Place your bets: Will The Dusk Vigil have duty support?

[Omedon]

A bit off topic but, the bigger issue facing the "planned solo journey through the MSQ" is the Crystal Tower Raids, there's no chance SE have the time or ability to make an Alliance Raid possible with 23 NPC's. So I think Dusk Vigil is the least of their concerns post ARR.

Oh that's definitely a much bigger deal, but I have solutions for that! Thankfully I can use Samurai or Red mage (who come "50 and geared") to get alts, particularly tank-concept ones past crystal tower and never, ever have to tank it!

... But yeah Crystal Tower is the elephant in the room when we talk about MSQ soloability!

[NekoMataMata]

Oh that's definitely a much bigger deal, but I have solutions for that! Thankfully I can use Samurai or Red mage (who come "50 and geared") to get alts, particularly tank-concept ones past crystal tower and never, ever have to tank it!

... But yeah Crystal Tower is the elephant in the room when we talk about MSQ soloability!

Instead of adding 23 NPCs they could just make a solo encounter for it. It wouldn't be the first time they've made solo encounters for a group instance.

I'm not sure how I feel about that really. Like sure, Alliance Raids Roulette slows down during the less exciting patches with my DC sometimes only having 8 hours worth of time during the day where you can actually catch them, but if you do catch them it's almost always a CT raid.

[Vyrerus]

The future of Duty Support is certainly worth thinking about.

They have to give us in Duty Support next:
Thornmarch Hard
Leviathan Hard
Ramuh Hard
Shiva Hard
Snowcloak
Keeper of the Lake

That's everything story mandatory from 2.x up to 3.0.

In 3.0 they have to give us:
Ravana Hard Mode
Sohm Al
The Aery
The Vault
Bismarck HM
Great Gubal Library
Aetherochemical Research Facility
Thordan Hard

3.1 to 3.55
The Antitower
Sohr Khai
Xelphatol
Titan Hard Mode (literally side content until Ga Bu)
Baelsar's Wall

4.0
Sirensong Sea
Susano Hard
Bardam's Mettle
Doma Castle
Lakshmi
Castrum Abania
Ala Mhigo
Shinryu Hard

4.1 to 4.55
Drowned City of Skalla
The Burn
The Ghimlyt Dark

5.0 and beyond
Already have it except for Trials.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Titan Hard Mode (literally side content until Ga Bu)

Titan HM (and Ifrit and Garuda) must be completed during the post-ARR sequence. The main story won't let you progress otherwise. I forget if it's before the Scions leave the Waking Sands, or before the bloody banquet (this one might be Crystal Tower, it's been a while), but there's a roadblock in there somewhere.

[Omedon]

The future of Duty Support is certainly worth thinking about.

They have to give us in Duty Support next:
Thornmarch Hard
Leviathan Hard
Ramuh Hard
Shiva Hard
Snowcloak
Keeper of the Lake

That's everything story mandatory from 2.x up to 3.0.

In 3.0 they have to give us:
Ravana Hard Mode
Sohm Al
The Aery
The Vault
Bismarck HM
Great Gubal Library
Aetherochemical Research Facility
Thordan Hard

3.1 to 3.55
The Antitower
Sohr Khai
Xelphatol
Titan Hard Mode (literally side content until Ga Bu)
Baelsar's Wall

4.0
Sirensong Sea
Susano Hard
Bardam's Mettle
Doma Castle
Lakshmi
Castrum Abania
Ala Mhigo
Shinryu Hard

4.1 to 4.55
Drowned City of Skalla
The Burn
The Ghimlyt Dark

5.0 and beyond
Already have it except for Trials.

I believe someone on this forum mentioned at one point that no more scenarios will get duty support in the 6.X cycle. To be honest, I’m ok with that because the barrier with the community and dungeons is perception of pace with trash pulls. Like, I will never tank or heal a dungeon for live players again, but I’d gladly do a trial because there’s no trash to be expected to speed through.

[NekoMataMata]

Titan HM (and Ifrit and Garuda) must be completed during the post-ARR sequence. The main story won't let you progress otherwise. I forget if it's before the Scions leave the Waking Sands, or before the bloody banquet (this one might be Crystal Tower, it's been a while), but there's a roadblock in there somewhere.

The HM Primal quests need to be done before Keeper of the Lake and The Chrysalis. A quest or two after that is when you need to do CT, which is a handful of quests before the steps of faith and eventually the bloody banquet.

[LogicHatesMe]

Instead of adding 23 NPCs they could just make a solo encounter for it. It wouldn't be the first time they've made solo encounters for a group instance.

I'm not sure how I feel about that really. Like sure, Alliance Raids Roulette slows down during the less exciting patches with my DC sometimes only having 8 hours worth of time during the day where you can actually catch them, but if you do catch them it's almost always a CT raid.

They could also split crystal tower into 3 regular dungeons and completely re-design them. That would get rid of it from Alliance Raid Roulette and probably put them into MSQ roulette instead.

Some of the HW dungeons won't need much doing as they're already available in Squadron with NPC's (shittier AI but still) at least that works for Sohm Al, The Vault and Aetherochemical Research Facility.

[Omedon]

They could also split crystal tower into 3 regular dungeons and completely re-design them. That would get rid of it from Alliance Raid Roulette and probably put them into MSQ roulette instead.

My guess is they do something like this, or nothing. I'm new to feeling out how these devs do things, WoW would NEVER do something like re-writing dungeons (and getting rid of the old versions) to make them soloable, so I don't know how heretical it would be to just crush the crystal tower into a 4-man, but with the effort they took to make them MSQ-mandatory, I can't see them just... detaching the crystal tower from the MSQ. The inclusion of CT (as an alliance raid) as a mandatory experience is completely at odds with the newer initiative to make the MSQ soloable, so this is really hard to call. One of those two design intents is going to have to give here, and I'm not sure which it is. I mean, how would the loot systems even adapt from alliance raid to 4-man?

[TaleraRistain]

I believe they said they weren't focusing on 8 or 24 man content right now so I wouldn't expect too many changes that way. Their outline was just dungeons for now I think.

[Omedon]

And as of the live letter, the answer for this thread appears to be "no!" Thanks for the speculative conversation!

Bonus answer: They are apparently going to potentially do something to "soloify" the Crystal Tower, just likely not during the Endwalker patch cycle!