Tank Trusts and Turning

[Mithlas]

Would it be possible to add the AI for trust Tanks to turn away from gaze-based attacks?
I feel like this would be a small boon. Trusts are not meant to replace players - that is completely understandable. However, even with this change they would still not replace players as trust tanks are squishier than a well-geared player.

This would help alleviate the strain during play times when no other tanks are available or wish to play with you and your party for certain content. I've rejoined FFXI late (thanks to the free login campaign), and it is incredibly difficult and time-consuming to attempt to find certain roles necessary to even do the newest content: Ambuscade.

Especially for higher tier difficulties (which players aim for anyways), Trusts are useless.

[Raydeus]

Not the optimal solution, but have you tried disengaging when the mob readies the gaze attack? I usually do that to manage positioning but it may work against those attacks while they implement something better.

Personally my request would be adding formations in a similar way to The Last Remnant (such a good game) so Trust would position themselves in preset ways when a battle started, and accepted simple commands (like "look away".)

[Mithlas]

I usually do try the disengage when that stuff happens - unfortunately sometimes that can be very bad depending on the situation due to few precious seconds you may lose from having to disengage and then re-engage.

That would actually be a lovely implementation (I agree - such a good game). However, I think that would require more coding and the developers would be more apt to a "no" as opposed to a simple turn around.

[Sicycre]

As you have mentioned, when it comes to alter egos they do not fully understand battle formations and positioning, which is their weakness.
However, the development team does not want alter egos to be the end all be all solution to content, and they'd like to see players forming parties with other players.

As such, there are no plans to address this.

[Mithlas]

As you have mentioned, when it comes to alter egos they do not fully understand battle formations and positioning, which is their weakness.
However, the development team does not want alter egos to be the end all be all solution to content, and they'd like to see players forming parties with other players.

As such, there are no plans to address this.

And what should happen as the playerbase dwindles? Or what should happen when there are simply no players online to fulfill those roles? Are we being told to pay monthly to simply wait for others to login when we have this mechanism in place?

I'm just curious as to what the development team thinks of when the only content left for people to do require other players that are, unfortunately, not there. I am not talking about end-game content - simply some of these easier or newer content ideas that are now in place.

[Immortta]

All the monsters that do gaze attacks can be soloed or at best easier with TWO real players. It shouldn't be hard to find one other person to do this with, its a MMO man...

[Mithlas]

Nah, it's pretty easy to find someone to fill a DD or support role. It's not that easy to find someone to fulfill the role of a tank though - that want to participate in said content. :/

That's my only issue. So why not level PLD or RUN myself? Oh I have - it's just a slow process until I'm able to to have the gear requirements to fill that slot, that's all.

Given today an example - people are sick of Ambuscade and I'm trying my best to complete some capes. Found a party of 5 - we looked an hour for a tank. No one was geared to handle that role. I suggested we just do it easier on normal and have August tank and I or another could spam {Cursna}. It was disagreed and disbanded.
It's not worth other players' time to do anything less than VD when they are used to spamming that with a full party - thus the content never gets done. I've settled for just some unfinished capes (I came late to the Ambuscade train due to the free campaign making me want to resub).

[Immortta]

You don't NEED a tank for Ambuscade OR the gaze type NMs (I'm assuming you mean the eye in Reisenjima?) I've done both WITHOUT any tank at all, and easily. For the eye you can use two trust tanks if you feel you aren't quick enough to turn from gaze, space them out and when one dies the other takes over and you can whack away at it. Ambuscade you don't need a tank at all, I have no clue why I see people shouting for one lol. This is on VD as well. Our typical setup is BLU BLU COR BRD WHM GEO. You could replace the COR and BRD (I'd change geo spell to wilt in that case) with two more DD and you would be perfectly fine, even replace the BLU with whatever DD. It isn't hard at all with competent players.

[Mithlas]

I'll try to persuade players to play without tanks. Thanks for the tips!

[Jile]

As you have mentioned, when it comes to alter egos they do not fully understand battle formations and positioning, which is their weakness.
However, the development team does not want alter egos to be the end all be all solution to content, and they'd like to see players forming parties with other players.

As such, there are no plans to address this.

With the player base shrinking daily, FFXI is more and more becoming a single-player game for many people. While it actually hurts to type that, that's reality in a nutshell. Unless there is going to be some unprecedented marketing campaign for a game with no new major updates in the plans to add new blood to the game... then making solo-play function effectively as the primary intent for your remaining player base is the longest player retention method available... so the lack of plans surprises me. It's nice to say we want players to team up but that's not reality.