why during cutscene its always like this ... (small spoiler)

[Jynx]

Chalk it up to another thing they threw out with 1.0. We had much more dynamic character movement in the original incarnation of the game. Check out the Gridanian opening scene on multiple races (Youtube is your friend) and see our characters do more than stand in one place and nod silently.

[anguel]

i dont know why people got blocked on the "they have to make CS for each class, each wep, each gender, each equipement, each ..........)

if i remember correctly, first time our character did something (for real), its when he used the ethereal sword to kill the ascient right ?

why not make our character kinda "summon" (or be granted by hayedelin), an etheral sword ?
like this no prob of "hey, how could a sch fight with a book huhuhu trolololo"
like so EVERY single class and character could use the same exact move, (like we did when killing the ascient)

ANYWAY, i got a pretty good idea, on what people were thinking bout this ...

[Tilgung]

The last time Hydaelyn gave us an aether blade she nearly drained herself of all of her power. The next time was made possible through an ancient aether syphoning/manupulating stone drawing a crap ton of aether from all around Mor Dhona and we still needed more aether to fuel it, resulting in a character death. And the third time required drawing aether from an object that had been accumulating aether for thousands of years.

Popping an aether blade whenever you happen to need it isn't really a thing.

[Niqote]

This topic was discussed in a similar thread and had a good conversation going (for the most part), those interested in the topic might like to peruse it.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...MSQ-Spoiler%29

[KyahAlmasy]

I understand that it's difficult to orchestrate a fight scene with our characters when we could potentially be any job, but our actions don't have to be limited our job abilities, or even spells. We could have blocked the Paladin from tackling Y'shtola, or some sort of action that isn't specified to our job. We could have even used our blessing of light to intervene. But just standing in place and letting everything happen was just so stale... and boring.

Nothing that immerses our character with their environment, or connects us to the scene. It gets boring really fast when the only thing our character is ever seen doing in a cutscene is nodding, like some wobbly head on a trucker's dashboard.

[Lone-wolfe-02]

We were compared to basically being demigods in 3.0 then get our arses handed to us, could argue that WOD is on the same level but Thancred managed to hold his own so i don't believe this.
It was a poorly done introduction of the WOD anyways.

[Savvy]

I hate my character the most out of any character in the story because no matter what, I can always expect to just be sitting in the back twiddling my thumbs like a dummy.. Hate it. Will always hate it. We could do ANYTHING and it would be more than what we've ever gotten. Run over and jump in the way? Catch someone before they fall? Block an attack? Throw rocks? Dance around to distract the enemy? It doesn't help that we're constantly reminded that we're this amazing hero.. yet we never do a thing. Ever.

[ChazNatlo]

I feel like there would be a somewhat delicate balance for "Do things that any class can do" between say, using melee skills on par with a Pugilist despite being an Arcanist, and our characters suddenly looking like scrubs, Tackling and using untrained moves despite not just being powerful, but endlessly capable savants.

I mean, currently we look like untrained mooks because we appear to have almost no combat sense, not moving at all as opposed to just moving poorly.

Out of curiosity, assuming only for this cutscene and not any others going forward, how would people feel if they had done the cutscene with them starting off with one of their members hidden and them sucker punching us, taking us out of the fight before a fight can even happen, and then our compatriots get to fight and show us their skills?

[Elleia]

This is definitely a case of SE not wanting to control our actions and step on toes. Look at the responses to this thread as an example - some people are all for it while others would rather not have it. I think blocking and such would be fine (if done well - maybe a barrier of sorts for magic users a la Y'shtola), but running and tackling, as suggested? That could upset certain players who play as daintier/smaller characters, or lead people to think "my character wouldn't have done that!".

Of course, not everyone is going to be happy with what they choose to do with the cutscenes - the 2.55 events are a prime example of this, as many people were upset that their characters didn't fight back while others liked the decision. Overall they try to keep the player character as neutral as possible to avoid infringing on peoples' individual headcannons for their characters. Unfortunately this doesn't sit well for those who would like their characters to act a certain way instead. This is something I can't see them addressing anytime soon, unfortunately.

[KyahAlmasy]

This is definitely a case of SE not wanting to control our actions and step on toes. Look at the responses to this thread as an example - some people are all for it while others would rather not have it. I think blocking and such would be fine (if done well - maybe a barrier of sorts for magic users a la Y'shtola), but running and tackling, as suggested? That could upset certain players who play as daintier/smaller characters, or lead people to think "my character wouldn't have done that!".

Of course, not everyone is going to be happy with what they choose to do with the cutscenes - the 2.55 events are a prime example of this, as many people were upset that their characters didn't fight back while others liked the decision. Overall they try to keep the player character as neutral as possible to avoid infringing on peoples' individual headcannons for their characters. Unfortunately this doesn't sit well for those who would like their characters to act a certain way instead. This is something I can't see them addressing anytime soon, unfortunately.

There needs to be some sort of give and take for this though. In the beginning, when our characters are first introduced this mentality was more easily acceptable. We were new, and still had some growing to do so. Our meekness seemed to be a product of this so we swallowed it. We needed the Scions to protect us from harm, and show us the way. But that's no longer the case, the story has steered us into formidable warriors of light, capable of standing toe to toe with beings who rival even gods.

The disparity in canon between the plot of the story and our character is becoming more and more apparent because our characters still act as hapless as they did when they first arrived. At some point, certain liberties need to be taken to align our character's role in the story, otherwise the story dissonance only grows, and pulls the player further from the story. And the "Story" in a Final Fantasy game has almost always been Square's largest appeal, especially to the players who actually take the time to watch all the cutscenes and not just skip them.

As players we need to accept that the main story is going to make certain decisions for us, these are the unique elements that push the story forward and further our role in FFXIV. This failure to adapt the role they're crafting us, to our character is what we're seeing here, like a small bubble rising to the surface with an audible popping sound, we're immediately pulled from our immersion when the idea the story is giving us and what we see, is so different.