Trust system vs Squadron. Both sound great, whats the difference?

I’ve recently returned to the game from a 6-year hiatus, excited by all the wishes that have been granted in my absence such as glamour, demolition-immune housing and most of all the option for NPC dungeon parties!

But now I’m confused, as they seem to have granted the latter wish twice!

In prioritizing what to go after first on my new character I’m now left wondering what the difference is between the squadron and the trust system. They sound pretty similar: you have a group of NPCs to do dungeons with so you can play newer jobs and roles in a dungeon and learn on your own time instead of others’ time... or you can run dungeons as a DPS without queue times.

So what are the differences between these features? Does one render the other obsolete?

Thanks in advance for any and all helpful replies! :)

Personally I enjoy trusts a lot more. They let me play with roles to learn them better something I don't really enjoy doing in DF. I never enjoyed the dungeon running with squadrons although you can earn a promotion and get other rewards by completing missions with them.

Trusts and squadrons are separate and they don't overlap.

Squadrons are organised through your GC, with a pool of "average adventurer" characters (not part of any story in the game) you can recruit and train up to Lv60. You can send them on missions, possibly get some items out of those, and run selected dungeons with a party of squadron members. Most of their leveling can be done by sending them out on missions each day.

Trusts are specific to Shadowbringers (ie. Lv70+ dungeons, not including optional endgame dungeons) and are major story characters - mostly the Scions, occasionally other characters who are accompanying you at the appropriate points in the story.

There are a few stages to trusts:

1. While playing the story, when you reach a dungeon you will have the choice of forming a party with the characters currently accompanying you (which varies over the course of the game). They will automatically be at the correct level for the dungeon. This is called "scenario mode".

2. After clearing the dungeon, and up until you reach the end of the main game (to credits roll) you can revisit the scenario mode dungeons via a menu.

3. Once you clear the game, scenario mode is replaced with a permanent roster of character avatars that start at Lv71 and have to be leveled up by repeatedly running dungeons with them.

Scenario mode only becomes available again once you get all the characters to Lv80 - although any patch-MSQ dungeons still let you use trusts for your first time through.

Squadrons were basically the test run that lead to Trusts. They along with a handful of quests, such as the Lv.70 SCH Quest "Our Unsung Heroes", were a way for SE to refine NPC behavior within duties and to gauge player interest/feedback in a contained environment. I'd think of them less as SE fulfilling the same need twice and more SE learning progressively more and with each new iteration bringing more to the table.

As for whether or not one renders the other obsolete, at present they do not have any cross-interaction between the duties offered. Trusts only affect ShB content and Squadrons only offer a handful of dungeons up through the end of HW at present. They have no overlap and it's very unlikely they ever will.

The short answer is trust might render squadron obsolete when they redo 2.0

Squadron is something you unlock through your grand company and it involves you taking on most level 1-60 dungeons with npcs that are comically overpowered but also annoyingly stupid. They also have access to skills we no longer have :( That said they absolutely suck at keeping you alive as a tank.

Trust is shadowbringers only. at certain points in the msq you can go in the dungeon with a party of npc allies that are somewhat competent and all have unique dialogue and classes some of which the community are jealous of for justifiable reasons. These definately count for dps queue skipping thank goodness. After you complete the MSQ of shadowbringers you can then go through the dungeon with any of the 5 scions plus the new kid and level them up to get a title...and the ability to put the MSQ exclusive trust members back in if you rerun a dungeon if what im hearing is true.
Annoyingly trust forces you to start from the first dungeon upwards again. You have to level the scions individually in order to be able to tackle the later dungeons as trusts again.

That said I highly reccomend doing some of the dungeons as trusts those being Hominister (only chance to use Lyna as trust and Exarch), Dohn Mheg (the dialogue is interesting) and the final dungeon (npcs get to ignore most of the penalties players have in that one and can cheese dodging the bs attack the last boss has)

There are mechanically some big differences between Trusts and Squadron. There's no way to command Trusts - they are fully automated, will use LB when they feel like it (or not at all), and cannot be told to attack or retreat. They are more fragile than Squadron NPCs, but are smarter about handling mechanics of the fight. They'll dodge aoes, stack together for stack damage, spread apart for player-targeted aoes, and so on. You can actually learn the mechanics of a dungeon pretty well just by watching how the Trusts deal with them.

Squadron members are built more durably, because they have to be. They ignore pretty much all mechanics and just beat on the enemy.

I prefer Trusts, myself; they're much more sophisticated. It also appears to be the system we're switching over to, as all new dungeons are trust-enabled (and there's been talk of making some of the older ones so, as well).

Yeah its really an apples to oranges thing.

What this comes down to I think is SE prepping for player depopulation over time, kind of like what happened in FFXI.

I noticed there are exactly 8 slots for the Grand Company Squadron. I suspect this was something for lower level dungeons and trials for the MSQ and other things, with the higher level dungeons being coded for Trusts.

That said there's still some kinks in the Grand Company, the weak link is the healer. You can play through as a Healer and breeze right through any given GC Dungeon. Play as a tank, as previously stated, the Healer (conjurer) has some troubles keeping you alive as they tend not to top of your health, and won't heal you unless you're under 50%. Which is actually bad in some instances where a given dungeon mechanic does an extreme amount of damage like the Roc Dive Bombs which are unavoidable and also stun.

This also applies to taking a DPS class, as the player is the one always targeted for these types of special attacks. But DPS player has a secondary concern, and even though the Conjurer is the true weak link due to how its programmed, there is a secondary one in the Tanks. They have troubles gaining and controlling 3 mob spawns. Gladiator is better than Marauder due to Flash, but Maurader does more damage. Still you have to manually keep telling the tank to grab adds by clicking the attack button or they end up in your face all the time.

Black Mage surprisingly isn't that great even though in terms of Job Power in ARR the BLM rules. I'm guessing its how they're programmed.

Arcanist is one of the better ones and you wouldn't think so, but the DoTs even if done differently are highly effective. The pet is always the AoE pet so it doesn't make the distinction between AoE pet and Boss Mob single target pet. But it has Raise, so in the chance the AI gets really stupid and the Conjurer goes down the Arcanist will raise them. This one is really good at clearing the trash mobs.

Archer and Lancer are both really good, they put out some serious single target DPS. Haven't tried Martialist, but the Rogue seems at least decently effective.

Trusts have more intricate programing and dodge dungeon mechanics really well. They are programmed so well that I have never actually died due to stupid AI... unlike with Grand Companies.

But neither are actually as fast at clearing a dungeon.... unlike a party of really good players.

When they redo 2.0 they might include trusts for those dungeons.

Squadrons imo are better due to they have much higher dps than trusts and have an exclusive limit break that benefits the entire party. However trusts do the mechanics properly. Neither are better than a party of good players. Well squadrons maybe if they are high level.

Trusts mostly obsolete squadrons. Squadrons will probably stay around since certain GC content is tied to them, but don't expect much, if any, new content for them - ever.

Trusts, on the other hand, should be usable in all MSQ dungeons going forward, and may get additional content beyond that.

I enjoy the squadrons & trust. Squadron are OP but dont have the AI that the Trust have. One thing the squadron have that the Trust doesn't is that they can mow down a mob with AoEs where Trust dont use AoEs. I hope that changes for the Trust.

Either way, i use them for leveling alts, get gear, learn mechanics, run at my own pace, & no DF queue times!!