A timer on an MSQ event quest?!

[Jojoya]

I... might be done - like literally can't continue. I get it, it's a me thing, quests with timers give me anxiety to begin with. Throw in:

• Limited healing
• Weak DPS
• Several dozens of enemies you have to "stealth" (lol) past

and it's too much for my brain. 10 minutes into the 30 minute timer, and I only started to get an idea of what I have to do. I quit in a not-so-quiet-panic.

So yeah. I never expected an MSQ quest to induce a panic attack that could prevent me from actually playing the game anymore. This sucks. I'll try again tomorrow, queues and luck willing.

That's actually the first (and still only) RP duty I've enjoyed, though I definitely understand how the timer is going to cause problems with anxiety.

My suggestion is to go in with the intent of failing so you can take your time to look around and figure out what you need to do. Once you know what you need to do, you can repeat it on Very Easy.

Tips for those who are looking for help:

When it suggests that you stay to the shadows, that's what it means. Try to stick to moving through alleys and the buildings as much as possible to avoid combat (some will be unavoidable).

Check every object you can interact with for medkits, whether corpse or ruined magitek. They're very helpful and worth wasting a few minutes of the timer to grab.

To get past the first "obstacle" you're going to need ceruleum and a magitek identification key to use an immobilized magitek armor that still has operational weapon systems.

The magitek armor is found roughly south/southwest of where you start the duty.

A full ceruleum tank can be found in the NE corner of the duty area (I think you have to find the armor first because I can't remember seeing it when I made my initial survey of the area). A little south of that is ruined magitek with a partially full tank as well.

The identification key will be found on a wounded NPC in a building just northwest of the armor. It will have text bubble speech that can be seen through the damaged walls to help you find it.

Go back to the armor and use it to kill the enemies blocking your way. There will be a few swarms, just keep blasting them with the different abilities.

Next section is help survivors - go through helping to kill stuff, the NPCs will do most of the tanking to help conserve your HP. You're going to want at least one and preferably two medkits for the big battle. Don't worry about things in the battle you can't control.

Final section. You're the Warrior of Light - do not give up even if it seems hopeless.

[Besame]

Once I figured out what to do with a bit of dumb luck on locations assisting, I got through it fine. The issue was, the first time I was half way through, I got stuck in a pile of debris in the middle of a walkway and could not get out. I tried everything, finally had to log and went back to the 20002 error group. Gave up for the day. I agree, that timer has to go, hideous and stressful.

[rockisch]

This was probably the only duty I've enjoyed from the whole game. Duties always had the issue of being too easy because your character is too OP. In SB, they had the idea of doing RP duties, which was cool in concept, but since most players don't want to learn complete new rotations, they always dumbed down the available skills, which I guess makes sense, but made them even more boring than the normal duties.

And here's where this new duty comes in: it keeps the simple rotation, but adds the difficulty of having to think where's your next objective is, while choosing your battles wisely.

I also don't understand why the timer is an issue to people. I'm pretty sure they pop that message that says 'A set of long cutscenes will play, ensure you have time' before previous cutscene and the duty. At the end of the day, RP duties are no more different than cutscenes, just more interactive. At least for me, it definetely had more impact than most cutscenes (which is a good thing).

[CaesarCV]

It's kinda funny to me since most duties have timers anyway, this one's just 30 minutes rather than an hour. Personally, it was one of my all-time favorite duties. It used the mechanics of the game to spell out a very different situation and really show the player desperation and danger. The first time you weakly flail at an enemy soldier only to realize you are in serious danger just made it all the more exciting. While 'stealth mechanics outside of stealth games' are almost never good (indeed, the tailing duties present in Endwalker show just what I mean) the simpler nature where you actually have to pay attention to aggro for once made it thrilling. The timer is just so that you don't wait 5 whole minutes for that minor regen buff to heal you and such. It adds useful tension.