Suggestion: Partial Trust Dungeons

[Marcus89]

Hello! I have a suggestion for an improvement to the Trust / Duty Support feature. It would be great if players could enter a duty with a party of mixed NPCs and players. Specifically, if I am in a party with one friend, I would love to be able to enter a duty with my friend and two NPC companions. Thank you!

[DrWho2010]

trust system is specifically designed and scripted AI for one solo player only.

i don't think dev time would ever be allotted towards this kind of request for a very long time due to programming cost.

[Silverbane]

trust system is specifically designed and scripted AI for one solo player only.
i don't think dev time would ever be allotted towards this kind of request for a very long time due to programming cost.

The Trust/Duty support system is already coded to swap out any role (tank, healer, DPS) according to the role of the player. If, as is possible, the script for each individual NPC stays unchanged regardless of which role is swapped out, then providing the capability requested by the OP could be simply a matter of swapping out two NPCs instead of one, with no other changes to the "AI."

So it might not cost much to do this, BUT there's still the question of whether the potential demand for it justifies the cost, and you may be right in thinking that SE won't think it does. Or SE may think that while shielding solo players from the joys of Duty Finder may be good for the game, shielding pairs or triples of players from it might not be; FFXIV is, after all, meant to be a multi-player game.

[Frizze]

They would for sure need to update the AI/combat scripting. My first run of every new dungeon is via Trust/duty support so i can take my time, try to figure out mechanics for myself without any other players around, enjoy the scenery, and maybe pick up an extra lore tidbit or two from the NPC dialogue. I also have leveled all the trust NPCs because i tend to play odd hours and sometimes specific dungeon ques get long. I point all that out to say that i have a few hundred trust runs worth of observations on this topic. The combat script for the trust NPCs seems fairly basic. Attack using skills in a specific order, run either toward the player or toward a central point when a stack marker shows, spread out a minimum amount when everyone gets targetted aoes, move out of AoE zones on the floor. But anytime you give them 2 things to do at once they tend to do whatever the first one was, completely ignoring the rest. This is why they will run out of an aoe, only to stand still in a separate aoe. Or why they will completely stop attacking(and healing) while dodging(usually waiting until the attack goes off to continue combat script). Giving them an extra player to react to may well result in them freezing even more then they already do.

[Risvertasashi]

I would also like to see this.

[Canadane]

I'd like to see this. I'm not hopeful that it'll ever happen, but it's something I'd support dev time going towards.
Some people play with a small circle of friends, and don't want to exclude them, but perhaps don't always want to go with randoms.

I don't lack people to play with, but sometimes I just wanna chill with my partner.

[KenaiChoppa]

I think they might look into this now that SE wants FF XIV to be able to give the "full single player experience". I really hope they make some overhaul of the trust system to make it more "complete" by adding what you are suggesting and, hopefully, add the option to bring your retainers to the duties as well.

[Boffy]

I'd love a partial trust option. I have one friend in-game, and I'd like to do dungeons with them, but I can get a bit uncomfortable when strangers are in the mix. I'm not very confident, and would rather only my friend witness me routinely mess up.

[EnnCee]

Hello! I have a suggestion for an improvement to the Trust / Duty Support feature. It would be great if players could enter a duty with a party of mixed NPCs and players. Specifically, if I am in a party with one friend, I would love to be able to enter a duty with my friend and two NPC companions. Thank you!

this would be a wonderful addition to the game. I'd love to see it happen.

[Liam_Harper]

i don't think dev time would ever be allotted towards this kind of request for a very long time due to programming cost.

That's just theory. We don't know how much effort it would require.

There's a good chance it's quite possible and the devs would rather finish adding Trust support to all HW and StB dungeons first, then would be willing to consider this. In which case the feedback is worthwhile.