Cutscenes and battle timers

[AdvancedWind]

They should just freeze timers (and characters) until everyone skips the cutscene, problem solved

[Elexia]

They should just freeze timers (and characters) until everyone skips the cutscene, problem solved

Yeah pretty funny it's predecessor did this so well >.>

[Estellios]

Yeah pretty funny it's predecessor did this so well >.>

The timers were always ticking in Omega + Ultima BC, Promathia battle during the phase changes, etc, I don't know wtf you are smoking.

Also Darnus gives you ample time to watch the CS's, we've watched them every time we've done the battle for someone and never get anywhere near close to running out of time. And its the final battle anyway, its great to see yourself in the CS with your party members.

[Dzian]

This is a community issue more than anything. People are in such a rush to get things done that they tend to skip the cutscenes, especially those who don't care about the story much. All they care about is loot loot loot. I agree that it's nice to skip the cutscene once you've seen it the first time, but people should just have the common courtesy to expect that people are going to want to watch it the first time.

In the OP's example of To Kill a Raven. It's hardly a community thing.. There's a good 8-10 minutes of cutscene in that particular example. Thats pretty much 1/3 of the fights timer.

Also Darnus gives you ample time to watch the CS's, we've watched them every time we've done the battle for someone and never get anywhere near close to running out of time.

I'm going to disagree. I've done that fight quite a few times. sometimes I've had over 15 minutes left on the clock. sometimes had less than 5.

some parties are more skilled than others that much is true but van darneus's behavior also has a huge effect on the fights duration. on a good day he never ports you can smash phase one in 4-5 minutes. on a bad day he warps every few seconds and it can end up taking 8or9 minutes to get past phase 1. it really is very random fight in that sense. and not exclusively the fault of player skill

I'm with the OP though. cutscenes shouldn't interfere with timers.

Yeah pretty funny it's predecessor did this so well >.>

What XI did though was it gave you the cutscene before you went into the fights. you effectively clicked on a fight got a cutscene and then when everyone was ready you clicked on it again to start the actual fight.

all they'd need to do is lock the charactors down. I read a dev thing ages ago about a ready check. you finish or skip your cutscene press the ready button and only when everyone has pressed it does the fight and timer start. thats how it should work at least imo.

i seem to recall them mentioning the ready check would be outside so forexample you couldnt enter the bowl of embers without pressing ready but to put the ready check inside the arena would be a much better option

[Elexia]

What XI did though was it gave you the cutscene before you went into the fights. you effectively clicked on a fight got a cutscene and then when everyone was ready you clicked on it again to start the actual fight.

Exactly, this is why it worked so well, even mid fight cutscenes freeze timers or resets (depending on the fight) to allow recovery/buff time and doesn't start the timer until you engage the mob however in some instances the timer begins once the enemy/NPC helper gets tired of waiting and charges in (Prishe, Lilisette etc). This is what actually felt much more like a FF game (cutscene > fight more so than cutscene while you start the fight.)

[Yrusama]

Yeah pretty funny it's predecessor did this so well >.>

I think it's your character's face, but you came across as really sarcastic just then. In fact her face makes a lot of her posts more negative than I'm sure they're intended to be.

Anyway, while this is a mostly a community problem, fights like To Kill a Raven don't give that cushion time for people who watch the cutscene. In the primal fights, there's usually plenty of time for their intros because they're less than a minute each, but Nael van Darnus is much more long-winded than any other boss in this game. I love his speeches, but there simply isn't enough time to read them and comfortably finish the fight. Likewise, the cutscenes in dungeons will take away from your chance at a speed run.

I agree that XI's choice to put the cutscene outside the instance was probably the best choice. Even if there is no danger of a time limit, at least you won't have to make the party wait.