Quote Originally Posted by Moggwa View Post
Exactly because that literally happened before and it's the reason it is this way
There was never a point where the cutscenes were actually optional or not according to the presence of a new player. People just wouldn't wait for the person watching cutscenes, and might kick them hoping for a new eighth player who would participate in battle instead of watching cutscenes so they could go even faster. But plenty of people just ignored the newbie and left them to stumble lost through corridors already cleared of enemies – or still populated by them depending on your DC's approach to the dungeon.

It's like this now because people wouldn't wait for new players generally, not specifically because they got kicked.

I don't think the game has the ability to offer optional cutscenes or not according to party status. You can see it's been changed in the Unending Journey cutscene viewer too, so I think they've just set the text to auto-scrolling and turned on a "cannot be skipped" setting like you get in the treasure map dungeons and a few other places.