenes. It's an architectural problem

[M0xie]

Obligatory "use the Party Finder" reply. You could offer your services via Party Finder, which I think is more likely to be seen by players than a linkshell, unless you work really hard to spread the word about it. Or, you could do both!

Good on you for wanting to help others

[ElHeggunte]

They messed it up, the game model (cross-server DF/weekly tomes/repeat grind) doesn't work with cutscenes. It's an architectural problem

Yes, which is why they've fortunately never placed long cutscenes in the middle of dungeons ever since the trouble with Castrum and Praetorium.

OP, you're better off sitting around in PF offering to take anyone who joins you through Castrum/Prae instead of bothering with a linkshell.

[Natashio]

Only way to enjoy the cut scenes in there is: One, go as tank. Two go with a friend that's a tank. Three, take another friend that's healer. Four, bring another friend that's the second healer. Five, grab what ever friends as dps or duty find the rest. As a courtesy, tell the duty finder added players that the cut scenes will be viewed. They can either agree, leave, or try to tank the bosses themselves and die. That's how I solved that problem for myself and a few friends long back on a few occasions. And never did I feel bad about it.

[Gamer3427]

Obligatory "use the Party Finder" reply. You could offer your services via Party Finder, which I think is more likely to be seen by players than a linkshell, unless you work really hard to spread the word about it. Or, you could do both!

Good on you for wanting to help others

This would work, but there is one problem. I imagine that very few players use or even know what the Party Finder is until they get to the point that they are actively doing the hardest content, if even then. I for one never once touched the PF until HW came out and I decided to use it to get parties together for treasure hunting groups. Both when using it then, and when using it later for things such as A4 attempts, (pre-ESO), I found that almost no one joined from just looking in the PF menu, but instead from me shouting about it, getting replies in the form of a tell from people in the same area as me, and then them joining after figuring out what it was. Many of those players also clearly had never used the PF before, as I even had a few people ask me how to join. Since there's no reason to use it for the most part except for farming, raids, or EX Primals, people who don't actively do those things, (either due to no interest, or because they're not that far yet), don't know anything about the Party Finder. Honestly, among my friends who have done a lot more of said content than me, I'm still pretty much the only one who actually knows how to set up a PF group, with most of them just passing the lead to someone else because they "have never done it before"......

I'm by no means bashing you post, just explaining that attempting to set something like this up in PF groups would be pretty pointless, because if a player is still doing content such as the Praetorium, then they probably haven't gotten anywhere near doing content that would familiarize them with how to use the Party Finder, so they won't try looking there. This can be alleviated by sending out shouts constantly regarding it, but that also means locking yourself into a perpetual PF group just in case someone like that joins, while at the very least a Linkshell system as the OP is suggesting would allow you to be playing other content while still beginning to form groups for such runs. Still, a Linkshell wouldn't be any more optimized in terms of finding said players, just in having a group of players on standby in a single chat that would be willing to help out first timers.....

OP, I'm fully for your idea, and I agree completely with what you're saying. You lose all of the context behind the cutscenes if you simply view them in an inn room after the fact. It's essentially the same as watching an action movie, but cutting out all the actual action scenes and only leaving in the exposition. The first time I ran the Praetorium, I didn't even get to participate in a fight until Nael, and I only got to join in on that one because one of the healers somehow fell out of the map and the group was waiting on them to figure out how to fix it. I can understand being in a rush because of limited time or because you've run it so often, but it does take quite a bit of the fun out of the run for new players, particularly if you're one of those that constantly tell them to "just watch it in an inn room"......

[Jynx]

Best bet to avoid the cutscene skippers is to grab a few friends and run it undersized (Can you do this for a first clear?)

[Ashkendor]

Best bet to avoid the cutscene skippers is to grab a few friends and run it undersized (Can you do this for a first clear?)

Yes. I've done this for several new players that joined my FC. Get 2-3 other people and wreck it undersized.

Most of the time people in my static join just to utterly destroy level 50 content as a level 60.

[Jynx]

Ahh yes I do recal Duoing cape westwind with a FC member haha.

[FallenArisen0990]

SE already remedy this in future Patches by adding the Cutscenes to the Beginning and Ending of a Dungeon/Trial/Raid.