The changes to Castrum and Praetorian are excessive and unnecessary

[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.

[SnowVix]

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?

I'm so sorry that new players will get a good experience at the finale of ARR instead of an absolute slog.

[Stepjam]

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.

Stormblood actually. I started around the middle of Stormblood, and it was unskippable by that point.

[Nyxs]

All the gates between trash packs in the first area of Castrum is awful. I can understand the one before the boss but the rest are just terrible. I wish they would at least change that. Rest seemed fine. Mechanics were interesting.

[KDSilver]

What am I reading...

[Jojoya]

What am I reading...

Proof the community is not a hive mind. What makes the new dungeons fun to some have ruined them for others.

Personally, I'm fine with the Praetorium revamp. It flows pretty well as it hits the high points of the original.

The Castrum revamp makes me feel like something is missing. Well, something is - half of the original dungeon. It no longer feels like breaking down the defense barrier so we could get into the Praetorium was a major task and that's ruining story impact.

Get rid of the searchlights? Check. That was by far the most annoying and useless part of the original.

Get rid of the fight against Livia's Magitek Armor? Check. Livia definitely is not the type to hide behind a machine and the fight could get annoying if players weren't handling the cannons correctly.

I miss blowing up the ceruleum pumps. That helped to make it feel like we were disabling their defenses.

I miss the third boss though not all that trash going to it. They could have removed the loop so players went straight up the road with a couple of trash packs on the way. The boss fight itself could have been reduced from three invuln periods to one, with a well placed stun by the tank (or a melee if one was in the party) allowing the invuln to be bypassed so the boss could get cleaved with the trash and die faster. No stun, then penalty to party with the fight taking longer.

Castrum in its new form makes the Garleans feel dumber and weaker. I still need to replay through the MSQ to experience all the changes as a whole. Perhaps taken altogether it's not so bad.

[GeminiReed]

I still need to replay through the MSQ to experience all the changes as a whole. Perhaps taken altogether it's not so bad.

I recently did this on a fresh alt (1-50). On the whole I'm liking a lot of the updated mechanics and normalization of telegraphs (stack, tank buster, etc.) and some nice atmospheric updates. Toto Rak in particular looks gorgeous. I agree with your assessment on CM, they cut a bit too much.

I'm not a fan of either the new Cape Westwind or Lahabrea fights. The first one has three tedious phases with no checkpointing. I forgot what annoyed me about the other one. Probably similar issues. That's a personal opinion of course. It's a design trend I've noticed in the late game especially the solo instances. Tedium is not challenge.

Rolled the dice on MSQ Roulette the other day since I'm trying to level a tank job and wound up with the Ultima Weapon fight. For my trouble I got between 1/4 and 1/3 of a level. IMO, not worth the bother.

[Baxcel]

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.

I mean the reason you get a cutscene at the beginning during a pull is because everyone rushed the fight.. you were suppose to defeat the adds around the light and then turn it off.. but everyone wanted to be sonic and gotta go fast to clear for them major exp gains.. but seriously a lot of the cutscenes were played out of sync with the dungeons due to the way players started running them not because that's how they were designed

[Tsiron]

When they revealed they were reworking Castrum and Praetorium I expected they'd bring them in line with other content and remove MSQ roulette entirely... obviously, that wasn't the case

I... actually agree with Jojoya, I think the changes to Castrum are kind of sad. It no longer feels like an operation to disable defenses and whatnot, it's now just a soulless corridor of "kill enemies until it's done"...

Never thought I'd be defending old MSQ Roulette...

[Jaquan]

When they revealed they were reworking Castrum and Praetorium I expected they'd bring them in line with other content and remove MSQ roulette entirely... obviously, that wasn't the case

I... actually agree with Jojoya, I think the changes to Castrum are kind of sad. It no longer feels like an operation to disable defenses and whatnot, it's now just a soulless corridor of "kill enemies until it's done"...

Never thought I'd be defending old MSQ Roulette...

Sorry to say that but Frankly I never felt like the old Castrum was any operation to disable anything. From my perspective when I ran it first all nuances it might have had were reduced to "run behind the pack and don't get left behind". Ineventible outcome when you make something into 8 man Run without any cap on equipment power. Everything that could have been was reduced to run, run, run and by the end of it I was confused and torn between "What the f*** just happened?" and "Wait that was it?". Ultimately it literally felt like "kill enemies until you're done" except not even challenging.