Lower the Player Requirement for TF/SF?

Last week the strike target is Tin Mage. It seems to me that most people just join Trial team to unlock Alpha and advance than trying to do "shard runs" or weekly for Wells.

I don't blame them because I am one of them too. I find doing trials a much faster way to get Incarnate abilities.

However, I also like to do regular Strike Forces. I like change of scenery too. The problem I had is it took me much longer to form a Tin Mage than before. In fact, in one of the runs we had to use a "dummy" (basically a second account) to start the SF.

With player population being "imbalanced" (meaning a large portion playing 50s and not enough in other zones), is it too much to ask for a reduction in the Player Requirement?

I am not asking for a reduced mob size or anything. Keep the same mob size for x8 players. We just want to start the SF and enjoy the challenge and rewards in the end.

We've done Apex with 5 people before and we loved it. We didn't want to do it on purpose but since trials came out, it is much harder to form a full team for Apex/Tin Mage. We had to use two dummy accounts and one player crashed. The problem with dummy account is that we don't always have dummy accounts available.

The SFs that could use reduction in player requirement:
Lady Grey down to 6
Tin Mage down to 6
Apex down to 6
ITF down to 4

Any thoughts?

The only argument I can think of is that "oh, that means people can farm those SFs easier!". Well, how is this different from farming in AE? If you want to allow farms, you might as well let the players to do the contents the dev created easier. If the # of player is lessen, we can do those SFs easier and get Shard pieces.

Well, one is a bit too extreme but hey, I don't mind if they don't put any # of player restriction.

Personally, I'd like to see them made available in Ouro the way the Calvin Scott TF and original Positron TF are. But I'm weird like that.

Because there's no way you could ever finish the Justin Augustine TF with less than 8 people.

(For those that have never done it... it's almost entirely hunts.)

As always, I'm all for no/lower team size requirements to start things.

/Sign for removing minimum player number for trials and TFs.

Add a "red lettered warning" that the contact recommends the player to recruit at least [insert old number restriction] of fellow heroes, rogues, villains. But give us the freedom to choose how many people we want.

Would love a reduction in minimums, at the least down to 4 since that would let both of the static teams I'm in to roll some new content. Well new for me since I've done almost no TF's, and no SF's in my almost 6 years of playing.