Please remove Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium from Mentor Roulette

[MellowMink]

I had these show up in the recent past, and while I ended up reluctantly doing them anyway, other mentors will want to leave right away... and I honestly don't blame them.

You can't skip the cutscenes, the dungeons are still laughably broken and really easy to complete at this point due to lingering exploits and a lack of item level synchronization, and it generally feels like someone is punished more for still choosing to finish it rather than abandon the instance; that harms new players too since they'll now have to either immediately wait for other Main Scenario Roulette participants or new players, or start without a full party. I'll stick with the instances, but many mentors understandably won't want to. The Praetorium can last up to an hour sometimes, if you start counting from when initial cutscenes play and not strictly the timer, and you don't get a major tome bonus since you're not playing it via the Main Scenario Roulette.

When I see those pop up, I have to wonder exactly what it is that Square Enix wants me to help with that's not properly explained or surprisingly difficult with those two dungeons, especially when I end up being placed in the instances while none of the other players are new due to the lack of a slight poetics reward boost message. Instead, I feel like I do the same amount of tedious waiting as in the Main Scenario Roulette but without getting the same major experience or tomes boost, and many mentors will end up just leaving right away since the Duty Finder penalty is shorter than the length of the dungeon, plus they can just go do other things while waiting for that penalty to end.

Those dungeons should either be removed from the Mentor Roulette, give better roulette bonuses for people who end up being added to it via Mentor Roulette rather than Main Scenario Roulette... or these could both become obsolete requests by Square Enix just doing what should've been done with those two instances last expansion and rework them into single-player story instances.

Can someone also explain to me from a design perspective why Mentor Roulette will sometimes toss me into those two instances even when the game detects that nobody is new to the instance? Who exactly am I helping then? I want to help newer players out, not do cutscene-heavy dungeons with significantly worse rewards while also not really helping teach dungeon mechanics to anybody.

[DrWho2010]

these two are probably showing up more often now in Mentor Roulette due to the Mogtome event. Once EW launches the mogtome event will end and mentor roulette picks will probably go back to normal.

[MellowMink]

these two are probably showing up more often now in Mentor Roulette due to the Mogtome event. Once EW launches the mogtome event will end and mentor roulette picks will probably go back to normal.

I can confirm that these are now appearing more often now after the event started; that said, my original post referred to this sometimes happening multiple days in a row before the event started as well. Either way, I don't think that these two dungeons should be appearing in the Mentor Roulette ever for reasons I stated in my initial comments.

[Katie_Kitty]

At the end of the day, mentor roulette is less about "We want you to help" and more about "We need warm bodies to make queues pop."

[Rongway]

At the end of the day, mentor roulette is less about "We want you to help" and more about "We need warm bodies to make queues pop."

You don't need mentors to help with duties that are steamroll-watchcutscene-steamroll-watchcutscene.
You don't need bodies to fill duties for which there is an entire roulette that is just those two duties and grants an obscene amount of XP.

Mentors are no more effective in DR:MainScenario than any other person who's ever completed it, are not needed to fill the party slots, and don't get any rewards worth mentioning for being trapped in a 45 minute cutscene dungeon.

[AlwaysConfused]

Whoa Whoa, slow down people, without Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium how am I going to find time to read the forums?

[Tavieon]

Well, I have never seen any mentor trying to actually teach people in any roulette. Also there are still many people who do not know we need to turn off searchlights and kite Livia once hitting her with cannons. You can start teaching proper tactics for those people.

If you feel digust just the cutscenes are not skippable, then dont run mentor rouletts. Simple as that. Being a mentor literally means nothing. You can grab those commendations just spamming Sastasha, anyway.

[Rongway]

then dont run mentor rouletts. Simple as that.

I would be running DR:Mentor twenty times a day if it wasn't a Praetorium magnet. I'm not needed in Praetorium. Praetorium runs do not go any faster or smoother for new players with me sitting there watching cutscenes. My DPS and mechanical recall do make real dungeons and trials go faster and smoother. How many other mentors could be helping out in content where they can be helpful, but are avoiding DR:Mentor because Praetorium is a waste of their time and skills? "So don't run it" is about the worst stance you could take it when we could just take Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium out of the roulette, put mentors in duties where they actually matter, and increase DR:Mentor participation.

[BluexBird]

Can we just get an Extreme Roulette please? Like there's so much fun content in this game that nobody does because there's no rewards for it. Add an Extreme Roulette, have it pay out a little bit of gil, and help bring older content back again.

[MellowMink]

This is unfortunately still a problem as of Endwalker; I was hoping that it might be addressed, but it sadly hasn’t. The instances are supposedly being reworked much later down the line, but I still don’t see a good reason why they’re in the Mentor Roulette in the meantime.