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

I just rewatched some Cutscenes, and it is really getting annoying to see how often we just stand around while people literally die around us.

Someone gets attacked, and best we can do is "ANGRY LOOK!". This is not a Dawntrail problem, I watched cutscenes from all over the game, and the amount of time bad stuff happened because for some reason our WoL just couldnt be bothered to do more than stare is baffling.

Is it really so hard to at least add a reason why we are not doing something? Add some enemys that delay us just long enough, have us trying to cross some physical barrier, or have us restrained by magic or whatever that we need to break out of.

Just have us do ANYTHING at all. Or just bring Solo Dutys back.


SPOILER FOR DAWNTRAIL MSQ AHEAD!!!!!!

Imagine the Dawntrail Thrown room Scene if instead of just standing there and watching the Regicide, we get to see the intro, and then have a Solo Duty where we have to make our way to the Throne through an Army of Robots, while we see Gulool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja fight, in the middle we see the cutscene of Zoraal Ja powering up, and then try to reach them in time, but just as we kill the last Robot, we see Zoraal Ja delivering the finishing blow.

Wouldnt that make the scene way more awesome that just have the WoL, the 2 CHILDREN OF THE GUY WHOS GETTING MURDERED, and 3 Scions, one of them able to create Barriers, just standing there and watching? And then have the line "We did everything we could!" from Alisaie... girl, we did nothing...

I couldn't agree more, either have us too far away to intervene in time, like with Tesleen, or at least give a reason why we just stand around.

In case of Zarool Ja, the solution is already there, in the very same room a scant few minutes of cutscene and dialogue later: After he kills Galool Ja Ja he threatens Wuk Lamat into doing what he wants, or he'll have his airfleet annihilate Tuliyollal.
So just have him threaten the destruction of the city, if anyone interferes in his duel with Galool Ja Ja, right when he comes through the door, rather then after finishing that duel.

Hildebrand moments where we actually do stuff

My big “WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE!?” moment was the attack on Tuliyollal. WoL arrives in the middle of a mass slaughter and just watches. It’s not like we didn’t have this issue in ARR, but I feel like it’s never been quite as bad as it is now. I’m convinced that if ARR was written by the same guys who wrote Dawntrail, we would’ve arrived in the middle of the Empire’s attack on the Waking Sands and stood around slack-jawed without even trying to stop them.

If it’s too much work to animate the WoL fighting, or doing anything useful at all, we don’t need to be there. We already have a solution for these situations: arrive after everything already happened, and witness it through an echo vision. Just as lazy, yes, but not nearly as bad from a characterization perspective. Besides, if we spent all that time in Shaaloani waiting for transportation because walking was too hard, how come we’re suddenly sprinting after flying warships like we can keep up with them? And, more importantly, why are we doing that if we have no plans to intervene when we get there?

Actually—why was this a cutscene in the first place? Make it a solo duty. Or, even better, a dungeon. It could’ve been a good parallel to the Alexandria dungeon: running through a warzone, tearing through machines, but ultimately being powerless to stop the chaos around you.

What are they spending the budget on nowadays, anyway? Homogenizing our faces and making the game run worse? I’d rather get at least one extra dungeon per expansion, especially if the expansions are going to be 2/3rds the length of ARR in number of quests, with somewhere between two and three times the cutscene-hours.

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Originally Posted by ConantSivrha

Actually—why was this a cutscene in the first place? Make it a solo duty. Or, even better, a dungeon. It could’ve been a good parallel to the Alexandria dungeon: running through a warzone, tearing through machines, but ultimately being powerless to stop the chaos around you.

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But you don't understand! If they gave us a dungeon at level 96 the game would explode!

You're right, though, it should have been a dungeon, or at least a solo duty. We could have made it to the throne room too late to do anything.

The attack on Lakeland should've been a solo duty. (The second one; the first one already was.) The fell beast outbreak at Radz-at-Han should've been a solo duty.

But honestly? This one works better if it's not.

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.

Plus, it doesn't get your adrenaline up to think that you'll be fighting Zoraal Ja, letting him and Gulool Ja Ja have their fight scene. And frankly, those two are more compelling Vipers than any of us, that cutscene needs to stay.

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Originally Posted by Zakuyia

Hildebrand moments where we actually do stuff

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They been doing a bit more of this in side quests as well though still small.

In the new Tank Role quest as a example, WoL actually does his job as a Tank in the final cutscene by performing a dive into a attack to take the hit for the NPC since he/she was hired to be a bodyguard for him so the NPC can perform his attack in the cutscene.

It seems Hildibrand (gets more and more as WoL Embrace the Chaos) and the Job Role quests (well slowly each expansion) is where WoL been given a bit more actions in cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

They been doing a bit more of this in side quests as well though still small.

In the new Tank Role quest as a example, WoL actually does his job as a Tank in the final cutscene by performing a dive into a attack to take the hit for the NPC since he/she was hired to be a bodyguard for him so the NPC can perform his attack in the cutscene.

It seems Hildibrand (gets more and more as WoL Embrace the Chaos) and the Job Role quests (well slowly each expansion) is where WoL been given a bit more actions in cutscenes.

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Which itself makes a lot of sense when thinking about the limitations of the game. The MSQ can't give the WoL a lot of combat scenes, because they'd have to account for every single combat style; basically the only example to my knowledge is right at the end of the Zenos fight in EW, and even that brief shot is super complex behind-the-scenes as I understand it. Role quests at least have a more pared-down skillset and character being called for; you can have the WoL jump in front to protect someone in a tank role quest, because you know that they're playing a tank.

And Hildibrand is just entirely off the reservation and giving the WoL tailor-made animations for dunking a basketball or something. No job is doing that, so any job can do that and it's not weird!

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

In the new Tank Role quest as a example, WoL actually does his job as a Tank in the final cutscene by performing a dive into a attack to take the hit for the NPC since he/she was hired to be a bodyguard for him so the NPC can perform his attack in the cutscene.

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But that wouldn't have had to happen at all if, during the lvl94 quest, our character had acted instead of standing there glaring menacingly while the evildoer gave her speech and peaced the eff out; only after did we stain the snow red with the blood of three of her henchmen. That story should have been over in time it takes me to press Intervention.

I'm with the OP on this, and it's something that I've complained about for a long time. I'm still mad I didn't get to take out Zenos when he was giving his speech in the Royal Gardens at the end of SB. It's one thing if a plot point happens because our characters are prevented from acting, but it is another thing entirely if the plot can only happen if our characters choose not to act. It's a cheap and lazy way to move a story forward.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Which itself makes a lot of sense when thinking about the limitations of the game. The MSQ can't give the WoL a lot of combat scenes, because they'd have to account for every single combat style; basically the only example to my knowledge is right at the end of the Zenos fight in EW, and even that brief shot is super complex behind-the-scenes as I understand it.

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I dont think thats too hard to solve.
Sure, you cant show the WoL do specific things without breaking class fantasy, but one easy solution just from the top of my head would be to show the WoL in close up, have him dash out of frame, black screen for a moment with a light flash and the sound effect of your first job skill (If FF14 doesnt have the worst code, one simple "If Job then" option shouldnt break the game) and then show something has happened and our WoL was involved.

Example: An enemy attacks another Scion while they are Distracted. Close up on the WoL, doing the serious face, then have the WoL just run out of frame. The screen goes black, a white light flashes, we hear either the sound of a blade hitting or a magc explosion based on our job, next thing we see, the enemy drops to the ground defeated, and we now stand between the Scion and the enemy. The Scion looks over his shoulder and says "Thanks for having my back!"

Bam, we did something in a cutscene, it took one movement command and moving our Character model during a blackscreen, everything else was just one small visual and one small sound effect, and only one of those had to change based on our job.

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Originally Posted by Raoul9753

I dont think thats too hard to solve.
Sure, you cant show the WoL do specific things without breaking class fantasy, but one easy solution just from the top of my head would be to show the WoL in close up, have him dash out of frame, black screen for a moment with a light flash and the sound effect of your first job skill (If FF14 doesnt have the worst code, one simple "If Job then" option shouldnt break the game) and then show something has happened and our WoL was involved.

Example: An enemy attacks another Scion while they are Distracted. Close up on the WoL, doing the serious face, then have the WoL just run out of frame. The screen goes black, a white light flashes, we hear either the sound of a blade hitting or a magc explosion based on our job, next thing we see, the enemy drops to the ground defeated, and we now stand between the Scion and the enemy. The Scion looks over his shoulder and says "Thanks for having my back!"

Bam, we did something in a cutscene, it took one movement command and moving our Character model during a blackscreen, everything else was just one small visual and one small sound effect, and only one of those had to change based on our job.

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First of all, this isn't as 'catch-all' as you think it is. It sounds good for jobs that are fairly quick on their feet--this would read just fine on, say, Ninja--but doesn't really track for jobs that don't do a lot of quick movement and/or don't necessarily need to move for their main angle. Like, consider Black Mage, whose ideal raid would be one where there's a single pixel that's 100% safe that they could stand in forever without getting hit. The notion of that character having to move quickly kinda breaks their class fantasy.

Second of all, I think you'd complain about that if you got it, in large part because those particular contexts are often times when they actually do break for combat, and you have to fight some trash mobs in the overworld or something. If the MSQ ever calls for the WoL to throw hands in a context where it isn't plausible to have an actual combat sequence, this also doesn't work, because that context is usually that someone else is the scene focus; the way they usually do that is to just have the WoL draw their weapon, and then point the camera at the actual scene focus until they're done. So doing a 'Fight Goes Here' cut doesn't work there, either.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

First of all, this isn't as 'catch-all' as you think it is. It sounds good for jobs that are fairly quick on their feet--this would read just fine on, say, Ninja--but doesn't really track for jobs that don't do a lot of quick movement and/or don't necessarily need to move for their main angle. Like, consider Black Mage, whose ideal raid would be one where there's a single pixel that's 100% safe that they could stand in forever without getting hit. The notion of that character having to move quickly kinda breaks their class fantasy.

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I would prefere my caster somehow deciding that its frontline time than to just stand there doing nothing at all.
And I already said in my opening post that I would always prefere break for fighting to cutscenes, but if its either cutaway in a cutscene or another case where we lose something or someone important because for some reason our god killing WoL just was not feeling it today, I take the cutaway.

If they wnat to have the focuis somewhere else, thats fine, but just come up with a reason why we dont help. And if its just something like Hermes throwing magical chains on us that we cant break in time, everything is better that seeing someone get killed 10 feet away from us while we just stand there mentally planning our dinner or whatever.

Hell, I would even take the "we tried but could not reach the action in time" excuse...

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Which itself makes a lot of sense when thinking about the limitations of the game. The MSQ can't give the WoL a lot of combat scenes, because they'd have to account for every single combat style; basically the only example to my knowledge is right at the end of the Zenos fight in EW, and even that brief shot is super complex behind-the-scenes as I understand it. Role quests at least have a more pared-down skillset and character being called for; you can have the WoL jump in front to protect someone in a tank role quest, because you know that they're playing a tank.

And Hildibrand is just entirely off the reservation and giving the WoL tailor-made animations for dunking a basketball or something. No job is doing that, so any job can do that and it's not weird!

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I would like them to implement class abilities into the story for those key moments. A small divergence of a scene would be required but they would re-converge into the scene once it (class scene) was over

What makes it harder I'm sure is some abilities (thancred in the leviathan cutscene doing the DoT ability Rogue/Ninjas) got that was removed back in Heavensward (Right slash-Left Slash- Totally unnecessary but cool looking back flip) But they could allivate that by playing a specific animation for the class regardless if it exist in-game or not.

I'm just throwing a guess out there, but I figure in the corporate world of game design the writers have their own offices, and the devs have their own offices, and the writers will send a rep over who says, "We want this thing to happen." The devs send a rep back who says, "We can't do that from a technical standpoint, how about this instead?" And Upper Management comes down and says, "Get this done, guys. We have a deadline to meet." And both sides resort to what they've always done because it's faster and easier.

I don't believe the "standing around" problem is at all impossible to solve; it's just going to require some creativity.

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Originally Posted by Kennar

I'm just throwing a guess out there, but I figure in the corporate world of game design the writers have their own offices, and the devs have their own offices, and the writers will send a rep over who says, "We want this thing to happen." The devs send a rep back who says, "We can't do that from a technical standpoint, how about this instead?" And Upper Management comes down and says, "Get this done, guys. We have a deadline to meet." And both sides resort to what they've always done because it's faster and easier.

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I mean, you're... broadly not the wrongest about this. We have heard how they actually approach designing a story, albeit from the relatively restrained context of ShB role quests; any other story would have the same constraints, but essentially with different numbers.

A couple of things to keep in mind for the purposes of this discussion:
1. Yes, writers are different from animators are different from combat designers. They all work together and collaborate, but naturally, the writer can't just go 'and then Urianger does a sick skateboard trick' without the animators having something to say about it. There's probably a decent amount of action the writers put in an early draft that doesn't make the final cut for various reasons.
2. The actual 'resources' for a story are laid down from the start. Within a role quest context it's things like 'have this amount of cutscenes, this amount of combat encounters this amount of solo duties, this amount of unique graphical assets'; with a context like the MSQ this is likely the same, but with higher numbers.

I feel like we do need to acknowledge the resources question here. Because, taking the OP's request as an example, they're essentially saying 'we should get another solo duty'; my back-of-the-napkin tally actually says Dawntrail's had more solo duties than previous expansions (4 compared to Endwalker and Shadowbringers' 3, but I didn't go back and check if I forgot any), so already we're actually upping the count, and they essentially want another one, and one of a large scale at that. Resources aren't infinite, so you'd have to take those resources from somewhere else... and looking at the actual lineup, no, you can't. Every other solo duty has good reason to be a solo duty:

• The first Gulool Ja Ja fight shows how strong the old man still is, and sets up for the second, while also giving us a proper Trailer Fight against the big guy.
• Wuk Lamat fighting Bakool Ja Ja gives spotlight to how much she's grown and her ability to actually stand up for herself.
• The second Gulool Ja Ja fight pays off what the first fight sets up, and gives the actual feats a final fanfare they don't otherwise have.
• And the attack on Solution Nine is Otis' big showcase and sacrifice, that also gives the WoL a public combat credit that's later called back to in the Arcadion.

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in planning, the attack on Tuliyollal was in contention for one of these spots, but I think it's better that it's not. Unlike the actual solo duties, the attack can and does stand without gameplay (the story needs this to be a loss, it being a cutscene lets them really characterize that loss), and wouldn't easily be substituted with it; you'd still need a lot of cutscene budget for it thanks to the throne room clash.

Trying to make the WoL more active in cutscenes has similar problems, more for the animators and cutscene directors. It's a question of 'is this worth doing compared to other things', especially given the WoL's variable height and combat style meaning that it's magnitudes more effort to make the WoL attack someone than it is to have, say, Alisaie do the same thing. Especially when most of the playerbase just wants to do the fight ourselves if it's so important, and that's a thing they can do, even if they can only do it so many times in a story.

I understand that you liked Dawntrail and wanted to defend it, Cleretic, but what was the excuse for not even having the WOL try to help heal Gulool Ja Ja if they were on a healer class? You know when Alphinaud and Alisaie and Krile stepped up to try and heal him, and the WOL just stood there twiddling their thumbs? I went into that cutscene as a WHM and didn't even try to help. It was pathetic, especially when an earlier cutscene acknowledges if you're a Culinarian of all things.

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Originally Posted by PorxiesRCute

I understand that you liked Dawntrail and wanted to defend it, Cleretic, but what was the excuse for not even having the WOL try to help heal Gulool Ja Ja if they were on a healer class? You know when Alphinaud and Alisaie and Krile stepped up to try and heal him, and the WOL just stood there twiddling their thumbs? I went into that cutscene as a WHM and didn't even try to help. It was pathetic, especially when an earlier cutscene acknowledges if you're a Culinarian of all things.

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That's entirely unrelated, but okay, let's talk about this entirely new conversation.

Fortunately, it's very simple: three people healing the guy to no avail probably means a fourth isn't going to help. However, Gulool's also by no means the only person who dies from a mortal wound in our vicinity that we haven't lifted a finger to help, so this a bit of an ongoing thing and I question why you're only complaining about it at this time. Why not complain that we didn't heal Harchefaunt?

The underlying ongoing reason, by the way, is probably that having healer abilities actually work in cutscenes would require drastically rewriting every scene where someone gets a great injury... but also you can never succeed at it because that would derail how the story goes.

Also, I actually don't like how arbitrary their recognition of what jobs you've got leveled are, so don't act like I'm treating that as perfect; there's multiple storylines in DT about medicine and alchemy, and none of them mention if you're an Alchemist. Even the part of the MSQ where they say an accurate assessment of a situation would be a job for specifically an Alchemist doesn't acknowledge it, it sucks! But it sucks in a way that's entirely unrelated to the subject of the thread.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

That's entirely unrelated, but okay, let's talk about this entirely new conversation.

Fortunately, it's very simple: three people healing the guy to no avail probably means a fourth isn't going to help. However, Gulool's also by no means the only person who dies from a mortal wound in our vicinity that we haven't lifted a finger to help, so this a bit of an ongoing thing and I question why you're only complaining about it at this time. Why not complain that we didn't heal Harchefaunt?

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Since Haurchefant they have started adding in recognition of when you're playing as a healer. Notably in Stormblood when Y'shtola gets sliced open by Zenos, but even in the recent FFXVI crossover they had healer WOLs channel aether into Clive when they found him unconscious.

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The underlying ongoing reason, by the way, is probably that having healer abilities actually work in cutscenes would require drastically rewriting every scene where someone gets a great injury... but also you can never succeed at it because that would derail how the story goes.

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I'm not asking for healer abilities, I'm asking for the WOL to lift their damn hand up and channel healing aether like the NPCs are doing. "Oh, three people are already doing it so I won't bother" is a ridiculous mindset to imply for the Warrior of Light.

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Also, I actually don't like how arbitrary their recognition of what jobs you've got leveled are, so don't act like I'm treating that as perfect; there's multiple storylines in DT about medicine and alchemy, and none of them mention if you're an Alchemist. Even the part of the MSQ where they say an accurate assessment of a situation would be a job for specifically an Alchemist doesn't acknowledge it, it sucks! But it sucks in a way that's entirely unrelated to the subject of the thread.

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Okay, but you're all over these forums caping for things that are obviously ridiculous. I understand feeling defensive! I liked Dawntrail, even a lot of the stuff other people complain about, but this is a AAA game by a multi-million-dollar studio. They can handle some criticism.

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Originally Posted by PorxiesRCute

Okay, but you're all over these forums caping for things that are obviously ridiculous. I understand feeling defensive! I liked Dawntrail, even a lot of the stuff other people complain about, but this is a AAA game by a multi-million-dollar studio. They can handle some criticism.

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And I think we should recognize that a lot of the things people are complaining about aren't problem with Dawntrail, they're problems with FFXIV as a whole, often to an even worse degree, that for some reason people are only raising as a problem right now. FFXIV being over ten years old now doesn't just mean we're sitting on a history of problems that have never been fixed, but also a history of both stated and inferred reasons those keep happening; it's not that FFXIV's devs haven't thought about doing X thing, it's that there's a reason they haven't. So I find it more interesting to talk about those 'why's, rather than just people saying 'I want this thing'.

Like, I'm gonna be honest, I don't actually know why they don't have us go and do healing in cutscenes that often; my thoughts there are all speculation, and me thinking there's probably a reason while being less bothered by it than you isn't 'defending' it. But I actually suspect that the underlying reason for your complaint here might not actually be that Dawntrail dropped the ball; it's that Dawntrail actually had someone die from their wounds in front of us, which is something that hasn't happened to a notable ally since Heavensward. They can have us heal up someone who's gonna be okay, but they can't have us heal someone who won't. Maybe they just don't want to hand you an L, make healers the only role that cutscenes force to fail at their job.

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.

Dialogue choices are a good starting point. It doesn't even need to be an action, just add in some dialogue options. If you're a healer main, you could probably go over to Alphinaud, put your hand on his shoulder, and say 'They're dead, Jim.' Or you could wink irreverently at the camera and say that you'd like to help out, but you're on strike (hashtag FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE). Either way, players will generally forgive you small lapses if you occasionally leave them out of the action, but if it becomes a constant thing like it was in this expansion, then it's going to get brought up. A game is not written like a novel or play.

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.

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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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The Player Character, by way of their time trip back to and return from Elpis, indirectly set the events of the entire story into action. We're able to personally connect with Hermes, Meteion, and Venat, all three of whom are the major movers of Endwalker's story. Zenos retains his obsessive focus on the Player Character, and our solo (to a degree) beatdown of Zodiark set Amon's true plan into action. Even characters who don't actually factor into the overarching plot, like Vrtra, take time to address the Player Character in confidence, giving them presence in the story despite extremely limited dialogue. It's very difficult to give the Player Character action and dialogue in cutscenes, but they were still acknowledged and given agency in the story - as much agency as you can have in a linear RPG, at any rate.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

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?

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It is not as complicated as you think.

Since 4.0, they had some very specific animations done based on your role.

As a Example, when Y'shtola was injured during Stormblood, they had a very specific Healer Job scene where the WoL is asked to help heal her if WoL is any Healer Job instead of trying to stop the bleeding if they are not Healers.

Here is a example of a not real cutscene....

WoL is put into a Hostage situation where WoL and NPC X will need to save NPC Y from antagonist but WoL does not have enough time to draw his/her weapon.

NPC Y is injured and the antagonist is about to strike at him/her.

NPC X is about to strike at the Antagonists but need the Antagonist to be distracted some how so he does not kill NPC Y.

This is where the Job Role event changes the cutscene based on the Job Role....

If WoL is....

Tank => WoL jumps infront of the Antagonist attack and Tanks the blow for NPC Y. Thus saving NPC Y from being killed and WoL is knocked back to where he/she was before.

Physical Range DPS => WoL quickly grabs a rock nearby and use his/her aiming skills as a Physical Range job to hit the Antagonist on the head resulting in the Antagonist being dazed to stop his attack on NPC Y.

Melee DPS => WoL use his/her Strength/Dexterity to rush at the antagonist and punch the antagonist so he is Dazed to stop his attack on NPC Y. The Antagonist knock WoL back to where he orignal location.

Magic Range DPS => Without being able to use the weapon as a Focus, WoL can only cast a small explosive magic attack to hit Antagonist which cause him to get daze a bit and stop his attack on NPC Y.

Healer => WoL heals NPC Y so he/she recover enough strength to counter the Antagonist attack and cause the antagonist to be dazed a bit by the sudden event.

After that, the scene still plays out the same but the Antagonist will comment a bit about how annoying WoL is only to realize too late that WoL was distracting him long enough for NPC X to strike and save NPC Y.

NPC X strikes at the Antagonist then the rest is just following scriped events.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

Here is a example of a not real cutscene....

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Okay, but none of this answers a very important question if we're spitballing game design that the developers know better.

How is this better than either:
A: The friendly NPC kneeling injured in that purple circle that enemies spawn in when you walk into it,
B: if the antagonist is of importance, just a boss fight,
Or C: if the antagonist is of importance but it's not time for the boss fight yet, drawing the weapon but being unable to fight due to circumstances?

Remember: game development is never facing the question of 'is this possible', it's facing the question of 'is this worth the effort'. Sometimes, that question is about fixing a longstanding spaghetti-code-origin bug, or about 'we only budgeted for this many dungeons', but it's true even on the small scale. Your idea basically asks for five different cutsecnes (more specifically five different iterations of part of a cutscene, but that's overcomplicating it); is it five times better than option C, which only requires one cutscene? How much better is it than the easy option of A, which requires no cutscenes and like three trash mobs you probably already have? If this particular cutscene is so important, why not elevate it to an actual boss fight, and hand it off to the combat design team that're probably already sketching out what AoEs they're giving this guy? I'm not trying to tell you that this is a bad idea; chances are the developers would love to have the freedom to do stuff like this all the time. (And probably hate that I keep running these cutscenes as an Alchemist and looking for their fallback logic.) But you're pitching something that gets cut between drafts.

I don't think it's worth me continuing this, though. It's pretty clear this thread's demand won't get listened to at all, but I get the feeling that I'm the only one whose response to that is 'okay but let's talk about why' rather than just continuing to shout demands into the void.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

How is this better than either:
A: The friendly NPC kneeling injured in that purple circle that enemies spawn in when you walk into it,
B: if the antagonist is of importance, just a boss fight,

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Either of those would be fine too, but Dawntrail has shown that these devs are almost pathologically averse to including gameplay in MSQ. If we had more actual stuff to do, the standing-around-doing-nothing cutscenes would grate less. Hence the suggestions that the invasion of Tuliyollal could have been a duty instead, but you also said that wouldn't work for whatever reason.