Standing There Syndrome

[Cenobia]

We've all seen it. We all hate it. When characters, often our own, simply stand there during cutscenes where something bad is happening, when there is absolutely nothing stopping them from intervening.

Now, we also know that the reason we don't get to see our WoL kick people's behinds cinematically is due to budget - there are way too many different jobs, and there'd have to be either one variation for each, or to have us engage in a completely different way (the punch).

However, everyone also knows that you can (often quite easily) simply write around it. Have the characters who aren't going to do anything in a scene either not be there, or be otherwise busy with other threats. It's a key, and very simple skill to have as a writer, especially when dealing with walking nukes.

Stormblood was very guilty of it. Endwalker had few, but egregious moments. And then there is Dawntrail.

I'm not going to mention the MSQ, we've all suffered through it, we all saw how 80% of things only happen because characters are either holding the dumb ball or the inaction ball. I thought I was done giving feedback about 7.0. And then I started doing the Role Quests.

Good gods, it's never been this bad. Putting aside the even lower quality writing than the MSQ (pranks, really? Lighthearted doesn't have to mean juvenile. Please make the writer responsible play through the Hildibrand questline over and over again until they understand that.), almost every single thing that happens in these godforsaken cutscenes is due to no one involved having any initiative whatsoever. There are so many ways to write around this, to keep someone busy or unavailable, and they use not a single one of them.

The Warrior of Light has the Echo. Surely the writers know this? That it's the perfect plot device for us to learn about things that happened when we weren't somewhere? That it is how ARR handles the attack on the Waking Sands, and they didn't even need to because we weren't even walking nukes yet.

Sub-ARR. This is where we've gotten to.

[Zakuyia]

We just lack that hildebrand budget

[Asari5]

in shb we help alphinaud with healing thst blue haired miqote in eulmore if we play healer.... so they can do stuff like that. certainly that wasnt only because of ishikawa, was it?

[Cenobia]

It depends on the writer to add those things to their scenes, so sadly, yes.

While it's entirely within the animation team's technical capability, if the writer just isn't good enough to use those capabilities-

It all really did depend on only Ishikawa.

[Mecia]

It cant be that hard to have jobs do one of their basic attacks. Melee could run up and do the first or final hit in their combo for example.

All the times i couldve thrown out a simple Fire without even moving like whats stopping it exactly.

[Cenobia]

It cant be that hard to have jobs do one of their basic attacks. Melee could run up and do the first or final hit in their combo for example.

All the times i couldve thrown out a simple Fire without even moving like whats stopping it exactly.

At this point I've completely given up on them doing anything of the sort. I just ask for basic writing competency. Have us not help because we were busy standing there threateningly with our weapon drawn against a different enemy, for example.

[Jeeqbit]

We've all seen it. We all hate it. When characters, often our own, simply stand there during cutscenes where something bad is happening, when there is absolutely nothing stopping them from intervening.

Well that does happen in real life actually. The shock factor can leave you stunned or struggling to move.

we also know that the reason we don't get to see our WoL kick people's behinds cinematically is due to budget

No, it's for a few other reasons, actually:

• They can't know which class/job we are using and they can't future-proof it because we will have new jobs later on.
• They don't want to do the fighting for us normally. They want us to do that ourselves via the actual fights/dungeons/trials. The cutscenes are merely the setup for those fights.

Stormblood was very guilty of it. Endwalker had few, but egregious moments. And then there is Dawntrail.

Examples? The main Dawntrail one that gets referenced I do agree with them standing there initially out of sheer respect for Gulool Ja Ja's skill, which the WoL witnessed first-hand so they knew that they could handle it and technically they did by defeating Zoraal Ja.

And really the second time, while it's obvious to all of us that there is some technology at play reviving Zoraal Ja and making them more powerful, the characters in the game are quite primitive and don't have a lot of technology like this so wouldn't necessarily understand this was a technology making them more powerful and considering Gulool Ja Ja won once, why wouldn't they again?

[ovIm]

Now, we also know that the reason we don't get to see our WoL kick people's behinds cinematically is due to budget - there are way too many different jobs, and there'd have to be either one variation for each, or to have us engage in a completely different way (the punch).

• They can't know which class/job we are using and they can't future-proof it because we will have new jobs later on.

This can easily be worked around. Instead of making an animation per class, just make one per role. Imagine this, your WoL stands at the ready, their weapon is slapped out of their hand, they have to divejump away from a follow up attack, pick up a generic weapon from the floor or a wall, based on their roll, and use that.
WoL is a tank? Grab a shield and use it to block and counter.
WoL is a melee DPS? Cool, here is a halberd, go to town.
WoL is a monk? Fisticuffs.
WoL is a ranged? Bunch of throwing spears to attack at a distance.
WoL is a mage/healer? Just a staff to fling generic looking spells around.

Future proof (unless they add in a new role, which I doubt), and much more manageable in scope, considering you only need 10 choreographies now (tall size and lalafell size) instead of two per class.

[Vhana]

This can easily be worked around. Instead of making an animation per class, just make one per role.

I don’t like that dynamis exists, but since this is the world we live in, let’s use it: Limit Break 1 is a level 15 cross role ability fuelled by dynamis and the animations could use an update.

[FuwafuwaMii]

Is it budget though?
I'd like the MSQ to be way less simple dialogue cutscene and more telling the story through action. When things happen off-screen, show us the consequences, and then we find out via a dialogue or another gameplay sequence what went on. SE came up with a bunch of nice ideas over the years (and sometimes overdid it, like the escort quests where people kept following you around for 3 quests within a 10 quest timespan, and people started to hate it), I'm pretty sure they could do a lot more of that.
Maybe cut down on cutscenes, make those that remain higher quality (ie voiced) and shuffle more of the storytelling to gameplay that's a bit more advanced than "kill 3 antelopes" or "find 3 dudes we tried to hide behind house walls".
Not everything has to be a solo duty, either.

I'd love to see one zone in the next expac where there's nobody to talk to, where we go through the story through exploration. Like the dart shooting in StB, the murals in ShB, or design it like a scavenger hunt where we stumble over a problem, pick up the scent, collect clues and pursue an enemy - which could then culminate in a voiced cutscene.

Nothing is as boring as "Talk to Minfilia/Alfinaud/Wuk Lamat" over and over.