[Main Story Quests] "Role-playing" duties-- can they be optional, please?

I know I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for this, but here it goes anyway...

First of all, as someone who left the game at the later end of 4.0 and returned just 2 weeks before 4.4 and had to catch up all that way I have to say that the solo duties are my least favorite content in the entire game. However, I can tolerate these because they're things that are happening to *my* character and obstacles that *I* have to overcome.

Then I get to patch 4.3 and I'm put into a solo duty... on Alphinaud... then at the end of 4.4 we're forced to play Y'shtola in a back to back duty (fail one and you get to repeat both!) and I can totally see them forcing us to play Thancred sometime during 4.5 where we're fighting that lion thing in the trailer. I have to say I'm not really excited about these duties-- I don't want to be forced to play a job I don't necessarily want to play and doubly so when I am forced to play that job on a *character* that I don't necessarily want to play.

From a RP standpoint, as the WOL I would really like to know that my companions have the ability to handle themselves in situations like this. I don't want to feel that I have to do everything for them and this really flushes that image down the toilet. And from a player standpoint-- if I wanted to make another character or play another job (I mean, I leveled all my jobs to 70) I would be playing that job or character of my own creation and not one given to me.

Don't get me wrong though. I can totally see how people might enjoy this content, but why can it not be optional content unlocked through the main story and put on... say the wandering minstrel or a similar NPC? I just really dislike the idea of being forced to play a job/character that I am not interested in playing. And I will admit that yes, being forced to do another solo duty on a character that I don't want to play on a job that I don't want to play does make me especially hostile to this content. I just don't really feel its appropriate to force something like this on a player for storytelling purposes in an MMO or any RPG where the player creates a character for his/herself.

Sorry for the rather lengthy rant. And NO! NO TLDR for J00! If I'm forced to do this content, you can be forced to read the post! (j/k).

Personally, I thought playing as a NPC was an interesting experience. I'm a subpar player and didn't find those fights hard. Maybe because only a few buttons to press so less stress for me.

You won't get any flak from me. I don't like the idea of playing as other characters either. If I wanted to play as some pre-made and clearly inferior hero I'd play any of the other Final Fantasies (except XI). If I wanted to play as Y'shtola I'd play Dissidia. If I wanted to play as Alphinaud I'd check myself into the nearest mental institution. No, this is the Warrior of Light's story. This is about her adventures and her battles. Everything the player experiences should be from her perspective. I dare say we shouldn't really even be witnessing events that she is not present for, but that's an even bigger kettle of fish than my retainers apparently have access to.

I think these roleplay duties were received well overall, so I wouldn't count on them going anywhere.

They're simplistic enough that you really shouldn't be struggling hard to beat them even if you've never touched the job; it's basically like the ones where you're riding magitek armor and get your hotbars replaced by magitek commands. (Other than that glitched one in Azim recently where sometimes the boss refused to actually die and they had to do a patch for...)

The role-playing parts are for the player. They have nothing to do with the Warrior of Light. The Warrior of Light is not in any way affecting them. You're not "controlling Y'shtola" as a Warrior of Light. You are simply shown the battle she had from her perspective as the player.

This is both so that you know the FULL story (Alphinaud's case) and...just for a change of pace (Y'shtola). It's absurdly common in all fiction. It's the least common in games, but even then there are cases where it's present.

And it's not like they are "jobs". Seriously, two or three abilities that are seriously overpowered is not something you can reasonably fail with nor something you'd need to study to use. Don't like it?! Well, no one forces you to like it. However removing them would mess with far more people than keeping them, while delegating them to optional content would be equal to you skipping chapters in a book then asking people what happened when you'd come across unknown reference.

In other words...sorry, but you'll have to "deal with it" somehow.

I could understand the complaint about it if it was required to do multiple missions and multiple instances as another in NPC... but it was a 5-6 min event.
People all the time say they wish the game would try something different. They did, and it was fresh and interesting. I look forward to doing it again as the story progresses forward.

I'll take these over more cutscenes with zero interaction. It's nice to be reminded once in a while that there actually are other people in the world who can fight.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

Well, no one forces you to like it. However removing them would mess with far more people than keeping them, while delegating them to optional content would be equal to you skipping chapters in a book then asking people what happened when you'd come across unknown reference.

In other words...sorry, but you'll have to "deal with it" somehow.

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No one forces me to like it, but I am forced to do it. Would you like a duty that forced you to be a certain class in order to proceed? What if it was a job/class you neither liked nor had ever played? I am not asking that these duties be removed or not developed. I am only asking them to be optional, you can tell me or show me what happens to Alphinaud or Y'shtola without having to make me play through the scenario myself. For those who want the more hands-on experience, there is the duty. For me, personally, there isn't much story telling value in the actual duty anyway considering the story continues after the duty and not really much during it. It feels more like I'm watching a movie, the movie pauses and I'm forced to go through an obstacle course before it goes on. Sure, some people may like the obstacle course, but I would find it annoying. This is one of the reasons I dislike some of the solo duties as well.

Personally, I really like the "roleplay fight" options we've been given and hope we get more. It's reminiscent of other real-time/active events in previous games. And with 4 whole buttons, it's not like they're really expecting us to learn a completely new job or method of playing. (We have PotD/HoH for that).

While I do think the WoL fight and Y'shtola's fight should have been separated so that failing the latter doesn't require you to redo the former, that's about my only gripe with them. I look forward to having more interactive play with the parts of the story that my character isn't directly involved in.

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Originally Posted by reiichi

Personally, I really like the "roleplay fight" options we've been given and hope we get more. It's reminiscent of other real-time/active events in previous games. And with 4 whole buttons, it's not like they're really expecting us to learn a completely new job or method of playing. (We have PotD/HoH for that).

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I'm not really complaining that they are hard (I assume, foolish as it is, you are implying I am with the "4 whole buttons" comment). But as someone who is from Balmung, surely you can relate to an argument where someone forces you to role-play THEIR way as opposed to letting you role-play YOUR way? I'm just asking for the option to skip or do it later if I feel like it. Heck, if the duty was on the wandering minstrel or another NPC, you could actually repeat it if you felt like it.

Sounds like a personal problem, really.

I actually appreciate these duties, because as of late, I'm not overly fond of stories that revolve entirely around the player character and their party (if any). It's good to be taken out of your comfort zone after a while, it keeps you sharp. Complacency is bad.

I will also admit that I would be mildly amused by the community's reaction if the devs made an optional Bard-centric role play duty that expected people to play at raid-level, and gated a new hairstyle or something behind it. >_>

You are "forced" to play this job like 0,01% of the overall playtime of the whole main story.
Please....... stop the whining

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

I'm not really complaining that they are hard (I assume, foolish as it is, you are implying I am with the "4 whole buttons" comment). But as someone who is from Balmung, surely you can relate to an argument where someone forces you to role-play THEIR way as opposed to letting you role-play YOUR way? I'm just asking for the option to skip or do it later if I feel like it. Heck, if the duty was on the wandering minstrel or another NPC, you could actually repeat it if you felt like it.

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It may not have been your intention, but there's a nearly identical thread where the OP did kinda throw a fit because "I DON'T WANT TO PLAY X OR Y CLASS. I ONLY Z!!! HOW CAN SE MAKE ME DO THIS????"

Second, being on Balmung doesn't equate that I RP. Or actively do. Anymore. But calling these fights roleplay is a very different beast than what players do typically on Balmung or Mateus, as even the combat RP pretty much comes in two forms: you /random or you freeform and have to "trust" the other person. (And oh boy have I developed some RP Trust issues these days.) But even then, it's a nice change of pace to exit one's comfort zone and try something else. At least in terms of RP preferences, it's also about accomodating the other RPers you're with as well. Don't para-RP with a bunch of people who type fast one-two sentence replies. Or only give a single word response to para-RPers. Don't write out your characters entire inner monologue of thoughts around people who keep things very show don't tell. Don't feed the meta gamers. And don't ego-boost the power gamers/godmodders. While RPers generally will find a like-minded group, I get that with MSQ content, you can't really just....not do it. I think that having a skip option would be fine, although it would feel rather boring to me.

I feel like the RP battles do enhance the cutscenes thought, which is just a thing we'll probably disagree in. ...I even had to do Y'shtola's a couple times because I failed it. (Good on SE for forcing people to actually cast cure.) But I'm also of the mind that the solo instances are good content. And personally, I'd like some of them to be WAY harder because it'd help weed out some of the more lackluster players from getting too far into things. Like...people should typically know how to play their class. And if they could lessen the gap between truly godawful, average, and savage-tier raider, that'd be interesting. But that's also because I'm more in the camp that thinks the Novice Hall should be given more duties. And perhaps some Intermediate Hall as well, which makes people learn mechanics, but that's a different thread.

If we had the option to do those solo battles again, I'd personally love that feature. And one could argue that the whole New Game+ thing offers that, but I'm not gonna replay the entire story just for a single fight unless it's shitting out EXP for an alt class/job or something.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

You are "forced" to play this job like 0,01% of the overall playtime of the whole main story.
Please....... stop the whining

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Yea if we had to do this a lot I'd understand op's issue...but we have had to do it for a handful of minutes out the literal hours of other solo duties in the game. And unless you play alts you only have to do each battle once.

Also calling the npc battles playing "a class I don't like" is quite a stretch considering they have what, four buttons? That's not a class at all. You don't even need to press them in a specific order to do a correct rotation. A lvl 20 player character is significantly more complex.

Personally I thoroughly enjoyed these duties. Cut-scenes can be great but I really loved getting an actual taste as to the capability of these npcs and their unique abilities the WoL doesn't have. While their skill pool is very small, man they are powerful.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Yea if we had to do this a lot I'd understand op's issue...but we have had to do it for a handful of minutes out the literal hours of other solo duties in the game. And unless you play alts you only have to do each battle once.

Also calling the npc battles playing "a class I don't like" is quite a stretch considering they have what, four buttons? That's not a class at all. You don't even need to press them in a specific order to do a correct rotation. A lvl 20 player character is significantly more complex.

Personally I thoroughly enjoyed these duties. Cut-scenes can be great but I really loved getting an actual taste as to the capability of these npcs and their unique abilities the WoL doesn't have. While their skill pool is very small, man they are powerful.

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They're even slightly OP. Alphinaud's Ruin III had Ruin 4 potency. And Y'shtola had a Cure I (in terms of MP cost) with Cure II potency. Also pretty sure her Lucid Dreaming was shorter in cooldown than the regular one.

I just caught up in story, and I liked them. :)

The NPC role play fights are very reminiscent of when you get to play as a guest character in older FF titles, so if anything I would of liked XIV to introduce it sooner. They definitely do bring a bit of life in to the normal fights you get as the WoL in other MSQ instances, but different strokes I suppose...

It's a story driven game. You only have to do each quest once - and then never touch it ever again.

I find them refreshing. The idea that the Warrior of Light accomplishes most things of note in this game is getting very stale. With this system, we have the potential to get a good look at what other major characters are doing with their lives. I'm hoping it'll apply to antagonists as well for an intriguing twist and to better show their point of view.

I like them they are pretty good and they VERY HEAVILY remind me of Mabinogi's RP dungeons which did the same thing of putting you in control of a story NPC with their own skill sets and stats

I liked them aswell.
And at the same time there are parts of the story that I didnt like - gameplaywise, storytellingwise... and I'm sure everyone else has their own parts they didnt like. Should the devs just hand all of us a "Personal Main Story Quest Construction Kit" and we pick and choose what story we want to see (uncheck "romance" to make scene with that disappear! Uncheck "Violence" and everyone is gonna be super polite and there will be no more fighting!)?

No, they should not.
This is their game. Their vision for the story and how best to tell us that story. If you want to think about this as RP, think about it as Pen&Paper with a Gamemaster whos telling the story the want to tell you, not as "free RP".
I liked how they showed us whats going on elsewhere with Alphinaud; and I liked how they went "We wont make you fight Sadu again" - I also like how this is giving me the illusion that my character and Sadu had a really intense battle, instead of me just beating a dummy for 3 minutes.
I'd say, both instance were good storytelling choices and if they continue to use those battles like this - at times when it makes sense for the story and only once in a while - they're a good addition to the MSQ.

Everyone of us has parts there that they'd rather not do. But everyone of us should also have enough respect for the people who are telling us this story and for their vision of the their game. No need for the construction kit, specially not about something minor like this...

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

No one forces me to like it, but I am forced to do it. Would you like a duty that forced you to be a certain class in order to proceed?

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Yes, actually. Too bad for you, but I did come to this game exactly because of the multi-class system and I hoped it would have actual support, beyond just saving me making alt characters.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

I am only asking them to be optional, you can tell me or show me what happens to Alphinaud or Y'shtola without having to make me play through the scenario myself.

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That is a lot of extra work for little to no extra gain. You are in the minority. Just how everyone needs to do the fetch quests which I don't think many like, just like everyone needs to do the trials which I know some don't like (there are people with social anxiety for which eight-man trials are horror itself), just like everyone needs to do the solo instances which I can assure you many people don't like (wanting to do em with friends)...This is just another thing like that. One that was actually indirectly asked for by players and one that was actually a rather successful experiment...rare for FXIV.

Not everything in any game will match everyone's tastes. The developers cannot possibly hope to accommodate everyone. When they do try, they are just making matters worse anyway.

I find them to be okay if they are staying rare because in the end I am playing this game for my character and hope that this wont turn into something that is done too often. (It would also lose its appeal quite fast imo)

The one thing I just find annoying is either barely any skills which makes the fight a bit boring, or wondering where the NPCs learned their special ones that they somehow not use outside of it.

If it’s just once every patch I don’t think it’s too overbearing. Maybe it’s even a good place to throw in a couple teaser skills of a new job? Really, we’ve been playing our own character for 99% of the game and when Square-Enix tries to do something for the 1% there’s always that one party pooper.

If ppl are forced to play thru 1,795 fetch quests, which are much more often complained about, I think 2 rp quests are tolerable. They are different, not difficult and short. I thought it was neat when I took control of Alph, even though I loathe that character. I honestly would like to see more of this sort of thing.

It would be interesting, for instance, to take control of Thancred when he's infiltrating a Garlean stronghold. Or someone who is in the middle of an invasion. You would get to see bits you wouldn't otherwise. It's much better from a story telling standpoint than the previously mentioned fetch quests, and if there is one thing SE does well its story (unless they split the story into 2, but don't even get me started on the absolute mess of Stormblood's story)

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Originally Posted by XykeVayaris

If it’s just once every patch I don’t think it’s too overbearing. Maybe it’s even a good place to throw in a couple teaser skills of a new job? Really, we’ve been playing our own character for 99% of the game and when Square-Enix tries to do something for the 1% there’s always that one party pooper.

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I liked it, but I don't know about once every patch. The actual game play is super boring (like 3 skills), it would lose it's gimmick quick.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Yea if we had to do this a lot I'd understand op's issue...but we have had to do it for a handful of minutes out the literal hours of other solo duties in the game. And unless you play alts you only have to do each battle once.

Also calling the npc battles playing "a class I don't like" is quite a stretch considering they have what, four buttons? That's not a class at all. You don't even need to press them in a specific order to do a correct rotation. A lvl 20 player character is significantly more complex.

Personally I thoroughly enjoyed these duties. Cut-scenes can be great but I really loved getting an actual taste as to the capability of these npcs and their unique abilities the WoL doesn't have. While their skill pool is very small, man they are powerful.

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That's not even a matter or liking it or not. Sure people have the right to have their opinion.
But they kinda know their community more that what we think they do, that's why upon implementing those kind of "new" type of gameplay, that's only small touch to see how it's received and they won't go really further with it. We all have some things we dislike winthin the most basic content of this game (main scenario). Doesn't mean it shouldn't exist at all. They'll never please everyone and well, you know, some diversity and all.
But yes, having 4 buttons can't really be called "playing a job". They also made it easy to handle with because we have to play it for one instance only. The feeling is more on "play a character you might like in the main scenario" than "play a different job".

I hope it stays.

It's one of those new things that SE managed to do right imo. It's short and doesn't interfere in msq repetitively enough to get fed up. I honestly hope in some future they can do this as prolonged side content for various npcs like Merlwyb or Raubhan as an example.

The time between patches is so long that putting one of these short, different duties is an excellent idea that I enjoyed very much. Can't wait to see which character they will make me play as in 4.5. Seriously people, it's like you're digging for reasons to complain. If you don't like the game for these less than 1% kind of battles, then get out of here and go play something else.

It's kind of funny there people who for years use the if I didn't see the scions or whomever fight in a cut scene then it equated to for them as never happening. Now we've gotten two fights that have made us see what happened while we were fighting someone or something else and people complain. I guess since the op did say they didn't want to watch things that didn't happen to or with their character that they wouldn't have wanted to see the scene with the archbishop before HW came out or the scene on the moon or any scene that's like that either.

For the next one I'd like to see a non caster but I'm not sure how you'd make a melee or a tank work with just 4 buttons.

Nah. Keep them in and sparse, less than one per patch especially with the patches driven with separating your "main NPCs".

I find them a refreshing change of pace from fetch quests and just plain text to show me what's going on. I love cutscenes but being able to 'battle' as Alphinaud was far better than a short cutscene of what happened. So long as Raubahn Savage doesn't occur with it, it doesn't hinder my progress through the main story that I enjoy a lot. These battles enhanced my enjoyment so I'm quite happy with them staying so long as it doesn't get too long or repetitive.

I had more issues during the battle in Azim Steppe cause it was battle after battle after cutscene instance that if the servers had a hiccup I'd be doing the entire. set. of instances. all. over again.

I personally find it to be a rather engaging means of storytelling. So far, it does not outshine your character and that fact doesn't make me find anything bad about it.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

I am only asking them to be optional, you can tell me or show me what happens to Alphinaud or Y'shtola without having to make me play through the scenario myself.

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not going to happen because it costs too much.

if it's optional it means they have to make the fight and they have to make a cut-scene that people who skip the fight can watch. they're not going to get approved to do double work for you.

i don't really care for them either, but this is a game first, more options to play is not bad.

Not to be negative, I quite enjoyed them, although Y'shtola's one was annoying because I went in as Warrior to play Warrior and while it was just Sadu again, I think that the fact that Magnai's fight wasn't what was interesting about that point. Where as, when you do Alphinaud's portion it's when nothing is going on. And I'd much rather that. Either a "meanwhile" or a "since nothing interesting is happening, here's what's happening over here."

That being said, I kind of saw this coming when I saw Y'shtola was a healer. There are many people who just don't like healing, and that's fine. But just like how they said "we can't force people to play tank" (which was during the "there's no tank or healer" debacle before Stormblood.) and yeah, that's true.

I will admit I also think it could be used as a clever way of introducing people in playing other classes. I could see this making people go "Oh. This was fun. Now I want to try White Mage" and I feel maybe giving players 5 or 6 more moves than just 4 might help that a lot more. I'll support it if it gives us the ability to introduce players into other play styles and see if we can get more tanks/healers out of this or people who play all three.

They’re probably gonna have a Thancred instance as a demo mode for the Gunblade job that seems to be coming out in 5.0.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

not going to happen because it costs too much.

if it's optional it means they have to make the fight and they have to make a cut-scene that people who skip the fight can watch. they're not going to get approved to do double work for you.

i don't really care for them either, but this is a game first, more options to play is not bad.

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There is literally like no story contained within the fight itself. Besides, you can skip every cut scene in the main story and the cutscenes thereafter don't take into account whether or not you skipped the previous cutscene(s). If the fights are trivial, the story contained within is trivial, and I can skip the cutscenes (which probably cost more to make with voice acting and all that), then why not be able to skip these? And before you try to make the argument that maybe these cutscenes will contain important story elements in the future-- how will that affect people who stream the game on Twitch and skip the cutscenes to avoid story spoilers for their viewers? Will they be screwed now because they can't skip the fights and some guy in the fight says something that spoils a major plot point? As for work, I'm really not asking for much more than Press ESC -> skip optional duty -> duty ends, life goes on.

I also notice that you say more options are a good thing while advocating for a feature that is not optional.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/bb/c5/bf/b...56e5256585.jpg

In a nutshell.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

There is literally like no story contained within the fight itself.

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Oh yea sure, being able to see exactly what npc abilities do and read their tooltips instead of just guess from a spell graphic, actually experience their fight for yourself, and listen/read the in-combat dialogue does not contain story.

/s

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

If the fights are trivial, the story contained within is trivial

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Just because something is easy doesn't automatically make it not fun or not cool.

As a sch main I'm very curious about Alphinaud's combat abilities because we share the same base class. While the fight I played as him was easy, I had a lot of fun. It was cool to play with different abilities as well as get more insight about the arcanist discipline. As for Y'shtola I had to fight the same npc again but with a completely different set of abilities, so that in itself was interesting.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

and I can skip the cutscenes (which probably cost more to make with voice acting and all that), then why not be able to skip these?

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Because they're not cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

As for work, I'm really not asking for much more than Press ESC -> skip optional duty -> duty ends, life goes on.

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You are literally asking to be able to skip playable content from the msq. No playable msq content is optional, so why should this be?

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

I also notice that you say more options are a good thing while advocating for a feature that is not optional.

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I think he means to say more ways to experience the game.

I actually think it was a great idea and helps new and old players experience other classes and roles outside of their comfort zone.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

From a RP standpoint, as the WOL I would really like to know that my companions have the ability to handle themselves in situations like this. I don't want to feel that I have to do everything for them and this really flushes that image down the toilet.

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But... you're not doing everything for them? Just because you're playing as Y'shtola or Alphinaud doesn't mean that they didn't actually kick ass and win that fight. If anything, it's more empowering for them than waiting around for the Warrior of Light to come and save the day because they literally cannot win a fight without you there.

The only issue I have with these duties is that I have to actually click buttons rather than using hotkeys.

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Originally Posted by JohnSpawnVFX

They're even slightly OP. Alphinaud's Ruin III had Ruin 4 potency. And Y'shtola had a Cure I (in terms of MP cost) with Cure II potency. Also pretty sure her Lucid Dreaming was shorter in cooldown than the regular one.

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It's not Lucid Dreaming. It's just a flat MP restore.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's a story driven game. You only have to do each quest once - and then never touch it ever again.

I find them refreshing. The idea that the Warrior of Light accomplishes most things of note in this game is getting very stale. With this system, we have the potential to get a good look at what other major characters are doing with their lives. I'm hoping it'll apply to antagonists as well for an intriguing twist and to better show their point of view.

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Knowing Yoshi-P's love of trolling, we'll have to play as an antagonist and kill (Insert Popular NPC name).