Lack of voice acting is really hurting the emotion of the story

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Originally Posted by Edax

SWTOR did it so I know it's viable and the game was certainly better for it. Twelve forbid they ever invest the profits of FFXIV into FFXIV.

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SWTOR did - with different voices for each of the eight class choices. With male and female options that made for 16 voice actors just for the player character. Cost them a lot of money which didn't go to endgame content - with the result that when the game launched, and players got through to the endgame and found there wasn't much of an endgame present, players left in droves. They later added more endgame content, but not quickly enough.

In later expansions SWTOR has cut down heavily on the voice acting. Seems it was just a bit too expensive to have voice acting everywhere.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Well I've not heard anyone say SWTOR was bad because all the quests were voice acted. And I'd rather the expansion budget be focused on the story over the battle content. Few people are going to remember these battles in 5 years.

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The expansion includes more than just the MSQ—therefore, resources have to be allocated to EVERYTHING. Not just the story. Expansions include all the content we get in patches, including new dungeons, trials, raids, crafting/gathering content, glamour, the new areas, content surrounding housing, etc.. If they started leaning more heavily towards voice acting, they would have to pull from the budgets that fund these other areas. Such is the way of budgeting.

People already lost their minds when we got one less dungeon in the odd patches in Stormblood. They lose their mind when they get to endgame and there’s “nothing to do”. Patches 3.1 and 4.1 were some of the worst patches in this game’s history because there was no content aside from Thordan EX/Diadem (3.1) and Shinryu EX/UCoB (4.1). I’d imagine more cuts would have to be made from the endgame content should the developers opt to voice act everything, and I’d rather not see that.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

If they started leaning more heavily towards voice acting, they would have to pull from the budgets that fund these other areas. Such is the way of budgeting.

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That's fine by me. I don't care about SE other projects, they should invest FFXIV profits into FFXIV and make it ever better.

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Originally Posted by Edax

That's fine by me. I don't care about SE other projects, they should invest FFXIV profits into FFXIV and make it ever better.

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You completely missed my point. Congratulations.

I don’t think voice acting everything in this game would make it better. More endgame content, however, would. :)

The Voice acting is so much better in ShB...

But I don't mind my voice being Text reply only. Here is why.
Most of the RP community believe their character sounds a one way... Voicing their character would break that for a lot of RPers.

Also so some unknown reason for it to be done right... They would have to record every Races/sex 8 times for the different voices....lol

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

People already lost their minds when we got one less dungeon in the odd patches in Stormblood. They lose their mind when they get to endgame and there’s “nothing to do”. Patches 3.1 and 4.1 were some of the worst patches in this game’s history because there was no content aside from Thordan EX/Diadem (3.1) and Shinryu EX/UCoB (4.1). I’d imagine more cuts would have to be made from the endgame content should the developers opt to voice act everything, and I’d rather not see that.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

You completely missed my point. Congratulations.

I don’t think voice acting everything in this game would make it better. More endgame content, however, would. :)

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I don't think you understood my point, voice acting does not mean taking anything away from the game. A bigger budget means you can add to the game, not take it away. It's SE whose chosen to deprive FFXIV of its own money.
FFXIV can absolutely afford a bigger staff and a bigger budget.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Well I've not heard anyone say SWTOR was bad because all the quests were voice acted. It was objectively better to have voice come out of NPCs. It increase immersion and made quests more important when you actually had someone to talk to. And I'd rather the expansion budget be focused on the story over the battle content. Few people are going to remember these battles in 5 years.

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I hate the constant VA in SWTOR and in TESO. It's really bad acting and very very annoying. I only played either for a few days, and the non- stop VA was a contributor in both cases. Maybe if the acting had been better - or the story - it wouldn't have been so grating. Also I can read faster than I can listen to someone speak and, though I do read every bit of text in this game even side quests because the lore is so fantastic, I would get annoyed if I was constantly getting slowed by VA in everything.

I absolutely don't agree that the lack of a voice for the WoL diminishes the emotion, far from it. Instead it gives me the freedom to have my character react the way I know she would, albeit through my own imagination. If I did agree that it diminishes my emotional investment, I would probably be less anti, but I would still be very aware that - in a video game - the allotted budget for that department is likely tiny. Any additional expense - and something on this scale would be hugely expensive - would have to come from money allocated to other teams. Unless of course the game was doing so badly that the budget boys decided a.) there's more money, and b.) only a voiced WoL will save it

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Originally Posted by Elladie

Any additional expense - and something on this scale would be hugely expensive - would have to come from money allocated to other teams.

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False, a bigger budget does not mean taking money away from other teams from within the game development. They could have given a FFXIV a bigger budget given it's SE's cash cow.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

I hate the constant VA in SWTOR and in TESO. It's really bad acting and very very annoying.

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You also retain the option of turning the voices off in the menu. Play it old school.

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Originally Posted by Edax

I don't think you understood my point, voice acting does not mean taking anything away from the game. A bigger budget means you can add to the game, not take it away. It's SE whose chosen to deprive FFXIV of its own money.
FFXIV can absolutely afford a bigger staff and a bigger budget.

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If the budget cannot afford the extra content after all the money spent on VAs, then yes, it does take away from the game. Unless you have control over SE’s larger finances and budgeting, you cannot definitively say that we will not lose anything. Nor can you control where the money goes. I dislike that FFXIV’s money goes into other projects, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Any money that goes into FFXIV that is deviated to voice acting is taken away from other aspects of the game. Expansions are given a budget, which includes the base expansion and all the patches involved—which include all the content included in said patches. I already listed them once; I won’t do that again. Considering the sheer amount of quests and dialogue in this game, you are looking a very, very, very large sum of money to cover complete voice acting like you would want. I would rather the larger budgets go to other aspects. I don’t see the need for random NPCs I interact with once or twice to have a voice.

At the end of the day, you also need to consider where we spend the majority of our time in this game. Story and sidequests are one and done unless you make alts (and until NG+ comes out). Endgame is where most people spend their time unless they unsubscribe for several weeks at a time until the next patch comes out. Perhaps more money should be spent on that instead of something far more transient.

They had a good balance with ShB. I don’t think we really need more than that.

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Originally Posted by Edax

False, a bigger budget does not mean taking money away from other teams from within the game development. They could have given a FFXIV a bigger budget given it's SE's cash cow

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And as I said in my post - though you missed that bit out - they're not likely to increase the budget unless the game suddenly crashes and burns. And if does, I doubt they're going to think that suddenly having everything with voice acting will save it

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Originally Posted by Edax

I don't think you understood my point, voice acting does not mean taking anything away from the game. A bigger budget means you can add to the game, not take it away. It's SE whose chosen to deprive FFXIV of its own money.
FFXIV can absolutely afford a bigger staff and a bigger budget.

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If SE did invest more money into FFXIV, those funds could be used to address pressing issues like inventory space, or adding a fifth or sixth encounter for Eden. Putting resources means something else either loses out or doesn't benefit.

As for SWTOR. Considering the sheer amount of money invested (half a billion dollars), it did nowhere near expectations. And if I recall, it several years before consistently turning a profit. They didn't abandon the subscription model without reason, after all. That isn't to say voice acting was the cause but rather they invested into the wrong things.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

If SE did invest more money into FFXIV, those funds could be used to address pressing issues like inventory space, or adding a fifth or sixth encounter for Eden. Putting resources means something else either loses out or doesn't benefit.

As for SWTOR. Considering the sheer amount of money invested (half a billion dollars), it did nowhere near expectations. And if I recall, it several years before consistently turning a profit. They didn't abandon the subscription model without reason, after all. That isn't to say voice acting was the cause but rather they invested into the wrong things.

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Perhaps, but admitted I ended up far more invested into the SWTOR story then I ever was with FFXIV.
FFXIV may definitely be a better financial model, but it suffers in the story department for it. For the sake of SE making more money for themselves, they made the right call.

I like my silent protagonist. I DID love how so much of SHB was VA'd in comparison to other expansions (or it felt that way), but I don't want my own character VA'd for FFXIV. I'm fine with it in games where it starts out that way, like ME and .hack//GU, because we're RPing as the character that game made, pretty much. But my FFXIV character is MY character. Them adding dialogue options only made this "fact" better.

Nah, keep 'em silent. So many people referencing Swtor, which has essentially become a giant contradiction as a "Single-player MMO", because be honest...no one plays swtor for it's endgame, it's mostly for story and even that's gone off the deep end, somewhat. No, not every NPC needs voice acting. To say that they do is an opinion and not a fact, and the story has never hurt for having a silent protag, much like the other FF games who have had them.

A protagonist not having a voice is a useful narrative tool. It makes it so that all of us playing cater the character we're playing to ourselves, in our heads.

It's used in many different famous book series and video games and it works to keep a majority of people satisfied and engaged in a character they have agency with.

A voice being attached to the player character has way greater of a chance of hurting the story then there not being one. It's a way for a person to immerse themselves into their character. Not to mention that after 9 years of a silent protagonist all of a sudden attaching a voice actor for your character would be extremely jarring and off-putting. It's not like FFXIV is the only RPG that does this, pretty much every JRPG from 1995 to the early 2000's also had stories with a silent protagonist and none of those games ever suffered because of it. I highly, highly doubt they would ever consider doing this due to how much it would detract from the story experience.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Perhaps, but admitted I ended up far more invested into the SWTOR story then I ever was with FFXIV.
FFXIV may definitely be a better financial model, but it suffers in the story department for it. For the sake of SE making more money for themselves, they made the right call.

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Which is perfectly fine but also entirely subjective. I found Shadowbringers captivating from start to finish. And the absence of full voice acting didn't ruin that. Suddenly adding a voice to our character—one which may not resonate with our own canon—has a much higher chance of hurting the story. It'd be one thing if XIV started with full voice acting but adding it now would likely be more jarring than anything else.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Which is perfectly fine but also entirely subjective. I found Shadowbringers captivating from start to finish. And the absence of full voice acting didn't ruin that. Suddenly adding a voice to our character—one which may not resonate with our own canon—has a much higher chance of hurting the story. It'd be one thing if XIV started with full voice acting but adding it now would likely be more jarring than anything else.

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I kind of agree it's too late to introduce a voice actor for WoL. Too many people would complain I would think.

I think the other problem I have with the silent protagonist is that the WoL just doesn't have enough effect on the plot. The WoL doesn't get to make enough decisions that matter or have enough choices for the sake of roleplay. The WoL is just too passive in cutscenes in my opinion. If people want to roleplay a personality, they basically have to headcanon it because the ability to express it in cutscenes is just simply not there. You could basically replace a cardboard cutout of the WoL in most cutscenes and lose almost nothing.

All the personality seen from the WoLs in the original trailer is just not an option in this game. You can't exactly be a fiendish rogue like the Miqo'te in the trailer.
https://youtu.be/opQjN74Meec?t=52

I don't think lack of voice acting hurts emotion, I give the characters my own voices etc.
If anything adding voice acting to a whole expansion everywhere tends to make it so you get less dialogue, lore and detail and sometimes in the case of dubbed voices for example the deliverance just doesn't work.

We have more than 2 decades of games and hundreds of years of books proving that text alone does a great job. animal crossing and golden sun for example just use weird sounds sped up etc.

I understand where this is all coming from, But I see it more as a lack of taking the time to read and truly understand the character, even npc's rather than just having to hear them cry or laugh to acknowledge it.
It's like when one recommends to a friend to read this fantastic book or read this manga but they're like ''I don't have the patience to read and take it in'' But they have the patience to wait 6 years for it to come out and then watch 1 episode a week

Now those few scenes where we get voice acting are nice, But I appreciate them way more because you then get to hear their actual voices vs how you interpreted them. If there has to be a tradeoff between detail and voiced dialogue though, I'd much rather keep having just text that I can immerse myself in while imagining scenarios in my head.

There are ofc games out there with full voice acting but that shit takes a lot of effort and time, especially in an mmo where you're already doing a lot of other stuff


I've assigned a personality and voice to my WoL headcanon already

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It's like when one recommends to a friend to read this fantastic book or read this manga but they're like ''I don't have the patience to read and take it in'' But they have the patience to wait 6 years for it to come out and then watch 1 episode a week

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I personally can't blame them too much, really. Some people are simply more visual and can't really enjoy material in written, static form as well.

A format like what this game has is fine because it still has user interaction and dynamic/visual elements, but if this entire game was presented as a book or manga instead I'd be bored out of my tears.

I mean at least give us pertinent choices and not just "yes or ok".
I feel like our character is so dumb and limited.

I feel you OP, I love SWTOR because of the main character can actually speak. I can acknowledge his/her personality with his/her voiced responses. But as others have said, the financial consideration of this is not gonna make voiced main character happen ever. :(

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Originally Posted by Evanoel

I feel you OP, I love SWTOR because of the main character can actually speak. I can acknowledge his/her personality with his/her voiced responses. But as others have said, the financial consideration of this is not gonna make voiced main character happen ever. :(

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The issue with personality is its likely a pre-determined VA will go against the headcanons a lot of people have for their characters. For both the character, personality way of speech, and even tone of voice.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

The issue with personality is its likely a pre-determined VA will go against the headcanons a lot of people have for their characters. For both the character, personality way of speech, and even tone of voice.

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To each of their own, but I personally find myself rarely headcanon my character. I like to have the protagonist whom I control to have his/her own already established characteristic/personality. :D

Ummm.... nope.

The "silent protagonist" is a staple of the Final Fantasy genre, and to be frank, nearly the entirety of the JRPG genre.

That's actually something I dislike about games that have a voiced MC in an RPG, like Mass Effect. They give you these dialogue options, and then the response is often nothing at all like the dialogue option.

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Originally Posted by Evanoel

To each of their own, but I personally find myself rarely headcanon my character. I like to have the protagonist whom I control to have his/her own already established characteristic/personality. :D

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This game remains vague enough in even the dialogue options our character receives to allow us to apply our own personality and characteristics to them—I believe that’s a fairly intentional design on the part of the developers. And I really like that. I don’t really need a cookie cutter player character—I’ve always much preferred creating one of my own with their own personality.