Why are NPC parties so bad?

[Kaurhz]

They are done so with the intention of still encouraging you to interact with other players, and to group up with other players. Having the NPCs also be flawed still puts some responsibility on the player to ensure they are playing correctly, versus playing "Follow the NPC" type groove to resolve the mechanic.

If NPCs executed mechanics perfectly and did AoE combinations for standard pulls, then there would actually be very little to encourage players to group up with other people, as in many cases the NPC would just then be better than your average player, which is a backwards way of putting it.

[Arkdra]

Trusts actually seem to end up doing more damage with a scale based on how long it takes you to get through the dungeon.
Their goal is to keep the same pace no matter how bad the player is. Thus, if you notice them doing piddle amounts of damage, you must be a good player!

This is a myth and is not remotely true. Most of my trust dungeons are 23 minutes.

Edit: Also they are parsable, they do the same (bad) damage the whole run regardless of what you as the player does. There is no scaling.

[TheMightyMollusk]

squadron is way better than trust especially when you get to mastery 5 on them. Honestly think SE should have went the route of Squadron's for at least ARR and HW for the MSQ. then moved to the scions helping out Stormblood and afterwards. Or at the least to include the mastery system with the duty support/trust npcs

The problem is that squadrons require getting your Grand Company rank up enough to unlock them, plus farming the weekly challenge log until it decides to give you more recruits. They'd have to redo that entire process. Evidently they just decided that a handful of set NPCs was easier to manage.

There's also the story problem that, at least in HW, the Grand Companies can't openly support the Scions for a while because of the whole mess in Ul'dah.

[MsMisato]

The problem is that squadrons require getting your Grand Company rank up enough to unlock them, plus farming the weekly challenge log until it decides to give you more recruits. They'd have to redo that entire process. Evidently they just decided that a handful of set NPCs was easier to manage.

There's also the story problem that, at least in HW, the Grand Companies can't openly support the Scions for a while because of the whole mess in Ul'dah.

i always understood that the squadron was like an adventurer militia for the grand company thats why it was established because you never really have anyone from the GC on your team. just plain adventurer npcs. . But I get what you are saying about the the GC not being able to support the scions.

I just think the mastery system for the squadron could have been been applied to the trust system if anything in that case.

[Supersnow845]

The problem is that squadrons require getting your Grand Company rank up enough to unlock them, plus farming the weekly challenge log until it decides to give you more recruits. They'd have to redo that entire process. Evidently they just decided that a handful of set NPCs was easier to manage.

There's also the story problem that, at least in HW, the Grand Companies can't openly support the Scions for a while because of the whole mess in Ul'dah.

off topic but did anyone actually believe that the WOL had actually committed regicide

The crystal braves had sunk their teeth into the immortal flames which is why uldah itself was unsafe but both merleweb and kan-e-sanna both basically go “we always know it was bullshit and that was always our nations stance”

Like they fled to ishgard because they were being hunted in uldah but would the population have believed this random blue militia over the beloved WOL saviour of the realm

It always struck me as a plot point that didn’t really hold up to scrutiny

[SeverianLyonesse]

The reason trusts are bad is because they are designed to be bad to actually encourage you to play with other people because it’s an MMO

Trusts are more insurance against the game dying in the future or if people are crippingly antisocial, in general they expect you will run with other players which is why they leave the trusts as being 30-50% worse than an average player. To actually encourage you to play with other players

And also encourage you to actually respect the mechanics instead of trusting Alphy will heal you.

[lushblush]

i exclusively used them for all 4 expansions and i didn't find them that bad. i'm pretty sure i was able to comfortably pull multiple packs to my tank as DPS starting from ShB too

[Iscah]

i exclusively used them for all 4 expansions and i didn't find them that bad. i'm pretty sure i was able to comfortably pull multiple packs to my tank as DPS starting from ShB too

You can definitely pull a second pack to the tank and they can handle it. Not sure about three packs but it can go messy just because of the distance, which can make party members start teleporting to you and things get in a muddle.

[Taliriah]

Never puck Alphinaud if you can help it. Urianger is a more reliable healer

[LaylaTsarra]

I heal I rarely have problems. Use trusts for all my new msq content and then rarely return to dungeons. I get my tomes and more from A rank hunts for the most part and pvp.