Remove Trust System from future Trials

[TaleraRistain]

Zoraal Ja is arguably the worst written villain in the entirety of FFXIV, his reasoning for the point where his character gets to as one of main villains is stretching things to the extreme and isn't plausible. But that's a different writing issue and not the point of my OP.

Prior to the trial he literally walks away from group, this is in line with his character so he can get ahead of everyone in an attempt to win the contest. His motivation for wanting to win the rite of succession is to plunge Tural into war so that the population can experience the horrors of it and become stronger as a people after suffering through it. Having Valigarmanda laying carnage across Urqopacha and beyond completely fits this motivation. When he suddenly does a u-turn and reappears, even Sareel Ja is shaking his head in disbelief at what he's doing.

I'll give you the 99 trial which did seem more forced but Zoraal Ja joining did make sense in the 93 trial. He wanted to prove himself, as another poster outlined. And having Valigarmanda lay carnage wouldn't fit with his ideals because he wanted people to stop fighting by experiencing the reality of war, not just suffering in general.

[Bonoki]

Holy shit the Wuk Lamat brainrot is real lmao

just get over it already, go touch some grass, do something else

Touching grass would give us more time to reflect on how poorly written she is though.

[SwadTheFrog]

Agreed wholesale. I feel like the Trust System is now genuinely hurting the narrative. Not only do things become even more formulaic on the narrative "Oh, we're reachining level 83/89, time for people to randomly show up to back us up because we need eight folks". It's even more obscene on the 89 trial, where the other Scions just...appear. It is a COMPLETE asspull. No, seriously, think about it for half a second. We took the one route available to us to move further up along the Everkeep. The elevators were locked. There was NO OPPOSITE ROUTE. Yet somehow half the Scions, without being noticied by us, came running, somehow took an entirely alternate route that was never mentioned beforehand, and stumbled up on us taking the /opposite/ path. It genuinely makes zero sense.

[Menriq]

I feel like the Trust System is now genuinely hurting the narrative. Not only do things become even more formulaic on the narrative "Oh, we're reachining level 83/89, time for people to randomly show up to back us up because we need eight folks".

Legitimate question. If you have an issue with this, what is your explanation for 7 random PC's joining you for these fights? In the scope of narrative, 7 other players randomly joining seems a lot less plausible. I think there are some situations in which people are just going to have to understand immersion is going to break for certain aspects.

[SwadTheFrog]

Legitimate question. If you have an issue with this, what is your explanation for 7 random PC's joining you for these fights? In the scope of narrative, 7 other players randomly joining seems a lot less plausible. I think there are some situations in which people are just going to have to understand immersion is going to break for certain aspects.

Happily ignore it. Stormblood of all thigns actually did a perfect job with it and the Susano fight, by just throwing out a quote of "Well, good thing so many adventurers are out ton holiday here..." - I can suspend my disbelief of seven randos appearing out of nowhere just fine, because hey, it's a MMO. But when the game calls attention to the fact that the Scions instant transmission into the scene when they simply *shouldn't*, then immersion is broken far more.

[Regis_Paran]

Happily ignore it. Stormblood of all thigns actually did a perfect job with it and the Susano fight, by just throwing out a quote of "Well, good thing so many adventurers are out ton holiday here..." - I can suspend my disbelief of seven randos appearing out of nowhere just fine, because hey, it's a MMO. But when the game calls attention to the fact that the Scions instant transmission into the scene when they simply *shouldn't*, then immersion is broken far more.

It would definitely be more weird and immersion breaking if we were to suddenly encounter adventurers in Amaurot or Ultima Thule... Imo Azem's crystal was a very good solution to that. I saw some commenting that it makes us op, but I really don't understand how it's the case.


And the issue of Scions (or any other NPCs) "teleporing" to help with the duty is not a mechanic issue, but a writing issue. And yes, there were few instances of those in DT that made me roll my eyes. But that's on writers to improve in the future. Not the reason to scrap the Trust option altogether.

[Connor]

Whether trusts are available or not has no bearing on whether the content is doable in Duty Finder. So I’m not sure what the actual benefit would be in removing trusts from trials?

I don’t understand how fighting one trial boss is completely acceptable but then for any other that is totally forbidden and must never exist ever again. And I mean, from a role-playing perspective who else is going to kill the god-like-monster but a team of people who specifically go around doing basically exactly that.

And the story would play out extremely bizarrely if every time a trial appeared literally every Scion peaced out and Wuk was like ‘you’re on your own bitch find your own friends’ lol

[Bright-Flower]

Nothing is more formulaic than 'I pull out the Azem cystal, which I only use when it's time for a trial fight specifically, and summon seven strangers from acrosstime and space who happen to be battle ready and of the appropriate level for this.'

It was a bit awkward for the 99 trial, sure. But for the 93 trial it fit perfectly with everyone coming together to face Valigarmanda.

[Kranel_San]

Agreed wholesale. I feel like the Trust System is now genuinely hurting the narrative. Not only do things become even more formulaic on the narrative "Oh, we're reachining level 83/89, time for people to randomly show up to back us up because we need eight folks". It's even more obscene on the 89 trial, where the other Scions just...appear. It is a COMPLETE asspull. No, seriously, think about it for half a second. We took the one route available to us to move further up along the Everkeep. The elevators were locked. There was NO OPPOSITE ROUTE. Yet somehow half the Scions, without being noticied by us, came running, somehow took an entirely alternate route that was never mentioned beforehand, and stumbled up on us taking the /opposite/ path. It genuinely makes zero sense.

FFXI did it better, where Trust is a form of magic, so you can summon any avatar of a character to fight at your side without the actual character being there. How can this be applied to FFXIV? Simple. Duty support but with Scions trust to fill the gaps, including one that aren't even present or nearby. Even better if you try to waive the Trust system into lore where Azem crystal does the job to fill the gaps.

Nothing is more formulaic than 'I pull out the Azem cystal, which I only use when it's time for a trial fight specifically, and summon seven strangers from acrosstime and space who happen to be battle ready and of the appropriate level for this.'

If by the time the WoL pulls the Azem crystal and you thought prior to it the current situation won't be a fight, then I'm worried for you.

[TaleraRistain]

FFXI did it better, where Trust is a form of magic, so you can summon any avatar of a character to fight at your side without the actual character being there. How can this be applied to FFXIV? Simple. Duty support but with Scions trust to fill the gaps, including one that aren't even present or nearby. Even better if you try to waive the Trust system into lore where Azem crystal does the job to fill the gaps.

I like this idea that we would summon avatars of our Scion friends kind of like Themis did in Pandaemonium. Then we will still get the "WoL is the one who can handle these things" but we're calling upon the Azem creation magic to bring the avatars of our friends to help us.