The duty support is bad for the game's story.

[Jangles]

Also to make it clear I'm not saying duty support should be removed, even though I don't like the feature. It's that it shouldn't be "canonized". We don't need to be doing every story beat with exactly 4/8 people, like for example how we canonically go through a lot of old dungeons either solo or with a group of random amount of people, or how we canonically face Thordan alone, even though the trial is with 7 other players. Gameplay and story don't have to represent eachother 1:1, it's cool if they can but it shouldn't be forced to do so for the detriment of either.

(also do away with the azem crystal already please, it was cool during seat of sacrifice but it's just silly now.)

[Absurdity]

Just have a scene where the Scions talk about how we can always call on them in times of need, even when we're far apart, and then say we're using Azem's crystal to summon them as needed. Teleport magics are canon, they can leave on their own when we're done. Thancred might need some kind of handwave, though.

Even if it's technically canonized that we can summon people with Azem's crystal every time we need backup I still consider it a cheap cop-out made for the sake of convenience in almost all instances it gets used.
They could make it canon tomorrow that we just beat every encounter by nuking it with an orbital laser, doesn't make it any less terrible from a writing perspective.

[SeriousPan]

Dawntrail bent over backwards to put duty support characters with you so that the dungeon could happen. They are fixing a problem that didn't need to be fixed. ARR, HW, SB and, to a lesser extent, ShB all have dungeons where they have a one off NPC or no-name NPCs join you as Duty Support. They make sense, do their jobs well, and don't lessen the experience. Why Dawntrail was so afraid of doing this is beyond me. Not all of the Dawntrail dungeons would work but it would work for a handful of them easily.

[Hypnotic13371337]

They made Alisaie heal rather than making Krile go CNJ... like, did she forget all about healing or something?

Lets just invent some new healing shit RDM can do for thise ONE SINGULAR INSTANCE and NEVER bring it up again in the story, rather than have Krile class change back to CNJ lmao

[Reimmi]

The duty support function doesn't have to represent the canon events if the group of people we have with us doesn't fit the party of 4 needed for duty support. The story shouldn't bend over backwards and suffer because we just need to have NPCs with fitting roles accompanying us just for duty support.

Most of the time when people wonder "Why is this character even present?" the answer is mostly because they are needed for duty support. Forcing characters to follow us around unnaturaly just for this function has only hurt the game's writing. (Together with many other problems the writing already has.) Going back to the pre-ShB setup of us canonically doing the dungeons/trials with whoever is currently present independent from the gameplay portion would benefit the story.


EDIT:

I agree whole heartedly. keep it in the game for gameplay purposes, but it's time to stop forcing us to always have 3-5 people nearby for any dungeon.

The crystal exists, thats enough lore explanation for doing dungeons with NPCS

[Underscore]

Wholeheartedly agree. They couldn't keep the Scions "disbanded" for even a single patch because of it. I also resent Duty Support for what it's done to older dungeons, which have been degraded and homogenized so that NPCs can play them instead of people. (RIP old Hraesvelgr fight)

[Mondschnee]

I don't think the Duty support function is the issue if there's writers capable of working around this. I never felt like it was forced in SHB or EW, it only started being blatantly obvious in Dawntrail's MSQ...

[Zofian]

I would go deeper with all this and say that back in ARR, the dungeons and trials were genuine obstacles and the story had to fit around them. At this point it's become entirely the other way around and the dungeons/trials are made to fit with the 'story' and not get in the way.

[Regis_Paran]

I don't think the Duty support function is the issue if there's writers capable of working around this. I never felt like it was forced in SHB or EW, it only started being blatantly obvious in Dawntrail's MSQ...

Agreed. It's a testament to how poor DT writing was indeed, when it even affects such a (seemingly) unconnected function as Duty Support.

[Emitans]

"The only way we can reach [Level 99 Trial Boss] is going through this very dangerous dungeon. There is no other way!"

*we reach the trial boss and 4 more Scions walk out of a broom closet so we have 8*