Savage/Extreme/Unreal Duty Support

What does the community think of having Duty Support option for Savage/Extreme/Unreal fights? The only way to get proficient with these fights right now is with a Full Party of PCs, and it's difficult.

It seems like the hardest part to clear these fights is finding 8 people to agree on particular day and time of the week (static) to practice and learn mechanics. If that's what certain people want to do with their time that is ok, but there should be an alternative.

Having Duty Support will help all players.

Thanks.


https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...31#post6359431

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...s-Duty-Support

Impractical, for many reasons.

Ignoring the bit where the community is expected to come up with choreography to handle mechanics on their own, the NPC action scripts can't handle the variability of choreography that human players can. For example, as a RDM I sometimes need to be in melee range at specific times and I can arrange with my party for that to be okay, but a full party of NPCs would expect me to take a ranger or caster spot every time. And if the choreography used by the NPCs is less efficient or harder to execute than the prevailing PF choreography, you'll never be able to apply what you learned with the NPCs to a real party or vice versa.

If you died, even if the fight didn't end immediately as it does in current Supported duties, the NPCs wouldn't handle it anywhere near as effectively as a human player. They might raise you in a spot where the floor is about to disappear, or they might get caught by the floor disappearing while they're slowraising you.

And then the matter of damage output: the NPCs would have to be able to put out enough damage to clear the duty, and if they're putting out too much damage then the player gets a free ride, and if they're not putting out enough damage then only high percentile players will be able to clear with NPCs, and those people are the ones who probably don't need Duty Support in the first place.

There are lots of reasons we won't ever have Duty Support in high end content.

Certain jobs can and likely will limit you to be in certain positions, but to an extent, that's what I think a good bulk of Savage/Extreme/Unreal mechanics. And like you mentioned, there will be certain holes on certain roles. It's something that we can live with in return for being able to learn mechanics and gameplay in an actual fight without having to beg or pay people to help you.

When you die in Duty Support, you start over. I assume It'll be the same here.

Existing Duty Support in my experience is less awesome that playing with PCs - you don't get raised when you die, you can only pull one cluster of mobs at a time, etc, but you learn. You pull both clusters per zone at once like most PC parties do and you will die 80-90% of the time if not worse. Less potent damage/healing has always been the exchange for doing DS. I expect Savage/Extreme/Unreal Duty Support to be harder vs with PCs, and that can translate to making you better at it.

It'll be another opportunity for players to enjoy/experience the content, clear the zone, get rewards, and move on to the next, instead of finding 7 people who are on the same boat and/or are willing to give your their time (paid or otherwise) to learn. I am amazed when I see people wait in PF for a duty that can be done with DS. To each is own. It doesn't have to be easy, but would love to see the option to learn and maybe clear Savage/Extreme/Unreal fights on your own.

Thanks for the input.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Impractical, for many reasons.

Ignoring the bit where the community is expected to come up with choreography to handle mechanics on their own, the NPC action scripts can't handle the variability of choreography that human players can. For example, as a RDM I sometimes need to be in melee range at specific times and I can arrange with my party for that to be okay, but a full party of NPCs would expect me to take a ranger or caster spot every time. And if the choreography used by the NPCs is less efficient or harder to execute than the prevailing PF choreography, you'll never be able to apply what you learned with the NPCs to a real party or vice versa.

If you died, even if the fight didn't end immediately as it does in current Supported duties, the NPCs wouldn't handle it anywhere near as effectively as a human player. They might raise you in a spot where the floor is about to disappear, or they might get caught by the floor disappearing while they're slowraising you.

And then the matter of damage output: the NPCs would have to be able to put out enough damage to clear the duty, and if they're putting out too much damage then the player gets a free ride, and if they're not putting out enough damage then only high percentile players will be able to clear with NPCs, and those people are the ones who probably don't need Duty Support in the first place.

There are lots of reasons we won't ever have Duty Support in high end content.

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They had to ease up or completely change MSQ dungeon bosses to allow for duty support.

You cannot communicate with NPCs, especially not on the fly. If something happens and you need to adapt to the situation, you cannot expect the NPCs to properly adjust. You cannot discuss the fight between pulls when learning to see how mechanics should be handled

They're also not perfect. I've seen many situations where Urianger or Alphinaud end up dying to AoE, leaving us without a healer, or the tank refusing to pick up an enemy that's hitting me. I did duty support for Hydaelyn as the tank when I first reached that part of the MSQ and Estinien died 4 times to lightwaves. At least for a player you can chalk it up to lack of skill or not paying attention, an NPC should have no excuse. On the otherhand, it would take away a lot of the learning experience if the NPCs just carried you through the entire fight.

That SE has only added support for a single 8 man Normal trial and has said that they're not certain if they will be adding it for the other 8 man MSQ trials is a good sign that Duty support for EX/Unreal/Savage and Ultimate will not be happening, at least definitely not in the foreseeable future. Those fights are designed to be challenging for full player parties.

Party Finder does exist and allows players to recruit parties for various purposes such as Practice. While a static able to commit to the same times/days weekly helps players to progress faster, it is not impossible to learn using random PF parties.

Without a radical redesign to either the NPC AI or to the fight design, the duty support would be completely incapable of clearing. If you pay close attention, the NPC AI is currently only able to do one thing at a time. If they dodge an AoE, they will stop attacking or healing until the AoE is discharged. Once they have chosen a spot and start to stand still they also stop actively dodging, so a 2nd AoE appearing that covers their spot will often catch them. Could they have someone write more advanced scripts on a per-fight basis? To some extent, yes. I dont know that they want to create an "official scions strategy" for each fight, and some of the more complex mechanics... ill just say i have my doubts. Could they design the fights around the limitations the AI has? Not without making them much easier.

I see where you are coming from. NPCs do look slower and seem to scramble on what they need to do next in DS. With Savage/Extreme/Unreal fights, this will likely be magnified. Doesn't mean they can't improve, but not there based on what is available.

In the meantime, I am getting my feet wet and delving deeper into strats and Practice PTs in PF. Got in a Fresh Prog P11S in Aether. After 3 hours, we had a maximum of 3 players in the PT and disbanded...

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Originally Posted by Frizze

Without a radical redesign to either the NPC AI or to the fight design, the duty support would be completely incapable of clearing. If you pay close attention, the NPC AI is currently only able to do one thing at a time. If they dodge an AoE, they will stop attacking or healing until the AoE is discharged. Once they have chosen a spot and start to stand still they also stop actively dodging, so a 2nd AoE appearing that covers their spot will often catch them. Could they have someone write more advanced scripts on a per-fight basis? To some extent, yes. I dont know that they want to create an "official scions strategy" for each fight, and some of the more complex mechanics... ill just say i have my doubts. Could they design the fights around the limitations the AI has? Not without making them much easier.

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I think that it is practical to have a duty support for Savage, but the problem is that Yoshi and team added a lockout a long time ago that punishes people for grouping with others who have cleared further during the week and in doing so, made things a complete mess since it divides the already limited number of people doing the content into separate piles. The latest changes to the number of books needed for items was a good thing but it also highlighted this problem a whole lot more. They also added that bit with the number of rewards decreasing depending on how many in the run have completed it sometime during FFXIV ARR and FFXIV Heavensward that also broke up the community more, mostly in order to fight the selling of clears.

There was a point where I was sort of like "yeah I get why they did this and they are good reasons". After doing savage, the kind of damage it does to people because of the systems they put in place seems far worse than having some people burst through and sell clear runs. To even have something close to duty finder support for savage, they'd have to undo the systems they put in place to stop the selling of runs and roadblock the player base. Convincing them to do that is likely going to be fighting an uphill battle, even if it does help people mentally.

I thought Duty Support is for MSQ completion, not optional content.

I do understand your point and why to be honest even I wish it could be a thing. Only because well most static are super late finish around 12am to 1am if not later in the middle of the week and I have to work at 5 am so ya I do understand. Even tho I think it would be to hard because the AI is decent yes but far from able to do as much as a player slide casting raising or even taking action when evoiding a AoE but I do say this the Coil could use one due to story purposes.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

Without a radical redesign to either the NPC AI or to the fight design, the duty support would be completely incapable of clearing.

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And this would be my biggest fear.
We've already seen older dungeons get changed to accomodate the rudimentary NPC AI, I would rather not have the last remaining content that is even remotely engaging be reduced to current XIV dungeons.