Adventuring Fellow suggestions!

[Fermande]

Hello!

I'd like to offer some suggestions / ideas on how to make these more worthwhile. Some of us spent a long time raising our Adventuring Fellows up to max level, completing several quests and stories to do so, only to have them completely obviated by Trusts. These characters have a more personal value, and are, in many ways, sort of like our very own "custom" Trust.

The first thing they absolutely need is the standard Trust ability to quickly recover HP/MP when not in combat. I'd also like to propose that their battle capabilities / battle parameters (damage, healing, accuracy, etc.) be boosted beyond the scope of a standard Trust's, as they are not considered part of your party, and therefore other Trusts do not interact with them. It would give us more incentive to use them.

One way this could be done is with new training manuals, perhaps unlocked through login campaigns. Maybe some of the AI routines now available for Trusts could be given to your Adventuring Fellow through these manuals.

I'd love to be able to use my Adventuring Fellow again, but as of right now, there's no reason to use them. They are entirely outclassed by Trusts in every respect. With boosted capabilities and new AI routines, there would be cases when it would be beneficial to have them present! I'd love to see them dealing respectable damage, or healing on par with a Unity WHM Trust. Just something to consider.

Thanks!

[Urthdigger]

They already have the ability to choose whether they use AoE WS or not. What I'd like to see is further customization options to allow us to tailor our NPCs. For example, allowing us to restrict them to a single WS, choose whether healers melee or not, etc. Alongside more class options to allow things such as support, or casting, we could tailor them to fulfill whatever niche is required.

[Fermande]

While I agree that more options like that would indeed be nice, I do feel that the underlying causes that can be easily fixed should be the top priority. Using assets and tech that already exists within the game, it would be a pretty simple matter to, for instance, add an option to make a Fellow behave like [insert any Trust here].

Though this alone would be nice, it still doesn't solve the other issue: Fellows aren't considered part of the party, and thus, are isolated from Trust buffs, healing, etc. This is why I think Fellows should have higher base stats than typical Trusts. Allow them to DD and hit things a typical DD Trust wouldn't be able to. Make them be able to heal better than a standard WHM Trust. Let them be able to tank more effectively by taking less damage than a Trust, etc. Then you can make a party with your Fellow in a key position, and build your party around it. Fellows are special, and should stand out from Trusts. It isn't like you can build a full party of Fellows, the most you can have is three, from three separate players (which I'd love to see!).

Once they become viable for solo or low-man play, I'd love to see more options get added, like the ones you described. It would further improve the system, and give us a reason to level Fellows. Make them useful enough, and people will have a reason to go through the steps necessary to build a good Fellow.