Voice Acting Going Forward

[bass9020]

So after completing the full Return to Ivalice story line I thought it was amazing but the lack of voice cutscenes really put a damper on the whole thing. Why is only the main story partially voiced? The 24man story quests aren't even that long and this was the perfect opportunity to finally do it.

Maybe going forward we can see more voiced cutscenes?

[Enkidoh]

Dialogue that directly identifies the player by name cannot be voice acted - scenes that are will always only identify your character by a generic title ('the adventurer', 'the Warrior of Light', 'the Champion' etc). Also voice acting is pretty crappy all round and I actually prefer not to have it as it detracts from the whole experience (especially when I have my own idea how characters sound, then hear them voice acted and it's completely different to how I imagined it). Not to mention the added expense SE would have to pay to do so, for an optional endgame raid.

Hence why only the main storyline is voice acted, it's part of the game that is truly necessary to unlock content so there considered a greater 'pay off' to SE for the added investment of voice acting.

[Clover_Blake]

Also voice acting is pretty crappy all round

I can only assume that you're playing the game dubbed? The Japanese voices are very good and always sound spot on in my opinion. There isn't a single scene where the need to cringe killed the mood for me.

As for voicing 24-man, that'd be nice but it'd need extra resources, and that translates in limitations. So I'm personally fine with not every scene being voiced.

[SpiritMuse]

I can only assume that you're playing the game dubbed? The Japanese voices are very good and always sound spot on in my opinion.

I've never had a problem with the English voices. They sound exactly like they should to me.

[Transient_Shadow]

English voice actors are a lot more expensive than Japanese. And they're typically always sub par. I honestly didn't mind 4.5's voice acting to be honest. But that's just me.

[Enla]

I've never had a problem with the English voices. They sound exactly like they should to me.

I will admit to hating the bulk of the 2.0 voices, but ever since the switch to a new studio in 3.0 I haven't had much of an issue. About the only thing of note was Hien's voice actor gaining an accent, dropping it, then ping ponging through the initial bulk of the Steppe before he found his rhythm.

English voice actors are a lot more expensive than Japanese. And they're typically always sub par. I honestly didn't mind 4.5's voice acting to be honest. But that's just me.

It varies by studio to studio in my experience. The quality isn't at the consistent level Japan has, though even there if you know enough of the language you can begin to spot a lot of phoned in performances, but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. The pay gap however is and always will be a travesty and I wish I knew enough of Japanese law to understand why the Japanese Actors Union can't negotiate living wages for most seiyuus. Even the US average industry standard, calculated at $35,360 in 2017,(another calculation that shows the top end and low end salaries) is better by leaps and bounds.

[Tempest222]

Having dialogue that refers to the player character by name is not a valid excuse to not have voice acting. There is no reason why the written text on screen can’t habe the player name written out while the voice acting says “adventurer” or “warrior of light” etc. I used to play another game that was fully voice acted and frequently referred to the player character by name in writing while verbally using a generic title.

Also a, few peopke feeling the quality of voice acting isn’t up to their personal standards or feeling the voices sound different to what they’ve imagined is also not a valid excuse to skip voice acted scenes. People can swap to another language or turn down the sound if they find it that distracting. No voice actor is going to please 100% of players.

I mean, who knows, maybe most people just hate voice acted scenes, but I’m willing to bet that’s not the case. I think it would be great to see more of it going forward, but I doubt it’ll happen. The reason is probablyto do with the cost of having everything voice acted in 4 different languages, and not at all about certain dialogue using player names or with players preferring to not have voice acting.

[Enla]

Having dialogue that refers to the player character by name is not a valid excuse to not have voice acting. There is no reason why the written text on screen can’t habe the player name written out while the voice acting says “adventurer” or “warrior of light” etc. I used to play another game that was fully voice acted and frequently referred to the player character by name in writing while verbally using a generic title.

Also a, few peopke feeling the quality of voice acting isn’t up to their personal standards or feeling the voices sound different to what they’ve imagined is also not a valid excuse to skip voice acted scenes. People can swap to another language or turn down the sound if they find it that distracting. No voice actor is going to please 100% of players.

I mean, who knows, maybe most people just hate voice acted scenes, but I’m willing to bet that’s not the case. I think it would be great to see more of it going forward, but I doubt it’ll happen. The reason is probablyto do with the cost of having everything voice acted in 4 different languages, and not at all about certain dialogue using player names or with players preferring to not have voice acting.

It's most definitely costs. Hell it's why even the MSQ is sparse with voice acting when it can get away with it. With this digital age the need for physical disk space has lessened, which used to be a chief concern, but the cost of hiring actors in different languages is still cost prohibitive in a lot of situations. Especially for SE who likes to pretend they're a poor indie company at times.