All of his other suggestions are sensible and what I would do, but yeah there's no reason to make a curb stomp last twice as long. Cutting those several minutes of cutscene out would be a substantial enough improvement.
Let me try to give a more condensed version of why I think he's wrong about most of his proposed ways to shorten cutscenes, considering I've already ranted at length to some friends about this in private.
In general: XIV is not WoW and should not try to be like WoW to accommodate the WoWfugees. Also, hardly anybody actually pays attention to the popup dialog that is already present in the game as it is, as plainly evidenced by the fact that this man attests that he didn't know he was supposed to grab the keys to the Magitek mount while also demonstrating and calling attention to the fact that Cid directly EXPLAINS that you have to do this in a popup dialog box. I'm willing to bet that people already don't hardly pay attention to them in WoW, when they actually have voiced lines and animations filling a space near the middle of your screen during gameplay, so why would that change in XIV?
"There shouldn't be cutscenes specifically set aside for Cid to explain to us how to use an elevator."
Yes and no. Yes because, duh, we know how to press a button and it's stupid and inconvenient that we have to wait around for a minute and 40 second cutscene for Cid to explain how to use an elevator. No because that's actually kind of meta and, lore-wise, the reason why Cid has to take the time to slowly explain how to use elevators to us is because Eorzeans genuinely are some backwards-ass savages in general. I do believe someone pointed this out previously in the thread, but most of Eorzea doesn't even know how to read or write. There's a good reason why the Garleans constantly call us "savages" and Sharlayan generally regards Eorzea like a bunch of retards.
"All the dialog with Nero should happen on the way to the Nero fight and the cutscene should start right before the point where he's actually getting ready to fight you."
See above. Most people are not really going to key into what's being said between Nero and Cid, and then he'll still seem like he's showing up out of nowhere to begin with. And then when you move onto Crystal Tower and Nero shows up again, most people aren't going to know who the fuck he is or why he seems to have beef with Cid. Maybe a very small number of people will put two and two together, but people are already fairly unobservant with this game as it is and don't realize shit even when it's explicitly said or shown to them. Why compound that issue?
"Lahabrea's exchange with Gaius should happen during the Ultima Weapon fight and the cutscene should only start right before Ultima is cast."
That fight's already short enough as it is, with a 10-20 second wait time of "You can't hurt the boss" at the start and then 5-20 seconds of "You can't kill the boss" at the end. Nobody is going to like that being stretched out further, and buffing the boss to make the fight longer to accommodate it is, realistically, nothing but padding. I know this guy probably doesn't understand this given that he padded the hell out of his own video, but most people don't like artificial padding like that. You can use the excuse of "But I'll be in gameplay longer and it'll make me feel like I'm doing things!", but, sooner or later, surely even someone like him is going to pull his head out of his ass long enough to realize "I'm just doing what I was already doing before, except now it's taking longer, and this is actually adding nothing to my experience." So, congratulations, you make the rest of the dungeon just that slight bit more tedious for everyone else who's doing this for the MSQ roulette.
"Gaius should say his 'dying' lines just before the fight ends and the cutscene should only start right when Ultima Weapon is exploding."
First off, Gaius was well and ready to keep fighting us until he got explosively ejected from Ultima Weapon's cockpit, so it wouldn't make a damn bit of sense for him to suddenly start conceding defeat mid-fight. Second, what the fuck do you do, then, with the hard enrage mechanic at the end of the fight where Lahabrea tries to force another cast of Ultima? It's not like it makes any more sense for Gaius to give those final lines right then and there, because Ultima clearly doesn't damage the Ultima Weapon itself, so he's not at any personal risk.
And, all in all, the changes this fag proposes he estimates would reduce Praetorium from a 45+ minute run to... A 40+ minute run. wow Such an improvement. Roughly 20 minutes of cutscene and 20 minutes of gameplay equally divided. People will definitely feel more engaged and accomplished now that they're spending 5 less minutes in the Praetorium, and this will surely help new players have a much smoother run.
What do you mean people can still just relog during cutscenes to bug the game into enabling the Skip Cutscene function? I've never heard of this before, so it doesn't exist within my realm of considerations!
