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

[Dualblade]

Beatrix from INDIA invades Eorzea and one-shot the WoL, under our command.


In seriousness the right fights are fun, and while I can see them getting stale if we get one in 4.5 AND I doubt it would be Than credit doing the thing from the trailer it would be a good way to introduce some Gunblade skills before the xpac.

Either that or confirm he is a MCH.

[Mesarthim]

I'm going to have to say... no. They're not to be made optional. You do realize how long each patch cycle is supposed to last right? You know that these instances won't even last half an hour of your time? It's like when I read the constant complaints about the Y'shtola's instance. It isn't difficult yet there was "such a controversy" here on this forum about it. I liked the instances and found them to be a breath of fresh air despite their lack of longevity.

I mean look back at the single player FF games, you had segments in most if not all games where you were forced away from your current party to fight as someone else. If anyone has a problem with these instances and fail them then practice up? They're not going anywhere.

[dragonkyn20]

Personally I love the new roleplay system they got in place here. First time I actually played as Alphinaud I was psyched that I was experiencing something new. And Y'shtola was incredibly fun along with the aftermath cutscene.

But I can understand that it's not for everybody and people have different ways to enjoy how a story is told. It's possible they might make these instances optional in the future but given how positively received this new feature was, it won't be for a while.

[laurtias]

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.

I was thinking this. Both Alphinaud and Y'shtola are healers, and playing as them exposes players to the experience of new roles. I'd love to try out playing as tank in this way to get some experience before diving into a new kind of play.

[Soupa]

How do I press 4 buttons?

[BillyKaplan]

I honestly hope in some future they can do this as prolonged side content for various npcs like Merlwyb or Raubhan as an example.

Postmoogle - the next generation. You deliver a letter and instead of seeing the result of that letter, you have to play as the sender of the letter, living through what's written. Afterward, a short cut-scene to wrap things up and you get your rank up.

Joining the crowds who liked it. Once a patch is more than decent, especially when the party is spread so very thin.

[DevonEllwood]

Postmoogle - the next generation. You deliver a letter and instead of seeing the result of that letter, you have to play as the sender of the letter, living through what's written. Afterward, a short cut-scene to wrap things up and you get your rank up.

Joining the crowds who liked it. Once a patch is more than decent, especially when the party is spread so very thin.

Yet another reminder that more Post Moogle hasn't been added. I want them, please. Also liked the RP events. They're neat and I will look forward to more as long as they're not over done, as in, keep them scarce.

[LineageRazor]

I don't mind the roleplay battles, but I am a bit peeved by battles and cutscenes that we bear witness to - but that our character does not. I feel like we should not have knowledge of things that our character does not, but we've seen things like

Uriange's conversation with Elidibus prior to his "joining" the Warriors of Darkness, Elidibus conversing with the Warrior of Darkness on the moon, Solus's reprimanding of Varis in the Garlean throne room

and so on and so forth. We should discover this stuff when the WoL does, since the WoL is, essentially, our viewpoint character in the game.

So the battle as Y'shtola was fine. Our character was there to see it. Alphinaud's, not so much. We shouldn't even know about the Shadowhunter yet.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

I don't mind the roleplay battles, but I am a bit peeved by battles and cutscenes that we bear witness to - but that our character does not. I feel like we should not have knowledge of things that our character does not, but we've seen things like

Uriange's conversation with Elidibus prior to his "joining" the Warriors of Darkness, Elidibus conversing with the Warrior of Darkness on the moon, Solus's reprimanding of Varis in the Garlean throne room

and so on and so forth. We should discover this stuff when the WoL does, since the WoL is, essentially, our viewpoint character in the game.

So the battle as Y'shtola was fine. Our character was there to see it. Alphinaud's, not so much. We shouldn't even know about the Shadowhunter yet.

Game has had cutscenes with events WoL hasn't witnessed ever since ARR. Nero (or was it Gaius instead?) talking to Lavinia while watching WoL and Y'shtola from afar.

Even books with only one viewpoint character often have a couple of chapters or even just scenes showing events where the character wasn't present.

It wouldn't make sense if your character wasn't present for most of the game's events but they're telling the story for the player, not the character.

[Sylvina]

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).

1000% agreed. Who plays MMOs to be an NPC? not me that's for sure. I only have any interest in playing my own character, thats what I created it for.