As a new player, running through the Praetorium dungeon was the worst

[Chalbee]

A contentious subject to be sure. My personal approach is just sit back and watch the cutscenes and let the other 7 people do the work. The fights are uninspiring, the sfx are annoying, and nobody will stop and tell you how to do the fights anyway, so you don't miss much. Think of it as a movie, but you also get some tomes and experience. All the "2kool4skool" veteran players won't even notice you're gone.

[Charlayy]

Its easier to just tell them how the story ends.

[Avatre]

A contentious subject to be sure. My personal approach is just sit back and watch the cutscenes and let the other 7 people do the work. The fights are uninspiring, the sfx are annoying, and nobody will stop and tell you how to do the fights anyway, so you don't miss much. Think of it as a movie, but you also get some tomes and experience. All the "2kool4skool" veteran players won't even notice you're gone.

To be honest though, unless you're running it with minimum ilvl gear equipped, you won't be seeing any of the mechanics these days that people who ran it when it was a brand new, end of the patch, dungeon. Even then, you probably would be pushing some of the phases.

[execool]

I had a pretty similar experience to OP just last week. I was playing healer as well. It was easily one of the worst experiences I had in ANY game. I had been warned to skip cutscenes beforehand, so I was doing so, but the other players refused to explain even basic mechanics and instead just made fun of me when they took off without me on the elevators, with me having no idea how to progress as I had not seen the cutscenes and no idea what to do with the robot. I also had to watch the ending on youtube, as I accidentally skipped through the ending cutscenes, and didn't realize you had to turn in a quest in order to be able to see it in the inn. It honestly made me stop wanting to do the story, and I almost uninstalled the game. If I didn't have a super supportive FC, I would have definitely quit the game. It is still going to be a while before I have the stomach to do story quests again, I will just focus on crafting in the meantime.

[execool]

Honestly, "hardcore" players who try to rush newbies to endgame content should be removed from the game IMO. I have been directly harassed on more than one occasion by such players in my tells. I get that people want their stupid tomestones so they can get their minimal gear improvements, but it is not fair to people who actually want to play the game. It is extremely easy to help newbies, and there should be a system for punishing people who dont, particularly on the MSQ duty queue. Either that, or the level sync should be made more aggressive so people cant finish without party members so easily.

[KaivaC]

snip

The good news is that the Praetorium and Castrum Meridanum are the only two instances in the game that are like this. I ran into the same thing and essentially missed most of the fights in my first run through them. Like I said, two are the only two instances like this. Square learned their lesson from this and at long last, they are supposed to be fixing somehow with 4.2 or around 4.2. Dunno what they're gonna do, but a fix is coming. Don't get discouraged from two instances that are known to be a pain for all sprouts.

That being said, from what I understand, this has been the thing for a while....people only go through this for the tomestones and exp bonus. I'm guilty of this as well, though I don't rush anybody, I do prefer to rush through these two dungeons personally.

[Nedkel]

I had the exact same first time.
I was just watching cutscenes, did absolutely nothing in the dungeon despite me being a tank. XD

[Kakiko]

*snip*

You're on my server. I absolutely LOVE helping newbies, because I'm a relative newbie myself (having just started playing in July). My sister is also working her way through the game now (she's just about to the middle of Heavensward) and when she got to Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium, I went in with her and unsynced them with a friend of mine so she could enjoy the cut scenes. I'm a huge proponent of watching important cut scenes like those as they happen as for me, watching them later on tends to lose their allure. Normal dungeon intro scenes I have always skipped, but anything integral to the story I watch and be damned what anyone else thinks.

So, if you ever want any help on anything, please look me up! I have BLM at 70, AST at 70 and I'm working on DRK right now.

[Vstarstruck]

Honestly, "hardcore" players who try to rush newbies to endgame content should be removed from the game IMO. I have been directly harassed on more than one occasion by such players in my tells. I get that people want their stupid tomestones so they can get their minimal gear improvements, but it is not fair to people who actually want to play the game. It is extremely easy to help newbies, and there should be a system for punishing people who dont, particularly on the MSQ duty queue. Either that, or the level sync should be made more aggressive so people cant finish without party members so easily.

It is hard to comment without knowing the full story so ill try my best.

There is not any mechanics to really worry about outside 2 places, and I seen people manage short length important instructions for them. "LB pull this" "do not do anything, not even heal till the flash" "fire the cannons then run to the waymark" So in your group where they simply unable to do that ? I also seen people kicked for being rude at the elevator thing.

People are doing those runs for exp daily, not tomestones, it is really not efficient if tomestones is the only goal.

[Jijifli]

People are doing those runs for exp daily, not tomestones, it is really not efficient if tomestones is the only goal.

You sure that's not backwards?

15 minute run with 140-240 poetics looks pretty good to me. The exp on the other hand... I don't even get 2m from it once SB turns its head.