Guild Wars 2

I know a lot of work has gone into them, and we all really appreciate it, honest. But, please, allow us to skip the cut scenes.

I go make a cuppa when they are on, but truthfully, there is only so much tea and coffee a guy can consume!

Maybe make the skip option available after it has been watched once already. I do enjoy them, and always love to watch them , but when doing achievements after the initial run through would kinda rather just get on with it.

Shadey Dancer.2907:

I know a lot of work has gone into them, and we all really appreciate it, honest. But, please, allow us to skip the cut scenes.

I go make a cuppa when they are on, but truthfully, there is only so much tea and coffee a guy can consume!

This.

I’ll watch them the first time around, and maybe again if I particularly liked it, but if I’m doing a story on any character past #3 they get old REALLY quickly.

Even worse when you’re replaying an instance for achievements and you have to sit through them every single time upon failure due to a bug / an NPC being weird / going afk during a cutscene for coffee.

Bellow the skip button, add a “Skip All” with an “Are you sure?” message. Once "yes"ed all cut scenes should be gone.

Yeah, I don’t see why a Skip option can’t be added for when you Replay the episode. Have it not available for when you’re playing through the first time (even for every character), but then have it in for when a character is Replaying the story.

I was hoping that this would be introduced this patch as threads appear every LS release on the subject.

I think practicality every player would appreciate it if the replay mode for achievements was a condensed version of the ‘main story’ that threw you straight into the action.

Daroon.1736:

I was hoping that this would be introduced this patch as threads appear every LS release on the subject.

I think practicality every player would appreciate it if the replay mode for achievements was a condensed version of the ‘main story’ that threw you straight into the action.

I’d like that too. After you’ve seen it four or five times, maybe more depending on how many other characters you have, you can already recite it verbatim. Depending on how many restarts you have to do to get the achievement done, sometimes you just /rollseyes and alt tab while the cutscene is playing…again..for the umpteenth time.

In addition to wasting players time, perhaps the developers might also like to consider the environmental damage they are doing.

If 500,000 players attempt each living story achievement an average of 5 times before completing it and have to sit through 2 minutes of cut scenes and dialogue each time, that is 2.5 million minutes or 83,333 hours.

Assuming each of their computers are using 250Watts – That is a total of just over 20,000 KW/H for every completed achievement.

They won’t add the option because its meant to drag out the time it takes to complete the content otherwise known as forced repetition for the sake of faux longevity. I can almost guarantee that this topic was discussed and the change was made a few patches back for exactly this reason, or in short working as intended.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

They won’t add the option because its meant to drag out the time it takes to complete the content otherwise known as forced repetition for the sake of faux longevity. I can almost guarantee that this topic was discussed and the change was made a few patches back for exactly this reason, or in short working as intended.

Honestly, at some people will just not bother doing content x/y/z at all anymore because of stupid mechanisms making it a drag… which would really defeat the purpose of trying to make it last longer.

I secretly still hope that this isn’t the reason why there is no skip button for cutscenes.

Lady Elvea.2847:

Honestly, at some people will just not bother doing content x/y/z at all anymore because of stupid mechanisms making it a drag… which would really defeat the purpose of trying to make it last longer.

I secretly still hope that this isn’t the reason why there is no skip button for cutscenes.

Well I can’t really draw any other conclusions since we’ve historically had the option to skip these scenes. The functionality could be added at a later date but for now and based on the size of the content additions I’m pretty much thinking this is done purposely.

As it is, replaying the content is also extremely tedious. :\
Not to read this the wrong way, but it’s as if saying a hundred man hours isn’t worth salvaging the wasted time of a hundred thousand players who genuine want to try for more but find the cost of failure too high.

Cool, an actual answer! O.o

Thanks for sharing that Jeffrey, it helps a lot to hear the actual reasons behind the way things are as opposed to being left in the dark, having to guess ;-)

As for the issue at hand, would it be possible to simply allow the player to break from the cutscene while the NPCs, gadgets, and props continue to do their thing?

Something similar to how you see the “live” world during a Vista viewing — the world keeps on moving even though some people are viewing a cinematic.

Well maybe my mind is a little foggy on this and I might need to go back and check but haven’t there been cut scenes like this in previous episodes of LW much the same as today and we could skip through them? It seems to me this has only been an issue recently like the last 2 or possibly 3 episodes? If I’m wrong I’m wrong, I’ll chalk it up to age!

Is it possible to at least not make us “replay” the whole instance if we failed an achievement?

I was trying to get the dodge achievement solo. But keep failing, and everytime I failed I need to go through kill the centaur again. I got the achievement now, but only because I redo it in a group.

I can’t keep my sanity when I try solo, since I spend more time just getting to the achievement than actually trying the achievement.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

There’s a bigger technical issue—during “in game” scenes, the NPCs are moving around and things are happening (gadgets might be activating, props may be animating, etc.) and if you just skipped all that, it could lead to some really bizarre behavior. Trying to manually set a “failsafe” to teleport the NPCs, fire off effects, etc. to replicate what the world state is if the cutscene plays is extremely tedious and error prone.

That’s why the old style “dialogue cutscenes” (and the fancy but rare full blown cinematic sequences, like the Order movies and racial intros) are skippable, because we aren’t doing anything to the world while the dialogue plays, so skipping it doesn’t have any effect. We’ve moved away from those, because the in-game scenes are a lot more satisfying, but there’s a trade off.

Unskippable cutscenes are a very old problem in video games (we’re talking 20+ years at this point,) so it’s difficult to understand how a modern game would not have many different solutions for it.

To offer a compromise: during some of its cutscenes, TA Aetherpath allows the player to break out of the cinematic camera and regain control of their character while the rest of the in-game cutscene plays out. Is this something that could be used more widely in the future?

If you cant skip them , how about a fast forward then?

Well if the cutscenes aren’t skippable, what about making it so ever new ls instance has the nodes like the glint’s lair bosses? A way to reset the fight or achievements. (if we can’t have the nodes, can we at least for stuff like the current dodge ones reset if we wipe?)

What is the mechanical difference between GW1 and GW2 cutscenes? I could skip mostof them there iirc and all of those ones were live action or w/e you wanna call it.

kitten .9460:

What is the mechanical difference between GW1 and GW2 cutscenes? I could skip mostof them there iirc and all of those ones were live action or w/e you wanna call it.

yeah I remember those in gw1. I also recall that even though the animations were going,
no one would take damage during the cut-scene, kinda like frozen at that point in time.

Maybe the solution isn’t changing the way cutscenes work, but changing the way episode achievements work?

While not removing the options of going through it honestly a second time, why not just let players click a button in the achievement description (once achievements for the episode are unlocked) to bring up a special version of the instance that just skips to the relevant content?

E.g., for a challenge mote achievement, go to the achievements panel, bring up the achievement info, click a button (close to the one that tells you where to go to complete the achievement), and then you go into an instance that contains nothing but the upgraded boss fight (as in, you can’t leave the boss arena without exiting the instance). For the rare achievement where the point is to find a secret or take a detour, you would just go to a standard instance.

kitten .9460:

What is the mechanical difference between GW1 and GW2 cutscenes? I could skip mostof them there iirc and all of those ones were live action or w/e you wanna call it.

Not really. Skipping cutscenes in GW1 bugged content, for example players skipping the Mallyx cutscene could stay at the door so it doesn’t close, then pull Mallyx outside and kill him bypassing 70% of the actual mechanics of the fight. They never fixed that clear exploit over all those years so it’s probably a limitation of skipping cutscenes.

Other cutscenes in GW1 had similar issues

If nothing works, go back to static PS conversations.
These are easier to skip

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

There’s a bigger technical issue—during “in game” scenes, the NPCs are moving around and things are happening (gadgets might be activating, props may be animating, etc.) and if you just skipped all that, it could lead to some really bizarre behavior. Trying to manually set a “failsafe” to teleport the NPCs, fire off effects, etc. to replicate what the world state is if the cutscene plays is extremely tedious and error prone.

That’s why the old style “dialogue cutscenes” (and the fancy but rare full blown cinematic sequences, like the Order movies and racial intros) are skippable, because we aren’t doing anything to the world while the dialogue plays, so skipping it doesn’t have any effect. We’ve moved away from those, because the in-game scenes are a lot more satisfying, but there’s a trade off.

Couldn’t you just blank out/mute the cinematic and and apply something along the lines of a global Haste (only at higher magnitude) til it ends? may not skip the whole scene but would be much better than nothing at all.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

We’re continuing to experiment with improving the way cutscenes work. I won’t go into details, since I don’t want to say “We’re trying out X” or I’ll get asked after every update “What happened to X?”

What about designing the encounters from the start, so that dialogue and cut scenes appear at the Beginning and end of each story ‘element’ and take place in their own instance – the main ‘combat’ elements could then be separated and when players replay for achievements they can ignore the ‘story/dialogue’ instances if they choose.

For example: The Summit which was one of the most time consuming to replay could be split as follows.

Instance 1 – Chat to everyone/Witness the procession/etc initial attack on delegates.
Ends when delegates leave the chamber.

Instance 2- Main Dragon fight

Instance 3 – Follow up dialogue cut-scene and chat.

By splitting in this way, no additional work needs to be done to allow players to enjoy replaying the relevant part of the mission and the main story elements are left intact.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

We’re continuing to experiment with improving the way cutscenes work. I won’t go into details, since I don’t want to say “We’re trying out X” or I’ll get asked after every update “What happened to X?”

Awesome to hear that you’re working on addressing it! thumbs up

Up to you, but wanna try something like the following?

“We’re looking into some solutions like X, but we may or may not keep them and have no idea when they’d start being implemented.” Or better yet, “but we won’t be seeing them live until Season 3.”

Stick the disclaimer right next to it there, and The Good People of the Forums will quote your post immediately if anyone starts to grumble about it ;-) And we’ll even have a specific answer for the next person who comes along with this question! Plus, we could even give some feedback about what we like, or if there are some adjustments we think would benefit the new approach. There might be some kitties that respond, but we won’t all bite, I promise

In either case, thanks for letting us know.

dlonie.6547:

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

We’re continuing to experiment with improving the way cutscenes work. I won’t go into details, since I don’t want to say “We’re trying out X” or I’ll get asked after every update “What happened to X?”

Awesome to hear that you’re working on addressing it! thumbs up

Up to you, but wanna try something like the following?

“We’re looking into some solutions like X, but we may or may not keep them and have no idea when they’d start being implemented.” Or better yet, “but we won’t be seeing them live until Season 3.”

Stick the disclaimer right next to it there, and The Good People of the Forums will quote your post immediately if anyone starts to grumble about it ;-) And we’ll even have a specific answer for the next person who comes along with this question! Plus, we could even give some feedback about what we like, or if there are some adjustments we think would benefit the new approach. There might be some kitties that respond, but we won’t all bite, I promise

In either case, thanks for letting us know.

While your suggestion is a good one dlonie, until A.net changes their communication policy what you’r’e asking for is going directly against the policy instituted by Mr. O’Brien…I know that’s what we’re looking for, but until the policy changes it won’t/can’t happen.

Hi Jeffrey,

Is my suggestion (my last post) doable for dungeons? I assure you nothing moves in CoF.

Please let me know,
Thanks,
- Kor

Maybe add a checkpoint after the longer cutscenes, the kind that if you died, it would send you back to, that game would know where the npcs and such should be (this would be determined during design/testing of the LS presumably), and the skip button would just send everything/everyone there?

Zaklex.6308:

While your suggestion is a good one dlonie, until A.net changes their communication policy what you’r’e asking for is going directly against the policy instituted by Mr. O’Brien…I know that’s what we’re looking for, but until the policy changes it won’t/can’t happen.

Ssssshhhhhh you weren’t supposed to call attention to that!!

Ruined mah ruse, yo. ;-P

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

There’s a bigger technical issue—during “in game” scenes, the NPCs are moving around and things are happening (gadgets might be activating, props may be animating, etc.) and if you just skipped all that, it could lead to some really bizarre behavior. Trying to manually set a “failsafe” to teleport the NPCs, fire off effects, etc. to replicate what the world state is if the cutscene plays is extremely tedious and error prone.

That’s why the old style “dialogue cutscenes” (and the fancy but rare full blown cinematic sequences, like the Order movies and racial intros) are skippable, because we aren’t doing anything to the world while the dialogue plays, so skipping it doesn’t have any effect. We’ve moved away from those, because the in-game scenes are a lot more satisfying, but there’s a trade off.

Thank you for letting us know!

Also thank you for continuing to try things. It’s appreciated. (But we can only appreciate it when we know about it, so keep us in the loop a little bit? )

I would only want to skip cut scenes when i’m trying to do the achievements and every little mistake makes us play through the whole thing again. Even though i managed it solo, sure was annoying !

So the real question is why not use the same system of retrying achievements as the “Hidden Arcana” mission that worked so well.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

We’re continuing to experiment with improving the way cutscenes work. I won’t go into details, since I don’t want to say “We’re trying out X” or I’ll get asked after every update “What happened to X?”

You’re working on X? How dare you? X is so horrible! Y is a much better system and you should switch to it immediately. Don’t even get me started on Z. If I see Z appear I’ll raise such a kitten storm of senseless internet rage you’ll never hear the end of it!

;) Couldn’t resist.

Daroon.1736:

In addition to wasting players time, perhaps the developers might also like to consider the environmental damage they are doing.

If 500,000 players attempt each living story achievement an average of 5 times before completing it and have to sit through 2 minutes of cut scenes and dialogue each time, that is 2.5 million minutes or 83,333 hours.

Assuming each of their computers are using 250Watts – That is a total of just over 20,000 KW/H for every completed achievement.

Yeah right like everybody is using a notebook, My gaming PC eats 875 Watts (capped at 60FPS) during gameplay…!! at Full speed 1050 Watt is no strange occurance… 2*375 watts for Gpu’s and 130 watt for Cpu and that’s not counting Mobo…
Pls multiply your figure by 2-3 to be more accurate! standard PSU’s are 450-600 Watt nowadays, not 200 Watt

Mmm. If the trade-off really is watching Mar & Kas talking endlessly about their relationship and watching a progression of world leaders before you can attempt an achievement, I’d opt for the old style “talking heads” cutscenes.

A lot of the cutscenes in this episode do not have any action taking place in the background. I don’t see why those can’t have the option to be skipped.

Couldn’t you have temporary clones NPCs “perform” the cutscenes, and meanwhile make anything else not involved invisible by giving them a transformation that replaces their model with an empty transparent placeholder? You are already giving them invulnerability. The same thing that makes the player invulnerable and then removes the effect could be the one making them invisible during the cutscene.

Since story instances are still ‘owned’ by players, skipping would be in their hands instead having to have some vote or having to do more complicated things so players can skip separately like with movies and the two-character cinematics.

I don’t know exactly how Anet does cutscenes but, as a programmer, I can tell you why they can’t simply “speed things up”. The layman’s technical explanation is the cutscenes are all handled with the in-game engine. This engine has its own physics and those physics rely on particular things remaining constant. Time is definitely one of them. If you try to get a character to perform a jump animation 5 times faster than normal, they might jump 5 to 25 times higher than normal do to gravity physics and would definitely not land where they are supposed to. If said character is female and wearing a dress, that could end up clipping through their body due to cloth physics. If the battle system is still active, the npc may die when they land, due to combat physics. If the person they were talking to happens to be an enemy but they game is treating as an ally to keep battle AI from interfering, the enemy may walk over and revive the npc while the cutscene’s audio is still playing. This could lead to odd things like Scarlet taunting Kasmeer while reviving Marjory.

All of this and more could happen from just one sped up jump animation and it would take hours just to fix that. Now think about every single action (from walking, drawing a weapon or even blinking) that every character makes being possible to mess up from speeding things up. Now imagine the hours it would take to reprogram just one 15-second scene to avoid all those bugs.

And if you think that’s bad, you should know that there’s almost always something going on that players can’t see. Many animators don’t bother to fix bugs that aren’t on camera. One famous example comes from Halo: Combat Evolved. At the end, Master Chief removes his helmet but the camera angle prevents the player from seeing his face. However, people have hacked the game to change the camera angle, only to find out that under Master Chief’s helmet is another helmet. That’s clearly a bug but there was no point in fixing it as it wasn’t supposed to be seen.

When all is said and done, the cutscenes are really just a glorified machinima and the npcs are merely puppets. Imagine the chaos of puppeteers performing a scene 5 times faster and you’ll be imagining what arenanet is up against.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

We’ve moved away from those, because the in-game scenes are a lot more satisfying, but there’s a trade off.

To a point. I’m much more a fan of the absolutely beautiful artistic cutscenes like the racial intros. They’ve got to be absolutely crushing on your art department, but they’re completely stunning and are far and away the style that most makes this game feel like GW2.

I wonder what the player penalty will be if they allow this. Every time Anet add something the players want they seem to have to justify it by adding something horrendous.

Rauderi.8706:

As it is, replaying the content is also extremely tedious. :\
Not to read this the wrong way, but it’s as if saying a hundred man hours isn’t worth salvaging the wasted time of a hundred thousand players who genuine want to try for more but find the cost of failure too high.

Perhaps Anet’s business model is to have everyone come in during the LS chapters, play the content once, buy gems, and then leave until the next chapter…. in which case they wouldn’t care about replay value.

Well, if you don’t like grinding for the carapace set, the new releases offer you nothing but a half an hour or storyline.

Here’s how you fix the problem- design it so the cutscene can be skipped and everything moves into place whether or not someone is watching it.

Most of them involve listening to two NPC’s talking to each other without being able to interact, which might be vaguely interesting the first time around but if you’re on your 3rd or 4th time through (as it doesn’t unlock account wide, just each toon) it just gets tedious in the extreme.

Oh wait, we’re not supposed to play multiple toons!

I appreciate your response, Jeffrey. Hope you can sort this out, thank you!

Baldrick.8967:

Here’s how you fix the problem- design it so the cutscene can be skipped and everything moves into place whether or not someone is watching it.

This already happens in many instances. I for one am not buying the story. Not saying they necessarily want it that way, more likely covering up an oops or at least a shortcut on implementation.

Sandpit.3467:

Baldrick.8967:

Here’s how you fix the problem- design it so the cutscene can be skipped and everything moves into place whether or not someone is watching it.

This already happens in many instances. I for one am not buying the story. Not saying they necessarily want it that way, more likely covering up an oops or at least a shortcut on implementation.

You missed this part:

Trying to manually set a “failsafe” to teleport the NPCs, fire off effects, etc. to replicate what the world state is if the cutscene plays is extremely tedious and error prone

They are not saying that teleporting can’t be done, only that it can be tricky and cause issues.

Korossive.7085:

Korossive.7085:

Bellow the skip button, add a “Skip All” with an “Are you sure?” message. Once "yes"ed all cut scenes should be gone.

Hi Jeffrey,

Is my suggestion (my last post) doable for dungeons? I assure you nothing moves in CoF.

Please let me know,
Thanks,
- Kor

Hi Jeffrey,

It’s been almost two weeks; I guess I’m never getting any answer, right?

Regards,
- Kor

A bit old, but I was looking at the patch notes and found this…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-January-13-2015/first#post4695845
*Removed the skip button from the Heart of Thorns trailer which plays the first time an account completes the episode “Point of No Return”.

So really, out of everyone asking for skippable cut scenes you thought it was better to remove the ability to skip it?

I…I try to stay positive…but this just…why would you do this?