Late Night DF Replacements

This is a two part post, because a 1000 character post limit...

Sometimes, fairly late at night - between 3 AM EST till about 6 AM ET - it becomes difficult for the DF to find replacements for people who disconnect or grief a party, especially if a party loses a healer or a tank.

I had an idea about how to help out groups who have this happen during off hours, which are different from region to region. It's inspired by something that was in Guild Wars and some of the NPCs in FFXIV already.

Perhaps setting up a sort of "emergency henchmen" for the DF might be a good idea. Basically, in Guild Wars, henchmen were NPCs that could be hired to join the player when it can’t find other players to help them, or didn't feel like socializing. In the case of the DF, an NPC henchmen could end up being sent into an instance as a replacement after a specified amount of time on the duty finder had lapsed (likely 30 minutes, that seems to be like, the most anyone is willing to wait).

This would be where the current pet system could kick in. The NPC henchmen would then be assigned as someone's pet with limited commands - basically Heel, Guard, Place, and Sic. The rest of the pet's abilities would be AI controlled; I've played both SCH and SMN, and while the pets aren't as good as players with managing their abilities, they're not complete rubbish, so it's better than not being able to finish the instance.

Just a thought. There's been plenty of times where I've let Eos do the majority of healing on a boss fight and done DPSing or had Titan tank a boss because the tank disconnected, and it might cut down on the frustrations of late night/off-prime time hours players who get stuck in an instance where the DF never gives them a replacement.

tl;dr

Good idea, but then every DD out there would use henchmen because they decided to play a dps class, turning this is to really a solo game (i can see where people can see hot it already is) but this is where you need to connect with decent LS and a FC with members that play when you are on

Edit: just edit your post to make it longer instead of double posting, and look me up on Balmung, me and my FC are always helping people through lower instances

That's why I said emergency system - it ONLY is accessed when people disconnect or leave a group. It cannot be used when creating a group. We once tried to have an FC mate join us when someone disconnected, but the DF put him with someone who had been waiting longer than us; the other idea I have is to make it so that in progress groups could do direct invite but I'm not sure if that would be easier than adding a system that uses NPCs.

Also, thanks for the tip. I wasn't aware that after I posted, I could edit the post and it'd not have the 1000 character max length on it.

While it's a good idea, I think it would take a lot of work from SE side or anyone stuck with one of those ''henchman'' will want to cry. The reason is that NPC won't evade Aoe.. at all! Or won't even use any CD to lower the dmg from the incoming Aoe.. And if your heanchman is the tank.. How will it pull back hate?..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Darkkos

While it's a good idea, I think it would take a lot of work from SE side or anyone stuck with one of those ''henchman'' will want to cry. The reason is that NPC won't evade Aoe.. at all! Or won't even use any CD to lower the dmg from the incoming Aoe.. And if your heanchman is the tank.. How will it pull back hate?..

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Some of the NPCs that have tank classes have the enmity abilities, so they could theoretically increase hate and when they lose it, use a snap ability like Provoke. The tank pet would likely take a lot more coding than the healer ones (the healer ones are already there - the SCH fairies), but they do have the base NPCs already there.

It just seems like SE is hellbent on not allowing us to invite people directly into an in progress group, so some other option would be nice when there's no one around to fill it via the duty finder. =/