"In from the Cold" Scenario, any way to skip it?

Re: zenos

For me, Zenos being able to take over your body should have been much more of a thing. Like we absolutely should have had several times where we lost control and even made the scions unsure if we were who we were. Culminate this in a fight between Zenos in our body, and is in his for a showdown that proves we are stronger than him, regardless of the body we are in.

That it was shown then cast aside felt very meh, but then imho the second half of the expansion felt very meh to me…and I say that as a huge huge fan.

Zenos has never once felt like a nemesis to me, nor even a real antagonist. He's annoying, self-centered, egomaniacal and apparently very stupid.

He never really seems to know what he wants, much less how to get it.

He hands over his entire empire to a clearly bonkers ascian who then babies him (such as by setting up playdates like this quest) while proceeding to wreck the world.

He says he wants nothing more than a great fight then hides for most of the expansion and even runs away from potential conflict.

He's about as threatening as Team Rocket and rather than viewing him as my arch nemesis, I spend most interactions with him just wishing the game would let me pound his face in and forget about him forever.

Which is why this quest is so frustrating for me, as we once again are presented as mere pawns for Zenos' amusement with no real personal importance when in truth it's the exact opposite.

In this quest, we are made to feel like nothing compared to Zenos, when in fact Zenos is nothing without us but a spoiled jerk with aspirations of grandeur that he somehow achieves through dues ex machina without much explanation.

Sorry, rant over. I really hate Zenos and this quest. I hope they make this quest entirely skippable so I never again have to endure this wholly ironic scene.

Note that I said nothing about the difficulty of the quest itself idk why ppl keep assuming anyone who didn't like this quest must hate it purely because of the mechanics.

"lol get gud it was easy lol"

Please read before commenting.

I just did this quest and it was awful!

Yeah I felt the desperation and helplessness and really fumbled through the sequence, but at the end of it all it felt like nothing really happened. Everyone at the camp is just watching. Like there was no questions, emotions or anything.

“Oh, you’re back to normal? That’s great.”

Also, they could have gone so many ways with Y’shtola’s aether vision but it’s just “oh, I discovered it too late”

Smh….

Honestly, I really dislike quests that turned me into the other scions. Like I picked the class I wanted for a reason, I do not want to play a gunbreaker, nor do I want to play Thancred on his Metal Gear mission. Good god man.

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Originally Posted by SamsaraTrickstar

Ye it's a really bad quest line over all. How it's even make logic? Just think of it, ascians all this time can just teleport me to where the fuck they want and did not killed me like this , because? And it show how poorly the villains this time are. Boring to the root. This is the most lame ascian so far. A Wana be joker? Then there zenos. Easy the most boring character in mmo history. And he used to be so good in SB. Why they made him so boring.

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You apparently didn't pay any attention to the storyline at all. You are told, specifically, that this 'experiment' is not an 'Ascian' thing but was developed quite recently by Garlemald.

I really enjoyed this duty. I really like roguelikes and I kind of got that feeling from this.

I hope they expand on this later and and in some more roguelike mechanics, like finding and utgrading abilities, increased hp etc

Well done.

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Originally Posted by KyahAlmasy

Honestly, I really dislike quests that turned me into the other scions. Like I picked the class I wanted for a reason, I do not want to play a gunbreaker, nor do I want to play Thancred on his Metal Gear mission. Good god man.

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For me, I actually do like these...but I wish they would keep my keybindings from the job they actually play. Or even have more interesting rotation stuff going on.

Additionally, just imho but if they're going to spend a chunk of time developing mechanics like this, I wish they would add more content of this nature as side story stuff. Completely optional. As is it feels very "minigame-y" which might be the point.

It's similar to why I dislike PvP so much.. the keybinds are just so disjointed from actual gameplay.

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Originally Posted by EmpyreanHelios

I just did this quest and it was awful!

Yeah I felt the desperation and helplessness and really fumbled through the sequence, but at the end of it all it felt like nothing really happened. Everyone at the camp is just watching. Like there was no questions, emotions or anything.

“Oh, you’re back to normal? That’s great.”

Also, they could have gone so many ways with Y’shtola’s aether vision but it’s just “oh, I discovered it too late”

Smh….

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They talk about it in their individual NPC dialogues a bit after, but you have to go out of your way to get them. Yshtola also mentions it in the following cutscenes depending on who visits you at night in Sharlayan. It's more like something lingering in their minds, but it's more of a personal discussion talk between you and them, 1 on 1, since each Scion reacts to the events differently. That's the way it has always been with the Scions. Nothing really happened because ... you managed to avert it. However, their emotions are disturbed, but they don't mention it at surface level.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

They talk about it in their individual NPC dialogues a bit after, but you have to go out of your way to get them. Yshtola also mentions it in the following cutscenes depending on who visits you at night in Sharlayan. It's more like something lingering in their minds, but it's more of a personal discussion talk between you and them, 1 on 1, since each Scion reacts to the events differently. That's the way it has always been with the Scions. Nothing really happened because ... you managed to avert it. However, their emotions are disturbed, but they don't mention it at surface level.

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I actually did talk to them individually after you wake up and that's what I mean by "Oh, you're back to normal? That's great." I'm just really disappointed because the beginning of the sequence was REALLY GOOD. You had to sneak around because your body was weak, crawling and eating dirt on the floor just to get back and warn your friends was such a nice touch?! The whole solo instance was annoying, but that part made up for it! And what happened? Nothing!

You're in front of your friends, humiliated on the floor with Zenos and Fandaniel gloating about how saving those people actually doomed the world instead. I just felt like my emotions accumulated just to have nothing happen. I was hoping for Zenos to actually hurt someone (like one of your friends) or maybe killed some people in the camp and that's going to weigh on your conscience because he did it with your body. I mean, the whole point was that he wanted to make you look at him. He talks about how causing all this death and destruction was to make you pursue him and what better way to do that than hurting the people you care about the most?

This could have been a really good turning point, both for the story and for making the audience care about Zenos and his actions. Y'shtola could have been useful or saw something was wrong with her eyes (she did reject our aether signature very strongly during ShB). Our body and soul could have been out of sync for a bit and Graha and co. could have done some healing because of their research in the soul.

Garlemald felt like a slog and I would have brush that aside if this ONE QUEST was done well, but it wasn't.

This entire thread is one giant scrubquote. I have no idea how you can be so bad at this game