Escutcheons Quest: Requesting Help

To start off, I was on the last stage and mistakenly selected to end my progress at the npc. After hours of mind numbing craftchaining, I had went to refill my catalysts... twice I'm guessing. The monotony of it had made me forget I had already refilled them all. So the 2nd time I went to refill my catalysts, I believe there was only one option the npc allows you to select (I no longer can go back to see if that's the case). In quickly trying to restore catalysts, I must have pressed the exact combination of keys to end my shield progress. At that point, I thought I had just refilled my catalysts lol, so I went back to the Synthesis Focuser II to continue and kept getting the message "There is a strange device here". After about the 3rd attempt, my heart had sunk in realizing what I had done. I placed a GM call and didn't get to speak to anyone but they replied in the help desk menu telling me to submit a bug report - which I have done, I just don't expect anything to be done about it. The NPC gives me the option to start the shield but states I have to toss my completed 3rd stage shield to do so. So my question is, what happens if I toss my shield at this point? Does it start me back at stage 1? Or restart the 4th stage again? I had about 1/4th progress on transmutation of the 4th stage and I was pretty beat up over thinking I had to restart that stage, but now I'm thinking its going to make me start from the very beginning =/ Anyone have any insight or suggestions? I have asked to speak to a GM regarding my one time item drop return that I haven't used. Not sure if that can be used to reset the stupid mistake I did or if I can toss my shield and have them return it to me (which I'm guessing would just put me back in the same position I'm currently in).

tl;dr
Ended shield progress at 4th stage at npc by accident. NPC asks me to toss stage 3 shield to begin the quest again. Does this start me back at stage 1 or allow me to restart stage 4? Any insight or suggestions?

hi sorry to hear that

1st thing DO NOT DROP shield

go to guild master and redo stage 4

good luck and take care

Don't toss your shield.

Any idea how I can redo stage 4? I had already talked to the guildmaster NPC as well as traded the shield and he never mentioned anything about it. I no longer get any options from the CP NPC like I did when I was on the shield quest and the guildmaster, after constantly talking to them, gives me the same message. I spoke with a GM and they couldn't reverse the mistake and the one-time item return didn't apply. They said if I toss the shield, I would return back to stage 1 ;-; (Oddly enough, I can still synth spheres from the rare items).

is 00.00% still in shield ? if yes then try to take it to 100% and get new crystal if no try trade it to npc in port jeuno

Never drop shield I'm sure there way to solve problem I just don't know which

I had this in stage 3 cooking and I redo stage 3 not redo from 1

just keep try everything till ur head bomb toss and not listen GM

A billion years ago there was some guy who tossed his black belt but had the title for completing the quest and after 99 GM calls finally got one of them to restore the belt based on the fact they could see he had completed it. Seems like it took longer than you would like though. Like RL months. But you do have the KI from completing the second to last stage so maybe thats an option. You would definitely start at stage 1 if you tossed it (if they even give you the option to restart it).

And I probably got 1% of the story accurate and I can't imagine GMs are as active as they once were.

If you have the option to take it to 100% and try again that is probably worth a shot. Its a serious bug though so I have to think it will be fixed. Will probably take a while though.

Unfortunately-- and I have empathy with you because I did this myself-- the GMs can't reset your quest progress. While they could give you back your shield if you drop it, if you want to progress on the quest line, you will have to start over from the very beginning. I talked to multiple GMs, and an SGM, and they all said the same thing: they cannot give you quest progress, or flag you at quest progress. If you canceled the quest, you have to start over from stage 0 of your shield.

They *DO* give you the option re-start it; I know, I dropped my smithing shield because GMs and NPC said to. I rebuilt it, and am currently back on last stage. It's a pain, it's annoying, but unfortunately, even if there is anything the GMS *could* do, from dozens of hours and dozens of talks with them, there's nothing that they will do. Sorry to bear bad news. :-(

Yea :( I've come to terms with it after a few hours. I'm still able to synth spheres so I will keep my shield as is until I have enough GP again to be able to reach this stage once again =/ So fair warning, be cautious when talking to Mewk!