The Trust System was prefect, why do we need to level them now?

[Rosenstrauch]

It'd be one thing if Trusts had to be leveled up from the beginning, but they don't. All the way up until you finish the quest Shadowbringers, Trusts are always ready for the dungeon you currently need to run, and as I recall you can go back and run dungeons you've already cleared with Trusts after the fact as well.

It's only after you've cleared the aforementioned quest that this feature is stripped from you, and now you have to engage with an entirely unnecessary grind to "earn" it back. And thanks to the way Trusts approach dungeons, this is no small grind: It takes about three runs of a dungeon to level them up once, and each run will take around 20-30 minutes depending on how well you play. And because there's six Trust NPCs, you have to do this grind a minimum of two times—three if you don't optimize it by running them in a specific role. This adds up to a total of 18-27 hours for two Jobs, or 27-40.5 hours for three.

That is a massive grind, and the reward is lackluster: You get a title, the option to run with Trusts in a little over half of the level 80 Shadowbringers dungeons, and the ability to toggle between their old appearances and their new ones. The Story variant of the Trust system is also re-enabled, which is to say they give you back the feature they stripped from you after Shadowbringers. And that's it. Originally, it didn't even give you that last one—the option to run Holminster Switch with the Exarch and Lyna (the only dungeon at launch to have non-standard Trusts) was straight up gone for no reason other than to force you to engage the grind instead.

The grind also used to be much worse. Trust runs used to give around half as much EXP as they do now, making it a solid 40-80 hour grind depending on player skill. And at the time, there was no benefit to doing so other than running Amaurot and eventually The Grand Cosmos with your leveled Trusts.

Finally, I doubt they're going to abandon the Trust system in the next expansion. If anything, I expect it will be expanded with additional characters, like Lyse or whatever new/semi-new character will be the sort-of face of the expansion. Maybe they'll all be like Trust NPC #7, and start at the level cap. Or maybe they'll start at 81 and you'll have to grind them up to the cap yourself. But what about the remaining six? Will they remain at 71 if you never engaged with the system? Will they be locked to 80, with "new" versions of some or all of them replacing them in 81+ dungeons? Will you have to grind them up to 81 from 80?

[Mhaeric]

The problem is thinking that they're something solely in and of themselves. Trusts are meant to be an option to level with. You level at roughly the same rate that they do so you can take 2 additional jobs through trust dungeons from level 71 to 80 once you're done with the story. And it's entirely optional. Don't like the reward for the time spent then just don't do it.

[Stepjam]

Why are you ppl so lazy? Leveling trusts and squadron is easy and fun. I wish the kittyboy was 71 so i could level him...

I don't think I'd call it "fun". Tedious more like. Takes like 6 runs to finish a dungeon with one set of characters, and they go so slooow (deliberately so, I'm okay with the fact it's like that, but the fact it's like that has put me off leveling up my trusts). God forbid trying to do it at launch when it took like twice as long.

[MartaDemireux]

I don't think I'd call it "fun". Tedious more like. Takes like 6 runs to finish a dungeon with one set of characters, and they go so slooow (deliberately so, I'm okay with the fact it's like that, but the fact it's like that has put me off leveling up my trusts). God forbid trying to do it at launch when it took like twice as long.

It felt kind of slow but only really took like 10-15min longer per run. DPS queues more than make up for that at times.

There's actually some neat tricks to take note of as well. Like if a fight is taking too long, Urianger will start casting Death on enemies to make sure the dungeon is completed in a (predetermined) timely manner.

[SnowVix]

I haven't looked at the trust system until very recently after playing through 5.3 msq only to learn that we now need to level up the trust to level 80 by doing each dungeon 3 times.

This was explained to us that it would need to be done on Shadowbringers launch, and is not new at all. Recently they added the ability to do dungeons in "Scenario mode" which removed the leveling requirement, but also limits you to which trust NPCs were available for that dungeon in the story.

[Mhaeric]

This was explained to us that it would need to be done on Shadowbringers launch, and is not new at all. Recently they added the ability to do dungeons in "Scenario mode" which removed the leveling requirement, but also limits you to which trust NPCs were available for that dungeon in the story.

Scenario mode doesn't unlock until you've leveled them all to 80.

[SnowVix]

Scenario mode doesn't unlock until you've leveled them all to 80.

ah, i'd already capped them all before it was introduced, so i guess that i missed that part

[EaMett]

The worst part of the trusts for me was that it was roughly just as fast to run content with the trusts as it was waiting in queue and running with players (even on dps). Except trusts were painful to run with.
In addition to that, you need to at least level them twice to be able to go in with any role (that's about 50-60 dungeons?). Just simply not worth it. Like others have said here, not enough value in it to bother. Thus I leveled 3 of them to 80 and will no longer touch the feature. And if there are enough people like me then this feature was a waste of dev time.

[Frizze]

And if there are enough people like me then this feature was a waste of dev time.

I leveled them up so that i would always have an on-demand run of any supported dungeon on any class i should choose. For glamour hunting, mini chasing, or even just a khloe run when i dont want to deal with people. I imagine as i continue to level more classes, ill end up re-using a few of those dungeons as needed. And if there are enough people like me, then this feature couldnt possibly have been a waste of dev time. Which leads to the question, how much of the player base does a feature have to appeal to for us to consider it well used dev time? An ultimate fight will have a clear rate of less then 1% of the population, but i wouldnt consider it a waste.

[Tyssyn]

I am one who loves the trust system. There are plenty of classes I am just not very good at, and don't want to inflict my horribleness at on others, and I wanted to get all battle classes to 80 for the amaro mount. The trusts were perfect for that. And I had no trouble leveling them while I was leveling classes I didn't get leveled through msq and side quests.