Soooooooo npc party?

[TwistedTea]

I hope this approach of "starting with NPCs but encouraging you to graduate to playing with others" will also come with some better elements of learning a mechanic in one dungeon, then seeing it applied again later on.

Yup, this is a good idea. I think content like Expert Roulettes,EX Primals, Savage raids etc should be designed around party play.More difficult content being gated by advanced versions of the Hall of the Novice:

1. Hall of the Expert Roulette
2. Hall of the Extreme Primal
3. Hall of the Savage Raider

All of these should be difficult enough,updated every time a new tier comes out and solo duties. So by the time we're done with the MSQ and these halls, the player is better prepared for party play in more challenging content.

I like the social aspects and seeing other people out in the world with you, going through the story - you can spot the people who are at the same point you are, and then maybe end up in a dungeon together, but you don't *have* to keep pace with them or hold them up if you want to take a break.

Yup, some of the friends on my friends list are simply from doing what you've stated.

So maybe, I'm an outlier. For the last 3 months, I've spent most of gameplay time crafting and gathering. Having played for about a year now, FFXIV's scripted combat simply does not appeal to me.

However, what does appeal to me, is all the non duty finder content,some parts of the MSQ,side-quest story and lore,exploring the overworld,content like POTD/HOH, glamour and just hanging out with friends/FC mates.

XIV's overworld is great place to hang out in and judging by stuff like "Doman Mahjong" that's gonna be added, XIV is really starting to feel like Second Life.

[Ssmiley_Bjakkzz]

Yay! I can lvl dps!
I dont have friends to play with ^^

[LeonTrifang]

This is the most active of any thread I’ve ever made XD

[Tempest222]

Well I hope we can use trusts in old content tbh. If they are saying they want people to get introduced to XIV and mmo elements and graduate to playing with others, to me that sounds like it’ll be older content, not only the new 5.0 stuff. By the time you are at level 70 you’re hardly at the point of needing to be introduced to XIV. Plus, if you can take npcs into old content that will make it a lot easier to learn dungeon skills on blue mage for people who don’t have a party of friends to play with and/or for when blue is no longer new and shiny, and there aren’t a bunch of people looking to team up together to farm skills anymore.

[EdwinLi]

----

It honestly should work with older contents as well since in FFXI, one of the goals for the Trust system was to also help people progress up to current contents for leveling multiple Jobs due to lower level content lacking in population for certain Job roles

Especially when we consider they may remain only 2 new Jobs for each expansion ,(Tank/Healer), (DPS/Tank), or (Healer/DPS), so one role will be lacking on each new expansion. With Tank/Healer arriving in 5.0, we can expect a lot of players who are not use to long Queue time with Tanks and Healers use the Trust system to help themselves progress in their leveling.

[Alleo]

Third, my own skill level is not that great despite reading/watching guides.

I'd rather do fights with an NPC party and learn fight mechanics at my own pace than being chewed out by party members for not understanding mechanics or not reacting fast enough.

Maybe I remember it wrong but didnt they kinda hint that it would be harder to do the dungeons with the NPCs because they might not be good enough like players. (Thus a very bad player might not be carriered through this with them)

For example if they still have the bad A.I of the squadron and you have to micro manage them on top of hoping that nobody of them dies and learn the mechanics yourself, might be harder than just with a group. (We still dont get every single old dungeon for squadron either because it would be too hard for some of them) So not sure if its really that great of a learning experience.

@Yeol: Thanks for providing the source. If its truly just for shadowbringer content and people need to go through all the old stuff first (or buy jump potion) what exactly do they need to learn about the basics of the game at that level anymore?

[TwistedTea]

Maybe I remember it wrong but didnt they kinda hint that it would be harder to do the dungeons with the NPCs because they might not be good enough like players. (Thus a very bad player might not be carriered through this with them)

For example if they still have the bad A.I of the squadron and you have to micro manage them on top of hoping that nobody of them dies and learn the mechanics yourself, might be harder than just with a group. (We still dont get every single old dungeon for squadron either because it would be too hard for some of them) So not sure if its really that great of a learning experience.

I don't mind if it's harder to do with an NPC party because I'll only be spending my own time and inconveniencing myself by poor play.

Also in a lot of normal content, players are overgeared, thus ignoring or skipping mechanics. Repeated failure with an NPC party where it's less likely, we can ignore or skip mechanics or the player has to be the one carrying the NPC teammates, is better for learning mechanics.

But if it's gonna be similar to the wonky AI of squadron, yeah SE really needs to improve upon that.

[Luluna]

I am looking forward to this but I really hope it is better than the AI of the sqaudrons.

It would be good if you could give them rules to follow etc and they did them on their own as I can't be coping with more buttons lol

[Mikki]

It'd be cool if we could do a mix of players and NPCs in a group. I often have one or two friends on but not three. Would be nice to just fill in one or two slots with an NPC and go. Not that it's necessary since the duty queues for current dungeons are generally pretty short but we do play quite late at night and on occasion it takes ages......

[Alexandre_Noireau]

Is probably an test measure for the probable future of the playerbase numbers during Shadowbringers, as Shadowbringer is probably the last big expansion this game will receive in its life cycle (8 years old already, yes, i count since its LAUNCH, not since its RE-LAUNCH).

In fact, i dare say, and i hope i'm wrong, that Shadowbringers will have very few server issues during launch since players coming to the game are each time less and the retention value of this game is low, thus, Shadowbringers will probably be the last high time we will see in this game playerbase. They need to implement this system earlier for when the game begins its long downward decline. And tbh, XIV already helped SE financially enough (not enough to save XV it seems... But hey, it got it launched and recovered 1.0 blunder), XIV already served its purpose well, Shadowbringers signals, probably, the gentle entry into that good night for XIV.