So trusts...

Lets make a system for people to run dungeons with NPCs so they don't have to wait in queue forever because of a lack of players.

Lets also make the system require the player to run dungeons and level the said characters, so they have to waste tons of hours just getting the NPCs maxed out for the very few instances where they need to use them.

... how about just having the NPCs at the right level so people can use trusts?

[Quick Note: As people have pointed out, Trust is not Duty Support... which does not help with how confusing it is to have both options on a menu. :( )

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Lets make a system for people to run dungeons with NPCs so they don't have to wait in queue forever because of a lack of players.

Lets also make the system require the player to run dungeons and level the said characters, so they have to waste tons of hours just getting the NPCs maxed out for the very few instances where they need to use them.

... how about just having the NPCs at the right level so people can use trusts?

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Isn't that what Duty Support is? I don't bother with this system but Trusts are just for people who want to grind the NPCs for special dialogue or achievements, while Duty Support are for exactly what you want, right?

The Trust system even when it released before Duty Support was a thing did exactly what they wanted. You could use Trusts the first time you ran the dungeon and it'd have no requirement nor impact on their level as a Trust for replaying the content. It was a non-issue from the start and still is a non-issue today as that hasn't changed.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Lets make a system for people to run dungeons with NPCs so they don't have to wait in queue forever because of a lack of players.

Lets also make the system require the player to run dungeons and level the said characters, so they have to waste tons of hours just getting the NPCs maxed out for the very few instances where they need to use them.

... how about just having the NPCs at the right level so people can use trusts?

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Duty Support =/= Trusts

Please make it like WoW where you can go in with a friend/friends and the npcs take up the left over spots.

Like others have said, you're talking about two different systems. Duty Support is what someone can use to have the NPCs at a set level to run the dungeon for story purposes. It has a set NPC list that can be chosen from. The Trust side is where you can level the characters and have a wider choice of who goes into the dungeon with you. So be sure you're using the Duty Support option if you just want to run the dungeon for the story.

What I would like is to not gate lore, world building and lesser story (but still important) to content that will be dead or soon to be dead unless you were/are at patch day.

I wish they weren't so tedious to level honestly.
I believe I got them all to the point where I can use their first outfit but after that the exp gain really dropped off.

The moment I found out Blue mage couldn't use the system to run dungeons it lost any value to me.
They updated the system and added the duty support system in older content to make the MSQ as single player as possible.
Yet the one job in the game that can't join random groups also can't make use of the single player NPC systems at all.

As for the trust system needing to level the NPCs. That is optional for killing time or feed for completionists. It is a system that can be ignored completely if you want.

Now if the problem you have is worrying about it syphoning players away from duty finder. With roulettes and the slowness of the NPCs. Most players will always choose the fastest option.
The only advantage duty support/trusts have is not needing to roll for drops. I mean I've watch them step out of one AOE and just stop everything.
No attacking no healing even when another AOE spawns on them they don't react at all and just take it. So, our que times are safe.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Duty Support =/= Trusts

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I just had to go look at the menu again and realized that these are two different things.

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Originally Posted by CVXIV

I wish they weren't so tedious to level honestly.
I believe I got them all to the point where I can use their first outfit but after that the exp gain really dropped off.

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They did buff the NPC exp at some point so maybe it won't be too bad for you now? Or at least not as bad.

They need to buff the XP gains some more, or just buff the Trust NPCs.

It's amazing how badly they perform compared to Squadron NPCs, and their basic AI doesn't treat trashmobs and bosses differently at all and have no concept of attack priority... And you can't even force them to attack a certain enemy like you can Squadrons.

I leveled my trusts in shb and it was the most boring thing I've ever done in this game
now with duty support, frankly i'm not sure why you'd ever use trusts again. i wanted to farm the tiny troll minion and used duty support for it. worked out just fine. why would i level trusts? for an achievement? who cares?

side note: their inability to aoe is absolute ass, but if you just go in as smn and take thancred/urianger/estinien with you, you can pull extra and burn it down with bahamut/phoenix while urianger feeds you cards. meanwhile, estinien is trigger happy on the LB and will use it on bosses so you don't have to. thancred's just good extra dps.

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Originally Posted by Thurmnmurmn

They did buff the NPC exp at some point so maybe it won't be too bad for you now? Or at least not as bad.

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Yeah I would have to check it out again. I think it was only to a certain point because the gain seemed to drop off after you reach the Endwalker dungeons which would make sense. I might do it again sometime because it would be nice for them to be leveled when Dawntrail released so the gap isn't as big.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Lets make a system for people to run dungeons with NPCs so they don't have to wait in queue forever because of a lack of players.

Lets also make the system require the player to run dungeons and level the said characters, so they have to waste tons of hours just getting the NPCs maxed out for the very few instances where they need to use them.

... how about just having the NPCs at the right level so people can use trusts?

[Quick Note: As people have pointed out, Trust is not Duty Support... which does not help with how confusing it is to have both options on a menu. :( )

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trust should be removed. a 1 time trust to do msq is fine. but being able to play solo in multiplayer content is honestly damaging to the idea of an MMo

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

trust should be removed. a 1 time trust to do msq is fine. but being able to play solo in multiplayer content is honestly damaging to the idea of an MMo

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Yoship already said he sees this game as an RPG first and MMO second. Your view doesn't match with the dev team on this.

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Originally Posted by Thurmnmurmn

Yoship already said he sees this game as an RPG first and MMO second. Your view doesn't match with the dev team on this.

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that means nothing to me. his judgement is fallable

The trust system has also been changed from its original purpose.
Now you level the NPCs to be able to change their attire and get titles, which was present initially but with Duty Support you don't need them to run any dungeon you want.
It does seem a bit unnessesary to have both systems, but I understand if people were upset about having to level the NPCs to run dungeons again.

They also provide the ability to farm dungeons on your own for minions or other drops of your desire without having to dice roll other players for it.
It doesn't prohibit multiplayer content either, you still have roulettes, FATEs, Deep Dungeons, Field Operations, etc.

It provides players a way to practice their job without any added stress of how the party may react if they mess up.
On the flipside, it could give players the wrong impression on mechanics of the game, but with time everyone learns.

I only see this as a positive, and the added lore bits from the NPCs are nice to read.

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Originally Posted by CVXIV

The trust system has also been changed from its original purpose.
Now you level the NPCs to be able to change their attire and get titles, which was present initially but with Duty Support you don't need them to run any dungeon you want.
It does seem a bit unnessesary to have both systems, but I understand if people were upset about having to level the NPCs to run dungeons again.

They also provide the ability to farm dungeons on your own for minions or other drops of your desire without having to dice roll other players for it.
It doesn't prohibit multiplayer content either, you still have roulettes, FATEs, Deep Dungeons, Field Operations, etc.

It provides players a way to practice their job without any added stress of how the party may react if they mess up.
On the flipside, it could give players the wrong impression on mechanics of the game, but with time everyone learns.

I only see this as a positive, and the added lore bits from the NPCs are nice to read.

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I also really like the fact I can casually grind a dungeon and be able to afk whenever without making others wait on me.
It just gives so much more flexibility.

Another thing it also adds is an option for people to gpose with whatever scion they want in a bunch of different locations.

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Originally Posted by Thurmnmurmn

I also really like the fact I can casually grind a dungeon and be able to afk whenever without making others wait on me.
It just gives so much more flexibility.

Another thing it also adds is an option for people to gpose with whatever scion they want in a bunch of different locations.

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Yeah exactly, I don't really see Trusts as something negative and if anything I'm sure it's brought more people into the game because you can practically go through the story solo. It helps DPS queues that's for sure.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Lets make a system for people to run dungeons with NPCs so they don't have to wait in queue forever because of a lack of players.

Lets also make the system require the player to run dungeons and level the said characters, so they have to waste tons of hours just getting the NPCs maxed out for the very few instances where they need to use them.

... how about just having the NPCs at the right level so people can use trusts?

[Quick Note: As people have pointed out, Trust is not Duty Support... which does not help with how confusing it is to have both options on a menu. :( )

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I doubt this is an issue for newer players since they encounter Duty Support before they're introduced to Trusts at the end of 5.0. It's those who had reached Shadowbringers content before the release of patch 5.3 that get confused.

I just think of Trusts as boring side content done to earn an achievement and title. I did it somewhat naturally on my characters in Shadowbringers as I leveled alts jobs but this expansion I only bothered on this character and I probably will ignore Trust completely in Dawntrail. Duty Support is a lot more convenient than Trust if I'm not dungeon running with friends.

I feel they should merge duty support and trust back together, that whole distinction seems incredibly unintuitive and pointless... Give the trusts 'levels' in the form of bond or something (not an actual level but some sort of figurative 'power level', such that they always sync to the player like chocobo), allow players to still do that, and just keep it one smooth system. Ideally giving those levels some more character / rpg elements, like WoW does lol. (FFXI's trusts have some levels and ideas too, we had a partner in 1.0 as well, a while ago I was referencing bioware-lite sort of situation).

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I feel they should merge duty support and trust back together, that whole distinction seems incredibly unintuitive and pointless... Give the trusts 'levels' in the form of bond or something (not an actual level but some sort of figurative 'power level', such that they always sync to the player like chocobo), allow players to still do that, and just keep it one smooth system. Ideally giving those levels some more character / rpg elements, like WoW does lol. (FFXI's trusts have some levels and ideas too, we had a partner in 1.0 as well, a while ago I was referencing bioware-lite sort of situation).

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They had to rename it from Trusts to Duty Support, because...

Many new players won't know what "trusts" are. Duty Support is more intuitive to non-FF players.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They had to rename it from Trusts to Duty Support, because...

Many new players won't know what "trusts" are. Duty Support is more intuitive to non-FF players.

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Don't really care which one they keep a name for, my point was there really doesn't need to be two systems. It's obnoxious and confusing without value, imo.

Duty Support is a clearer name that is true. I just happen to list Trust since it was that in FFXI too.

The whole leveling thing is ridiculous anyway. Dungeons are boring enough without farming them with NPCs. Actually farming them with NPCs that single target everything?

I really like the system for doing dungeons my first time, but farming them is just tedious and not fun. I didn't bother this time. Anything I used NPCs to farm I just used Duty Support (for minion drops).

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Originally Posted by CVXIV

Yeah exactly, I don't really see Trusts as something negative and if anything I'm sure it's brought more people into the game because you can practically go through the story solo. It helps DPS queues that's for sure.

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I absolutely see them as a detriment to the game, not because they turn the MMO into a singleplayer experience (let's be honest, the MSQ already does a stellar job at that) but because all content with duty support needs to be designed around their braindead AI, severely limiting what can be done with it.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I absolutely see them as a detriment to the game, not because they turn the MMO into a singleplayer experience (let's be honest, the MSQ already does a stellar job at that) but because all content with duty support needs to be designed around their braindead AI, severely limiting what can be done with it.

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A very good point against them. The AI seems pretty simple so it would make the mechanics simple too in order to accomodate it which is something I can agree on and didn't think of with my initial post. They definitely seem like a step up from squadrons, so I hope that in the future things will improve.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I absolutely see them as a detriment to the game, not because they turn the MMO into a singleplayer experience (let's be honest, the MSQ already does a stellar job at that) but because all content with duty support needs to be designed around their braindead AI, severely limiting what can be done with it.

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Funny you mention that since the redo of the older content in ARR MSQ kind of shows this. There was some creative stuff back then that showed there was room for creativity in the MMO but a lot of it got steamrolled by the reworks.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

I just had to go look at the menu again and realized that these are two different things.

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Yes, Trusts you have to feed or they die. Duty Supports hunt at night so they can provide their own food.

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Originally Posted by CVXIV

A very good point against them. The AI seems pretty simple so it would make the mechanics simple too in order to accomodate it which is something I can agree on and didn't think of with my initial post. They definitely seem like a step up from squadrons, so I hope that in the future things will improve.

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A step up? Squadrons were absolute killing machines you had to keep on a tight leash lest they get carried away by their bloodlust.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

A step up? Squadrons were absolute killing machines you had to keep on a tight leash lest they get carried away by their bloodlust.

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They were a weapon to surpass the Ultima Weapon.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

A step up? Squadrons were absolute killing machines you had to keep on a tight leash lest they get carried away by their bloodlust.

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Trusts can dodge AoEs. Squadrons were programmed to be immune to them because they couldnt dodge. AI scripting wise, that is a step up. Performance is a separate consideration.

Idk... AI scripting also comes with the caveat of "mechanics are happening, we cannot take any actions." Healers that can't heal because they're waiting for an aoe (that they're not even in) to resolve is a significant step down, imo.

The more significant improvement is to enemy AI, really, in that they don't actually consider Squadrons valid targets for most mechanics, so the player ends up targeted by everything.

I'd just like it if, now that they need to use NPCs as a baseline when designing encounters, they'd use NPCs as a baseline when designing encounters.
When the ceiling for encounters is dictated by what the NPC AI can handle the floor should be, too.
Give us more failure conditions when a full party of people get outperformed by NPCs, make more use of dps checks and enrage timers tailored to the baseline established by Trusts.
We've lost complexity in encounter design, can we at least add some small stakes to drive the point home that ice mages and 1 spammers are a problem; that eating every mechanic under the sun and maintaining full Brink of Death uptime is not fine?

Disclaimer: Poster might be slightly frustrated after day three of drawing absolute jackpots of DF parties where the DPS may as well not have been present yet remained blissfully unaware of their poor performance due to a lack of tangible feedback.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

Trusts can dodge AoEs. Squadrons were programmed to be immune to them because they couldnt dodge. AI scripting wise, that is a step up. Performance is a separate consideration.

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They traded the ability to react to enemies for the ability to react to AoEs... They just loop their basic rotation non-stop regardless of how many enemies there are, which might include the occasional AoE but is 99% single target damage. The squadron NPCs at least behaved different from trash pulls to boss fights. The Trusts don't have any sense of target priority, they'll just pick a target seemingly randomly and keep hitting it until it dies.

The only update to their AI they might have gotten after 5.0, which isn't even present in all dungeons is their ability to react to stack AoEs. ShB leveling dungeons at least they just run to predetermined spots for stacks rather than stacking with you.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Lets make a system for people to run dungeons with NPCs so they don't have to wait in queue forever because of a lack of players.

Lets also make the system require the player to run dungeons and level the said characters, so they have to waste tons of hours just getting the NPCs maxed out for the very few instances where they need to use them.

... how about just having the NPCs at the right level so people can use trusts?

[Quick Note: As people have pointed out, Trust is not Duty Support... which does not help with how confusing it is to have both options on a menu. :( )

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Yeah I don't get it at all.

First of all.. what in the hell possessed them to think people would "love the Scions" so much they would want to run them over and over and over again through the same dungeon. You would have to be a complete moron to believe this would be "fun" for everyone. I remember trying this out in ShB and having to spam the same party through the same dungeon 6 or more times just to be eligible for the next one... that you spam another 7-8 times, Secondly... now that there's Duty Support where they are automatically at the level needed for the dungeon... why in the hell are Trusts still on the menu or even a thing.

Now I actually LOVE dungeons and dungeon crawling, I have the Dungeon Master title from running so many dungeons... but even I won't spam a dungeon more than 3 times in a row before I alternate to a DIFFERENT Dungeon or two. Heck I will run the Expert Roulette twice a day but even then half the time its 2 different dungeons.

I won't run a dungeon 6-8 times in a row unless there's something I REALLY REALLY want in there... and guess what, there's nothing in the Trusts I consider "really really wanting bad".

Lastly... Trusts are extremely slow because all they ever do is Single Target, Single Target, Single target. Which is why I prefer an actual party of players, its much more chaotic and unpredictable too, so even if its the same dungeon a second time it will be different.