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

To me, this is one of (if not the) best solo instances in the game (the Metal Gear Solid: Thancred is a close second)! You can really feel how weak and hopeless the average soldier is! Especially with the urgency of what is happening in the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by PyurBlue

This leans a lot on gameplay inconsistencies. What makes trusts more indicative of the other Scions abilities than duties or cutscenes where they can get away with pulling room clearing abilities out of nowhere that honestly embarrass the skills of the jobs we get to play as the WoL? I'll not get specific, but it surely doesn't take much thinking to remember an instance when we had to buy time for someone to charge an attack that destroyed everything on the battlefield. Sometimes they don't even need us as a distraction and the power gets used to save us. It happens all the time in FF14.

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Dude, it is just a video game. Chill.

This was easily one of my more favorited solo duities in the entire game, and the story surrounding it really made me feel immersed. I can see why some don't like it but I'm of the side that I want more of this content.

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Originally Posted by Remish

This was easily one of my more favorited solo duities in the entire game, and the story surrounding it really made me feel immersed. I can see why some don't like it but I'm of the side that I want more of this content.

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same
the desperation and panic especially towards the end of the sequence was really impactful, my favorite taking-control-of-another section by a large margin.
while i understand others frustration this is why we have easy and very easy options. but for myself i appreciate more challenging sections being optional in the msq.

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Originally Posted by Lihtleita

same
the desperation and panic especially towards the end of the sequence was really impactful, my favorite taking-control-of-another section by a large margin.
while i understand others frustration this is why we have easy and very easy options. but for myself i appreciate more challenging sections being optional in the msq.

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This was honestly one of few times I really felt like the 'play as someone else' thing had a real narrative purpose and wasn't just there for the sake of itself or padding.

The gameplay elements of having to be sneaky, picking your fights, being so weak etc fit the story very well in ways that a mere cutscene alone couldn't convey as effectively. As opposed to 'we're going to make you control Alisae for a fight that could have just been a cutscene' etc.

I logged in after years to say I hate this quest and I hope it will be changed in the future.

Sorry but I absolutely loved this quest. It was frustratingly amazing. That's what I'd call it. Tough, scary, and for the first time in the whole game you feel truly powerless and weak. I personally even lost the first fight because I didn't grasp the fact that I wasn't an unstoppable force anymore. Didn't use the defense buff because I thought I wouldn't need it. Didn't use the attack buff at the right time either. It ended with us both dying at the same time, which I feel is the perfect example of what they were trying to portray: WoL is a powerhouse of biblical proportions, while any other normal soldier is most certainly not. And having to run around and scavenge made it feel all the more perilous. Then the area after that part was a cherry on top. Absolutely frustratingly amazing, and I'd love to see more of these moments of self-realization and reflection.

If you're having too much trouble, Very Easy is for you. That's what they put it there for. That said, I don't know how easier it is in that setting since I kept it on Normal, but I imagine it'd be...well, alot easier.

I had to try over and over, even with the practice I had at stealth from the other quests, even with the practice I had playing underpowered characters to pass through quests elsewhere in this expansion.

There was a LOT of practice we were given to do, and it was still almost not enough to see me through this.

Almost.

And then I failed the active time event... I won't say how often.

I felt it, the power less ness, the hope less ness.... the brok en stil ted shat ter ing ....

It cast you low, so that you could feel awesome latter.

Every hero's journy has that step.

Honestly, all the quest really needs is markers to show you where to go next.

Thematically, it really demonstrated that for everything we are, it's our undying willpower/determination that forms the core of what makes us strong, though at the same time it really engendered a feeling of helplessness when you're not able to save the Garleans from being killed at the end.

This was the most frustrating duty FF14 ever offered to me. Yet I enjoyed it immensely. Why? It was meant to trigger the player, to let the player feel the desperation of the moment, the helplessness, weakness of an average person. The duty succeeded in that. The only thing they could have done better were to give us information on to what to look out for. Even though I suspected that the Magitek machine was the key to winning the duty.

Also the duty fitted what Zenos asked us right before. What makes true strength? The body? Or the soul?

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Originally Posted by Schwarzwind

This was the most frustrating duty FF14 ever offered to me. Yet I enjoyed it immensely. Why? It was meant to trigger the player, to let the player feel the desperation of the moment, the helplessness, weakness of an average person. The duty succeeded in that. The only thing they could have done better were to give us information on to what to look out for. Even though I suspected that the Magitek machine was the key to winning the duty.

Also the duty fitted what Zenos asked us right before. What makes true strength? The body? Or the soul?

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Exactly. This is why I welcomed that frustration and the need to think on my feet. Scavenge, run, hide, and be fearful of every potential battle. Things the WoL never really needs to do. It just made you returning to your former self all the more sweeter and gives you a perspective you didn't have until now.

It reminds me of what Quintus says when his soldiers are about to try and put a shock collar on the WoL; basically stating it won't affect him/her at all. Just that moment alone tells you just how strong the WoL is even compared to the other Scions. I feel as if this was a subtle hint of what was to come.

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Originally Posted by SoulEchelon

Exactly. This is why I welcomed that frustration and the need to think on my feet. Scavenge, run, hide, and be fearful of every potential battle. Things the WoL never really needs to do. It just made you returning to your former self all the more sweeter and gives you a perspective you didn't have until now.

It reminds me of what Quintus says when his soldiers are about to try and put a shock collar on the WoL; basically stating it won't affect him/her at all. Just that moment alone tells you just how strong the WoL is even compared to the other Scions. I feel as if this was a subtle hint of what was to come.

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I agree with that! The duty gave the WoL the perspective of a normal person and sort of kicks him from his untouchableness, which was really in order after we became that great hero battling one god after another without breaking a sweat.

The duty showed that even the weakest can do great things and be truly strong. Which counters Emet-Selchs point that only the Ancients are worthy of life. The WoL proved, weak and helpless, that his undying will to live and protect what is precious to him overcomes every obstacle in his way. Even when the WoL is at his lowest he never gives up. Just like so many other normal people fighting for what they love and live for. This was also a good foreshadowing of what is to come in Ultima Thule.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

This was honestly one of few times I really felt like the 'play as someone else' thing had a real narrative purpose and wasn't just there for the sake of itself or padding.

The gameplay elements of having to be sneaky, picking your fights, being so weak etc fit the story very well in ways that a mere cutscene alone couldn't convey as effectively. As opposed to 'we're going to make you control Alisae for a fight that could have just been a cutscene' etc.

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Honestly I agree with you there, I like how they made a quest that's meant to make us feel helpless and question if it's just our abilities and innate talents that carry us, and putting us in a body that doesn't have any of the gifts that we the player character do have access to was pretty brilliant, though for me I mostly enjoyed it because it made me remember my Heaven on High solo runs and just how utterly scary those upper floors were since everything there can easily kill you if you don't pay attention and pick your fights

That being said, I really wish they could have done it without the random barriers or quest objectives, if they simply did the quest in a more defined area marked with actual visible borders then it would have saved a lot of people the frustration of "What does the game want me to do exactly?" and kicking them out of the moment when they should be focused on survival, not the invisible objectives that Square Enix set for us to pass the battle quest

I mean they can't all be winners. I didn't like this quest at all, in fact I never like the play-as-npc-with-3-buttons quests, but I think the endless escorts might be worse hahaha. That said, my overall feeling about the content is pretty positive. The dungeons are already a big step up and the trials at both normal and extreme are engaging and cool. It's not a proper mmo if questing doesn't hurt a little bit, right?

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Originally Posted by elizeugba

Dude, it is just a video game. Chill.

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And this is a forum. We're here to discuss aren't we? If no one wanted to talk what purpose would this site serve?

While I said earlier that I enjoyed the instance gameplay and mechanic wise, I do agree in retrospect that the whole scenario as presented does feel a little out of place and pointless. Not in what it showed of the existence of your standard Garlean soldier (which I liked) but more in the whole narrative framing as well as it's long term impact narrative impact, of which there really wasn't any. They could have still had pretty much the same exact instance but done through the Echo as the WoL experiencing the last moments in the life of a Garlean soldier or something similar.

I can understand how some feel violated but I gather that was the point. Our adversary has no qualms and will do whatever he pleases. No line exists if it prevents his desires.

I found the instance very fun but I'm a huge stealth fan so this was right up my alley. I do think if they do something similar in the future, a bit more guidance could be good. I went completely the wrong way first.

Honestly, these ‘role-playing’ quests are just a pain. I’m not fond of playing an NPC that is given 3-5 abilities, that are assigned randomly to my hotbar and keybinds and also the whole thing doesn’t last long enough to warrant creating a clean setup.

The worst thing was possibly the fight where you control Thancred vs. that general in ShB, mashing 3 skills for 10 minutes trying to kill the biggest HP sponge in existence.

I’m just glad that it seems they de-sponged the enemies, especially the ones in scenarios in this expac.

On the other hand, the scenario where you control the soldier at least had a purpose. It made you feel what it’s like to be on the opposite side of the power spectrum, to be one of the guys you regularly steamroll without giving a second look.

I understand the reasoning behind this quest. Still I wonder if we really should use this to compare the WoL to other people. Our lvl 1 WoL would have had the same problems even though their soul and body would have been the same. Its just that unlike most people we had many quests and are working hard learning our jobs and improving constantly which includes our own body. So its not really that surprising that another body would be weaker. Of course if you are a paladin it is a bit strange that you would not know more skills. You still have your memories and even if you the WoL still has to get used to the new form this was still the body of a soldier.

So yeah for that it was fine, I just really dont like how it was solved. For me it would have been better if we had to switch to another body that was still able to walk, thus making sense that we would somehow reach the camp. (And it would have been a bit better if the other NPCs were on their knees before Zenos!WoL.)

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Originally Posted by Alleo

I understand the reasoning behind this quest. Still I wonder if we really should use this to compare the WoL to other people. Our lvl 1 WoL would have had the same problems even though their soul and body would have been the same. Its just that unlike most people we had many quests and are working hard learning our jobs and improving constantly which includes our own body. So its not really that surprising that another body would be weaker. Of course if you are a paladin it is a bit strange that you would not know more skills. You still have your memories and even if you the WoL still has to get used to the new form this was still the body of a soldier.

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I thought about that as well. However, I understood that quest more as a trial of will. Not as a trial of bodily strength. The only thing that let's the WoL succeed is after all not the strength of the body or his combat experience but his will to survive so that he can save his friends from Zenos. Considering the theme of Endwalker, Azem, Venat and the WoL represent the will to live itself. Which is what saves the world in the end. And even with lvl 1, if we want to take game mechanics into account, the WoL was outstanding compared to others. He was always a bit special and stood out among his peers. So giving him the body of a normal person/soldier gives the WoL a new perspective because his body and skills are different and weaker compared to his own.

It wasn't as bad as Monkey madness 2's stealth section at least. I still have nightmares.

Filtered.

Did I on first try with 9 minutes left. The quest wasn't hard its just people can't read when the game tells you to don't fight robots and avoid unnecessary fights.

I honestly loved this. It's easily my favorite moment in the entire game so far. It was the first time in the game where I felt absolutely terrified for my WOL. For once, I didn't feel like he was safe, and his struggle was so very real.

Yeah, it was a bit of a challenge, but when you "scurry like a rat" from cover to cover and carefully figure out the safest path, it's not that hard. I only failed once, and got through with only fighting twice before blasting through and joining up with the allies. You can't play it like it's an easy walk in the park, because it's not meant to be. It's meant to be a terrifying, disorienting struggle, and it succeeds.

Also the slow crawl down the street in dead silence.... *chef's kiss*

Kinda felt like they took inspiration from games like Nier where we had to limp walk 2B to the bridge. At least we could see while we crawled D: legit almost panicked when I got to crawling and only had 8 mins left lol literally said out loud to myself “there’s no f**king way I’m gonna make it !” What a relief haha. Anyway I thought it was fun, intense but fun.

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Originally Posted by Selova

No idea where the frustration is even coming from, all you do is stealth>incapacitate then click the things. Are people seriously struggling with this?

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That was the one before this, which requires sneaking through the destroyed town (without stealth), finding the mech, fuel and key for it. then starting it up to destroy al the mobs at the exit gate.

I cleared this duty on first try by avoiding most of the mobs. The first encounter tells me "Wow, this toon is weak". I only fight when its necessary like the object it is guarding. Follow the objectives given and its a clear. Barely.....

I don't think it was that bad. Yeah fighting wasn't great, but the point of the duty was to avoid fights. I will admit that the stealth mechanics probably could have been done better, like being able to see more clearly the vision zone of enemies. It's definitely not perfect and not my favorite part, but I wouldn't call it the worst experience I've had. Honestly, I think it is good that they try things like this; better to take risks and fail than to play safe and become stagnant.

Honestly this quest was somewhat of a bad game design for me. You have only a MILD IDEA of where to go. The chances of you running into the fuel container first are EXTREMELY HIGH, but you don't know you'll need it. And when the game asks you to go back for it, you have NO IDEA WHERE THE FUCK IT WAS!

My first time I was almost out of the exit, when two MONSTERS (yes, monsters) decided to come out of nowhere and gang up on me. I had no pots left so I died. Mainly because earlier I was ambushed carrying the fuel, causing me to dump all my potions.

I was so angry, I decided to do it again on Normal mode just to give the game the middle finger! Even on my second try, it was still pretty annoying. The worst part is that even if I hadn't died on my first time, I probably wouldn't have gotten out in time since there's more after you reach the second portal. I spent FOREVER looking around for the fuel that I found at the start. On my second playthrough, I made sure to link it on my map. A lot of people are saying to "avoid combat", but that's easier said than done when you're on a timer and have no idea where the fuel container was.

To anyone who has done it on Very Easy, I'm curious to know what changes. Are there less monsters? Or do you just do more damage?

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

The quest is annoying enough, but that isn't my issue with it. Spoilers inc.

I lost a lot of faith in my character thanks to this quest. All this time we have been led to believe our character was special. More CONCENTRATED, so to speak. We resist tempering, we possess the Echo, we face insurmountable odds all the time.

Then we are casually kidnapped, our body taken, our spirit shunted into some nothing body, apparently without effort.

It's like we get :eyeroll: for this quest. Never has being in my character been so uncomfortable. Never again SE. It WILL cause me to quit. Thanks for giving the impression of great power and then completely removing it.

Far too often have I been made to feel like a tool this expansion. Are we really so great, or just a means to an end we have zero control over?

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this is my gripe with it
the quest wasn't particularly hard, nor did I found it hard to grasp what to do since it was pretty obvious, but:

why the ever loving f are we so weak in the quest when zenos, in a random dead mook's body, scares elidibus? the very same zenos that absolutely jobbed to us as himself AND powered up as shinryu?

Zenos is not normal by any stretch of the imagination.

We've still yet to receive a proper explanation as to why he was so abnormally powerful since his visions of the Final Days implied he was different even before he received his Resonant echo.

Hopefully that's something that gets explained in Pandemonium or some other 6.x content. The way he's constantly referred to as a beast, even by the Watcher makes me wonder if perhaps he's a reincarnation of something that wasn't even human originally.

I was a big fan of this actually…at first.

It was a good idea and felt really fresh and really reaaaally made you feel the hopelessness.

My big complaint was there didn’t seem to be a lot of logic in where to go. I wanted to just exit the city, regardless of direction, and kept getting turned around. Especially starting and being able to get to the east side, I would have wanted to keep going go east then simply skirt around the city where there are fewer enemies. The direction we had to go (into the heart of the mess) just didn’t make sense to me. Why repair the reaper when I could have just gone left and avoided everything entirely a block earlier?

I would have rather it just allowed you to get to a specific point with hordes of enemies; even allowing multiple “exit” points. Maybe some mechanic like throwing a rock to distract enemies.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Zenos is not normal by any stretch of the imagination.

We've still yet to receive a proper explanation as to why he was so abnormally powerful since his visions of the Final Days implied he was different even before he received his Resonant echo.

Hopefully that's something that gets explained in Pandemonium or some other 6.x content. The way he's constantly referred to as a beast, even by the Watcher makes me wonder if perhaps he's a reincarnation of something that wasn't even human originally.

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yeah, but neither are we, no?

iirc he was experimented on as a kid, going through that 'tune up' thing that weird looking roe in stb went through, only not going too crazy with it? at least I swear someone mentioned this at one point

Seriously OP, and the 20+ people who upvoted that post?
I just did that MSQ Instance, and you were REALLY gonna Quit the Game over it?

It wasn't even that hard. I fail to understand everyone who hated this Instance so much.
Is a little bit of Challenge by making you under-powered and having you put in a little work so bad? To actually have you do more then just attack X target asking to much?
This Instance was awesome, it was different. I especially loved the feeling of helplessness and how you cant just Brute-Force your way through without Challenge.
I to see another instance like this in the future. Mix things up.

I tried two times the first night I encountered this - switched to easy mode the second time.
After the second time I quit for the night.

But I honestly think the reason I did was that I had a two and a half hour babysitting the logon queue before that. I was honestly just plain tired after that, and a bit of a headache coming on.
So after that crap twice (I really don't like when you're forced to play someone else, and I didn't like the whole getting-my-character-possessed thing), I just wasn't having any of it.

I did not babysit a queue for 2.5 hours (dc'd three times during it) to have THAT thrown at me.
I did take screenshots of where I was when I:
1) found the out-of-gas mech
2) found the tank of gas
and was able to set waypoints the first time I tried it last night, and succeeded.

BUT - last night, after another two-hour babysitting marathon, I made sure to get done the crafting/gathering/turn-in type things ASAP once I logged in, in case this duty threw me over the edge again.
But it didn't - finished it the first time. Thank goodness we didn't have to real-time crawl at the end though...

I've got some sort of bug with this. I've tried 2 keyboards and 2 gamepads. In the sequence at the end, it does not register any inputs. I'm actually completely blocked by this quest now.

I didn't enjoy it. It wasn't hard, it just wasn't fun to me. That said, I dislike most roleplaying duties. From a story angle, I did like the situation ... so it's a hit or miss.

This was a great way of showing (not telling) us how powerful we truly are. Going toe to toe with a solider only to come out of it near death reminded me of that. Not having auto-regen made me realize that even the simple mechanic of recovering health is accounted for in lore. This wasn't difficult and it certainly wasn't out of the realm of things FFXIV has done before.

I can understand if people dislike it because it wasn't their cup of tea, but I strongly disagree that it was poorly executed.

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Originally Posted by Deusteele

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I don't entirely agree with this take. And I'm gonna start by saying I do have some issues with the quest's story, and the general context and related story.

But I liked this duty. I liked it a lot. It was definitely tougher than a lot of the other duties we've dealt with, and the sub-objectives weren't terrifically clear, but it ended up feeling more like a puzzle to me than anything else. I actually liked that the objectives weren't completely obvious, and that you kind of had to figure them out. What I liked most about it though was that it showed our character still coming up with solutions and working their way through a high-stakes situation and managing to still make a difference, even in a body without the strength and power that they're used to. The situation was far from being in their favor but they still managed to pull through, but it also still had that sense of urgency to it - of knowing they easily could've failed.

As for the rest, I have a TON of issues with Fandaniel and Zenos just in general.

I am so far beyond tired of Zenos and his obsessive self-important drivel. At this point my character has little reason to view him as anything other than an incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous nuisance, seeing as he seems to mostly just be sitting around giving orders that seem to be primarily getting carried out by Fandaniel for... reasons I'm still not entirely sure I understand. Watching those two interact feels like watching a bizarre horror-comedy sit com with Fandaniel in one corner being the passive aggressive cousin ready to tear out someone's throat for a laugh and Zenos being the other cousin who's tolerating him because he's far too edgy and cool to cut him in half like he probably wants to.

All of that rambling to say, that for me the only thing that felt cheap about this particular quest is that it feels an awful lot like this entire little subplot was entirely just a whim of the current main antagonists, a diversion on top of a distraction that sure, delayed us but also accomplished... nothing?? Of note that the attack wouldn't have done already?? Like Fandaniel did this just to see if he could. For. Reasons, I guess.

Imo the story problems with this quest are less a function of the quest itself, but of the broader context of the story... and having one half of your dynamic duo villain pair being a one dimensional murder bot whose entire personality is being obsessed with fighting the warrior of light.

That said I'm still only on the L84 quests so have a lot to go, maybe my feelings on that will change, but so far the outlook isn't great lol

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

Seriously considering quitting the game over this one.

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Thanks. I needed a good laugh.

Doing that instance I had two thoughts:

1. MASSIVE ANXIETY
2. oh man, people are gonna cry about this on the forums so hard

Kudos to the scenario designers for making an instance that wove such dread and anxiety out of a simple stealth/survival mechanic instance.