Escape from the "Cinematic War"

ovrkyl

Can we PLEASE get the ability to Escape out of these overabundant cutscenes that are throughout every Featured Episode now? At least on the replays?

I understand that the devs put time and effort into them, but when you are forced to watch them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (yes, so far, that many times for me)...

Then to add insult to injury, am currently in mid-mission...AGAIN...'cause I switched windows when the Iconian cutscenes began with the current mission, switching back just to tap through the dialog window in-between, then to "beam up to ship"...only to find the mission that I'd just completed bugged back to the start of the ground mission. No, I hadn't DCed, and I had completed the entire ground portion, but it told me to go to the Kyana Moon after beaming up to the ship.

I really want to rip my eyeballs out at these cutscenes that I'm forced to watch, to quote Lieutenant Kevin Riley, "ONE MORE TIME!!!"

kittyflofy

Yup, its really annoying. When you have to repeat a lot some episodes because cryptic "forces" you to for getting that special reward or watever, at least, let us to skip those cutscenes. It makes no sense.. oh wait...

14 times i run the new featured episode for my 14 alts to ge the doff, and i ended soooo tired of the cutscene of the heralds.. sooo tired xD.

praxi5

Not going to happen; it's a limitation of the engine.

They need the cutscene, as per the engine, to move actors and 'set pieces' around in the background.

You can see Tumerboy comment on it here (this whole thing is a link, stupid Vanilla forums doesn't show it though).

rmy1081

ovrkyl wrote: »

Can we PLEASE get the ability to Escape out of these overabundant cutscenes that are throughout every Featured Episode now? At least on the replays?

You mean like hitting Esc? That's what I do A long time ago it was the Spacebar but it was moved to the Esc button a little before LoR came out.


Also @kittyflofy: I like your sig gif. It's the perfect size, not flashy, long enough to not be stupidly repetitive, and is an awesome Star Trek scene Others should learn from you!

kittyflofy

praxi5 wrote: »

Not going to happen; it's a limitation of the engine.

They need the cutscene, as per the engine, to move actors and 'set pieces' around in the background.

You can see Tumerboy comment on it here (this whole thing is a link, stupid Vanilla forums doesn't show it though).

The game engine has nothing to do with that. You will only a couple of seconds to do what you are saying and generally speaking cutscenes last for more than a few seconds, even almost a minute in some cases. not to mention, moving charactes and so on is done even before the cutscene starts..

The reason we have cutscenes that cant be skipped is, because a) they are a main part of the episode and they are "needed" because the episode in question is based on that cutscene b) they need the episode to last longer because it is too short.

More than that, i dont see a reason we need to "eat" each time a cutscene.

kittyflofy

rmy1081 wrote: »

You mean like hitting Esc? That's what I do A long time ago it was the Spacebar but it was moved to the Esc button a little before LoR came out.

Erm.. of course, but we are talking about the cutscenes that CANT be skipped pressing ESC. Lately we are having a lot of these. And for example, the whole cardassian story arc is filled with cutscenes that cant be skipped.

ovrkyl

rmy1081 wrote: »

You mean like hitting Esc? That's what I do A long time ago it was the Spacebar but it was moved to the Esc button a little before LoR came out.

Yes, like hitting Esc, which is allowed on some, but not all, cutscenes. Believe me, I've rapid-fire tapped that Esc button in frustration just to shut those Iconians up, or to shut up Kahless bragging to T'ket, but it doesn't work with most anymore.

The last FEs I can remember escaping out of cutscenes were Blood of Ancients and Delta Flight. House petaQ was excruciating listening to them boast and brag (vumpu' lo'laHbe') and I can slam through Time in a Bottle until I come to a screeching halt with the Iconian conference. 3 cutscenes back-to-back with only minor dialog to separate them, all at the end of the mission. Yah yah, we know the story, get it over with already?! I can only do so many restroom breaks and drink/snack runs...

supergirl1611

i'm all for skippable cutscenes. The latest FE feels like the cutscene takes just as long as the mission. I'm here to play the game not watch the game. Please give us options to skip. And as mentioned running the same mission on alts and having to sit through it is tedious when we just want to speed blitz to get the rewards on our alts.

xyquarze

I am on board with this wish. Don't get me wrong: I like the cutscenes. I think they add story to the missions, which I like. But as has been stated, playing multiple toons, maybe more than once because of the multiple rewards for a mission, is annoying. It actually isn't this bad on this episode because I can happily Alt-Tab out of it to do stuff for a minute or two, but at the same time I feel it isn't needed, since there is nothing happening during them in the background - as has been said, we get three cutscenes, interrupted by two two-click dialogues - and then we beam out and end the mission. This is okay the first two, three times.

When I said "it isn't that bad": Kahless bragging on T'ket is worse, because you start a major battle just after it ends. I've gotten quite good at tabbing back to STO at the right time over the playthroughs, but it's somewhat tedious the 37th time. (Other examples are the introductory scenes of the Romulan ground battle zone).

It was way better in the featured episode on Kobali prime, where we had the obstacle run - and I really liked that one. I am all for taking your time to understand the story and certainly don't have any sympathy for the occasional voices that claim that they didn't know things because it was hidden in dialogue which they were just clicking through to get back to the action. But I think the possibility of speed running a mission you now know inside out should stay. Otherwise the replay value of an episode drops rapidly. Not as far as some of the less enjoyable missions themselves, but still.

crysystems

I tend to agree with you guys on this matter, the cut scenes are great the first couple of times but after that "sigh" .

kayajay

Esc works on some of them, but I just minimize the programme or wander off until it's finished playing.

ryugasirius

We are strongly encouraged to play FEs more than once (up to 4 times per FE per alt). For someone with as few as 4 alts (there's people with dozens) it amounts to 16 runs just to get everything on every alt. Being forced to watch the same cutscene every time is pretty bad. I could settle with watching it once per alt, but *every* time... that's terrible...

szim

Cryptic wants you to log in every day and to stay as long as possible. That's their main goal. Making video sequences skipable would have the opposite effect. I don't like it, most players don't like it, but it's unlikely to change.

medalionemissary

They are especially not going to give you the ability to skip cutscenes where they hired a well known actor from Star Trek. The least you can do is put up with it like rewatching a rerun episode of Trek cuz it ain't cheap sucka

kittyflofy

szim wrote: »

Cryptic wants you to log in every day and to stay as long as possible. That's their main goal. Making video sequences skipable would have the opposite effect. I don't like it, most players don't like it, but it's unlikely to change.

Most of the cutscenes of all episodes so far were skipable. I dont know why this needs to be changed now. With the exception of the cardassian arc that was not skipable for marketing purposes (and other issues) almost every single episode have skipable cutscenes.

But since season 9, we have a tendency of finding non skipable cutscenes.

ghostmatter

I've heard that it's because there's stuff loading in the background. I'd be okay with that reason if we could have an option to skip as soon as the background stuff is loaded.

Unknown

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ovrkyl

medalionemissary wrote: »

They are especially not going to give you the ability to skip cutscenes where they hired a well known actor from Star Trek. The least you can do is put up with it like rewatching a rerun episode of Trek cuz it ain't cheap sucka

Except if it's on VHS, DVD, DVR, or even live with most modern TVs/DVRs, you can fast-forward or leave then just rewind after you get back to get the parts you missed.
The first time you watch, sure, make them non-skippable and let the artistic work be appreciated.
The dozenth time? SKIP!

borgified007

The Nog FE cutscene runs at the end of the mission. It goes like this..... Space combat, Ground Combat, Run around fixing stuff. Cutscene, end. There is no need to move maps or reload anything etc at that point. Basically this latest ep has about a 4 minute cutscene to end it. It would be nice to be able to skip this after first play through since the mission is complete after it.

iconians

So that really long Kahless fighting cutscene that can't be skipped is to move around art assets/geometry even though very little changes compared to the amount of time listening to that bloated windbag get his deathwish out?

Yeah, sorry Nick. Not buying it.

ovrkyl

I can understand (somewhat) the reason in House petaQ why the long

Kahless vs. T'ket cutscene exists as there's actual activity with his fight and the Iconians reacting to it and the away team moving into the room

, positioning of characters and NPCs and all that. A simple fix could alleviate needing the cutscene to move everyone, like just loading as if zoning in to an area.

But cutscenes such as those in Time in a Bottle are totally skippable. The one at Drozana,

the only change is Nog appears and the Ferengi buyer leaves

. At the end of the mission, first

your character, Nog, and the Krenim guy do nothing more than turn to face the Iconians that appear, speak, then disappear

. Second,

after a single dialog with Nog, the Iconians (who were nothing more than out-of-phase NPCs) disappear

. Third,

after a short dialog chain with the Krenim guy, again no one moves other than to turn around in place, gesture, etc. and the planet appears in the skybox

. All totally skippable especially since

all combat is done from the moment you are pulled into the time bubble, you do nothing (no combat, no movement, etc.) but dialog from the time you finish helping the Krenim to the time you beam back to the ship, and your BOffs serve no purpose throughout the time bubble sequence, even being lined up out of the way in a nice little single-file line during the cutscenes

.

There are ways around the need for cutscenes to position the pieces on the chessboard, so to speak.

And I realize that most players reading this thread have probably done these missions at least once so it's no surprise, but still...I have my own peeve about spoilers so I try to avoid them if I can (and remember too). That, and I'm trying out these Vanilla features...even though I don't like Vanilla.

supergirl1611

Well just had a couple re-runs of the mission on toons i haven't done it on yet. (XP bonus was too good to turn down) Please Cryptic for the love of all things holy do not make missions the norm, where the cutscenes are longer than the gameplay. Time in a Bottle is a decent/easy mission, but i felt i spent more time watching the mission than playing it. And i'm here to play a game not watch a movie.

durenas

Fundamentally, players do not like having control of their characters taken away from them, for any reason. Efforts should be made to reduce or eliminate any unskippable cutscenes if at all possible.

ovrkyl

I'm guessing someone in the Cryptic community must've listened to our complaints, as every single cutscene in Broken Circle is skippable. As for the explanation of needing the cutscene to move pieces around, those first two cutscenes on the research lab alone debunk it.

I can run way ahead of Tullek and start the first cutscene, and there he is right next to me walking into the room, then ESC and everyone's miraculously where they should be.

I can again run way ahead of the group leaving the room heading to the conference room, talk to Kagran and Crey, start the briefing, everyone's in the room seated for the briefing, then ESC out and get the message to beam out while the rest of the group's still walking into the room.

Thank you, devs, for making the cutscenes skippable. While I watched them all on the first run, I knew the story enough to skip them on subsequent runs. That was all I was asking for.