Retainers in Disguise

[Khyzen]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3853958

"Wait for your squadron to return."

Anyone else kind of annoyed about this? I'm having Airship Exploration flashbacks all over again. You know, where they announce content that initially sounds reallllly cool, like "Wow! Airship Exploration?! And I'll be able to manually fly around with my FC mates and explore far off places and maybe even do airship fates and chase big flying monsters?"

Only now it's "Wow! Squadrons?! So I'll be able to go into low level dungeons without needing a queue or having to wait around if someone leaves mid-dungeon? Aweso-" Oh no wait, it's just another retainer system. Let me guess, the higher your squad member's levels, the better items you can get, right?

And yeah, at the bottom it says that sometime in the future they'd like to update it so you can take them into dungeons. But they also said a lot about Airship Exploration, and it's been over a year now with FC airships being close to worthless.

Here's a thought... why couldn't they just expand our current retainer system so that we can place the retainers we have (you know, the ones we've already spent time gearing and leveling and designing their looks) into squadrons and send them out in groups to fetch a bundle of items instead of one at a time? I mean, I have to imagine adding onto the current system we have in place would take less effort than designing a whole new system entirely (that essentially serves the same purpose). And with all that effort they saved, maybe they could have used it to actually let squadrons live up to their namesake and go into dungeons with us.

[Rennies]

In disguise? I don't see a disguise.

[FinaSel]

I'm not at all surprised about this.
It's exactly what I expected it to be.

[SpookyGhost]

Yep. It's just retainers, except this time... there's... well... no difference really.

[Atoli]

I rather like the basic system behind it (reminds me a lot of FF Tactics where I'd get randomly generated units too which I needed to train to use and could send them on missions on their own and talk to them in the tavern and all that).
But, you know, I could also do actual fights together with them, which is a thought in the far-off future at best in FFXIV so far.. :/

Oh well, I guess they are just not ready yet to let us wander off on our own with NPCs. I assume they'll add it when the "no one is doing old content anymore even with our extra incentives but we HAVE to give players the possibility to clear that content" argument gets stronger than the "players won't bother playing with other players anymore when they can have NPCs instead" argument.

[Azper]

The more I learn about this patch the more I'm like:

[CaptainLagbeard]

I do hope they do make it so you can actually take them to dungeons, sooner than later.

But before that, it just looks to be retainers without item rewards for their ventures...

[Rennies]

To be honest, if these new retainers require ventures and give nothing new or excessive, it's gonna be dead on arrival lol

[CaptainLagbeard]

To be honest, if these new retainers require ventures and give nothing new or excessive, it's gonna be dead on arrival lol

I don't think they'll cost ventures, they might make a new thing they end up costing or something... But the pictures don't really show any reward beyond XP for the squadron.

[Balipu]

Let's just wait and try them out before we decide, shall we?