The problem with cutscenes

The real solution is to not start the timers until everyone exits cutscene. Most of the time people are just worried about time.

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Originally Posted by Nuru

If anything, the cutscenes should show only on the first time.

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and not take time from the battle. People skip cutscene mainly because it takes time away from the battle.

I'd actually be a lot happier with cutcenes in boss fights and such if THE CLOCK WASN'T TICKING WHILE YOU WATCH THEM.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I'd actually be a lot happier with cutcenes in boss fights and such if THE CLOCK WASN'T TICKING WHILE YOU WATCH THEM.

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This is more or less OP's main problem. I'm not sure why they resorted to blaming ALL cutscenes, as framing it like this would have garnered support.

The skip option is like for other games; you've seen it once, you don't necessarily want to see it again or it's holding up the other people in your group if you watch it every single time. I personally watch every cutscene and read the dialog closely the first time, regardless if I'm playing solo or if it's a primal fight. Afterwards I tend to skip them. I'll go to my inn room if I really want to watch something again.

Cutscenes are awesome, and whoever is the CS director for this game deserves a medal for how good a job s/he's done on them. It's a MMO, but the cutscenes feel like those of FF. Whether it's hilarious ones like Hildibrand's storyline, suspense ones like Calamity Cometh or really sad ones like the BLM AF quest, they've come on leaps and bounds and they're awesome. For speedruns / Darnus we can skip and watch them later, so what's the problem? OP, press ESC twice. then the arrow key up, then enter when ~your gameplay experience is ruined~. Far less effort than making a thread just to whine.

EDIT: and they won't start timers when everyone's finished the CS, sadly. :<
If they did that, they could have people buffing / invigorating before the fight begins, while not subject to timers. If, like FFXI, they had people come into the fight when they've finished CS, unable to be buffed / whatevs until it's done, you could have an important tank or whm or whatevs not telling folk they're in CS and shanking your attempt if your communication's bad. Or the inverse; only one or two party members engaging and everyone else coming in to find they're dead and the boss is attacking them before they've had time to buff. Furthermore, it's a Shadowlord situation. Personally, my LS told me when I was first doing Shadowlord to watch the CS, it was fine. They killed him so quickly as soon as I'd finished his entrance CS, I saw his first death CS and then his second form's death CS. That kind of killed the Rank 5 mission for me.

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Originally Posted by Laraul

Yes, I know that everyone thinks they oogle the in game cutscenes in awe. But in reality before prime/boss fights people always encourage you to skip these cinematically. If you don't they do and many times when a player emerges from a cinematic the fight is already well in play. If a cutscene is skippable then it probably doesn't belong. People aren't interested in the cutscenes so much. They just want to win.

The biggest problem with cutscenes though is they disrupt the "flow" of the game. It. Regardless how cool they may look they act as an interruption with the gameplay. It doesn't help that cinematic often feel disjointed since they aren't often viewed in linear sequence. Ultimately many of the cutscenes feel like an interruption to the gameplay rather than an addition.

I should also add many of the cutscenes are long-winded. Other cutscenes are poorly placed (like the one that plays every time you use the lift) or the cutscenes at the start of some of the instanced dungeons.

I want to point out while I do enjoy the cutscenes, they are often too intrusive and often have little connection with the overall plot. Often they feel included for the sake of simply including a cinematic. This is a multiplayer game, and viewing a cutscene means you are forcing others to wait on you. In my opinion, cutscenes should be far and few in-between. The shouldn't exceed three to five minutes at most.

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People are just impatient and while true most MMORPG gamers don't care for stories and just care for loot, this is exactly what made FFXI and FFXIV actually different from the crowd -- It had an actual storyline with actual cutscenes. Most MMOs out there have no cutscenes and the ones that do are so poorly directed a film school student would win an oscar in comparison.

They pushed past XI's cutscenes by adding your entire party into it -- that I have yet to see in another MMO. This is a FF game which are known for it's FMVs, there should be more -- even FFXI had small cutscenes for minor quest chains.

Cutscenes are integral to showing the story in FFXIV, and I'm very happy that they exist. If anything, a "vote to skip cutscene" should be introduced and the timer should not start until after everyone has entered the instance.

Just for clarification I went back and rewrote my earlier response that included some examples.

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Originally Posted by Platinumstorm

Cutscenes are integral to showing the story in FFXIV, and I'm very happy that they exist. If anything, a "vote to skip cutscene" should be introduced and the timer should not start until after everyone has entered the instance.

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This. YoshiP said XIV is an RPG(Final Fantasy game) first, MMORPG second which means if story bothers someone they'll be joining the wrong MMO.