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

[DBelmont]

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.

[SendohJin]

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.

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.

[LauraAdalena]

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.

[Fredco191]

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.

[Reiryuu]

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.

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.

[TheMightyMollusk]

In a nutshell.

[Penthea]

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

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

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

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.

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?

Because they're not cutscenes.

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

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?

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

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

[Masekase_Hurricane]

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

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

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.

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.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

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.

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

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.

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