MSQ and Role Playing Duties

[Rivelon]

Can y'all just let me play my character and stop forcing me into 30 minutes of 1 button mashing? Or just make it so trival I can watch netflix on the other monitor and not think about it? It's gotten to the point I intentionally die the second I realize it's a RP quest just so put it on very easy and be done with it. And it's not like these missions are hard, they're just annoying, not enjoyable and make me want to literally quit the game.

[Jojoya]

Can y'all just let me play my character and stop forcing me into 30 minutes of 1 button mashing? Or just make it so trival I can watch netflix on the other monitor and not think about it? It's gotten to the point I intentionally die the second I realize it's a RP quest just so put it on very easy and be done with it. And it's not like these missions are hard, they're just annoying, not enjoyable and make me want to literally quit the game.

As much as I agree that I can do without the RP duties and feel they don't advance the story in a way that's meaningful to me, they're included for those who are long time FF fans used to having a chance to play as their favorite NPCs. It's one of those areas where we're going to run squarely into "this is a Final Fantasy game first".

Fortunately they aren't that common and the bulk of the MSQ we are still playing our own characters. I just rush through those chores to get back to what I enjoy. If they ever do start taking over the bulk of the MSQ, then I'll go looking for a different game to play.

[DawnAskham]

These quests are terrible (and the only truly terrible quests I've experienced in-game) - not necessarily the playing as an NPC part, more so the dropped abruptly into a fight as an NPC with random NPC abilities, then left to spend 10 minutes or more spamming the NPC ability and hoping you are still somewhat aware and correctly react to the inevitable 'gimmick' that occurs.

I'm with the OP - either let me play as my character, make an option to let these be a cut scene, and / or make the fights much shorter.

Also maybe have the NPC take over at the end to execute the gimmick or at least not make it an auto fail if missed (nothing has enraged me more than making it through one of these for 15 minutes or more and being at 100% HP only to see 'Mission Failed' because of some gimmick and know I have to waste another 15+ minutes spamming one ability to try again).

[Seera1024]

These quests are terrible (and the only truly terrible quests I've experienced in-game) - not necessarily the playing as an NPC part, more so the dropped abruptly into a fight as an NPC with random NPC abilities, then left to spend 10 minutes or more spamming the NPC ability and hoping you are still somewhat aware and correctly react to the inevitable 'gimmick' that occurs.

I'm with the OP - either let me play as my character, make an option to let these be a cut scene, and / or make the fights much shorter.

Also maybe have the NPC take over at the end to execute the gimmick or at least not make it an auto fail if missed (nothing has enraged me more than making it through one of these for 15 minutes or more and being at 100% HP only to see 'Mission Failed' because of some gimmick and know I have to waste another 15+ minutes spamming one ability to try again).

Maybe if final enemy is down below 25% at failure given an option to move on to players?

I enjoy these quests and don't mind replaying them if I fail them - helps me get better at the game. You don't get better at the game as efficiently by just succeeding, failure tends to help more.

But I understand how it can be frustrating to someone else to suddenly be given a very watered down version of another class and be told to defeat this boss.

Typically, you get 1 single target (where if it combos, the next attack will still be on the same button), 1 AoE, and even the DPS/tank classes will be given a decent self heal, especially in instances where there is not a healer to heal you. Some of them will have special trick abilities that you use as specific times - usually in the duty action button, like Estinien's limit break, or Thancred's hide ability.

I do feel that some of them seem a bit longer than necessary, especially given that we're not likely to be as familiar with that play style when we play them as our own character's play style so we aren't as effective as we could be. Thancred's comes to mind as one that took a long time, either due to the length or how long it took to move from one phase to the next.

I also wish in the instances where they pair multiple sets together that if you fail the last, you don't start back at the beginning of the duty. I don't know if that's the case for this most recent one set as I never failed one of them, but I know the one where you get to play Hien if you fail in your portion, you go back to playing Hien when you retry. Even if you actually messed up due to not a gimmick, it would be frustrating to have to start back at the beginning and replay the entire duty when you just messed up playing just your portion or just the other character's portion depending on the order.