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

[CoffeeBuns]

I quite enjoyed them. It was nice to see their point of views and play as them. It wasn't long at all either. I actually hope we have more duties like them.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

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.

But Alphinaud is functionally a Summoner.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Arcanist, really. And throwing out a few healing abilities as an NPC ally in solo duties doesn't say anything about that ally's class or job, because they all do it. Some use items instead of spells (notably Cid), but it's functionally the same.

[Firefirefire]

DUDE, spoilers!

[Shurrikhan]

I'd honestly really enjoy them if only their toolkits weren't so smoothered. Even without requiring the player to have read a single tooltip or guessed at an icon's effect beforehand there could have been far more of the combatant's techniques showed off in their scenarios.

[Videra]

I enjoyed them quite thoroughly and am patiently awaiting more.

[PortiaBartel]

I'd honestly really enjoy them if only their toolkits weren't so smoothered. Even without requiring the player to have read a single tooltip or guessed at an icon's effect beforehand there could have been far more of the combatant's techniques showed off in their scenarios.

I'd have to disagree, I only have one main class, so when the duty first started I was like "UH OH I don't know nuthin' about playin' no summoner!" but then there were only a couple buttons and I was like, ok cool, this is less about doing a duty with skill and more about just the experience that even dummies like me can figure out!

So long as there's a mix of duties that take skill, and fun RP duties, it makes MSQ patches a little less monotonous and I like it.

[Kkun]

This personally baffles me as I don't see any good reason why role playing duties should be removed. It's really just a more engaging way to deliver the story and I would rather have these than cutscenes that are just take out weapon(s) -> cut to NPCs being defeated. It's different and adds more flavour, seeing as this is a Final Fantasy game and previous ones did have switches to different characters so it's a pretty good nod to those.

[Akonyl]

You'll probably be able to skip them when shadowbringers comes out, you'll just have to pay some money for the MSQ jump potion, then you can skip them along with everything else.

Until then, it's like every other MSQ quest in the game, and I know these are more interesting than all the quests that are just "find some info by talking to 3 npc's in town".

[TruebladeNuke]

One of the very reasons I play RPG’s is BECAUSE I want to play as different characters. This is something of which the Final Fantasy series is very well known for too. (With perhaps a few exceptions) But as someone else said, it’s not just FF. Many types of entertainment works do this. They shift between characters (which means moving the spotlight OFF the main characters every now and then) to give you, the viewer/player, a different perspective from another character’s viewpoint. Yes, this does mean that you learn things that your character doesn’t know about. It helps to keep that in mind when your own character is surprised by a thing that you personally already knew was coming.

IMO, I feel that some people get way too attached to their created character and tend to forget that said avatar is just another character who’s just following the script like all the other characters. (Especially in this game) Even though you chose how the character looks, said avatar is still ultimately just another character that SE is giving scripts to follow. Some games are better about giving you “Choice and Consequence” that helps determine how the game story ends for you, sure. But even in those cases, said character is still following a script. All you’re doing is pointing which way you want them to go. Lets also not forget that FFXIV has already been giving us different character viewpoints where our WoL character wasn’t even present since ARR. (Or did those scenes with the Empire somehow mysteriously not happen?)

All that said, I LOVE that they’ve started allowing us to play as other characters for this game. As I said earlier, it’s one of the very reasons I play the FF series. It’s one thing to simply see what they’re up to. It’s even better when you get to actually play as them. Plus, from a gameplay stand point, it gets players to branch out and try other jobs, if they’re one of those players who refuse to play as anything but one particular job. (For me, there was no issue with this because I go out of my way to level all jobs, so I have experience in all of them)

So I say keep them coming! (One per patch. One every two patches would work too) It brings some fresh air to the MSQ. And it’s nice to be reminded that there are other characters in the story that are more then capable of handling themselves in a fight.