My first bad experience with another player. :o

[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.

[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.

[MaloraYuki]

If you guys can find a couple higher lvls to run with you and let you watch the cutscenes I highly recommend getting in that group and unsyncing for it. (At least for the first run) you might not get the xp but at least you get to enjoy the story. My first runs of these dungeons I was kind of warned so I prewatched it in YouTube videos, not ideal but it worked. Yet, I still got locked out of every fight and didn't know where I was because when first viewing or skipping a cutscene my load time sucked. Most people know and understand these dungeons are poorly designed in that way and have just accepted that is how these runs are.

[Kaurhz]

Wow, I've never really actually had a sour experience such as this.. Aside from the usual you may expect with people dying. But best you can do really is put something as story focused, and cut-scenes in the PF. Personally I've never had an issue with people watching cut-scenes, and in fact have insisted numerous times that people do watch the cut-scenes, as watching them in the inn isn't even remotely the same.

[Lokiie1984]

Back in the early days of ARR, those two dungeons were so much worse. People would kick you out of the group if you watched cut scenes. And the only option was to run it with a premade group or watch them on YouTube (Was before they added the Unending Journey to the inn.) People wanted to farm them for Poetics and would throw a fit whenever someone watched. Which sucked, they were some really neat cutscenes, and the music was awesome.

[LalaRu]

...I have no issues helping newer players and what not, but I DO have an issue wasting others time...

Here lies the misunderstanding about duty finder.

Lets say you are paid (tomestones) by SE to do a job (the duty finder), so nobody is wasting time: Newbies are doing a duty they needs for advance in something, and vets are paid in tomestones to be there.

Duty completed in 15'? You lucky, rewarding job. 85' of pain? Bad luck about the PUG you got.

[kikix12]

Here lies the misunderstanding about duty finder.

First, there is no misunderstanding about duty finder. Duty finder includes non-roulette runs.

And even if I'll "correct" your statement and respond to it stating roulette, as it should, it still is not a misunderstanding.

Roulettes were made for a different purpose entirely from what you state (to reward players for helping new players get their clears). If it was like that, it would be impossible to find yourself in a party without new people. They were made to alleviate the issues of people outleveling certain content, thus making that content unattractive to them, resulting in lower level players (not only NEW players, but even alternate jobs) being unable to play the content without a serious time investment. That is why the leveling roulette is still a reasonably attractive option without the daily bonus. From the developers stand point, it is better to make you get more experience in Sastasha than lvl60+ dungeon even when you are lvl60+, just so that the lvl15 players can actually clear it, than for you to have an easy enough time in lvl60+ content (since there's a LOT of people doing it), but have the new player waste hours for a single dungeon run.

The daily bonus is an additional incentive to make you go with that randomness that can drop you in a pain-in-the-behind duty that you hate (Aurum Vale?! Oh, boy...) or a boring dungeon (Sastasha, that I am the only one in my parties that is happy for, since it's really hard to make that a dungeon take a lot of time or require any sort of cooperation...which duty finder shows to be non-existent in many parties) at least once a day, to further speed up the playing.

The job here is to fill in the spot in a less-desired content, instead of congesting in the desired content (like...the one where you actually get more than just that experience...like the gear you may need), thus "spreading around" the queues evenly. High-value dungeons get a small decrease (aka...they're still fast since...yeah...there are still many that queue for them specifically), while low-value dungeons have a massive increase in the speed at which you can find a party.

And taking that into consideration...yeah, sorry, but just about anything reasonable is better than doing a full Praetorium run when it comes to rewards. That roulette needs the additional daily incentive to even be considered for a run if "efficiency" is the focal point, and that's with an average, fast run. And, to be honest, I have never seen them get significantly slower. I mean, they still are "hit and miss". People very often mess up at Livia in her magitek suit (which, by the way, is the second place for the most useless and boring boss fight in this entire game, beaten only by the Ichorous Ire in Copperbell Mines, in my opinion), making that fight take a lot longer. Praetorium have no such massive slow-downs normally, though people sometimes are trigger-happy on the elevators.


And if I'll use the "pay" argument (and I really do HATE it, but it seems to be necessary in this case to maybe show some of you the problem here). The sub costs about 11$ a month if you do it cheaply, right?! Let's consider a person that earns 8$ an hour. 45 minutes time seven players is whooping 315 minutes, or 5h and 15min. So the party waiting for the cutscenes to run "wastes" 42$. Almost four months of playtime. They could have stayed those 45 minutes more at work and get overtime paid (that's actually even more, since there are bonuses to overtime), and they would still do the same amount of progress as when the cutscenes would be cut. But they would be a fair amount of money richer...every single time they make the run...

People really have better things to do with their time than wait for 30-45 minutes more doing NOTHING AT ALL. If they had to spend that time looking for party?! That would be a progress of sort. Trying again after a wipe?! Yes, that would be a progress of sort as well. Helping friends?! Well, people help friends cause it makes them feel better, so it's not nothing. But letting someone watch cutscenes and waiting on them?! Sorry, but that is worthless. Don't tell me to stop playing the game in the time I want to spend playing the game, just cause I'm getting sub-par (when taking cutscenes in) reward for that. If the players are watching the cutscenes and the rest of the group just goes and does it, it's fine. Leave it at that.

[Rinuko]

I have heard that on JP servers they wait on new players watching cutscenes.

So its like on JP servers if you cant wait on new players watching cutsences, don't queue roulette for story dungeons

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

[Seig345]

I know statistically some people may be running those two dungeons while leveling an alternate job, but, anyone who finds themselves in there due to the msq roulette should go in expecting to get those and that some people may be watching cutscenes...