"In from the cold" was fine. Please keep trying new things, SE (spoilers)

[Hiragawa]

After doing this greatest solo duty in the history I have to ask: what's stopping someone to swap your body with a frog(or old geezer/baby) while we are asleep and going around murdering everyone with your stolen body while screaming shinu?

When you're pulled into the body in the first place, Fandaniel says "The experiment was a success, but I fear our time is short."

He follows this a bit later with "I took the liberty of making some improvements - and selecting you as my esteemed test subject" while taking about Aulus' research.||

IE: He makes it very clear that you're a test of the process, and it didn't exactly last long. Plus, you know, crazy boy did it for his own behind the scenes reasons as revealed through the rest of the story, and he's kinda gone now. So it's a one off that didn't exactly work out all that great.

[Jennah]

How did you get that? I just did the regular trial and it gave me no option.

It is safe to say that I did cheat and look up a video because I'm not a fan of stealth missions.
I can see why people would like it, though.

It'll offer Easy and Very Easy if you fail the mission once.
... meaning 99% of people dedicated enough to FF14 to read the forums will never even see it, except on a few missions with insta-loss mechanics if you aren't paying attention.

[Darthgummibear]

I like the concept, but the way it plays out with having to actually do things in a certain order completely kills it in addition to a couple other things considering that going into the mission you have no idea where anything is. Stealth sequences in games that don't have stealth of any kind as a base game mechanic are always awkward. Combat sequences that force you to play as someone else with a limited ability set where you can't even move the abilities around on your bar are awkward. Timers for a lot of people just create anxiety issues. Combine these 3 things into one duty, and a lot of people are going to have a miserable time.

[NegativeS]

I just finished the quest, and honestly it was amazing. The panic I felt seeing that timer tick down, and the sadness I felt seeing myself crawl... Very good, very good.

[Kozh]

I love this part very much. It took me three tries, but I don't hate it. Kind of reminds me of our usual old rpg where you can fail.

I do think it solve too nicely (no one get hurt or die). But all in all, seeing your WoL crawling like that is worth it. They even dangle the "oh look, other people help us. We can do it" carrot before they violently snatched it away.

[DezereDawn]

try new things, don't do this again, stealth just doesn't feel right in this game to me and this trial in particular was the bad kind where there's only one correct route to progress and you have to do A then B then C

[Izar_Chillen]

The fact that its garnered such huge reactions , from both sides of the camp , tells me the intent behind the quest design was a masterstroke.

The feeling of frustration for those that hated it , because they hated the feeling of weakness and hopelessness coming from being a powerful WoL to now a weak normy desperate to get back to camp because Zenos was going to use your body to harm your friends, and visa versa to those that loved it because it was impactful to the story moment at hand and you enjoyed the experience of the moment.

[elizeugba]

There are very few times in the course of FFXIV where you feel like you have to think a bit before acting. Due to this, I am appreciative for this quest. It was still a bit too easy for my liking(had like 4 medpacks remaining by the end), but kudos for the creativity. What happened after was epic as well.

Not only fine, it was the best solo story duty FFXIV ever had. Metal Gear Thancred is the second.

[SeverianLyonesse]

The duty itself was fine. I didn't mind it.

But everything surrounding it was definitely a low point in the story.

* You got diverted into a one-duty side quest completely irrelevant to the main plot that was going on at the time.
* The villain never performs any actual evils while occupying your body, making the whole affair kind of uneventful.
* Both villains just come off as impotent, making all these threats that they don't actually intend to (or manage to) carry out.
* We already saw the Ardbert impersonation in ShB to greater effect.
* Totally inconsequential dramatic twist--with a lot of potential to meaningfully affect the plot--that is resolved almost as soon as it began.

It seemed that they wanted to draw dramatic parallels between WoL and Zenos, but they forgot two crucial details:

1) Dramatic parallels that don't have their own independent value are just as bad as bad writing without literary devices.
2) The Zenos body possession was also a terrible plot development and probably the series' OTHER low point (after the Waking Sands).

Hated it. I probably would have ragequit the game for a few days if I didn't know that Anima was right around the corner.

Escorting missions have gone smoothly for me. Metal Gear Thancred was a nice change up. But GD In from the Cold was just a waste of everyone's time.

[Shougun]

I've liked the new things they tried, this quest, the metal gear solid like infiltration quest, etc, including the escort feature (though maybe they used it one too many times lol).

I didn't have a problem with "In from the cold", as I had a lot of time left. Though I could imagine people who are not used to self navigating finding the bleak terrain hard to mentally map, and the map itself wasn't really that useful in this quest. All that git gud FromSoft games with "we give you no, to a terrible map" training came in handy lol

Def. keep trying new things!