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

[InkstainedGwyn]

Personally, I didn't like the wine fetch quest from the last 24-man raid very much.

I still rage about that wine quest in FC chat xD

Edit: I should probably say I wine about it

[KisaiTenshi]

I'd honestly love to see a role play duty where you're teamed up with yourself just to see how you look in the eyes of an npc.

This would be impractical to design, but it would be neat to do. The main reason it's impractical is that it would only ever work if it was back-to-back.

Eg, a duty where you play your character, and then your character is disabled, then it rewinds and switches to the NPC's POV, where the NPC's POV forks a few minutes from where your character is disabled, and the NPC fights a smaller battle to get into the control room or something to prevent your character from being disabled.

The thing is, I enjoy these RPG side-things more than straight-up cutscenes that are just talking-heads. Final Fantasy is known for some pretty detailed pre-rendered cutscenes, but FFXIV does not have those. They're all done with the game engine, because that's the only way you get "your character" to actually be part of the scene and not composited on top.

[Derio]

I'd honestly love to see a role play duty where you're teamed up with yourself just to see how you look in the eyes of an npc.

I mean the DRK storyline has you fight against yourself so there is that.

[Beckett]

My issue isn't that these sections are hard, it's that they're boring! They improved it a bit with the Y'shtola section, but overall you're still just hitting the same 4 buttons for 10 minutes straight. I'm convinced that they only reason people fail these duties is because their shear mind numbingness puts people to sleep. These sections could easily be changed into cutscenes and nothing would be lost, from a narrative standpoint, and from a gameplay standpoint it would be a huge improvement.

[BillyKaplan]

IIRC, in Alexander 12 there's the part where the dps go into the portals. There, if you clear the dps check, you see Alexander turn to the rest of the party and fire a laser while they all jump out of the way. Naturally, that doesn't actually happen to the PCs who stayed out of the portals. While it's not exactly your own character, they have shown PCs doing things that didn't actually happen.
Not to mention there're tons of ways to mix it up, like giving the WoL a button meshing sequence, like the tank who blocks Susano's sword, and then the NPCs can do whatever during that time. It'll be longer than what we actually played through as the WoL, because no one wants to hit buttons for that long, but it's more than doable for any number of reasons.

[RyuDragnier]

I'd honestly love to see a role play duty where you're teamed up with yourself just to see how you look in the eyes of an npc.

That...is a really cool idea for something. It'd also be a really cool solution for solo instances when you're in a party. Have the party members play the NPCs.

[TheMightyMollusk]

IIRC, in Alexander 12 there's the part where the dps go into the portals. There, if you clear the dps check, you see Alexander turn to the rest of the party and fire a laser while they all jump out of the way. Naturally, that doesn't actually happen to the PCs who stayed out of the portals. While it's not exactly your own character, they have shown PCs doing things that didn't actually happen.

That was a callback to a cut scene in the previous quests. One of them has the Illuminati leader summon Alexander, freeze the WoL and Co. in time, and prepare to kill them, only for the time freeze to fail at the last second and allow you to dodge. The DPS check in A12 is you defeating the adds that were inflicting the time freeze. If you fail, then you break the time loop and the fight never happens, and thus wipe.

Time travel's fun, ain't it?

[Driskus]

I like these role-play duties. Its a nice change from the usual stuff. 4 buttons isn't hard at all to figure out. I hadn't touched ACN in years when I got to that duty and had zero issues figuring out those 4 buttons just by the names alone. Also there have been many cutscenes in the MSQ before where we aren't even there but get to see what happens. I fail to see how this is an issue considering people weren't complaining when they got to those scenes, but as soon as there's a duty attached its somehow fair game to bash and hate on it. Fetch quests are far more boring than any of the role-play duties will ever be.

[Vahlnir]

FF games have had us playing as other characters at times since...idk, forever. I'm glad to see it showing up in XIV. These were by and large some of the more enjoyable experiences in the MSQ so far.

[Camiie]

I find it amusing that people are more offended by the 10m it takes to play as another character because "it's not their character" than they are the 325 hours of "run this cabbage down the road to grandma will you" quests. I'd assume those quests would be more "unrealistic" but IDK, maybe some people enjoy seeing their WoL be a boring errand person who gets called back halfway around the world to carry a letter from one end of a building to the other...

Because I'd RATHER run a cabbage down the road 1,000 times as my character than ever see the pretentious magic nerd squad ever again.