Alliances for your squads

Until today an alliance and a squad could not exist in the same group. The invite was refused out loud, and that refusal was honest: the alliance windows had no idea how to show your characters, so letting them in meant letting them fight invisibly.

Not any more. Alliances admit squads, party by party.

The shape

Each player is their own party: you, plus up to five of your alt-trusts. Three such parties can ally — eighteen characters, every one of them rendered in the party and alliance windows with the right name, the right bars, and the right party tag, on every client in the group.

• Two players with full squads: an alliance of twelve.
• Three players with full squads: the full eighteen.
• Mixed groups work too — a real six-person party can ally with a squad party, and seats inside each party still follow the six-seat rule from the last update.

Stock trusts follow the same rule now: the retail block that dismissed Shantotto the moment an alliance formed is gone. One rule, same windows, same ceiling.

Four new commands

The game client polices grouping in its own menus: with summons out it greys the Invite button, greys the alliance Request, and quietly swallows the accept dialog for anyone whose squad is up. The server cannot un-grey a client button — so the server answers to typed commands instead:

• !padd <character> — invite a player to your party when the button will not.
• !pally <character> — invite another party into an alliance with yours. Both sides lead their party; a summoned squad already counts as one.
• !join — accept whatever invite is pending on you. This is the one you will actually need: with a squad out, the game hides its own dialog and /join refuses.
• !decline — the other answer.

Native menus keep working everywhere the client allows them. The typed verbs only add reach — every seat rule and refusal still has the final say, and it speaks in chat.

It fights like an alliance, not just a picture

• Alliance-wide magic — a Curaga from the other party, alliance buffs — reaches allied squad members, not just the humans.
• Allied trust HP bars move in every window in the alliance.
• Cures and single-target help that work on an allied player work on their squad members too.

The honest parts

• Level sync still targets humans, and battlefield rules are unchanged — this update is about the open world.
• The "request to join" button in the search window has never reached anyone on any server running this codebase. Use the typed commands.
• If an alliance window ever draws something strange, say so with a screenshot — the rendering half of this shipped after two clients proved it, but eighteen characters find corners two did not.

One economy adjustment

The Curio Vendor Moogle's equipment tab is now priced at ten times its old asking prices. Gil accrues quickly here, and gear that strong should not cost an afternoon. Medicine, ammunition, tools, food, scrolls and keys are untouched.