Suggestion for all Task/Strike Forces: a toggle to shut off the cutscenes

[Voltor]

How about a toggle option on all TF/SF menus that appear when you select the contact to shut off the cut scenes?

 

 

[MJABBAR88]

Yes please

[Saiyajinzoningen]

[ZorkNemesis]

I'm sure this is a popular suggestion but something tells me that disabling cutscenes in missions that have them would probably break mission scripting and cause all sorts of issues without making additional changes under the hood.  For instance, while it's not a TF the last mission for Dark Watcher has you fighting Hro'dhoz (was that the name?) and halfway through the fight is interrupted by Nemesis making his grand appearance through cutscene.  I suspect the Nemesis ambush and spawn would probably break things without the cutscene somehow, the code is held up with scotch tape after all.

[Voltor]

1 hour ago, ZorkNemesis said:

I'm sure this is a popular suggestion but something tells me that disabling cutscenes in missions that have them would probably break mission scripting and cause all sorts of issues without making additional changes under the hood.  For instance, while it's not a TF the last mission for Dark Watcher has you fighting Hro'dhoz (was that the name?) and halfway through the fight is interrupted by Nemesis making his grand appearance through cutscene.  I suspect the Nemesis ambush and spawn would probably break things without the cutscene somehow, the code is held up with scotch tape after all.

 

Just task and strike forces, not actual missions, so this option would not be available in the Ouro arcs or regular story arcs

[Vanden]

It will be added as part of the Narrative Affinity support set.

[Doomguide2005]

Besides when else I'm i going to hit up the fridge or the bathroom?

[Sunsette]

If it's team level, which it most likely would have to be in order for it to work at all, this would essentially prevent newbies from ever seeing the cutscenes at all. 

 

In SWTOR, anyone who bothers to watch a flashpoint cutscene has often been at serious risk of verbal abuse and being called a troll for watching it. I don't know if that's still true in the community today but it was a big problem a few years ago. 

Edited April 12 by Sunsette

[Rudra]

@Sunsette makes a good point. I get the desire to not have to deal with the cut scenes we've seen ad nauseum, but those cut scenes are often the only part of the story the team members are getting and not everyone has done all the TFs, SFs, or iTrials (if iTrials are to be part of the OP for cutting). Yes, new players can be referred to the wiki or be told to run the TF/SF themselves and so know what the story is, but there is already at least one thread asking for team members to get to see what the team leader sees for mission briefings and debriefings, and removing the cut scenes just because the team leader has already seen them worsens that position for other players. So with that in mind, how could the OP be modified to accomplish what the author wants while also retaining the ability for new players to see the cut scene without having to double back and run the TF or SF again themselves just to find out what the cut scene they were denied had?

[Saiyajinzoningen]

25 minutes ago, Rudra said:

@Sunsette makes a good point. I get the desire to not have to deal with the cut scenes we've seen ad nauseum, but those cut scenes are often the only part of the story the team members are getting and not everyone has done all the TFs, SFs, or iTrials (if iTrials are to be part of the OP for cutting). Yes, new players can be referred to the wiki or be told to run the TF/SF themselves and so know what the story is, but there is already at least one thread asking for team members to get to see what the team leader sees for mission briefings and debriefings, and removing the cut scenes just because the team leader has already seen them worsens that position for other players. So with that in mind, how could the OP be modified to accomplish what the author wants while also retaining the ability for new players to see the cut scene without having to double back and run the TF or SF again themselves just to find out what the cut scene they were denied had?

easy. impliment a cut scene vote system

all players on team have to vote to bypass the cutscene

if one person wants to watch it

everyone watches the cutscene

if everyone are vets and vote accordingly

the scene is bypassed and the stomping commences 

[Sunsette]

I feel like that is going to immediately lead to "not it" "not it" "Oh i wanted to watch them" "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT" scenarios

 

Because that's exactly the way it goes in SWTOR when one person is engaging in a plot conversation and everyone else is skipping everything

 

Most MMOs try to put their cutscenes at natural break points, including after the final boss, to minimize this -- this is something that CoH didn't really have time to figure before shutdown. 

Edited April 12 by Sunsette

[Saiyajinzoningen]

9 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

I feel like that is going to immediately lead to "not it" "not it" "Oh i wanted to watch them" "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT" scenarios

 

Because that's exactly the way it goes in SWTOR when one person is engaging in a plot conversation and everyone else is skipping everything

 

Most MMOs try to put their cutscenes at natural break points, including after the final boss, to minimize this -- this is something that CoH didn't really have time to figure before shutdown. 

if we cant tell who didn't click the green cue up button

how could we tell who didn't vote "skip cutscene"

This might be an issue in games with prevalent voice chat but

an anonymous voting system would alleviate that problem

[Sunsette]

Because people will immediately poll in many cases to find who the holdout is. That means people will either get in a habit of lying (unlikely) or just feel pressure to not be the "troublemaker"

 

Believe me, I hate seeing most of these cutscenes, especially the one right before rommy in the ITF and the ones at the start of BAF and Magisterium. I just don't think a toggle like this is going to be productive on the whole, just hope future TFs have better level design and cutscenes usage. I think LGTF and ASF handle these issues better than some of the earlier stuff. 

[Jacke]

Hey, if I've had to put up with the weird body-form animations in so many cut-scenes for years, everyone has to!  (Not to mention dangerous belt ornaments.)  😺

 

 

Edited April 12 by Jacke

[Rudra]

54 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

I feel like that is going to immediately lead to "not it" "not it" "Oh i wanted to watch them" "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT" scenarios

 

Because that's exactly the way it goes in SWTOR when one person is engaging in a plot conversation and everyone else is skipping everything

 

Most MMOs try to put their cutscenes at natural break points, including after the final boss, to minimize this -- this is something that CoH didn't really have time to figure before shutdown. 

 

40 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

Because people will immediately poll in many cases to find who the holdout is. That means people will either get in a habit of lying (unlikely) or just feel pressure to not be the "troublemaker"

 

Believe me, I hate seeing most of these cutscenes, especially the one right before rommy in the ITF and the ones at the start of BAF and Magisterium. I just don't think a toggle like this is going to be productive on the whole, just hope future TFs have better level design and cutscenes usage. I think LGTF and ASF handle these issues better than some of the earlier stuff. 

True, but by the same token, we were already doing that for iTrial launches. Though in those cases it was more humorous. I agree that there can be imposed consequences if the vote is not hidden or if the team or team leader try to ferret out the one that wants to see the cut scene for any reason, but right now @Saiyajinzoningen's proposal is the only one that gives possibility to the OP and retaining the ability to see the cut scenes. The only other option I can think of is that if the team leader goes to disable cut scenes, the game checks to see if anyone hasn't already done the TF/SF and overrides the disabling if anyone hasn't. Except that then leads to a poll of who hasn't already done the TF/SF with the newbie likely getting booted. So again, I ask, how can the OP be modified to accommodate both sides? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of one.

 

Even if the cut scene only played for the person that hasn't seen it before, that person will still stand out and for the cut scene's duration, not be helping the team. Which can again lead to the person being kicked.

[megaericzero]

17 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Even if the cut scene only played for the person that hasn't seen it before, that person will still stand out and for the cut scene's duration, not be helping the team.

The funnier point to this is that cutscenes aren't pre-rendered - they're emoted in real time by the mobs while the game arrests control of your camera. (At least, if nothing's changed since the last time I checked.)

 

Players have planted themselves next to where Arbiter Sands will spawn with his platoon during the first mission of the STF (back when it was the STF) for a "cheekie selfie" while the team is forced to wait out the dialogue.

 

Imagine someone wanting to see the cutscene only to watch the carnage of seven Judgment powers and a slew of other AOEs wipe the mobs out before they're even done talking. Meanwhile this person is forced to watch in horror like they're tied to a chair.

[Rudra]

7 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

The funnier point to this is that cutscenes aren't pre-rendered - they're emoted in real time by the mobs while the game arrests control of your camera. (At least, if nothing's changed since the last time I checked.)

 

Players have planted themselves next to where Arbiter Sands will spawn with his platoon during the first mission of the STF (back when it was the STF) for a "cheekie selfie" while the team is forced to wait out the dialogue.

 

Imagine someone wanting to see the cutscene only to watch the carnage of seven Judgment powers and a slew of other AOEs wipe the mobs out before they're even done talking. Meanwhile this person is forced to watch in horror like they're tied to a chair.

Yep, I've seen players do that too. We're smashing cables and some players are camping where Sands is going to appear emoting drinking coffee or any other emote. I've seen players do that on Lambda runs even after the trial leader told everyone not to because sometimes it causes Marauder to leap out past the gate and cause the trial to fail.

[ZorkNemesis]

13 hours ago, Voltor said:

 

Just task and strike forces, not actual missions, so this option would not be available in the Ouro arcs or regular story arcs

 

I was only using Dark Watcher as an example, and they likely use similar scripting to function between missions and TFs.  Also Ouroboros flashbacks are considered TFs as far as the game is concerned.

[Black Zot]

6 hours ago, Sunsette said:

If it's team level, which it most likely would have to be in order for it to work at all, this would essentially prevent newbies from ever seeing the cutscenes at all. 

 

In SWTOR, anyone who bothers to watch a flashpoint cutscene has often been at serious risk of verbal abuse and being called a troll for watching it. I don't know if that's still true in the community today but it was a big problem a few years ago. 

 

This is an issue in FF14 as well.  Doesn't matter how many times community leaders tell folks to let sprouts watch their cutscenes (there's a lot of important story stuff in there), there's always that one jackoff who insists on pulling the boss immediately.

 

Granted, FF14 has a lot more folks who will simply stand back and let those jackoffs get splattered by said boss, but there's still enough folks who don't learn the lesson for the dev team to flag some cutscenes as unskippable to stop it happening in major story dungeons.

[Voltor]

Or perhaps take the feature of the iTrials where if everyone has the completion badge from a previous iTrial run, then the cutscene doesn't happen and apply it to the task and strikeforces.

[TygerDarkstorm]

The devs or GMs, I can't remember which, have said why they can't let us skip cutscenes. The cutscenes actually help generate the mobs in the game or something like that; like it's actually tied into the code into how the game works and if they took the cutscenes away, we wouldn't be able to finish the TF/SF/Trial/etc.

 

Edit: This has been asked for repeatedly and a forum search likely would have led to this answer. It's just not something they can do.

Edited June 25 by TygerDarkstorm

[biostem]

19 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

The devs or GMs, I can't remember which, have said why they can't let us skip cutscenes. The cutscenes actually help generate the mobs in the game or something like that; like it's actually tied into the code into how the game works and if they took the cutscenes away, we wouldn't be able to finish the TF/SF/Trial/etc.

My guess is that they'd have to significantly rewrite the TFs/SFs in order to work around this limitation;  Clearly the game can place mobs without a cutscene, but if they were initially written to include them, then they rely upon them to the aforementioned enemy placement...

[Rudra]

24 minutes ago, Voltor said:

Or perhaps take the feature of the iTrials where if everyone has the completion badge from a previous iTrial run, then the cutscene doesn't happen and apply it to the task and strikeforces.

That happens? I admit it has been a long time since I did iTrials, but the last time I did one, on a league where we all had already completed it before (as verified by the league leader asking and everyone verifying they had), we still had the Marauder cut scene.

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

That happens? I admit it has been a long time since I did iTrials, but the last time I did one, on a league where we all had already completed it before (as verified by the league leader asking and everyone verifying they had), we still had the Marauder cut scene.

There is *something* that permits cutscenes to be skipped, at least in BAF, as we sometimes don't have to sit through it at all...

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, biostem said:

There is *something* that permits cutscenes to be skipped, at least in BAF, as we sometimes don't have to sit through it at all...

 

Maybe it's from the BAF scene not taking place in the same "part" of the world - it's Mother talking Siege and Nightstar in a building, after all, not in the open world, versus Marauder jumping down in front of the gates.

 

Just a guess.