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

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

working as intended
im guessing you spend most of your time rping on ff14?

Going out of your way to assert dominance on the forums and being an ass to people?

[DinahDemiurge]

gittttttgud

[Skiros]

What on Etheriys are you all on about? This was, bar none, the greatest solo duty they've ever done. High stakes, an actual sense of danger, a unique situation and mechanics.
... admittedly, I never actually died, and might have been frustrated if it made you restart from the beginning. But, like - they tell you what to do. Avoid magitek at all costs. Never fight two soldiers at once, and avoid as many as possible. Go here, then here, then here, then here, then win.



I felt the COMPLETE opposite - I haven't made it far into the 4th zone yet, but so far, I think Garlemald is the best story zone they've ever had.
Around 20 previous allied NPCs, all acting in-character and being relevant.
A grounded story, with fantasy taking a backseat from first reaching Camp Broken Glass up until this instance near the end.
Actual tragedy - and it all makes sense. Unlike a certain "I will block this spear that shouldn't logically hurt the WoL, and the wound turns out to be unhealable for no explained reason" - I actually felt really bad for the NPCs.
And it's the logical outcome of ARR!Alphinaud's diplomacy too.
Heck, even finding out there's lyrics to the Garlean leitmotif - and what that song's about - is heartbreaking.



It took Fandaniel an enormous amount of aether - quite possibly enough to have ruined what he attempted after the 83 dungeon. And it only got the WoL out of their body for about 30 minutes.
And it's shown (afterwards) to be EXTREMELY likely that after that 30 minutes, we'd go right back to our real body, even if our temporary body was executed.
And they HAVE tried this before - Fandaniel even points out when it happened, in Ala Mhigo. And that he's refined and improved the process.

This. Garlemald arc felt like an actual mature game for once.

[Ryaz]

This. Garlemald arc felt like an actual mature game for once.

I really enjoyed the Garlemald arc and zone. The character work was on point.

[Thi]

I have such mixed opinions on this duty.

It was by far the best rp duty they have ever made. I also hated every minute of it.

This duty just made me mad, it was well made but the way it was so contrived and forced.

I honesty logged out during the middle of it my first time and said to myself I'm not doing this tonight and went to bed.

[Rhysati]

I honestly have no idea how everyone is having so much trouble. I did this duty while on pain killers after surgery, medical mj, and watching netflix. I definitely got lost and didn't know what I was doing, but I still passed it on my first try.

This duty isn't hard and I only fought stuff when I got impatient and didn't feel like waiting 2 more seconds for the enemy to move.

In the end, I rather enjoyed it. It actually felt like something new and engaging.

[PaulH]

My take on it that it had me enthralled, my heart was racing I wanted to get back to the Scions ASAP and recover my body. I thought this body swap plot was going to go for longer. The duty wasn't difficult though I was crawling out on 26hp hoping I wouldn't have to do it again. The mention of Anulus from Ala Mhigo was a nice tie up.

Totally understand some people like/loathe it. Now the endless follow but hide quests i have experienced that gets my goat.

[LisSquid]

There would have been a lot to better design this duty:

More intuitive mob AI: I have been dodging around mobs since Eureka, so that wasn't hard. It does suffer the same flaw where mobs don't have a set path (like the Thancred mission) or suffer from odd density. Stealth play is hard in a game that isn't designed for it, and not a lot was done in this case to make it feel more than "it's just hard". Didn't feel rewarded for ducking and weaving around spazzing ghouls.

The only other part of that sequence that broke it for me was the canister. It's on a magitek. That's great, but there are quite a few of those and the one you need is back down the path you came. You.. should probably already have the idea to pick up the fuel because of what we saw earlier in the MSQ. You should be able to pick it up because it would be useful, just like how you can freely pick up the med kits. Everything else felt fine, imho.

[Deusteele]

It's rather telling that the only people who have brought up the challenge of the quest are those that are defending it. The detractors are focused upon the storytelling and plot-contrivance of the quest.

My personal issues with the gameplay of this quest come in two-fold. First is the stated quest objective is misleading when compared to the quest requirements. I am told that I should rush back to Camp to save my friends from Zenos, the requirements are that I repair a Magitek Armor. Because of the this difference, the quest designer should have made the Magitek significantly more prominent after the short tutorial fight. It should have been plainly visible upon beginning the quest and the number of irrelevant armors kept to a minimum. The second issue is the false player agency created by the instance zone, the misleading objective coupled with the large zone implies that I should stealth my way out of the city and make a dash for the camp.

My issue with the plot of the quest is that it's permanently cheapened all following actions. From now on everything the WoL accomplishes is removed since they only exist due to Fancy Dan and Zenos not wanting to kill the WoL at that time, the writers tried to coverup this with the whole monologue about the importance of the hunt but it felt cheap and empty. Now that we know that the villians could at will Bodyjack the WoL. While this won't happen due to narrative necessity it has, at least for the moment, turned FFXIV from an interesting story that I was participating in, to just a game.

Personal Aside; WoW didn't die one day, it was a series of decisions by the development team to cater to a group of players that encourage gate-keeping and bad narrative structure that helped it along the way.

[Deceptus]

It's rather telling that the only people who have brought up the challenge of the quest are those that are defending it. The detractors are focused upon the storytelling and plot-contrivance of the quest.

My personal issues with the gameplay of this quest come in two-fold. First is the stated quest objective is misleading when compared to the quest requirements. I am told that I should rush back to Camp to save my friends from Zenos, the requirements are that I repair a Magitek Armor. Because of the this difference, the quest designer should have made the Magitek significantly more prominent after the short tutorial fight. It should have been plainly visible upon beginning the quest and the number of irrelevant armors kept to a minimum. The second issue is the false player agency created by the instance zone, the misleading objective coupled with the large zone implies that I should stealth my way out of the city and make a dash for the camp.

My issue with the plot of the quest is that it's permanently cheapened all following actions. From now on everything the WoL accomplishes is removed since they only exist due to Fancy Dan and Zenos not wanting to kill the WoL at that time, the writers tried to coverup this with the whole monologue about the importance of the hunt but it felt cheap and empty. Now that we know that the villians could at will Bodyjack the WoL. While this won't happen due to narrative necessity it has, at least for the moment, turned FFXIV from an interesting story that I was participating in, to just a game.

Personal Aside; WoW didn't die one day, it was a series of decisions by the development team to cater to a group of players that encourage gate-keeping and bad narrative structure that helped it along the way.

Another issue is the terrible boundaries definition. Opening your map and you have the same map as you would outside the duty. You have zero idea of where the boundaries are.

Should have had a small red square around where you can go.