Which part of summoner's rotation am I meant to find satisfying?

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

I dont know. I really enjoy SMN. The visuals are great, the rotation is smooth. I like having to choose which primal I aspect I call out based on mechanics and movement. It's actually replaced RDM as my favorite caster.

My only real complaint with the class is that you can't use the shield unless Carbuncle is out, which means a lot of the time it's not available when you actually need it.

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I can see the appeal of it, I think especially on prog it'll be solid for that easy rotation to pay maximum attention to mechanics.
I also do see A LOT of SMN players so clearly a lot of people are happy with it too, I don't think it'd be as popular if it was somehow as hated as one can often get the impression that it is online.

That said tho it is very on rails and I can understand it being disappointing to have your main Job just change like that so drastically and be totally unrecognizable.
Especially if you don't like Jobs this simple and you want more engaging rotations.
Imo I think SMN might be a lot better for people who are unhappy with it next expansion but it does feel a bit unfinished and that rly sucks to a lot of people.
It's honestly kinda odd when I look at my hotbar for SMN how empty it feels compared to others.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

I can see the appeal of it, I think especially on prog it'll be solid for that easy rotation to pay maximum attention to mechanics.
I also do see A LOT of SMN players so clearly a lot of people are happy with it too, I don't think it'd be as popular if it was somehow as hated as one can often get the impression that it is online.

That said tho it is very on rails and I can understand it being disappointing to have your main Job just change like that so drastically and be totally unrecognizable.
Especially if you don't like Jobs this simple and you want more engaging rotations.
Imo I think SMN might be a lot better for people who are unhappy with it next expansion but it does feel a bit unfinished and that rly sucks to a lot of people.
It's honestly kinda odd when I look at my hotbar for SMN how empty it feels compared to others.

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I am not sure if popularity necessarily correlates with enjoyability.

For example, the recent 6.0 job opinion poll conducted on the Chinese official forums showed that among those polled, SMN was the most-played as a secondary job, however SMN also had the lowest job satisfaction rating. This might have had something to do with the fact that more than half the respondents also rated SMN a 0 on the difficulty scale (original wording: ‘as long as you have hands’).

I’ve seen many comments here and on other forums that EW SMN is useful for when one is feeling lazy or trying out a new fight, as one does not have to engage with job mechanics, which would interfere with the pursuit of laziness or doing fight mechanics. That would certainly add to the job’s popularity, but it doesn’t say anything about the enjoyability of the job.

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Originally Posted by Ibbers

I am not sure if popularity necessarily correlates with enjoyability.

For example, the recent 6.0 job opinion poll conducted on the Chinese official forums showed that among those polled, SMN was the most-played as a secondary job, however SMN also had the lowest job satisfaction rating. This might have had something to do with the fact that more than half the respondents also rated SMN a 0 on the difficulty scale (original wording: ‘as long as you have hands’).

I’ve seen many comments here and on other forums that EW SMN is useful for when one is feeling lazy or trying out a new fight, as one does not have to engage with job mechanics, which would interfere with the pursuit of laziness or doing fight mechanics. That would certainly add to the job’s popularity, but it doesn’t say anything about the enjoyability of the job.

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Maybe, but I also think that there is a scale to what extent people dislike it or don't enjoy it as much as they want to.
And I don't think that for most it lines up with the most negative views and takes you hear here.
If most people actually disliked it that much then I don't think they'd play it.
If they're unsatisfied but still play it then I don't think it's on that level really, people aren't going to torture themselves just for the sake of playing SMN.

I think that a lot of people tho will play SMN when learning a fight and then swap later when they're comfortable with the mechanics to a more engaging Job.
I think a lot of people do that too with WHM for example and then swap over to AST.
SMN being the most played *as a secondary Job* kinda supports my point.

I am not saying it's good or bad, for playing something as a main it's bad for me because I prefer more engaging Jobs.
I am just saying that there's certain value to it as well and that there are people who do like it even as a main Job.
Unless they want to heal I am not sure what other Job they'd have to pick from really.
But I do think it is appealing to some people and not some universally negative thing for a Job to be simple to this extent.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

But I do think it is appealing to some people and not some universally negative thing for a Job to be simple to this extent.

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Then they should've made a new job to fill that "to go for easy mode" cases and not a job that was still around for all this time. And I'm not even talking about the process of rework to introduce the bigger summons, because reworking a job and making it braindead are two different things.

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Originally Posted by Dahlinea

Then they should've made a new job to fill that "to go for easy mode" cases and not a job that was still around for all this time. And I'm not even talking about the process of rework to introduce the bigger summons, because reworking a job and making it braindead are two different things.

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I think people would still have complained, especially if it was a new Job because people would've felt like it was '' lazy and a waste of slot ''.
Imagine if a new Job came out and it played like SMN I think we'd never hear the end of it I actually think it'd be significantly worse.

Look, I don't disagree that SMN is boring.
That's not my point.
My original response was to Ryaz and I think there definitely are quite a lot of people like Ryaz too who do enjoy it.
Acknowledging that isn't me saying that I enjoy it or think it's good, but I think it's a bit silly to act like it's some inherent matter of truth that all need to agree with.
I am just trying to be a bit more nuanced than '' bad cuz I say so ''.
Even if I don't fundamentally disagree about most stated views on SMN here I still think that it's valid for people to have different views and preferences to.

It does suck if you enjoyed SMN in the past but I don't think that somehow negates other peoples thoughts and feelings on SMN in its current form they're still allowed to think and feel how they do about it.

The thing is that that those players who enjoyed the old summoner, those who had a job taken from them, when the new summoner could have just been an entirely separate job, are the ones who seem most willing to compromise in every discussion I've seen. They aren't asking for complete reversal, just that there's a little bit more depth added to the current version so that it isn't by far the most braindead DPS in the game, and at least fulfills the basic criterion of belonging in the caster role.

I've never been SMN player myself, but it's really obvious to me which side is the reasonable one here.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

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This is going to happen regardless, lets say that they added Ranger as a new Job and they made this the '' easy mode '' Job so to speak.
You don't think people would be mad about that too?
You're going to upset people no matter what you do with this and whichever Job you do this with.
And I don't think it's some kind of a rule that we're all obligated to agree with that Jobs always need to stay the same in this sense and that they can never change.

I've said before too numerous of times that I understand being upset about it and that I'd be too but it's kinda besides the point.
It doesn't negate that there are people who are happy about it and their views are valid too and they also had no other choice before ( except Healers, but they still have more buttons lol ).
I can still disagree with their thoughts and feelings on it and at the same time acknowledge them as valid and that there is merit to a Job being like this too.
It's not an all or nothing where there's just no upsides to current SMN and where everyone who likes it are just wrong.
And not everyone who is dissatisfied with it are going to be as dissatisfied to the same level and extent as some people in this thread are.
Someone being dissatisfied doesn't mean that they HATE the way it is and want it to go back to previous iterations which I think is how a lot of people are interpreting it.
They can actually still like current SMN and prefer it over the old SMN and still be dissatisfied both at the same time.

Tbh I don't think that most people partaking in these discussions are willing to compromise I think that per usual it's mostly just yelling and refusing to even attempt to view things from a different pov.
Whether there should be a compromise to begin with is a different matter.
I had plenty of arguments with people about that in regards to MNK leading up to EW and in the past before that too because there have been people with drastically different views on how MNK '' should '' play and want it to change fundamentally.
The reason why those people frustrate me as well as a lot of other people on this forum ( and the internet in general ) is that everyone is talking as if what they want and prefer is some inherently objective and infallible truth.

It's fine for example to not like positionals, but I think that when you act like positionals are objectively wrong and horrible design and then very aggressively act like they *NEED* to be removed is when you step over the line.
There's no discussion or compromise to be had there.
And it's the same when people get mad at others for saying that they prefer current SMN or when people who prefer current SMN get mad at people who want it to go back.
I think a lot of people have this mindset that if someone prefers current SMN then they need to be convinced into not enjoying it.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

and at least fulfills the basic criterion of belonging in the caster role.

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On this point too it's kinda the same thing, when did we decide that casters need to hardcast?
I am assuming this is what you're getting at if I am mistaken you can correct me.

Personally I prefer hardcasting, I even enjoyed Bowmage LOL.
But would you think it'd be wrong if they added a new caster Job too and it didn't need to hardcast? Or is it only for SMN and the others that needs to hardcast?
Can we have no physical ranged Jobs that hardcast?

I mean '' caster '' is a fairly narrow term we use but we're mainly talking about '' spellcasters/ magic users '' I don't think it was meant to mean just Jobs and Classes that hardcast spells.
I think it's entirely possible for us to get a great and super complex SMN that doesn't hardcast.
I don't think it needs to do that to fit into that criteria.

I think a sniper Job with limited mobility that was all about entrenching into a position and doing long casts with powerful sniper shots would be really cool it's one of my most wanted things in FFXIV.
But I don't think the hardcasts would stop it from fitting into the physical ranged criteria.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

You don't think people would be mad about that too?

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No, they really, really wouldn't be. They already added the easy mode melee in Reaper and no one cares.

Also the point is they shrunk the entire caster role to just 2 jobs, 1 of which has "half-caster" as its gimmick already. Why on earth would people be upset about that I wonder.

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And yes abso-fucking-lutely does caster need to actually hardcast more than once a minute to be an actual caster. That's literally what casting means in gameplay terms. Hell, forget SAM not being considered a melee caster despite having to hard casts once in a while, even NIN is more of a caster than SMN at this point. Maybe you don't lose mobility, but at least the mudras take some prepwork before you can fire them. Having to prepare a spell before firing it is quite exactly why it's called "casting". Otherwise it's just a regular ranged job with a paintjob.