WoW is adding multiplayer Trusts....

[strawberrycake]

It's almost as if the roles from about 3 years ago have been reversed.

Well the issue here is that Yoshida was never transparent, he was Opaque, an a lot of what he was giving us was honestly just tried and true things that worked. The game is now in a stage where the taste of the player base has changed and whats being offered is not what players want anymore.

Or look at it from this point a view, you eat one flavor of icecream for close to 11-12 years, and a new ones comes out, the old flavor being WoW, Guild Wars, Aion, EvE, Any major older MMO, you're gonna try XIV and really enjoy what you have now. But XIV is in the exact same position now, it's been the flavor for over 10 years. People want something new and exciting, and that is why a lot of people are calling XIV stagnant.

Ion and the team being transparent, or as transparent as they're willing to be is them realizing, "We can't just force feed them, we gotta work with them again".

Where as Yoshida wants a more controlled MMO experience thats for people who come home from JP Salary-person hours and wants to unwind for like 3-4 hours before getting up and repeating said horrid hours for work.

[Absurdity]

Or look at it from this point a view, you eat one flavor of icecream for close to 11-12 years, and a new ones comes out, the old flavor being WoW, Guild Wars, Aion, EvE, Any major older MMO, you're gonna try XIV and really enjoy what you have now. But XIV is in the exact same position now, it's been the flavor for over 10 years. People want something new and exciting, and that is why a lot of people are calling XIV stagnant.

I'd take that comparison even further, let's say XIV is good old vanilla in this case. You've been eating the good natural vanilla icecream for 6 years, but then they started slowly replacing the natural vanilla with artificial flavouring.
Now it's completely artificial vanilla so it's still "the same" but it tastes worse and the delivery takes 1.5x as long.

I havent played FFXI, but I have no faith in Trusts (ironic isnt it?) or FFXIV having AI good enough for anything other than "go here to avoid getting hit" more or less. I've heard its also why they've gone back to revamp older dungeon encounters such as Brayflox Longstop's final boss so that the AI is only tasked with dodging AoEs rather than something more unique like pulling the dragon out of its poison puddle.

I think a good example of the AI in FFXIV actually being kinda bad is trying to use the trust for Hydaelyn, where your 7 AI companions already know where they are going to stand for a AoE placed on them and it is up to YOU to find the spot they left for you, rather than just moving out of the way of where you are. The attack in a normal group is to spread from each other, while with the NPCs it is to run away from where ever they are going. I remember plenty of time Urianger "chasing" me and blowing me up during that trial. Also to mention, if for whatever reason the NPCs are in a bad spot, they will run through damaging AoEs like the light waves, rather than going around them.

Its a different topic, but I think FFXIV's Trust system contributes to the shallow mechanics in FFXIV, especially for dungeons.

Certainly feels like that. I'm convinced at this point that the trust ai can't do anything more complex than "go there" and "attack thing", and only ever one of them at a time. They can't interact with the environment, like picking up the powder in old Copperhell or pulling a lever, navigate terrain that isn't a flat path, etc.
So all of those "inconveniences" that would make dungeon design more interesting and varied had to go.