Why is the WoL so lame in cutscenes?

[LineageRazor]

To make warrior of light believable, we have to know how we kill all those primal? Do we shoot super echo-beam towards them and they die instantly?

Or do we actually manipulate physical or magical force via the job we have (like dancing...) to do damage and kill them?

Honestly, it's up to you to decide. The game is deliberately vauge about it, and isn't even clear as to whether you're actually taking on these Primals alone or as the leader of a team. The fact that you're known as a Primal Slayer doesn't mean you did it alone, any more than Alexander the Great was alone when he conquered most of the known world. He gets the credit becuase he's the leader that made it happen, and the same could be true for us.

Taken from that perspective, you don't have to imagine dancing Ifrit to death, but instead acting as a capable and charismatic leader, guiding and supporting the team of heroes that got the job done.

For some of the battles in the game, it seems far-fetched that the WoL could have brought friends along, but for most, it's not impossible!

[Cilia]

They could probably get around many of these limitations by having WoL use a particular weapon in a cutscene. Some examples that come to mind are the uses of Louisoix' broken staff as an aetherial blade way back, or the Eurekan sword when you destroy it's avatar. Hell, even the fistfight against Lyse.

Honestly the game really should just assume that WoL has a baseline level of both physical and magical prowess and allow for more of the aforementioned situations. I wouldn't really mind if cutscenes just picked a job by force and had WoL do that ShB trailer quickshift into it to accommodate the situation. That might require at least unlocking all jobs to be manditory though.

Some people don't play the same job every expansion, pick up every job, etc. I went from SMN/SCH to ROG/NIN to DRK to SAM to GNB. I wouldn't be particularly happy if the story forced me to be DRK in Shadowbringers cutscenes because that's the flavor of the month. (I initially really liked DRK but switched to SAM in Stormblood to play with my weeaboo swords, then tried to switch back for Shadowbringers only to find the changes made during my pause from the Job left it unrecognizable and less enjoyable. I much prefer GNB now, because it's like playing a tank in a DPS' skin.)

I still remember the end of 2.55 where we allowed ourselves to be taken prisoner by some mooks during the ul'dah sequences, which was ridiculous, we should have been easily able to take care of them as we had beaten the ultima weapon and several primals by that points.

From how your weapon disappears before you meet Nanamo to how Pipin gives you your equipment back after rescuing you, it's implied (but never explicitly stated) that your weapon(s) were held for security purposes. No comment on why MNKs couldn't do anything though, given how their whole shtick is being able to fight unarmed (or minimally armed).

(The funny part about that whole event is how none of the heroics and sacrifices ultimately ended up being necessary. What's funnier is that the whole plotline was pretty much just filler to get Heavensward written.)

[Rosenoire]

I believe I answered this in the other thread too, but the character's hesitations are for storytelling purposes. The player who views the story needs to have time to emotionally react to what is happening and process new information. Most of the hesitation on the player's character is to allow this to happen. They aren't a perfect reflection of what would happen in real life, but suspension of disbelief is important factor here. You have to let the game dictate rules of reality when in the story, not real life or you'll always feel that something is off.

So what your refer to as lazy writing, is your refusal to except suspension of disbelief. You have also forgotten that the player character wants to save Mikoto more than just trounce Misija (Mikoto's safety comes first, so you hesitate to save her life and have to react to the full scale of Misija's betrayal). You have also forgotten the Misija gets shot after kicking Mikoto away and being distracted tempering the Blades while the player character acts appropriately shielding the remaining soldiers. In universe this all makes sense.

All seriousness aside, WHM couldn't rescue Mikoto because they weren't in the same party.

My problem is that it strains my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point to watch a character who is canonically capable of killing gods fall victim yet again to a fairly obvious face-heel turn. Mizija is Yotsuyu is the Ivy: a poor mistreated lower-class girl who betrays her country in favor of the Empire. As soon as we saw the cutscene where people were being horrible and classist to her, it was obvious that she was going to stab us in the back--and given how often that's happened in game, I feel like the WoL shouldn't have been caught completely flat-footed. The part that I genuinely felt was lazy writing was that they've gone to this well over and over again. We had an entire expansion in Heavensward where class conflict was one of the central problems. I would genuinely have preferred to have Mizija be subject to straight-up racism, to show that the Garleans aren't the only ones who are racist.

[Cilia]

My problem is that it strains my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point to watch a character who is canonically capable of killing gods fall victim yet again to a fairly obvious face-heel turn. Mizija is Yotsuyu is the Ivy: a poor mistreated lower-class girl who betrays her country in favor of the Empire. As soon as we saw the cutscene where people were being horrible and classist to her, it was obvious that she was going to stab us in the back--and given how often that's happened in game, I feel like the WoL shouldn't have been caught completely flat-footed. The part that I genuinely felt was lazy writing was that they've gone to this well over and over again.

That is pretty much my big issue with the story so far. Aside from my disdain for yet more Ivalice references (with classism being a big issue in Tactics at least) they've done this gimmick time and again. It's to the point the PC should immediately be wary of anyone we're told was mistreated for being of common birth in a highly stratified social system, especially when the Empire is involved. It's boring and stale at this point - "highly stratified social system mistreated its lower class, so now they've joined up with the Empire and are out for revenge."

Never you mind the injustice Misija's out for vengeance in retaliation for is even more ancient than Nidhogg's grudge against Ishgard...

[Kesey]

Never you mind the injustice Misija's out for vengeance in retaliation for is even more ancient than Nidhogg's grudge against Ishgard...

Yes, but her backstory does say she was an archeologist, so I guess if anyone was to know about the details of something like this, that far back it was her. Plus they made her a descendent too, to really bring the trope home.

[SannaR]

Why do we not use our powers at times?

For instance when we went running into Lunar Bahamut's attack. We knew one was coming and we didn't put up a barrier. Like what the heck. Until we went flying backwards I had thought we had just put up a small one or that the others weren't behind somehow.

Also why are we never giving our aether to others unless we're directed to either in a CS or a questline? Even before we knew we were a sundered soul of an Ancient we would have a few guild leaders and other npcs state we seemed to have way more aether than normal folks.

Then all of ShB happened to the point where we're shown to be able to have a bigger amount put into us than anyone else can. Now we even have an in game food item that we could just snack on to recover faster and we don't even do that.

The story worked our character to death for about two and half expansions only with occasional npcs going idk how you keep on going at the pace you do without rest to now npcs treating us like a little kid and needing to take a lot more breaks. Which is nice, but it's also becoming tiresome. I don't even care if we don't fight people I just want us to use the powers we know we have in situations where it's called for and aether transfer way more than we have been allowed to do so.

[Bright-Flower]

It can get annoying, there are several times I've been like 'why is my character just standing there and letting Gaius walk away' etc. Villain teleportation is also really annoying, one of my big gripes with FIre Emblem Three Houses too.

[Sorimachi87]

About the cutscene where he showed up. I think we didnt want to show our cards (what happend in 5.3 with us) to him yet. That includes the echo. So we took the hit to let him think hes on the safe side.

[Jandor]

It can get annoying, there are several times I've been like 'why is my character just standing there and letting Gaius walk away' etc. Villain teleportation is also really annoying, one of my big gripes with FIre Emblem Three Houses too.

It's the hero/villain gentlemans agreement, to do whatever is most dramatic and cool. It's why they tend to let you go after a bit of a villainous rant even when you're totally at their mercy.

[Kesey]

My problem is that it strains my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point to watch a character who is canonically capable of killing gods fall victim yet again to a fairly obvious face-heel turn. Mizija is Yotsuyu is the Ivy: a poor mistreated lower-class girl who betrays her country in favor of the Empire. As soon as we saw the cutscene where people were being horrible and classist to her, it was obvious that she was going to stab us in the back--and given how often that's happened in game, I feel like the WoL shouldn't have been caught completely flat-footed. The part that I genuinely felt was lazy writing was that they've gone to this well over and over again. We had an entire expansion in Heavensward where class conflict was one of the central problems. I would genuinely have preferred to have Mizija be subject to straight-up racism, to show that the Garleans aren't the only ones who are racist.

Then you misunderstand about suspension of disbelief. It isn't affected by the story, it's completely controlled by you. You can blame the story, but the fact you insist on over analyzing to ruin your suspension is completely on you, by definition.