Story Mission Re-design - Yay or Nay?

[Abriael]

I want to add that I like following the story but am loath to actually do the missions because I find them so unremarkable. My path companion only drops in sporadically, and is never at my side. And neither are other players. It's all rather dull.

Not having other players there is a simple matter of direction. It's easier to create stunning cutscenes if you don't have to blindly predict how many additional people will be around, how they'll be equipped and so forth, The simpler, the better,especially when you have to include several NPCs. Overcrowded scenes are rarely effective.
That's the same reason why your group mates were not present in cutscenes in FFXI.

If you consider yourself an MMO players and you want story-related content to be enjoyed with others, you can hope that more is added. But I doubt you should feel entitled to exclude Final Fantasy's main customerbase from Final Fantasy's main feature (IE: the main storyline).

Further content can always be implemented, but a baseline that is accessible to everyone needs to be present.

[solracht]

Not having other players there is a simple matter of direction. It's easier to create stunning cutscenes if you don't have to blindly predict how many additional people will be around, how they'll be equipped and so forth, The simpler, the better,especially when you have to include several NPCs. Overcrowded scenes are rarely effective.
That's the same reason why your group mates were not present in cutscenes in FFXI.

You're white knighting way too hard. Party members already show in cutscenes, assuming you're in the two missions that don't force you to disband.

The entire point of the Crystal Tools was rendering cutscenes with ingame graphics in real time, too. There's no predicting in the cutscene, there's taking the ingame models and using them during the cutscene. Although another thing the engine was supposed to do well was transitioning between gameplay and cutscenes, something that's obviously not happening either... so who knows.

[Abriael]

Also you're white knighting way too hard, for the love of god.

I'm stating my opinion, if you don't like it don't read it. Having a different opinion from yours don't make one a "white knight" as much as you seem to have a penchant for attacking the ones that disagree with you on a personal level.
If party members do show already, I stand corrected, but that's not really the matter at hand.

Incidentally, I found the class missions to be the most enjoyable, including the armorer ones. Mimidoa is a quite memorable and hilarious character.

It's called "opinions".

Might want to consider, though, the simple fact that this game needs *more* content, not less, and scrapping existing content just because it doesn't fit your personal taste isn't exactly conductive to the creation of more content.

[gifthorse]

Another thing, why do players "teleport" into the cutscenes?

Why do the mobs that were aggressive to you during a cutscene start walking around instead of fighting you? (Every single cutscene is like this from R1 to R46)

[solracht]

Going to ignore the "opinions" speech, since it's coming from someone who's actively replying to ("attacking", according to you) others who find our current systems flawed by making up whatever reasons and excuses he wants about why things are the way they are.

Might want to consider, though, the simple fact that this game needs *more* content, not less, and scrapping existing content just because it doesn't fit your personal taste isn't exactly conductive to the creation of more content.

It's not my personal taste. Did you ignore the entire post?

NPC models change between cutscenes.
Music gets cut in a way that nobody who's ever played a video game before could think is intended.
Story Battles feel bugged/messy and a step above playable.
The story-telling flow is destroyed a lot of times due to you ending up in an instance filled with NPCs who didn't even have anything to do with the storyline that was being presented in the prior cutscene.

You just said Final Fantasy players want story, which I agree with. Well... Square-Enix may want to at least beat the Cutscenes and storytelling medium from the original Final Fantasy XI to deliver it.

You might've missed my point about the Class quests. I was again talking about delivery. Mimidoa was awesome, but do you know what I found dumb? The fact that you're thrown into a mine after a cave-in, where people are desperate, dying, yet sitting around doing nothing. Mentioning how they're going to die as there's no way out, when you just got there. Awkward.

Do you know what was almost as bad? Touching a random spot of the area to get a freaking coconut and glass, which somehow makes the NPC flee (teleport) to the boat (which isn't anywhere). The scene then reaches a new high (read: low): you run all the way back to your invisible boat, and get teleported all the way to the other side of the island for the cutscene.

The delivery and progression has been horrible in this game (I think the storyline itself is pretty good, however). Put your hate for me aside for a second, and tell me you honestly felt like the battle where you stop fighting and start waving around in the Colisseum was anything but awkward. It's perfectly understandable that you have to "show off" during the fight, but if they can't accomplish that in their current systems without ruining the experience, then maybe it should be omitted for now.

Lastly I'd like to add that I don't even disagree with what I quoted. The game needs more content. The problem is the little content we have also needs reworking. What do you do in this situation? Does it really matter if we have content, if it's not enjoyable for most people? Note I'm not talking about missions anymore, but in general.

[Abriael]

Going to ignore the "opinions" speech, since it's coming from someone who's actively replying to ("attacking", according to you) others who find our current systems flawed by making up whatever reasons and excuses he wants about why things are the way they are.

Excuses? lol. Sorry mate, but i give reasons (mostly coming from experience). And they are in no way an "attack". I criticize arguments, and that's how discussion is conducted.

It's not my personal taste. Did you ignore the entire post?

NPC models change between cutscenes.
Music gets cut in a way that nobody who's ever played a video game before could think is intended.
Story Battles feel bugged/messy and a step above playable.
The story-telling flow is destroyed a lot of times due to you ending up in an instance filled with NPCs who didn't even have anything to do with the storyline that was being presented in the prior cutscene.

You sure love nitpicking. Personally I diddn't even notice most of what you're describing. I was too busy enjoying the story.

You just said Final Fantasy players want story, which I agree with. Well... Square-Enix may want to at least beat the Cutscenes and storytelling medium from the original Final Fantasy XI to deliver it.

Cutscenes in FFXI had their own flaws. They're normally derived simply from the fact that different areas of the same cutscene are normally handled by different people. FFXIV is definitely not the only game in which this kind of mistakes happen. Mind you, they happen even in hollywood movies.

You might've missed my point about the Class quests. I was again talking about delivery. Mimidoa was awesome, but do you know what I found dumb? The fact that you're thrown into a mine after a cave-in, where people are desperate, dying, yet sitting around doing nothing. Mentioning how they're going to die as there's no way out, when you just got there. Awkward.

Do you know what was almost as bad? Touching a random spot of the map to get a freaking coconut and glass, which somehow makes the NPC flee (teleport) to the boat (which isn't anywhere). The scene then reaches a new high (read: low): you run all the way back to your invisible boat, and get teleported all the way to the other side of the island for the cutscene.

The delivery and progression has been horrible in this game (I think the storyline itself is pretty good, however). Put your hate for me aside for a second, and tell me you honestly felt like the battle where you stop fighting and start waving around in the Colisseum was anything but awkward.

You might want to heed what you're saying yourself. If you want people to "put away" some hate that exists only in your imagination, you may want not to attack them on the personal level in the first place. It's normally much more conductive to constructive discussion.

By the way, since gladiators are described multiple times as primarily *showmen*, i found the waving part quite appropriate.

Mind you, you're entirely free to advocate for them bottlenecking themselves in reworking cutscenes over nitpicks. I'd rather then deliver new ones, new content, new quests, which seem to be in quite dire need in this game.

[solracht]

You sure love nitpicking. Personally I diddn't even notice most of what you're describing. I was too busy enjoying the story.

Following that reasoning, guildleves should stay as blocks of text, as according to you enjoying the storyline can be done regardless of the medium used to tell it.

Cutscenes in FFXI had their own flaws. They're normally derived simply from the fact that different areas of the same cutscene are normally handled by different people.

The difference is in this game I feel like different areas of the same cutscene weren't even made for the same cutscene, and like the teams certainly weren't on the same page. Cutscenes (not the voiced ones) also do not feel like an improvement from FFXI's original ones, let alone WOTG or TOAU.

The only cutscenes I can say I'm pleased with are the voiced ones, where they actually bothered to make characters do anything. I already know you disagree, however.

FFXIV is definitely not the only game in which this kind of mistakes happen. Mind you, they happen even in hollywood movies.

You've been saying it yourself, at least 3 times in this thread alone. The story is important in FF. Furthermore, FFXIV is a game where the storyline and the cutscenes are a big part of the game, according to both the developers and the players.

I'm not getting cutscenes or missions that are good enough for FFXIV. For a different game? Sure, games that didn't brag about how their engine was mostly made to accomodate next-gen storytelling.

By the way, since gladiators are described multiple times as primarily *showmen*, i found the waving part quite appropriate.

I clarified before you replied, because I was afraid you were going to miss the point again, but you were too quick. I'll say it here again anyways: It's not about the story, it's about the delivery. Makes perfect sense that they show off, makes zero sense that it's done the way it was. If they couldn't make the "showoffs" the way they wanted (you'll probably say that their intent was making the quest just the way it is), then they should have left them out.

Nice job ignoring the two quests that were worse than the gladiator example, however.

[Abriael]

Following that reasoning, guildleves should stay as blocks of text, as according to you enjoying the storyline can be done regardless of the medium used to tell it.

Given that guildleves are supposed to be quick and repeatable, adding cutscenes to them wouldn't really make sense. Even because people would start skipping them very soon. They aren't supposed to be heavily story-driven. There's other content for that.

The difference is in this game I feel like different areas of the same cutscene weren't even made for the same cutscene, and like the teams certainly weren't on the same page. Cutscenes (not the voiced ones) also do not feel like an improvement from FFXI's original ones, let alone WOTG or TOAU.

Actually, I would say that some are worse than FFXI ones, and some are better.

The only cutscenes I can say I'm pleased with are the voiced ones, where they actually bothered to make characters do anything. I already know you disagree, however.

I'd very much like to see voicing added to all cutscenes, but having worked in voice acting for quite a while, I'm quite aware that it would take a big investment to do so, even more so in multiple languages (not to mention a large investment of development resources in actually syncing voices to all the cutscenes, unless the crystal tools supports automatic lip sync, which is almost never perfect anyway). It would also inflate the client size by quite a bit (which means big downloads). So it'd rather see them invest that money in actually making the game good, as voice seems quite secondary to me, compared to that.

But if they could squeeze in the budget for voice acting *without* pulling it away from more important areas of development, by all means, thank you and welcome.

You've been saying it yourself, at least 3 times in this thread alone. The story is important in FF. Furthermore, FFXIV is a game where the storyline and the cutscenes are a big part of the game, according to both the developers and the players.

The story being important doesn't mean that I think that they should use considerable development time to correct what i consider nitpicks (and that I'm quite sure, most don't even notice), instead of giving us *more story*

As I said, I'd much rather them condense the existing story mission down to lower levels (1-30 or similar), and introduce new ones at higher levels (same with class quests, if you go to the quests forum there's a thread of mine that suggests exactly that. Mind you, the same forum where this thread should be as well).

I'm not getting cutscenes or missions that are good enough for FFXIV. For a different game? Sure, games that didn't brag about how their engine was mostly made to accomodate next-gen storytelling.

That's your opinion. I beg to differ.

I clarified before you replied, because I was afraid you were going to miss the point again, but you were too quick. I'll say it here again anyways: It's not about the story, it's about the delivery. Makes perfect sense that they show off, makes zero sense that it's done the way it was. If they couldn't make the "showoffs" the way they wanted (you'll probably say that their intent was making the quest just the way it is), then they should have left them out.

And what would be the "way they wanted" exactly? Looking at gladiatorial movies and such, I'm not really surprised by seeing gladiators stopping their bouts to tour in front of the audience and salute them.

[Captaindownsyndrome]

Going to ignore the "opinions" speech, since it's coming from someone who's actively replying to ("attacking", according to you) others who find our current systems flawed by making up whatever reasons and excuses he wants about why things are the way they are.


It's not my personal taste. Did you ignore the entire post?

NPC models change between cutscenes.
Music gets cut in a way that nobody who's ever played a video game before could think is intended.
Story Battles feel bugged/messy and a step above playable.
The story-telling flow is destroyed a lot of times due to you ending up in an instance filled with NPCs who didn't even have anything to do with the storyline that was being presented in the prior cutscene.

You just said Final Fantasy players want story, which I agree with. Well... Square-Enix may want to at least beat the Cutscenes and storytelling medium from the original Final Fantasy XI to deliver it.

You might've missed my point about the Class quests. I was again talking about delivery. Mimidoa was awesome, but do you know what I found dumb? The fact that you're thrown into a mine after a cave-in, where people are desperate, dying, yet sitting around doing nothing. Mentioning how they're going to die as there's no way out, when you just got there. Awkward.

Do you know what was almost as bad? Touching a random spot of the area to get a freaking coconut and glass, which somehow makes the NPC flee (teleport) to the boat (which isn't anywhere). The scene then reaches a new high (read: low): you run all the way back to your invisible boat, and get teleported all the way to the other side of the island for the cutscene.

The delivery and progression has been horrible in this game (I think the storyline itself is pretty good, however). Put your hate for me aside for a second, and tell me you honestly felt like the battle where you stop fighting and start waving around in the Colisseum was anything but awkward. It's perfectly understandable that you have to "show off" during the fight, but if they can't accomplish that in their current systems without ruining the experience, then maybe it should be omitted for now.

Lastly I'd like to add that I don't even disagree with what I quoted. The game needs more content. The problem is the little content we have also needs reworking. What do you do in this situation? Does it really matter if we have content, if it's not enjoyable for most people? Note I'm not talking about missions anymore, but in general.

so your saying over all dont scrap what there just expand and fix it to make it more immersive? im all for that the missions are little odd, how they just throw you around and how pop in some of places with little effort.

[gifthorse]

Not having other players there is a simple matter of direction. It's easier to create stunning cutscenes if you don't have to blindly predict how many additional people will be around, how they'll be equipped and so forth, The simpler, the better,especially when you have to include several NPCs. Overcrowded scenes are rarely effective.
That's the same reason why your group mates were not present in cutscenes in FFXI.

I didn't mean during cutscenes, I meant during the quest itself. The story quests aren't purely made of cutscenes. There are times when you go between areas and you are left alone and it's just dull. Your path companion meets up with you during cutscenes and abandons you at all other times. Meanwhile, you travel by yourself because there's no need for other players to play with you, so they don't, although at one time I made people accompany me out of boredom.

If you consider yourself an MMO players and you want story-related content to be enjoyed with others, you can hope that more is added. But I doubt you should feel entitled to exclude Final Fantasy's main customerbase from Final Fantasy's main feature (IE: the main storyline).

I am not trying to exclude them, I am merely suggesting that they might not even play the game unless the entire game is centered around single-player mode (and has no subscription fee) so it might not be in SE's best interest to even cater to a customerbase that actually doesn't exist. After all, hasn't it been suggested that most Final Fantasy players don't regard the MMO titles very highly.

Of course SE has the ability to change that with a good story and accessibility to that story, but a story isn't the only thing SE must do to make the game accessible to their so-called playerbase. SE must also bastardise the rest of the game to accommodate such players and so far they haven't. Therefore, if players want story, they have it, but nothing else to support them to max level to even begin to solo the quests made specifically for them.

Further content can always be implemented, but a baseline that is accessible to everyone needs to be present.

I think that in order to satisfy one customer fully they must dissatisfy the other.