"In from the Cold" Scenario, any way to skip it?

[displayed]

I dont know how anyone can fail it. Everything is bright and glowing telling you to click it...

I had two main difficulties:

* After years being used to XIV's health regeneration being quick and automatic, I really wasn't expecting it to ever be turned off. I died twice before realizing that regen was turned off.

* The UI is deceptive. It greatly emphasizes the clock (which really isn't that important). There's a lot of bright and glowing things that don't do much, if anything.

Once I had multiple health packs, I thought I needed to prioritize speed by sneaking over "wasting time" on clickable objects. That strategy worked well...until I got too close to the end of the first area and a horde of bots stomped me flat.

After that death, I snuck over to the gate a second time, saw the robot, and clicked on The One True Glowing Object. After that, I sailed through the rest because the UI finally revealed what the actual goal of the scenario was.

[Packetdancer]

After years being used to XIV's health regeneration being quick and automatic, I really wasn't expecting it to ever be turned off. I died twice before realizing that regen was turned off.

Far too many hours logged in deep dungeons -- where there's a 'no health regen' debuff on some floors -- will drive into your head that health regen is not universal in this game. (I admit, though, despite faaaaar too much time in Palace of the Dead -- I will get my Necromancer title, dang it -- I didn't notice the regen wasn't kicking in until after I'd fought the one soldier you can't avoid fighting.)

Honestly, though, I can see why this would annoy players. I didn't mind it (though I didn't particularly find it super enjoyable), but if I'd failed it and had to do it again from the beginning -- much less if I'd had to do so more than once -- I can imagine it would have felt really annoying really fast.

Still, I'm happy when Square-Enix is willing to try new things. Not all of those things work the way they first try them -- or in some cases (hello, Praetorium cutscenes) at all -- but better to sometimes try new things and see what works than never try anything new at all.

(Admittedly, I sometimes wish they'd try them a little less enthusiastically; there were a lot of escort quests this expansion. The first time I saw one, it was like "oh, this is interesting", but by the 20th or so it was getting a little old. By the end, any time an NPC went "If you'd care to accompany me" when picking up a quest I screamed internally -- even when some of those proved to be the normal old 'NPC walks off and fades away, and then you go find them at the destination' type. I get that it's Endwalker, but still...)

I'm not sure I'd have put this particular one smack in the way of the MSQ, admittedly, given how obnoxious I expect it would be if you ended up doing it repeatedly.

[Arazehl]

I had two main difficulties:

* After years being used to XIV's health regeneration being quick and automatic, I really wasn't expecting it to ever be turned off. I died twice before realizing that regen was turned off.

* The UI is deceptive. It greatly emphasizes the clock (which really isn't that important). There's a lot of bright and glowing things that don't do much, if anything.

Once I had multiple health packs, I thought I needed to prioritize speed by sneaking over "wasting time" on clickable objects. That strategy worked well...until I got too close to the end of the first area and a horde of bots stomped me flat.

After that death, I snuck over to the gate a second time, saw the robot, and clicked on The One True Glowing Object. After that, I sailed through the rest because the UI finally revealed what the actual goal of the scenario was.

Yeah I didn't realize at first there was a health meter that rose each time you encounter an enemy and would fail you when it reach full. I then realized there was no regen what so ever. Your mission was to avoid encounters and sneak through. Picking up health kits so that if you did have an encounter you could heal somewhat. It was more an avoidance mission. The problem I found was the darkness of the place made me overlook some of the paths around the enemies.

[Sauteed]

I liked the duty, I failed at the end on the first time during a "quick time event" (the bane of games in general), because I hit the enter key and entered a;sdlkgjasd;fjasdpoigjasdfj into the speech bar instead of save myself. I would never want to see this be a regular kind of thing, and actually enjoyed the build up to this scene in terms of cut scene/dialogue.

Like others I've read in this thread, girl in green sucked, big. Probably one of the worst quests I've seen in the game. A lot of the follow npc quests kind of just suck. I'm glad they are trying new things I'm beyond sick of the talk to npc, walk across a zone and talk to another npc marked clearly on the map kinds of quests, but hopefully these sucky follow npc quests are stabbing into a new direction for quest architecture that we are gonna be blown away by in the future. soon™

Love EW so far tho.

[Rinlina]

I actually enjoyed this duty, it was refreshing! Getting the parts for the magitek and blasting mobs on it wasn’t too difficult. I like this one way more than the “squid game” quests.

[Jojoya]

This is the only RP duty that I've truly enjoyed since they were introduced in Stormblood.

-I was given a narrative reason why the character I was playing could not be my character as I created it and have played it for years.

-I was given a narrative explanation for why the normally bulky toolkit for the job was narrowed down to just a few actions. I was given more to do that just spam press 2-4 buttons when they came off colldown and then spam press the remaining button when there was nothing else to do. I had to explore. I had to find things needed to survive.

-I wasn't having to play "pretend I'm a prominent NPC". For once, the duty didn't come with a predictable victory condition. The stakes were high and my character was responsible for the outcome - not a plot armored NPC.


All that said, I wish they'd stop adding the RP duties as part of MSQ and allow us to stick to playing our character. If they want to put them in as optional side content for those players who like pretending to be one of the NPCs, great. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to play a character of my design, not a stock character that's the same for every other player. If I wanted to play a stock character that I had no say in, I'd go play a game that uses those as the player characters.

Every time you take me away from my character, you're breaking my immersion in the game and story because you've changed the rules on how to play. That interruption detracts from the experience.

I've been thinking for the past week why I haven't enjoyed this expansion as much as Shadowbringers despite another great story, more great music, more great zone art, etc. It's because game mechanics were constantly disrupting my immersion. Need to play a character that is not my character. Need a wall of text to explain who you're playing. Need a wall of text to explain escort quests for every escort quest. Need a wall of text to explain follow quests every time there's a follow quest. Need a wall of text to explain you're about to enter into a long string of cutscenes and combat that need sufficient uninterrupted time (those last warnings are at least useful).

We're the Warrior of Light. What we need to do shouldn't be getting interrupted by all those things at this stage in the story. We should be getting straight to business because we've got years of experience behind us now.

[xenahawk]

yeah honestly this one annoyed me because there was no direction of where to go and no matter where i went i was met with the dreaded red dots, but after lots of running around, back and forth i did manage figuring it out on my own. my only issue is they should either have made the board smaller or given direction of what needed to be done. it is manageable to do blindly as lots of us have done it and i feel as though that it added the feeling of frustration trying to get back in time to help your buddies.

[FFWinner]

It's literally a get over it situation. You can quit the game if you're unhappy.

[Bsrking5]

The only part i didnt like was the last bit with you crawling. The rest of it was fairly easy. I wish there was a harder version of it, heck most of the msq solo instances i wish were actually harder.

SE needs to add a hard version of the MSQ.

[Lexis]

I guess this is one of those 'you either love it or hate it' things. Personnally, I regard that duty as my all-time favorite in FFXIV. The disorientation from the lack of clear directions, the realization your character is weak and can't just blast through everything as they normally would, the time limit adding an extra layer of pressure, the fear and anxiety of what failure could entail, it all came together perfectly for me.

I do wish they'd given us a more complex toolkit to play with rather than 2 simplistic CDs and mashing 1 until your opponent dies, but otherwise that duty really hit me in a way no other duties did.

I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea though.