An idea on how to improve Squadrons

[Stormfur]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this in, but I had an idea that I think would improve the player connection to our Squadron.

Players have asked if they could Fantasia their squadron members, and the devs have said that this would take away their unique personalities, so even though we can glamour what they wear, we can't make any other physical changes to them.

This creates the sense that the player isn't really "close" to their squadron apart from trying to make them, for instance, all lalafells or all Miqo'te.

So my idea is this:

Allow us to name our squadron and create a crest for them, similar to how an FC crest is created.

For naming conventions, you could use a similar system of pre-formed names like we have for Chocobo racing. The crest would be the same format as what is done for an FC.

This, I feel, would give the squadron an even great sense of Unity, much like IRL squadrons have similar names and designs.

[Sylvain]

This would be a fun addition but not something that will improve the system in itself.


The core issue of Squadron is that they don't grant anything and don't feel rewarding.

WoW has a similar system, while we could argue which system is the best (I think FF14 has done a much better work at making the system look "alive" and part of the universe, more than a simple UI element). A big difference is that WoW's system reward successful mission with useful stuff wheras the squadron doesn't.

The stat system is rather limited and character synergies are quite random and make little sens "+10% to X stats if with lalafell", like really? They're a squadron venturing a deadly place and their concern are the race of their team mate.


To come back to your proposal. Let say we can name them, fine I name my Squadron, then what? same system. I'll just let dust pile on until they make them worthy of some attention.
On the other hand my retainer are litterally doing overtime and will beg for rest time when SE will release their app.

What I would like to see

Squadron can get a Job
Obtaining a job - A true journey.
The Squadron member must be in the appropriate class and succeed a certain amount of Priority mission in a row (no failing). Some job might have additional requirement
When your Squadron Member can upgrade to a job, your Squadron Member will be in your room with a Quest marker.

The quest goes this way, your Squadron member has recently found/heard of a specific type of battle art and would like to investigate with your help but they don't really know where to start.
You must first have the job unlocked and at a higher level than the starting level for the job lv (50 for ARR+HW job, 60 for RDM/SAM)
If you don't you just cannot reply the propose answer to start the quest, something like "I know where we could find what you seek" (you obviously can't show them how to be a BLM if you don't even know BLM exist)

From there a small chain quest beggin, (nothing too fancy) where your squad member learn about your job. At the end you must always do a small trial with your Squadron team.
Congratulation your squadron member now has a job.

New daily mission
Every day you'll be offered new missions ranging from 50 to 60.
These mission have special status that would, on top of requiring the proper combination of stats, require you to bring specific class/job

For instance
"Aetherical Unstability: Report confirms the Aether in the located is unstable making progression complicated"
Now you would need a job with the trait "Aetherical Stabilisation" to get additional reward
There should be around 5 new missions everyday so that even if you only have 1 single job you can always send your team on a successful mission on a regular basis.

Difficulty would go this way:
52-54: One special trait required "additional reward"
56-58: Two special Trat required "additional reward"
60: Two special trait required - "additional reward - sucess chance increased" (you'd need to be very lucky to get it done without the 2 traits)


Benefit of having a Job
Unlike the current weird bonuses some character have such as "is better with a rogue" or "hates lalafel". Job grant a powerful bonus that will be useful to complete harder (new) mission and specific traits mandatory for very hard mission.
There would be two kinds of bouses

The offensive traits which defines which mission they'll be the most useful in
Supportive traits which are bonuses for your team in general. (similar to what we currently have)

For instance:
BLM:
Offensive:
Burning Ice - Success rate increased in mission with Heavily Armored ennemies
Lightning Mayem - Success rate increased in mission with Mechanical units

Supportive:
Mana shift - Increase Healing Squadron member Mental by 25%
Apocastase - Increase Tank Squadron member Tactical by 25%


Unlocking Jobs - Requirement

As said before, you need to have ARR/HW job at least level 50 and SB job lv 60.
However some job have specific requirement, some easier than others

Please note that I only took the name of the current in game mission, more could be added to make them more relevant with the said job. Honestly there aren't that many quest to go by atm

Every job have at least this requirement : 5 successful lv 50 mission as [insertclass] in a row. At least one weekly mission succesfully done
The required class (if more than one class is listed, it means it can be any of those) is first written then any additional requirement OR benefit

WAR - Maurauder - If your Squad is in Limsa Lominsa, only 3 mission are required
PLD - Gladiator - If your Squad is Ulda, only 3 mission are required
DRK - Marauder or Gladiator - The missions : Infiltrate and Rescue and Counter-magitek Exercises must be part of those 5 missions

WHM -Conjurer in a row. If your Squad is in Gridania, only 3 mission are required
SCH - Arcanist in a row. If your Squad is Limsa Lominsa, only 3 mission are required
AST - Conjurer or Arcanist in a row. Succeed 1 lv50 mission with very low success rate (defy fate!)

DRG - Lancer - the mission "Cult Crackdown" and "Outlaw Subjugation" must be part of those 5 missions
NIN - Rogue - The mission "Infiltrate and rescue" and "Impostor alert" must be part of those 5 missions
MNK - Pugilist - If your Squad is in Ulda, only 3 missions are required
SAM - Pugilist/Lancer/Rogue - The mission "Armor Annihiliation" must be done without any other "Lancer,Rogue,Pugilist"
BRD - Archer - The member must have teamed with at least 5 other squad members
MCH - Archer - The member must have an Arcanist in the team for each of the 5 mission (he needs help with the math)
SMN - Arcanist - The mission "Primal Recon" must be done twice
BLM - Thaumaturge - The mission "Voidsent Elimination" must be done twice
RDM -Thaumaturge or Conjurer - If Thaumaturge, a Conjurer must be in the team, if Conjurer, a Thaumaturge must be in the team for the 5 missions.


i'll stop there for now, gonna wait and see if people have good feedback or not x_x

[Kabooa]

Let me use them in Eureka.

[Ekimmak]

A big difference is that WoW's system reward successful mission with useful stuff wheras the squadron doesn't.

I dunno, I find them bringing back Gathering/Crafting scrips from good chemistries to be pretty handy.

To the point I will keep a chemistry I can't hope to achieve so I can force it.

[Stormfur]

I like all those ideas! And yes, I have all of my squad members set to feed me scrips with varying degrees of success. I do wish we could eventually give them jobs.

[Shurrikhan]

This would be a fun addition but not something that will improve the system in itself.


The core issue of Squadron is that they don't grant anything and don't feel rewarding.

WoW has a similar system, while we could argue which system is the best (I think FF14 has done a much better work at making the system look "alive" and part of the universe, more than a simple UI element). A big difference is that WoW's system reward successful mission with useful stuff wheras the squadron doesn't.

I'd sooner it have no rewards than feel like an autonomous but obligatory UI gimmick like WoW's attempts. While you share the same concern, that's what these traits you're suggesting immediately remind me of, and while the more absurd traits available already do the same -- I'd like to increase distance from that model -- even if intentionally in the time it takes to find XIV's own optimal thread to pull for further development ideas.

While I agree that a bit of added complexity can add to immersion and purpose for the Squadron concept, being content with "just enough" seems often more dangerous at this point, as XIV is poor at finding a final goal through gradual iteration; almost every update serves only to make the prior ones obsolete. At that point you have a Squadron system that is neither satisfying even while hiding, through lackluster execution, whatever potential it still has.

I greatly like the idea of interconnected quests, but I'd hate for each to remain solely a thing of Squadron UI menus. If your troops went and got themselves into trouble in accomplishing what you ordered, by fault of trait A or B of Member X or Y, I'd much prefer it be possible for you to intervene, and for your presence at times in their 'stories' to be of value. There's comedic and dramatic value, both, available from snippets of "what we did when you were out 'saving the world'", but if you can't interact with any of it, it seems more like a chore and a gimmick than a means for further involvement.

[Sylvain]

I greatly like the idea of interconnected quests, but I'd hate for each to remain solely a thing of Squadron UI menus. If your troops went and got themselves into trouble in accomplishing what you ordered, by fault of trait A or B of Member X or Y, I'd much prefer it be possible for you to intervene, and for your presence at times in their 'stories' to be of value. There's comedic and dramatic value, both, available from snippets of "what we did when you were out 'saving the world'", but if you can't interact with any of it, it seems more like a chore and a gimmick than a means for further involvement.

God I love the idea

I just find the "stats" only system boring and the unique quirks our squad has.... weird to say the least. (but I understand your point and I don't pretend what I said would be the best. However I'm sure the small quest to help your squad get a job would be fun and popular)

Regarding the reward, I understand your point but I fail to see why people would play the sqad if there were no substantial reward. I mean, they don't have to be mandatory but I find the current one rather bleh.

I dunno, I find them bringing back Gathering/Crafting scrips from good chemistries to be pretty handy.

To the point I will keep a chemistry I can't hope to achieve so I can force it.

I must do something wrong they never bring me back scripts x_x

[Khalithar]

The one thing that bothers me most about the squadrons is the lack of any personal story or unique quest chains for it. Now I expected squadrons to just be random npc’s we’d customize. But they took the time to model, name, and design every npc and give them a portrait and a brief motivation for joining. I expected we’d learn more about these individuals but nope, not a damn thing.

[DrWho2010]

i think they're fine as is. i got some good chemistries going. materia, gatherer/crafter scrip, gil, MGP. all good stuff they bring me back.

[Shurrikhan]

God I love the idea

I just find the "stats" only system boring and the unique quirks our squad has.... weird to say the least. (but I understand your point and I don't pretend what I said would be the best. However I'm sure the small quest to help your squad get a job would be fun and popular)

Regarding the reward, I understand your point but I fail to see why people would play the sqad if there were no substantial reward. I mean, they don't have to be mandatory but I find the current one rather bleh.

I'll put it this way then: it should have equivalent player-participating efficiency as other means of gaining rewards. It should not have truly unique rewards, and it should not be faster to reach rewards through a menu, or through combination of menus and gameplay, than purely gameplay. The cumulative increase to rewards should either be proportionate to time the player must actually spend (menu or gameplay, it matters not) relative to, say, beastman tribe rep levels, and/or very open to catch-up mechanics (e.g. every week exp gains get increased by some mostly flat amount, squishing exp requirements to level up at lower levels while having virtually no effect on higher levels). It cannot be mandatory, but it also shouldn't even feel at all mandatory, and it absolutely should not feel like you're at a massive, irredeemable advantage for not starting onto these things early.

As for the whole "quirks" thing, I'll agree, it needs to be a lot more. My own goal would be for the quirks to be in every sense but stats (e.g. Stubborn, Sycophant, Silver-tongued as personality traits; Seventh Legion Deserter, Sagahin-Guard, Slipped the Noose as backstories; or Sapper, Sidekick, etc., as skillsets or trainings).

• Go into (a dynamically modified version of) Copperbell Mines with a Sapper and you can skip gathering the Firesands up to a point, or make more use of them than just blowing open pathways (i.e. you can explode bosses or destroy bridges behind you as you flee from overwhelming mobs).
• Whoever you pair your Sidekick to gradually modifies and builds upon his whole skillset to act as synergetic abilities to that person.
• Your Seventh Legion Deserter finds out where other former (or current?) spies are operating, giving you an open-ended investigatory quest for which you can assign people to other areas, with quality of clues garnered varying based on whether they have Perception traits or whatnot, and can of course do as much as you like on your own. You'll have to be there for the actual encounter, though.
• Your Silver-tongued guy may start up some further merchant quests.
• Your Sycophant gets himself involved with some various dangerous people, making promises he can't fulfill on his own -- with a deadline.
• Your Stubborn guy gets in over his head in promising a fight in the Colosseum, allowing the enemy twice as many people as he brings.
• Your squadron mates can take interest in each other, in the vein of rivals, admirers, or even romantic interest, and these relationships can be played upon to adjust quests found, quest results, traits (positive OR negative -- though all negative ones can eventually be erased) acquired, and exp bonuses.
• Etc., etc.

Those are the kinds of things that make me want to level up a Squadron. Short of that, my loathing of the WoW mission boards will keep me at great distance.