My first bad experience with another player. :o

[Sarteck]

GUys, I've been trying to follow this thread, but I'm confused by one term I keep seeing over and over. What's a "premade?"

[Vidu]

GUys, I've been trying to follow this thread, but I'm confused by one term I keep seeing over and over. What's a "premade?"

A party you make yourself before entering content in DF - it can either apply to having a full party (of 4 or 8 people) or just you with a few friends, so you'll still get randoms in.

Also, why can't SE fix this another way? Why can't they make it so that people that skip the long cutscenes suddenly have a trap door open, drop them to a secret area with extra content, and let them fight their way through that until all cutscenes are completed? Get extra items or whatever from it, have it geared towards "high-level", maybe even auto-unsync it until the last player viewing cutscenes is finished. Or some other crazy stuff like that?

Two reasons basically:
First they dont want to revisit that old content and put effort into it - as harsh as it sounds: its not worth their time. Its unlikely they're actually losing money over this or anything. It sucks, but its one bad experience people will have in this game - an important one, I get that, but its still not enough of a problem. They've learned from it, they've moved on and so did every single player who went through that for the first time.

And second: I doubt that thats a fix - its not just "standing around doing nothing" that annoys people there, even though thats a big-factor. Its also that it takes 30-45 minutes (+15 minutes or so for the actual dungeon). The average dungeon only takes 15-20 minutes. People want to be done by then, they dont want to spend an hour in a dungeon.

This thing really isnt to win. It would need re-modelling on their side but its not important enough to do that, sorry. Again: Yes, I know grande finale ruined for first time players and so on. It does suck, no one is denying that.
I really believe the best fix here is to just give out a warning message like we're getting before long cutscenes, so newbies can prepare and possibly get a decent party together. Or, if they dont care (enough), just take DF.
Or they can probably change it to a 4 man dungeon - it doesnt really need 8 people to begin with, never did. And 4 people are a lot easier to control than 8...
But again - probably just not worth the effort.

[Snow_Princess]

Vidu basically answered but let me add a bit:

Just a bit....
But 200 creation/ 200verity/ 200 poetics, sure why not, make +50/+100/+100 for first time clear bonus too, do that and ya feel free disable allowing to skip, if not on a 70, triple exp then what we get now (quad if on bonus) I honesly do not think that is asking for too much, anything short of triple of what we get now, people will do other things for a better exp/hr

Basically you need make it so it is worth people's time to do. If you take your suggested (SE will never do it but just saying) if extra content was added there while people watch cs making the DF 40 mins - 1 hr long without giving the rewards I stated, no one would queue for it. People tend to flow though the path of least resistance, same with electricity. However if another path is at least comparable, some would simply do it because it is something different to do.

Sorry about not explaining what a premade means. I do not know how wide spread people use the term but I use it to refer to 2+ people queued together. 2 or 3 in a group of 4 can pretty much rule the flow, don't follow get kicked, same with 4 or 5 in a party of 8. Sometimes there is someone unkind and outspoken , I met a few of them, and no matter what is said, the rest of the premade shield that person from vote kicking. I met a premade of 5 or 6, do not remember during a relic trial. The premade was intentionally wiping and not fighting adds at all, leaving me to solo them. This is why I am disagreeing with the idea that a GM said "whatever the majority does goes" because premades definitely abuse that loophole if GMs always follow that.

[Sarteck]

Also, why can't SE fix this another way? Why can't they make it so that people that skip the long cutscenes suddenly have a trap door open, drop them to a secret area with extra content, and let them fight their way through that until all cutscenes are completed? Get extra items or whatever from it, have it geared towards "high-level", maybe even auto-unsync it until the last player viewing cutscenes is finished. Or some other crazy stuff like that?

[Mysticdraggon]

SE really need to re-design Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium level 50 MS dungeons. these two dungeons alone have been the source for many cases from new players claiming that they have met an extremely toxic player(s), yet no one once considered that the players are not the problem; it is the dungeons themselves.

suggestions:

Castrum Meridianum:

a lot less cutscenes in general. we dont really need to see everything, including the mini-bosses' death scenes. we don't need to witness every event happening via cutscenes either. with that said, a more creative approach would be to create similar events that happen in the background.

The Praetorium:

make it so that Gaius, The Ultima Weapon, and Lahabrea are stand-alone trials. Nero needs an update if he is going to be the final boss within Praetorium and the dungeon itself needs more obstacles to compensate for the time defeating 3 bosses in the end. speaking of obstacles, the SE really needs to prevent players from speeding through each room, because some mobs are untouched if players know how to slip past them. im mostly talking about entry nodes without the need for concepts such as keys in order to pass.

[kikix12]

The developers wouldn't put so much effort into it. It is neither efficient nor worthwhile. It would be a lot easier to make these dungeons into solo instances with simplified mechanics and basic AI NPC's supporting you, and they still didn't do that.

Developers stated that they want to make the grand company squadrons into "adventurers" that you can enter some dungeons prepared for that. That means they would make proper (hopefully) AI for them and set the grounds for running mechanically complicated content with AI-led members. That's when these two dungeons MAY get such change (even if not related to the squadrons themselves).

I'd be all for that. As much as this is an MMO, I'd love it if I could run every (lowest difficulty!) dungeon with a squad of NPC's, even if the rewards were appropriately smaller, just to properly learn the mechanics without the numerous variables that come from live players.

[Sarteck]

I'd be all for [running with the Squad]

I love that idea, actually.

[EDIT}: They could actually mix the two, and just let your Squad fill any unopen slots. Like if my buddy and I went in there, he and I could have 3 Squad members each, for a total of 8.

[LineageRazor]

I love that idea, actually.

[EDIT}: They could actually mix the two, and just let your Squad fill any unopen slots. Like if my buddy and I went in there, he and I could have 3 Squad members each, for a total of 8.

Letting newbies run with their Squadron would be great... if not for the fact that Squadrons are locked behind so much crap that VERY few newbies would have them unlocked by the time they got to CM/Prae. Lost opportunity, there.

Biggest difference JP community is polite vs us in the west. If you played FFXI you know what i'm talking about. Sad

Yeah, someone has apparently forgotten about JP ONRY!!1! Played FFXI for nearly fourteen years, and JP are just as capable of douchebaggery as western players. The self-directed bigotry I often see on these forums is pretty tiresome: people are people, the world over, and JP's supposed emphasis on community over individualism doesn't change that one bit.

[kikix12]

Letting newbies run with their Squadron would be great... if not for the fact that Squadrons are locked behind so much crap that VERY few newbies would have them unlocked by the time they got to CM/Prae. Lost opportunity, there.

As a main story quest, it is very likely to get an outside NPC treatment instead of the adventurer squadron, making it a solo duty like many others. That would probably mean the end of the roulette and the dungeon version being forgotten in the oblivion (despite probably still being unlocked by finishing the solo duty).

[Sarteck]

That means they would make proper (hopefully) AI for them and set the grounds for running mechanically complicated content with AI-led members.

As far as this goes, something like the "Gambit" system from FFXII would be utterly fantastic.