The changes to Castrum and Praetorian are excessive and unnecessary

[TsukasaHiiragi]

I don't usually post on the forums, but this change has created two sides in this debate have clearly been drawn, and I'll break it down where SE really messed up and catered to a louder group of elder players and mentors who kept complaining about it over the years, until they finally caved in and all but destroyed any reason to keep doing these dungeons. When these changes was first announced, I knew without any shadow of doubt that SE would use this opportunity to nerf the exp and they did.

Castrum wasn't that bad at all, the real issues was the boss fights became a joke as expansions rolled out, ilevels increased and the difficulty became a moot point. Outside of weak bosses, the entire instance really wasn't that bad.

Praetorian suffered the most in this patch and ultimately SE has entirely destroyed it, because EVERYONE knows this is run for exp most notably to level sub jobs to make the grind more bearable because outside of daily roulette's is a slog and these once a day made it tolerable.

Praetorians only huge failure was the lack of being able to skip the excessive cut scenes, and YOU still can't skip them which makes the current dungeon basically two boring boss fights with slightly more complexity and 9/10ths less exp than you would normally get, this is an issue for players who are still levelling and for players who are levelling sub jobs, this essentially takes away a big chunk of exp earned each day, and that change is entirely unwarranted and as such, I am personally thinking about cancelling my subscription because of it until a new expansion comes out, because right now I'm using levelling sub jobs and this change just makes that longer and more protracted than ever.

In a nutshell, SE essentially saw this as an opportunity to massively nerf the exp from one of the best sources in the game. Was 45 minutes of socializing whilst watching excessive cut scenes as you wait to fight several bosses that at least provided some entertainment for the exp you earned, was it really worth risking all that for just updating the fight for a better complexity? Is it really worth to keep paying a subscription fee to keep grinding for longer periods now to make up for the daily experience lost by this change?

SE there were literally dozens of changes you could have done here that would have appeased both the vocal minority and players who continue to use these roulettes for valuable leveling, but you chose an option which literally nukes the entire instance into obscurity, for shame for shame.

[PangTong]

The only reason Main Scenario Roulette gave so much exp to begin with is because the content is awful, but they had to get players inside somehow or else newbies could not progress the MSQ. Their solution was to give it a ridiculously stupid high amount of exp so that people would tolerate sitting through the same 40 minutes of cutscenes every day. Now that the dungeons can be done solo, there is no need to force players in to doing them, so the excessive rewards are no longer necessary.

There's no reason to reward people for content that is done 80% afk while watching youtube. Rewards are for playing the game. If you don't like leveling and just want to get exp for doing nothing then you don't like playing the game.

[ssunny2008]

There's no reason to reward people for content that is done 80% afk while watching youtube.

If SE takes this claim serious, we won´t get XP from anything anymore. Everything but EX, savage and ultimate is brain-afk 1 button spam. Even EX fights are mostly "Please follow the leader and perform your rotation atleast 75% well."

Maybe they should make it happen, so players would actually realize how dumb the most content is created. Noone would ever touch the daily-roulette without the XP or stone-rewards. Stop the "fast reward" bs and come back with fun gameplay. Heck it would force SE to finally create content with depth and more efford behind it and classes would stop being homogenized and simplified.

[DPZ2]

If SE takes this claim serious, we won´t get XP from anything anymore. Everything but EX, savage and ultimate is brain-afk 1 button spam. Even EX fights are mostly "Please follow the leader and perform your rotation atleast 75% well."

Sure. I bet you've been hitting Bootshine over and over and over and over again the instances you run. Right? Such hyperbole isn't even fun anymore.

[ssunny2008]

Sure. I bet you've been hitting Bootshine over and over and over and over again the instances you run. Right? Such hyperbole isn't even fun anymore.

It´s no hyperbole when pretty much everything but hardmode content can be cleared with 1 button spam. This is nothing but reality. Healers don´t do anything else in 90% of hard content fights too. In case of fates / dungeons SE gave you 1-3 aoe buttons to spam based on the class. Is that fun for you? Does it need any kind of skill?
The only reason why a handful of competent players use more than 1 button is to save some time, to get out of such braindead content you´ve to run for your gear / story. Meanwhile others don´t even know about Dots or how to DPS as healer...

It doesn´t really matter if a class have only 1 or 20 buttons, when pretty much every button does the same and the only reason to use the 2nd or 3rd button is some potency, you actually don´t even need. The lack of utility and stuff to care about is real and gets even worse and worse.

(And well... in case of MNK there has been a top performing DK rotation lately. 50% of the time DK spam even in savage... gg)

[Ransu]

It´s no hyperbole when pretty much everything but hardmode content can be cleared with 1 button spam. This is nothing but reality. Healers don´t do anything else in 90% of hard content fights too. In case of fates / dungeons SE gave you 1-3 aoe buttons to spam based on the class. Is that fun for you? Does it need any kind of skill?
The only reason why a handful of competent players use more than 1 button is to save some time, to get out of such braindead content you´ve to run for your gear / story. Meanwhile others don´t even know about Dots or how to DPS as healer...

It doesn´t really matter if a class have only 1 or 20 buttons, when pretty much every button does the same and the only reason to use the 2nd or 3rd button is some potency, you actually don´t even need. The lack of utility and stuff to care about is real and gets even worse and worse.

(And well... in case of MNK there has been a top performing DK rotation lately. 50% of the time DK spam even in savage... gg)

Why are you still here? Go play elden ring or something. You've made it perfectly clear for months you hate this game.

[Gruntler]

Having actual better dungeons to play with bosses with actual decent mechanics is a far greater win than having a place to just mindlessly get free XP for afking /thread.

You get more poetics than before, so you still get your reward going in there.

[Darthgummibear]

Having actual better dungeons to play

Don't really agree on that one. Too much has been removed, especially with castrum. They completely removed all the mini-cinematics, you only have the short quip at the end. No getting explosives, no shooting down the airship, and the whole part at the end with the robo-chick she just shows up out of nowhere. No prior dialogue, no buildup, not even the whole part with her robot. Feels like more than half the instance is just gone. Even Prae removed cool stuff like the cinematics with the robot. There's not even an option to run the original version. A lot of people would have been happy if they had just made the cutscenes skippable. The overall atmosphere of both instances has been nuked.

Complete removal of content with no way to revisit is never a good thing. Even the dumpster fire known as acti-blizz learned this lesson after cataclysm.

Edit: In my honest opinion, I feel like the biggest improvement is the boss fights themselves. The new mechanics were solid.

[ForteNightshade]

Don't really agree on that one. Too much has been removed, especially with castrum. They completely removed all the mini-cinematics, you only have the short quip at the end. No getting explosives, no shooting down the airship, and the whole part at the end with the robo-chick she just shows up out of nowhere. No prior dialogue, no buildup, not even the whole part with her robot. Feels like more than half the instance is just gone. Even Prae removed cool stuff like the cinematics with the robot. There's not even an option to run the original version. A lot of people would have been happy if they had just made the cutscenes skippable. The overall atmosphere of both instances has been nuked.

Complete removal of content with no way to revisit is never a good thing. Even the dumpster fire known as acti-blizz learned this lesson after cataclysm.

Edit: In my honest opinion, I feel like the biggest improvement is the boss fights themselves. The new mechanics were solid.

Most of those cut scenes were entirely pointless. Why do we need to pause right in the middle of a pull to watch an airship fly by? Do we really need a long, dramatic entrance for each both when the first two are little more than glorified trash mobs? The whole Cid explosion stuff took forever. Even as a new player, I found a lot of these cinematics pointless and boring. I do agree with Livia showing up out of nowhere. That's probably the one cut that feels a bit off.

As for making the cut scenes skippable. They tried that... all the way up until Shadowbringers. New players were greeted by a dungeon everyone sped rushed, zerging all the bosses down in seconds while said babies were watching cinematics they had little context for. Basically, they didn't get to participate whatsoever. It was a frequent complaint for years now awful the experience was. Hence why they forced the cut scenes to begin with.

[Darthgummibear]

Most of those cut scenes were entirely pointless. Why do we need to pause right in the middle of a pull to watch an airship fly by? Do we really need a long, dramatic entrance for each both when the first two are little more than glorified trash mobs? The whole Cid explosion stuff took forever. Even as a new player, I found a lot of these cinematics pointless and boring. I do agree with Livia showing up out of nowhere. That's probably the one cut that feels a bit off.

As for making the cut scenes skippable. They tried that... all the way up until Shadowbringers. New players were greeted by a dungeon everyone sped rushed, zerging all the bosses down in seconds while said babies were watching cinematics they had little context for. Basically, they didn't get to participate whatsoever. It was a frequent complaint for years now awful the experience was. Hence why they forced the cut scenes to begin with.

Even if you take the cutscenes from the argument, the complete removal of all the different mechanical sections and turning it into another corridor dungeon feels weird. It fits more or less thematically, but I maintain that the atmosphere is gone.