They could still be less efficient than real players who know what they're doing without being atrocious like they are though.
A translation on discord says squadrons will not be removed and it sounds like they may be updated to work more like trusts.
https://discord.com/channels/1004639...58140982046740
Fingers crossed it means bringing the best of both worlds together, no longer smart as a pack of dodos.
I wouldn't be totally upset if they did just smooth the systems together, as that was part of a desire I had.. but of course the other part of that desire was to keep the value of investment (which squadrons return strongly, trusts.. not really).
Here's a screen shot.
https://i.imgur.com/JVJOm38.png
Of course, as usual, it's open to interpretation, and we won't know specifically until they say more, but I'm interpreting this as they will remain untouched for now.
Personally I would be fine if they just left them as they are, as long as they didn't remove them. People put a lot of time into them. Though they share the ability to run dungeons like trust, they have a very different reason for existing and a very different lore behind them. But there are many ways they could be improved.
I don’t want to lose the characters that I chose or the ability to glamour them.
I would rather not lose all the work I put into building up their Battle Tactics levels
They should still be able to be sent on Squadron missions.
I wouldn't mind if the AI was updated to the level of trusts, but what Squadrons lack in that area is offset by the fact that you have some control over them and that they become quite durable as you build up their Battle Tactics. The ability to send them in ahead of you would be a nice feature to add to Trusts.
Having them selectable alongside trusts in the trust interface would be cool. Squadrons however can do several dungeons that will not be doable with trusts.
Many people have proposed ways to improve and expand the Squadrons over the years. The expansion could work alongside gaining the Grand Company ranks we don’t have access too. Again, if they don’t want to devote resources to them they should just leave them as they are.
Build up, don’t tear down.
I wouldn't mind if trusts AOEd but with a damage penalty - say 30-40% less damage. Enough to make you second guess pulling wall-to-wall and consider running it in PF instead. In other words, some sort of balance to provide players a good reason to run it in PF for speed and efficiency but not overly painful to have the flexibility to run it in a trust.
Trusts are fine they don't need to compete with DF and shouldn't. They are relaxing and not for people who are in a rush. They are great from learning new roles and a source for leveling xp as well.
I'm personally happy to see them expand their reach a feature on this forum I might add that's been requested often enough.
That's good news. Seems to be wouldn't be fair to those who invested a lot of time in their squadrons to have to give them up. I have friends who have and they weren't particularly happy with the news.
To work like trust?
So a dungeon every 20 to 30 minutes instead of 14 to 20 minutes.
Trust are notoriously slow as they are intended for the player to waste at least x minutes. So that duty finder seems more attractive.
Honestly, I feel like they dropped the ball on that. They could have reworked Squadrons to be used as Duty Support... And there you go, at least - some - kind of updated usability for them.