[Thoughts] My First Run - Command Mission - Halatali

Thought I'd give my thoughts on how the run went, and some suggestions. Feel free to add yours.

So, Squadrons are a new thing to me (last I played was before PoTD was even around), and hearing about Command Missions sounded like a great thing to me. I looked at it as a way to experiment and practice my tanking skills with a party that I won't feel rushed in or get yelled at in.

So I went with a Conj (33), Arch (33), and Lanc (21). I was a MRD (31). I picked Halatali as that is one dungeon I know pretty well. My goal was to do a full run of the dungeon (all enemies and chests).

First thing I noticed, is that the squad hits everything OPPOSITE of what you are targeting. I found that odd (more than likely as they were left on Independent?). If I babysat them to Engage all i did, then they listened.

--- Maybe make it so if you MARK an enemy, even if the squad is on Independent, they go for that mob?

When coming up to the bombs that can appear when you hit the cinch lever things, they don't always listen to the Disengage. Had to press it a few times as they ran back then right back into the radius of the Detonator. BOOM

--- Disengage should have the squad do just that, until I set them to Engage.

First boss wasn't that bad. The healer kept me alive as I focused on the big fire guy, occasionally having the others smack down the little flames. All good.

Second boss. Ugh. Didn't listen to Disengage. Electrocuted a lot. Had to babysit them entire time though I got through it.

Final boss. Lancer was so dumb. No matter how much I told it to Disengage, he stood in the flame circle around the boss to fight it. Every time. Healer didn't raise Lancer at all until entire fight was over, barely keeping me alive. No idea what the heck it was doing.

Only decent squad member out of them all was the lalafel archer. LOL

Overall it wasn't a bad experience. I see that they did learn some new orders, so will work with them, as well as leveling them up.

Okay! Second run today, and I learned a few things.

This time I kept all but switched the LNC with a THM, all of us synched to 23.

The Disengage command is almost like a Heel command for a Summoner pet. It makes them stop attacking and just follow you around until you tell them to Engage an enemy. But ...

With that in mind, you still need to be careful and babysit them. Case in point, on the second boss, I had my squad Engage the named, then when the water became zappy, I had them Disengage, pulling us all up the ramp. Targeting the first lightning sprite, I set my squad to Engage it ....

And as soon as that died, all three of them ran into the water and started to attack the named, and I DIDN'T tell them to. So it seems they will either just ignore you, or re-engage whatever they were fighting before they were told to Disengage. Meh.

On the last boss, I had to do something different to keep them from standing in the flame circle around the boss. Once we got through the rounds of invulnerability and fire sprites, I had the named aggro me as I ran around and took down the little flames, keeping my squad focusing only on the named. It did quite well.

Overall, I'm finding this less of Command Missions, and more Babysitting Missions.

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Originally Posted by AngelCheese77

And as soon as that died, all three of them ran into the water and started to attack the named, and I DIDN'T tell them to. So it seems they will either just ignore you, or re-engage whatever they were fighting before they were told to Disengage. Meh.

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To be expected, though. I mean, maybe it would be nice to have a way to keep them on "kill this one enemy, then stop," but, once you've got them on engage, they'll just keep going until the aggro list is empty.
More importantly, though, the squad is immune to the zapwater, so there's no real reason to call them back to the ramp in those phases. Instead, try just targeting each sprite as it spawns, and hit engage. As they kill one, engage the next. I found it went by pretty smoothly. Although this is where being a melee class might hurt a little, if you're standing on the ramp and just waiting for the water to clear.

Idk. Maybe I just don't mind all the troubles so much because I sorta enjoy figuring out their own priority coding. It's easy to just get frustrated, or figure out workarounds or whatever. But taking the time to actually understand how they function adds its own little challenge. And isn't everyone always clamoring for more challenge?

I see what you're trying to do here, but isn't it kind of silly to post opinions about something you've done a whole two times? I've got your experience plus 100 (I'm literally at 102 runs), and honestly most of the complaints I've seen are nonsense. For example, Disengage can be used in two separate ways.

• By tapping disengage to cease attacks, and tapping engage on a new enemy you can force your squad to change targets without any anomalies, such as the tank randomly going after things you don't need. Doing this solved my tank running off in the first boss of Halatali. It also makes bursting adds down easy.
• When disengage is toggled and left on the squad begins to follow you while ignoring any enemy they pass. This means you can pull multiple packs (assuming they can survive it), or get creative with how you pull. This is very useful in wanderer's palace where there are a lot of tight knit packs and stalkers who can easily wipe the floor with you if pay them no heed.

In the same way, Engage has two separate uses.

• You can use engage to pull packs from further than your own target range. This is very useful when you want to stay far enough away that you don't get enmity when they pull. It also means you can take a second to grab items or chests while they mow down the pack.
• You can spam engage on a target to reset your squad's cooldowns and force them to focus on a single target. This means their DPS is significantly higher. High enough that it makes it a moot point for you to even attack most of the time. Whole packs can melt in seconds.

My final piece of advice is that squad members are smarter than chocobos. That means you can use them tactically. However, they aren't as intuitive as summoned pets. This means you'll be doing most of the legwork to make them do what you want. They are not players, so don't treat them like it. Attacks focus on you, and generally you pull enmity while doing nothing. (Lucid Dreaming and Diversion are useful for this reason). Consider them an extension of yourself. As a healer, you're going to spot heal and buff them. As a tank you'll pull and manage enmity. As a DPS you'll pretty much do nothing but spam engage and watch the show.

P.S. I wouldn't consider myself knowledgeable about this feature. I've just done a lot of tinkering with it as I've played. It's been fun getting some extra poetics and exp for playing with such an easy feature.

It's never silly to voice an opinion. Ever. If they weren't voiced, who would know them? People voice their opinion the first time they try a restaurant! :p

Good to know about them not being affected by the charged water.

Didn't know about resetting the cooldowns. Will have to try it out.

Overall, I do kind of wish they could be used to fill out a single spot in a group, like if myself, my husband and my sister want to play, but my sister (who mains a tank) wants to practice in a dungeon. We could just grab a squad member to round out the DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kerii

stuff

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point is, you got to babysit the squad TOO much.

Me and my gf tried this on the ps4, and it sucks. My g.f tried it as tank/healer i tried as dps. you gotta micro manage the squad a bit too much, and if you got a full cross hot bar it can make doing that, that much harder.

the npc AI in recent fights like the solo sri lakshmi fight is better, then squad.

since what I said went over some heads

I'm talking about the control scheme aspects, like the order commands, the UI used and the AI. Not the content. I play smn, idm some tactical play. What I don't like are bad controls and poor UI. Which is adding artificial difficulty to ps4 players doing squad missions. If you are low level and have room to have engage disengage and limit break its easy. If you are a 70 with full cross hotbar, it can be daunting.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

And you should babysit your squad It's what makes it different.

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there is a big difference between babysitting a squad for fun (sch/smn pet actions), and having to have extreme micromanagement (using pet on steady making them auto attack manually). Maybe read all of a post before replying. :)

i play dragons dogma and the pawn AI system is leagues better.

the behavior system should work like the gambit system in ff12, or the system in dragon age origins. Using the squad commands isn't easy on the ps4 from a technical game play standpoint. If you have a 70 job with full crosshotbar it can be hard to find spots for engage, disengage, and limit break. You can't use your skills + the order skills from the command bar well.

I watched my g.f do every dungeon, and each comes with its own issues. WP has the problem with the tank killing the smaller tonberry which builds the bosses rancor which causes it to deal harder "everyone's grudge"

in halatali the npc stay in the fire AoE getting killed no matter how much you make them go after the adds.

the system in question was set up so people can run content with the squad as a potential leveling, yet it isn't set up well with all the micromanaging you gotta do.

so no, you shouldn't need to babysit the squad to the degree you do. It adds "fake" difficult in the way of "bad controls"

bad controls are just bad, and shouldn't be touted as a challenge. a better way would be use ingame systems we have, such as the way points and marks. set up a different hotbar/cross hot bar UI for squad missions like in pvp.

This way you can effortlessly guide your squad to do what is needed. And take out the head ache that is the bad controls.