This is a common trope for video games these days. If an NPC character ‘needs to die’, the player is locked out of the game by a cutscene where the enemy ends up killing the NPC without the player being able to do anything to stop it.
It seems like it would be a great dramatic effect, but it’s not. Doubly so if the player was actually winning the fight easily, then suddenly the boss decides to one shot your buddy? What? It’s annoying, and breaks the immersion completely.
If you must have an NPC killed off, stop using the cutscene cop-out. You have coded in plenty of brutal control effects for the game. Use them. Immobilize and stun our characters, knockback, pull, launch… whatever you need to do to keep our characters from saving the NPC, but don’t just suddenly enter a locked cutscene where we have no reasonable way of knowing why we were suddenly so useless.
I had that boss pinned down and disabled, then suddenly my character is nowhere to be found?! Not even in view! I’m a WARRIOR. Of course I was right next to the boss! So the boss one hits one NPC, then smacks down Beirne to his death… and my character was where? Offering emotional support from the bleachers?
That is poor story design, ArenaNet. Stop using it.
