Suggestion for Castrum / Praetorium (CS)

[The-Real-Link]

Hi all,

Simple idea I had for adjusting Castrum and/or Praetorium due to the amount of cutscenes involved. I had been helping a friend of mine new to the game by doing Praetorium and it had been going incredibly smoothly. I specifically made a PF explaining this would be a synced run, without skipping cinematics, so that my friend and I, as well as others, could enjoy running this awesome dungeon at level. Everyone was friendly, not skipping CS, waiting for her slow machine to catch up to us if we were waiting, etc., until the very end on accident.

[The-Real-Link]

After defeating one of the final bosses, where we fight the last final boss (names omitted for spoilers), we were of course watching cutscenes since we felt that was important, but instead the other six members hadn't moved from the center of the arena, pulled, and killed said boss. My friend, needing more time than usual could only hear emotes and AoE, and literally never even got to participate in the final fight because it went CS to CS. Pretty bummed to see that for her. Accidents happen and this was one of them but I feel like she was penalized for how the game handled it.

So my thought would be, why not for these two places, place a barrier ring ala Thordan EX or CT or Alex, or any other duty where it waits for all players to have gone through any cinematics, then removes the barrier for each of the major fights? This way everyone is on the same page.

[The-Real-Link]

Groups farming either place or unsyncing etc. wouldn't be inconvenienced since most people tick skip all CS or manually do it, and those who would like to actually watch the story (in a lore oriented party makeup, mind you), don't have to worry about people starting encounters ahead of time.

Otherwise yes it's just a personal thought and some may say too bad my friend dealt with it / go watch CS at an inn, etc., but I feel that's just not the same as experiencing it when it's in the dungeon for your first time.

To be fair the player that pulled early did apologize when we were done but at the same time my friend was completely baffled as to what was going on and what she missed because of pushing through bosses she had no control over.

TLDR of it, put synchronization ring for duty on Castrum and Praetorium bosses.

[OoglieBooglie]

Those are some long cutscenes. Very few people want to sit in a ring and do nothing while waiting for people to finish watching cutscenes. What are they supposed to do while waiting? Just run around and do emotes? I wouldn't care if the cutscenes were only a minute and there were only a few of them, but there are just too many and they're too long.

[Knahli]

They just need to make an extra option that you can select - like the 'Join Duty in Progress' checkbox - that pairs you with one or more new players that allows you to run a version of those two dungeons that locks everyone out so long as a new player is watching a cutscene while offering perhaps double the usual reward or anything like that. That way everyone knows what they are getting into and experienced players have extra incentive to queue.

[Sida]

The purpose of the DF roulette of those dungeons is to get people to do them so the people going throu the quests who don't have friends to run with have some chance. However because people are greedy for their time, about no one who is just making the roulette for the reward would check a box for forced CS.

What I would suggest instead is that it would be an option for preformed parties, much like the unsynced and loot rule options existing now. That way if you establish a group on purpose to do the dungeons with watching the cutscenes, you could tick on "waiting for cut scenes" and the run would have the sort of waiting ring. Just that, introducing this to DF runs likely would never work to any benefit.

[Knahli]

The purpose of the DF roulette of those dungeons is to get people to do them so the people going throu the quests who don't have friends to run with have some chance. However because people are greedy for their time, about no one who is just making the roulette for the reward would check a box for forced CS.

What I would suggest instead is that it would be an option for preformed parties, much like the unsynced and loot rule options existing now. That way if you establish a group on purpose to do the dungeons with watching the cutscenes, you could tick on "waiting for cut scenes" and the run would have the sort of waiting ring. Just that, introducing this to DF runs likely would never work to any benefit.

"The purpose of the DF roulette of those dungeons is to get people to do them so the people going throu the quests who don't have friends to run with have some chance"

......with the incentive of tomes as a reward. If they received a 200%+ bonus on tomes when all they had to do was alt+tab or talk on their shells while waiting on someone to finish their cutscenes then I guarantee it would get plenty of people taking up the offer. Waiting on those cutscenes would still potentially be faster than making up the extra tomes lost on the 'Cutscene Bonus' through other means, such as manually running extra dungeons.

What you're suggesting is essentially the same as putting "Watching all cutscenes" in the comment section and hoping that you can collect up to seven other people who are willing to help out of the goodness of their heart. The forced cutscene option offers random people the incentive of a large tome bonus on top of the existing one while voluntarily opting for a longer run as opposed to relying solely on people who are on the same server that happen to be both in a helpful mood and have time to burn.

[Takfloyd]

There's a million ways to fix it so this important experience isn't ruined for new players, and yet Square Enix is still refusing to do anything about it. This is the biggest single flaw with the game IMO.

Here's just SOME of the ways this could be easily fixed or at least improved:

-Barriers preventing anyone from advancing while a new player is watching cutscenes, with a tomestone bonus to make up for it
-ilvl sync, making waiting for everyone more appealing, again with more tomes as compensation
-Reduce the dungeons to 4 players (This should be done no matter what honestly)
-Make a special exception in the Mentor roulette where the new player is paired with one or two unsynced level 60 mentors for an easy(but not over in a blink), hopefully friendly run
-Make the dungeons possible to complete solo, with NPC party members

But no, they just keep them in the same terrible state they are in, and sour the game experience for every new player who is playing alone.