Request: Please take MSQ dungeons out of the Mentor Roulette

[LokiAlpha]

So before you say that Mentor roulette is supposed to be used to help teach new players the game, please hear me out:

When a mentor gets Castrum or Praetorium chances are they are going to leave immediately. Castrum less so, because it can be done in about 20 to 25 minutes compared to Praetorium that is minimum 50 minutes. The only instance it ever takes more than 50 minutes to finish a mentor roulette are some of the harder EX trials like Ramuh, Nidhogg, etc.

So instead of doing a boring 50 minute Praetorium run, a mentor will likely rather take the 30 minute penalty.

On to my next point of using mentor roulette as it's supposed to be used: teaching new players.

There is a HUGE issue with this because Mentor roulette doesn't even CARE if there's a new player in the group or not. It just throws you into the group that's been waiting longest. I am literally in a Praetorium run as I type this right now. None of these people are new whatsoever. So there's nothing to mentor.

And another point, specifically about these two dungeons, there's nothing to teach in these dungeons. I guarantee you if all eight players were completely new, they could stumble through praetorium and clear without any issues because there is no challenge whatsoever in either of these dungeons.

Hell, I'll even go as far as to say that not only should Castrum / Praetorium should be removed from Mentor roulette, it should be removed from the game as it exists now. And what I mean by that is they should change BOTH of these to solo instance dungeons like the expansions have near the end that say "There are many cut scenes and this will take a long time etc. etc. etc."

"But my MSQ Roulette exp!!!" I get it, you'd miss out on that exp. But I think for the overall greater health of the game and the immersive experience it would give new players far outweighs the exp you gain from sitting through an hour of cut scenes.

As it currently stands, new players are thrust into a dungeon and rushed through it with no explanation....Generally barely contributing at all and just playing catch up. How is this immersive for the player? The player is central to the story, yet these other random 7 people are rushing through doing everything. So much for being the warrior of light, right?

It legit makes no sense that I'm getting a mentor roulette of prae full of people who have done it a million times. There's no one to mentor in this. How is this a mentor roulette? And again, even if the other 7 players in the party were completely new, there isn't really anything to teach. "Rush through the dungeon and kill everything without worrying about anything because there is no threat period."

Does anyone else agree? Disagree? Let me know, because I feel like I can't be the only one that feels this way about how the MSQ dungeons are designed.

[ssunny2008]

Castrum has always been bad in its design. And as the past shows, SE has no clue to take care about issues. Solving this with tons of XP for some cutszenes is a joke as much as other things are.

The mentor program has a lot of flaws too. You need some votes and pretty much every content done, that´s it. But it doesn´t mean that the person is a real mentor who´ll help others or even have a clue about classes / instances. The amount of friendly mentors is really low. The rest just runs it for the mount or whatever. I´ve even met enough who left lvl 50 ex content immediately or insult others, which is a joke.

But tbh... pretty much everything SE throws onto us is old content via daily roulettes or quests. Ok, it´s good for new players to find ppl to do it. But if you´ve seen it million times especially Castrum...

It should get a final rework which lasts in solo content or a standard dungeon. Maybe even just Cutszene spam like we´ve at the end of each expansion. The most szenes are not even neccessary for the main story. Maybe Gaius and Ultima, but that´s it.

[Kuroka]

Honestly invest the week and turn those two into lv 50 raids, play the longer cutscenes inbetween and be over with it, so it can be put into normal raid roulett >_>

[RokkuEkkusu]

So before you say that Mentor roulette is supposed to be used to help teach new players the game, please hear me out:

When a mentor gets Castrum or Praetorium chances are they are going to leave immediately. Castrum less so, because it can be done in about 20 to 25 minutes compared to Praetorium that is minimum 50 minutes. The only instance it ever takes more than 50 minutes to finish a mentor roulette are some of the harder EX trials like Ramuh, Nidhogg, etc.

If you get a group that presses their buttons and don't take their daily rewards for granted, most Praetorium runs are cleared in 40-45 minutes.

Back on topic, I am aware of everything you said.

Mentor Roulette and the skill level of the average players has taught me one thing: Appreciating the Main Scenario Roulette dungeons, even the unskippable cutscenes. The obvious is clearing Castrum Meridianum and/or The Praetorium via Main Scenario Roulette has me earn extra gil, tomes, exp, Second Chance points, etc. Helping others getting past the story and chatting sometimes are huge pluses.

Now what ultimately made me appreciate those two dungeons is that I prefer getting them over being grouped with randoms in synced Extreme Trials. Most Extreme Trials via Mentor Roulette won't get get past the add phases and/or close to the harder parts. Not to mention clearing them is pretty much a pipe dream. Most players don't even listen or do the advice you give them to avoid the damaging mechanics properly. Keep in mind I have most of these EX Primal on farm when they were synced and relevant, so I myself experienced how difficult these Extreme Trials are with random and how results varies a lot [*points to my Firebird, Nine Tails, and Landerwaffe mounts/achievement dates].

[ssunny2008]

Now what ultimately made me appreciate those two dungeons is that I prefer getting them over being grouped with randoms in synced Extreme Trials. Most Extreme Trials via Mentor Roulette won't get get past the add phases and/or close to the harder parts. Not to mention clearing them is pretty much a pipe dream. Most players don't even listen or do the advice you give them to avoid the damaging mechanics properly.

I´ve a completely different experience. The most newcomers do listen to what have been said. Some even ask for advice in ANY instance at the beginning with the claiming to be new. Maybe in 1/10 runs you get that guy who closed the chat, don´t watch at it or just don´t speak one of my languages. Savage / EX content in Mentor roulette has never been an issue for me so far.

[LokiAlpha]

I´ve a completely different experience. The most newcomers do listen to what have been said. Some even ask for advice in ANY instance at the beginning with the claiming to be new. Maybe in 1/10 runs you get that guy who closed the chat, don´t watch at it or just don´t speak one of my languages. Savage / EX content in Mentor roulette has never been an issue for me so far.

This has also been my experience. There are a FEW fights that are an EXTREME hassle to deal with (Ramuh EX, Nidhogg EX, sometimes Thordan, but sometimes that's really easy to force a group through it.) But generally speaking EX Trials in general are extremely easy to get clears in. I'll admit I haven't gotten all of the HW, but all of the ARR EX Trials save for Ramuh listed before are guaranteed clears in my parties. HW I've gotten Ravana(easy, usually can be done in one pull) Bismark(might take two pulls if other tank doesn't know the swap mechanic), Thordan (This one can be tough, but you can easily type out each mechanic as it's coming, and mark spots that help with all the rest of the mechanics up until the final phase. From there it's a crapshoot), Sophia (Easy, just mark yourself and tell people to follow you as you do mechanics properly), Sephirot (easy, but might take a few pulls as people get situated with the different color buffs and what to do when they have them)....I've only gotten 1 nidhogg EX run so far and it's been a disaster and I feel like might not be possible to clear in roulette....I feel like Zurvan would be too, because I remember him having some pretty specific mechanics but I've never gotten Zurvan EX to really find out if it can just be forced through with DPS.

Never gotten a single Stormblood EX trial at all. Could be that by the time you're 70, you realize that you're supposed to just do this with your buddy at level 80 unsync'd or some such.

So with that said I'll still take a Prae over say, a Ramuh for instance. But clearing prae in 40-45 minutes is impossible in a pug. So that's a straight lie.

Edit for Rokku: Prae is just over 29 minutes of cut scenes. That's 29 minutes you cannot skip. Doing a quick search on Prae speed runs, people were doing them in 21 minutes when you could skip cut scenes.

You know what that means? 29 + 21 = ???

Even if you could shave off some more time because of item level, assuming these people doing these speed runs were at the ilvl of the time, you aren't shaving off ten minutes because of your item level. Sorry, that's just not happening lol. So, in a pug, too, you aren't doing better than 50 minutes. That's just not happening on a consistent enough basis to say that you can do it in that time. Sorry.

Edit 2: Because I can't stop looking into it. Just found the speedrun time for Prae on speedrun.com. Unsynced, solo instance someone did it in 38 minutes and 58 seconds being able to one shot the bosses but still forced to watch cut scenes. So you're saying the person who can one shot all of the bosses barely did it in less than 40 minutes, and a group of synced people can do it in 40? Naw, that's just factually incorrect my guy.

[RokkuEkkusu]

Since there are replies here, might as well break it down:

I´ve a completely different experience. The most newcomers do listen to what have been said. Some even ask for advice in ANY instance at the beginning with the claiming to be new. Maybe in 1/10 runs you get that guy who closed the chat, don´t watch at it or just don´t speak one of my languages. Savage / EX content in Mentor roulette has never been an issue for me so far.

Good for you and well done since I'll take your word for it here. Not everyone has the same experience as you. In fact, most of the upvoted replies in this following reddit thread pretty much illustrates how I feel on Extreme Trials in Mentor Roulette:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...a_mentor_is_a/

This has also been my experience. There are a FEW fights that are an EXTREME hassle to deal with (Ramuh EX, Nidhogg EX, sometimes Thordan, but sometimes that's really easy to force a group through it.) But generally speaking EX Trials in general are extremely easy to get clears in. I'll admit I haven't gotten all of the HW, but all of the ARR EX Trials save for Ramuh listed before are guaranteed clears in my parties. HW I've gotten Ravana(easy, usually can be done in one pull) Bismark(might take two pulls if other tank doesn't know the swap mechanic), Thordan (This one can be tough, but you can easily type out each mechanic as it's coming, and mark spots that help with all the rest of the mechanics up until the final phase. From there it's a crapshoot), Sophia (Easy, just mark yourself and tell people to follow you as you do mechanics properly), Sephirot (easy, but might take a few pulls as people get situated with the different color buffs and what to do when they have them)....I've only gotten 1 nidhogg EX run so far and it's been a disaster and I feel like might not be possible to clear in roulette....I feel like Zurvan would be too, because I remember him having some pretty specific mechanics but I've never gotten Zurvan EX to really find out if it can just be forced through with DPS.

Never gotten a single Stormblood EX trial at all. Could be that by the time you're 70, you realize that you're supposed to just do this with your buddy at level 80 unsync'd or some such.

So with that said I'll still take a Prae over say, a Ramuh for instance. But clearing prae in 40-45 minutes is impossible in a pug. So that's a straight lie.

Edit for Rokku: Prae is just over 29 minutes of cut scenes. That's 29 minutes you cannot skip. Doing a quick search on Prae speed runs, people were doing them in 21 minutes when you could skip cut scenes.

You know what that means? 29 + 21 = ???

Even if you could shave off some more time because of item level, assuming these people doing these speed runs were at the ilvl of the time, you aren't shaving off ten minutes because of your item level. Sorry, that's just not happening lol. So, in a pug, too, you aren't doing better than 50 minutes. That's just not happening on a consistent enough basis to say that you can do it in that time. Sorry.

Edit 2: Because I can't stop looking into it. Just found the speedrun time for Prae on speedrun.com. Unsynced, solo instance someone did it in 38 minutes and 58 seconds being able to one shot the bosses but still forced to watch cut scenes. So you're saying the person who can one shot all of the bosses barely did it in less than 40 minutes, and a group of synced people can do it in 40? Naw, that's just factually incorrect my guy.

For Prae, I start when the instance timer clock starts. At that time, I have my FC 10 minute food buff on and my food lasts for 40 minutes total. It runs out after our group beats Ultima Weapon. After our groups beat Lahabrea, it usually ends at the 77-75 minute mark on the instance timer. And I said earlier if your group does press their buttons in which they DON'T AFK and make use of their rewards, then it would be a smooth run. Everyone's mileage may vary.

On EX Primals, it can go many ways, but since you brought up Heavensward EX trials, might as well bring up a few things:

You do have a point about Ravana EX, assuming the tanks do rememeber to split damage on Blinding Blade, take the prey, and party does their damage rotations well. Most of the time back in Heavensward from 3.3 and on, players tend to beat Ravana before Final Liberation went off. If party members did their rotations more properly, they would win before Swift Liberation went off.

Bismarck EX is indeed tank dependent on the adds, and people making sure they get off the boss before the shakes the Dragonkiller cannons off.

You said brought up the "last phase" for Thordan. Ironically, that phase is the easiest one post Ultimate End because it's basically room wide aoes from the Knights, plus Thordan being invincible if Ser Zephirin is up. It usually becomes very tough during the second, third, or fourth Knights of the Round phases.

You could clear Nidhogg EX in Roulette provided tanks can manage aggro on the adds, people killing adds in the right order, people seeing Nidhogg during his Cauterizes, keeping an eye on their chain color during Claw & Fang, baiting aoes during Sable Price balls, among other things.

Back in patch 3.4, people in fact used Raid Finder for Sophia EX because it was the only method to use the "Duty Complete" tag, and it was queued normally as if it was a Duty Finder. It obviously isn't gonna happen this time around.

[LokiAlpha]

Since there are replies here, might as well break it down:

On EX Primals, it can go many ways, but since you brought up Heavensward EX trials, might as well bring up a few things:

You do have a point about Ravana EX, assuming the tanks do rememeber to split damage on Blinding Blade, take the prey, and party does their damage rotations well. Most of the time back in Heavensward from 3.3 and on, players tend to beat Ravana before Final Liberation went off. If party members did their rotations more properly, they would win before Swift Liberation went off.

You could clear Nidhogg EX in Roulette provided tanks can manage aggro on the adds, people killing adds in the right order, people seeing Nidhogg during his Cauterizes, keeping an eye on their chain color during Claw & Fang, baiting aoes during Sable Price balls, among other things.

I like how you start this off by trying to "teach" me how to do Praetorium. That's a laugh. I just threw numbers at you and you think people run these dungeons at speedrunner level speeds on a regular. Newbies included. You're trying to change the goal posts of your argument. You said SPECIFICALLY: "most Praetorium runs are cleared in 40-45 minutes." That's just factually incorrect. And then you go on to say the easiest HW EX fight, Ravana, is only easy if tanks remember to soak cleave together, take prey, and do damage. Tanks do NOT have to soak the cleave together, tanks do NOT have to pick up the prey(although they should because you know, that's the mechanic), and EVERY group can kill him during Swift Liberation. Before it even goes off. Like he's still marking players by the time he dies. The only time I wipe on Ravana EX is when healers die to the Ifrit rushes because they aren't standing in the middle(at first) and then moving to avoid the rush. That is LITERALLY the only wipes. No one gets knocked off after Bloody Fuller. And even if the healers DID get knocked off after, it would still be a clear because I promise you not enough damage goes out in that final phase that you NEED healing. You force him out of his defensive stance almost immediately because of all the damage you did to him in phase 2(his first Damage stance, in case you don't know the proper phases).

As for your comments on Nidhogg and Thordan...you clearly just have no awareness at all and probably cleared this stuff when it was relevant or new, which is great; congratulations, you learned the dance. Good luck teaching that dance to 4-7 new people in 60 minutes. It ain't happening.

Sorry, you really are arguing the wrong person here. I promise I have more knowledge and experience on this topic than you and your misguided views are making you look ignorant.

[RokkuEkkusu]

I like how you start this off by trying to "teach" me how to do Praetorium. That's a laugh. I just threw numbers at you and you think people run these dungeons at speedrunner level speeds on a regular. Newbies included. You're trying to change the goal posts of your argument. You said SPECIFICALLY: "most Praetorium runs are cleared in 40-45 minutes." That's just factually incorrect. And then you go on to say the easiest HW EX fight, Ravana, is only easy if tanks remember to soak cleave together, take prey, and do damage. Tanks do NOT have to soak the cleave together, tanks do NOT have to pick up the prey(although they should because you know, that's the mechanic), and EVERY group can kill him during Swift Liberation. Before it even goes off. Like he's still marking players by the time he dies. The only time I wipe on Ravana EX is when healers die to the Ifrit rushes because they aren't standing in the middle(at first) and then moving to avoid the rush. That is LITERALLY the only wipes. No one gets knocked off after Bloody Fuller. And even if the healers DID get knocked off after, it would still be a clear because I promise you not enough damage goes out in that final phase that you NEED healing. You force him out of his defensive stance almost immediately because of all the damage you did to him in phase 2(his first Damage stance, in case you don't know the proper phases).

As for your comments on Nidhogg and Thordan...you clearly just have no awareness at all and probably cleared this stuff when it was relevant or new, which is great; congratulations, you learned the dance. Good luck teaching that dance to 4-7 new people in 60 minutes. It ain't happening.

Sorry, you really are arguing the wrong person here. I promise I have more knowledge and experience on this topic than you and your misguided views are making you look ignorant.

Very well. The link posts a picture of my typical clear time in Praetorium.

https://imgur.com/xrJyt1M

As I said before, people in my parties tend to do their attack rotations reasonably to clear within the 40-45 minute timeframe I average on. Your mileage may vary on how your teammates perform in future Praetorium runs.

You can say I'm misguided or ignorant if you wish, but I am merely saying what I have experienced as best as I can.

[LokiAlpha]

Very well. The link posts a picture of my typical clear time in Praetorium.

https://imgur.com/xrJyt1M

As I said before, people in my parties tend to do their attack rotations reasonably to clear within the 40-45 minute timeframe I average on. Your mileage may vary on how your teammates perform in future Praetorium runs.

You can say I'm misguided or ignorant if you wish, but I am merely saying what I have experienced as best as I can.

The only thing that shows is a single run, assuming it wasn't done with an almost full group of friends. With that said, there was at least one random player, as it's clear you're showing "Excercising the Right" as almost having been completed. So basically, prove to me you're going into these solo and you're getting 77 minutes(or as you put it 45 minutes including the opening cut scene, which again is your MAXIMUM that you allowed) 6/10 times and we'll talk. I'm not saying, nor did I ever say, it's impossible to do that in a single run. Hell, even multiple runs that might happen, but that's not what you said. Again, let me reiterate your quote. YOUR words: "most Praetorium runs are cleared in 40-45 minutes."

This topic is clearly derailed from the original point with you overexaggerating the normality of a run like this. This is far from normal. You know that too. You're just trying to prove yourself right to create a false narrative for others reading the topic.