Can we please stop with Cutscenes where we just stand around?

I had some thinking after my previous post and I realized the easiest, most creative way out of these situations is to not write them in the first place. The hero and main villain don't have to meet outside of the final act, but if they do, maybe it should be under a pretense of a truce or parley; or if the villain was not yet revealed to be the villain.

Alternatively, there doesn't need to be a singular badguy at all. If I was writing a story about a parachute infantry regiment in France in 1944, 1st Lieutenant Kowalski would never be standing before Hitler, M1 carbine at the ready.

Again, this is a long-standing problem with FFXIV, but it's also a trope in just about every form of media. After Zoraal Ja was killed the first time, how many of you were saying, "Check the body. He's going to come back. Why isn't anybody checking the body?!" I certainly had no idea how he would come back, but it was patently obvious that he would. Or, when he was killed the final time and the key was left behind, where you also shouting, "Get the key! Don't let Sphene have the key! Gah! Why did you let her get the key?" Any character could have picked it up, not just the WoL, but they all just stood there and let the woman who had a stated goal of destroying all life on the planet get exactly what she needed.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

It's a symptom of Dawntrail's writing direction. The Warrior of Light spends a lot of time as a passive spectator to events. I felt like there are a lot of moments in the MSQ where we could have just pitched up a beach chair and parasol, grabbed an iced beverage, and told everyone else in the scene that we'll be right over here if they need us.

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Exactly. As I said before, this has always been a problem, but for some reason it feels more egregious in DT, and I think it's because our characters spend so much time as a spectator. There were a lot of CSs where I imagined my character standing aside, smoking a cigarette with a thousand-yard stare; someone asks her a question and she says, "Huh? Oh,sure. Whatever," and goes back to her thoughts. Or, she's reclining against a tree reading a magazine while Wuk Lamat is doing something, and she says "Go get 'em, tiger. You're doing great," with the long-suffering fake enthusiasm of a parent at yet another t-ball game.

It's also an issue of where we watch and where we act. We help Wuk Lamat do countless chores during the feats, but then when it really counts and people are killed right before our eyes, suddenly we are rooted to the spot. I'd rather watch Wuk Lamat do the trading on her own with just the pink Pelupelu to help her, and then intervene when the population of Tuliyollal is being slaughtered, then the reverse, as it is right now, to give just one example.

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Originally Posted by Kennar

Exactly. As I said before, this has always been a problem, but for some reason it feels more egregious in DT, and I think it's because our characters spend so much time as a spectator. There were a lot of CSs where I imagined my character standing aside, smoking a cigarette with a thousand-yard stare; someone asks her a question and she says, "Huh? Oh,sure. Whatever," and goes back to her thoughts. Or, she's reclining against a tree reading a magazine while Wuk Lamat is doing something, and she says "Go get 'em, tiger. You're doing great," with the long-suffering fake enthusiasm of a parent at yet another t-ball game.

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And how did you feel about Endwalker? Because I firmly feel that the majority of Endwalker's story is just us observing other people solving problems (or occasionally causing them) with no direct input from ourselves.

And I liked Endwalker, just as I like Dawntrail. Maybe because they recognize that we're a very dull agent of change, and it's more interesting to let other people do it instead.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I think the fact that we never see the robot soldiers die actually really helps the scene; we see them as this implacable, unstoppable force, one that we've never fought before and so can't, ourselves, be sure on their strength. It also lets them do specific animations and movements to characterize these things; the fact they're not even running, that they're just performing their massacre at a leisurely pace is actually kind of terrifying, and what they do to that woman's soul tells you that they're clearly not just here to make heads roll. They're chillingly purposeful, actually, in a way that wouldn't be sold if the scene was instead 'walk around and perform your basic rotation on a bunch of enemies that won't plausibly kill you'. Sure, the near-invincibility of the robot soldiers doesn't last long, but it's there for the scene it needs to be there for. And frankly, the first person to clearly score a kill on one being Estinien still lets them stand pretty tall, they ain't chumps.

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I don't think they should come across as an implacable, unstoppable force if it has to feel contrived. What helps one specific scene feel tense and dramatic is less important than what makes sense in the greater context of the story. The Warrior of Light, slayer of gods and hero of the realm, sits on the sidelines with popcorn and watches the murder-robots---who we can open by the pack like they're soda cans an hour later in Vanguard---leisurely stroll towards defenseless citizens and kill them?

Again, we could've seen all of this through an echo vision after arriving too late. A deliberate choice was made to have us stand there and watch people die when we clearly could've intervened.

This is a side point, but the Alexandrian robot soldiers were never really all that novel or mysterious, in my opinion, and I don't know why there was an effort to portray them as categorically different from what we've faced in the past. We've fought mammets, Garlean magitek robots, allagan robots, and even alien robots, notably including Omega. The Alexandrian ones are just shinier and more human-shaped.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

And how did you feel about Endwalker? Because I firmly feel that the majority of Endwalker's story is just us observing other people solving problems (or occasionally causing them) with no direct input from ourselves.

And I liked Endwalker, just as I like Dawntrail. Maybe because they recognize that we're a very dull agent of change, and it's more interesting to let other people do it instead.

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I liked EW a lot better, which, you might call it hypocritical, makes it easier for me to give some of the problems I had with it a pass. That doesn't mean it was all sunshine and roses, though. When the WoL and the wonder twins parleyed with that Garlean legatus in the train station, I wanted to tell them to be quiet, the grownups are talking. My character holds the rank of captain and could talk to the guy as an equal. Perhaps we could have worked something out that didn't result in him redecorating his office (and the twins would not have been held hostage). The second part of Labyrinthos was an absolute slog, just doing busywork while everybody we've ever met gathers spaceship parts. Every expansion has had those moments where our characters take a back seat, but overall we're still necessary to the story; there are things needing doing that only the WoL can do.

In DT, though, I felt like my character didn't need to be there, at least for the first act (and a large part of the second). She never offered Wuk any guidance, never corrected her mistakes, and was always one step behind. G'raha could have taken her place and been just as effective.

Ultimately, I'm playing the main character in a video game. It isn't very fun being relegated to a side character. If I'm not having fun, I start nitpicking, noticing problems, and asking questions that will never have answers.

Scenes in FFXIV naturally require the involvement of other characters because you have a 'silent' protagonist (Fray aside). A well-written scene will still make the player feel like a participant, however. If you want a simple Endwalker contrast, Zenos breaks through a 'dimensional rift' to enter the Endsinger's Ultimatum. But then he ignores her completely to speak to you, the player. In Dawntrail, when Lamaty'i breaks through the dimensional rift, she ignores you completely to speak to Sphene. That might seem like a subtle nuance, but it has a massive impact on the delivery of the scene and the perception of the characters involved.

I think another way of thinking about it is scene 'presence.' Both Shadowbringers and Endwalker have scenes where the player character takes direct action. I could have used the transporter remotes as a different example. But I wanted to show you that even this type of heroic moment is not essential to make the writing work. What matters is that the player character's 'presence' is felt and acknowledged within the scene. Dawntrail consistently fails to do this, which is why the player character feels 'disconnected' from the story.

Our character just standing there and doing nothing is sadly not a Dawntrails problem, but a FFXIV problem.

The lack of a voice means characters are mostly talking at each other while we are looking. The same could also be said of action scenes, we have many weapon types and the developers won't animate for them all, so we watch as our allies do cool things. The charging towards enemy in the tank role quest worked, because the quest is only for tanks and all tanks can charge.

Its to late to give our character a voice, players would riot. But they can have us be more actief during action scenes and one way to do this is to pick 1 weapon type and only make animation for that weapon. An example, the Azim stone manifest a sword made of light of something. This way we can do action scenes.

Unless we get weapon that we obtain during the story, I fear we are only going to watch in cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Our character just standing there and doing nothing is sadly not a Dawntrails problem, but a FFXIV problem.

The lack of a voice means characters are mostly talking at each other while we are looking. The same could also be said of action scenes, we have many weapon types and the developers won't animate for them all, so we watch as our allies do cool things. The charging towards enemy in the tank role quest worked, because the quest is only for tanks and all tanks can charge.

Its to late to give our character a voice, players would riot. But they can have us be more actief during action scenes and one way to do this is to pick 1 weapon type and only make animation for that weapon. An example, the Azim stone manifest a sword made of light of something. This way we can do action scenes.

Unless we get weapon that we obtain during the story, I fear we are only going to watch in cutscenes.

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This also goes back to a older issue with FF14 since 2.0.

With addition of new Jobs means also adding more animations to older scenes to match the new jobs if they have done this.

Back in 2.0 we had a cutscene that changes based on our Job in 2.0 intro and finale but it only accounted for 2.0 jobs. They defaulted to using a 2.0 job animation for newer jobs with this cutscene of course.

The only way I think they can account for this type of issue is to design the more involved cutscene to not involve using WoL's individual job they are using. Instead focus more on their Job Role so that they will only need to just make 5 different versions of the events. That way they won't have to worry about needing to account for all jobs (old and new) but only focus on what WoL will do based on their Job Role which is only Tank, Physical DPS, Magic DPS, Melee DPS, and Healer

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

The only way I think they can account for this type of issue is to design the more involved cutscene to not involve using WoL's individual job they are using. Instead focus more on their Job Role so that they will only need to just make 5 different versions of the events. That way they won't have to worry about needing to account for all jobs (old and new) but only focus on what WoL will do based on their Job Role which is only Tank, Physical DPS, Magic DPS, Melee DPS, and Healer

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This is a better angle than just inventing a singular weapon for us to use, because that singular weapon will itself be biased in favor of certain jobs. Give us a sword? Sounds great for Paladins, Vipers, maybe Dark Knight if the sword's chunky enough, but to everyone else that's going to feel like the story writing them out rather than in. Hell, it might not even work for all the jobs with swords: Ninja and Red Mage wield their weapons very differently, it'd feel wrong to have them use an animation more akin to Paladin.

But even then, how much more involved is this going to be than the story's usual go-to of having the WoL draw their weapon and then either going into in-game combat or cutting to another focus character in the scene? Is this going to somehow need five entirely different iterations of a scene where each job can do something relevant to their skillset (remembering that said skillsets include healing and tanking), that all amount to nothing afterwards because they all have to end with the same results? What happens if someone pulls up this cutscene as, say, a Carpenter?

But incidentally, this is actually very close to something they did do in Dawntrail: after the solo duty fight against Gulool Ja Ja, he gives you a compliment according to your current role. With it just being one line, they don't have to answer any of these complicated questions, though; if you rerun that cutscene as a crafter or gatherer it just skips the line entirely.

They would not even have to animate for each weapon. Just make animations in the cutscenes based on the current job. You are a tank? Interpose yourself between the enemy and the target. You are a healer? Cast a vague shield around the target. You are a caster? Prevent the enemy movement by causing a small magical explosion before their feet etc.
Square Enix has to realise that we have reached a time in which their minimal effort cutscenes just don't cut it any longer in that regard and that they have to up their game in that regard or people will get more and more frustrated by the inaction of their veteran godslaying adventurer.