I just realised... are we L'cie? [Possible 3.2 spoilers]

I don't even think being a mage is an excuse for the inaction against a physical attacker. I mean, Y'shtola did the whole shielding thing, I'm pretty sure that could just have easily been a WHM/SCH/AST player character, assuming we didn't just come out of Echo vision and weren't disoriented.

That being said, I understand the limitations of the cutscenes when it comes to battle scenes, but that doesn't mean it's not frustrating. And yes, 2.55 was basically an entire disaster. I've mentioned it before, but I felt it was a very much a representation of the Japanese mindset.

It's already within their event-scripting powers to vary a section of an event based on player Job. The Blade of Light cutscene has a different variation for every possible weapon choice, at least when you view it within the duty. It only really needs to happen once per major arc for players to feel like they were involved as more than a bystander, so it wouldn't be too much of a hit to available resources if they felt demand was great enough.

Even providing the illusion of choice is a nice touch from time to time. I, for one, was impressed with HW's "question mechanics."

In early 2.0 there were rare occasions where we were asked questions or given an opportunity to express our opinions. Even through choosing our GC I felt a little more involved. 3.0 made a return to that.

During several cutscenes there were instances in which we were directly asked what we thought. It went miles for making me feel like I was actually part of a quest and not just some loaded gun they brought along for the ride. Sadly, these instances died off in 3.1, which leads me to think that they're going to follow the same formula as 2.x. By the end we'll be a mindless, silent, oaf who is just along for the ride. That's kind of sad, because I always kind of hoped that they would take this a step further.

In other games the dev's actually monitor player responses. There's probably a better example of this, but in "Katherine," each time you cleared a level you were asked a question. If you were connected online, the game actually showed you the statistics of how many people answered a certain way, and you could see if you fit into the majority or the minority. I'm not expecting something like this in FFXIV, but I think it would be cool development tool if they monitored our player responses to the questions posed to us in the game. It seems to me like periodic questioning which asks for the WoL's opinion would be a good way to get live player feedback. It would also make us feel more "involved," not only in the story but on a player level.

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Originally Posted by CyrilLucifer

That being said, I understand the limitations of the cutscenes when it comes to battle scenes, but that doesn't mean it's not frustrating.

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What frustrates me, is that the one place they can reasonably pull it off, they rarely do. Job quests, where you have to be that Job, should allow for such cutscenes... I mean Summoner let us go Akh Morn on some Ascian butt, but to my recollection that's about it... Can do that even when I rewatch on Miner (my Miner is pretty badass, though), but they should probably either limit you to rewatching them on the right Job, or force a default set of weapons on you when you rewatch it.

I guess the real problem is races... Something like Akh Morn, or the Sword of Light, is easy to animate for all races, but having the Monk quests give you a real fist fight in cutscene? Well, we have a serious Lalafell problem there...

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Originally Posted by Februs

Even providing the illusion of choice is a nice touch from time to time. I, for one, was impressed with HW's "question mechanics."

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Having Gaius question us in Praetorium was the highlight of the story for me. It contributed nothing to the overall direction of the plot, but it was an amazing touch regardless.

While I'd have liked your standard unwinnable duty for something like 2.55 (people complain about how we shouldn't strait up murder everyone to prove our innocence, as if Yda didn't leave a mountain of bodies, and as if "We just knocked them out" isn't the easy solution), at the very least having the illusion of choice with similar dialog options would have helped the scenes immensely. If I called Teledji out as a liar, nothing drastically different would have happened, just like if I swore vengeance in that scene, or even said nothing (I mean, Raubahn as right there, poor guy).

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Originally Posted by Nalien

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Exactly. I mean, I realize that going on a murder fit in the banquet hall wouldn't have done a lot of good for our PR (though, Raubahn and the rest of the Scions did it and no one seems to care), but there were multiple ways they could have handled that scene other than having us silently making faces. Worse still, after the scene is done everyone expects you to just happily continue as if nothing happened. The heads of state left you there, just up and walked out with barely a word of protest, and we're talking to them as if nothing happened practically the next day. It showed a wondrous lack of personality.

It's not like having us be involved requires us to directly mold the plot (though, if SE really did monitor our responses we would at least be giving feedback). It just gives us the opportunity to be a part of it by expressing some personality.

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Originally Posted by Februs

In early 2.0 there were rare occasions where we were asked questions or given an opportunity to express our opinions. Even through choosing our GC I felt a little more involved.

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I recently leveled an alt and chose Twin Adders. One of the options to swear myself to the cause was to "Slaughter my enemies and drink their blood" or somesuch. I was tickled and tried that option. The officer wasn't too impressed. "Er, quite." I thought it was hilarious that they gave that as a choice and even had the officer react to it. Looking at my character like he was a lunatic.

If they give us options, I'd prefer more than just "texttexttext" and "...." like they've given us recently. It's like the game's forcing us to be a noble kind soul or a grumpy mute. Oh well, guess I should be thankful there's any choices at all.

Here's the artwork without text
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CaP_wu5XEAEOShj.jpg:orig

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Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

Here's the artwork without text
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CaP_wu5XEAEOShj.jpg:orig

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I REALLY hope this plot isn't going where I think it's going and Hydaylen goes full Goddess Etro on us.

If that happenex I'd just say screw it and take down Hydaelyn AND Zodiark and side with Emperor Various by taking over the XIVth Legion.

Huh. Chains. Hadn't looked at it that closely before. Chains DO have a certain symbolism that even other types of bindings lack.

With the low size of the image, I couldn't tell they were chains exactly, but it was pretty obvious Minfilia was bound. That alone made me... anxious. Having her clearly be bound in chains, by and to Hydaelyn, makes me very anxious. Being bound and in chains is never a good thing.

... is it?