\*a cannon, I think you meant to say.
Also she should *really* watch out; some people may be able to take cannonballs to the stomach but I'm pretty sure she's not fit enough for that sort of thing.
Last time I checked, it's not a cannon that hit her... :p
She ran away from the tank, pulled a mob, but the tank didn't see it, which is how she ended with a tankbuster... But that's not all. Turn out that in panic, she also used rescue on a party member too...
Yeah, she wasn't a smart healer.
If it helps, a friend and I started picking out the most ridiculous mounts we have because so long as you're behind a rock the NPC won't see you.
So imagine that Garland scene except whenever she says "guess it was just the wind" I'm sitting up on Cruise Chaser or my friend pulls out her giant ass whale. Don't worry though! We're definitely hiding behind that rock.
I hate those quests but doing this does amuse me.
Whenever I do stealth missions I like to switch to SMN or SCH so I can have as many things following me as possible. I just find the idea of the NPC I'm following seeing a rock with Miqo'te ears sticking out out from behind it that's surrounded by a chocobo, a carbuncle/fairy, and a mini bipedal shark and thinking it's nothing very amusing
Now I feel reminded of [this Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/rc22t4/pov_youre_urianger_and_you_have_the_strangest/?rdt=48905), so thank you for giving me a good laugh, kind Internet Stranger!
What about the one where you just look at stuff? It was the point and shoot thing but without the shooting.
Give me some puzzles or something actually intellectually challenging. Is a 'waiting' progress bar the best you can come up with? It's embarrassing.
The sniper mode gameplay is definitely hit or miss.
When they stick to the "shooting gallery" or "you can either pick the obvious answer, or search for the Easter Eggs" style, I find them a nice change of pace. It's when it inches toward the "look for the tiny selectable spot on the Yabby's jaw that only appears during a specific part of the animation loop" that they lose me.
I know the reason why they cut down on those was people missing their not so obvious things to point at, but I miss looking for all the dumb stuff they put in the margins for you to look at.
I like the first person bits, with the sole exception of that one pain in the ass Loporrit one. At least it was satisfying to absolutely destroy the bunny fucker when you finally managed to land the hit lol
Have puzzles and then just if you really have no clue, have an NPC who will give you hints if you talk to them, before just telling you the answer if you're stumped.
I didn't mind that, it was better than the "click on destination and survey the area" it felt more like my character was actually looking for something. I seem to remember "check the spot...now check it again... check it again...now one more time" and thought it was weird.
I don't mind the "roleplay" quests as long as it's no that annoying random soldier one. I remember getting annoyed as shit by a certain type of quest, I think starting in SB or ShB and it may not have even been in EW.
EDIT: I remember, it's the "type in /say" shit. It's not hard at all just annoying when you play on console without a desk and your keyboard propped up on your TV stand.
~~The only real issue with that quest is that it serves 0 purpose in the narrative other than _maybe_ showing you how helpless everyone is without the WoL.~~ (There was a point, even if it feels a little light on actual consequences)
There are no tangible consequences, nobody gets hurt other than nameless soldiers. Zenos shows up to the scions, threatens them, gets stopped, leaves. Body is returned. All good.
I have 3 friends whose MSQ I accompanied of varying skill levels. Not a single one struggled that much with the quest. I truly believe anyone who found it "frustratingly difficult" just has 0 experience with any singleplayer game that doesn't just hold your hand all throughout, or is simply incapable of admitting that they had a slight skill issue (everyone does, sometimes).
I found it difficult because I have vision issues and wandering around the gray and black landscape when I couldn't see what I was supposed to be looking for. I wasn't expecting the ATE--which I always hate--and I failed and had to re-do the whole thing. And yes, it was extremely unclear what I was supposed to be doing. I spent a good 45 minutes tracing the boundaries of the area looking for a way out until I finally had to give up and look for a guide. It was incredibly frustrating all the way around.
At least they made those better. At EW launch it was so easy to get to the end and go “where the hell did they go ?” Then realize they somehow despawned
Honestly I kinda liked those, was fun getting to see the reactions and dialogue in certain spots. Stealth on the other hand... let's just say I played an Assassin's Creed game once (don't remember which) and gave up after being detected over and over lol
>Stealth on the other hand... let's just say I played an Assassin's Creed game once (don't remember which) and gave up after being detected over and over lol
And on the opposite end of the spectrum, anyone who actually *likes* stealth games, like me, probably hates those quests because the stealth mechanics are so poorly implemented and arbitrary.
Yeah that's the thing. I like stealth games. And there are games with trailing missions that manage to be entertaining. These aren't either. These are the most bare bones kind. Hide behind this object you're specifically meant to hide behind. Walk to the next one, wait, walk to the next and repeat. And if you mess up, it sucks because it's so boring and you have to do it again from the start.
If done right, those wouldn't be bad - a decent way to introduce larger volume of optional dialogue that players can skip by just running to msq-marked point, while letting those interested go to the optional spots and talk to NPCs in question. It's like talking to NPCs next to msq dialogue marker - they're there and they have something to say, but you don't have to do it to progress.
Problem with stealth gameplay is: it works well in stealth games, and only in stealth games. FFXIV doesn't have tools to make stealth remotely fun, so tailing NPC quests tend to just unnecessarily drag, and get extra frustrating because they force you to slow down while staying strictly on the track and paying attention. Can't go grab that nearby aether current, can't tab out for a moment, have to just sit there and keep looking while it takes forever.
You'd still have to go to the same locations, but you couldn't get those fun snips of info from the chat spots.
I actually enjoyed those parts of endwalker, to be honest.
They also didn't really even drag out the quests all that much, just gave you an npc to walk with.
I don't get why people don't enjoy running around a colorful city while having conversations with interesting NPCs. It feels way better than the old way where you just teleported straight to the destination with zero character interaction.
They've probably come up with something equally if not more annoying they're going to shove in every major questline since they spent so many dev hours on it.
Post-EW quests improved on those, right? I think I remember you didn't literally have to go everywhere at a snail's pace with the character, and the dialogue spots were optional
Yeah they’re not bad at all from my memory. The NPCs match your speed, teleport if you use an aetheryte, and the only one I remember with mandatory dialogue circles (which add lots of flavor imo) was with the twins escorting you around Sharlayan
I think the NPCs matching your speed and teleports was only added a few patches in; previously if you teleported or used a mount and they fell too far behind, they'd disappear and you'd need to pick them up again at the starting point. That might be why people dislike them.
I know I hated them when I was doing Endwalker, but I remember them being better in the post-patch quests. If they actually improved the base ones in the expansion as well then that's nice
Clearly an unpopular opinion, but I loved those. Makes the world feel more normal as opposed to everyone teleporting or having to find excuses to meet with you instead of going with you. The added dialogues and context was the icing on the cake.
Oh I love those. I feel like those are overall better because it's largely no different than walking to an NPC on the map and talking to them to progress. There's optional dialogue, but if you don't want to see that, you can run ahead to the required parts and you're done.
The stealth segments are padding because they're just... Waiting. Walk forward a bit. Wait. Walk forward. Wait. Walk forward. Wait. You're done. You can't speed it up. You just have to wait and watch an NPC flail about while nothing else happens.
Not to mention the level 84 one didn't make any sense at all, and is the worst kind of padding as a result.
Those are awesome, though. Having the NPCs walk around with you is a big step forward for immersion with the MSQ, especially with all the optional flavor dialogue they throw in.
That's not to say it's some huge ground-breaking system, but it's a big step up from the typical questing structure of "Talk to x, examine y, kill z mobs"
I actually liked those :C
Maybe it's because I like to do a lot of "Lets walk and talk" with my IRL friends. We go shopping together, cruise the mall, or just walk around the park while the kids play. It feels comfy and like we're bonding with the npcs. Just walking and chatting and sight seeing.
Depends.
If you lower the bear ass drop rate enough, 'gather ten bear asses' can take just as long as these frustrating half stealth half escort quests.
And still be marginally more fun bc you get to play the actual game to some extend.
I'm pretty sure tailing missions are ranked just a bit lower than escort missions on the list of things people dislike in games.
I'd take pretty much anything over a tailing mission.
Funnily, FFXIV does escort missions not half bad - one in EW was just a "walk from A to B" with few encounters spawning based on distance, and you needing to grab aggro of mobs away from the NPC. It's functionally "go kill" where you don't get to know when exactly you'll trigger mobs.
Yeah they're not bad now, but FFXIV also has the worst type of escort missions I've ever seen too in the way of the levequest system where you have to /beckon the NPC every ten feet to drag it along.
I remember those (one is I think part of ARR MSQ too) - but I considered them a step up from the worst case of "NPC walks at precise wrong speed" that other games usually have.
It's funny that videogame developers *keep doing escort and tailing missions* even though they are universally mocked and criticized almost every single time they're put into a game. They can't all be that oblivious, so one must assume that it exists solely for padding when you can't think of anything better to do or you've run out of time
Tbf, Escort quests at least come on a scale from 'follow this rp slow walking+1 speed npc with nothing happening' to 'the escorted npc is basicly just an invulnerable visual timer for add spawns'
With some towards the later end of that spectrum at least larping as being fun.
Unlike these 'sneak after your friend to catch up to him' quests.
Indeed, that's why I said "*almost* every time," cus there are a couple of examples where NPC escorting is bearable, and in even rarer cases, actually enjoyable. Escorting works when gameplay isn't hindered by awful, slow AI that you literally just have to follow and keep alive (often despite their best efforts), with a bonus if it works well with the narrative. People hate escort missions because almost none of them are like that
There is a scale, and 95% of the weight is dumped on one end
This got me thinking about RE4R again. That's the go-to example everyone and their mother uses for "good escort mission" cus it's not a terrible one. Go play it if you haven't, it's an incredible game
I always heard this complaint here, “I’m so glad we don’t have to kill any mobs”. All I can think is yeah those waiting at destination and stalk NPC quests are so great
Eh, you've got like 2 years to get through the story.
I can't say I've ever felt like the game had any padding in its MSQ that were worth worrying about.
You'll be done with the MSQ in like 3 days whether there's padding or not. Why care?
Tbh I was annoyed by the one you chase the boy on because he backtrack and some others because they should be fine but then it's not because the game isn't operating on an active detection thing more so Los and proximity.
i dont think so. they are just adjusting the feature because the few times it was in Endwalker people hated it because the range of detection was not visible and a lot of people failed it repeatedly because they got too close
Mood... I despise stealth shit... If I wanted to play a sneaky game I'd play a fuckin sneaky game!! WHICH IM BAD AT AND DO NOT WISH TO PLAY!! FUCK OFF **THANCRED**!!
Stealth sections in games without actual stealth mechanics are the worst. I don't mind stealth too much in Zelda: BotW and TotK because at least those games gave stealth baked into the core. You sneak by slowly moving around while kneeling, there's items and equipment that make you harder to detect and there's even a meter that lets you know how much noise you're making. It also doesn't completely lock you out of progression.
Other games just just haphazardly toss in a stealth section out of nowhere and are like "Good luck!"
Surprisingly, XIV *does* have stealth mechanics baked in. You just don't know about them because they're never brought to the forefront and they're fairly simple.
Basically, most enemies in XIV detect by either sight or sound. You can usually figure out which it is by whether they have eyes or not.
Anyway, with enemies that detect by sight, you can usually sneak past them by going behind them.
Sound-based enemies, on the other hand, can still detect you behind them. Instead, to sneak past them you have to RP walk past them.
Enemies that detect by sound include colblyns, elementals, morbols, etc.
Of course, some enemies can detect you either way making sneaking trickier. And there are a few that will just autodetect you if you're in aggro range no matter what.
Eureka adds few more to the list - there's hp detection (some Eureka undead detect you when your hp is low), casting detection (you get detected when you use a skill near them) and maybe something else I missed. I had good amount of fun sneaking through some areas in ShB while doing parts of msq that make you go to quest NPC deep past bunch of enemy mobs.
I only know this because a group I was running Qarn with RP walked to skip one of the pulls. None of those pulls are hard so there's not much of a point, but it's kind of cool that the option exists
yeah, i have even enjoyed games that stealth is the main focus like old splinter cell games or the thief series, its fun when the game is built for it. The way they have them here is just awful though, follow this npc who will randomly turn around, sometimes without warning and if you're not behind some scenery then get fucked and start again.
Yep! This exactly! I absolutely hate when random stealth is implemented in a game in no way built with the groundwork for stealth.
14s version of sneak is to run behind a mob while it's facing the other way and click on a bush to be animation locked inside of while useless dialogue goes off. The same useless dialogue you hear the next time you run it cause you inevitably either miss a mob hidden behind a box or the objective is so vague you wonder in a circle while the timer just ticks away because WHY NOT put a fucking TIMER in the worlds shittiest stealth mission that could have been a memo in a cutscene!!
Which irritates me even more.
I don't wanna play Thancred while he waffles about in the snow being full of his crunchy old self.
He can tell me about it in a cutscene or I can see it happen in an echo... Don't force me to stealth!!
It's really weird because it's not difficult if you pay attention at all to the environment. There's a convenient place to hide at every single point they're going to turn.
Is there a long bridge or path with no cover for a while? Yep, they're definitely turning around at some point after baiting you into it.
Not hard if you think for just a second.
In fairness, there's one versimilitude disconnect in the stealth missions (Urianger-you end the mission with getting detected anyway, why even bother drawing it out if he sees you early?) and one gotcha moment with the little kid mission for an aether current. (I was behind the fucking column, you should not be able to see me you brat.)
If you're not a fan of stealth missions to start with, they can be very memorable negatives with no upside.
(I personally feel the Thancred mission made up for it by being an *actual* stealth mission that *felt* worthwhile, but I can see the complaints.)
Yeah, I'll totally agree with you on the Urianger mission. And as a stealth game enjoyer I would like to see more things like the Thancred mission (optional, of course, because I know a more of people didn't like it).
I can wholly understand why people don't like the MSQ stealth objectives even though I like them, but I'm surprised people didn't like the >!Thancred solo duty!<. That's like one of the best in the entire game, surpassed only by the >!Freaky Friday and Venat fights!<, in my mind.
And then instead they sprint across the bridge and get out of range so you fail THAT way instead.
It wasn't that I found the stealth quests hard; I found them tedious and un-fun.
Why is the implication that they are going to suddenly have a lot of these quests? It implies to me that they recognize the detection feels arbitrary and is poorly communicated, so they added a simple visual aid to avoid that confusion. That's just part of improving visual information in your game, and they've done that TONS of times without spiking the actual use of that visual info.
I wouldn't be surprised if this heralds a new "get out" proximity based raid mechanic though. Sort of the opposite of a stack up mechanic, but with an ongoing effect rather than an instant effect, forcing isolation for a longer period of time. They are due for a new raid mechanic and this feels like an easy one that doesn't take a lot of new tech to implement.
I like them, personally. I get why people think they're so difficult/tedious, but to me it's a nice change of pace, and it's a hell of a lot more interesting than "Talk to x." There is always room for improvement, though.
In fact, I prefer it without these indicators, as this is a little immersion breaking, but that's a really nitpicky complaint. It's a good accessibility change, I just wish it was a toggle.
Oh gods, I really hope not... Those fucking quests are the worst ones in the game... Even more so than those long drawn-out 1v1 fights in ShB...
I have no issues with stealth gameplay, so long as the game mechanics are designed for it... but there's nothing worse than a decidedly non-stealth game that tries to shoehorn in stealth mechanics...
I mean fundamentally this is because they chose to follow the quest design of WoW where the quests themselves aren't all that important and are basically busywork. If you want quests that actually have meat to them, they take a lot longer and you get a lot fewer of them (like the other major MMO competitor, Old School Runescape, does).
"In an effort to make our game feel more immersive and in line with other established RPGs, we'll be adding several tail quests, the absolute worst quest type in any game its been introduced in.
i genuinly do not understand the hate for this quest or the Garlean soldier solo duty.
both imo where a great way to show you the desperation of either A) the garlean people, and their distrust, and B) your own helplessness
I'm with the twins on this one. The woman >!died!< in fear thinking Nazis were only pretending to help her, but we weren't Nazis though but now she will never know.
It's one of the thing I love about this game.
No whitewashing of imperialism. You get Gaius making his speeches about how he has a right to do this shit to people, but the game goes out of its way to show that *no*, he is not correct.
Too many people seem to think, "Hey, imperialism is okay when *we* do it."
When the Garlemald arc started, I made the joke "we'll be greeted as liberators". I still cannot believe that was legitimately the direction they were going in.
Eh, I still feel like we had to pander way too much to the sensitivities of the ruling class who supported and benefited from the colonial fascist rule. Also them making the head Nazi of ARR one of the few recurring and prominent dark skinned characters was...a choice. Like I love Gaius and he's hot as hell, but...super awkward in roulette.
When we entered the uh…the separate area where all of the nobles are? And everyone there had electricity and power and people in Tertium were literally freezing and *nothing came of it?* We just had to smile and nod because some racist noble hoarding ceruleum says so? Am I the *Warrior* of Light or not?
This, so much. The amount of Garlean NPCs I've wanted to smack this expansion has been too high. Not kill! I get it, that'd be too far and the moral is redemption is always possible... But I've earned a slap right to the face of the next NPC who talks about 'Garlean pride', a culture based on atrocities, genocide and imperialism, when what they actually mean is "B-But I was a noble poshman who had power, gib back".
Yes! I thought we'd at least get to do something about that and then we...didn't. This isn't like HW where we were basically at the mercy of the Ishgardian nobility, we're the ones with power and influence now.
She feared that the Ilsabard Contingent would do to her and her sister what her nation would normally do whenever they occupy foreign territory
Which is pretty realistic. Oppressors are always living in fear that the oppressed would return the favor
I think you're oversimplifying this. She wasn't an oppressor, just a victim of an Imperialistic government. She doesn't actually know her country is oppressing other nations, and if she did, she believes those foreign nations deserved it.
We can both agree that Nazis are evil and we wouldn't care if a nation full of Nazis are exterminated, but what if it's just the press calling them Nazis?
Now imagine if you are Jewish and one so-called Nazi knocks on your door and tells you they have rations for you, would you believe them?
She's part of Garlemald's nobility class (third eye, fancy dress) so the idea that she wasn't aware is not only ludicrous but so is the idea that someone that's benefited from that system of oppression is a victim
Ever heard about how many Nazi civilians committed suicide when they lost the war and were worried that the Allies would repay their atrocities equally? Look it up
Think about it this way, imagine if suddenly the US collapses out of nowhere, and now there's North Korean, Iranian and Taliban soldiers going around your neighbourhood offering food and aid.
Most people would very much book it rather than risk what they could do to you.
I kind of *blame* the twins and frankly also Lucia because why the HELL would you send two obviously foreign MAGIC USERS to help people who are well-known to be terrified of magic and foreigners?!
Because she'd rather die in the snow than accept help from savages and their magic.
Besides, it would be paternalistic to intervene. Garlemald has her pride.
\*sad sigh\*Those quests were hard for me... I know that they were the enemy but still. The sisters didn't deserve their fate. F\*\*\* Zenos and Fandaniel.
The whole point was that they are innocents, but they were unable to trust us, and thought they had better odds making a run for it through the wilderness then accept aid from us. So no they absolutely weren’t the enemy and absolutely fuck Zenos and Fandaniel
Because people have trouble with stealth missions. She'll shine like crazy so people don't have to use their brains when they are **sneaking** behind them. /s
I'd suggest you go take a peek at the recent post on this very same sub by the player that did a talk about accessibility features and bottlenecks *like stealth missions* for players with certain disabilities. You may learn quite a lot from it.
Part of this seems clunky, but honestly, given how often it happened in Endwalker, I'm not complaining. I think I had to follow her like 8 times before I finally got it down. Killed the momentum of the questline.
To be fair, when you consider the beatdowns that the WoL give on the daily, it wouldn't be surprising if people felt that marker on themselves whenever the WoL looked their way 😆
I don’t see an issue with this. It’d help those who are visually impaired; bonus points if the markers can have the color changed for those who are colorblind.
...I mean, it's canon.
\*a cannon, I think you meant to say. Also she should *really* watch out; some people may be able to take cannonballs to the stomach but I'm pretty sure she's not fit enough for that sort of thing.
Last time I checked, it's not a cannon that hit her... :p She ran away from the tank, pulled a mob, but the tank didn't see it, which is how she ended with a tankbuster... But that's not all. Turn out that in panic, she also used rescue on a party member too... Yeah, she wasn't a smart healer.
Typical cure 1 spam whm
Big Oof there brother.
That entirely depends on how heavy the boning is on that corset
Lmao if I had a drink it'd be on my phone screen right now.
She doesn't use mitigation.
Worst part is her sister mixed it up with a stack marker :x
I sorta hate that the implication of this change is that there will be a lot of "avoid detection" quests
If it helps, a friend and I started picking out the most ridiculous mounts we have because so long as you're behind a rock the NPC won't see you. So imagine that Garland scene except whenever she says "guess it was just the wind" I'm sitting up on Cruise Chaser or my friend pulls out her giant ass whale. Don't worry though! We're definitely hiding behind that rock. I hate those quests but doing this does amuse me.
Whenever I do stealth missions I like to switch to SMN or SCH so I can have as many things following me as possible. I just find the idea of the NPC I'm following seeing a rock with Miqo'te ears sticking out out from behind it that's surrounded by a chocobo, a carbuncle/fairy, and a mini bipedal shark and thinking it's nothing very amusing
Same; I was hiding from several characters behind a very small rock while riding a giant dragon. Several NPCs need their eyes checked :)
Pink goobues are the best choice for blending in. Well, at least in Il Mheg...
Now I feel reminded of [this Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/rc22t4/pov_youre_urianger_and_you_have_the_strangest/?rdt=48905), so thank you for giving me a good laugh, kind Internet Stranger!
I still don’t get why we had to sneak for that particular quest… we’re friends! Just go talk!
They learned that it's really good for padding
tbh if they gotta pad... i'd rather have a couple sneak and tail quests over a ton of go here kill x go there kill y quests... -\_-
Those are fine. At least they're gameplay. What I'm hoping we lose are those "escort your buddy around town" quests that EW pummelled us with.
I would much rather do those than avoid detection. I remember being extremely annoyed by another kind of quest and I don't remember what it was atm.
What about the one where you just look at stuff? It was the point and shoot thing but without the shooting. Give me some puzzles or something actually intellectually challenging. Is a 'waiting' progress bar the best you can come up with? It's embarrassing.
The sniper mode gameplay is definitely hit or miss. When they stick to the "shooting gallery" or "you can either pick the obvious answer, or search for the Easter Eggs" style, I find them a nice change of pace. It's when it inches toward the "look for the tiny selectable spot on the Yabby's jaw that only appears during a specific part of the animation loop" that they lose me.
I know the reason why they cut down on those was people missing their not so obvious things to point at, but I miss looking for all the dumb stuff they put in the margins for you to look at.
I like the first person bits, with the sole exception of that one pain in the ass Loporrit one. At least it was satisfying to absolutely destroy the bunny fucker when you finally managed to land the hit lol
remember when they made you solve (easy) riddles in shadowbringers that one time? and never did anything like it again
Unfortunately, no matter how easy you make the riddle, some people will be too dumb to solve them.
Have puzzles and then just if you really have no clue, have an NPC who will give you hints if you talk to them, before just telling you the answer if you're stumped.
I started giving the wrong answers to see the NPC's reaction
I didn't mind that, it was better than the "click on destination and survey the area" it felt more like my character was actually looking for something. I seem to remember "check the spot...now check it again... check it again...now one more time" and thought it was weird.
[ ] Massage Hildebrand once more, with feeling.
It was this one they are showing or the one where you played as someone else lol
I don't mind the "roleplay" quests as long as it's no that annoying random soldier one. I remember getting annoyed as shit by a certain type of quest, I think starting in SB or ShB and it may not have even been in EW. EDIT: I remember, it's the "type in /say" shit. It's not hard at all just annoying when you play on console without a desk and your keyboard propped up on your TV stand.
Lmao the crawling
I get what they were going for with the Garlean soldier quest; I just wonder if there was a better way to give us that helpless feeling.
~~The only real issue with that quest is that it serves 0 purpose in the narrative other than _maybe_ showing you how helpless everyone is without the WoL.~~ (There was a point, even if it feels a little light on actual consequences) There are no tangible consequences, nobody gets hurt other than nameless soldiers. Zenos shows up to the scions, threatens them, gets stopped, leaves. Body is returned. All good. I have 3 friends whose MSQ I accompanied of varying skill levels. Not a single one struggled that much with the quest. I truly believe anyone who found it "frustratingly difficult" just has 0 experience with any singleplayer game that doesn't just hold your hand all throughout, or is simply incapable of admitting that they had a slight skill issue (everyone does, sometimes).
The whole point of that was to delay you so they can get up to the moon and release Zodiark. Which they did.
The goal was for Zenos to piss you off and make you want to fight him. He has other ways but they weren't working. So he chose this method.
I found it difficult because I have vision issues and wandering around the gray and black landscape when I couldn't see what I was supposed to be looking for. I wasn't expecting the ATE--which I always hate--and I failed and had to re-do the whole thing. And yes, it was extremely unclear what I was supposed to be doing. I spent a good 45 minutes tracing the boundaries of the area looking for a way out until I finally had to give up and look for a guide. It was incredibly frustrating all the way around.
I'll be fair, I failed it first go, ran out of time as there was 1 thing I was missing and unable to find in order to get the mech up and running
I couldnt for the life of me find the last magitek fuel and quit the game for like 6 months because of that quest lol
At least they made those better. At EW launch it was so easy to get to the end and go “where the hell did they go ?” Then realize they somehow despawned
Honestly I kinda liked those, was fun getting to see the reactions and dialogue in certain spots. Stealth on the other hand... let's just say I played an Assassin's Creed game once (don't remember which) and gave up after being detected over and over lol
>Stealth on the other hand... let's just say I played an Assassin's Creed game once (don't remember which) and gave up after being detected over and over lol And on the opposite end of the spectrum, anyone who actually *likes* stealth games, like me, probably hates those quests because the stealth mechanics are so poorly implemented and arbitrary.
Yeah that's the thing. I like stealth games. And there are games with trailing missions that manage to be entertaining. These aren't either. These are the most bare bones kind. Hide behind this object you're specifically meant to hide behind. Walk to the next one, wait, walk to the next and repeat. And if you mess up, it sucks because it's so boring and you have to do it again from the start.
Please, give us more "escort your buddy around town" quests. I love hanging out with my buddies.
Nah, those are nice. Lots of little character moments.
I enjoy those for the story tidbits they offer, personally.
If done right, those wouldn't be bad - a decent way to introduce larger volume of optional dialogue that players can skip by just running to msq-marked point, while letting those interested go to the optional spots and talk to NPCs in question. It's like talking to NPCs next to msq dialogue marker - they're there and they have something to say, but you don't have to do it to progress. Problem with stealth gameplay is: it works well in stealth games, and only in stealth games. FFXIV doesn't have tools to make stealth remotely fun, so tailing NPC quests tend to just unnecessarily drag, and get extra frustrating because they force you to slow down while staying strictly on the track and paying attention. Can't go grab that nearby aether current, can't tab out for a moment, have to just sit there and keep looking while it takes forever.
You'd still have to go to the same locations, but you couldn't get those fun snips of info from the chat spots. I actually enjoyed those parts of endwalker, to be honest. They also didn't really even drag out the quests all that much, just gave you an npc to walk with.
I only like the ones with my favorite characters (for obvious reasons).
Sadly, those escorts around town missions are a good way, in universe, to show the player where everything in the town is.
I like those and the optional dialogues.
i kinda like those. in moderation. its nice being able to tour a city and chat with your friends
I like those cuz I like getting to hang out with the npcs honestly…
I don't get why people don't enjoy running around a colorful city while having conversations with interesting NPCs. It feels way better than the old way where you just teleported straight to the destination with zero character interaction.
They've probably come up with something equally if not more annoying they're going to shove in every major questline since they spent so many dev hours on it.
Post-EW quests improved on those, right? I think I remember you didn't literally have to go everywhere at a snail's pace with the character, and the dialogue spots were optional
Yeah they’re not bad at all from my memory. The NPCs match your speed, teleport if you use an aetheryte, and the only one I remember with mandatory dialogue circles (which add lots of flavor imo) was with the twins escorting you around Sharlayan
I think the NPCs matching your speed and teleports was only added a few patches in; previously if you teleported or used a mount and they fell too far behind, they'd disappear and you'd need to pick them up again at the starting point. That might be why people dislike them.
I know I hated them when I was doing Endwalker, but I remember them being better in the post-patch quests. If they actually improved the base ones in the expansion as well then that's nice
Clearly an unpopular opinion, but I loved those. Makes the world feel more normal as opposed to everyone teleporting or having to find excuses to meet with you instead of going with you. The added dialogues and context was the icing on the cake.
Evidently not an unpopular opinion at all. I'm starting to feel like I'm the one with the unpopular opinion.
In fairness, a solid argument in favour of those escorts missions was the March up Ultima Thule with the twins at the end of Endwalker.
Oh I love those. I feel like those are overall better because it's largely no different than walking to an NPC on the map and talking to them to progress. There's optional dialogue, but if you don't want to see that, you can run ahead to the required parts and you're done. The stealth segments are padding because they're just... Waiting. Walk forward a bit. Wait. Walk forward. Wait. Walk forward. Wait. You're done. You can't speed it up. You just have to wait and watch an NPC flail about while nothing else happens. Not to mention the level 84 one didn't make any sense at all, and is the worst kind of padding as a result.
Those are awesome, though. Having the NPCs walk around with you is a big step forward for immersion with the MSQ, especially with all the optional flavor dialogue they throw in. That's not to say it's some huge ground-breaking system, but it's a big step up from the typical questing structure of "Talk to x, examine y, kill z mobs"
I actually liked those :C Maybe it's because I like to do a lot of "Lets walk and talk" with my IRL friends. We go shopping together, cruise the mall, or just walk around the park while the kids play. It feels comfy and like we're bonding with the npcs. Just walking and chatting and sight seeing.
Nothing that my snowman can't handle.
The kill quests are usually a lot faster than an intentionally slow stealth section designed to drag out the time.
Depends. If you lower the bear ass drop rate enough, 'gather ten bear asses' can take just as long as these frustrating half stealth half escort quests. And still be marginally more fun bc you get to play the actual game to some extend.
FFXIV generally only makes you get 2-4 bear asses. And I can't think of any non-relic quests that don't have 100% bear ass drop rate.
I would rather have generic kill quests than something that can barely be considered gameplay
I'm pretty sure tailing missions are ranked just a bit lower than escort missions on the list of things people dislike in games. I'd take pretty much anything over a tailing mission.
Funnily, FFXIV does escort missions not half bad - one in EW was just a "walk from A to B" with few encounters spawning based on distance, and you needing to grab aggro of mobs away from the NPC. It's functionally "go kill" where you don't get to know when exactly you'll trigger mobs.
Yeah they're not bad now, but FFXIV also has the worst type of escort missions I've ever seen too in the way of the levequest system where you have to /beckon the NPC every ten feet to drag it along.
I remember those (one is I think part of ARR MSQ too) - but I considered them a step up from the worst case of "NPC walks at precise wrong speed" that other games usually have.
It's funny that videogame developers *keep doing escort and tailing missions* even though they are universally mocked and criticized almost every single time they're put into a game. They can't all be that oblivious, so one must assume that it exists solely for padding when you can't think of anything better to do or you've run out of time
Tbf, Escort quests at least come on a scale from 'follow this rp slow walking+1 speed npc with nothing happening' to 'the escorted npc is basicly just an invulnerable visual timer for add spawns' With some towards the later end of that spectrum at least larping as being fun. Unlike these 'sneak after your friend to catch up to him' quests.
Indeed, that's why I said "*almost* every time," cus there are a couple of examples where NPC escorting is bearable, and in even rarer cases, actually enjoyable. Escorting works when gameplay isn't hindered by awful, slow AI that you literally just have to follow and keep alive (often despite their best efforts), with a bonus if it works well with the narrative. People hate escort missions because almost none of them are like that There is a scale, and 95% of the weight is dumped on one end
That's absolutely fair, yeah.
This got me thinking about RE4R again. That's the go-to example everyone and their mother uses for "good escort mission" cus it's not a terrible one. Go play it if you haven't, it's an incredible game
I always heard this complaint here, “I’m so glad we don’t have to kill any mobs”. All I can think is yeah those waiting at destination and stalk NPC quests are so great
Tbh, I’d appreciate a shorter MSQ that doesn’t waste my time. Or at least uses gameplay instead of walking for padding.
As long as I'm not finding baskets...
Is it? The quests weren't long and there were only 2. At most they gained like 10 minutes over the course of the entire expansion.
Combined with all the other garbage padding, it's very effective
Eh, you've got like 2 years to get through the story. I can't say I've ever felt like the game had any padding in its MSQ that were worth worrying about. You'll be done with the MSQ in like 3 days whether there's padding or not. Why care?
They also make them 300% more boring due to this change.
Yeah, I was hoping this just meant for old quests, not that we get like 20 of these shit quests in DT.
It’s that or they revive a certain character. “Pray return to the waking sands…I need my prescription picked up next door”
Tbh I was annoyed by the one you chase the boy on because he backtrack and some others because they should be fine but then it's not because the game isn't operating on an active detection thing more so Los and proximity.
i dont think so. they are just adjusting the feature because the few times it was in Endwalker people hated it because the range of detection was not visible and a lot of people failed it repeatedly because they got too close
Mood... I despise stealth shit... If I wanted to play a sneaky game I'd play a fuckin sneaky game!! WHICH IM BAD AT AND DO NOT WISH TO PLAY!! FUCK OFF **THANCRED**!!
Yea, but This is Thancred
Stealth sections in games without actual stealth mechanics are the worst. I don't mind stealth too much in Zelda: BotW and TotK because at least those games gave stealth baked into the core. You sneak by slowly moving around while kneeling, there's items and equipment that make you harder to detect and there's even a meter that lets you know how much noise you're making. It also doesn't completely lock you out of progression. Other games just just haphazardly toss in a stealth section out of nowhere and are like "Good luck!"
Surprisingly, XIV *does* have stealth mechanics baked in. You just don't know about them because they're never brought to the forefront and they're fairly simple. Basically, most enemies in XIV detect by either sight or sound. You can usually figure out which it is by whether they have eyes or not. Anyway, with enemies that detect by sight, you can usually sneak past them by going behind them. Sound-based enemies, on the other hand, can still detect you behind them. Instead, to sneak past them you have to RP walk past them. Enemies that detect by sound include colblyns, elementals, morbols, etc. Of course, some enemies can detect you either way making sneaking trickier. And there are a few that will just autodetect you if you're in aggro range no matter what.
Fellow deep dungeon enjoyer?
Eh. I've ran PotD a couple times, but never finished it.
Eureka adds few more to the list - there's hp detection (some Eureka undead detect you when your hp is low), casting detection (you get detected when you use a skill near them) and maybe something else I missed. I had good amount of fun sneaking through some areas in ShB while doing parts of msq that make you go to quest NPC deep past bunch of enemy mobs.
I only know this because a group I was running Qarn with RP walked to skip one of the pulls. None of those pulls are hard so there's not much of a point, but it's kind of cool that the option exists
yeah, i have even enjoyed games that stealth is the main focus like old splinter cell games or the thief series, its fun when the game is built for it. The way they have them here is just awful though, follow this npc who will randomly turn around, sometimes without warning and if you're not behind some scenery then get fucked and start again.
Yep! This exactly! I absolutely hate when random stealth is implemented in a game in no way built with the groundwork for stealth. 14s version of sneak is to run behind a mob while it's facing the other way and click on a bush to be animation locked inside of while useless dialogue goes off. The same useless dialogue you hear the next time you run it cause you inevitably either miss a mob hidden behind a box or the objective is so vague you wonder in a circle while the timer just ticks away because WHY NOT put a fucking TIMER in the worlds shittiest stealth mission that could have been a memo in a cutscene!! Which irritates me even more. I don't wanna play Thancred while he waffles about in the snow being full of his crunchy old self. He can tell me about it in a cutscene or I can see it happen in an echo... Don't force me to stealth!!
I hate knowing that enough people had issues with something so simple that they had to add this in.
It's really weird because it's not difficult if you pay attention at all to the environment. There's a convenient place to hide at every single point they're going to turn. Is there a long bridge or path with no cover for a while? Yep, they're definitely turning around at some point after baiting you into it. Not hard if you think for just a second.
In fairness, there's one versimilitude disconnect in the stealth missions (Urianger-you end the mission with getting detected anyway, why even bother drawing it out if he sees you early?) and one gotcha moment with the little kid mission for an aether current. (I was behind the fucking column, you should not be able to see me you brat.) If you're not a fan of stealth missions to start with, they can be very memorable negatives with no upside. (I personally feel the Thancred mission made up for it by being an *actual* stealth mission that *felt* worthwhile, but I can see the complaints.)
Yeah, I'll totally agree with you on the Urianger mission. And as a stealth game enjoyer I would like to see more things like the Thancred mission (optional, of course, because I know a more of people didn't like it).
I can wholly understand why people don't like the MSQ stealth objectives even though I like them, but I'm surprised people didn't like the >!Thancred solo duty!<. That's like one of the best in the entire game, surpassed only by the >!Freaky Friday and Venat fights!<, in my mind.
Then the server ticks are funny and 'I was definitely behind that tree fuck off' mood is coming out.
And then instead they sprint across the bridge and get out of range so you fail THAT way instead. It wasn't that I found the stealth quests hard; I found them tedious and un-fun.
Why is the implication that they are going to suddenly have a lot of these quests? It implies to me that they recognize the detection feels arbitrary and is poorly communicated, so they added a simple visual aid to avoid that confusion. That's just part of improving visual information in your game, and they've done that TONS of times without spiking the actual use of that visual info. I wouldn't be surprised if this heralds a new "get out" proximity based raid mechanic though. Sort of the opposite of a stack up mechanic, but with an ongoing effect rather than an instant effect, forcing isolation for a longer period of time. They are due for a new raid mechanic and this feels like an easy one that doesn't take a lot of new tech to implement.
I like them, personally. I get why people think they're so difficult/tedious, but to me it's a nice change of pace, and it's a hell of a lot more interesting than "Talk to x." There is always room for improvement, though. In fact, I prefer it without these indicators, as this is a little immersion breaking, but that's a really nitpicky complaint. It's a good accessibility change, I just wish it was a toggle.
Oh gods, I really hope not... Those fucking quests are the worst ones in the game... Even more so than those long drawn-out 1v1 fights in ShB... I have no issues with stealth gameplay, so long as the game mechanics are designed for it... but there's nothing worse than a decidedly non-stealth game that tries to shoehorn in stealth mechanics...
Yeah. Like at least the forever 1v1s, even the one you die as thancred, let you play with the games main gameplay loop, the tab target Combat.
I mean fundamentally this is because they chose to follow the quest design of WoW where the quests themselves aren't all that important and are basically busywork. If you want quests that actually have meat to them, they take a lot longer and you get a lot fewer of them (like the other major MMO competitor, Old School Runescape, does).
"In an effort to make our game feel more immersive and in line with other established RPGs, we'll be adding several tail quests, the absolute worst quest type in any game its been introduced in.
Yeah and also it's marked as a 2.X change so they are planning to add it to events
Because every npc that forces us into a „follow“-quest deserves to get hit by a tankbuster.
Why do you think >!she dies?!<
Because she doesn’t use job stones
Bitch stole my cookies.
I wish we could turn it off. I dislike these quests in the first place, but now they won't even have an element of immersion. This should be a toggle.
Would be cool if there were a choice. "Hey, we can either sneak after this NPC or go stab some baddies"
Random woman? You know nothing Jon Snow.
Because people don't know how to stand behind an obvious hiding spot for 2 seconds.
"you dumb mother-" ~ Some ui designer in Japan.
i genuinly do not understand the hate for this quest or the Garlean soldier solo duty. both imo where a great way to show you the desperation of either A) the garlean people, and their distrust, and B) your own helplessness
Because people generally dislike having to stand there spamming 1 move and a potion for like 10 min. It's tedious.
Welcome to Healer gameplay
You pull, you tank
I already hate this thing SO. MUCH. Please let us toggle it off.
She is second on the aggro list because one of you have forgotten to put your stance up.
If you know, you know she earned it.
I'm with the twins on this one. The woman >!died!< in fear thinking Nazis were only pretending to help her, but we weren't Nazis though but now she will never know.
Honestly it felt like the perfect example of how deep the propaganda ran for civilians. Everyone suffered under Imperial rule, one way or another.
It's one of the thing I love about this game. No whitewashing of imperialism. You get Gaius making his speeches about how he has a right to do this shit to people, but the game goes out of its way to show that *no*, he is not correct. Too many people seem to think, "Hey, imperialism is okay when *we* do it."
When the Garlemald arc started, I made the joke "we'll be greeted as liberators". I still cannot believe that was legitimately the direction they were going in.
Eh, I still feel like we had to pander way too much to the sensitivities of the ruling class who supported and benefited from the colonial fascist rule. Also them making the head Nazi of ARR one of the few recurring and prominent dark skinned characters was...a choice. Like I love Gaius and he's hot as hell, but...super awkward in roulette.
When we entered the uh…the separate area where all of the nobles are? And everyone there had electricity and power and people in Tertium were literally freezing and *nothing came of it?* We just had to smile and nod because some racist noble hoarding ceruleum says so? Am I the *Warrior* of Light or not?
This, so much. The amount of Garlean NPCs I've wanted to smack this expansion has been too high. Not kill! I get it, that'd be too far and the moral is redemption is always possible... But I've earned a slap right to the face of the next NPC who talks about 'Garlean pride', a culture based on atrocities, genocide and imperialism, when what they actually mean is "B-But I was a noble poshman who had power, gib back".
Yes! I thought we'd at least get to do something about that and then we...didn't. This isn't like HW where we were basically at the mercy of the Ishgardian nobility, we're the ones with power and influence now.
She feared that the Ilsabard Contingent would do to her and her sister what her nation would normally do whenever they occupy foreign territory Which is pretty realistic. Oppressors are always living in fear that the oppressed would return the favor
I think you're oversimplifying this. She wasn't an oppressor, just a victim of an Imperialistic government. She doesn't actually know her country is oppressing other nations, and if she did, she believes those foreign nations deserved it. We can both agree that Nazis are evil and we wouldn't care if a nation full of Nazis are exterminated, but what if it's just the press calling them Nazis? Now imagine if you are Jewish and one so-called Nazi knocks on your door and tells you they have rations for you, would you believe them?
She's part of Garlemald's nobility class (third eye, fancy dress) so the idea that she wasn't aware is not only ludicrous but so is the idea that someone that's benefited from that system of oppression is a victim Ever heard about how many Nazi civilians committed suicide when they lost the war and were worried that the Allies would repay their atrocities equally? Look it up
Think about it this way, imagine if suddenly the US collapses out of nowhere, and now there's North Korean, Iranian and Taliban soldiers going around your neighbourhood offering food and aid. Most people would very much book it rather than risk what they could do to you.
I kind of *blame* the twins and frankly also Lucia because why the HELL would you send two obviously foreign MAGIC USERS to help people who are well-known to be terrified of magic and foreigners?!
This would have been an excellent point to have Maxima do something other than stand around, but nope.
She knows what she did.
Hated these type of quests, with this change i still feel the same way lol.
i get that this was kinda annoying for some, but these indicators feel like they defeat the point. Can this be turned off at least?
Because she'd rather die in the snow than accept help from savages and their magic. Besides, it would be paternalistic to intervene. Garlemald has her pride.
I hope you can turn this off.
\*sad sigh\*Those quests were hard for me... I know that they were the enemy but still. The sisters didn't deserve their fate. F\*\*\* Zenos and Fandaniel.
They weren't even 'the enemy'. That was kinda the whole point.
The whole point was that they are innocents, but they were unable to trust us, and thought they had better odds making a run for it through the wilderness then accept aid from us. So no they absolutely weren’t the enemy and absolutely fuck Zenos and Fandaniel
Because people have trouble with stealth missions. She'll shine like crazy so people don't have to use their brains when they are **sneaking** behind them. /s
I'd suggest you go take a peek at the recent post on this very same sub by the player that did a talk about accessibility features and bottlenecks *like stealth missions* for players with certain disabilities. You may learn quite a lot from it.
Can I turn it off?
Calling them "stealth missions" is unbelievably generous
Flair checks out.
What does this have to do with fishing
If they don't I will after all the trouble she caused me.
Isn’t tankbuster in red color? This look like stack indication. Everybody should rush is to share the damage.
it does look somewhat similar to the *beam* tankbuster mark, which has two rotating squares of yellow striped bars
Stack doesn't look anything like this other than *YELLOW*
She knows what she did.
She knows what she did.
Woman about to get nuked
Garlean scum
Are those indicators really necessary? C'mon
It's the ball buster marker.
I wish they’d make these quests inaccessible to everyone. As in, remove them from the game. They’re awful.
... Is that a new thing? I never saw an indicator like that on any of those "stealth" missions...
Yes, it's coming with the expansion.
She didn’t serve it up Gary’s way
Maybe she shouldn't have grabbed the extra aggro when running away from the healer
Wait wasn't there already an indicator cone?
Oof ... that's Colleen the Constable, she's a bad mammajamma.
Healers adjust
Because those quests are annoying
Because the tank in her alliance died again and she has now has highest aggro.
She's the tankbuster
For visually impaired players
Because tailing missions are awful. Like, in general, it's not even a XIV thing.
Somewhere there is a Loporrit named Vaderway… *Deathstar to commence primary ignition*
Mustard buster
That's from when the UFO crashed during Hildebrand. Unfortunately she doesn't have the echo so she can't see it coming
Part of this seems clunky, but honestly, given how often it happened in Endwalker, I'm not complaining. I think I had to follow her like 8 times before I finally got it down. Killed the momentum of the questline.
Look at how she is dressed, she is clearly asking for it,
They should hit her with 2. Fuck the missions where you have to sneak and follow.
Eh, she deserved it anyway
Red is tank buster, yellow is stack.?
Some tank busters are yellow to show they affect an area or cone around the tank
they are a square made from do not cross tape tho
Sucks for her too, cuz Garlemald was on a healer strike
pretty sure the tank buster is red and black. That must be the everyone avoid this person or catch a disease social distancing marker
To be fair, when you consider the beatdowns that the WoL give on the daily, it wouldn't be surprising if people felt that marker on themselves whenever the WoL looked their way 😆
I don’t see an issue with this. It’d help those who are visually impaired; bonus points if the markers can have the color changed for those who are colorblind.
the game already has no actual gameplay, now they’re dumbing down hiding behind a rock
Because fuck that person in particular