suggestion for improved squad/companion system.

[Daedal]

it would be nice to be able to have a final fantasy 12 style gambit system rather than the entirely stupid ai we've got now where squad members and chocobos just happily take damage rather than getting out of the way.
i mean who in their right mind would train a chocobo to constantly stand right next to them in healer stance rather than a safe spot within a certain range of you?

don't get me wrong i don't expect to be able to get the AI up to the level of a good player but they could at least be set up to be half decent while still requiring us to pick through various tactics on the squad control bar.

how i personally imagine it working is being able to set up gambit sets per companion and then also being able to create squad command sets that tell each companion what set of gambits to use at any given moment.

so you set up the gambits for them before hand and during battle you use your customized squad commands to tell them which set of gambits to use.

being able to set ground markers or target markers and have those be used in conjunction with gambits would at least allow some semblance of respectable action for an "elite unit" of a grand company rather than the brainless mess of recruits we have now.

say you need the dps to not attack the boss rather than the adds while still having the tank hold the hate of the boss you'd click off of the standard engage to a custom engage squad command that you had set up before hand.
or maybe you know a fight is going to require stacking then you mark an area to stack on and when the time comes you command the squad to stack on that mark.
or perhaps there are times when you'd rather have the groups stack on a mark and draw adds to them rather than run towards the adds like fools through damaging areas.
you should be able to set it up with gambits and markers.

needless to say it's quite easy to find examples where such things would be useful even in the earliest of squad command run dungeons. to say nothing of simply having gambits telling them to get out of the damage areas during any given fight.

and while basic gambits could be used from the start you could easily add extras as rewards from deep dungeon cursed horde sacks, retainer quick ventures, maybe add some as rewards from squad missions, or rewards at the golden saucer.

[Daedal]

i also think it'd be nice if we could have the same system used to form adventuring parties add retainers into the mix.
it would give people more incentive to pay that cheap price for additional retainers. so things like picking retainers and squad members to party up with you out in the world or in a dungeon / trial / raid could also help with duty queues that sometimes take quite a while.
heck sometimes it hard to just find enough people to party with in heaven on high much less some of the less some of the less queued for trials.

i do think that people should be required to make it through certain content/duties with their own companion party before they're allowed to mingle a companion/squad party with other players (should the players choose to allow it for quicker queue times similar to the undersized party option)
to be perfectly honest there are things i wouldn't want to run with AI tanks/heals and things i certainly wouldn't mind.

it'd obviously cost grand company seals and ventures but return experience for the members of the companion party. even if it had a two hour at a time limit or something.

honestly though sometimes even just having a decently set up AI tank or heals would shorten queue times for everybody quite a lot. there's an overabundance of dps as is usually the case so i think it'd be worthwhile especially considering it could also open up some interesting options for new mini games.