Legitimate question - Do people enjoy the "stealth" quests?

Never had an interest and I absolutely *HATE* when SE forces gameplay mechanics on the player with mandatory MSQ 'playable NPC' events. I've never enjoyed them and I've always found them tedious and annoying. If I want to play as a different class/job, the game makes it stupid easy to do so, why force us to play other classes on a whim during storytime? Why can't these events be part of optional side quests for people who actually enjoy these annoying gameplay 'distraction' sessions. I'm actually at the Thancred stealth part in Endwalker and I'm a hair away from droppping $20 [again] to buy the 'story skip' shop item just to bypass this stupid event so I can get to the dungeon/trial healing, which is the only reason I play MMOs.

Having different gameplay elements and styles included in the game is AWESOME! But forcing your players to participate in them is absolutely bullcrap. Its not like they force people to do chocobo racing, or crafting, or a myriad of other gameplay elements that the game offers, but the developers don't force upon the players. Why can't SquareEnix just let me experience the story through THE CHARACTER THAT I'M PLAYING.

With all the added 'replay this mission/dungeon!' features they've included in the game, they could easily incoroporate some feature where you can replay a mission as some other character from the story... but when I'm playing a MMORPG, I want to play the character, class or job that I've selected, not one the game thinks I should play for the sake of the story.

Nearly to the end of MSQ, level 100, decided I should bang out the Magic DPS Role Quests. I dislike these quests in general, but the one for the role quest has had me just close the game twice. I don't want to deal with this and am considering unsubbing for the first time in 10 years.

Edit: Felt strongly enough to post for the first time ever on these forums. Spoiled any anticipation I've had for any more of the role or MSQ quests because for all I know the next one could be one of these tailing missions and I just would rather quit.

The thing with stealth is that it's only interesting if executed robustly: light meter, lighting gradients, challenging timing, etc

FFXIV is just "walk along until you see the obvious hiding spot and hide there when the guy turns around "

Stealth segments are much better than the standard FFXIV quest, because at least you're moving in the world and not just watching cutscene after cutscene. So bad, but also better

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Originally Posted by Manny_Maneater

I truly want to find out if there is a demographic for these quests. I get them in theory, but to me and most people I've talked to, they are kind of just...a chore. And I see people memeing on them all of the time.

So the people I know personally don't like them and internet denizens seem to not like them as well.

Does anybody? Should they just stop making those?

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Yep, it’s actually my favorite. It beats, “kill these” or “fetch these” quests. I do wish they were slightly more challenging though.

I think they're just ok. To a small degree in EW, and a major degree in DT, I felt like stealth and accompany quests were just filler to make up for a poor story.

Theoretically, or in other games, sure, I like them quite a bit.

As they're implemented in XIV? Not at all.

They were novel at first, but once you know how to game them they're easy as cake. The only one of these quests I didn't one-shot was the one aether current in Garlemald where you have to follow the boy. The rest were just glorified cutscenes.

By DT, I was playing chicken with the danger circle because I had long been bored of them.

Feels like they had this idea in Endwalker to put more gameplay into the questing .. which in itself is a good thought. And then came up with those stealth/stalk sections.

My biggest issue is that they're now just reusing this idea as is, filling it in to meet some (low bar) gameplay in MSQ quota. And as someone mentioned, even the dialog lines of the ones being followed are just copied over. This is rather lazy and uncreative.

If they continue putting these sections in, I'd at least want them to be more creative about it. Perhaps hiding spots that you have to interact with to hide yourself with an object, or ducking under, or jumping into some water when there's no other hiding spot nearby. Like change it up a bit.

But what they really need to do is come up with more interactive gameplay to make playing through the MSQ more diverse. For example, we had the pelupelu part with trading and bartering for items to increase their value .. neatly displayed as UI elements to show 'wow we traded this for this' - without it being at all interactable or having anything to do with our own actions. They could have turned this into actual gameplay, making it a minigame of figuring out which item to trade with whom perhaps with multiple trading paths that can lead to success.

It's more padding on an MSQ that is already padded to the teeth. It's mind numbingly dull every time, just slop content made with 0 effort and care to keep us occupied so the game hits that 40 hour mark.

Devs, please. The expacs are long enough.

It is variety. Other quests in the game are equally a chore.

Go here, talk to this NPC.
Go there, kill 2 of these.
Go here, pick up this crate and carry it.
Go there, do this emote to this NPC.

When they introduced both the "escort around the zone" quests and the stealth quests, I thought it added a different flavor. If anything, it made more sense to walk around the city with an NPC like Alphinaud showing us Sharlyan. And in many ways, if we are supposed to follow some person that doesn't want to be followed, we'd have to sneak.

Unpopular opinion, the Thancred quest in EW was great. Same with the one where we were that unnamed soldier in Garlemald.