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

[Cleretic]

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.

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.

[Raoul9753]

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.

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...

[Solowing]

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!

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.

[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.

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

[Cleretic]

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 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.

[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.

[Cleretic]

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.

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.

[PorxiesRCute]

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Cleretic]

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.

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.

[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.

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.