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Mo-Cap or Vocal Actors?
Just a small poll/What if/question to the playerbase. As of now, we've seen a lot of complaints (I'm part of it too) about the general lack of motion-capture use in ARR's cutscenes compared to 1.0, whilst the Vocal Acting has increased (but for some it's still not enough common).
Of course I do not know the reasons for SE to go the way they are with cutscenes, but just for this thread, let's assume it's to save money.
So here's the big Q:
Q: If Yoshida told you: "We can only afford paying Vocal Actors, or Motion Capture Stuntmen, not both. Which do you want?", what would you go for?
I'll start:
Motion Capture, 100%!
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I'd vote for more voices; especially for npcs.
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Voice acting for sure. I think that brings a lot more life to characters than motion capture myself. Of course best would be both lol
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Definitely more voice acting. I have more than enough faith in the animation team to not bother with much motion capture at all, even when not using canned animations (ie. generic gestures during dialog).
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I will go with voice actors out of personal experience with the Lunar games (only 1 and 2) which had such great voice acting
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More voice acting, preferably at the same quality as what's already present. Sometimes the work feels spot on, sometimes it's just downright corny (Nabriales comes to mind as a prime example), but I find that it adds a certain charm to the game.
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I'd prefer less talking heads and more action.
Mo-Cap please.
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Another vote for voices. o/
Visuals are nice, but I personally feel more voices would be better.
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Considering the game has points with no voice acting in the first place, Motion Capture would be the obvious choice. Though I'm not sure it's a fair choice to make. They both bring very important aspects to a scene. I actually have a GREAT video example for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny69S-GWcU8#t=105
Give that a watch (should link you to 1:45 in the video). Even though it's extremely subtle, that level of detail in facial expression can illustrate so much about how he feels during that scene. Don't need voice acting for that. However, having (good) voice acting increases the feeling you get by a lot. Having no animations can be fine too. Persona 3 and 4 largely functioned as visual novels with 3D character models making stiff movements for events. It had superb voice acting though, so it worked. There's no doubt in my mind if they had both though, that it would make all of the scenes that much more potent.
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That FFXV video is kinda unfair comparison, it has had almost 10 years and god knows how many millions of dollars/yen in development :p
Edit: Also FFXV is probably running a different better engine then XIV/ARR with much less stress in the case of random multiple character movements (players) on screen unlike this game.
Personally I'd say voice acting as I like to sit back and chill while watching cutscene, I have faith in SE's animation departments for the visuals :)
I find the voice acting more immersive and its improved alot in last few patches, the cinematographpy and character movement is better too a lot more anitmated/engaging.