FF14: No Plans For Hard Dungeon Trust Support Outside Of Main Quest, Says Yoshi-P

Final Fantasy 14's Duty and Trust Support systems have been a saving grace for players looking to run through Dungeons solo, with a band of NPCs at their side. There are a number of benefits to running these Dungeons using Duty Support, but it's not to every player's taste. For example, both Duty and Trust Support drastically reduce the wait time when queuing for Dungeons as a party is filled instantly with NPCs.

A downside to using these systems is that it tends to take players a lot longer to run through the Dungeons. An NPC party is rarely as efficient as one made up of real players, meaning that the NPCs might not fufill their roles quite as effectively. But, for many the Duty and Trust System has been incredibly useful when pushing through the Main Scenario Quests. So what about the harder, Level 71+ Dungeons that fall outside of the main story? Well, it seems the answer might be a little disappointing to some.

FF14 Scions Could Join In With Players' Adventures In Place Of NPCs

Speaking at a press conference during Final Fantasy 14 London 2023 Fan Fest, director Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) revealed that players shouldn't expect to see the Trust Support system head to these harder, non-main story Dungeons anytime soon: "At this current point in time, if we are talking about hard Dungeons which fall outside of the Main Scenario, we don't have plans to introduce Trust Support."

As for the reasoning, Yoshi-P went on to state, "...this was something I touched upon in the keynote, but in Dawntrail there will be several new NPCs making their appearance, and we’re currently really hard at work implementing the AI for those." 

Further expanding on this, the director said, "There's another reason: so the Scions are the main NPCs that we implement in the content. We’ve planned it out so that it kind of makes sense in terms of what they are doing that specific point in time. So, it's tied in, basically, to the progress of the Main Scenario.

So, rather than using this system to tackle hard Dungeons with NPCs, I think it would be more interesting if, for example, you take Scions and expand on that idea of using the Scions to go on an adventure, and utilise that in various other types of content."

So while we may not see Trust Support roll out for these optional Dungeons, there could be some brand new features that players can look forward to in Dawntrail. We'll likely learn more as we approach the release of the next expansion, currently set to arrive in Summer 2024.