[dev1010] Spirits

[Malamasala]

We are at yet another job adjustments but no sight of spirits adjustments. When are they coming? There hasn't been a single spirit update since I bought this game 2003. (Not counting adding thunder spirit and dark spirit scrolls or Elemental Siphon, because neither of them adjusted spirits)

The issue is so severe it should have highest priority, borderline emergency maintenance level, and yet it seems to not even be considered. I've reported this issue every single year, and it seems like I'm wasting my time.

The worst part is probably that I haven't even gotten any feedback on this from the development team. Just constant new false hope from comments like "Thank you for your feedback, we'll look into this." Well, you've looked into it 8 years, do you have any form of reply to give me now?

What do one have to do to be worthy of getting a developer reply, if waiting 8 years is not good enough? Should I crawl on my legs and beg? I perfectly understand they can't reply to everything, but one 8 year old issue seems to me like a good candidate if they are going to reply to anything this year.

Am I perhaps not making it clear what question to forward to the development team?

"Not a single Summoner uses spirits since long before 2003. Are there any plans to update them? The problem is that they have too long wait between spells, are too random in spell selection and have to wait max delay after using the abilities "assault" and "retreat"".

It has gotten so bad, that currently I value a reply higher than an actual update. And I value an update really high.

[Dallas]

There have been 2 types of spirits released since WotG that show that SE no longer feels the old spirits are worthy opponents, but no evidence that these spirits will be released to SMN.

1) The "copycat" fiends in Campaign. These spirits cast whatever spell the SMN casts. This would be a great addition, if SMN had any real spells besides summons. Perhaps if they allowed Addendum: Dark Arts to expand past the subjob level, this would be acceptible.

2) The multi-element spirits in Abyssea. I don't see these spirits being any better than the junk we have.

The problem is that spirits are flawed from the ground up. You can't magically make them effective.

[Swords]

Siphon aside the only thing I can think of that SE did to spirits was adjust their behavior in casting spells, and the spirits spell repetuar. The only real problem that spirits have is an unreliable nature when it comes to casting, but I think you should take it upon yourself to find a practical use for these spirits to at least give them more meaning.

Example: Use spirits to help with yellow triggers in abyssea. They won't have all the spells but still have a few of them to use.

Additionally I would like to move to give Sprits updated spells to augment them with the recent level increase.

[Unaisis]

smn spirits can proc Yellow? O.o thats Kewl XD

[Swords]

I don't honestly know if they can or not, I don't play SMN. I don't see why they could'nt since all that really matters is the spell lands cleanly, but I've never really seen a SMN actually try to trigger Yellow with a spirit so it could'nt hurt to investigate.

[Karbuncle]

We might see more adjustments in the future, There's usually ~2/3 Installments.

Or we might not.

Who knows :|

Seems unlikely from 90~95 we wont see any new JA/JT, So at the very least we can look forward to "Additions"

[Miera]

Actually Spirits CAN proc yellow believe it or not. I was with a few friends fighting the Penguin NM out in Abyssea and we needed Freeze to proc and I had whipped out my Spirit and it did Cast said spell and proced. It was sheer luck and I wish I could have screen shotted it but I keep forgetting how to do that since I switched to PC.

I will keep saying this like I said in another thread, I think Spirits mechanics should be more like the Automaton's, even though the Automaton's AI is bad the Spirits are faaaar worse and at least the Automaton casts every 30ish seconds.

Automatons have the ability to see a Monster's health and determine what spell to use on it, I think a Spirit should. A Automaton See's its Master as well as their Party in low Health and it cures, I think Light Spirit should do that. Also Automaton have spell priory (which should be changed) and it is I think it was Na-spell > Heal > Enfeeble > Nuke and I think Spirits should work the same way.

Sorry edit, it was Freeze on account we didn't HAVE a BLM and that's what spell we were missing besides Blizzaga III

[Krisan]

I don't see how they were ever meant to even have ANY kind of use pre-siphon.. You can't control them, they have a ridiculous perp cost, and their spellcasting is sporadic and unreliable at best. In fact, on average the perp cost on these things is HIGHER than that of sustaining an avatar.. Why? Why on the face of Vana'diel would a tiny spirit cost more than the avatar of a powerful almost godlike entity?

Honestly.. Why not just remove the perp cost to them entirely (or at least lower it to something like 1MP/tick)? That might actually make them worth summoning from time to time.. And since you can't control them directly, or even rely upon them to do much, I don't think it would be all that unbalanced. Would give SMN something to throw out there in an emergency while they find a means of recovering MP, or.. just offer them a less useful Carbuncle replacement in every elemental flavor.

I don't know, ANYTHING would be better than what we have now.

[Miera]

Actually, you can Merit the Spirits perp cost down but I think they would cost the same that the normal Avatars would when you did, however, perp- cost doesn't apply anymore when it comes to Abyssea when you have /RDM MM Stormbird Full Moon Foeflayer, ect.. just me with the appropriate staff and MM and casting refresh on Myself which isn't needed my Spirits are free!

[Krisan]

Actually, you can Merit the Spirits perp cost down but I think they would cost the same that the normal Avatars would when you did, however, perp- cost doesn't apply anymore when it comes to Abyssea when you have /RDM MM Stormbird Full Moon Foeflayer, ect.. just me with the appropriate staff and MM and casting refresh on Myself which isn't needed my Spirits are free!

I tend to think outside of Abyssea when it comes to balance adjustments, because really.. Abyssea is pretty absurd, practically every job is a god inside of Abyssea as it is already. I think having more options outside of Abyssea would be nice personally, but I admittedly don't know what the ideal solution is to making these things useful.