FFXIV Shadowbringers Dungeon Trust System

This post may contain minor spoilers for FFXIV: Shadowbringers. I am trying avoid major ones, though.

Final Fantasy XIV launched early access for its latest expansion, Shadowbringers, this weekend. I'm still in the middle of the story, so no comments on that yet. However, I thought I'd take a look at one of the new systems introduced: Trusts for dungeons.

The new 4-man dungeons in Shadowbringers can be done entirely with NPCs. The NPCs available depend on the story line leading to the dungeon. All the roles are covered, though, so the player can choose any role.

I've done the first three dungeons using the Trust system, playing as a tank. In general it works quite well. The NPCs do mechanics correctly, they move out of AoEs, and stack appropriately. It's actually pretty useful, as you can just mimic them if you don't know what to do for a particular mechanic. You cannot give the NPCs any orders, they just do their thing, as if you were playing with other players.

There's also no queue time for the dungeons when using a Trust. It works better with the story, as using the same NPCs makes it feel more seamless, and allows SE to add appropriate commentary.

SE also tried to add some personality into how the NPCs do things. For example, there's one fight which creates a chasm between the party and the boss. There's a thin zig-zagging bridge you can use to cross the chasm. One NPC, who's something of a hothead, just ran across the bridge with no hesitation. Another one, a magic-user, used a personal teleport spell to get across. The third NPC is timid, and she slowly and hesitantly walked across. She did not make it across before the rest of us finished that mechanic.

So why play with normal people instead of using a Trust? The biggest difference is that the NPCs are slow and have lower DPS. They do not AoE at all, and single-target everything. Even in pulls which have eight small things, and are quintessential AoE pulls, the NPCs will kill one by one. It isn't that bad, as they will focus the same target, and are generally very predictable, so tanking is easy.

The first dungeon I did with a Trust took 35 minutes, with no wipes. I estimate it would have taken around 25 minutes with a normal group of players. So using the NPC Trust increases the time taken by 50% or so. However there is no queue time.

As a result of this, I think people will be very happy to use Trusts for the first time through the dungeon, while doing the story. But after that, when leveling other classes, they'll probably choose to play with other people. A few people--who really don't want to play with others--will stick with Trusts. It was pretty clever of SE to use time as the factor to separate players and NPCs, while ensure that ultimate success is still the likely outcome.