7.3 MSQ puzzles

Simple as it was, I really enjoyed the puzzle section of the new MSQ - exploring a totally new map and actually getting to interact with the environment felt like such a nice change of pace from the usual quest design. I would love to see the devs do more stuff like this in future patches/expansions!

I second this. Lite puzzles, investigating, talking to npcs for clues. It's like I'm playing a videogame instead of doing a fetch quest. This kind of thing is something 14 has been sorely lacking in quest design. Please absolutely do more of this.

100% giving my kudos to the team on this. one thing i'm stupidly invested in with older ff games is the way they encouraged unique exploration of the games' worlds to learn more about them and the lore that surrounds them. i yearn for more of that in ffxiv... more pleaseeee!!

Yes please! It got me scratching my head xD I want more!

I was pleasantly surprised.
Been asking for more agency and interactivity during quests for a while now and really hope the expand on this.

yes! it was such a nice refreshing change of pace.

I've been watching the Grinding Gear team go through the Pixel Remasters in order, and they just finished up FF2. The puzzle keyword system immediately put me in mind of the FF2 keyword system.

It was also just challenging enough that I didn't solve it on the first go round, but had to go back and revisit the clues to see what I missed.

Seconding what everyone else said. Loved the section so much from the instant I realized what they were doing, MSQ can get to feel kind of monotonous in places and this was such a good way to break that monotony.

I know they can't make these super difficult, but would love to see more stuff like this included.

I very much would like to see more questing that is left open to player choice and exploration, and I would implore the developers to make it even less guided than this experience was by clearly marking one NPC as the "hand-holder." As someone who likes talking to NPCs during MSQ, I was disappointed when Wuk Lamat handed me such an obvious solution to the floor puzzle. If we are to see quest design move towards this, there should be NPCs who basically tell players what to do for those who are not interested in exploring or puzzle-solving, but those NPCs should be marked with an icon to let other people who do want to explore and think for themselves know not to speak to them. This would allow for very open quest objectives that players can either choose to engage with or skip.

Felt like low effort padding and busy work to me.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

Felt like low effort padding and busy work to me.

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I prefer this over talking to 3 random npcs whose dialogue you won't even read for the 1000th time.

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Originally Posted by JadeCurtiss

I prefer this over talking to 3 random npcs whose dialogue you won't even read for the 1000th time.

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Well that's not great either. But let's stop pretending lining 4 shapes up and walking to the furthest clickable thing away to click on the thing (it's always the furthest thing) just to get a keycard is amazing design either.

Praising SE for even lower effort mediocrity that is slightly better than the previous mediocrity is what got us into this problem to begin with. Let's at least try not to repeat that.

I got a bit excited as it was starting, expecting something that would be a bit more interesting to do, but it was too simple and there were too many obvious hints so it was a little disappointing.

Seeing some more effort to have variety in msq objectives is really nice though. Hopefully there’s more things like this, and more new things so we’re doing more than just walking from one npc to the next.

yet I wonder how many people screwed up the 3 directors passwords.

I liked the puzzles. Of course they weren't "difficult"; you just had to pay attention and engage with the game. I hope they go further in this direction and keep adding mechanics from single-player RPGs that keep you engaged during the MSQ.