Trust system for Trials

[Moonlite]

Why not just remove trials from MSQ anyways. Make them solo MSQ instances, like other parts of the MSQ. Devs don't have to make trusts. People still get the sacred MSQ. Some people don't have to see other players. Wins all around. Then SE can reuse the model an animations and put it back into the game as a trial for a mount and claim they did so much work.

[Rowde]

SoS super light in mechanics? Um......not from what I've seen. If so, please tell me which trials, other than Thordan, are heavier on mechanics than SoS.

Seat of Sacrifice is quite hard for new people to do with people who have never done it dying all the time to various mechanics.

And as to the request for solo trials, I mean why not have a very watered down version for those that want to solo. As people have said, Memoria is a good example of it done.

The issues I can see with it though are development resource time and the fact it may make the normal trials hard to queue for if many choose to go the solo route instead.

Easy, just compare SoS to SoS Extreme. There are far less mechanics happening simultaneously. SoS Normal is like pulling teeth with how painfully slow it introduces each mechanic individually and how long each mechanic takes to resolve. I'm confident in asserting if Trusts can handle the mechanics in the various SB dungeon bosses, then I see no reason why they couldn't handle what exists in normal mode SB trials.

I also seriously doubt it'd make that much impact on queue times. There will be plenty of ppl that finish MSQ on the first day, and many many more in the first week. Then all those ppl will be on the daily roulette tome grind, or queueing the roulettes for exp on alt jobs.

There is a difference between running a dungeon with 3 computers and running a trial with 7. Where are we doing that?

Mentioned it earlier. Memoria Miseria normal, which only exists as a solo instance. MMn may even be a test for Trusts in Trials tbh.

Why not just remove trials from MSQ anyways. Make them solo MSQ instances, like other parts of the MSQ. Devs don't have to make trusts. People still get the sacred MSQ. Some people don't have to see other players. Wins all around. Then SE can reuse the model an animations and put it back into the game as a trial for a mount and claim they did so much work.

This isn't a terrible idea either tbh, especially when considering how many detractors are feigning "wasting developer resources" as a reason against Trusts in Trials. Why waste resources on normal mode trial that nobody actually farms? You do it once for story, then however many times you happen to get put into it via the roulette. This way you could get your dramatic solo instance with story, then at max level for the expansion you can unlock the EX versions you actually have to do with other players for various rewards. Maybe I'm misremembering... I could have swore someone asked them about this at one of the various Q&A sessions, but don't they usually design the EX/Savage fights first and then figure out how to "water them down" for normal mode after?

However, I'm not necessarily game for this myself since this could eventually make Trial Roulette derpy on a long enough timeline. Or maybe not... since it would still be populated with the optional Trials from each expansion. It it is an interesting thought to consider.

The thing is that to have Trust doing Trials during Stody mode, you would need every of your Trust members to present at that part of the story. What if some of the Trust member are missing because they have their own stuffs to do? You will have to have temporary Trust like Lina in ShB's first dungeon, which means developers have to design single-use Trust with proper rotations. Then again, the story writer has to make sure there are enough Trust standing in front of the Trials' portals to fill 7 party member slots for a story-mode trial, restricting the flow of the story.

You pretty much answered your own point. It doesn't need to be a super deep reason for at least 7 ppl to be there (it could even be more for the sake of having options, as with first time runs of dungeons in SB you usually have access to more than 3 options). And I don't think they necessarily have to continually design new characters either... depending on the situation they could use any number of the legacy characters that already exist from prior content.

Just keep the trials tuned for actual players and let ppl like the OP attempt to clear them using AI trusts that will faceplant repeatedly due to mechanics they cannot process correctly so they can keep doing it over and over when the duty times out. Do not over tune the trusts either, and just keep their stats in line with a player at min ilvl for the trial.

Finally this. I don't think they need to make it easier for Trusts. Personally I think normal mode Trials are already easy enough to be done Trusts. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the fights will be easier to do with Trusts though, in some cases it might actually be more difficult since you have to execute all of your mechanics. On my main I still queue for everything normally because I have family and friends that I usually prog story with. On my alts it depends on my mood, and I've died plenty of times mid boss fight in various dungeons with Trusts... and boom... try again from the beginning. It's harsh, feels bad cause you got no one to blame but yourself...

[KitKatnip]

On the subject of mental illness that was brought up a few pages back, I have a mood disorder and it can make me ruminate on negative things that people say to the point that an entire dungeon experience can be ruined. So I totally get where OP is coming from. While medication and therapy is great, to an extent, there is no magic pill that fixes everything. Well, except for that drug they gave me before I got my appendix out but I digress.

I would absolutely love to be able to run with my Trust through older content. I know you can run ARR dungeons with the Grand Company Squadron so I don't think it would be too much to ask to allow us to take our Trust members through them as well. As for Trials and such, maybe they could make a Trust version of them that you would have the option of going through with your Trust so that you could get the story, but still have normal Trials to run through with other players that could perhaps give additional rewards, basically just another difficulty level without removing the difficulty of what is already available. Aren't Hard/Extreme versions basically the same dungeon but with more mechanics? Why can't there be Trust versions with more simplified mechanics for the AI?

Apologies for any incoherent ramblings - my brain is a bit scattered today.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

I think people overestimate the difficulty of adapting Trust NPCs to encounters. They can already handle the player doing unexpected things like pulling more trash packs, and for the boss fights, it would just be new set of scripts, similar to how adds behave. They could handle encounters no player could do, actually. If fights have to be kept simple, then for the player's sake, not for the NPCs.

[Caitsithhh]

Why not just remove trials from MSQ anyways. Make them solo MSQ instances, like other parts of the MSQ. Devs don't have to make trusts. People still get the sacred MSQ. Some people don't have to see other players. Wins all around. Then SE can reuse the model an animations and put it back into the game as a trial for a mount and claim they did so much work.

I mean then there’s more “mental illness” flooding pf looking for handouts.

So I prefer at least -some- resistance to this happening. Capable bots bare minimum.

If not then you have even more Ativan’s popping into content they have no business being in because they had a -good- day….

[Eldevern]

Troll mode : ON

Waste of developers ressources? They probably can adapt some bot tool

Troll mode : OFF

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

Troll mode : ON

Waste of developers ressources? They probably can adapt some bot tool

Troll mode : OFF

They don't have to do that. Their bot tool is already up and running, they just have to write a script for each NPC for each boss fight... which would just be 1 encounter for a trial anyway. That can be done pretty easily.
Trust dungeons have 3 bosses each, and trash in between, and the team has to follow the player around. All that could be cut for trials.

[Caitsithhh]

I mean why I EVEN play an mmo? Why not literature/YouTube/Twitch clips for a fix of this game and play any other hundreds of single player games that come out? If you find having ppl around you may ruin your day or you may say something and a back and forth may come out over it(playstyle or lack there of)….then play a game that isn’t community based? Why even ask for resources to be spent on solo mode when we have too much of that anyways? It’s an mmolyte already with the lack of really any actual thing outside of trialing a player for a static… full stop. Play something else. And maybe be happy there’s options for ppl who want a more community driven project? Right now you have all the options of games…we don’t. Don’t detract from that like you’re owed anything lol. If anything we should have more judgement, on your heels combat scenarios that don’t come with a ban or jail time. Right now it should be about coming together to benefit…not pull apart and become “like” another big option in the mmo world.

Ask yourself if you feel better playing solo and would rather bots handle everything for you…now actually think about how really much we lost since 2.0 when it comes to community driven improvements… if you prefer now, nothing wrong, a lot has been fixed. If you prefer old. Again nothing wrong, it’s almost meta lol. Now if you have had nothing but bad experiences in this game when it’s came to player to player interactions…ask yourself, “is it me?” Something tells me it’s obvious to most but hard to muster based off ToS.

I’ll say it, some aren’t made for this kinda game…most really aren’t. That’s ok too. Don’t worry. There’s what 14/16 FF’s almost alone from mainline and waaaaay more FF featured content in other games. Chill. You can get a good story from a lot of other FF featured titles and plenty of rewarding solo content from it.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

That point is moot though. Squad and Trust exist already. There's nothing fundamental to discuss there anymore.
It's now just a question of if it's doable to integrate Trust into trials, or even if trials in their current form need to be kept for the MSQ progress.

The fights themselves are part of the story, but the Extreme/Ultimate versions are not. That's where "MMO" comes into play.

[Shougun]

Seems like a lot of failing to admit change in the air when people talking about "but it's an mmo". For many many years now mmos have had massive amounts of solo content, FFXIV included. At this point "BuT ItS An MmO" is meaningless when trying to defend against solo desired content (facetious I know XD... just something fun with CaPs'ing aN ArGuMent... sorry for the child behavior lol). It is and has been a huge thing for many /huge/ mmos for many many years now. That doesn't mean you can't think it's a stupid change or something lol. Certainly you could say the change is awful and you think it makes the game worse or what have you. But on the reality of mmos currently... "but this is an mmo" is entirely impactless statement to people wanting to have content achievable solo.

At this point in time the multplayer onry people are whether they like it or not sharing space with the largely solo people, and it is by actual game design and not some awkward mechanical happenstance. It's not helpful to entirely kill multiplayer opportunities of course, I'm all for making all of the MSQ multiplayer-able (when it's obviously currently not), but clearly the solo aspect is live, well, and constantly expanding.

There are many articles and videos from top designers discussing this trend as well, it's not a weird thing anymore- people who say "but it's an mmo" against solo concept content I feel are kicking and screaming against reality and claiming what is actually and literally the case is not, and that perhaps sometimes an MMO is accurately described as an MO these days (it's the hot word I've seen a few use at least). Again not a statement that multiplayer content is bad, just that "but it's an mmo" as a counter concept to being able to do massive swathes of the game solo (especially when you consider a component of time, where in if you wait you will at some point in the future be able to 'solo' that) is really a meaningless concept now when discussing pretty much any theme-park mmo of any serious scale and merit for multiple decades now.