Grand Company squadrons

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

You guys do know they've been testing this idea out since the start of Heavensward, right?

Remember the trial by combat with you and Alphinaud? Remember going into Halatali with Alphinaud (as your healer) and Yugiri (as a DPS)?

The moment I saw these instances, I thought "they're testing out the whole GC party members idea with this. . ." I'm excited to see how it would be fully fleshed out, not to mention I imagine it will be closely tied to promotion within the new ranks. After all, we ARE officers.

[EdwinLi]

You guys do know they've been testing this idea out since the start of Heavensward, right?

Remember the trial by combat with you and Alphinaud? Remember going into Halatali with Alphinaud (as your healer) and Yugiri (as a DPS)?

The moment I saw these instances, I thought "they're testing out the whole GC party members idea with this. . ." I'm excited to see how it would be fully fleshed out, not to mention I imagine it will be closely tied to promotion within the new ranks. After all, we ARE officers.

I'm a bit curious how will it work consider in those instance the NPC had to leave our group to perform their own mechanics so our character didn't have to deal with those tasks.

On another topic:
If there is no use for them in Dungeons yet, I am guessing we may not have use for them in dungeons until sometime during 4.X or in 5.0 once we begin the push towards the Garlean Empire.

It's been implied;

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...st-(2016-04-12)



Seems like a "Please look forward to it!" kinda deal, whether that sits in the same pile as FC Primal Summoning or not though... I believe the initial concept came up as "Crystal Tower is dead, what if you had a group of NPCs to get you through it?", then it was "You can take them in dungeons maybe", and now it's devolved to Garrisons...

I'd hope squads are just going to be built upon over time... SE really needs to put Hamlet Defense back in the game... These squads could have some amazing synergy with Hamlet Defense... You send them off to do stuff in the preparation phase, and that impacts the enemy strength, defense strength, NPC levels, etc., during the actual fight... Heck, if they keep Hamlet Defense as an instance instead of going full Besieged, they can even have the parties squad actually show up in the battle...

That would be interesting if they later add/return Hamlet Defense but with it focus on our character using and commanding their GC Squadron to defend the place. They may even bring in two ways to buff them while the Hamlet Defense is happening from DoW/DoM being with them in battle and boosting morale (stat buff to GC Squadron NPCs) by kill enemies or go DoH/DoL to perform equipment upgrade and repair/set up defenses to boost the GC Squadron's gear or add in new Unqiue or Hero type NPCs to help with the fight since you can't fight as a DoH/DoL character.

[AstreaTrinity]

I really hope to be able to fully customize each Squad member like our Retainers

Also, are we going to be able to bring out maybe a light party of squad members in the open world? for things like leveling, fates and hunts?

[Khalithar]

I really hope to be able to fully customize each Squad member like our Retainers.

I doubt it. Going by the screenshot.





It looks like all the NPC's are preset in appearance and class.

[Duelle]

It looks like all the NPC's are preset in appearance and class.

Which sucks, since it means I can't have a squad based on characters from the first Suikoden. It also means I saved up a bunch of character creation templates for nothing. =/

I'm hoping that we start edging closer to something like this.

[Khalithar]

Which sucks, since it means I can't have a squad based on characters from the first Suikoden. It also means I saved up a bunch of character creation templates for nothing. =/

I'm hoping that we start edging closer to something like this.

I can definitely see your point with this. But a part of me is wondering if making the NPC's unique is actually the better choice because if they create the various NPC for us (and maybe change them up based on your Grand Company affilitation) it gives them a chance to create characters with interesting backstories and such. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic.