YoshiP's thoughts on GC future and our compiled suggestions

[Ramesses]

I would like to see some type of sidequest. Stuff to make us feel like we are contributing to the gc. And of course more rewards to spend deals on is nice

Yes, actual side missions or even personal tales related to your squadron will be a great touch.

Perhaps even introduce very powerful NPCs who will join your squadron after helping them with their quests etc, or after attaining a certain amount of GC points --- ahhhh, that will be yet another fun thing to do: being able to purchase powerful NPCs (with seals? GC points?) to join your squad after completing certain conditions.

[RaideDuku]

To echo above, I would like to have some sidequest stories involving our personal squad. Give them some personality. Personal squad stuff should continued to be developed (more dungeons, ect) Personalizing the look of your barracks, or perhaps upgrading to befit your station.

Now while I want more personal squad stuff to be developed, now that we're captains, officers of said rank typically are the head of a company of soldiers, which is around 100, give or take. Now that'd be a bit hard, so maybe something like being in charge of an alliance worth of soldiers? I'd like side missions that are instances that take place in areas in the world. The instance has several objectives that need to be completed in different areas in the map. Now while you and your personal squad are doing stuff, other stuff is happening at the same time, and it will be impossible to by yourself and not fail. So before the instance begins, you assign pre-built groups under your command to certain objectives (it would be really cool if said prebuilt groups are actually other player's squads but that might be hard to implement). Unlike your personal squads, you don't get to deck them out (though maybe it'd be cool to have some sort of custom divisional logo you could make that they'd have on their armor somehwere...and maybe hoist a GC banner with the divisional logo on it somewhere at the victory screen) These squads go and do what they're ordered to at the start of a mission (capture a resource, protect the base camp, attack an enemy captain, stuff like that. Once a set of objectives are done, you issue more orders for your other squads to do, with various risk vs. rewards. Now if one of your squads you're not with get in trouble, you got two options. Either you can either have your personal squad hold the line on whatever objective you're dealing with and go help the other squad personally, hopefully making it back before your personal squad falls. Or you use a some sort of "Order" to give that squad a boost (some healing, maybe buffs to attack, def). Thing is you can only do that so many times a mission, and it might not be a guarantee if things are going particularly south for them.

At the end, you all get together to deal with a big bad. If you managed to keep your squads alive, it won't be too difficult to deal with. If you didn't, it's going to be a lot harder depending how may you lost. Rewards are given based on objects completed, squads left alive, and maybe other factors.

[Ramesses]

Yes indeed, my thoughts exactly... these side quests will help to give depth to our squadrons... afterall, they are supposed to be an advanced version of our Companions from 1.0.

For instance, in FFXI Campaign, there was an NPC named Duke Valaineral R Davilles, an Elvaan from San'doria. His job class was Paladin (always seen in PLD AF version two gear) and he was quite powerful whenever he appeared on the battle field. Hands down one of my favourite of the Campaign Generals in all three nations.

Later on, through dialogues and the Vana'diel newspaper, we eventually found out he's the cousin to King Destin and his supporters amoung the nobility actually tried to convince him to make a claim for the throne when the previous King died (due to his popularity with the masses).

However, his loyalty to his cousin was something he considered as a matter of honor and he publicly refused the throne then declared full allegiance to Destin. He remained quite popular with the player base and when the "Trust" system was developed (FFXI's Companion system), he was an obvious choice for tanking--I think him and Elvaan Female Arch Angel were one of the best back then, dunno about now.

So yeah, I personally love those kinds of backstories to characters and this is definitively something that the GC squadron system can explore.

[Edax]

I would like cosmetic changes. Introducing shoulder epaulets with our rank on it would be neat. The rank symbols are already in the shape of a shoulder epaulet, they just aren't integrated on any of the GC gear.

Or a rank emblem that can be put on the armor itself.

Also, given the MSQ, the Alliance is almost made up of 6 nations now. Shouldn't we get 3 new Grand Companies now? Ala Mhigo, Ishgard and Doma?

It's been over a year since I remember Maelstrom, Flames or Twin Adder having anything to do with the story, or even the game. I still visit my GC everyday since I'm the seals are the best way for be to get ventures, but it feels a bit awkward reporting in to the Maelstrom when they don't matter anymore and I'm more interested in rebuilding the Doman Enclave.

Also a problem I've encountered is that it's not worth sending my squad on mission anymore since I've maxed out my crafting jobs, it's vastly more expensive for me to turn in equipment for seals, and it costs like 3000 seals to send them on a mission.
This has made assembling my squadron a waste of time for me since they are max level and I can't really get any positive use out of them. Any of the gear/weapons/tools I'd turn in would be worth about 100,000-150,000 gil in total to get enough seals to send them on a mission to fetch 10 aethernet passes, assuming they succeed on the first try. It's much cheaper, but much slower to earn seals by just turning in gathering mats, and I use those seals to get ventures anyway.

[Khalithar]

If they are going to insist on keeping the Grand Companies and not get rid of them, they need to make more engaging content for it.

As an aside, one good thing I want to say, command missions with your npc's is actually pretty decent exp. So big thumbs up on that.

1. The stale NPC squadrons. They went through all the trouble of giving the NPC's a custom look and portrait and base class. But at no point did they give them any kind of interesting lore or backstory. You have a ninja butler, an au ra in a pirate outfit, an Elezen in a reindeer outfit, and a lalafell marauder in a snowman costume. THESE NPC'S ARE BEGGING FOR MORE BACKSTORY! As are the others. This actually could have had an interesting setup, with the Alliance currently going strong, imagine adding some extra side quests where you take your squadron through some of it? Or add some easter eggs, like if your GC is in a battle, have some of the NPC's from the player squadron accompany you or be seen fighting in the background. Also let us name our squadron!

2. The lack of GC context in the world. Aside from the leves and certain things in the surrounding area, we see very little of our GC's doing anything. Give us more agency! I know there are certain quests where NPC's acknowledge other quests we've done. How about something like that for our GC's? Also in the main storyline and with the entire concept of freelancer in PVP, they're becoming more and more redundant and pointless with each patch.

3. GC ranks and how little they mean. Can we please have the GC ranks as a display title for our characters? Also, adding to the above about context, how about lower ranked NPC's will salute us when we're higher rank than them on occasion?

4. More rank rewards. More than just coats and weapons please. The old GC uniform with the oven mitts, jacket, and hat are ugly. How about we give the old NPC's a wardrobe upgrade? With a lot of the new mounts added, how about more unique GC mounts? The company chocobo and special bardings were a nice touch but the system needs more.

5. No quest chains. In FFXI each nation had it's own particular storyline addressing a major issue within the country itself and in some cases showed some pretty dark stuff and fleshed out the history of the world. I was a proud Elvaan of San D'oria and the storyline for that country always stuck with me all these years later because the lore reveals surrounding it were absolutely incredible. Sure, a one and done quest chain may not seem like much. But if you do the story and writing well? You can create something memorable and encourage some actual GC/faction pride. Something else that was sorely lacking.

[Ramesses]

I would like cosmetic changes. Introducing shoulder epaulets with our rank on it would be neat. The rank symbols are already in the shape of a shoulder epaulet, they just aren't integrated on any of the GC gear.

Or a rank emblem that can be put on the armor itself.

You know, I suggested something similar first for the FCs and later the GCs on the forums ages ago and even drew a couple sketches... right HERE

At the time, I was suggesting that the Free Company logo or coat of arms should be displayed on our shoulder or as part of our tabards. Then a while later, the discussion began to lean towards making the Grand Company insignia's show prominently on our armour as we advanced in rank. Lemme re-post some of those images...

[Floortank]

GC "ultimate" features:

-Squadron access to Jobs
-Squadron Fantasia
-Gambit system for Squadron ala FF12
-Ability to deploy more than 3 with you for harder content
-New paths in old dungeons that lead to Burning Circles you can enter with your Squadron to fight powerful new bosses, for Squadron-specific gear and other prizes
-Squadron Atma: Similar to Atma in FFXI, boosts you can set on Squadron members to make them significantly stronger; Atma earned through GC challenges / Squadron dungeons
-Skirmish mode where you can send your gambit-controlled Squadron up against other Squadrons in PVP to see who wins. During this play mode, Squad members have a chance to unlock the ability to call your character onto the battlefield to do super powerful attacks or heals, like a striker in a fighting game. Players would not actually get to manually control any character in this mode but could switch between character viewpoints, and very basic commands to the AI.
-PVE GC challenges using the above rules, where your skill at crafting gambits against environmental opposition, likely Guild leve type content with minibosses and FATE bosses and Notorious Monsters thrown in, where Atma can be won for clearing select or obscure / secret objectives.
-Brand new highly dangerous beastmen zones for your squadron to do sneaking/spying/sabotage missions in, sort of like Assault from FFXI.

[Kahnom]

Mini-game turn based simulation like FF tactics with our recruit is what I'm hoping.
Also increase our roaster would be nice,just 2 more is fine.

[Jojoya]

As someone who never played 1.0, it makes no sense why the Warrior of Light has to enlist in a Grand Company (I have no idea if 1.0 explained it better).

Even worse, it makes no sense on why we continue to remain listed. Considering we do nothing for the GC after investigating the downed airship on our first day, we should have long since been discharged for dereliction of duty. Our interactions with the GCs are always as members of the Scions, not as a member of a GC. Most of the time if we're talking to our own GC they don't even acknowledge us as an officer. We fought against our GC in the Grand Melee instead of fighting for it. We don't report back to our GC to share intelligence about things we've learned in our travels (intelligence gathering would have been a valid reason to allow us to devote so much time to the Scions instead of the GC).

It makes no sense for the Warrior of Light to be part of a GC at this point.

If they want to start making more GC related content, the first step should be to make the Warrior of Light's enlistment relevant to the MSQ. Or they should rework the MSQ to remove the requirement to join one. Leave GC content in, of course, but leave it so the player joins as an option outside the MSQ.

[Dualblade]

We are basically freelance mercenaries for the GCs, which is also essentially why we can change between the three pretty easily. We also are among the few in Eorzea who can fight Primals without worrying about being tempered AND being able to win. Beating Ifrit was a big deal if you remember from all the way back at lvl 20 when they wanted us to first join.

Meanwhile as of the higher ranks we now also have our own squadron, who only really don't do to much because of game limitations, the ones under our command could easily be helping out on the frontlines during say the Ala Mhigo instance in the background.

But yeah, we are a mercenary basically.