New companion

[leparadox]

I think in the next expansion, there should be a new companion. How you like a Behemoth fighting alongside with you?

[jose123911]

Or moogles! I'd name mine montblanc for sure

[Reptiletc]

I agree, it feels odd that the option is listed as "Companion" when the only thing that is ever listed there is your company chocobo. More companions sounds great!

[The_Last_Dragoon]

It is probably more likely that they'll release a piece of chocobo gear that prevents you from equipping items to two of the armor slots while glamouring the entire chocobo to look like something else. This way you wouldn't have to farm levels for your new companions and the development team wouldn't have to deal with trying to balance something that usually isn't used beyond solo play.

[Enkidoh]

Personally I'd love SE to bring back the Path Companions from FFXIV version 1.0, as they had actual dialogue and character - their only drawback was they could not be called whenever you wished, only showing up automatically during certain main scenario duties to help the player out (specifically, allowing a player who was only levelling Disciplines of the Hand or Land to do the storyline without working on a melee or mage class). In particular, I miss my Path Companion, my sophisticated, sultry, bisexual Moonkeeper kittygirl GLA Imarah:






Sadly though, I don't think they'll be returning any time soon, if at all (Yoshi seems to have not said anything on the subject in, well... years now), but the fact the Chocobo companion tab is labelled 'Companions' on the Lodestone, keeps that glimmer of hope alive still.

[Gokuhan]

I'm hoping when we get to use Grand Company NPCs that we are allowed to design their look and select a personality the way we can with our retainers.

[Nutz]

I know they've said repeatedly that it would require too many resources for the gain to create a new companion, but they seem to be overlooking some things, I think. Sure it would be very costly to create a completely new companion (ie. a Moomba or something), but if it's exactly the same (or retextured perhaps) as something already in game, then there's not a lot to do, right? I don't expect anyone is looking for a new companion to revolutionize the way they play, or even for it to end up different from having a chocobo companion -- just something that looks different.

Any humanoid companion (ie. retainers) should work fine since they're already skinned and have animations that can easily be assigned. Same for pretty much any monster type that already exists. I don't think anyone would be actually upset if they released 'new' companions that were functionally identical in the same way people are not upset about the hordes of mounts that we get that all do nothing more than look different. Sure you'd have to rename some things (choco kick wouldn't be appropriate as an attack for things other than chocobos for instance), but it would essentially be flavor text.

A new companion with a model, texture, abilities, traits, and animations that does not exist now would be very resource intensive to implement. However, I don't see why using existing resources for nearly everything isn't an option. To me it seems like they could easily make companions into another collection like mounts and minions with a similar amount of overhead needed.

[ardrej]

I really dont know why this isn't a thing, its not like there's not models out there, we could have our retainers, they already have a job an equipment, SE could assign them some basic action already in game (RoH, Overpowerd, cure, etc) just pay them on ventures, theres also alot of generic npc who already have some actions, woodwailers Temples knigh yellow jackets, brass blades (pay them in company seals), best tribes like vanus, vahts than can be payed in theyre respectives currencys

[Lainmyst]

SE had these in FFXI. We even had to fight our own companions for them to get to a certain level. They were restricted to certain areas but it was fun. We could even interact with them at times. With todays technology I am sure their AI can be far greater.

[Moqi]

It is probably more likely that they'll release a piece of chocobo gear that prevents you from equipping items to two of the armor slots while glamouring the entire chocobo to look like something else. This way you wouldn't have to farm levels for your new companions and the development team wouldn't have to deal with trying to balance something that usually isn't used beyond solo play.

And come up with new skills, traits and effects.