Quote Originally Posted by Liam_Harper View Post
Putting hours of development resources into a system that you then intentionally sabotage and make less fun so players don't use it too much is awful design. It's a waste of dev time. It means they know roulette chores and grouping with other players isn't fun, so instead of addressing it they make the alternatives no fun either.

It's also been proven to be no issue in Squadrons, which are very fast if you invest in them.

I just avoid dungeons full stop. If my choice is 30 minute slogs, or dealing with other players, I'll go do a Hunt Train.
Because their intention is for the following groups of players:

1. Those who play at odd hours - reduces the time they spend waiting for a group to progress the MSQ
2. Players who want a more immersive experience for the MSQ. The Duty Support members do make plot relevant comments as the dungeon progresses
3. Players who have anxiety about grouping with others for whatever reason.
4. Players who may have to suddenly leave a dungeon for things that they can't predict - such as those with some disabilities whose good periods may suddenly end without much warning.

It is obviously a system that enough players used and enough didn't use as they trialed it in Shadowbringers and not only brought it back for Endwalker content, but are adding it to ARR and to the other expansion packs.

If too many used it and increased the queues for players who wanted to group with others too much, I doubt we would have seen an expanding of the Duty Support to ARR, HW, and SB. You need your early game to hook players in. Spending too long in a queue for progressing story would severely damage that ability. If too few were using it, we likely wouldn't have seen it be used outside of ShB at all.

Squadrons I believe you have to put some actual work into getting them and invest in them. So the reward is their speed. I do hope they do expand on that system so that players can choose to invest in the squadron for faster dungeon runs if they so choose.