Better Squadron expansion for 3.0 - 4.0 than Trusts

[Knot_D]

I prefer trusts to having babysit idiot squadron...

I tho the squadrons that babysit us? Literally as healer I don't need to heal the tank because their HP is 4x us...

Also they should've improved the squadrons. I don't want to give up my 5 roes collection

[Shougun]

I tho the squadrons that babysit us? Literally as healer I don't need to heal the tank because their HP is 4x us...

Also they should've improved the squadrons. I don't want to give up my 5 roes collection

I get they can be a bit painful to level up, and they are certainly pointless to level up if you don't need buffs, the achievement reward, or have jobs in the range they can do content... BUT.. yeah a max powered squadron baby sits you. My squadron could do most of a content without my help. . lol.

Squadrons are massively stronger than trusts, when built up. Personally I don't need them to be /massively/ more powerful, but I do greatly appreciate that they have so much growth potential and having them ranked up was like "yeh, this was worth". Especially because I leveled most of my non-instant queue jobs via that content quite a bit faster than pretty much any other option available to you for the period of time you can use them. They made most of the best DF groups look slow once you optimized for GOTTA GO FAST, NO-- FASTER! And cheesed and timed your way through everything, I think I was getting half the time it took a normal party to get through that one winter dungeon with the dragon.

Meanwhile using trusts I usually just feel "gotta not try, because they're going to force you to go slow anyways" (last I heard their damage considers time, so you don't go too fast or slow- if you need help or not, I think it's clever they're thinking about difficulty but I also think this was the wrong way to do it). Still like using them the first time, but I look extremely jealously at my squadrons when using trusts past the first time.

[Ransu]

I liked that Squadron NPCs deal more damage than Trust NPCs and can even use AoE, and I liked that Trust NPCs can avoid mechanics and act on their own.
The strengths and flaws of Squadron and Trust are not the same and combined, they could achieve something better than the two.
I'm not having high expectations, but I'll see what SE will do.

There has to be drawbacks. Squadrons AI were dumb for the same reason trusts don't do aoe's and do less damage in general. They still want dungeon runs to be more efficient for actual player groups. Trusts and squadrons are an option, but they don't want them to be better than a full group of players.

[Rowde]

In a JP interview after the first LL68, supposedly Yoshi-P did say they plan to address Squadron AI later, potentially as good as Trusts, but not until after they implement the Duty Support stuff through SB. There's only a fan translation of this interview though.

I like my squadrons, and I don't think the system needs to be abandoned as they still have their place for Optional dungeons... since they've hard-confirmed atm that Trusts/Duty Support NPCs won't be available for places like Aurum Vale... However, there's already a glaring omission then since Squadrons can't go to the 51 dungeon...

[ZephyrMenodora]

I found running dungeons with my Squadron frustrating and find Cecily to be the worst healer in all of FFXIV. Worse than all those new player healers people complain about.

I hope they just replace their AI with Trust AI. I kind of grown attachment to my hand-selected group of NPCs and would like to see them stick around.