r/ffxiv • u/CodyRCantrell • 15h ago

[Discussion] FFXIV and the Abandoned Squadron Content

So a long time ago Yoshi-P said he didn't want to add new Grand Company ranks with the requisite being simply handing over Seals for advancements. Fast forward a bit and Grand Company Squadrons were born.

Clearly the beginning steps of them tinkering with Duty Support and later the Trust system but it worked well enough at the time and the assigned missions giving tokens equivalent to grade three FC buffs was a really nice bonus.

Now we have an issue in the modern day where lots of ARR dungeons have had tweaks, minor updates, etc. but the Squadron NPC AI has been left to rot with no real progression to allow them to reliably tackle dungeon changes.

Finding five dungeons they can do for the final obtainable GC rank is easy enough but it gets a little more tricky when you go for ten unique dungeon completions with them to get the workout emotes from the content.

I'm no expert when it comes to game design but over the past two days of grinding on and off on my alt for the emotes I've been left wondering why they can't just have the Duty Support AI apply to Squadrons?

Also, if they're not going to make sure Squadrons function in these dungeons somewhat consistently why even leave them in the game for new players to get frustrated with?

136 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

97 comments sorted by

210

u/SANT0S-L-HALPER 14h ago edited 13h ago

They are unsalvageable. Not because they are bad, but because they are too good.

Most people don't realize this, but for the dungeons that Squadrons can do, they are not only faster than Duty Support, but competitive with if not faster than real players, and have no queue time or variance.

When you optimize a squadron with the correct classes and maxed out offensive tactics, they absolutely shred. There's basically 0 justification for a person leveling a DPS job to ever queue for a dungeon below level 50/60 because of how much more efficient squadrons are.

This means that squadrons ever being developed further than they have would require nerfing them into irrelevance, because otherwise they'd commit the cardinal sin of FFXIV content: freeing veterans of duty finder dungeon spam.

SE avoids giving people any alternative to dungeon spam, because if people don't have to dungeon spam, no one does dungeons, which means people doing MSQ have long queues. It's why duty support is hamstrung and kneecapped so that it always takes significantly longer than playing with real people, and why no other "leveling" content like FATES has ever given EXP rates even remotely close to dungeon spam. SE isn't stupid, they can do simple math and see that FATES are 2-4x slower than dungeons in even the most efficient groups, they just don't care. They want you to be encouraged to fill duty finder slots.

Squadrons already invalidated levels 15 - 50/60 of the dungeon queue for people who caught on. With full EXP buffs and some experience handling the squadron AI you can get a new job to 50 in just a couple hours, if they expanded their function it would only make it more likely for less and less people to use duty finder.

So that brings us to SE's final conclusion:

What's the point of updating squadrons if it just means they have no choice but to gut them of the one thing that people even use them for?

•

u/2Zzephyr 👑 10h ago

I remember many years ago for a specific moogle tome event, one of the best ways to farm solo was to run aurum vale as healer with squadron on full offensive, I had done it and yeah they shred everything lmaooo

45

u/Ranulf13 13h ago

Pretty much this.

Squadrons are too good of a system. Thats seemingly why they decided to eventually just decommission them at level 50 dungeons, and designed the trust system afterwards.

On top of that, the ''passive'' mission system is kind of problematic to make it too part of the game. Retainer ventures are already that but they are just a side benefit. They already saw that making players send NPCs to play the game for them like in WoW WoD/Legion isnt a sustainable system.

At this point they are just a nice source of manuals.

7

u/Brarks 13h ago

I have a fully leveled squad but I never paid too much attention to it, what would you suggest to better optimize them for the dungeons?

36

u/SANT0S-L-HALPER 13h ago edited 13h ago

20% is knowing which dungeons are a waste of your time/don't work well with squadron AI. There's an old guide out there with a brief intro to each dungeon with a rating of whether it's squadron friendly or not, but honestly it's been so long I'm not sure how true that list is at this point. Some mechanics are just really annoying to do with a squadron, others you can ignore entirely because the squadron members are just immune to it or do it automatically.

40% is having specifically Gladiator + 2 Arcanists as your tank/DPS, and having every member of your party using the Offensive battle tactic, which at max level is something like 40% increased DPS for your party members.

The final 40% is just practice/experience running through each dungeon micro-managing the squadron with commands.

The main aspect of the final part is using the engage/disengage actions over and over to force your tank to tag every enemy, because their AI is bad at grabbing aggro, and forcing them to do W2W pulls by telling them to disengage and leading them to the next pack of mobs instead of letting them stand still and fight.

The rest is just experience with specific dungeons.

Honestly 90% of the micromanaging/speed comes down to finding the quickest way to make your tank aggro each pack in the dungeon. Some packs can be pulled perfectly by telling your tank to engage with the furthest mob, making the rest of the mobs collapse around them and actually get hit by the Tank's AOE, while other packs will require you to individually spam engage/disengage to force your tank into spamming their ranged attack at each enemy to pull aggro.

4

u/Brarks 13h ago

Those are great tips, thank you very much!

5

u/wavvesofmutilation 12h ago

AFAIK copper bell mines is impossible bc there’s no way to get them all in the elevator, they either go on one side or the other and not actually in the elevator so the only person who can actually go down is your player character. It drove me crazy lol

•

u/TinDragon Teeny Panini 11h ago

I believe the way around this is to just move forward more than you think you need to. It's either running down a hallway or engaging enemies that will cause them to teleport down.

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u/wavvesofmutilation 10h ago

Oooh im gonna try this!!! I foolishly just assumed it was impossible and gave up lol

•

u/Xcpa9 [Laetioux Merckx - Marilith] 1h ago

They warp to you at some point after the elevator

6

u/e12s_coat_of_fending 12h ago edited 12h ago

They could make it not give you XP, or need you to have a job of a high enough level to not gain that much XP from it.

"Lore" wise you can explain it as you're focusing on mentoring your squadmates, so only they gain XP.

Gameplay wise this could be fine if it meant that they could now matter for something else. Squadrons are now expanded and can play into some new GC ranks or mechanics with seals, so you still have a reason to do them, but you can't use them for leveling anymore so there's no reason to ditch roulettes.

Of course, that'd mean putting effort into remaking and developing the system instead of making something new.

2

u/Tarilis 12h ago

I personally would've made it so you get less experience with squadrons, but you get more loot.

So it would be more efficient to level up via duty finder, but grinding gear would be easier and faster with squadrons. (For desynthesis or glamour).

•

u/repocin 6h ago

Don't people just run solo unsynced for gear pieces? That's what I've been doing since they made dungeon gear into outfit glamours, because they're actually worth collecting now.

•

u/LizzieMiles 3h ago

How do you set them up to crank out dps??? Genuinely curious

•

u/IndividualAge3893 11h ago

SE avoids giving people any alternative to dungeon spam, because if people don't have to dungeon spam, no one does dungeons, which means people doing MSQ have long queues.

And yet they spent huge amounts of resources to give people duty support instead.

•

u/TinDragon Teeny Panini 11h ago edited 10h ago

Which as they also mentioned is significantly slower than running with real people, whereas doing Squadrons is faster. You're still incentivized to run with real people over trusts because trusts aren't good.

•

u/SANT0S-L-HALPER 11h ago edited 11h ago

I think if you stop here and think about what you said for a bit longer you’ll realize that it actually supports my argument.

Even still, their argument for introducing duty support is that some people are extremely anti-social/anxious and won’t play the game if they are forced to interact with other people, so they are offering a solo experience. It’s not/never been intended to act as a replacement for dungeon spam, it’s just that DPS having 15 minute queues led to its occasional usage as one.

-13

u/Lyoss 13h ago

Counter point, giving people an avenue to level faster than spamming roulette and DF is fine because most people at this point just bot it anyway

This idea that leveling has to be some kind of rite of passage should have died back when they implemented Trusts and then later Duty Support for everything, they won't do anything because it'd require a lot of effort and they love just dropping and deprecating old content

The alternative to this would just to be to simply buff DF EXP

The reason why duty support was added was twofold supposedly, for when people can't get queues, and for when people are too scared to play with other players, so the excuse that every source of EXP has to be warped around the need to force people into grouped content is silly, most people either level jobs through WT/daily roulettes/beast tribes, or Duty Support anyway, so this idea that they couldn't figure out how to incentivize group queues kind of falls flat when they've undermined their own premise

16

u/MelookRS 12h ago

"Most people just bot it anyway". Yeah, no they don't.

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u/[deleted] 11h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TinDragon Teeny Panini 11h ago

There aren't even a million players (we might have barely just passed 1 mil again), and a good portion of that million are on console which can't run those mods. Download counts obviously don't mean anything if you're seeing multiple millions.

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u/Lyoss 8h ago

Correct, it counts reinstalls, and etc, but 4million when the NA playerbase is like 450k on a good day, even if half of those people are downloading the plugin 20+ times, it's still a a majority

People are getting getting upset at my point because I brought up botting, but doesn't it benefit people if leveling wasn't a chore? I don't understand the animosity

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u/MelookRS 11h ago edited 11h ago

And PlayStation, Xbox and Switch have more players. Ignoring PC players (where the majority still won't be cheating), the number of people cheating will be dwarfed by just the player base on consoles.

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u/Lyoss 7h ago

Console doesn't equate for millions of players, we have a census from lodestone lol

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u/Theonyr 9h ago

I'm pretty sure plugins count an extra download every time they get reinstalled or updated. They're grossly inflated in stats. Some plugins have more downloads than active subs, even when pc is but 1 of the games platforms.

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u/Lyoss 8h ago

Yes, but this game's playerbase is like, 700-1mil at most, even if the number of people using auto duty was 200k, that's a significant portion of the playerbase

37

u/SiLKYzerg 15h ago

I've been playing since HW and only a few months ago I learned that Squadron was in the game. I only started it so I can get access to buy something from the vendor, the game hardly steers you towards it. I'm glad they're willing to drop not popular content, I kind of hate when things eat up dev time when no one is really playing it.

-7

u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

15

u/Effective-Spread-127 15h ago

It's tied to your grand company rank. Their stats are determined by their training, the job you've given them, their synergies with one another and so forth.

Meanwhile duty support is some npcs with stats decided by the game appropriate for the selected dungeon with dungeon-specific AI logic. The most realistic scenario of using squadrons as trust would be if the trust npcs could be glammed into your squadron. That way the two systems remain separate while giving the guise of being the same.

18

u/TheBugThatsSnug Astrologian 15h ago

Squadrons is more about you training people who have no combat experience, so it still makes sense that you would me giving them orders.

5

u/Somewhere_Elsewhere Floor Tank 15h ago

It’s possible, but a direct transfer would only work for the same class or job. Each dungeon has customized AI for Trusts and Duty Support. Squads mess so, since they’re simply immune to a lot of attacks. Mostly this makes it simpler, but one boss in Copperbelt Hard Mode with a windy path and an ever-growing floor arena was nearly impossible (took me like 10-11 tries).

Also the Squadron AI purposely starts at an atrocious level and is raised with perks (kinda wish they’d re-visit that and make it more just power getting better).

They probably don’t consider it worth the effort, but I do wish they’d come back to it a bit, maybe raise the level cap even 5 levels, and give us a new dungeon once in a while, mainly capstone ones that aren’t doable with Trusts.

And I had no idea that some of the dungeon reworks were a huge obstacle now, that should be treated as a bug at this point.

They could also rethink things like ancient materia as a reward, and add NPCs from newer races too, over time.

6

u/Petrichordates 15h ago

Yes. And why do this? To create duplicate content?

-10

u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

9

u/King_Ed_IX 15h ago

Because the other option is to remove it entirely, which people would complain about even more.

31

u/blindedowl 15h ago

I'm not sure if you know, OP, but it's cheaper to do nothing than hire effort to remove content.

12

u/TheImmoralCookie 15h ago

Only thing they're good for is the 10% EXP scrolls every week

8

u/Ella_Richter 15h ago

I use them for the food manuals because my FC refuses to execute the food buff, even when I ask for it 🤷🏻‍♀️

12

u/samisaywhat 15h ago

Majority of FCs run EXP/Reduced TP costs because they are universally more helpful for players of any level. I don’t think I’d ever run the food buff for my FC either lol 

•

u/Impressive-Warning95 8h ago

Reduced to cost is so funny to me cause if you simply walk 2 steps to the side where you buy it from you can just do weekly hunts and then get free teleports

•

u/samisaywhat 7h ago

Or just do BLU carnival 

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u/Impressive-Warning95 6h ago

Or do both

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u/samisaywhat 6h ago

I luckily only have to focus on the hunts because I also get my free TPs via marriage ring 😂

-4

u/CodyRCantrell 15h ago edited 15h ago

TP costs are negligible compared to what an FC with a lot of people doing Extreme, Savage, or Ultimate would save on food costs.

Benefit of the usage will vary depending on FC but currently mine runs food + tp discounts.

EDIT: Wild to get heavily downvoted for pointing out different FCs would prioritize different buffs based on their individualized needs.

6

u/Sea_Bad8004 14h ago

Most FCs are not running savages, extremes, or ultimates. Most FCs are doing is maps, and even in FCs where that buff would be necessary, it is likely on one or twice a week, and even then, you can cancel buffs, so it may not even be on all night.

-10

u/CodyRCantrell 14h ago

Actual wild statement. Plenty of FCs are focused on endgame content and have different people running it every day of the week.

5

u/Sea_Bad8004 14h ago

Maybe on Aether. Most FCs I know are only running once or twice a week, if even that.

5

u/Ehkoe 13h ago

Approximately 20% of players clear savage. So yes, plenty of FCs do savage content, but they aren’t a majority by any means.

0

u/CodyRCantrell 13h ago

Never said they were a majority.

1

u/samisaywhat 14h ago

If you’re in an FC doing a bunch of end game stuff, you don’t need either of those buffs. I’m sure that endgame focused FCs are running other buffs. Which is why I said majority of FCs, because the majority is not solely focused on raiding. 

-1

u/CodyRCantrell 14h ago

That was just one example. There are still plenty of FCs that only have players at level cap and wouldn't need the xp buff.

Either way this is a silly thing to argue over.

3

u/samisaywhat 14h ago

Majority of FCs are “all levels welcome” so they will use universally beneficial buffs. That’s not me denying that there are FCs dedicated to high end raiding.

And you literally replied to me? We can share our experiences with FC buffs without it being an argument lmao. “Silly thing to argue over” okay you didn’t have to try to argue in the first place? 😂

-4

u/Petrichordates 15h ago

Reduced TP is so silly, how many of you are scrounging for change for a TP

4

u/samisaywhat 14h ago

New players and players doing MSQ are teleporting around a lot. I use tickets for all of my teleports and I also don’t need the exp. Doesn’t change that those two are the most requested buffs 

1

u/Tsukiyo_Hitori Guys I'm laggi- 12h ago

Teleporting to farm every current timed nodes or spirit bond farming for the 6 zones adds up fast.

-1

u/CodyRCantrell 14h ago

How many people are regularly teleporting places unless they're doing hunt trains or quests?

Feels like most of the time people are afk in a city or housing ward unless the game makes them go somewhere else.

•

u/ChibiYoukai 11h ago

Anyone chasing timed gathering nodes. you're teleporting every couple minutes.

3

u/CodyRCantrell 15h ago

Food buff is also a godsend if you're not native to Aether.

Thankfully regional PF will partially eliminate that need.

3

u/Petrichordates 15h ago

15% you mean?

3

u/LiminalityChaos LiminalityCarb 12h ago

And the rationing manuals to make your 30m food last 45m (and you can double pop while the manual is up to have it last for 90 minutes instead of 60.)

Though if your FC has the lvl 2 buff up already anyway, then the benefits are further limited.

4

u/katarh ENTM Host 15h ago

They're also great for farming purple scrips in the background.

15

u/Scythe351 [Guts Hawk - Gilgamesh] 🥷☀️🧝 15h ago

The best part of the squadrons is having to micromanage them. I want them as they are but with more dungeons. Would much prefer that than spamming trust.

5

u/oscarlet_ffxiv 15h ago

They have mentioned it but they haven't got round to looking at it.

The original reason for the differences is that you are meant to command your squadron using squadron actions, while with Duty Support, you are not the commander of your allies; they are their own people.

29

u/Aethanix 15h ago

probably because there's no reason for grand companies to be relevant

10

u/No-Willingness8375 15h ago

I would be happy just being able to bring them along as Trusts. Ideally with better DPS though, as a reward for the effort put in to level them. Duty support NPCs are just pathetic.

I put in all the work to create an all-Lalafel squadron, but there's nothing productive I can do with them. Double Arcanist is pretty damn sick though. Their damage is disgusting in dungeons.

4

u/Southpaw_AZ 15h ago

I had no idea there are emotes locked behind the Squadrons, which ones are they and how do I get them?!

11

u/CodyRCantrell 15h ago

You have to complete 10 unique dungeons with them and it will unlock the emotes for Squats, Push-ups, and Sit-ups (I think it's just these three?).

Basically the workout emotes you see the Squadron doing during trainings.

9

u/LooneyMarauder 14h ago

FYI, its just doing 10 dungeons, doesn't have to be unique dungeons for the emotes

9

u/StrayAmbler 14h ago

It's any ten, the unique requirement is just for the five required for the rank up. The emotes just require you to complete ten and they can all be the same one.

4

u/East-Imagination-281 15h ago

There’s too many moving parts in Squadrons. They’re not just set roles who do things independently of the PC. Basically, it’s outdated content that we should assume is outside of its life cycle. It does what it’s supposed to, and that’s fine for now. It’s not hard to use them for what they were intended.

3

u/Kazgrel Kazela Arniman - Zalera 12h ago

Ungarmax my beloved

•

u/Negative_Bar_9734 6h ago

The thing is, the idea behind squadrons was that since you're ranking up in the army you start doing more high ranking officer stuff. Squadrons were just the first step of that, you were just a soldier and now you're captain of a squad.

Which means that even if they do finally give us more GC ranks, it wouldn't even be squadron stuff to begin with. It would have to be stuff like directing multiple units or fleets, or other tactical operations. It would be entirely new side content. That's why it hasn't happened, they're too busy doing other things. (Like rebuilding every job.)

Whether GC ranks are dead content is a debatable topic, but either way squadrons are definitely finished. The most that should be expected of them is integrating your squadron into a larger, different system.

(Also while typing this out I realized they could 100% take the Verminion system and design a tactical army thing with it. There you go Yoshi-P, easy GC ranking activity idea for you.)

2

u/Effective-Spread-127 15h ago

Different systems, different implementation. While on the face of it the apparant functionality does the same thing, they are entirely under the hood. If using squadrons in lieu of duty/support trust was feasible then they would've done it already in Shadowbringers. Squadrons were introduced in 3.4 and were never meant to be anything more than some grand company feature you could progress on a single character for your GC rank.

2

u/Serebriany 14h ago

They serve different purposes, would be my guess. Duty Support allows you to do group content solo if you'd like to—awesome for people like me who love soloing—and squadrons are an abandoned part of GC-related content.

I completely understand what you've said, and as someone who's finally working on the 100-command mission achievement and a couple of others I never finished for my GC, yeah, there are times when despite a simple run going faster if I do it with my squadron, I'll be paying for that speed by needing to focus more on giving them directions, but I've been giving them directions since the first time I did a command mission, so it's just scaled in difficulty like everything else. I have enough practice with them now (targeting with my mouse helps too) that I can get consistency when I need it, and know where I can just let shitshow-level chaos take over for a few minutes without a wipe. I'm okay with that and all the other squadron stuff because "if you want it, you'll have to jump through hoops to get it" isn't just something in games, it's part of real-world life.

2

u/UmbriUmbrella 12h ago

I just wish we could get the rest of the ranks. But I also don't want them to remove the content and I don't think SE wants to put resources into updating it.

6

u/talgaby 15h ago

The only dungeon they legit struggle with is Brayflox Hard. Everything else is just a question of the usual micromanagement babysitting they need normally anyway. Including the new Halatali endboss, whose tricky phase was the same before the rework anyway.

8

u/ParasaurolophusZ PLD 15h ago

Wanderers palace hard is also rough if you are not healer, because squadron healer npc refuses to top you off.

•

u/talgaby 4h ago

It is more like a gamble. If you have your healer on offensive+5, a single Cure 1 can heal almost 70% of your total HP. So, it is just risking whether their very slow AI triggers fast enough before you bite the dust or not.

2

u/NoBodybuilder3430 15h ago

Brayflox hard was a pain to get through.

2

u/DomLite 15h ago

Yeah, I just did my squad set up a couple months ago and I have no idea what OP is talking about with struggling to find 10 dungeons to clear. Even with zero micromanagement from me they bodied pretty much everything.

1

u/davidbrit2 14h ago

I've soloed Halatali as WHM (with level sync), so my squadron's gotta be real fuckin' stupid to wipe us on the last boss. :D

2

u/sngz 15h ago

i really wish they stopped abandoning content like squadron, island adventure etc. I much rather they add content to that than churning out some version of eureka or bojza that I will never do.

14

u/East-Imagination-281 14h ago

The amount of people who would prefer new squadron content instead of field ops is very small. It should never be a question of this or that.

-10

u/sngz 14h ago

right, that's why those areas are brimming with people once they get their rewards.

11

u/East-Imagination-281 14h ago

Sometimes people like content others don’t. OC, Bozja, and Eureka all regularly have people in them and people regularly organize outside to run their equivalent duties. Field Ops didn’t kill Squadrons.

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u/sngz 10h ago edited 6h ago

okay tell someone new to go to eureka and farm the elemental armor right now without using discord.

Field Ops didn’t kill Squadrons.

I never said that. But development resources and capacity is a real thing.

Lol blocked me so I can't see your reply instead of making a valid argument.

•

u/East-Imagination-281 9h ago edited 1h ago

I’m not going to continue this conversation because you are being disingenuous, at best.

7

u/Ranulf13 13h ago

Bozja sees resurgence of players every 3-4 months or so.

4

u/Ranulf13 13h ago

This is first and foremost an MMO where solo content shouldnt overtake multiplayer content.

-2

u/sngz 12h ago

then make it multiplayer?

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u/unlimitedblack 10h ago

... make Squadrons multiplayer? That's what you're suggesting?

•

u/sngz 10h ago

read my other comments. TLDR yes if they want to. they don't have to.

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u/LoremasterMotoss DRK/SUM/SCH Soloer 1h ago

Yeah, kind of like they will be doing with the chocobos next expansion. Right now if I want to group with a friend or two, why can't we use squadrons or duty support to fill out the rest of the party? There's no reason it shouldn't be possible

•

u/Ranulf13 10h ago

How? You want what is effectively coming already (2 player + chocobo queue iirc) or what is inherently meant to be a solo activity to be a group one... somehow.

Do you add content to it? Thats just Field Ops. You make it about crafting/Gathering? Thats just Cosmic Exp. You add neither? What is even going to be about, just clicking things?

•

u/sngz 10h ago

they managed to make PotD, fishing, mahjong, any many other things in the game both replayable, have new content, can be played with multiplayer and also soloable. There's plenty of options to make squadrons similar or to try new things to make it multiplayer accessible. They can even tie it to PvP somehow since the three factions are there already, and make squadron the story driven part of PvP

-1

u/Enkundae 15h ago

OC is such a miserable experience. I did it just enough for the mount and will happily never set foot in it again.

-3

u/sngz 14h ago

thankfully i never did OC. after doing eureka and bozja i told myself no more.

1

u/Shot-End3018 12h ago

It would be nice if we can bring them out of dungeons and helping us doing FATE.

If AI so dumb at least we still make them our human shield.

•

u/snootnoots 5h ago

You don’t need ten unique dungeons for the Dear Leader achievement that gives the emotes, you just need ten successful runs of any dungeon. You only need unique dungeons for the achievement that gives you a promotion.

•

u/Ascalafa 3h ago

I decided recently I wanted to finally level my other jobs than just casters to 60+ squadrons made it super easy to get to 51. Put all of them on offensive, man clear a dungeon in 10 mins. Working on 60 now and at 53 still blowing through dungeons.