Duty Support for MSQ Trials when..?

I can already feel some random person deciding to drop a post along the lines of "no, you're trying to turn this game into a single player game" so I'd like to remind you that almost every MSQ dungeon in the game has duty support despite the fact that dungeons of all content don't necessarily need it, at least in comparison to trials.

Trial roulette is not nearly as rewarding as Leveling or even Level X0 roulette. Trials require double the amount of people and the reward for rerunning trials without roulette is non-existent, while in comparison you have people rerunning all sorts of MSQ dungeons for different reasons.

Give me a reason as to why trials shouldn't have been prioritized for receiving duty support over dungeons.

I, for one, can't give you a reason - I feel the Duty Support system is a good idea.

I mean - hate to say it - but are those who bemoan SE "trying to turn this game into a single player game" the same people who also criticise poor performance from other players in group content?

Some seem to want their cake and to eat it too, frankly.

Hopefully in the future this will be added, I like running through the MSQ with Alt's.

I'm assuming they wanted to get the dungeons finished first, as they are the easiest to create.

There is a trial one can run with Duty Support at this point. It is called The Mothercrystal.

So, the technology exists, they've tested it out in a major MSQ story point in Endwalker, and I expect SE to start converting 8-person MSQ trials at some point starting in the next expansion.

Duty support for the 4-person ARR MSQ trials are already in-game.

I can guarantee you SE can't code for their lives proper AI to handle Nabriales. And so DS means they'll gut it into braindead content. No thanks.

Also ty for making it even easier to level bots to endgame :)

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

I can already feel some random person deciding to drop a post along the lines of "no, you're trying to turn this game into a single player game" so I'd like to remind you that almost every MSQ dungeon in the game has duty support despite the fact that dungeons of all content don't necessarily need it, at least in comparison to trials.

Trial roulette is not nearly as rewarding as Leveling or even Level X0 roulette. Trials require double the amount of people and the reward for rerunning trials without roulette is non-existent, while in comparison you have people rerunning all sorts of MSQ dungeons for different reasons.

Give me a reason as to why trials shouldn't have been prioritized for receiving duty support over dungeons.

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They already addressed this.

It's a lot more difficult to program coordinated effort for 7 NPC (with 1 player character) across a 7-8 minute fight than 3 NPCs for a 2-3 minute fight.

The 2nd trial in Endwalker was a test to see if it could be done. It revealed a lot of issues they have to address.

It's also going to limit how complex mechanics can get for the trials, making those fights feel less epic than they should.

As for roulette rewards, they're generally based on expected time commitment and not how many are in the roulette party.

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Originally Posted by GaiusDrakon

I can guarantee you SE can't code for their lives proper AI to handle Nabriales. And so DS means they'll gut it into braindead content. No thanks.

Also ty for making it even easier to level bots to endgame :)

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I doubt endgame bot farms care either way. The bots probably go through the trials with other bots already or have a higher leveled bot do the trial for them unsync'd.

It's a shame that you'd use that as an excuse in order to hinder real players.

4 player team is one thing, the squadrons more or less were the proving grounds for the current duty support. An 8 player raid is another matter entirely

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So, the technology exists, they've tested it out in a major MSQ story point in Endwalker, and I expect SE to start converting 8-person MSQ trials at some point starting in the next expansion.

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Id agree there, my guess is they want to get duty support in place across the board first.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

especially end game trials are ridiculously long.

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I don't know but have you tried doing dps?

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Originally Posted by Mosha

I don't know but have you tried doing dps?

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You would think that by reading the full sentence they were referring to the time taken to queue in, not the time taken to kill once in the instance...

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

You would think that by reading the full sentence they were referring to the time taken to queue in, not the time taken to kill once in the instance...

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maybe if people did dps queues would be shorter because people wouldn't be stuck in instances :^)

Hilariously this would fix capstone trials like endsinger or hades from being massively outgeared. This combined with having to actually dodge aoes enough instead of taking a healthy diet of floor dust would make the fight much harder in comparison to getting your corpse dragged over the finish line like it happens so frequently with newbies in the endsinger trial.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

the point was that queues for trials, especially end game trials are ridiculously long.

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mileage varies on that one though

I have never had to wait a "ridiculous" amount of time for any duty pop, or are you just talking about trying to get into MSQ ones? if that is the case... current content MSQ or older "end game" trials?

and no, I am not saying you are lying, I am trying to figure out why you have experienced this and I have not, thats all

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

mileage varies on that one though

I have never had to wait a "ridiculous" amount of time for any duty pop, or are you just talking about trying to get into MSQ ones? if that is the case... current content MSQ or older "end game" trials?

and no, I am not saying you are lying, I am trying to figure out why you have experienced this and I have not, thats all

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There's a lot of valid reasons actually, if you would take the time to think about it.

For example, do you do content right away as it's released? Chances are you wouldn't have to wait then.
Do you play on a more populated DC during peak day times(or during the weekend)? Again, you're not going to have to wait.
There's probably more reasons that I'm not thinking of.

And also, since we're going to bring in personal experiences, and introduce personal bias to the situation, I can mention there are plenty of complaints out there about this problem, scattered throughout discords, reddits, and even here. Often times whenever I've bothered with trial roulette as an omni whenever I end up in a level 80+ trial there will be sprouts discussing how they waited hours for their queues to pop.

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Originally Posted by GaiusDrakon

I can guarantee you SE can't code for their lives proper AI to handle Nabriales. And so DS means they'll gut it into braindead content. No thanks.

Also ty for making it even easier to level bots to endgame :)

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Actual living breathing humans can barely handle Nabriales, so I welcome that trial getting turned in to Braindead content.

Friendly reminder to everyone that feeding trolls is bad, mmm'kay?

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Originally Posted by PredatoryCatgirl

Friendly reminder to everyone that feeding trolls is bad, mmm'kay?

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"You dare to disagree with me, therefore you are a troll."

Friendly reminder to you that you need an ego check.

By the way, you're always welcome to respond to me and attempt to have an actual discussion in said responses if you feel like it. Unlike yourself I will never ever attempt to make you feel bad about continuing on, even if you would do so to others in order to prevent them from talking back to you.

Why not just turn this game into a single player game at this point ? what's next ? savage with "better" NPC's ? Ultimate NPC's too ? Where does it stop exactly ?

And yes, I can already predict the response "it's only for normal trials" but why stop there ?

Honestly I would still play if it was single player. I'm here because it's FF, not because it's an MMO.

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Originally Posted by GaiusDrakon

I can guarantee you SE can't code for their lives proper AI to handle Nabriales. And so DS means they'll gut it into braindead content. No thanks.

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??? ??? ???

They already destroyed The Chrysalis years ago during the "ARR leveling revamp". This is like saying you shouldn't bring firearms to graveyards because a stray bullet might hit one of the buried bodies.

Like yeah I guess it's technically kind of sad to put a cap in great-grandma's casket, but it's also not really changing much about that individual's situation by that point.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Why not just turn this game into a single player game at this point ? what's next ? savage with "better" NPC's ? Ultimate NPC's too ? Where does it stop exactly ?

And yes, I can already predict the response "it's only for normal trials" but why stop there ?

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If you're offering, then yea, I'm cool with that. People that want to be social can be social already. Do people really want to be grouped up with people that don't want to be social?

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Why not just turn this game into a single player game at this point ? what's next ? savage with "better" NPC's ? Ultimate NPC's too ? Where does it stop exactly ?

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Seems like a non-equivalence. If you don't like it, don't use it. Same way plenty of people still use Duty Finder for leveling dungeons because they just want to play with real people.

And I think it's pretty clear that Duty Support isn't even close to Savage/Ultimate capable — but even if SE has some sort of miraculous renaissance and develops the capacity to implement that, it's pretty close to "who cares". PF'ing with 7 strangers pretty much already feels like this — show up, do your own assigned role correctly, let everyone else do their own part automatically. If you mess up, wipe and silently try again. If someone else messes up, wipe and silently try again.

This idea that MMOs have to have "legally-enforced participation" is really bizarre, and seems rooted in a nostalgia-clouded past that's mostly just upset about things changing from what you're already familiar with.

For example, if you rewind the clock a bit, you'd probably be complaining and asking hyperbolic "What's next?" questions about players being able to level and quest solo, without requiring grouping up with other players to grind XP and take down quest bosses. That was certainly a common firestorm when games like WOW first began "casualizing" the open-world experience.

Then it was the introduction of queue-anywhere duty finders. "Now everything is easy and reputation doesn't matter and you don't have to talk to people!"

...And on, and on, and on.

But somehow, though, you're still here and playing in the way that personally appeals to you, despite other options being present... so either you're hopelessly addicted to MMO gameplay, even while miserable, or you still find enough value in the experience to keep paying for it, despite other people enjoying it in different ways than you.

If players can "skip everything" w/o having to que with other players..
- How are they gonna learn how to play with real players?

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

If players can "skip everything" w/o having to que with other players..
- How are they gona learn how to play with real players?

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What do you mean by learning how to play with real players?

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

If players can "skip everything" w/o having to que with other players..
- How are they gonna learn how to play with real players?

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This is a legitimate concern in a vacuum, but it is years too late, and one that the developers have clearly moved past worrying about.

FFXIV had a crossroads a long time ago, where SE could have stubbornly just let group content failures gate the MSQ / storytelling, and allowed frustrated players to go elsewhere. This would have made for a more "niche" or "boutique" game, where it was understood that a combination of both heavy story interest and patience (to churn through MSQ) and some amount of gameplay competence / effort (to clear the PvE "quest gates") were expected if you wanted to participate in FFXIV.

Certainly, older MMOs had no hesitation about adopting this more "classic gamer" attitude, and while they became relatively-niche products as a result, they did have a certain dedicated audience that either learned to adapt, or segregated between the "doers" (who organized and quested / raided / etc) and the "fluffers" (for lack of a better word), who just kind of... fluffed around, in whatever content that they could access alone, or without a social network, or etc.

But FFXIV instead chose the path of "We're a game for everyone", and has since then pretty clearly decided that there's a red line — Extreme/Savage/Ultimate/Criterion — where they are "okay" with players just failing and being unable to continue. Anything outside that red line, they want "everyone" to be able to complete it relatively-easily, with "sense of completion and progression on a checklist" being the core focus, rather than "overcoming challenges".

It's not a coincidence, then, that Ex/Sav/Ult/Cri are also the content that has been carefully-segregated to have essentially zero relevant Story content gated behind it, with maybe Deep Dungeon providing a very minor outlier here.

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The reason I made that digression is to clarify that we've seen, time and time again, that if SE "forces" you to group with other players to progress anything outside Ex/Sav/Ult/Cri in current-day FFXIV, then you can guarantee that said content will either be made relatively-trivial — and, especially, heavily-carryable — or, if they somehow make a mistake and release it "too hard", it will be nerfed with the thoroughness of a police beating until it is trivial/carryable.

In that sense, players basically already do "skip everything" without "learning how to play with real players" — nearly nothing in present-day Dungeons prepares you for actual party gameplay in Extreme+ content... or at least, not any more than doing it with Duty Support does (or doesn't)... and essentially all Story Trials can be completed by being dragged along by the other players, even if you have no idea what's going on.

There's Seat of Sacrifice, I guess, which remains perplexingly-unforgiving to people who can't mash buttons fast enough... but ironically, that failure state would occur just as consistently for someone running Duty Support.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

They already addressed this.

It's a lot more difficult to program coordinated effort for 7 NPC (with 1 player character) across a 7-8 minute fight than 3 NPCs for a 2-3 minute fight.

The 2nd trial in Endwalker was a test to see if it could be done. It revealed a lot of issues they have to address.

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Pretty much this. They said they were doing dungeons first and would look at 8 mans later. We also had things like Steps of Faith made into a much improved instance instead of the old trial. But Mothercrystal isn't completely braindead and groups still wipe to it so I don't think mechanics have to get completely simplified.

And as someone else mentioned in this thread, this might actually help the overgearing issue that cuts off things like the whole dialogue in the Endsinger fight.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

If you're offering, then yea, I'm cool with that. People that want to be social can be social already. Do people really want to be grouped up with people that don't want to be social?

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Yes, because society, not just this game, doesn't need people like you who are too scared to group up with strangers who don't even say anything beyond "hi".

If you can't even fulfill the basic human biological need for social interactions, why are you even living? What are you even living for? Lmao

This game doesn't need to cater to rejects.

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

But FFXIV instead chose the path of "We're a game for everyone", and has since then pretty clearly decided that there's a red line — Extreme/Savage/Ultimate/Criterion — where they are "okay" with players just failing and being unable to continue. Anything outside that red line, they want "everyone" to be able to complete it relatively-easily, with "sense of completion and progression on a checklist" being the core focus, rather than "overcoming challenges".

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Sadly true, because society is full of mentally fragile people who can't handle failure.

Trials seem to be harder for them to do. They did an experiment with the level 89 trial and didn't repeat it for the others. But I think it's a safe bet they will do trials through the 7.0 patches, because they told us their long-term plan for the next 10 years is to make it possible to play through the story solo.

Duty support is a waste of developer time, whether it be dungeons or trials.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Duty support is a waste of developer time, whether it be dungeons or trials.

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I fail to see how. The benefits so far have been more than evident, so on what do you base this?

They could, but would need to program the ai for each trial or might even have to nerf some ir remove abilities that the AI cannot handle.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

I fail to see how. The benefits so far have been more than evident, so on what do you base this?

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The fact that we are getting less end game content because developers are busy working in duty support.

What are you basing these evident benefits on?

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

The fact that we are getting less end game content because developers are busy working in duty support.

What are you basing these evident benefits on?

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source : "trust me bro" is Vel's source

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

I, for one, can't give you a reason - I feel the Duty Support system is a good idea.

I mean - hate to say it - but are those who bemoan SE "trying to turn this game into a single player game" the same people who also criticise poor performance from other players in group content?

Some seem to want their cake and to eat it too, frankly.

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The best case scenario for the game is to let people who refuse to improve at the game (or people with disabilities), do the entire story solo, rather than dumb down the game for everyone
So i think duty support for all MSQ content is a good idea.
I'd even go so far as to say let the NPCS res the player so they literally can't lose

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The fact that we are getting less end game content because developers are busy working in duty support.

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And this can be confirmed....how exactly?

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What are you basing these evident benefits on?

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Heres one. Its 2am and you cant get anyone to queue after 20 minutes. Hence duty support benefit.

Duty support with NPCs really adds to story immersion which is why I run new dungeons with NPCs at first. It also gives me time to explore the dungeon and enjoy the scenerie. This is usually not possible with other players because everyone is just rushing from boss room to boss room. I can also learn boss mechanics at my own pace without the negativity of other players. The system also helps me whenever wait times are too long, so that is another plus in my opinion.

Therefore, I really appreciate the duty support system and I would like to see it expanding to trials as well. The Mothercrystal duty was already a good start. I loved the interactions between the NPCs!

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who refuse to improve at the game

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Objective opinion not backed up by any real facts.

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source : "trust me bro" is Vel's source

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When you have an actual point to make, let me know. So far, not seeing it.

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Would love if they implement this. Currently on an alt, longest "average" wait time for a trial was 102 min, at peak time on EU.

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Agreed.

Its taking time for some of these people to understand the difference between an MMO in the facet "It has a lot of people in it' to "Everyone should WANT to be social, should WANT to only play with other people all the time" whilst in the same breath sneering that the "player skill level is appalling"

You cannot "force" people to be social.

The disconnect is...amusing.

Ive DONE instances with squadrons and with duty support both. VERY happy with the results so far, dont see any reason why it shouldnt be expanded further.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

I doubt endgame bot farms care either way. The bots probably go through the trials with other bots already or have a higher leveled bot do the trial for them unsync'd.

It's a shame that you'd use that as an excuse in order to hinder real players.

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real players xD