So... still no way to skip dialogs and cutscenes

[DemKin.9063]

Just started playing the game again two days ago after a long break.

First thing, the game has evolved quite a bit on many aspects and I'm having a great time on it again, which is awesome.

 

However, I've taken on some Living World achievements that I'm missing, and I'm disappointed to see it's still a hell of a terrible gaming experience. The unskippable portions of dialogs and cutscenes you've already went through several times get truly awful after a while and frustration quickly adds up. Feels extremely punishing, unnecessarily so.

I can't be the only one wishing there was a kind of "mote" allowing us to skip all the dialog parts to get straight to combats. In fact, I'm sure 100% of the players who went through the Living World achievements wish so.

Something has to be done. As it is, I can't say I will keep good memories of the Living World episodes, quite the contrary, I want to be done with them as fast as possible.

 

There is probably a whole lot of topics on that subject, but I just thought I'd add mine to the pile to bring more attention to this. It needs a fix !!

[mercury ranique.2170]

> @"DemKin.9063" said:

> There is probably a whole lot of topics on that subject, but I just thought I'd add mine to the pile to bring more attention to this. It needs a fix !!

 

To be honest, this is the first time I see someone complaining bout it. So it might be the reason that it isnt fixed cause it is not so annoying to others. Personally it never annoyed me at all.

 

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

Dialogs are, and will likely remain, due to technical reasons as I understand it.

However, they have been experimenting with different options to get you "straight to the action" for repeat plays like doing achievements. It's mostly in the latter episodes, such as 4:1.

 

Note: I haven't tried these myself, but read about them here and on reddit.

[DemKin.9063]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > @"DemKin.9063" said:

> > There is probably a whole lot of topics on that subject, but I just thought I'd add mine to the pile to bring more attention to this. It needs a fix !!

>

> To be honest, this is the first time I see someone complaining bout it. So it might be the reason that it isnt fixed cause it is not so annoying to others. Personally it never annoyed me at all.

>

 

You must be a paragon of patience. I cannot stand having to go through the same 5-10 minutes of dialogs everytime I try to go for tough achievements.

 

> @"Tanner Blackfeather.6509" said:

> Dialogs are, and will likely remain, due to technical reasons as I understand it.

> However, they have been experimenting with different options to get you "straight to the action" for repeat plays like doing achievements. It's mostly in the latter episodes, such as 4:1.

>

> Note: I haven't tried these myself, but read about them here and on reddit.

 

Thank God, expected as much...

[Biff.5312]

Take a deep breath. I don't think any of those scenes are more than a couple of minutes at most, so I really don't see it as an issue. I've been mildly annoyed by it now and then, but I'll live.

[DemKin.9063]

> @"Biff.5312" said:

> Take a deep breath. I don't think any of those scenes are more than a couple of minutes at most, so I really don't see it as an issue. I've been mildly annoyed by it now and then, but I'll live.

 

I was doing the achievements for The World Summit, last mission of the Dragon's Reach Pt. 2, there is a good 5 minutes of dialog and cutscene before the combats start. The achievements for it are pretty tough, had to do a few tries.

Seems to me there is a bias going on here. My feeling regarding this particular aspect of the game, one that is shared by others as I've seen it discussed here and elsewhere and it was apparently adressed by devs, is that this is unpleasant, to put it mildly. In 2018, games don't force you to go through the same dialogs and cutscenes anymore, I'm just hoping they'll find something to make it a tad bit easier on the players.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

Here’s what ANet has said

 

>**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 l 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.

[Ardid.7203]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > @"DemKin.9063" said:

> > There is probably a whole lot of topics on that subject, but I just thought I'd add mine to the pile to bring more attention to this. It needs a fix !!

>

> To be honest, this is the first time I see someone complaining bout it. So it might be the reason that it isnt fixed cause it is not so annoying to others. Personally it never annoyed me at all.

>

 

I remember seeing this topic A LOT. I'm not sure if in the new forums people got more patient, but I assure you, in the old ones this was a very common complain.

[mercury ranique.2170]

> @"Ardid.7203" said:

> > @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > > @"DemKin.9063" said:

> > > There is probably a whole lot of topics on that subject, but I just thought I'd add mine to the pile to bring more attention to this. It needs a fix !!

> >

> > To be honest, this is the first time I see someone complaining bout it. So it might be the reason that it isnt fixed cause it is not so annoying to others. Personally it never annoyed me at all.

> >

>

> I remember seeing this topic A LOT. I'm not sure if in the new forums people got more patient, but I assure you, in the old ones this was a very common complain.

 

I am neither new nor old. I have been on the forums on and off for a bunch of reasons. I had some gaps, but my observation is that it never has been a huge thing, nothing like people begging for Cantha or housing.

[Cyrin.1035]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > @"Ardid.7203" said:

> > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > > > @"DemKin.9063" said:

> > > > There is probably a whole lot of topics on that subject, but I just thought I'd add mine to the pile to bring more attention to this. It needs a fix !!

> > >

> > > To be honest, this is the first time I see someone complaining bout it. So it might be the reason that it isnt fixed cause it is not so annoying to others. Personally it never annoyed me at all.

> > >

> >

> > I remember seeing this topic A LOT. I'm not sure if in the new forums people got more patient, but I assure you, in the old ones this was a very common complain.

>

> I am neither new nor old. I have been on the forums on and off for a bunch of reasons. I had some gaps, but my observation is that it never has been a huge thing, nothing like people begging for Cantha or housing.

 

It doesn’t need to be a big issue to be a flaw in the game that needs fixing. It is most certainly an issue for those who would like to have a choice to skip old story content that has become tedious to sit through the second time, third, and so on. This is not a new issue. It’s an issue in many games especially from the past, which is why it’s disappointing that this is still an issue in 2018 among many other issues in GW 2.

 

The dev that another poster quoted also gave a legitimate reason for why the issue remains, answering the main question that the OP poses. It is a problem and won’t be changed at this time, but who knows, maybe they will change it again in the future.

[mercury ranique.2170]

> @"Cyrin.1035" said:

> > @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > > @"Ardid.7203" said:

> > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > > > > @"DemKin.9063" said:

> > > > > There is probably a whole lot of topics on that subject, but I just thought I'd add mine to the pile to bring more attention to this. It needs a fix !!

> > > >

> > > > To be honest, this is the first time I see someone complaining bout it. So it might be the reason that it isnt fixed cause it is not so annoying to others. Personally it never annoyed me at all.

> > > >

> > >

> > > I remember seeing this topic A LOT. I'm not sure if in the new forums people got more patient, but I assure you, in the old ones this was a very common complain.

> >

> > I am neither new nor old. I have been on the forums on and off for a bunch of reasons. I had some gaps, but my observation is that it never has been a huge thing, nothing like people begging for Cantha or housing.

>

> It doesn’t need to be a big issue to be a flaw in the game that needs fixing. It is most certainly an issue for those who would like to have a choice to skip old story content that has become tedious to sit through the second time, third, and so on. This is not a new issue. It’s an issue in many games especially from the past, which is why it’s disappointing that this is still an issue in 2018 among many other issues in GW 2.

>

> The dev that another poster quoted also gave a legitimate reason for why the issue remains, answering the main question that the OP poses. It is a problem and won’t be changed at this time, but who knows, maybe they will change it again in the future.

 

The issue I am pointing out is the one of entitlement. Off course it is ok to tell what you find a flaw in the game. But mind that it is a personal opinion. Saying things like it needs fixing is in my personal opinion behaviour that is not nice toward the hard working dev who you hope one day will change this.

[Urud.4925]

Personally I found more tedious a couple of fights where you had to kill the boss in any case, before being able to restart the fight. Both in LW (inside Glint's realm and against the veggie-dragon). If you were hit once, you lost the achievement, but you couldn't go to the character selection menu and relog: you had to finish the fight anyway, and then restarting it.

[DemKin.9063]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> The issue I am pointing out is the one of entitlement. Off course it is ok to tell what you find a flaw in the game. But mind that it is a personal opinion. Saying things like it needs fixing is in my personal opinion behaviour that is not nice toward the hard working dev who you hope one day will change this.

 

I didn't mean it to come out like that, I just thought a lot of players were having a hard time with it as well and it needed to be looked into.

If frustration made my post come out as rude or something, it wasn't intended.

Regardless of this, the game is great. This particular issue though makes the Living World achievement getting tedious for me. I got the achievements for The World Summit mission yesterday, but I'll still remember it as... a bad time. Which is a shame, the achievements in themselves and the fight are fun.

 

 

[Albadaran.1283]

I agree with the opp. While playing the story I'm always afraid that my internet connection will be broken after finishing a task and not been completed because I have to watch endless dialogs until I can move on to the next part. Latest Living story was really horroble in this: you did not even get mission complete buttons but it went on and on and on. Until I had to quit and found out that I missed a waypoint in the new map simply because the story did not tell me to leave the instant. PLEASE, make smaller portions of adventure with clear end of chapter buttons and give us a way to skip those endless pop up messages!

[Cyrin.1035]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

 

> The issue I am pointing out is the one of entitlement. Off course it is ok to tell what you find a flaw in the game. But mind that it is a personal opinion. Saying things like it needs fixing is in my personal opinion behaviour that is not nice toward the hard working dev who you hope one day will change this.

 

Every player here can most certainly claim something needs fixing if it is a flaw to them. Whether you agree with it or not or whether the devs care to make any changes based on their opinion, is no excuse to belittle their topic by saying it's not as big as other issues or falsely claiming their entitlement. It's also not "nice" toward the OP or the others that agree with them.

[Fallesafe.5932]

I can't stand those endless, unskippable, childish dialogues. You're absolutely **not** the only one who feels this way. Every storyline felt like pure punishment. And I developed a special loathing for all the story characters because of it (would love to start DPSing Aurene). =)

 

Just do what I did... turn off the volume, make a sandwich, and wait for the next star to appear on your minimap.

 

 

[Ardid.7203]

Ok...

Of course is not Cantha or Tengu horse-beating level.

Still really common. (And it was even more in the old forums, specially after the cutscenes change in HoT).

 

Just a few examples.

 

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/13843/old-dialogue-cutscenes-vs-post-hot-dialogue-cutscenes

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/31525/gw-2-story-the-games-greatest-flaw

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/278748/#Comment_278748

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/1546/please-anet-let-us-skip-dialog-in-story-missions

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/292807/#Comment_292807

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/20304/can-we-get-back-the-skip-scene-mechanic-when-we-replay-for-achievement

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/17648/suggestion-ls4-story-missions-should-have-a-feature-to-skip-dialogues-fast-in-achievement-mode

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/342221/#Comment_342221

 

The issue is even more common than it appears, because not everyone talks specifically about "skipping dialog". A lot of people talks about "allowing mid-story save points", "adding motes for restarting achievement's fights", "skipping cutscenes", "doing exposition the old way", "fast recovery after disconnect", "mark progress in instances", etc.

 

They all point to the same issue: After the first time, being forced to repeat the full story steps, with all the dialogs and narrative times involved, during long minutes, just to get to the point you want or need to beat, normally having to do it multiple times also, is just terrible.

[Endless Soul.5178]

> @"DemKin.9063" said:

> > @"Biff.5312" said:

> > Take a deep breath. I don't think any of those scenes are more than a couple of minutes at most, so I really don't see it as an issue. I've been mildly annoyed by it now and then, but I'll live.

>

> I was doing the achievements for The World Summit, last mission of the Dragon's Reach Pt. 2, there is a good 5 minutes of dialog and cutscene before the combats start. The achievements for it are pretty tough, had to do a few tries.

 

While I normally watch the cut scenes and enjoy the dialog, I can completely agree with OP in this instance. I actually gave up trying to get the "Can't Knock Me Down" achievement because of the very long, unskippable event that proceeds it.

 

 

[Rauderi.8706]

> @"Endless Soul.5178" said:

 

> While I normally watch the cut scenes and enjoy the dialog, I can completely agree with OP in this instance. I actually gave up trying to get the "Can't Knock Me Down" achievement because of the very long, unskippable event that proceeds it.

 

It would certainly help if there were *some* way to retry some of these absurd achievements, where a split-second mistake leads to restarting 10 minutes of dialog. It was epidemic in Season 2 and HoT, and it's irksome that ANet hasn't designed around replayability or "Fail Faster" like they should have for years.

 

[Ashen.2907]

Ive seen this requested quite a few times, if not recently.

 

It would be nice. I would be more inclined to pursue the achievements if skip options existed.

[mercury ranique.2170]

> @"Cyrin.1035" said:

> > @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

>

> > The issue I am pointing out is the one of entitlement. Off course it is ok to tell what you find a flaw in the game. But mind that it is a personal opinion. Saying things like it needs fixing is in my personal opinion behaviour that is not nice toward the hard working dev who you hope one day will change this.

>

> Every player here can most certainly claim something needs fixing if it is a flaw to them. Whether you agree with it or not or whether the devs care to make any changes based on their opinion, is no excuse to belittle their topic by saying it's not as big as other issues or falsely claiming their entitlement. It's also not "nice" toward the OP or the others that agree with them.

 

As others I am entitled to my opinion, but nothing more. So specially the OP and to a lessen degree you areni my opinion he one who belittles the devs who designed the current system and more important the changes allready made in the past. Like said. There are difficulties to do what you want. This system is created as part of an evolution and personally I think the devs responsable should be treated with a lot more respect.

[Cyrin.1035]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

 

> As others I am entitled to my opinion, but nothing more. So specially the OP and to a lessen degree you areni my opinion he one who belittles the devs who designed the current system and more important the changes allready made in the past. Like said. There are difficulties to do what you want. This system is created as part of an evolution and personally I think the devs responsable should be treated with a lot more respect.

 

If you disagree, state your disagreement and opinion, then move on. It's not necessary to belittle another user's thread because of your opinion.

 

It is in no way rude to point out what you feel is a flaw in the game. Players have always done that. Because you take offense from that, doesn't mean the devs do. You do not speak for them. They often welcome and seek feedback for the very purpose of improving the game or seeing what players think. That's what this forum is for.

 

If you truly feel the OP and others with a similar opinion are being disrespectful to the devs, then send a message to [Forums@Arena.Net.](Forums@Arena.Net. "Forums@Arena.Net.") to complain about it.

 

Tell them how horrible and disrespectful we are to them. If they happen to take that seriously and care to respond, they will probably tell you the same thing I will tell you here: It's a player's opinion. The dev team reads, hears, and sees them all the time.

 

Agree or disagree with it. But never belittle a user's opinion or their thread just because you disagree with them.

[DemKin.9063]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > @"Cyrin.1035" said:

> > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> >

> > > The issue I am pointing out is the one of entitlement. Off course it is ok to tell what you find a flaw in the game. But mind that it is a personal opinion. Saying things like it needs fixing is in my personal opinion behaviour that is not nice toward the hard working dev who you hope one day will change this.

> >

> > Every player here can most certainly claim something needs fixing if it is a flaw to them. Whether you agree with it or not or whether the devs care to make any changes based on their opinion, is no excuse to belittle their topic by saying it's not as big as other issues or falsely claiming their entitlement. It's also not "nice" toward the OP or the others that agree with them.

>

> As others I am entitled to my opinion, but nothing more. So specially the OP and to a lessen degree you areni my opinion he one who belittles the devs who designed the current system and more important the changes allready made in the past. Like said. There are difficulties to do what you want. This system is created as part of an evolution and personally I think the devs responsable should be treated with a lot more respect.

 

I don't think I'm belittling anyone, I'm just saying what I think is wrong with one particular aspect of the game.

I was expecting some form of bias from some people, but I didn't expect a lieutenant of the international league for social justice to be present.

More seriously, I wrote this post because I'm a player, I'm not stepping in like I own the place or anything. Hopefully that clarifies this whole entreprise for you.