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.

[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.

[DPZ2]

I was curious to learn that I should have been getting 17 million XP as a level 80 Gunbreaker in Praetorium yesterday, rather than the 1.7 million XP I actually received. OP is exaggerating greatly about that 9/10th XP earned, especially given the great XP leveling reduction in Endwalker. Getting 1/3 of a level's worth of XP from the instance still makes it worthwhile.

The mechanics certainly improved, the boss fights are more interesting, and Praetorium took 30 minutes to complete with cut scenes.

This was always the ultimate set of fights for ARR 2.0. I was impressed back then, and a bit ticked off that the attitude players ran with was 'hurry, hurry, skip cut scenes, watch 'em later so I can get my XP and get out of here'.

[syldon]

I am talking to more people with MS randoms than ever before. Which may fade with time I know. AFKers are more of a burden as some people are still thinking they can get away with it.

I haven't done a castrum 2nd half yet so cannot use that for reference, but there is a huge disparity between prae 1 against castrum 1 and prae 2. You get the same amount of exp where as you have to watch a huge amount more cutscenes. So Prae 1 is taking near 30 minutes due to unskippable cutscenes against 16 minutes on the other 2. Both give the same exp.

I will bail every time on Prae 1 from now on. Unless there is a dramatic increase in xp gain.

I totally get that some want to follow the story as they are going along. I don't mind waiting for those. But when the whole group just wants to move on then this should be an option. Keep a vote hidden same as the vote to remove a bad player. I don't think it is good to make it visible with who is holding the group back, because they want to watch what they have paid for. But when the whole group doesn't want to watch these cutscenes, then it makes no sense just annoying people. This feels like blizzard stunts to extend content for no reason.

[Liam_Harper]

In a nutshell, SE essentially saw this as an opportunity to massively nerf the exp from one of the best sources in the game.

It was never intended to be free daily exp.

It's a story instance for new players. The big reward was supposed to be payment for helping new players through. People got entitled and wanted the reward as daily exp without caring about the new players, resulting in first forcing the cutscenes, then reworking the entire thing.

It's a positive change overall. It's a more enjoyable experience for new players. That's all the matters. If you miss the exp, then blame the players who couldn't behave.

[MellowMink]

There are many other and far more fun ways to earn experience than taking advantage of an exploit that’s frankly boring or allows a lot of away-from-keyboard time. I’m all for the recent dungeon and trial updates; I even did the newer trial earlier and they changed it to such a degree that I actually think it’s much better now.

[Ransu]

They were too long for MSQ required content. The change was necessary and the MSQ roulette still gives an extremely large chunk of EXP. In fact, time invested vs exp earned is better compared to the old MSQ.

[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.