Adventuring fellow needs some love too.

[Belmonts]

Howdy,

Nowadays, having a lot of support with Trust has made the FFXI experience much easier.

Thus, I don't see why our Adventuring Fellows shouldn't get some love as well, we spent lots of hours leveling them, so they deserve to become stronger.

With that being said, I have a list of some ideas that might bring our Adventuring Fellows back on track:


Since Trust characters can be up for unlimited periods of time, any player with max fellow bond should have the same trait.


Just as Trust, Adventuring Fellows should be able to I-Level up depending on player's main weapon.


Any other ideas are welcomed.

Thanks (´・ω・`)ノ

[Blah]

I think they should actually be able to change "jobs" too. It's silly that even after all this time they can't be 1 of the 22 jobs that are out now, maybe not have main job/support job but definitely be able to be changed to summoner or thief or blue mage even.

[Draylo]

That would be so cool and make them more useful. Being able to set their job and maybe gambits and gear?

[Elexia]

Would be nice - Since YoshiP seems to be against automation of any kind they got rid of the Gambit idea for Chocobo Companions, they can utilize it here since XI's devs are actually doing a bit more and have a better companion system (Trust) already.

I'm sure it's more than possible to do, but considering how old the system is, it's very unlikely to be revisited since it seems they don't want to dig too far back/deep when changing stuff..otherwise they probably should just do an overhaul of this game at some point so they can get in a lot of suggestions they want to do but can't.

[Teraniku]

Would be nice - Since YoshiP seems to be against automation of any kind they got rid of the Gambit idea for Chocobo Companions, they can utilize it here since XI's devs are actually doing a bit more and have a better companion system (Trust) already.

I'm sure it's more than possible to do, but considering how old the system is, it's very unlikely to be revisited since it seems they don't want to dig too far back/deep when changing stuff..otherwise they probably should just do an overhaul of this game at some point so they can get in a lot of suggestions they want to do but can't.

They Technically have a system in place already, consisting of equiping an NPC with gear for Puppetmaster, if they could modify that and apply it to adventuring Fellows, then we could ilvl our fellows. (depends on whether if they think it's worth it to do though.)

[Fawkes]

I think you still take an experience point penalty for using a fellow, don't you? They should probably get rid of that, or even add a slight EXP bonus if you have a fellow out if your fellow is a certain level/bond/whatever.

[Lithera]

Would love an AI update for them as well

[Chilloa]

I think you still take an experience point penalty for using a fellow, don't you? They should probably get rid of that, or even add a slight EXP bonus if you have a fellow out if your fellow is a certain level/bond/whatever.

Yes, this! The main reason I don't use my adventuring fellow, aside from using it just to level it up, is the exp. penalty. But now that we have trust NPCs it would actually make sense to give us an exp. bonus for having them out. Give us an extra incentive for using them.

[Mirage]

I agree wholeheartedly. Considering "raising" an adventuring fellow takes a lot more effort than getting a trust NPC, I think they should also be more powerful, and probably fight smarter. I'm not sure if giving them access to *any* job would be the way to go though. Some jobs are probably much harder to program good AIs for than others. Basic but useful jobs is fine for now, but we should probably be able to configure their behaviour to a bigger degree than we currently can. I'd like to see perhaps a blu-like spell setting window where we can enable and disable the fellow's available spells, job abilities and weapon skills to make them use or not use them. I would also like to be able to quest some of the fancier weaponskills for them to use.

A great use for this that I can immediately see is to make the fellow NPC a healer, then equip them with a club and set them to use weaponskills like mystic boon and/or Dagan whenever they had TP and were below a certian percentage of max MP.

Personally, I am fine with the job combinations we currently have available for them, but the way they use (or rather, don't use) the potential of their jobs is pretty disappointing.

They should also definitely come with you into battlefield arenas and also be usable in every single normal zone in the game. They also need an iLevel update, so that they can actually hit SoA level mobs. Their damage output is already pitiful even at level 95 against lv80-85 monsters.

[Bladesyphon]

I'm all for all the suggestions here.

Ever since I started playing again, I actually haven't bothered to go get my Fellow again because, well, what's the point. They're so inferior to Trust NPCs it's not even funny, to say nothing about the fact that they can only be summoned for a limited amount of time. Even at max level, I don't see a point in using them, since my Trusts handle the job far better than my Fellow ever would, and I don't need a temporary fifth party member that's going to disappear in a few hours or after X amount of kills.

[FaeQueenCory]

I remember Matsui said that he wanted to basically integrate Fellowship NPCs into similar proportions as Trust NPCs... (being able to call both in the same areas and whatnot)
And he explicitly said in the "we're adjusting Trust NPCs for iLvs" post that the followup would then be to adjust Fellowship NPCs the same way...
SO... It's gonna happen.
Eventually.
Maybe even next month. This was one of the quarterly "zomgthisisfreakingHUGE" updates... and adjustments like what areas are allowed and the iLv-bonus are both "small" adjustments.*
I expect that the Fellow updates will come once they fully work out all the bugs from Trust... Cause I wouldn't be surprised if they intend to make Fellows use a "real" party slot like Trust NPCs do.
(wouldn't be surprised if that coincided with the "you can now party with real people AND Trust NPCs" update that they want to do.)


*EDIT: Well... "smaller".... cause we still need that LB10 for the Fellows before they can get their iLvs... of which Matsui also said is gonna happen. SO.... it's all just a matter of being patient.

[Lithera]

Fellows already did technically take up a party slot since they would go away if your party gets full. Though I do know what you mean.

[Edyth]

Pretty much yes to everything said in this thread so far.