in from the cold is so stupid

[Anhra]

Personally, i really liked that Quest. That Power Balance is how i wish how the enviroment would be in the overworld of the Game, and even more so in Dungeons. The WoL has more than enough Plotarmor already, at least let the World remind him that in the end, he is JUST a Adventurer.

[Elodie_Einsbern]

I can see how the instance was supposed to put this into perspective, but then I think they completely dropped the ball once you're done and catch up with Zenos. So you just spent that whole time struggling to fight against regular garlean soldiers and then you're able to just throw a knife and it immediately destroys Zenos' avatar? Then you knock Zenos over like it's no big deal? But not only that...the whole thing is never mentioned again. So I was left feeling like ok what was the point in all that except to get me at the edge of my seat but then say psyche that's it!

ETA: And apparently Fandaniel can teleport you away whenever he feels like it but we never see it happen again.

The whole thing was garbage story telling from top to bottom. And it could have been amazing if done right. I still find it mind blowing how people just give the entire setup a free pass. Let alone the ending of it

Fandaniel is a sundered ascian, and yet he can freely teleport us away and disable us in the blink of an eye. No narrative buildup as to how he could accomplish this, it just "happens". After seeing our character disabled in that chair from the launch trailer, I was left wondering how they would do it. But they couldnt even go the cheap route of having Fandaniel find some Allagan tech that lets him disable a target. Or use a Garlean to betray us, which would have totally been in character. And been so much more satisfying to see from a storytelling perspective as we were trying to help them.

Instead he just yeets us, and they never bother to say how to the player. Leaving this enormous plot hole in the process. Why didnt Emet Selch, Lahabrea, or Elidibus just teleport us into a damn lava pit and kill us if it was this easy? Or any of the disposable rank and file sundered Ascians? The reason was simple, before this, the target had to be disabled or be willing to be teleported. None of which happened to us. Instead we were teleported away and then disabled with no explanation as to how he did any of it. And then uses the body swap tech.....*slow clap*.....well done amazing top tier writing

I expect this kind of writing from dollar store novels. But it just gets a free pass because 14's writers cant screw up. I liked the majority of the expansion, dont get me wrong. But this entire section was garbage

[Knot_D]

Y'all need to learn sneaking at Eureka or Deep Dungeon

[Anhra]

The whole thing was garbage story telling from top to bottom. And it could have been amazing if done right. I still find it mind blowing how people just give the entire setup a free pass. Let alone the ending of it

Fandaniel is a sundered ascian, and yet he can freely teleport us away and disable us in the blink of an eye. No narrative buildup as to how he could accomplish this, it just "happens". After seeing our character disabled in that chair from the launch trailer, I was left wondering how they would do it. But they couldnt even go the cheap route of having Fandaniel find some Allagan tech that lets him disable a target. Or use a Garlean to betray us, which would have totally been in character. And been so much more satisfying to see from a storytelling perspective as we were trying to help them.

Instead he just yeets us, and they never bother to say how to the player. Leaving this enormous plot hole in the process. Why didnt Emet Selch, Lahabrea, or Elidibus just teleport us into a damn lava pit and kill us if it was this easy? Or any of the disposable rank and file sundered Ascians? The reason was simple, before this, the target had to be disabled or be willing to be teleported. None of which happened to us. Instead we were teleported away and then disabled with no explanation as to how he did any of it. And then uses the body swap tech.....*slow clap*.....well done amazing top tier writing

I expect this kind of writing from dollar store novels. But it just gets a free pass because 14's writers cant screw up. I liked the majority of the expansion, dont get me wrong. But this entire section was garbage

More like, someone hasn't been paying enoughattention to the Story and starts throwing random claims.

Fandaniel isn't just some random sundered Ascian. His previous Life as Amon not only introduced him as a scientific Genius, he also pulled off a similar stunt in the Crystal Tower with Phlegethon (last Boss in Labyrinth of the Ancients) where he completely wiped his memory and made him a Guarddog for all eternity. Alongside that, he even STRAIGHT UP TELLS you that he picked uo Aulus mal Asina's research Data (second Boss of Ala Mhigo, the guy who yeets out your Soul with Demi Magic) and perfected it.

If that doesn't cover for it, i don't know what will.

[Warpstone]

It's almost like people like different things and find some content difficult that other people find easy. Not every one has the same skill set. My self I did not like the scenario, I don't like playing as a npc, I want to play my character. I just do not find it fun at all. I don't think things like this should be removed and I think they did a good job nerfing the easier modes of it. I would rather have a option of watching it as a cut scene than playing thru it.

I feel for you OP, this scenario really upset me at the time, by the end of it I so pissed I skipped the cut scenes at the end and really just gave up on the story after that. It was just so frustrating.

[Raelsar]

It's well-established that this particular quest is divisive, but for the most part I'd argue it accomplished exactly what it intended to do. The objective of the solo duty is to force a perspective-flip on the player, make them feel weak, helpless, frustrated, desperate, and so on; it's supposed to be a very real struggle, forcing you to adapt to a tough situation without the advantages and tools you normally have.

The one catch is... quite frankly, many simply didn't get it. The moment they lose their power fantasy, nothing else matters except they're being denied the power trip they've grown accustomed to.

---

That being said, it could be argued the ending and follow-through for the solo duty were lacking.

Zenos doesn't manage to cause any damage, but at the same time the last-minute save does feel earned (surprisingly few people notice that the ending crawl actually has the player speeding up, almost as if they were about to stand back up). Still, him actually managing to hurt others (possibly killing off a named NPC or two, if not necessarily a member of the Scions) instead of being intercepted at the last second would have made him a much more hated foe. Even then, at the time I felt they did a great job of re-establishing how big a threat Zenos was.

... which brings me to the follow through, in that they don't really do anything with Zenos afterwards. He does have some appearances afterwards, but they definitely could have made him into a much more dangerous threat (if not necessarily the most interesting character) if he showed up and caused some damage. I suppose it was contrary to what they wanted to do with the character in end, but Zenos is a character which really needed a (good) reason to be despised.

[Fawkes]

More like, someone hasn't been paying enoughattention to the Story and starts throwing random claims.

Fandaniel isn't just some random sundered Ascian. His previous Life as Amon not only introduced him as a scientific Genius, he also pulled off a similar stunt in the Crystal Tower with Phlegethon (last Boss in Labyrinth of the Ancients) where he completely wiped his memory and made him a Guarddog for all eternity. Alongside that, he even STRAIGHT UP TELLS you that he picked uo Aulus mal Asina's research Data (second Boss of Ala Mhigo, the guy who yeets out your Soul with Demi Magic) and perfected it.

If that doesn't cover for it, i don't know what will.

That doesn't explain why Lahabrea didn't just teleport us into the sun. It makes sense for Fandaniel to have this power and still fail to kill us because he doesn't actually want to win, he's just doing all this to annoy us so we'll kill Zodiark for him. But other more powerful Ascians actually wanted us dead and this makes them look pretty dumb in retrospect.

[Imoye]

I expect this kind of writing from dollar store novels. But it just gets a free pass because 14's writers cant screw up. I liked the majority of the expansion, dont get me wrong. But this entire section was garbage

Unfortunately, there are a lot of FFXIV players that give everything story-related a free pass for unknown reasons. I've seen the same arguements in context of the ridiculous quest in Labyrinthos where you have to run around and talk to EIGHT random NPCs. Whenever someone rightfully points out how stupid it is, these very same people say "it's not that bad"; "I think it's OK"; "actually, I kind of enjoyed it"; "everything shouldn't be easy" etc.

I will never understand people giving bad design a free pass. "In from the Cold" is just a ridiculous quest. Even if you give it a pass lore-wise; technically it's just an extremely tedious and poorly designed quest seemingly made to waste players' time.

[Elodie_Einsbern]

More like, someone hasn't been paying enoughattention to the Story and starts throwing random claims.

Fandaniel isn't just some random sundered Ascian. His previous Life as Amon not only introduced him as a scientific Genius, he also pulled off a similar stunt in the Crystal Tower with Phlegethon (last Boss in Labyrinth of the Ancients) where he completely wiped his memory and made him a Guarddog for all eternity. Alongside that, he even STRAIGHT UP TELLS you that he picked uo Aulus mal Asina's research Data (second Boss of Ala Mhigo, the guy who yeets out your Soul with Demi Magic) and perfected it.

If that doesn't cover for it, i don't know what will.

Maybe you should learn to read yourself. Considering I said and know what he used to swap our soul to another body.

"And then uses the body swap tech.....*slow clap*.....well done amazing top tier writing"

Pretty easy to read

Now explain how he teleported and disabled us in the blink of an eye, succeeded where all other Ascians failed? You know, the meat of my post that you completely ignored

Oh that's right.....you cant because it was never explained. It just happened. And hand wave all you like about Fandaniel, he is a Sundered Ascian. Emit Selch was leagues ahead of what Fandaniel could ever hope to be in regards to mastery of magics and power. And thats what he used, magic to teleport us away, not science. Good writing would have had build up to how through cunning and knowledge Fandaniel could accomplish what brute strength hadn't been able too.

That didn't happen, no where even close

[Atelier-Bagur]

Unfortunately, there are a lot of FFXIV players that give everything story-related a free pass for unknown reasons. I've seen the same arguements in context of the ridiculous quest in Labyrinthos where you have to run around and talk to EIGHT random NPCs. Whenever someone rightfully points out how stupid it is, these very same people say "it's not that bad"; "I think it's OK"; "actually, I kind of enjoyed it"; "everything shouldn't be easy" etc.

I will never understand people giving bad design a free pass. "In from the Cold" is just a ridiculous quest. Even if you give it a pass lore-wise; technically it's just an extremely tedious and poorly designed quest seemingly made to waste players' time.

Its not that at all. Some people genuinely enjoy those story moments because they knew what the designers were going for and appreciated how it was presented. Its obvious some people dont like it, but I personally didnt think the quest was bad at all. It was great for what it did in terms of story telling.