[Idea] Placeholder Characters for Cutscenes

It is impossible to include party members in your cutscenes while viewing them using the Unending Journey. While this isn't a huge issue, it looks a little strange viewing the end of a boss fight as a White Mage and thinking "did I just solo this?". It would be nice to include a toggle feature for including party members in these cutscenes. I know this would make things complicated to program, so I have a sollution:

Placeholder Characters.

The anonymous adventurers shown in all of the trailers, such as the Midlander Warrior and the Miqo'te BRD, could stand in for party members. All of the mean looks, switches to active mode, jumps for joy, and thumbs up would be executed by this team while the viewer's character takes center stage. This would bypass any need to gather party member appearance data from the server if they are in other zones, and these placeholder characters would only need one outfit each. For low-man boss cutscenes, like before the Vanguard in Deus Ex Machina (or the equivalent quests), it could pick 3 of the more prominent characters, and for duo cutscenes it would only include the Midlander.

I'm not saying it's necessary, and I'm sure it's a feature not everyone would want to toggle on, but a lot of those boss cutscenes look very empty without the full party there. I don't mean to bring out the dreaded "like XI" phrase too much, but their system of adding NPCs like Prishe to fight cutscenes served as a great reminder that your character didn't fight alone.

I would like to see a sphere center like in FFX - here you could control / tamper with the memory a little. Great for fan videos and also just seeing the CS how it actually happened.

While I think its cool to watch myself own Nael - obviously that wasnt how it went. I'd really like the option to maintain the true CS, which will help the story seem more related and less "there because our customers want something to do while they kill stuff".

My idea for fixing this, which I was sad to find out didn't work in 1.0 when I tried it, was to just have it use whoever is currently in your party.

i.e. Gather up some random friends before viewing the Unending Journey and they'll be the ones next to you.

The only snag I can see would be if you say, only gather up 4 people for some mission that required a full party of 8. You'd have to either pick and choose which "character slots" (who in the party is doing which actions) get used and which are left out, show it solo unless you have the necessary number of people, or still do some filling in with random NPCs.

But I wholeheartedly agree... cutscenes frankly look naked when it's just myself standing there, and this was only made worse by the fact that everyone wants/needs to skip cutscenes for the real thing to save on dungeon/battle time.

Oooh what if in FC houses you can have an Unending journel there as well, but when viewed with whomever party members are present in the FC house, they can be seen in the CS?

I always found it awkward taking on Nael Darnus, alone.... with a bronze skillet, in my boxers.

*edit*... well Myridia beat me to the punch but still... something to make FC houses useful for.

I'd just like to point out...in the unending journey... It'd be nice for us Legacy members to be able to see the OLD cutscenes. From the OLD areas. While in ARR. I think that'd be cool. Since it's virtually impossible for me to record my cutscenes with due to the amount of lag I get when fraps is recording while xiv is running. Framerate literally drops to 0 - 1

It definitely made the cutscene strange where your character's head turns to look at their friends run to Cid's airship for the last fight when there was no one around.

It would be simply better (and probably easier) to let you see the cutscene while grouped, including those grouped with you in the cutscene you're watching.

It would also be way cooler.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

It would be simply better (and probably easier) to let you see the cutscene while grouped, including those grouped with you in the cutscene you're watching.

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I never understood why they disabled this for the unending journal. You can still watch it while in a party, but the party members don't appear. I'm guessing it could be because of them not being in the same area, thus the old engine not having access to the character data... but that should definitely change for ARR, imho.

I personally prefer Yrusama's idea. If I'm looking at the Unending Journey, I'm not in a party. Maybe a meeting in the middle solution would be best. If you have party members they show up with the empty slots filled by the placeholders up to all the slots filled by placeholders.

I was also thinking of making this topic. To Kill A Raven cutscenes didn't feel as epic without the party members D;

I think it's a really good idea. The CS are much more epic to have your party with you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I would like to see a sphere center like in FFX - here you could control / tamper with the memory a little. Great for fan videos and also just seeing the CS how it actually happened.

While I think its cool to watch myself own Nael - obviously that wasnt how it went. I'd really like the option to maintain the true CS, which will help the story seem more related and less "there because our customers want something to do while they kill stuff".

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I want this.

Personally I'd prefer they go even a step further and allow us to select our friend's characters for additional slots. It wouldn't be any more difficult that the OP suggestion, except you know... drop down boxes/text fields. Obviously tracking the original characters you ran through a scene with would be a bit overkill, though if it were client side it would be completely doable/reasonable.