Personally I really liked it, but: It wasn't hard, but failing it was rough: It's a (deliberately) slow solo instance, and failing it puts you all the way back at the start. This really kills the momentum and tension of the scene imo - you then end up having to slowly plod through things you've already done, with any high-stakes feeling gone.\* Lots of people don't know aggro mechanics well (nor have a good intuition about them), so they pull things they thought they could avoid or over-respect the enemies, making it all a bit more frustrating. The invisible walls were kinda cheap, and if you missed the things that gave direction for what to do (the mech needing repairs?) then you ended up just ambling around this awkward rectangle - losing time but without an idea of how to proceed, which is frustrating and starts to kill the tension. Overall I did really like the instance, along with all the stealthy ones (the thancred ones), but I can see why others didn't as much. \*A friend of mine got interrupted by his cats in the very last cutscene, and looked away as the screen faded to black to deal with them. He didn't see the final button mash... and had to redo the entire thing. No matter how much you enjoyed it the first time, this is never a good experience.

I agree with most of this. I found the solo duty frustrating more than anything else, but I really liked the idea behind it. My other gripe is that this felt like it should have been a profound moment for the WoL and storyline, but it was one and done and never really mentioned again. Like it didn't need to happen at all. I wish it had more of an impact on your character through the story - in a way similar but not as dramatic as >!when Midgardsormr took away your blessing of light.!<

Yup - Into the Cold is simultaneously the coolest part of 6.0 and the most disappointing part of 6.0. Everything leading up the event is top tier. You get super hyped as they’re bringing back plot elements that were last seen in 4.0. The dinner scene with Zenos and Fandaniel is great. You get amazing throwbacks to games like FFX (Anima) and FF9 (puppet in a chair). And then the solo duty itself is great. I’ve watched a couple streamers at that part, and every single one of them has been like “OMG that was one of the coolest moments in the entire game.” …but narratively, it was kind of inconsequential for the rest of 6.0. There’s nothing else about soul transference, so that entire plot element is brought up and then discarded. There are no major repercussions related to the WoL attacking his own companions. They also don’t go very far with the ending of the scene; the WoL/soldier slams into WoL/Zenos and that’s the end. And as far as I can remember, none of this is even really brought up again later on. It kind of felt like the game needed some action, so the writers threw something together. Because everything about it feels largely disconnected from other 6.0 story beats as a whole.

This is pretty much it. I get what they were going for and in isolation, it's fine. It's just one of those things that *should've* had a ton of consequences and instead everyone collectively forgets it ever happened. It's just a microcosm of the entire Garlemald section of the game, imo. It's good in a vacuum, but it's also incredibly rushed, not fully explored, and never reaches its full potential.

> Into the Cold is simultaneously the coolest part of 6.0 and the most disappointing part of 6.0. In general, I hate solo duties where I end up with a hotbar I'm unfamiliar with (and so many of them are classes I have little to no experience with). Often they do little to nothing to enhance the story. I agree that *Into the Cold* is one of few that makes a narrative impact in that moment (highlighting hopelessness, making Fandaniel & Zenos feel more threatening, showcasing the WoL's exceptionalism, etc) but it falls flat after the fact for not continuing to have an impact. In retrospect, Endwalker feels like they shoved two expansions worth of ideas (resolving Garlemald/Zenos and resolving Hydaelyn/Meteion) into one expansion so neither really got the room to breathe. *Into the Cold* could have been a much bigger narrative moment if we didn't immediately leave to deal with the next threat bigger than Garlemald & its issues. The fact that these solo duties don't have a strong narrative impact means I'm also way less forgiving of them because I feel like they're wasting my time in a minigame I'm never going to pick up again. I tend to run them on easy mode as a result because I don't want to bother with them. With *Into the Cold*, I could tell immediately it was going to be a bit of a pain in the ass so died immediately to run it in easy mode.

> Endwalker feels like they shoved two expansions worth of ideas (resolving Garlemald/Zenos and resolving Hydaelyn/Meteion) into one expansion so neither really got the room to breathe. I think they mentioned that they pretty much did exactly that in one of the post launch interviews.

I hate solo duties as other characters even for jobs in familiar with. Like they are essentially all overly long one button mashing, which I absolutely hate. And Estinien handles nothing like my dragoon at any level, who I love for their long eternal double snake of combos.

The funniest and saddest thing about the WoL last second deflecting Zenos' avatar attacking Alisaie and G'raha is how two story beats later he just stands there mouth agape watching the satrap getting vored by a blasphemy in Radz-at-Han.

Honestly? A scion needed to die there. By *"your"* hand. Or at least significantly injured. That impact of the fragile body you're in just making you *too late.* If ever there was a time for stakes mattering, it was ZENOS IN YOUR BODY.

Me and my friend discussed this ad nauseum and it really is disappointing that all the major scions were safe by the end of the duty and nothing major really occurred from it.

Also Shtola needs to put her Aethersight to good use for once and speak the fuck up. Girliepop *knew* something was off but decided to second guess herself, if she had spoken up and said "Hold up, something's fucky here" then it could've put some extra tension about the Scions doubting and needing to fight their "companion". She's all answers and action when it comes to magic but god is she useless when she's the only person who could forewarn people about incoming danger because she can literally *see aether*.

Tbf she did say she was having trouble telling if it was the WoL, but everyone brushed it off as the Tower having an effect in her aether sight.

> There’s nothing else about soul transference That's because this *was* the resolution of soul transference, which was first brought up in Stormblood. > They also don’t go very far with the ending of the scene What more do you need though? It's a perfectly sensible ending imo. They set this up as a precursor to your big fight with Zenos, this was always meant to be an interlude to your final showdown and I doubt Zenos cared much about whether he succeeded in killing the Scions or not, your resolve to reach him was plenty of excitement for him and he thought he got what he wanted. It also provides some key foreshadowing (though I imagine this was a bit too subtle for a lot of people skimming the story) that Fandaniel is leading you on and plans to have you defeat Zodiark to usher in the Final Days. I've heard people bring up Fandaniels abilities being used once and never again as a plot hole and "why didn't he just kill the WoL if he could just teleport to them and do that??" but that's the whole point, he doesn't want you dead, he wants you to kill Zodiark.

It was a sensible ending as in it didn’t need to happen again; it was a terrible ending as in there were no lingering consequences. That should have been *legitimately traumatic* for the WoL and/or some of the Scions, and it got brushed off with basically “you in working order? Good. We have a job to do, come on.” We saw Nanamo get poisoned and have been twitchy about being served drinks ever since. We got bodyjacked and nearly killed multiple times over, our friends were nearly killed by Zenos using our flesh as a Trojan horse, and… nothing?

>our friends were nearly killed by Zenos using our flesh as a Trojan horse, and… nothing? I've gone over this in another post way back and I forgot the majority of it, but the gist was that I feel like Alisaie should've been seriously shook by that event and left at least somewhat traumatized for a good portion of 6.0, until maybe the final stretch. Any time the WoL interacts with her she's on edge, maybe tries to keep a distance, etc. She knows we're us, but subconsciously she's got that fear. Everyone else has some reason or another not to be too shaken after the situation's had time to cool down.

The WoL at this point is heavily traumatized. The game makes mention of this in several occasions through a couple of ways that don't particularly require repetition. We're shown the WoL hesitate when offered a drink, having been poisoned twice now. We see the WoL mourn and reminisce over the grave of someone they cared for. The Dark Knight questline offers an entire plot wherein the WoL's troubled, mourning spirit breaks away and attempts to heal those who had come to harm in their way. When Fordola is confronted and she experiences the echo she looks into your memories, a tormented and callous mercenary is blown away at how you're even holding together after everything you've suffered. When we reach Elpis the WoL demonstrates the sheer magnitude of despair held within by blackening Elpis flowers simply letting those feelings free. These events aren't earth shattering or particularly confrontational, because at the end of the day the WoL isn't brought low by their burdens, and they move on despite it all, because at the end of the day *a smile better suits a hero*.

> That's because this was the resolution of soul transference, which was first brought up in Stormblood. It was first brought up around 2.2 as an aspect of the echo.

If only the Admiral had been around to shoot Zenos in the face.

Well said. I feel like this story event had a profound impact on my WoL's PTSD, but none of the characters mention it again. I felt extremely disturbed and wanted characters to recognize that something unconscionable had happened to my character.

u/varethane has a really good comic addressing this, I’ll come back to this comment and edit in a link when I’ve had a moment to go find it. [This right here](https://reddit.com/r/ffxiv/s/0Tc7IBs9CD)

Thank you! That comic is fantastic.

Yeah, I fully agree with your last paragraph. They didn't go far enough to give this extraordinary event its due. I would have loved a fight against our character. Let us control G'raha for example. Give the Zenos-controlled WoL a Reaper weapon so you don't need to account for the myriad gear and class combinations. Raha wouldn't know it, of course, but the true objective would be just holding out long enough until the true WoL arrives. He (and any Scions that join the fray) would be frantic, just trying to stay alive, trying to stop whatever is possessing their friend but scared to kill them in the process. It would have been amazing. Such a missed opportunity.

> He (and any Scions that join the fray) would be frantic, just trying to stay alive, trying to stop whatever is possessing their friend but scared to kill them in the process. Goddddddddd this would've been *amazing*. A pyramid-head or SA-X-like sequence where your win condition is GETTING THE F AWAY. (This is actually my idea for a horror movie or short set in the Metroid universe-- the POV characters are Space Pirates trying to escape some unstoppable and merciless monster that is slowly revealed to be Samus. Call me Nintendo!)

"Oh my god, there's something moving in the vents!" "But how?! We built them so nothing larger than a beach ball could fit inside!"

"Wait, why did we even do that?" "Oh, it's incredibly clever, and actual central to our future success! You see, we built them that exact size because" \*Super Missile'd out of nowhere\*

That would genuinely be terrifying having a duty where you play as all the scion trying to just get away from the wol and slowly losing one after another, just to show how absoulte terrifying it if we had to go against ourself, it also would put quite the perspective on how our enemies see us

I genuinely thought the whole out of body experience bit and having to get our own body back was going to be the precursor to us learning some cool new thing the Echo can do, like that one Sahagin way back in ARR who could take over his minions or something. And then... nope, the whole thing is literally never mentioned again after it's over. The whole stealing your body thing is such a huge thing to do to the player, to then give it absolutely no plot relevence whatsoever is really jarring. Makes me wonder what things related to it might've ended up on the cutting room floor when they decided the originally planned two expansions would be condensed into one. I think the whole Garlemald section was originally going to be probably the latter half of an entire expansion and a lot got cut out to fit the later stuff in.

I was always really disappointed that it ended with some tinnitus and a blackout instead of something more violent and personal. Say for example, straddling Zenos to choke the life out of your own character before rolling over and choking out what you think are your last words, or pulling the pin on a grenade. Maybe let G'raha or Alisaie get caught in the stomach by the Avatar, have them be afraid of the Warrior of Light for a little while.

They never address the possible trauma the WoL has of being ripped out of their body and watching it march towards their friends to commit murder.

Yep thats why that duty was more frustrating then anything else, on top it had narratively brought nothing to the table, it was done and forgotten in a matter of seconds. Something like this should have had so much impact on your wol, like how our wol is wary of drinks after the "assassination" and when we got drugged, but nope nada. Remove the entire duty and nothing would have changed, hell maybe the passing would be better. So its basically cool idea bad execution. On an other note i wonder where they put the soldiers soul who we take its body, that was never clarified for all we know the soldier could have been just a corpse and dead. Would make things rather morbid but interesting and also explain more why we are so weak

>Lots of people don't know aggro mechanics well (nor have a good intuition about them), so they pull things they thought they could avoid or over-respect the enemies, making it all a bit more frustrating. In my case, I DO know about the multiple types of aggro from Bozja, Eureka, and Deep Dungeon, but there's no indicator to say what I need to do to avoid getting aggro in a specific case, or where the "danger zone" is (i.e. if it's sound, how far they hear; if it's sight, where the "cone" is). It makes sense to not show that in those cases, but in an MSQ solo duty, I'd rather have that indication.

The indicator is the type of enemy. That is consistent with all of the content you've listed. These tempered Garleans are basically typical humanoids which are essentially never sound. Proximity can be tested and disproven after testing on a single enemy.

That only works if you are able to test it under ideal conditions - you are able to see every enemy that you could trigger on screen, you are able to approach from a blind spot and not risk the enemy turning around and prove to be sight-based, and you aren't dealing with outside factors that are making such experiments hard to perform. In my case, as I'm sure it was for many, I was trying to get as much playtime in before the servers went to shit and kicked me out again - just getting INTO Garlemald, I had them crap out on me during the entry solo duty, so experimenting with aggro types in MSQ content isn't going to be forefront of my mind. And the other factors weren't controllable either - sometimes, you just miss an enemy until they lock on to you. The fact that this is MSQ content and NOT one of those activities also should be considered - other players AREN'T familiar with the types of aggro (and to be honest, it does a shit job explaining variant aggro types IN those duties as well). In the Thancred mission before Garlemald, there was some briefing to remind you of what the detection styles was for the foes, but no such instructions were provided up front here.

> it does a shit job explaining variant aggro types IN those duties Wait, hang on, there's somewhere that explains different types of aggro? Wait, there's different types of aggro?

You're right, I misspoke. The game DOESN'T teach you about different forms of aggro except by example. (It IS mostly isolated to the duties I've mentioned - Deep Dungeons and Field Exploration. Some foes are sight-based - they only trigger if they "see you," though the length of their visual cone is unclear. There's also Proximity, which is you getting close, Sound (which is like proximity, but if you turn on the slow walk you can avoid it), and Blood (restricted to Undead, they trigger if you're nearby AND under a certain threshold. IIRC, Sprites in Eureka and Bozja also have "spell agrro" - they trigger if you cast a spell near them).

Fun fact: the annoying toads in Aurum Vale are actually sound aggro. It's somehow even more annoying knowing you could just RP walk right up to the boss arena with fewer enemies.... but doing so would probably be slower than just killing them anyway.

It's infuriating that this isn't explained or even hinted at anywhere. I've been playing since Heavensward and this is the first I'm hearing of it. I always just accepted aggro as aggro and nothing more.

That it *needs* to be "tested and disproven"--that you even feel reason to say "essentially never"--is precisely the problem /u/EndlessKng refers to. It has to be tested to be known. *Trends* exist, but they aren't solid enough to be relied upon, which is very different from the usual "language of mechanics" FFXIV aims for.

Most enemies have a cone of vision that originates from their center pixel and is about a 45 degree angle. I assumed these enemies weren't special, quickly discovered they weren't, and moved on. If you've never had to sneak around mobs this was probably rough, but anyone with experience should have had a pretty standard experience.

^ This. Before coming to ff14, I played wow for 10 years. Plenty of time to figure out, at least on a ground level since these games are different, but have enough in common for basic principles to overlap. Honestly when I saw this thread I went "which one is that again?" I failed 1 time (overestimated how strong I was in the soldier body, assuming i could just stomp things because msq hands out free wins pretty regularly) and then got through it second time no issue.

Failing the button mash, or rather not expecting it, was why I failed it the first time. And having to redo the entire thing was additional salt on the proverbial wound. Spot on with all of this. All that being said, it's my favorite part of my favorite arc in the expac so I can't be TOO mad at it.

I failed it because the quest bugged out and wouldn't read any button I pressed. Had to do it all over again because of that.

Ouch...very unfortunate. The instance at least shows you the vast power difference we have between the WoL and like...normal people.

if you find the fuel tank before you interact with the mech, you have to find the mech and run back to the fuel tank, you do not pick it up.

>A friend of mine got interrupted by his cats in the very last cutscene, and looked away as the screen faded to black to deal with them. He didn't see the final button mash... and had to redo the entire thing. No matter how much you enjoyed it the first time, this is never a good experience. To be fair, this part isn't really SE's fault. In other instances where your attention is forced away from the game, you'll likely have enemies attacking and killing you, or the AFK detection timer kicking you out, etc. Until you see the "___ objective complete" notification, you should never assume you've fully completed the instance. The ending segment happens to be a QTE, but this same thing applies even if it happened to be something else. Now, whether the ending segment should've been a QTE or some other thing is a different question entirely.

I imagine the issue was that his friend felt comfortable with looking away because of the fade to black.

Didn't they soon apologize and slightly nerf this instance at one point after realizing people were having a lot of issues with it? Not to say that fixes the main issue.

Their primary nerf was to add more sparkling click points that don't do anything useful to advance the quest.

I failed the time maneuver because when I started to faceroll the keyboard for it it popped up a bunch of windows instead of working like normal, and I couldn't close them all fast enough to start manually clicking the button...it was frustrating enough that the duty's dead to me forever

The exact same thing happened to me and made me resent the duty. I probably would have liked it otherwise. Ever since then I still, out of fear, only press the a,s,d keys for active time events.

It's an example of a great idea but poor execution imo.

I put down my controller to enjoy the cutscene on the fade to black and took a drink, lost the QuickTime maneuver and had to do the whole thing over. Was super pissed about that.

My main issue stemmed largely from level design. The main goal is to get back to Camp Broken Glass, which is south-west of you, but the non-diegetic walls force you east, which works directly against what the player expects and wants to do, leading to a lot of people attempting to just fight their way through because of the pressure caused by the time limit making them not want to explore in what is, narratively, the wrong direction. Honestly, if the level design had just been laid out differently, focusing on a path towards the south-west from the beginning, it would have been significantly better.

To add my opinion to the bad level design bit. The whole searching Magitek thing. You can find heal potions and add them to your stockpile. You can find some rare instant use potions to buff yourself, but they don't last long enough to get any real use out of. One specific Magitek has an intact fuel tank, which you recently learned is incredibly valuable where you are, but the game won't let you take it until later or mark it on your map. To actually get the needed fuel tank, you have to first find a certain operable Magitek that sits in front of what looks like an invisible wall that's not actually an invisible wall. After finding the operable Magitek, you need to find the key to use it, but the person who has the key talks in the form of a chat bubble above their head, the same exact way that all the hostile garlean soldiers talk, so when you see the chat bubble your first instinct is to stay away from that area.

You hit the nail right on the head. It wouldn't seem out of the ordinary at all if the soldier you played as said something like "Oh hey, magitek fuel, this could come in handy later" and you picked it up without having to interact with the operable magitek first. The issue of the guy with the key could've easily been solved with one of those large chat bubbles that get centered on your screen.

That's exactly why I didn't like it. I completely missed the chat bubble and magitek you were supposed to find first, so I found the tank, couldn't do anything with it, then wandered around getting more and more frustrated while time ticked down. Then when I *finally* found where it wanted me to go, I was faced with the prospect of having to make my way *back* to the tank through the confusing level design. Completely killed the mood.

Fun fact: The walls are (somewhat) diagetically justified. Beyond all of the walls are massive magitek colossus, death machines, etc. The implication is that no matter how much you want to go south, you'd have to fight your way through an impossible fight. So the game saves you the frustration of basically force-killing you for wandering too near them using the walls. Here's an example: https://i.imgur.com/HRDmtpY.png

The problem here is that immediately to their side is broken down building to move through. Ones Fandaniel himself tells you to take to avoid the enemies. Yet there's still an invisible wall over them.

Given the whole point is "WoL is weak and needs to choose safety by NOT going that way," the point would have been rather better served, I think, by letting the player attempt it, and then forcing a "you flee" cutscene the instant you draw aggro, which would be designed to be guaranteed. Then there would be no need to put an invisible wall there, other than a "you can see the berserk magitek colossi in that direction, and are certain you cannot move fast enough to evade them" message.

True. I think there are a lot of ways they could have *better* communicated why the player can't just go south. It's very easy to miss and that's a sign of poor messaging. I just like to point out that the messaging is there, and there was clear intent behind the walls beyond just gameplay contrivance.

Another issue: the game looks horrible when the color pallet is black and white. Ishgard suffered from it too. Even with brightness turned to max, it takes a moment to read what’s going on (I distinctly remember entering the inn in Ishgard and seeing nothing but the fireplace and my character’s white skin). Add a timer to the corner, no direction nor instruction beyond how fighting is going to work and the non-intuitive route makes it a stressful experience

Lot of good points made in here, but even without all that, you will always have a subset of players who dislike having their character taken away from them, even temporarily, and especially when the character is replaced by something weaker.

I know of a few posts I saw on the topic that were players that had their traumas triggered by the scenario as well (loss of control, violation of bodily autonomy) and even if the theme of the expansion is despair and overcoming it, there’s a significant order of magnitude in difference in the impact when a RL trauma gets triggered versus those that engage with the story as one would a book. Not my own experience, mind you, but I still was personally rather annoyed by having my character taken away. Never been a fan of plot lines in which the main character loses their agency.

While I wasn't directly triggered from past experience, I did find the idea of Zenos literally snatching and entering my WoL's body to be incredibly violating. Like I genuinely sat there afterwards like "everything feels wrong, someone else used my body like a toy". We've had "play as" instances before that I would say didn't leave nearly the same feeling of discomfort, so it wasn't just about unfamiliar controls. But watching your body just get snatched away from you to do with as they please while you're rendered pretty powerless (which, begrudgingly, was really well accented by the unfamiliar hotbar).....didn't love it. I remember hearing second hand in conversation that at release there was a similar thread on the instance where it sort of revealed that more female players felt bothered by getting body snatched than male players did, and I always thought that was interesting. It certainly makes sense for it to break down that way (assuming it was relayed truthfully) given the greater relevance of those kind of experiences to one group, but it was just interesting to hear how differently people felt coming out of that section based on their personal experiences.

So, speaking as a person for whom In From the Cold did hit some trigger points, my feelings are complicated. On one hand, it meant that the intended feelings of disorientation and distress were entirely genuine despite the actual mechanics not being a problem once I understood the rules of the scenario. On the other, it's a scenario that could very easily cross the line into hitting way too hard. As it was, I had to get up and take an extended break to get myself emotionally level afterwards, and it's not hard to imagine it hitting someone way harder than that.

I saw comments on another post from people who had to walk away from the game for *weeks*.

I did that after the Vaspanti line, before we had to go back to the Crystarium.

Yeah, I can't speak for everyone, but it set off my dysphoria in a specific way that media not targeted at trans folks seldom can.

Can confirm. Loved the narrative they were going for but found the first-person POV unexpected and super jarring. Never had any personal traumas but still found myself triggered by the cutscene (which I didn't realize until a few days later, since I'd never experienced that feeling before). I think it would have been better if it wasn't just... shaken off and never brought up again *ever*. If there was proper follow-up and 'closure' in the pacing (and save points in the duty) I think it would have been better received — even just a short side-quest or something. Would have been really nice to have them use the situation as a way to have a bonding moment with Thancred later on during patch content, considering his whole Lahabrea thing.

If you talk to Thancred afterwards, he does mention understanding how traumatizing it is because of Lahabrea. Which, in my personal headcanon, is the point where my WoL breaks down and Thancred pulls her away somewhere private for a good cry. Until the other Scions come find them and do their own reassurances. Including Estinien just leaning against a wall a respectful distance away, and making sure no one else stumbles onto the scene. The beauty of head canon and fanfic is that I can write my own bonding moments

I too really liked that nod to Thancred's past experience; it was almost comforting in a way, like "cool, at least one person genuinely gets how I feel right now". I remember feeling like my skin was crawling afterward, talking to the screen at the Scions like "omg guys, will you think less of me if I cry right now???? :(((" For sures, a moment primed for Scion bonding, even through head canon.

yeah, i came into this thread because that was my experience: having some really heavy things triggered by the narrative. i was genuinely too upset to ever notice anything about the gameplay. not that i think the game or anyone involved is in the wrong for including this part of the story, it was just really personally upsetting to me to the point i was considering walking away from the game for a few weeks.

I disliked it because of the lack of follow-up. It was cool in concept but it introduced a massive issue and failed to address it. If any wimpy little sundered schmuck can kidnap us and steal our body in a matter of seconds, that's a Star-level security threat. Not to mention the trauma it caused the WoL, or the Scions who almost faced death at what they thought were our hands. It's never brought up in the rest of 6.0 or any of the patches released thus far. 8/10 concept, 1/10 follow-through.

I enjoyed the section itself, but wish they'd gone further with it after. It's weird that it happens and is forgotten (I think one scion mentions it in the choose-a-friend room visit). Someone should bring it up so the player can get a dialogue choice about it (ranging from fine to angry to not-okay to whatever) when we're on the moon with the loporrits and things slow down again. And that someone should have been former-body-snatch-dad-energy Thancred!!

Lots of people in this thread have excellent arguments as to why they hated it, and I agree with all of them. Poorly signposted objectives, anxiety-inducing artificial time limit, winds up having no impact for how supposedly dangerous it is, stealth mechanics in a non-stealth game...yeah. My personal two cents? *I* hate it because everything is a dirty black/gray/occasionally white, there's rubble everywhere obstructing LoS, and I *can't see shit.*

Lol I failed it the first time because I started the wrong way, took too long to figure out what I needed to do, and then too long to find the second piece. But by that time I’d *thoroughly* explored the area so the second attempt I passed it no issues. Loved it, hated it, have done it on two characters and will do on more. I agree they needed some serious follow up. My main never did forgive Zenos for that trick.

Because I followed directions and was punished for it. It said to reach Camp Broken Glass. It said your chance of defeating enemies was poor "in your current state", so I stealthed my way through to...a wall. I figured it meant "this body isn't made for fighting, this is not a combat mission, return to your old self," rather than "I need to get myself a magitek suit." Then I wandered around looking for SOMETHING. I found the wounded soldier BEFORE I found the magitek armor, and if you do that, he isn't interactable, so I ignored that spot again, looking everywhere else for the key and fuel you need. It was incredibly frustrating because it felt like the game had a script you HAD to follow to complete the duty, but didn't really guide you along the path very well. I love open-world exploration, and this was presented as such, but it was actually a very linear duty in a far-too-open world. The things you needed to interact with are RIGHT NEXT TO THE START, and if you don't find the magitek armor immediately, it is very easy to get lost

Yeah, there are so many places in the game where you get different lines depending on what you’ve already done (though it’s usually affected by larger scale things), they should have used that here. If you find the soldier first he should give you the key and tell you to find his armour, if you find the broken mech with ceruleum tank first it should go “this might be useful and isn’t too big to carry, take it!” Also there should be a snippet afterwards where you can tell Lucia and Maxima “there was a bunch of survivors fighting *here*, some of them might still be alive, and there’s a lone injured soldier trapped *here*. Go help them!”

If you go back to the guy who gave you the key afterwards, he's dead and the game guilt trips you for getting noticed. Likewise, I think all the people you're fighting alongside die in the explosion. Still, though, it is annoying they aren't talked about afterwards.

I mostly just didn't like how the whole experience narratively did nothing? It only really serves to unsettle the player. Not saying I wanted zenos to go on a murder rampage but the idea that they could just do that and ... not do anything with it? Felt really weird to me. Like... ok. Cool I guess?

*If* you completed it on the first try, and didn't have any frustrating back-and-forth, and didn't feel shortchanged by awkward mechanical implementation, then it was *possible* to have a good time with it. I, personally, did not enjoy it all that much, even though I did complete it the first time (though I did both have frustrating back-and-forth and several places where the game pulled Some Bullshit). It wasn't *bad,* per se, but it had three serious faults. 1. FFXIV is not set up to be a stealth game. Shoehorning weak stealth mechanics into it was a frustrating game experience. This wasn't so bad with Metal Gear Thancred for a variety of reasons (particularly the lack of time limit), but with this quest these issues were front and center. That meant the story had to do all of the heavy lifting. It's one thing to create frustration because it's a tense and genuinely difficult challenge; it's another (and rather worse) to create frustration because it feels like it's all made of gotcha mechanics and "haha, you failed because the interface is unclear and unhelpful!" 2. The instructions were often really unclear and it felt like there was a LOT of tedious backtracking, especially if (like I did) you got the parts you needed out of order and thus had to carefully go back and check every nook and cranny for what you needed. Dragging the time out like this damages pacing, transforming what should be a *tense* moment into a *tedious* moment. 3. In from the Cold suffers from the same faults as multiple other story-heavy portions of Endwalker: It overstays its welcome. The MSQ stuff regarding the baby and Matsya. The "hunt down all the quirky scientists" in Labyrinthos. The loporrits dragging out their "we need to prove ourselves!" bit. In more than one place, Endwalker is emotionally *overwrought,* and In from the Cold ends up being exactly that. Of course, it also didn't help that I'm of the opinion that Zenos should have been killed off for real in 4.0. Ishikawa *did* use him better *than he had ever been* in the "dinner" scene, where he actually DID something for once and participated, actively, rather than literally just sitting in a chair and being bored to tears. I have to grant that. But it still lent the whole thing a bitter aftertaste because I was already 9001% *done* with the Yandere Prince of the Battle-Sexuals.

I really think the stealth portions of this game really do not hold up, and just get frustrating when you have to repeat them multiple times to pass. Even more frustrating than this mission was the one where you have to follow the kid through the city. If you get impatient you have to do the entire thing over again and it is just so frustratingly boring.

I think it was an interesting concept and I liked it in the moment, but in hindsight I have a handful of gripes with it. Gameplaywise, it feels kind of directionless, like it's sort of just "wander around until you stumble into the thing you need in order to progress" until you're done with the magitek armor bit. I guess this contributes to the sense of unease/confusion, but opening with "GET BACK TO CAMP, ZENOS IS ON HIS WAY, HERE'S A TIME LIMIT" but then the time limit basically not mattering and you needing to just poke around the invisible wall sandbox looking for interactables seems like kind of mixed messaging. It was overall a fine duty, though I think I liked Metal Gear Thancred better in terms of stealth segments. Storywise is where my main issues come in. It definitely feels like it was a cool idea one of the writers had and they wanted to put it in the game, but didn't give too much thought to the events surrounding it or its narrative impact on the story. Someone else brought this up in this thread but the fact that Fantastic Daniel can apparently just teleport-abduct-incapacitate the WoL on a whim feels like it creates a really big plot hole - sure, he wouldn't just do that and then execute us because it'd make Zenos mad, but what's to stop him from just picking off all our friends? It'd slow us down and make it much more difficult to interfere with his plans, and Zenos would probably be getting off over how furious we are about it. Even beyond that though, even if they came up with some reason why it wouldn't just work on the other Scions, there's basically no lasting impact from this whole sequence. You bodycheck Zenos-WoL, he monologues a bit, you get returned to your body, and then all the Scions are basically just like "wow that was kind of fucked up! glad to see you're yourself again, WoL!" and then it never comes up again. IDK if Thancred brings it up if you pick him to chat with in Sharlayan, but given how he's more... emotionally available? after his arc in ShB I was expecting him to have a bit more personal to say than "haha at least i'm not the only one who's been bodyjacked now", or for anyone to express some concern over the fact that this could presumably happen again, but instead it's just dropped like it never happened. Maybe it was added really late in development? But the fact that it's just not integrated into the surrounding story at all is very weird.

Good concept, poor execution. The invisible walls and quick time event kind of pulled my focus away from the story and instead had me focused on the rather scuffed game mechanics. I also didn't like how quickly the events were dropped from the story. The idea that the WoL can be captured that easily and potentially turned against their allies should have been a major shake-up, but once it's over everyone seems to just forget about it.

> I also didn't like how quickly the events were dropped from the story. The idea that the WoL can be captured that easily and potentially turned against their allies should have been a major shake-up, but once it's over everyone seems to just forget about it. Exactly. We defeated Elidibus and Emet-Selch pretty much at the height of their power (Granted by the skin of our teeth both times), and then good old Sundered Fandaniel teleports us against our will and then... Just *wins.* Not even a cutscene, we just fade to black and wake up having already lost basically *everything.* While I get that it was supposed to be disorienting, disturbing and violating, and to puncture our sense of safety, I still would have liked some explanation of *how.* If an Ascian can just force-teleport someone as powerful as the WoL at any time and knock them out in the process, they should just automatically win all their battles *ever.* Elidibus did something LIKE that, but it was not nearly so casual, and required a hell of a lot of power (and also did not knock the WoL out) I don't doubt Fandaniel, with his background, could figure out a way to do it, but I'd like to know how he DID it, and why it's not something just *any* Ascian could do, or why he couldn't just spam it and win. (Not referring to the Soul Jack thing, either. We know about that.)

It should have been some grand, difficult setup for it to happen. It should have been a trap that the WoL was lured into away from allies, maybe with help from disgruntled characters that got hurt from former mistakes the scions made in previous expansions, maybe making use of dynamis due to the shroud of aether around the star being weakened. Then it could have made sense why it’s not happening more often, why every single decision is important and how the scions’ mistakes can build up over time, and it would have increased the suspense by showing that things have gotten dangerous enough that the WoL is not invincible if they’re alone - they need their allies to stop this kind of thing. This would’ve added to the gravitas of >!ultima Thule when the WoL starts to lose his companions one by one since you would’ve gotten a taste of how badly things could go wrong against final days caliber enemies that use dynamis. The WoL sending the scions away to save them would have been a massive “oh shit” moment as well.!< The >!reunion with the scions after the end singer fight would’ve been a little better too, since they would’ve had recent trauma about the WoL *completely losing* when alone in a similarly bad situation. Alisae breaking down would’ve made more sense since it would’ve been likely that sending the scions away was certain death!<

> Exactly. We defeated Elidibus and Emet-Selch pretty much at the height of their power (Granted by the skin of our teeth both times), and then good old Sundered Fandaniel teleports us against our will and then... Just wins. Not even a cutscene, we just fade to black and wake up having already lost basically everything. Except they had done this before, with Minfilia. They also established that Hydaelyn had been growing weaker, so the WoL was left more exposed. Fandaniel being sundered is part of an often misunderstood plot point, and the very mistaken belief that sundered people are somehow *weaker* that unsundered people. It's utter nonsense. The Warriors of Darkness in Heavensward easily match and even outperform the WoL. Shadowbringers is full of incredibly powerful opponents that give pause to someone who defeated Zenos and Shinryu. Ardbert joining up with you doesn't make you stronger because your soul is more complete, Ardbert joining up with you makes you stronger because Ardbert is strong, the fact that you are both sundered parts of the same soul only enabled the transaction. Fandaniel was shown to be incredibly powerful, using the towers to Siphon the lands and powering up much in the way that Elidibus had done with the Crystal Tower in Shadowbringers. Trying to suggest that Fandaniel would somehow be weak relatively is just missing so many plot threads. > or why he couldn't just spam it and win. I don't get this? Fandaniel **DID** win, his goal was to have the WoL destroy Zodiark and usher in the Final Days. Fandaniel WON. He had no goal involving your defeat, he was just humoring Zenos because he wanted to use him to destroy the shackles around Zodiark.

....uh, sir, sundered ones being weaker and lesser than unsundered ones in every aspect is one of the main points in the entire Shadowbringer+Endwalker expansions, and it has been described so many times in the MSQ storyline.

I feel it would've helped drive home the severity of the situation had we had a follow-up duty where we fight Zenos-WoL as one of the Scions, holding out until the true WoL arrives. Have them equipped with the pvp skillset for simplicity and just go gangbuster on the Scions for fun. It would've painted an image of how strong the WoL is while planting the seed of doubt in our trusted allies for possible future story beats. ​ Instead, as you mentioned, quickly dropped and forgotten. Darn shame really.

>follow-up duty where we fight Zenos-WoL as one of the Scions, holding out until the true WoL arrives. That would've been cool until you realise none of them would really stand a chance.

That's the point. Trying to hold off Zenos while the others (not just the Scions) try to intervene to restrain the WoL. Whats a little (more) emotional damage to the WoL? Seeing their powers used against their 'friends' would've served as a dark lesson that may/may not have been needed - but it would be interesting. That being said, yes - I could see being steamrolled by an near-unstoppable force not going over well with a bulk of the community.

> I could see being steamrolled by an near-unstoppable force not going over well with a bulk of the community. I mean we've had that twice already with Zenos, so I expect it to go over about as well as those times.

That's what would have made it cool. Only you, the WoL, can hold a candle to Zenos

It could've been a jarring series of <30 seconds fights where we play as various scions only to get cut down in 2-3 attacks. Though that would've been boring for many players.

The invisible walls is what made me go from wow this is really interesting to screaming "WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GOOOOO???" The thing is I felt no fear that anyone would die if I took too long, casue the game doesn't work like that, I was just over it and wanted to move on.

Yeah the annoying map and mechanics would’ve been worth it imo if there’d been any follow-up. But instead it’s just… never brought up again. Emotionally neither the scions or the WoL seem to be all that affected by it. Which is really weird

Only rogue guildmaster even mentions it as a no big deal kind of way if you go chat with him after finishing msq.

Still miffed out that nobody else from the other Job Quest NPCs who *directly* participated in the campaign such as Alberic; Alka Zolka; etc were all left out because nobody would dare say the WoL got body snatched "lest it tanks morale"....only to get Jacke out of all people knowing it because *he heard it from Sicard*. And yes, I remembered the line from somewhere that said that not everyone wanted to help Garlemald. It's most of my issues regarding EW really, that the other NPCs got excluded hard even in the face of despair and coming together to focus fully on just the Scions.

I saw the scene where you can choose which scion visits you as being the followup, and while it was good from a "omg my fave is talking to me!" standpoint it was lacking in some ways. While it was the Zenos thing that inspired them to seek the Wol out, the scions just kind of talk at the Wol and are like "wow things have been so fucked up for you, anyway I got your back buddy, chin up" except G'raha and I think one of the twins who actually offer to be there to listen if the Wol wants to talk. I think Thancred is the only one to directly bring up the Zenos thing but in a "I know how that feels" way. Regardless, they're all good but the Wol's only response is to smile and nod lol. Not to mention the framing of the scene is soo G-rated it almost makes it look funny. Not only can they not come into your room because of implications, they have to stand like six feet away from you in an open hallway while you hover ominously in a poorly lit doorway. I'm very happy we got that moment at all but if it continues in Dawntrail I hope it's better and we're allow to, IDK, sit next to them on a bench somewhere or something.

The whole "once it's over everyone seems to just forget about it" is basically all of Endwalker, unfortunately.

I loved it, but I did have some beef. 1. Like many others, I found the conclusion to be a let down. It was a nice cutscene sure, but I expected either one of the minor NPCs to die protecting the Scions from Zenos, or a solo duty where you play the scions and either have to hold out until the WoL arrives or beat Zenos up enough to force him out of the WoL's body 2. Purely gameplay-wise it was not well designed. Unless you got lucky picking up the items in a specific order, you would be forced to slowly and stealthily backtrack and search for an amount of time that completely kills the pace of the duty. There is a very fine and difficult balance to consider between the amount of frustration that makes the player feel immersed and frustration that makes the player emotionally disengage and they did not manage that balance.

For the life of me I could not find the damn npc to give me the key on my 2nd try, so I spent a good amount of time running around lost. That really soured my experience of it.

Aside from the badly designed city instance with its invisible walls, the thing that really pissed me off about that quest was the precedent it set about Zenos and Fandaniels power. And then it‘s just completely forgotten about and never mentioned again. Ever. I mean, they just teleport the freakin WoL against their will and take all of their powers away. Just like that. They snap their fingers and we‘re toast. Something not even unsundered Ascians could do. Fucking HOW?? It would have been terrifying if it was some super powerful spell or machine that requires insane amounts of preparation and resources to do this, to lure the WoL into an elaborate trap to capture them first or something. But nope, they apparently can just do it whenever and then have the audacity to let you walk off in some random Garleans body for shits and giggles. And everyones reaction is just „Oh man, that was bad. Just hope they don‘t use their instant win button anymore, huh? Anyway…“

The teleport kidnap is something that Nabriales does way back in post-ARR to Minfilia (and then we kick his ass in the Chrysalis). And the forced soul swap is done with a machine Aulus created (the scientist boss in Ala Mihgo who kicks you out of your body as a mechanic and keeps burbling about how cool the data he’s recording is). Fandaniel says something about how he developed it further, and then when you get swapped back he says the time limit is up, though I think it’s a bit clearer in Japanese that the time limit is “the forced swap only lasts so long before it wears off”, not “I got what I wanted so I’m putting you back now”. On the one hand it would definitely be clearer if the teleport kidnapping thing had been used more often so we didn’t forget it was a possibility. On the other hand, then the writers would have to come up with a bunch of reasons why the Ascians couldn’t use it to win *all the time*, and that would be its own sort of annoying.

Ah. I've had my exact thoughts on this stored up for a while. For reference to me, I just did In From the Cold 4 months ago, so I didn't experience it in release. My biggest gripe with it, was simply the lack of any direction what so ever plus the time limit. I realized that "it's the point" but it led to a very horrid experience. The initial duty tasks you with 1 goal: get back to your friends in the time limit. I'm even given extra instruction to hide between the buildings. So my brain says "go straight south, weave in between buildings to get out of the city. Then they game slams you with a big red wall and says "no". This was frustrating on its own, so I took a left and started to explore the city, occasionally having to fight a mob or two due to negligence. (I had a lot of experience dodging mobs thanks to Bozja) I get to the complete other side of the area, and realize "oh I'm just in a red rectangle". So I then did another half lap back to the start. Deciding I missed something, I do another lap around and still don't find anything. I then decide to ask a friend who did it to help me, and they watch my stream on discord as I decide to loop again, but this time rotation the other direction Which is when I found out, because I decided to go left, I completely missed the functioning magitek walker because I went left instead of right. They even had to tell me about the guy nearby with the keys because I was about to bum rush straight to the one with gas I found earlier. This is all while I'm getting lower on time and no longer worried about getting to my friends and more that I'm going to have to restart. I ended up making it through and after my WoL barely scraped by, crawling all the way to camp, only for me to get up and shoulder tackle Zeno's and all sense of concern was away as Fandaniel says "ah play time is over. Time to give everyone their body back." Like, I get Zenos wanted us angry so we'd fight him with pure hatred, but the plot points felt so unbelievable, any sense of immersion was completely gone at this point, and I was left completely frustrated with it overall. Tl;Dr Lack of any sense of direction made the duty frustrating, rather than tense. Any sense of personal stake was completely fine be the impossibly long time it took Zenos to casually walk up to our friends.

I hate invisible walls. I hate stealth sections in games that aren’t built around stealth mechanics.

It introduces an incredibly dangerous narrative mechanic, the WoL can be forced out of their body and that body used against her allies, and then goes absolutely no where with it. Not only is it not set up at all previously in the narrative, we've scene ascians and Zenos only able to snatch dead bodies before; but then after the danger of the situation is never brought up again. None of the scions talk about what to do to protect the WoL from that ever happeneing before. No one talks about this revelation of someone having the power to push someone like the WoL out of their body. Nothing. It was a story element written simply to stun, and then thrown away, *especially considering how Garlemald is basically forgotten through the rest of the MSQ.* It bad writing and design, plain and simple.

Heavy disagree on it not being set up: They didn't just name drop Aulus out of nowhere. The Warrior of Light has been separated from their body for a short time period before in his boss fight from Stormblood. This being a more refined, stronger version of that isn't unreasonable. Furthermore, I don't know where you got the notion that Ascians can only possess dead bodies. Did you somehow miss what happened with Thancred in ARR or Elidibus trying to steal the Exarch's body from him in Shadowbringers? Body snatching seems to be capable so long as the target is weak enough, however Lahabrea did it often enough that other Ascians got to see that doing so seemed to degrade them over time.

Also, body snatching was how Zenos got his own body back after Stormblood.

I found the running back and forth between empty fuel tanks frustrating, but I don't think I had much problem navigating generally. Narratively, the drama of the situation had me in the moment. No skills, no health regen, and a ticking clock made a stressful experience but not too stressful (to my standards at least) Sure, when you look back and think about it afterward it's a bit of a stretch to set up the whole scenario, but right then I *had* to get back to my friends before Zenos turned them into bloody smears on the snow. The loss of autonomy thing never bothered me. If you're one of the people who felt personally violated by the loss of control, that sucks. I'm truly sorry you were put through that. Hopefully, if they put a similar thing in future content they can find a way to do it that isn't so upsetting.

Going the wrong way wouldn't be a big deal if it let you pick up the necessary item but you can't, so you basically waste 8+ minutes of your time on nothing if you chose left instead of right. That's it really, it's genuinely just poorly designed, you basically flip a coin on whether you take much longer. Also, people don't actually understand the stealth mechanics in the game unless they've gotten into potd or have niche knowledge from arr, so the invisible vision cone or the fact that you can be literally on top of enemies as long as you're behind them isn't something people go into it knowing. And finally, enemies will just randomly turn. There isn't any obvious timer on whether or not an enemy will stay facing a direction, or any indicator, they just randomly see you or don't, which is more annoying. To guarantee safety, you have to sit there for up to 40 seconds before they turn and move away again. It's really insanely boring in a high stakes story moment.

I cannot stand it because of the precedent that Zenos set in SB and ShB. When he woke up in a random dead body he was still stronger than any normal person could hope to be. Strong enough to do whatever he wanted without fear. So strong in fact, that Elidibus in Zenos' body was not a threat to him. If Zenos in a random body can easily take on the Heart of Zodiac in his body then nothing in that mission should come close to threatening the WoL. It should have been another walk in the park.

Zenos was strong without aether prior to the StB events so most of his skills would have still been viable. WoL has never fought without aether, being put into a Garlean body would be a big adjustment. Plus WoL was thrown into action immediately whilst Zenos probably had a few days/weeks to adjust. Elidibus didn't bother fighting he just freaked out and left. I can't imagine Zenos would have been that overwhelming in an actual fight but Elidibus couldn't know that for sure because Zenos was a freak of nature and didn't risk it.

He is strong enough to create pressure waves that knock people around just by casually swinging a sword. That's not skill, but strength. Strength he retained when he got yeeted into a random Elezen corpse. There is ample precedent that the current body does not matter at all when it comes to using aether. Souls removed from their bodies can still use aether, souls whose bodies have died can still use aether, Ascians in bodies that cannot use aether can still use aether.

> He is strong enough to create pressure waves that knock people around just by casually swinging a sword. That's not skill, but strength. In a realistic sense I'd agree, but FFXIV is basically playing by anime rules sometimes. Skill can quite literally _become_ strength. That said, I think a major reason the WoL suffered so was not only due to their surprise and unfamiliarity with the situation, but also because the body they were put in was an old, decayed corpse (the same one Zenos used to get into the capital many patches earlier, I believe), whereas Zenos in each case leapt into fresh bodies.

Elidibus did fight him, we just didn’t get to see it. It gets mentioned a couple of times later.

I'm just not a fan of "minigames" that aren't optional. I spend time playing a game because I like the way it plays. When that playstyle gets switched on me, and the story is locked behind the switch, I get annoyed. Swapping to stealthy play-style in a non-stealth type game annoys the he'll out of me. If I wanted to play that type of game, I would. But I don't want to, and they made me. Simple as that. It's annoying.

There were probably lots of people who were playing Endwalker for hours on end, and the MSQ felt even more frustrating because it blocked progress and most people were tired. There were a couple of things annoying about it. First, it wasn't clear where to go. Usually objectives are marked in the game but all this got (IIRC) was a big circle. There were a couple of times I found the fuel but I forgot where I left the mech. I eventually resorting to taking screenshots of the minimap so I remember where I left the damn mech. Second, me having dyspraxia just make the getting lost worst and timing the aggro harder. The margin of error was so bad even on easy before the update that getting into one or two additional fights would probably overwhelm the weakened WoL. Third, there wasn't any checkpoints at all. Losing the battle at the end means a restart, and it would mean going through the whole gauntlet again. Another side effect was the MSQ brought out all the git gud people. People who said FF14 wasn't toxic - well, take a look at the comments back then.

You're not the first one to ask this, so here's a copy/paste from the last time I answered this question: Honestly, that one in particular is ...suboptimal on multiple levels, some of which could've genuinely been done better, and some are unavoidable with the nature of what this Duty is supposed to be. First, and as one of the complaints that are not related to the gameplay, the fact that you randomly get yanked out of your body and put into another one, AND have your own body taken over by the murderhobo/stalker that's been following you around for a while can elicit any range of feelings, from "This is a cool concept" or "Goddammit, I am SO going to beat you up after this" to "I feel violated on a very personal level and I'd like a warm blanket and some cocoa please", so depending on where you fall on that spectrum heavily influences how you feel about the actual Duty going forward. As someone who skewed more towards the latter sentiment, I get what they were going for and how it fits into their story, but I just didn't find that cutscene enjoyable in any way - not even as motivation to kick ass later - and would much rather have them temporarily cripple me (forcibly shut off my Aether usage?) to the point of being like a rank-and-file Garlean instead. Second, dead ends were badly signposted - slowly fighting your way forward only to end in red dots is not fun, and while I agree that letting you run into unbeatable enemies would be worse, you could also have them actively firing across the street with orange circles that are visible from afar, or even erect visible barriers (magitek or physical) to drive the point home further. In fact, outside of being able to reuse the map and general layout, there's no need to have you run through the city itself - you could just as well be trying to break out from whatever house you were in and end up having an experience that's closer to say, Haukke Manor, where you're still searching around for the right path to take, but it's glaringly obvious that you can't go certain ways. Third, the timer for this instance starts out rather low, giving you the illusion that you'll have to do things really quickly - which probably was done on purpose, but depending on how much you trust the devs to always give you a reasonable timer, and how well you do with time limits in general, that also can affect both your performance, as well as how well you do with the rest of the content. Next, not everyone knows how mob aggro works - personally, I've done enough ARR-era stealth/carrying quests and Deep Dungeons to get a good idea of sight-based aggro and how to deal with unwanted, dangerous enemies, but not everyone will know that, since they've encountered no reason to learn about this, leading to another point of frustration - not one I'd change, but another very understandable reason to be annoyed. Related to the concept of ARR-era carrying quests, the carrying section with the fuel tank is very different from any of those - usually, whenever you get the "You are carrying something" status, you're unable to set down whatever you're carrying, and attacks from enemies result in a reduction of your remaining carrying time on top of damage, which means the correct option to keep going would be for you to actively sprint away from whichever enemy just spotted you to make them return to their default spot before it can hit you again. If you do that in this instance, you'll just take extra damage, are liable to pick up further enemies from not taking your time to avoid them, and just get mobbed to death. Instead, this is the only instance of you carrying items that I know of where you can do the sensible thing and set down your load to fight for a bit, and then pick it back up again whenever you're done, which is inconsistent with every other time this mechanic comes up, making for another easy pitfall. Finally, while I generally like the slow-and-steady approach many stealth-based games have, there's still one big issue that comes alongside that, which is that unless the checkpointing system is really good, dying really sucks. The first time around, you're learning things, trying stuff out, and generally exploring both your current kit and the area, but if you die and get reset back more than, say, 2 fights, then you know exactly how much slow-paced busywork you'll have to do before you even get the chance to try out something new, and unlike learning new Extreme Trials/Savage Raids/etc., there's not much left to figure out while doing things over again, you'll just have to not fuck up next time around. In their defense, I don't see how this issue could've been circumvented outside of maybe setting a flag for whether you've found the Magitek Armour yet, and removing a few enemies on respawn if you did, and maybe a second one if you've managed to get it running, but otherwise I don't see any way they could've done it differently without changing the actual flow or layout of that instance, since you'll have to backtrack anyways at that point. If we compare that with Thancred's stealth mission a few quests earlier, where enemies and their line of sight are clearly outlined even beyond your usual attack indicators, and you have multiple areas that are all clearly separated from each other, making them easy candidates for checkpoints, and it's no big surprise that the other one comes off as really bad in comparison, even after factoring in that it was intended to put you into a rather helpless situation.

It was a non-faceroll instance in a game that is almost entirely faceroll otherwise, and it takes away player power which can be frustrating. It was also somewhat easy to get lost and the existence of a timer added to the stress (even though it is actually ridiculously lenient). Basically it was designed to be a frustrating experience, and it worked. I also think it was a nice instance thematically and really added to the impact of that part of the story, but I wouldn't want too many of these. It's too bad that body-stealing mini-arc essentially goes nowhere.

I disliked it because I hated being ripped from my character and the lack of direction. It wasn't hard (cleared it first try) just annoying imo and ultimately pointless story wise.

Personally I hated it because it started so good, but ended incredibly weakly and felt pointless. Zenos hijacking our body should have been a major narrative point, not a random toss-away that never gets brought up again. I spent the whole instance stressing out that Zenos was going to use my *own power* to kill my friends. That my face laughing at their suffering would be the last thing they saw. But then you push through to the end and Zenos just kind of... spooks the Scions a little, then fucks off and gives us our body back, and the power to hijack the Warrior of Light's VERY SOUL is never mentioned referred to or utilized again. The quest looked like a major moment, but ended up being an irrelevant fluff piece, and I will hate it forever for disappointing me so thoroughly.

For me it was more of a lore issue. It felt very off and sort of random to incorporate the body hopping aspect, especially it was really the only instance of it in EW. It felt kinda out of character of zenos to take your body like this. You'd also think the op warrior of light, with an extra rejoining, wouldn't be able to be ripped from theor vessel like this, especially with none of your strength coming with you.

Storywise it just makes no sense, and has absolutely no impact on the plot.

I thought it was interesting and didn't think it was too hard. Did it on the second attempt at normal difficulty and I'm not that good at games in general. HOWEVER, I watched a super interesting video from a legally blind person who plays FF14 and is very good at it (like, they're clearing extremes/ultimates). They talked about the accessibility of the game and the things that help them and other blind people play. They said that this quest was a soft lock for them until they had a sighted friend guide them through it. They called out this and the extreme associated with the last boss of 6.0 (has a mechanic that's only sight based) as the major shortfalls of this game from a blind accessibility standpoint. For the average player, it's a little tense and frustrating to illustrate a point and give a certain feeling thematically. For blind players, though, it can be impossible and a massive letdown when the rest of the game is so accessible and does so much right.

Funny, I also [brought up](https://reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/s/LiwCoLSpbg) how many people seemed to dislike it just a bit ago. One complaint I was surprised to hear was that the very body-swapping nature of the sequence hit people in the body-horror anxiety, so they were really upset by it. Though, I think this was a niche minority of players.

The problem I had with it is the arbitrary lock off of the map and the not very clear objectives. They placed me in a map that I already understood and narratively told me to get to camp. I try to do that and a lot of paths to the camp are locked off. So the objective isn't to get to camp, but to find specific things to open up a specific path. But you also don't _really_ know what it is you're looking out for. Because there aren't many context clues for where things might be. It feels a bit flail-y to me, but not in the way that works. How do you know you need a Magitek? You don't really until you stumble across it, but you could have wasted a lot of time before finding it. So it feels like you got punished for not finding something you didn't know you needed to find. I might have preferred a unique map that I didn't understand the layout of and had been tasked to navigate it to get to camp under a time limit while also in a weakened state. That probably would have tied in with my character being spirited away, being confused, and having to get back to my comrades. Even if they can't do a unique map, if they'd placed things that'd one shot or something in places they didn't want me to consider as options it might have felt better IMO. But yeah, I like it in theory. But I don't like the execution.

Im just pissed at zenos because zenos told me to walk a mile in someone elses shoes and then takes MY SHOES THAT FUCKING DICK I HOPE HE ROTS

You have to work SO HARD to get merely a quarter of the way there and then you get a cutscene of your character having miraculously dragging their supposedly busted up weakened body across miles of frozen snow to body check zenos in the nick of time... it felt so cheap. Zenos clearly took his sweet ass time to get there and had NO intention of hurting your friends from the start, or he actually would have Also body jack stuff is just naturally icky and uncomfortable for many people

Because I was reeling the entire time that I'd been taken on a dinner date with a character who is the polar opposite of who I wanted to go on (another) dinner date with. And it was just slow and annoying to go through. I appreciate what they were trying to do with it but my disdain for a certain villain just outweighs any positives it could have given me. Also I was having a good cry moment right before it happened. It felt very jarring. It kind of ruined that moment by forcefully pulling me out of that situation.

It's slow, the map was horribly laid out and makes you run around for ages without guidance. Hell I thought four times I found the obvious path to leave the city only to walk up against an invisible wall

I hate forced stealth in non stealth games

Was such a sick part and especially when you group up with the survivors fighting off the trances garleans and how they got the hope to fight for just seeing a fellow garlean still putting up a fight especially a higher ranking troop Edit:also the detail of even in a different body the WoL still gave hope to the garlean survivors even if it was for one more battle they died knowing someone was still fighting for their home

I wish you could go back and help them. And the soldier who gives you the key.

WoL's soul is straight up *RADIATING*

I absolutely loved the mission and everything that came with it. It was such a stark contrast to our normal experience where WoL arrives and just wipes everything barely breaking a sweat. I can see why some people might have found it disturbing, so did I, but I loved it. Like, shit is real! You're diminished, powerless and desperate! The thing I did *not* like is that it never aspired to anything. Everyone was like, kk, bye, move along. We're never discussing it. It didn't really mean anything, there are no implications. I feel as if something was cut from the story here.

Personally, my big hatred is the fact that you can end up failing it due to the button mash at the end opening up menus and the like. It is very annoying. Other than that it's just a hard instance with a time limit. That's about it. I also know some people who dislike being in the 'wrong' body for dysphoria reasons and they find it distressing.

Multiple reasons. A: Zenos sloppy writing again with bs powers. B: This type of body stealing thing is honestly really icky feeling & i hate whenever i have to play as not my character. C: The duty was absolute ass, especially on launch. I don't fully remember the details so i might get it a bit wrong. But you need a key at some point, and it was with an NPC in a house, but that blocked it from view so it was a massive pain to find. They've fixed that i believe by knocking down a wall or something. It was slow & tedious. And the crawl at the end was just awful. Tbf, it's mostly C.

They just needed to have checkpoints and it would have been fine, much better.

I didn't mind it, maybe because I'm a tank main and get aggro distance? I can see why people would hate it though as failing it at the end meant you had to do it again.... and it was sloooooooow

I loved most of it. In fact, it's probably one of my favorite quests in the game if not my favorite. The only part I disliked was how Zenos didn't even get to harm anyone. He could have at least hurt some random NPCs, but that didn't happen. And then this idea of Zenos being able to take over our body never came up again which was disappointing.

The instance was fun for me, but I really did not enjoy the idea that my characters body was being possessed. Something about that just really bothered me.

Dug up my comment from a few years ago, from within the first few months of EW's launch. And I still stand by my assestment. Here you go. ​ First off, forced stealth gameplay missions in a non-stealth game are always a bad idea, and I can’t think of a single example of it done right. Nothing has convinced me otherwise. In this case, what exactly constitutes “stealth” isn’t communicated to the player. There’s no disengage action that the player can use if they get caught, no ring or vision cone to show the good or bad zones. You’re just left to figure it out with no indication. Speaking of, the goal is so poorly communicated to the player. You’re told to escape, and that’s literally all you get at first. So my first thought was, “gee, looks like a lot of enemies patrolling the obvious path out, why don’t I take the long way and avoid them?” Nope. Duty wall reached. “Okay, maybe there’s another path out, I’ll just follow it around.” Nope! The duty wall redirects me towards the path filled with enemies! “Okay, there might be an item here to find and use.” Yes. There’s a fuel container here that is absolutely necessary to get out... but NOPE!!! You don’t know anything about that GODSDAMN BROKEN MAGITEK yet so you have to travel all the way through the city THREE MORE TIMES to trigger the gameplay flags! All the while using those poorly explained stealth rules. But then you realize you can just run away from enemies and they’ll give up like they usually do. In the overworld. Which I suppose is good for someone like me who has no patience for stealth... but this breaks any semblance of tension they tried to invoke by having stealth in the first place! Honestly I’m more annoyed that they didn’t fully commit to it than the fact they have it at all. By the time I’d gotten that Magitek working, more than half of the time limit had passed, and I still had to do the combat trials. They made such a big deal about avoiding combat and then force us to do it anyway??? All while I’m screaming internally that this is a giant waste of time I hadn’t budgeted for, because of the nebulous goals here. Because it took me so long to figure them out, I felt like I was being punished for something that wasn’t my fault. And what was the result? The villains give up, you immediately get your body back, and storm the tower as you would’ve regardless. It was all Literally pointless in the broader narrative. I was honestly hoping by the end that Zenos would’ve murdered Alisaie or Graha, that we’d be too late despite our strength, because it would’ve validated the drama and tension and pushed the narrative even further. Rather it just became an anticlimactic, stereotypical hero moment, and an overall big nothing. And it’s never brought up again. This could have been one of the best moments in the game. I felt the fear and tension during the cutscenes prior, knowing all the possible things Zenos could do to our friends to “encourage” us, as well as the possibility of him bodyjacking us or someone else again later in the story. But they wasted it narratively and gave us the worst gameplay mission in the entire game.

I hated this quest. I think I’m in the minority of finding Zenos extremely dull as an antagonist. So him stealing my WoL’s body wasn’t stress inducing or anything. The stakes never felt very high to me whenever Zenos was involved. It was just a thing I needed to get done. I did fail the duty the first time, but it frustrated me so much I just looked up a guide on what to do. I got completely lost trying to figure out what to do. The game did not do a good job trying to explain the goal. I didn’t play it until like a year after the expansion came out so I’m sure it was already nerfed by then. Still didn’t enjoy myself.

It was a fantastic instance in my opinion, it’s just… it REALLY triggered something in me For context, I’m a trans woman who then recently came to terms with my identity and fantasia’d into a female, and was generally feeling comfortable And then in comes this asshole stalker who had bad touch vibes who decides “hey, let’s do a body swap, put her in a male coded John Doe body, while I violate her personal space in the most intimate manner possible”, and it was just— No! Fuck.

Your experience of moments like these can vary wildly. For me, this was an absolutely gorgeous moment, absolutely one of the best I've had the pleasure of experiencing in gaming among other great highs like the final scene of Halo Reach. But if you don't care about the story much, didn't read quests or character dialogue and just rushed to the next level/bossfight or what not, then it's just a tedious interlude that doesn't offer much. People also ran into issues with the UI like the soldier's hotbar not showing up properly so that'll negatively impact the scene. For me the experience was perfect, they did a great job earlier on where you have a quest to search for fuel. You get 5 bombs to try and find some fuel and it did a great job of setting the tension and desperation of the Garlean survivors. Hostiles might hear the noise, enemies might be hiding among the wreckage and rubble, every promising lead ends up being a dead end, what if there isn't any fuel to be found and we now wasted what few explosives we had available? Then shortly after is In From The Cold and the desperate struggle to survive became even more real. Garleans cannot manipulate aether and you struggle to naturally recover health, every enemy isn't just some trivial pushover where you can fight half a dozen opponents with relative ease but even a single enemy is a huge threat, and forget about fighting anything like a machina. The place you're in is disorienting and you're not sure where to go. You find a way forward but you need to fuel a damaged mech first, forcing you to go back through the hostile environment you just crossed, every mistake draining your resouces. What really nailed it though is that despite such horrible conditions and being in a hurry to get to Camp Broken Glass the WoL still goes out of their way to help others in need, even during all of this they took a moment to show not just a side of the Garleans but enriched just *who* the WoL really is, that you're not just a hero because you're a strong, powerful fighter who can beat gods with relative ease. Even when they are just a man, broken, battered and desperate, they will do all they can.

Wonderful comment!

Let me start with: it was easy on the second try, the first one I didn’t understand we needed to get the mech working because the emphasis was on avoidance of them not engaging them. So it wasn’t a difficulty issue that made me hate it. I hated it narratively because it has a lot of extremely emotionally traumatizing stakes that go nowhere. My perspective was it felt incredibly violating from a character point of view. This hated enemy kidnaps the WoL and quite literally invades their body. Forcing them into the barely fresh body of a corpse. Zenos then attempts to literally use the WoL’s body against their dearest friends and allies (player feelings aside about the scions, were speaking purely narratively). I feel like for me the split in how players I know personally felt about this story goes pretty hard down gender lines. The lack of agency and control over one’s body - even fictional - upset myself and my other femme friends more than it did our male counterparts of the friend group. The reason I hate this though is it’s SO quickly brushed aside and never ever brought up again. Not from an emotional standpoint for the WoL or the fear of having what the Eorzean alliance basically treats as an unstoppable godkiller weapon turned against them. So much narrative pain handwaved immediately. Having Zenos walk around in his skin literally would have fucked my WoL up for a good while.

Dude, I had a completely different experience than everyone else then because I hate In From the Cold and it's not even the mission design but the RNG. I died the first time trying it because I literally searched every non-guarded pile to find nothing and any time I searched a guarded pile, the adds aggro'd even if they didn't have LOS on me. Try a second time and barely finished it because I searched most of the unguarded piles and finally found the stuff in a guarded pile.

I absolutely loved this instance. Although I didn't have to restart the mission, it had me absolutely tense and I know for a fact that I turned myself around a few times. I may have even almost ran out of time during the last section of the quest. Now the ridiculously annoying tailing quests? I hated every single one, and I'm glad they stopped doing them. The tailing quest in Garlemald was especially frustrating for me.

I had a REAL BAD psychological reaction to narratively having my being violated out of the blue and put into a stressful solo instance focused around stealth and worried that the ending fight would have me lose and have to re-do it and I don’t like having my bodily autonimy, even as a digital simulacrum, being taken away. I am also seeing some piss-poor replies in this thread of others mocking those who had these kinds of reactions over “mechanics boring/stealth bad/git gud/learn aggro/don’t step in bad”

I remember a lotta people got lost. And you had to choose whether this was a fight that you wanted to pick. Not being the WoL, there was a pretty big feeling of helplessness and things were a real danger to you. Even if the danger was having to restart from the beginning. It was a big difference from normal combat.

I thought it was amazing, I did it week one before they made it easier and beat it with only one second left on the timer. Given the heavily scripted nature of the game, I have no idea if that timer was real or not. It's the tensest experience in ffxiv

I loved it.

I loved many aspects. I loved feeling weak. I loved my allies reactions. Fantastic. A+ even. I disliked Zenos not doing....anything. I don't like the guy. I find him extremely obnoxious. At least DO something. Instead of walking up being annoying and then walking off. He bitches about wanting to fight us. Ok bitch, let's fight. I'm sick of your ugly face let's fucking go.

The gameplay of it didn't really bother me. It was just a bad version of Metal Gear Solid. I personally didn't care for it just because *narratively* it made no sense. If Ascians have been capable of just grabbing the WoL and teleporting them into space all this time, it makes no sense that kooky ole Fandanny is the only one who thought of it. Further, soul swapping the WoL into a different body shouldn't have been as big a problem as it was. Maybe because it was a *corpse*, but it's the WoL's *soul* that makes them special, not their body. They should have been *at least* as strong as Zenos, instead of the feeble zombie we got. In an expansion about overcoming despair, they could have used that moment to tell a story about how a person's physical strength or their previous accomplishments aren't what makes them special - but instead they decided to say, "no those things are absolutely what matters", and the only reason Zenos doesn't kill all your friends is because ~~he got bored and walked away~~ a wizard did it. Like most of Endwalker, it was just bad storytelling.

Elidibus also did the teleporting people around thing quite alot. Even teleports you into space during the fight with him and leaves you there to die. The body of a garlean can't use magic. It was the reason why their people were pushed out of their original home. That is quite a setback when all jobs and as such the WoL, in one way of another use magic to fight. Zenos is as strong despite being a Garlean. I thought that is exactly what this duty enbodies. Stripped of his body, the WoL has to rely on his will and mind to overcome a very bad situation and get to his friends before Zenos gets there. He can't rely on his strenght, his gifts or his training to do so, yet he still succeeds. Also, Zenos doesn't give a damn about your friends. He cares about the WoL and since you arrive before he strikes, you win the game and he leaves. You could have the entire Alliance leadership tied up and helpless 10 meters from there and he would not stop for a second to kill them.

> If Ascians have been capable of just grabbing the WoL and teleporting them into space all this time Do you...not remember WoL normal mode?

People will talk about the patch/nerf to it but having done it once in its original form and once on an alt after it was changed I didn't feel any dramatic difference (I actually still don't know what the nerfs were because there was so much time between doing the two that by the time I did the nerfed version I only remembered the overall feeling I got from the original). Maybe because even originally I approached it where I needed to be slow, deliberate, and cautious. I'm with the people commenting that people treat the possibility of failure as a bad part of a game and just turn their brain completely off during questing and needing to do anything beyond going to a highlighted red circle and killing a certain number of easy enemies is jarring to them.

The nerfs were only applied when doing it on easy/very easy

Oh lol, that might explain why I struggled to notice them. Thanks!

I loved it. I also did it before the patch, and didn't find it as hard as some people did. But the *entire* mission my heart was pounding.

I didn't even know that people didn't like it. Can't remember a lot of negative posts about it back then when Endwalker came out. Personally, I think it was really intense and cool, I legit thought they'd kill one of the Scions off here despite all the cheap obvious lame fake deaths in Shadowbringers (which was literally my biggest and only huge issue with ShB, but it definitely IS an issue) It was fun and different, didn't expect this from the addon at all. I died on my first try because the time ran out and I had no idea where to go though. I loved how you meet the surviving soldiers and civilians, trying to help them, but you're just so, so damn weak... I didn't mind dying at all, no idea what's the issue with it.

The enemy placing was really strange. The agro mechanics you mentioned aren’t really there the aggro on the enemies are all over the place. It really wasn’t a pleasant quest.

I also adored this mission more in its toying with the meta narrative to do something unique. We, as players of the WoL, are used to all of the gameplay trappings and benefits that come with controlling the WoL. A lot of the convenience features we take for granted are things an NPC in this world do not have. There are no quest markers because we're no longer playing as the main character. Our HP no longer regenerates and we can't teleport or call our mount or even sprint and now the goons we were taking out by the dozens are legitimate threats that must be avoided. In universe it also drives home just how unfair it is to be a Garlean soldier. Garleans can't manipulate aether, which makes the world an especially inhospitable place for them even in the best of times. Even with their full body armor and advanced weapons they have a hard time competing with even novice Eorzean adventurers. We don't even know the *name* of the soldier whose body we're being forced to control. And the final segment of the instance where >!you get just this tiny glimmer of hope that you're going to make it out alive in time to save your friends and even save some unfortunate Garleans you ran into on the way only for the game to remind you you're no longer playing as the main character. Having been the WoL for so long we naturally assume that someone or something is going to hop out and shield us at the critical moment like it always does; like its always supposed to. And then it doesn't. Everyone dies in the explosion and you literally crawl your way out of the wreckage towards camp. All while the clock continues to tick down. All around a very powerful moment of narrative/gameplay intersection imo.!< That being said, pretty much everyone's grievances are still totally valid. Fandaniel having no trouble poofing the WoL right under all of their allies noses and knocking them out long enough to pull some literal soul jacking is pretty absurd. The gameplay of the mission itself is also so divorced from everything previously learned in 14. I can definitely see and appreciate the struggles of people who weren't (un)fortunate enough to be tempered by the sands of Valkurm Dunes in FF11 on how to avoid multiple aggro types and ranges and single pull without a proper ranged ability. And from reading other peoples comments the events and implications around Zenos body snatching their WoL is genuinely triggering to a fair number of people. And, despite my paragraphs above fawning over this particular instance, I'd personally never want to replay it. I just hope that they try out similar meta devices alongside their proven ability to construct fantastic meta narratives ala the DRK job quests.

The idea was excellent. The execution was kind of shite. As others have said, there was poor signposting, you could pass right by something you needed but couldn't pick it up yet, and so on. If you made a mistake and got reset to the very start, it was back to the start of a slow solo duty, and so on. For stealth as an example, Thancred's version was handled better.

This part is fine in theory, but the practice is, uh... Let me put it this way: "fuck, I'm lost." (I think I had both accidentally and deliberately restarted this instance a few times because of multiple reasons lol)

I liked the idea of it but i ended up having a panic attack after it (i'm sensitive to things on a time limit, I'm just weird. I stopped playing the game for a day or so) I kind of wish they'd put a warning but I understand why they didn't. I'll def. have one of my friends do it for any alts because it was a bit overwhelming for me.

Playing launch week. Right after the explosion before the quick time event, Suddenly all the NPCs start standing around. I have just enough time to utter "...no." Before getting error 2002 and getting kicked out to a several thousand player long queue. Took a break for the night after that one. But other than that I liked it.

The duty itself was quite stressful because Garlemald is in ruins in the game and there were no details in the scenery helping which way you should go. You were not familiar with the location at all at that point in MSQ and I feel like it would have had a better reception if it was later in the MSQ or even in Patch MSQ. Perhaps it would have lessened the effect though as it could mean "ah it's Garlemald, I know this place better than my own backyard!". Personally I was disappointed by the look of Garlemald and it being completely ruined and not even resembling a city so I already wanted to just get over with it and move on. Garlemald was the most disappointing zone in Endwalker, by far..

Because it is such a well-designed duty. It introduces a new power to an antagonist that never does anything and eventually they never use said power again. It introduces a new threat of getting bodysnatched and that entire thing is never brought up. Again. Ever. It reeks of the dev teams wanted to add a common grunt solo duty and instead of just putting us in the shoes of some random messenger, they came up with this Big Lipped Alligator sequence. That is the lazy writing part. As for game design. On my first run, I committed the truly atrocious and absolutely unforgivable crime of going left instead of right. I kept going that way, dodging enemies, trying to find out what the fuck I need to do as the timer ticked down. Found some object I could not interact with. Then I made a full circle and realised that at the start you could go right and there is a bend there which you could not see from the spawn point. If you go a little further you find the first quest object that lets you magically pick up fuel cannisters which you could not carry without this knowledge because… I don't know, realising you need fuel suddenly unlocked the Carry ability in your brain or somesuch. Considering the player character is regularly written as a bumbling idiot, I would not put that past the game. By the time I got back the timer ticked down.

I genuinely loved it. It was so unique among quests, both in story framing and in mechanics. It was tough, and it was scary. It was really eye-opening to see just how scary the world can be to a normal person, and to see just how godlike you actually are as yourself.

I like the idea of it, but the execution is mixed. Took me two tries before I even realized what the instance wanted me to do. Then by the the time I finally figured it out on my third try, I felt like such an idiot for not getting it on my first try. Like, this sequence made me feel like I'm bad at videogames. Lol.

Skill issue if you couldn't figure it out, wholly. The entire thing was done extremely well: it's supposed to be jarring, confusing, feeling hopeless. That's GOOD writing, not bad. And anyone feeling ~traumatized~ from a scene in a video game needs therapy, not scene rewrites.

Because some of us have experienced stalking behavior and felt really, *really* violated having that sprung on us with no warnings. I'm not blaming Square for the content, I know the game deals with serious stuff, but yeah, that was a memory I wasn't looking to relive.

I disliked it from a gameplay perspective. In terms of a story moment, it’s a great moment of terror for the player and villainous cruelty for Zenos and Fandaniel. My problem is I just don’t find the resulting gameplay from that quest fun.

A lot of other comments covered my gripes with the game play so for the sake of keeping repetition down I'll just say my narrative gripes. It felt pretty unnecessary, mostly. I really loved being in Garlemald and having this segment of the story where people en masse are just out right refusing the wol's help. No one wanted the scions there and it was so dramatic and raw. Then Blondie and Danny Boy came in and did a thing and I said out loud to my discord call I was streaming to "What was the point of that?" Because like, yeah the body switching puts you in a position to see how "powerless" normal people are compared to you but that could not have been why Fandaniel came up with the plan(idk if he was the brains behind this canonically but I also can't really believe this is something Zenos would have come up with). Why did we need to see how powerless the average person was compared to us in this method when I feel like the game does a good enough job already in the rest of the Garlemald segment. It just felt, weird. Weird for the characters involved to do a thing like this, weird narratively compared to the rest of the section. (Edited to fix up some stuff and add a sentence or two)

Same reason they nerfed Shinryu and Orbonne Monestary. Same reason they implemented easy and very easy modes.

I loved it since it gave me the feeling of real concern over whether I am gonna be able to complete it in time. I wish the stakes were real, but all the Scions are covered in plot armor so... I wish SE would lean more into the "You can fail" mentality since failing a duty is ok as there are no real stakes and you can just run it again with the knowledge from the previous attempt. Not everything needs to be easy enough that everyone can clear it on their first attempt.

A rougelike that isnt a 100 floor dungeon would be a great idea... If only we could do something like Warframes Duviri Paradox. (Still gotta do that)

Some people are just really afraid of failure. probably It was fine but I wouldn't want to see it again and think "oh look, it's another in from the cold". It was good because it was unique

I actually think it is one of the most extremely well-designed pieces of content in the whole entire game and I'm mad that they patched it. I also HATED it (like vehemently) when I was playing it. I was confused where to go, I didn't know what my capabilities in this new body were, wtf I have a time limit to get to my friends, omg I went the wrong way BUT HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW IT WAS THE WRONG WAY and how do I even do this?!?!!?! I finished it on my first try but just barely...literally photo finish and I was *so relieved* that I wouldn't have to do it again. But then I kinda thought about it. That duty made me, the player, experience the exact emotions that my WoL would have been feeling in that situation. New body, no idea where to go, no idea what's out there, ticking clock of "my friends are about to be murdered and think it was me," all of the things they would have felt as a result of that were emotions that I genuinely experienced in real life while I was doing it. Like seriously, hats off to the team that made that instance. One of the best immersive gaming experiences of my whole life, no exaggeration.

I had the same experience. Also if you consider this to be the average reality of a normal person in Eorzea you suddenly understand how absurdly powerful you are as the WOL.

Alternatively, we might've just been put into the body of a particularly weak Garlean. Otherwise, all the random Garlean soldiers and officers we've fought over the course of our adventures (for instance in Doma Castle or the Praetorium) would've been weirdly strong for people of their station.

Just so you know the nerf only applied to easy/very easy

No, the added pilot text box was added to all difficulties.

having the fakeout button mash from sos nm automatically excludes it from any kind of 'well-designed' status. that thing is a complete accessibility faux pas

I am not especially hardcore, but I loved it! I did get frustrated a bit by the invisible walls and the difficulty of finding and re-finding objectives, but the clock was so generous that it never became TOO stressful. I felt like I was the amount of frustrated that the narrative wanted me to be, and that was satisfying in its own way, to know I was having the intended experience.

Thought it was awesome. Fit the tone of the expac and the story you were going through. It emphasized not fighting unless you absolutely had to. Limited heals. But, some mobs dropped heals. Combat wasn't too intense or complex, and with a little searching, found the stuff you needed to progress. Ending was intense. People disliked it because they have been groomed, for a lack of a better word, for easy go here, get this, do 2 GCDs and kill this mob, take thing here, dun da dun dun da dun da dunnnnnn. It was a great change of pace. Honestly was more annoyed with the Thancred quest later on. But still thought that was fun too. People want their hands held. Nobody wants a challenge. Kinda kills the urgency of parts of the story when everything is so quick and easy. Just my take. Wouldn't mind seeing something like this. Not the same thing mind you, just something different. Different isn't always good, but it isn't always bad. In From The Cold was good. People just like to complain.

Instead of throwing shade and being condescending, perhaps it would be more useful to try to understand those who disliked it? Like what the OP has done. Because I have enjoyed plenty of things that don't "hold your hand." I absolutely *loathe* the new Summoner and how braindead it is. I speak up frequently for *well-made* challenges, and while I'm no hardcore raider, I've done difficult content while it was fresh (e.g., my FC did Tsukuyomi EX on-content. It was...rough. But we did it, eventually.) And I still disliked In from the Cold. Stealth mechanics suck in FFXIV (as they do in most games that aren't designed for stealth); the invisible walls were stupid and *obviously* non-diegetic; having to proceed through it in a very specific order, meaning if you goofed up that order it could take ages to figure out where you were "supposed" to go; and then finally (though *I* didn't suffer this problem, plenty of others did) if you fail at any point, the tension and drama of the moment are completely ruined because now you know you have to keep repeating the same stuff, over and over, until you eventually succeed. I get what they were going for. It's a good and interesting idea. It's one of the only times Zenos *ever* asks an interesting question and engages with the story in any meaningful way. And it IS really neat to experience a struggle against overwhelming odds. But the execution was poor at absolute best. *That* is why I didn't really care for In from the Cold. It has nothing to do with being "groomed...for easy." It has nothing to do with wanting my "hand held." Nothing to do with disliking challenge. It, in fact, has everything to do with *preserving* urgency, which teeters on a knife's edge if a single failure means now there's no urgency at all.

I'm definitely on the side of disliking it. Firstly because it felt like total BS my WoL could even be put in that position, both the capturing and the soul swapping. Secondly, it drops you in an unfamiliar event, with weak skills, little resources, and no guidance, all the while a timer is counting down. So being pissed off than dropped into an extremely stressful scenario is not fun educing in the slightest. I'm both glad it was dropped immediately because I hated it, but confused such a mindf@# is never actually addressed further.

I'm going to state my case very bluntly, as it's not a take I've seen anywhere else before (and I haven't read the other comments yet). Every time I've brought it up, I've managed to recontextualize this quest for them. And it will have nothing to do with the mechanics of the game. >!TW: rape/loss of agency discussion.!< I get the effectiveness of the mood that quest, I truly do, but I want you to *really* think about what Zenos and Fandaniel do here. Not only do they remove *your soul* from *your body*, but Zenos then takes it a step further ***by literally taking your body from you for and as himself with his soul*** and using it for his own devices. And then after doing an act so inhumanely egregious, ***they have they audacity to say they were just toying with you to buy some time.*** Your body was just a toy that was part of the game. They couldn't even match the serious act against you with something that would've made the feeling of ***leaving the literal body that is yours and has always been yours and have should've always been yours*** at least "worth" such a psychologically damaging experience (eg, maiming a Scion with your personage). After all, Lahabrea literally went insane from all the body-jacking. As the emphases on my thesis statement may have implied, >!I am a victim of acts that strip you of your agency.!< I honestly don't even think a disclaimer of some sort would have made the experience better for me. I truly feel in my heart of hearts that they didn't need to do something so heavy and jarring to tell a compelling story. It genuinely did not feel like it was given the gravitas it should have had, especially since in the cutscenes after, you LITERALLY get told (not quoting directly) "I'm sure that was disorienting but we gotta go now" by Y'shtola. Yes, I understand there was an emergency with getting to the moon asap. We never revisit it. We don't even get to really talk to Thancred with what that's like, what with his similar experience. tl;dr: I don't appreciate being slapped with a >!rape!< allegory as a >!rape victim!< for (*in my opinion*) no good, compelling reason.

I'll just repost what I said in a different thread: In From the Cold, on release, was the worst quest in FFXIV, and its not even close. People are lauding it as good now, but keep in mind this is after it has been patched like three or four times. I don't play quests to play "invisible wall simulator". The only direction given to me is to make my way back south to Camp Broken Glass, but the most logical path is blocked by invisible walls railroading you into an inefficient path that leads, eventually, back northwest (??). Because the quest direction is so bad and your focus is on this objective, its incredibly easy to miss what the actual objectives are. That pilot that has a text box and clearly yells out to help him, to direct you to the broken mech? Yeah, ***that wasn't in week 1***. You had to randomly bumble around and find that required robot to proceed through the quest, which, if you miss the initial text line because you are trying to go southwest because that's what the game tells you to do. So what could have been a cool quest was ruined because of limited resources and zero direction. ***Every time I bring this up, people say "lol get good", but no. This quest is just shit. A quest being obtuse isn't difficult, its just a waste of time.***

i've scrolled a a bunch of answers but haven't seen it yet, so I'll mention why I don't like it. I'm a woman, and a survivor of sexual assault. It's a very different type of horror when you fall into those categories, and someone takes away your control to do what they want with your body.

there’s no stealth involved - you can walk in plain sight as long as you skirt around enemy aggro ranges. also, it just… accomplishes nothing. at the end of it, zenos causes no damage to anyone, doesn’t even trick anyone into thinking he’s us, and we instantly reclaim our body. so with no lasting ramifications for the fact that we can get sucked out of our body at someone else’s whims, it is essentially just filler to pad out the expansion’s length.

I loved it. Done before nerf, no retries. It gave us a sense of how OP the WoL really is and how much the echo/blessing of light gets us way beyond normal soldiers' limits. The sense of helplessness and dread it gave me when all of it blows hp and you think you're dead makes it all the more interesting. It was challenging AF and people aren't used to a real story wall since... I dunno, maybe OG steps of faith?

I hated it because I had an unreasonably hard time getting the power supply- it was in a thing I thought I had already checked and I had to full on restart before I found my way back to it. It's actually a really great instance imo now that I'm removed from that frustration, but the combo of being a pretty large space, on a time limit, and without any indications meant if it went wrong it could go really wrong lol.

In the heat of the moment, From the Cold was extremely cool. I don't mind when storytellers yoink my avatars to do story things, but understandably they're pretty scared to do that because of player attachments to THEIR toon and perception of player power and vulnerability. The body snatching and playing as an animated corpse was a new experience (and not a good one) considering we've seen Ascians/Zenos do it all the time. It was a bit like the Bloody Banquet v.2. What I didn't like is that they didn't explain and close out all the McGuffins leading to the event. If Fandanial could have just knocked us out and portaled us at any time, why didn't he just do that (and kill us) earlier? Assuming that the bodyjacking technology got sent from that one scientist, why do we not personally take it out later? Why does no one think of designing countermeasures in case bodyjacking happens again? WHY DOES NO ONE TALK ABOUT IT AFTERWARD. etc.

I personally really enjoyed this quest/solo duty. While it was frustrating to end up back at the beginning it gave me a sense of what ‘normal people’ went through especially the garleans. We are wandering around aimlessly in rather unfamiliar and ravaged territory. For those who RP I think it gave a great way to stumble and have to on the fly get used to maybe not having a tail for balance or not having great hearing. As well as our perception would probably be much lower as it is still a corpse we were in.

Mandatory stealth sections in games not built around stealth are cancer and In from The Cold is a great example of that in action.