Why not just cutscenes?

[Count Smashula]

Short version: I wish Delilah's dream visit segment and the outsiders visits in Stilton's manor were cutscenes that were skippable instead of being treated as unskippable events, since there is nothing to do but wait and exposition like this kills any momentum or pacing. Replaying the game is awesome until these moments (the same as the unskippable drag that was the intro to the flooded district mission in D1).


The only things that really bugs me about D2 now are the unskippable cutscenes. The highlights for me are Delilah's dream between chapter 3 and 4 (IIRC) where she tells you her sad backstory, and the outsiders visits at the beginning and end of chapter 7 (Stilton's manor).
These moments halt all momentum and pacing going on and only serve to deliver exposition. In a game like this that is meant to be replayed several times, it is a practical suicide. Every time I want to re-play this game, I dread those moments because I will be forced to just sit there doing ♥♥♥♥ all while listening to the same dialogue I've heard before.

The worst part is, it makes very little sense why they are treated as ingame events instead of cutscenes. Delilah's visit is just straight up stupid, where it starts as a cutscene that you can skip and then you have to watch the projection on the stone in real time. Why not just have the rest play out as a cutscene until you have to move? There is nothing else to do or look at (because they made the void a boring grey emptyness instead of an interesting mind-♥♥♥♥ery) anyway!

The outsiders visits are the same way, there is nothing else to do and you can explore the room in peace before and after you get the time-piece. The PC could easily just follow the outsider while he explains his backstory at the end as a skippable cutscene and then get control again before going into the portal if they want to look around and study the area (which is a very cool looking place). If they were skippable cutscenes, it would not halt the gameplay like it does now.

Either that, or let us exit these sequences much faster so we aren't anchored down for a 5 minute history lesson that we have heard 20 times already! It's great stuff for the first and maybe second playthrough, but after that it becomes little more than some of the worst parts of the game. Perhaps having the stone path already placed in Delilah's dream and the exit portals already available in the outsider visits, if converting them into cutscenes would be too much work.

[Zekiran]

First: they are skippable in part. (not the Stilton ones, because that IS a game-based not cutscene)

Second: they're really important to the plot.

Third: they're great screenshot opportunities.

[Count Smashula]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

First: they are skippable in part. (not the Stilton ones, because that IS a game-based not cutscene)

Second: they're really important to the plot.

Third: they're great screenshot opportunities.

1 - That's true but it stil slows everything down to a halt and kills the mood. It also makes little sense why they start it as a cutscene then make the memory wall segment into an unskippable event instead of keeping it as a cutscene.

2 - Sort of but not really. The exposition could have been cut from the game and would have lost very little. And like I said, they are horrible for repeat playthroughs which is one of the games main selling points.
I feel it would have made it better without their backstories because it made the characters a lot less interesting and the outsiders parts felt like a lazy explanation. He died and suddenly he is a god.
In hindsight they probably made that so it could segway into the "death of the outsider DLC" but it isn't exactly a very good backstory to what essentially is a god. And Delilah is now a part of him. Why/how did that happen and how does it affect him besides that he doesn't like it? I guess it explains some of her new powers such as Medusa-ing everything and taking Corvo's powers but it again feels forced and out of nowhere.
Delilah's story was also really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ convenient. She was the Bastard daughter of the emperor and half sister to Jesamine and got a bad life. The old her was more simple, being a power hungry witch but she made for a much better villain with a simple but understandable goal and a very impressive plan to pull it off. Throughout knife of dunwall and brigmore witches, you get the build-up of how dangerous she is and it is amazing. Here, she is reduced to the same role as the red queen from Alice through the looking glass: The jealous sister that is super mad at her more successful sibling. She feels more like a whiny brat than a real threat (partly because we've been through this before) and it took away some of her mystery and interest. She is even mad about ♥♥♥♥ that happened several decades ago if you take a look at Jesamines grave in the last mission.

3 - That is true but having them be skipable and/or cutscenes wouldn't really take away from that. Worst case scenario you just use a mod or command or some such to move the camera if you want a better angle. I don't want them gone from the game, I want the ability to skip them because they serve no purpose for someone that has played the game before.

[Zekiran]

I think you might need to actually watch those cut scenes again because you completely missed a lot.

I don't disagree that each portion of Delilah's bit should be skippable, but the back story *is* actually that important. Also, the Outsider didn't just 'die and become a god'. There's so much more to that whole scene, if you take the rest of the game's details into account. If they'd left *any* of that out?

There really wouldn't be any interesting bits *at all*.

[Count Smashula]

Enlighten me, what details am I missing?

[anaphylactic god]

yeah, it was a poor design, but can you really blame them ? whole story is poorly designed.
maybe devs didnt have time to actually work on story telling

[Zekiran]

You've claimed that backstory: I feel it would have made it better without their backstories because it made the characters a lot less interesting and the outsiders parts felt like a lazy explanation. He died and suddenly he is a god.

The entire point of many of the side bits of dialog, the books, and the songs of Serkonos being sung *are about* the Outsider. He's the narrator, if not the protagonist. They'd originally intended to have his origin exposed in the first game but it couldn't really be fit in - and I'm glad they did it this way (and with a new actor and model with far more expression to him). Delilah's back story is meant to polarize - yes, she *was* wronged, she *did* have a point, but she also wasn't the first and won't be the last to be a bastard child that didn't inherit anything. If you're already disposed to think more kindly about her, the backstory will make it clear she's both petulant and bitter, if you're likely to think badly of her, she's showing that not everyone was playing fair to her.

My point is, this is the way their story is told, and how it has been told. The Outsider in the first game was more of a checklist of 'what you did during x chaos', but in this one he's much more personable, because he has a direct stake in what happens. Knowing that he feels as offended as he does, that Delilah has consumed some of his power - and by the location he shows off, is *really* angry that she took *his* origin and drew power from it.

Almost all the cut scenes are there to give the player a motivation, not just rocket them forward into the next level. Listening to the Heart or exploring really fleshes everything out, but a completely skippable cut scene would lead to *way* more people just being confused about what fractured story they would get without them.

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by anaphylactic god:

yeah, it was a poor design, but can you really blame them ? whole story is poorly designed.
maybe devs didnt have time to actually work on story telling

For someone who doesn't even have either dishonored game in their extensive steam game list, I have to take your comment with a massive grain of salt, because this particular game's story has been one of the best I've ever played....

[Count Smashula]

I suppose when I think "outsiders backstory" I meant how he became a god. The stuff that he did afterwards is a bit different, what he has done as the outsider doesn't really explain anything about how he became a god from just dying at an altar.

Also, those that care about the story will not skip the cutscenes. If you skip a cutscene or don't pay attention to the story and then are confused about what is going on, it is (usually) your own fault. i see you have over 170 hours in D1 and 150 hours in D2, so tell me this:

Do you like it when you come to the long cutscene that is the intro to the flooded district mission, when Delilah visits you in your dream and you hear her exposition for the 17th time or when the outsider talks about his problems in stilton's manor and every time, you are forced to sit and wait without doing anything? Does it not bother you?

I love the outsider and his mystery, but I did not feel like his origin story of becoming a god because he died added anything, I found it much more interesting to speculate what he was or how he became what he is (personal opinion). I don't want them competely gone (it's too late for that), but having them be skippable so that you can continue playing the game would be a better alternative than locking you in a box and forcing you to listen to the same story for the 10th time.

[Zekiran]

I take a billion screenshots of the Outsider when he's talking. >_>

The creation of a young orphaned teen into a human-faced representation of the Void was ... kind of important. Without his own exposition, the books and other bits would be too difficult to even piece together into a cohesive whole.

And actually each time I've played, I've done the Stilton manor in 5 different ways, so I've heard at LEAST three completely different sets of dialog out of some of the characters. That is something that I like doing, so... *shrug*

I don't disagree that each part SHOULD be skippable, but... I would just worry about all the confused folks who do so - and you have to have seen this in many game forums - then bag on the game for lack of clarity.