Guild Wars 2

Hello, I just wanted to ask if there is a point in not letting us skip cinematics? Why force a person who doesn’t wanna watch the cinematic watch it? Skipping cinematic is optional and obviously someone who wants to watch the cinematic will not skip it, but someone who doesn’t wanna watch it will just minimize the game untill it’s over and waste time.

I made this thread not because I hate the cinematics, but because I am forced to watch it for the 4-th time.

I think they will add a skip button eventually, but right now they want to make sure people know what’s coming, aka at PAX.

This has been brought up in the past as well, I think it was about the long cutscenes you had to watch over and over again for the Trampling and Rodeo Achievements in the last Living World Chapter.

A dev said it had something to do with the positioning of NPCs in the game, for sake of having them in right position to do what they are supposed to do after the cutscene – and that they decided to work more with actual Cutscenes rather than using the Voiceover and Text for explaining plot as seen in your personal story.

+1 it is annoying as hell.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

I think they will add a skip button eventually, but right now they want to make sure people know what’s coming, aka at PAX.

- The metrics say people who watch commercials are more likely to buy the product being advertised.

Zenith.6403:

- The metrics say people who watch commercials are more likely to buy the product being advertised.

The cinematics (if you’re speaking of the current living story ones) were simply amazing and a great piece or work. So what if you need to watch it over and over, it’s a good art piece. And as you said. Just minimize it and go watch a youtube video or go wiki something.

But I will have to agree on the removal of the option, as it is something that people should have the option to do. But to me this isn’t a big deal worth complaining over.

They have aswered in another post about this and this unskippability has to do with that its thing being changed “behind the scenes” as the cinematic plays… Things happening in the story/instance that u are in.

Riku.4821:

The cinematics (if you’re speaking of the current living story ones) were simply amazing and a great piece or work. So what if you need to watch it over and over, it’s a good art piece. And as you said. Just minimize it and go watch a youtube video or go wiki something.

But I will have to agree on the removal of the option, as it is something that people should have the option to do. But to me this isn’t a big deal worth complaining over.

The real complaint here is the waste of time. When they are optional I watch every cinematic at least once and some more than that. I agree that the cinematics that are in the game are worth watching but, like many things in life, there are some things that are good every time and some that are good once.

My time to play the game is very limited. Sometimes I decide to go back into living story episodes with a second (or third) character or to work on a particular achievement — when I am replaying content that I’ve already seen how many times do I need to hear that Braham’s leg is feeling better or that Kasmeer is a mother hen? Some things, especially conversations between the Biconics, can be skipped without missing out on artwork and allowing me to use my precious play time to actually play and just wait to play.

Skip to End button is a very good thing.

They mentioned why this is and it has to do with staging going on behind the scenes, which is why some don’t have a skip option.

munkiman.3068:

They mentioned why this is and it has to do with staging going on behind the scenes, which is why some don’t have a skip option.

Which is a technical way of saying “we don’t want to invest time in actually doing it, because we don’t respect your time.”

/bitter
:\

Staging behind the scenes? Complete and utter nonsense!
This isn’t a stage play where people have to change costumes and move scenery between acts.
It’s a computer game, and if you are playing that section with a second/third/fourth character there is no need to see it again. You have “skip” buttons in personal story and dungeons, so why not this?
And for the cinematic sequences where NPCs are moving from one place to another across the screen you can flicker the screen and shift them to final positions or at least drop swiftness on them.

Here is the Dev post:

Jeffrey Vaughn: Source
Content Designer
“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."

I think the big issue here is that while the trade of would have been a good idea in itself, it was accompanied by the introduction of locked achievements, and achievements that couldn’t be completed in a single run. Bringing in unskippable cut scenes in instances that you are expected to complete at least three times even if you don’t fail seems to be something of a bad call.

Personally I wouldn’t mind an option to block the movies played in dungeons since most can be skipped.