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

[Cilia]

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.

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.

[EdwinLi]

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?

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.

[Cleretic]

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

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.

[PorxiesRCute]

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,

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.