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

[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.

[Avidria]

...

I don't entirely agree with this take. And I'm gonna start by saying I do have some issues with the quest's story, and the general context and related story.

But I liked this duty. I liked it a lot. It was definitely tougher than a lot of the other duties we've dealt with, and the sub-objectives weren't terrifically clear, but it ended up feeling more like a puzzle to me than anything else. I actually liked that the objectives weren't completely obvious, and that you kind of had to figure them out. What I liked most about it though was that it showed our character still coming up with solutions and working their way through a high-stakes situation and managing to still make a difference, even in a body without the strength and power that they're used to. The situation was far from being in their favor but they still managed to pull through, but it also still had that sense of urgency to it - of knowing they easily could've failed.

As for the rest, I have a TON of issues with Fandaniel and Zenos just in general.

I am so far beyond tired of Zenos and his obsessive self-important drivel. At this point my character has little reason to view him as anything other than an incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous nuisance, seeing as he seems to mostly just be sitting around giving orders that seem to be primarily getting carried out by Fandaniel for... reasons I'm still not entirely sure I understand. Watching those two interact feels like watching a bizarre horror-comedy sit com with Fandaniel in one corner being the passive aggressive cousin ready to tear out someone's throat for a laugh and Zenos being the other cousin who's tolerating him because he's far too edgy and cool to cut him in half like he probably wants to.

All of that rambling to say, that for me the only thing that felt cheap about this particular quest is that it feels an awful lot like this entire little subplot was entirely just a whim of the current main antagonists, a diversion on top of a distraction that sure, delayed us but also accomplished... nothing?? Of note that the attack wouldn't have done already?? Like Fandaniel did this just to see if he could. For. Reasons, I guess.

Imo the story problems with this quest are less a function of the quest itself, but of the broader context of the story... and having one half of your dynamic duo villain pair being a one dimensional murder bot whose entire personality is being obsessed with fighting the warrior of light.

That said I'm still only on the L84 quests so have a lot to go, maybe my feelings on that will change, but so far the outlook isn't great lol