Hey Square Enix, that is the level we except in cut scenes!

[Gaddes]

Those aren't really all that amazing. Also kind of hilarious that I was even thinking "I wonder if they're going to show the Alexander vs Odin fight because most of that is just Alexander looping his animation again and again" and well here we are.

But I literally said "a couple noteworthy moments usually towards the end of an expac" which is still a lot of what you showed. Soooo many cutscenes in FFXI are often just people talking.
It's an incredibly subjective topic, and I straight up don't agree that FFXI as a whole does cutscenes better than FFXIV, and I'm saying this as someone who played FFXI first and still loves it enough to put it in my character's name and even forum signature.

Regardless, FFXIV can and should keep pushing themselves to put out some more visually interesting cutscenes.

[MicahZerrshia]

To be fair, a lot of the cutscenes I had in mind, were ones I could not find because I just don't remember what quests they were from. And the entire WotG thing was toward the beginning, not the end. The toau was the only end expac cs of those 3. And they just feel more impactful than a bunch of ppl emoting when action is happening around them. Compare the attack on Windurst to the attack on Toliyollal, the attack on Windurst, which was done in 2007, just feels more like an attack. It really feels like there is action happening, it feels like an attack. The Emet scene I said could have been better if done similar to WoW I still think would have been more well done if done by the FFXI team. The devs, and the producer, for that game at the time just had so much more passion and were willing to go the extra mile, as was SE itself with funding. They pushed the limits of the hardware and the animators. Current FFXIV cutscenes really do feel like they were mostly thrown together. Even the train scene from DT, which could have been crazy amazing (but should have been playable and not a cs), wasn't really that impressive, all things considered.

But to each their own. I just don't really care to make excuses for this team anymore. And that is what a lot of these arguements boil down too, making excuses for a team that is either highly inexperienced since SE refuses to hire non Japanese speakers, which severly limits everything they do, or just doesn't care that much.

[Kozh]

So let's compare with another MMO.

They should try animating their cutscenes over just having the characters standing around emoting. Even when games like WoW have minor cutscenes they use animation over emotes so characters facial expressions and movements are more natural and less stiff. And when they do fully animated cutscenes for big moments, while its not perfect, it still is done leaps and bounds better. Imagine if the final confrontation with Emet was a well animated as the final confrontation with Xal'atath where there are actual facial expressions, normal body movement and wind in their hair, clothing moving more naturally instead of looking like they laudromat used too much starch, instead of emotes... And let's not even begin with the level of voice acting that WoW has in comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb3VOkD-JS8

It would have been absolutely mind blowing. And even FFXI is better at cutscenes, so SE could do it for FFXIV, they just...don't

https://youtu.be/UjLuM0uffGE?si=o0Oq_6qjxiJ2Y2wQ

Remember when other companies looked to SE to see the future of game graphics and animations? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Watch post emet fight cutscene again. They do have cloth and hair physics, and they don't use any emote at all. Idk what you're talking about voice acting, it's equally good /shrug

I personally is already satisfied with what we got in term of cutscene quality. It's not perfect, would be nice if they keep making more complex cutscene, but I rather they focus on the writing instead. No matter how nice a cinematic cutscene is, it's useless if the writing is bad.

[Teno]

OP, why even compare the quality of these 2 games, they are nothing alike. One is pure anime while the other is just completely different. Might as well compare it to ffxvi then, and I'll take ffxvi anyday. Off the top of my mind, stuff like wuthering waves has been done by tales of games for decades now, literally the same thing it's nothing new.

If anything I'd be more keen to compare ffxiv to wow, where wow has been stepping up their cutscene game tremendously, if only visually, with all the animation details on the characters. This would be a better comparison point.

[Astraturnal]

Well for what it is worth 1.0 did have more life to the scenes and character motion, but clearly it was too resource intensive to carry over. The biggest issue with this game's overall presentation "feel" is that they wanted this game to work with ps3 hardware originally, which meant the engine was always going to have severe limits. To get animations like what you see in gacha games (which rake in money) you will have to wait for a whole new finial fantasy mmo altogether.

[Kozh]

Oh come on now... Look at BG3, even if you go way beyond what they offer in-game (yes, mods), the cutscenes involving your character are still flawless. They are not voiced for the sake of roleplaying yourself, but they are very well animated. They do display the full range of emotions based on the context of the dialogue, and they are not standing there with a blank mind and face waiting for everyone to finish.

SE just got comfy with their slop. I will forever die on the hill saying they had 11 years to re-do from the ground up the entire engine and coding behind it. It was a decision to milk it to fund their FOM trends that had long passed by the time they engaged with them.

Also there are highly successful games recently released that were entirely coded by a very small group of people, and some done by only one, Mannor Lords is a prime example of this.

So when it comes to manpower and the systems (game, code, severely outdated ingame systems, and the jazz) that are still stuck in 1990, SE does not have any excuse.

Bruhhh come on... I freaking love bg3, but saying it has better cutscene is hilarious. Most of bg3 cutscene you mentioned are the one where characters standing around with he camera zooms in so you can only see their upper half body. Cutscenes that shows full body aren't that many, and actions scenes are even rarer.

Bg3 facial animation and body movement during conversation are good because they're mostly mocap.

[Kohashi]

Bruhhh come on... I freaking love bg3, but saying it has better cutscene is hilarious. Most of bg3 cutscene you mentioned are the one where characters standing around with he camera zooms in so you can only see their upper half body. Cutscenes that shows full body aren't that many, and actions scenes are even rarer.

Bg3 facial animation and body movement during conversation are good because they're mostly mocap.

My dude, you haven't paying attention apparently. Even if they are in the background, your companions will have different reactions based on their backgrounds and the situations, they will also intervene if they got something to say. Also, mocaping is cheaper than animating manually. There is no reason for SE not to do it..lol.

Also, apparently, you haven't been playing BG3 since patch 3 or something. You should do another fresh run and check all the new stuff they added because what you are saying is extremely outdated.

[Kozh]

My dude, you haven't paying attention apparently. Even if they are in the background, your companions will have different reactions based on their backgrounds and the situations, they will also intervene if they got something to say. Also, mocaping is cheaper than animating manually. There is no reason for SE not to do it..lol.

Also, apparently, you haven't been playing BG3 since patch 3 or something. You should do another fresh run and check all the new stuff they added because what you are saying is extremely outdated.

Now you are comparing different system entirely.. jesus... just stick with WoW as comparison pls, at least it's another mmorpg.

Mocaping still require animator to fix the animation. FF14 utilizing both custom animations and existing emote animation is most likely to be cheaper.

I have multiple playthrough, and my most recent one is Honour mode after patch 6. I haven't tried patch 7 yet since I don't want to get burnout before playing the new subclasses in patch 8. So don't talk to me about "not paying attention".

[ONLYSTEEL]

Also, mocaping is cheaper than animating manually.

This is only true if the manual animator wants to reach the same quality as the mocap.

It's 100% not true for Square Enix because they don't care about quality. Their cutscenes are garbage outside of CGIs.

[Lorika]

Maybe your devs watch this and yes it is japanese! Wuthering Waves 2.2. Story and Endboss Cutscens: https://youtu.be/XXsmvmlBiOA

1) It's a gacha Game
2) and Kuro Game is Chinese XD

I am long standing Gacha Player and i will give you a rule of the thumb : Your Gacha have awesome 3D graphics with very good 3D CS? Then it's either Chinese or Korean (and if it's Borderline H.... Then it's at 95% sure to be Korean XD)

in fact the last 2 really successfull Japanese Gacha Dev are : CyGame and it's Subisidiary (GrandBlue Fantasy, Princess Connect, Uma Musume), WFS and it's Subsidiary (Another's Eden, HeavenBurn Red, Tribe 9).... And they aren't know to be at the top 3D Wise.... And all their CS are Anime XD.

So, well, sorry to make you come back on earth, but it's a japanese problem as a whole.