I'm One Of The Filthiests Of Casuals And Even I Can See How Dumbdown FF14 Has Become!

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Originally Posted by Renathras

To be fair, we don't KNOW the reasons. Anyone using this argument you are assumes the reasons, but has no proof to support them,

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Yes, because the proof definitely isn't there that summoner beats red mage in all levels of play. That summoner is clearly the winner over black mage in many statics due to ease of use, res, and the damage is good enough for the dps caster to not matter. That there's nearly double the amount of summoners in savage compared to red mage, and more than triple of black mage is more than enough proof. We have proof, we just can't mention the forbidden site else we get banned for it despite being the only way to have data on how to play the game, and how others play the game.

A summoner has a stranglehold on caster role because they simply do everything too well and they have the best utility in the game: a battle res. They're the best caster prog class by a mile and deal far too much damage with how easy they are to play. If the damage between red mage and summoner was swapped, they would still perform more, and better on average? Why? The class is too simple and too effective in what it does. If people want the class to be so simple, they need to lose the battle res. Unless SE makes the job harder (they won't), then it is the only way to balance it even though people will lose their minds over it.

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Originally Posted by Enjuden

Yes, because the proof definitely isn't there that summoner beats red mage in all levels of play. That summoner is clearly the winner over black mage in many statics due to ease of use, res, and the damage is good enough for the dps caster to not matter. That there's nearly double the amount of summoners in savage compared to red mage, and more than triple of black mage is more than enough proof. We have proof, we just can't mention the forbidden site else we get banned for it despite being the only way to have data on how to play the game, and how others play the game.

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That's proof it's most played. Everyone agrees with that.

That's not proof it isn't most played because it's fun and people actually enjoy playing it.

"It's too good" is also only an argument that describes a possible use among high end players (hyper-min/maxers who don't actually care about "fun" and will play what is "the best"), not for the rest of the playerbase, where the Job is also highly played.

Also: RDM is still better for prog since it has better Raise potential. But that's a different argument. SMN's raise is FAR weaker than RDM's since they don't have access to Dualcast.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Using raw player counts in this instance is pretty silly. It's the simplest job in the game even including tanks and healers. Obviously the lowest common denominator job will have the most people. Not to mention you get it for free with Scholar.

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And the "lowest common denominator job" will always have to be something. In this case it's Summoner.

I'm not understanding the real point here. If SE has a class that is so accessible it increases engagement with the game, then it's a win for them. If all classes were challenging to engage with, they'd probably lose some players.

Even higher level PVP games have the braindead champs that a novice can pick up as they play the game a few times a year. LOL has Sona for example, where you just press buttons and barely have to aim or worry about anything other than positioning.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

That's proof it's most played. Everyone agrees with that.

That's not proof it isn't most played because it's fun and people actually enjoy playing it.

"It's too good" is also only an argument that describes a possible use among high end players (hyper-min/maxers who don't actually care about "fun" and will play what is "the best"), not for the rest of the playerbase, where the Job is also highly played.

Also: RDM is still better for prog since it has better Raise potential. But that's a different argument. SMN's raise is FAR weaker than RDM's since they don't have access to Dualcast.

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I'm sure people find it fun, but again, you'd need an official poll, which SE is hilariously intent on never having for whatever reason. I can't even remember the last poll they did for jobs that are currently played. 2.X era, maybe? I wasn't even using clears as a data point, just attempts on 'Summoner most popular'.

I'd still argue there's way too many ways for a Red Mage to mess up their rotation and cratering their dps that the double res isn't worth the trouble of having a summoner who has nearly zero chance to mess up their rotation and have a single res. If you're ressing two it's a wipe anyway more than likely. Simply too many ways for a red mage to get lost within their own hot bars compared to 'Just press the shiny button and win'. Still, different topic.

"It's too good" is an argument that can be used in non MSQ/24 man levels of play whether you like it or not. Plenty of other companies use this argument regardless of the level of use. Any moba that's still around, for instance.

^there was JP job satisfaction surveys that went till about 5.3, after the response to the healer changes came back terribly unpopular they seem to have dropped even though

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

^there was JP job satisfaction surveys that went till about 5.3, after the response to the healer changes came back terribly unpopular they seem to have dropped even though

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They need to do one for endwalker

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Originally Posted by Enjuden

I'm sure people find it fun, but again,...

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Ah, I see. Maybe you misunderstood my prior post? But that was my point as well. Often people say everyone just plays SMN because it's easy/"good" in terms of the meta, but that people don't actually like playing it. They just play it for the performance or whatnot.

I was arguing against that, saying the only way we could know that would be if we asked all the players. All that we DO know is that it's widely played. So I don't think we're in disagreement?

As for RDM: I specifically was referring to where you said for prog: "They're the best caster prog class by a mile". For prog, SMN is not the best Caster by a mile. You aren't going for clears, you're trying to see additional mechanics, so people dying and being chain raised IS the best way to do that. This includes more than two people dying. "It's a wipe anyway" is what prog is all about. The point isn't to get the clear (right off), it's to see more mechanics and work out how to survive them. Damage isn't relevant until you get to add phases (or Ultimate phases) where dealing a certain amount of damage is required to move on to the next part. But even there, RDM is still simpler than the other competitor in the role (BLM) and offers the Raise, so for things without SUPER tight damage checks (or any at all) on the individual phases, RDM is the superior Caster for prog.

The transition is made from RDM to SMN once the party thinks they have a handle on all the mechanics of the fight (or phase) and are ready to push for a clear of the fight (or phase).

So I was talking about the specific case you mentioned - prog - not more general when I said that.

As for the "It's too good"; what I mean is that a lot of people don't level tons of Jobs. They don't have RDM and SMN and BLM all at level 90 and geared and swap between them to whichever one is "good". They do the one they like best. You might also know, if you look at the forbidden sight for 24 man engagement, RDM is still very popular in them. Meaning it's very popular with the general playerbase. The place it isn't popular? High end raiders. Which is...kinda what I'm talking about.

EDIT:

Specifically, the order (by total number of submitted runs for Nophica as an exaple), is SMN, DNC, RPR, RDM, MCH, SAM, BRD, BLM, DRG, NIN, MNK. RDM is about 3/4rds of what SMN is (28k vs 36k, or about 78%), and BLM less still than that, but a decent 50%/18k. The Job getting clobbered is MNK, though, with the least by far.

Note also that DNC and RPR are more played than RDM, so it's not just SMN beating it out.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

They need to do one for endwalker

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Honestly, I agree.

I'm not sure they'd make it public, but they really should do one of the playerbase (like from the launcher/with your account so people can't cheese the system). Even if they didn't reveal the results, it could be useful for them to get info on what people want, like, and don't like about things. They could do it for Jobs and also for Roles since the two might help them best parse how to proceed and what players do and don't like and want.

Most anything else, like us here or a Reddit thread, etc, is going to have selection bias and be more anecdotal. But SE (and SE alone) has the power to poll the entire playerbase if they wanted.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

They need to do one for endwalker

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player made surveys are the closest you're gonna get for the time being. ty_taurus made one a few months back and though the sample size is pretty small compared to the usual ShB job satisfaction survey, it's still worth checking out in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by VentVanitas

player made surveys are the closest you're gonna get for the time being. ty_taurus made one a few months back and though the sample size is pretty small compared to the usual ShB job satisfaction survey, it's still worth checking out in my opinion.

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for those who don't want to go through the effort of searching, here's the thread mentioned: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...esign-Feedback

If you haven't given your feedback in this thread yet I'd recommend it.

Ok...I have seen and looked over many of the comments from this initial post I did a few days back. I want to mention a few additional things:

1. I use a alt toon for posting on these forums. I have done this for over 7 years now stemming from a situation that occurred in the beginning of 2017 with a very large FC I ran. Players on these forums dogged members of my original FC so bad because of a take that I had that it made the FC go into shambles. You can believe me that this happened or not, that is up to you. But from that experience going forward, I learned to never use your main toon as highlight to your posts because as IRL, there are sketchy/unhinged people everywhere.

2. I don't like the direction they took Summoner what so ever. I enjoyed Summoner being a "dot" job as it made it unique amoung all the other casters in comparison to what we have today. If you doubt this, let me explain.

BLM: Hard caster who does massive high damage spells.
RDM: Utility caster who has 2 dynamic modes of play, one being phase prep at range to make 50-60% meter charge for either AOE/single target rotation in melee.
SUM(Pre-EDW): Semi-Hard Caster who does Dots to debuff a target either single target/AOE. Uses different summon based on type of target they are facing. Ifrit: Single/Melee, Garuda: Range/AOE, Titan: Single/Tank.

If you cannot see how dynamically different these caster jobs were from what they are now, I do not know what to tell you. This is what made Summoner unique. Yes, BLM was always considered supposedly the "hardest" caster role, but even BLM can be easy depending on skill and muscle memory over time. But Summoner was considered the go between of BLM and RDM. This dynamic worked. Yet it is totally gone to make Summoner today nothing more that a laziest caster to play with semi RDM movement/BLM damage dynamics. Even with the new caster job coming in 7.0, unless SE does something to Summoner to make it in someway more challenging to play other than only need to spam 3 buttons in 4 phases...it destroys a balance of dynamic in each Job which makes them all unique.

3. I respect the effort SE made to make Summoner feel more like the Jobs historic signature. I have played FF1 to FF16 with FF2-FF6 being my personal favorites. I understand precisely how the "Summoner" type job/position is suppose to feel stemming from Espers in FF6 to summons in FF5 so on and so forth. I remember all to well also FF11 Summoner. But in my opinion, FF14 made Summoner unique. It took aspects of previous Summoners in past games and mixed into a job that used spells that were historically key to past FF games. Miasma, Bio...these Dot spells have been a cornerstone to FF history. Yet they are gone with only SCH or healers in general having a Job variation of them. I believe that SE could have kept some aspects of what made Summoner unique while including the newer aspects they added. I.E., they could have kept the dots, Ifrit Phase could have had its dot that it had from the original design, then Garuda had Miasma and Titan had Bio(alot of fantasy games have earth type spells/abilities tied to poison/disease type spells). But these are merely my thoughts.

Bottomline, FF14 needs a harder to play Summoner. I know alot of you will disagree with me here or be vitriolic for this opinion. No one Job should be so massively over represented as we have seen with Summoner in Endwalker because of dumbdowned design. Jobs in my opinion are supposed to speak to a individual player based on the dynamics that job provides to them when they play FF14. I ask you...do you play Summoner because you enjoy its aesthetics, the sound of its abilities, the style of how it plays, the utility it provides...or do you play it for a minuscle amount of considerations I have mentioned and mostly because its easy, because you know you will do top dps with a minimum of skill in comparison to other jobs that take at least 2x the effort to be comparable to in damage/utility? If your answer is the latter, then you will drop Summoner in the drop of a hat when another Job pops up that is the new "easy mode". And for myself even if you massively regard me with negativity for this opinion...I find it incredibly sad and pathetic!

I want to say first off...I'm sorry about your past experience. Some people are a bit unhinged and do things they shouldn't. I don't know - nor want to know - the details, but your actions are completely understandable.

Your post also seems to be well written and thought out, so while I don't agree with your positions, I can respect you as a person and the sincerity your post seems to me to express.

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Originally Posted by TheRealMadruck

I ask you...do you play Summoner because you enjoy its aesthetics, the sound of its abilities, the style of how it plays, the utility it provides...

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Yes.

In 2014 I started the game with CNJ. I got to level 50 on WHM a bit after the next patch (2.4?) because I distinctly remember when the floodgates of NIN were opened, riding a "7 NIN lf healer" FATE train all over Northern Thanalan to get my last several levels to 50 before going back to finish the MSQ...

Partly due to the cross-class system and partly due to curiosity, I ended ARR with four Jobs at level 50: WHM, SCH/SMN, and PLD. SCH because doing Castrum and Praetorium, I saw Sacred Soil and read the buff tooltip and the idea of shielding my allies sounded really cool so I wanted to level it (bonus points, I already had the CNJ levels for the SCH unlock), and SMN since I was leveling ACN anyway and needed some THM levels for Swiftcast. (PLD was my ever-present desire to be able to switch between roles if needed, and having played one in WoW for both healing and tanking, and already having the CNJ and some GLD levels; leveling back then took awhile, so that kinda mattered to me.)

I've played SMN nearly from the start, and instantly loved ACN. I thought being able to use Titan to tank in the world (and dungeon trash if tanks dropped) while being the pocket healer myself with Sustain and Physic, was a pretty sweet deal. I also liked Ruin 2 giving me movement whenever I needed it. I've never been a fan of DoTs, though, in any class, in any game. So I more put up with them than enjoyed them. I liked ARR SMN, even if I probably sucked at it, which mattered a lot less because...well...everyone did back then.

But even in ARR, I started calling it by a different name: Green Caller.

<color> Caller is a seldom used title in FF games, but it's basically like how Red Mage is a mix of low-to-mid level Black Mage and White Mage. In this case, a mix of <color> Mage and Summoner. It's not a true summoner. It's more like if a RDM learned 2-3 weak but utilitarian Summon spells. I never really FELT like it was a Summoner, as it felt far more like a WoW Warlock with the pet and DoT focus. Green Magic is the magic of debuffing and, occasionally, buffing. Poison, Bio, stuff like that, is Green Magic. And so a Green Caller would be a DoT mage with egis, so to speak.

And I wasn't alone in thinking this.

When HW's SMN was teased, I remember everyone getting excited. "Building up to using Bahamut's attack?! That at least KIND of feels like what a Summoner is supposed to be; long cast time into big attack via their summoned eidolon." Granted, there was no eidolon in this case, but at least people felt it was KIND of moving in the right direction, and the general consensus seemed to be, "Well, this still isn't actually a Summoner, but at least we can feel a little bit like one and maybe this is the best they can do with this engine?". I remember then when SB was coming around how Demi-Bahamut blew people's minds. "FINALLY!", they cried, "We get an ACTUAL Summoner!"

Like, it's hard to explain to someone who wasn't there just how big a deal that was to the Summoner community, and the wider playerbase at large. People were picking up SMN in advance of SB because they wanted to be able to plop their very own Bahamut on the battlefield, too!

No one really seemed to ever feel that pre-SB SMN was a Summoner. I know "no one" is probably hyperbole and there will be some people who will say they did, but the vast majority seemed not to. It wasn't until the 1 per minute Demi-Bahamut that people really felt like the Job was what it was actually supposed to be...but that was behind a lot of buildup (back in those days, you had to enter DWT twice and expend the Aether to generate Dreadwyrm Aether and...I don't even remember all the details, but it was as cumbersome and unintuitive as it sounds; people put up with it because Bahamut was so cool) and you really only got to be a "Summoner" for a brief part of your playtime. People kinda put up with it.

Then came ShB, and a lot of things changed. We only needed to DWT once. But then we got Bahamut right away. Then half a minute of filler. Then we got Firebird Trance...but...it...was also Phoenix. A second summon - Yay! \o/ - but...also it worked completely different. Trances refreshed Tri-Disaster, which was reworked into a quick application of our DoTs. But in the 2 minute rotation (SMN was 2 min meta before it was cool/hated?), we had to start with DoTs, throw out DWT, get a bunch of instant cast Ruins, load spots with Egi-Assaults to get 4 Ruin IVs, pop out Bahamut, use Enkindle early so we could get a second before he left, hit as many attacks - which required 4x of the Ruin IVs to be ready - and weave in every oGCD we had access to since Bahamut would Wyrmwave with each (yes, EVEN ADDLE), but also NOT MOVE AN INCH otherwise Baha would try to follow us, canceling his cast...but then we got filler for half a minute after refreshing DoTs...but then FBT. FBT was weird, since it just changed our attack into a 1-2 combo. Which we did 8 (I think?) times. No oGCD weaving, no making Ruin 3 instant cast. It begged the question "Why doesn't Bahamut work this way with DWT, this is so much nicer?" Then a full minute (40 seconds, whatever) of filler, the one time in our 2 min rotation we had to hardcast our DoTs, then refresh once more with Tri-Disaster - and you WERE using those Egi Assaults for movement and to generate 4x more Ruin IVs, right? And not overcapping the ones you got right before going into FBT...you DID use all those before the FBT transition...riiiight? - before starting the whole thing over again.

But at that point, it was ridiculously cumbersome and...dated. As I think the Devs have said, the reason for the DoTs originally was because in ARR they hadn't worked out what Jobs were going to do, so they were a stopgap, not nuanced game design. And by ShB, it showed. You could split the rotation into parts by expansion. DWT was HW, Bahamut was SB, filler was ARR, FBT was ShB, and filler x2 was ARR...again. And the cadence and feeling was all over the place. DWT allowed full freedom of movement, but filler didn't outside of Egi Assaults and Ruin IV (granted, you did have a lot of those). Baha you didn't want to move at all if you could avoid it, and ALL the oGCDs went here that you could cram. The whole kit was all kinds of disjointed mechanics that didn't really relate to each other. "Why does using Egi Assault give me Ruin IV in the first place? Why does Bahamut rely on Ruin IVs? Why does Phoenix NOT?"

It was like a Frakenstein monster where both arms were ARR, the torso and part of a leg was SB, the other leg was HW, and the head was ShB. It was held together largely by duct tape, hope, and wishes, not congruent game design. The tooltips were an absolute disaster, and the rotation was something I don't think literally anyone every worked out on their own. Hours reading guides that were developed over weeks of theory crafting capped by days of personal time with training dummies were needed to really get the Job, and while it was passable to do decently with a bit less, it was still all over the place. There was nothing holding the Job together, and it didn't really make sense until you were deep into it. It reminded me of the prevalent saying shared with the class by my quantum mechanics professor in college, "If you think you understand Quantum Mechanics; you don't.", referencing the counter-intuitive nature of it and how it somewhat require willful suspension of disbelief to really contemplate how practical macro examples of it in the real world would really work.

Then came the EW Media tour.

I remember watching Larryzur's video on it and how absolutely excited he was as he exclaimed (as another SMN player since either ARR or 1.0) that he felt like a Summoner for the first time and he loved the Job and how it flowed, made sense, was united in theme, and had a coherent rotation - for once. Mr Happy, likewise, made similar comments working through the Media Tour build of the Job. People saw the visuals and were enthralled. We FINALLY get to ACTUALLY summon Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan - for real, not deformed chicken nuggets and the like! (I was, in fact, a fan of chicken nugget, but I agreed with the overall sentiment, and we really already lost what made Titan great going into ShB where the Devs got tired of trying to keep SMN pets alive with damage reductions so they weren't dying to raidwides and just made the invincible at that point, which also robbed us of Tank Titan anyway...RIP, nuggy buddy...)

When I first started leveling in EW launch day, I picked SCH, and I dabbled with SMN in Thavnair as I went. The tooltips were a bit much to go into at level 80 (instead of starting at Level 1 and building up as a brand new ACN would now), but as I started piecing together what was what, I realized how...intuitive it was. It just WORKED. It flowed. There was no jank, no weird things to track, no vestigial abilities from two MMOs ago that somehow were still in the Job. It was...fun. Titan's movement, Ifrit's BLM-lite cast times. Then you get the full Primals and their Astral Flows at 90 and OH MY GOD was it FUN to play.

For the first time since running Crystal Tower at level 50, I actually ENJOYED SMN, not merely tolerated it. The Job I'd taken as my DPS for the better part of a decade was no longer an abysmal chore, it was ENJOYABLE. It actually delivered on the promise of the Job's class fantasy. It had some neat stuff on the side mechanically, but it always had those (Devotion party buff, Raise), but now it was also FUN. No annoying DoTs, no weird "eidolon at home" egis. It was a SUMMONER and it was FUN to play.

...though I did have to /petsize all small. :)

So, lots of words to answer your question with an emphatic: Yes!

Yes, I play SMN because I enjoy its aesthetics, the sound of its abilities (Titan's rock hand/the ground slamming on the enemy when my character slams his book shut...ooooh, I can FEEL that! AND I LOVE IT!!!), I love how intuitive and slick and smooth it plays, and I very much do like the utility it provides; nothing's worse than being a DPS in a 4 man dungeon, seeing the healer go down, everyone's dying slowly, we're going to wipe (because leveling dungeon so not everyone is a god), and there's literally nothing I can do but push my buttons harder and hope for the best (this is, specifically, why I never play a DPS that isn't RDM or SMN anymore other than just leveling Jobs grudgingly for quests/story and achievements; because I can't stand not being able to do SOMETHING).

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Originally Posted by TheRealMadruck

or do you play it for a minuscle amount of considerations I have mentioned and mostly because its easy, because you know you will do top dps with a minimum of skill in comparison to other jobs that take at least 2x the effort to be comparable to in damage/utility? If your answer is the latter, then you will drop Summoner in the drop of a hat when another Job pops up that is the new "easy mode".

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I'm not a competitive person. I don't care about doing "top dps" and don't run parsers. This is probably why I main healer and also tanks; I like supporting others, not rubbing their noses on my big numbers. I care about a Job FEELING good to play, being intuitive and understandable to work out, that brings something to the team, and that is fun. That's why I like it. But I also like the aesthetics, the rotation actually being logical and sensible (unlike many other Jobs in the game). I believe if you pretty much have to resort to theorycrafter Discords to figure out the optimal or near optimal way to play a Job, the Job is badly designed.

PERSONALLY, I think hard/complex Jobs are fine and should exist. Because I recognize some people like those, and I want them to exist so those people can be happy with them.

...but I also think the other end of the spectrum should be served as well. In the same 6.0 that they added SMN as a "omg this actually makes sense" Job, they made RDM, which had been pretty fun to play, into kind of a weird optimization fiasco. I think unintentionally, but it just got...weird somehow. Trying to go triple melee into a burst is just offputting, and yet another spell on the end of the combo - I get what they were going for, but making both the Manafication and Resolution change in the same expansion was kind of meh, and cutting the BL/WH Mana costs had the downside of making Enchnated Reprise from a Ruin 2-like tool into something to remove from your bars, removing a bit of fun from the Job in the process. In the end, I still like it overall, but it's like they tinkered with perfection and made it worse and less fun somehow. They made SMN easier, but bumped RDM up to the medium tier.

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I don't regard you with negativity. I believe we can be mature people who understand each other, may still disagree, but can do so respectfully.

I very much wish old SMN's playstyle was still in the game - it's one reason I REALLY hope (though doubt, but still hope) that the Caster they're adding is Green Mage and a complex DoT mage akin to old SMN - because I do know some people liked it.

But I very much ALSO like new SMN and am glad it is in the game, though I honestly feel they could have added it as a new Job or taken the old SMN and made a second Job out of it (since all the work was already done).

I think people that hate new SMN should recognize that other people do genuinely like it. Not because they want to top dps, not because they're lazy, not because they weren't really SMN players before, not because they're braindead, etc etc insertotherinsults. But because it's a well put together and well designed Job and people genuinely enjoy it.

As a playerbase, people have become really disjointed on this stuff, but everyone should really take a step back and realize "Sometimes other people like things that I do not, not for negative reasons I should insult them over, but because they just have different preferences". If we could set aside the insults, I think we could have far more meaningful discussions. We could also end up with more Jobs that more people enjoy and live/play together in some level of harmony, too. There's no reason for everyone to be at odds or in a zero-sum world.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

The statistics of SMN are complicated.

On top of being known for its really low barrier of entry, it's also the only 2-for-1 job in the game with SCH, so it ends up being widely leveled/boosted due to the perceived 'value'. Other 'Easy' jobs see this as well to a lesser extent, as when many players are looking to pick up a single job in a category, they will often pick the easiest one.

It's also popular in raids because in a high-end environment it's tended to be extremely performant in damage, survivability, mobility and party utility. With the lowest skillgap, you can get high value out of the job with very little effort, compared to say week 1 progging on BLM.

Notice though, none of these things are really tied to how 'fun' or 'loved' the job is. I know a lot of people who run SMN during Ultimate and week 1 savage prog, and none of them actually identify as a 'SMN main' even though its the job they play the most, which is pretty telling.

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The Devs really doubled down on SMN's reputation as the caster with Mobility since the beginning of Endwalker. Lots on instant spells with a few casts here and there. But pretty much very similar to a physical ranged for the most part.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

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Believe me I say that I read your entire post and want to thank you for your considerate reply. Be well!

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Originally Posted by TheRealMadruck

I don't like the direction they took Summoner what so ever. I enjoyed Summoner being a "dot" job as it made it unique amoung all the other casters in comparison to what we have today.

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I do understand that this potentially creates room for a new DoT job to replace it. SE was just torn between it summoning things and it being about DoTs so they had to choose one, and the choice was obvious. It's a summoner and needs to summon things.

I think they should either create a new job that fills the role that Summoner once did, or they can put that focus into Bard which is still a DoT job.

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It took aspects of previous Summoners in past games and mixed into a job that used spells that were historically key to past FF games. Miasma, Bio...these Dot spells have been a cornerstone to FF history. Yet they are gone with only SCH or healers in general having a Job variation of them. I believe that SE could have kept some aspects of what made Summoner unique while including the newer aspects they added. I.E., they could have kept the dots, Ifrit Phase could have had its dot that it had from the original design, then Garuda had Miasma and Titan had Bio(alot of fantasy games have earth type spells/abilities tied to poison/disease type spells). But these are merely my thoughts.

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I didn't really know that about all the poison spells.

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I ask you...do you play Summoner because you enjoy its aesthetics, the sound of its abilities, the style of how it plays, the utility it provides...or do you play it for a minuscle amount of considerations I have mentioned and mostly because its easy

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A combination of it being a real summoner rather than using egis and it being easy. The way it was before put me off in both areas, especially with the abundance of alternatives.

The new summons made me want to try it. I had it up early because of Scholar's instant queues and to do the role quests, and actually playing it clicked with me to a point I was just switching to it for any DPS purposes.

Now if what I was seeing when I was doing that rotation were these little baby summons I might not have stuck with it.

I don't main the DPS role, so if it were just really complicated to play, there are other jobs that are not so they might become easier picks for tasks like farming FATEs or helping people clear normal duties.

I don't think I have seen anyone really discuss something that I have recently been thinking about and that is the weird way in which casters are viewed in terms of progression.

Why is it that casters are the only role that has a sort of progression when...progressing? You start as RDM then swap to SMN/BLM to clear. Now, don't take this as RDM has mass res etc. I am saying, why do casters have this when no other role does? Why is there not a progression melee, or a progression healer etc?

However, we also have to consider, was the caster role even designed to be like this, or is this just the playerbase making it (I suspect the latter)? I suspect it is more of a player made hierarchy than an intentionally designed one, so how would players feel if RDM's res capabilities were diminished (and DPS adjusted) so that it fit more in line with SMN? Would this mean more people play the job that want for the clear? Would people be upset that, because of the more limited res options, it will make progression harder? Would that even be an issue?

I would make a bold claim that limiting RDM's res potential would see an uptick in the number of players clearing fights with it and it would better reflect (though not perfectly) the number of people using RDM as a favourite job as you don't lose anything from using it.

People love summoner because it's that typical FF job with rich history and badass spells/summons. It's the most faithful to the series it's ever been, which both summons that are fancy looking spells, and actual summons in the form of Bahamut/Phoenix.
Besides, considering how mindless the casual content is, spamming fancy skills with a bare gameplay is enough for most. In harder content that means a more chill experience that focuses on the encounter, which is the crux of this game anyway (ie, gameplay is absent).

But dig deeper and people will have a very different opinion.

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Originally Posted by TheRealMadruck

Bottomline, FF14 needs a harder to play Summoner.

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So, I keep thinking back on this description of Reaper (emphasis mine):

Reaper can be played fluidly as a priority system or rigidly with planned burst windows allowing the job to have a low barrier of entry but have a very high skill expression ceiling.

My two cents, that bolded part should apply to every job in the game. It's okay if there's an "easy" way to play a job. It's okay if, say, 10% effort gets you 90% damage potential. If someone wants to choose a job based on its aesthetic and fantasy, they should be able to do so without worrying that they'll have to study twelve different guides in order to barely scrape by.

On the flip side, having chosen a job based on its aesthetic or fantasy, if someone wants to become an expert — if they want to eek out a bit more damage in a fight — the job should provide them the room and opportunity to do so.

I take full blame for derailing this thread into a Summoner complaint one

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

Not to be too inflammatory but I'm going to say it anyway, there are a lot of people who really don't care about the success or longevity of this game and care more about being able to laude over others their skill and proficiency. They want a game that routinely washes out or alienates players with intentionally difficult and obscure mechanics and rotations so that they can say how much better they are than them for having learned them.

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This is 100% correct - I just didn't want to say it so directly :)

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I do understand that this potentially creates room for a new DoT job to replace it. SE was just torn between it summoning things and it being about DoTs so they had to choose one, and the choice was obvious. It's a summoner and needs to summon things.

I think they should either create a new job that fills the role that Summoner once did, or they can put that focus into Bard which is still a DoT job.

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Meh... speaking as an ex-summoner fan, a knock-off would never tickle my brainrot like the og summoner because it was never just the DOTs.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

So, I keep thinking back on this description of Reaper (emphasis mine):

Reaper can be played fluidly as a priority system or rigidly with planned burst windows allowing the job to have a low barrier of entry but have a very high skill expression ceiling.

My two cents, that bolded part should apply to every job in the game. It's okay if there's an "easy" way to play a job. It's okay if, say, 10% effort gets you 90% damage potential. If someone wants to choose a job based on its aesthetic and fantasy, they should be able to do so without worrying that they'll have to study twelve different guides in order to barely scrape by.

On the flip side, having chosen a job based on its aesthetic or fantasy, if someone wants to become an expert — if they want to eek out a bit more damage in a fight — the job should provide them the room and opportunity to do so.

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If only everyone had this opinion on jobs (including SE), most of the complaints about the state of jobs on these forums would disappear overnight

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Originally Posted by TheRealMadruck

1. I use a alt toon for posting on these forums. I have done this for over 7 years now stemming from a situation that occurred in the beginning of 2017 with a very large FC I ran. Players on these forums dogged members of my original FC so bad because of a take that I had that it made the FC go into shambles. You can believe me that this happened or not, that is up to you. But from that experience going forward, I learned to never use your main toon as highlight to your posts because as IRL, there are sketchy/unhinged people everywhere.

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Normally I rib this when I see it but I want to point out a lot of the discussion that is often seen on job feedback is how the jobs play in raiding endgame content. The reason people tend to rib alts is simply because you have 0 frame of reference on the players background in endgame raiding. In a balance discussion, I and many others hold a high value on hands on experience, its necessary gatekeeping. I am sorry for your negative experience on the forums.

That being said, more often than not you can tell who knows what they are talking about by reading the body of the post.

I think you have an interest analysis on the dynamics of the caster role (which you def dont need endgame raiding experience to provide quality feedback on job play because it can range from skill floor to skill ceiling)

I dont know if I necessarily agree with "bring back dot SMN", but we definitely agree that SMN needs its output adjusted (raise the skill floor) and bringing in avenues of optimization outside of "when do i need mobility", which is really the only thought process involved with SMN at all currently.

Thematically SMN rework is actually excellent, its just the mechanics that need work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

So, I keep thinking back on this description of Reaper (emphasis mine):

Reaper can be played fluidly as a priority system or rigidly with planned burst windows allowing the job to have a low barrier of entry but have a very high skill expression ceiling.

My two cents, that bolded part should apply to every job in the game. It's okay if there's an "easy" way to play a job. It's okay if, say, 10% effort gets you 90% damage potential. If someone wants to choose a job based on its aesthetic and fantasy, they should be able to do so without worrying that they'll have to study twelve different guides in order to barely scrape by.

On the flip side, having chosen a job based on its aesthetic or fantasy, if someone wants to become an expert — if they want to eek out a bit more damage in a fight — the job should provide them the room and opportunity to do so.

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in a perfect world they design every job like this, just not how it panned out in reality and youll find very salty casters especially RDM due to how bad the dynamic is within the caster role currently
its why im so damn grouchy about the SMN rework

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

I dont know if I necessarily agree with "bring back dot SMN", but we definitely agree that SMN needs its output adjusted (raise the skill floor) and bringing in avenues of optimization outside of "when do i need mobility", which is really the only thought process involved with SMN at all currently.

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The problem with SMN is not it's skill floor, that's fine. People doing 'good enough' by just autopiloting their way through the rotation is fine, good even. Means you won't have to worry about 'bad player doesn't do enough damage'

The issue is that there's very little you can do to get more out THAN the skill floor. The skill ceiling is mere inches away from the floor. It needs more room to optimize on so that people who want to, can push for that extra reward.

I think the issue is, some people (unfortunately including SE themselves) don't want there to be a way for better players to differentiate themselves via their skill, because then the people who don't sweat for every last point of damage will look worse at the game by comparison, and that will make them feel bad (apparently). So instead, the 'good players' are forced to play to the beat of the 'less good players'

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

It needs more room to optimize on so that people who want to, can push for that extra reward.

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I think the overall reward of 80% "less good players" performing better is worth more than the reward of maybe 20% feeling better for having more dps than the "less good players"
In the end you arent even allowed to think about things like dps.. because forbidden

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

The problem with SMN is not it's skill floor, that's fine. People doing 'good enough' by just autopiloting their way through the rotation is fine, good even. Means you won't have to worry about 'bad player doesn't do enough damage'

The issue is that there's very little you can do to get more out THAN the skill floor. The skill ceiling is mere inches away from the floor. It needs more room to optimize on so that people who want to, can push for that extra reward.

I think the issue is, some people (unfortunately including SE themselves) don't want there to be a way for better players to differentiate themselves via their skill, because then the people who don't sweat for every last point of damage will look worse at the game by comparison, and that will make them feel bad (apparently). So instead, the 'good players' are forced to play to the beat of the 'less good players'

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Yeah, meant to clarify that the skill floor essentially is the skill ceiling for the job.

I never get why dumb down the job When casual content has no dps check?

I don’t think you are actually a filthy casual. False flag!!!

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Originally Posted by TheRealMadruck

Believe me I say that I read your entire post and want to thank you for your considerate reply. Be well!

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Thank you! You too.

I'm always willing to share and listen to others stories as well. I really REALLY wish they HAD kept old SMN for you, and I really hope that the new Caster they add will be something you enjoy, too. I hope my answer was agreeable, even if perhaps not agreed upon.

Oh, for the curious, I found Laryzur's video on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNG1QNQPlNE
Summoner Changes | FFXIV Endwalker Media Tour

If you can't tell from his voice (he's a bit of a character and sometimes sounds more sarcastic when he's not being), he was legitimately excited about it. He did a video with Mr Happy around that time where they were discussing it and he was legitimately super excited about it. You can also see from the comments people were generally excited about it as well. So no matter what people say now, a lot of people then were legitimately very excited about it.

I think it's not unfair to say that many do play SMN now because they enjoy it. How many, I dunno, but it's not all about what's braindead or min-maxing with players, I don't think. I think many truly do just...enjoy it. And that's great. People are all allowed to like different things, and the best games are those that have something for everyone, I think, so we cal all share the world together.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Why is it that casters are the only role that has a sort of progression when...progressing? ...why do casters have this when no other role does? Why is there not a progression melee, or a progression healer etc?

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I think there sorta is, but it's less apparent.

With Tanks, for example, WAR/PLD was good for progression because of WAR being WAR and PLD's expansive defensive suite and Cover allowing people to get LB3s and push the fight further for prog, while GNB/DRK was the go-to clear and speedrun Tank meta. It was this way for most of EW until just recently, where WAR became even more godlike and has sort of displaced DRK on the high end as well (leaving it a bit in the lurch).

With Healers, WHM/SGE is the the progression meta a lot because of how striaghtforward WHM is and how things like Cure 3 can actually be useful during prog, and that SGE has a crap ton of defensive CDs. Between Kerachole, Holos, Kerochole, SGE can keep the full party with mitigation for basically a solid minute straight, and has a lot of other mitigation tools, while WHM has Thin Air to help with Raises, as well as Lilies, Medica 2, and Cure 3 to brute force through mistakes. At least mistakes that don't outright one-shot players; it does have Benison and Aquaveil which can help for that, as can SGE GCD shields which are NEAR-instant since they only require the 1 sec Eukrasia before casting. Meanwhile, AST/SCH is generally the meta for clear and speed run parties because of all the party buffs, and AST solo healing for high end speed/farm parties due to its high healing and some mitigation potential allowing bringing another DPS.

So this does kind of exist with the other roles as well, it's just not quite as stark.

I think RDM's big problem right now isn't that SMN does comparable damage, it's that RDM actually does LESS damage in some cases. While people are willing to pick a harder Job that does more damage, few want to pick something harder that actively does less. It's the WAR/DRK problem right now where DRK is just a WAR that has less capability in a lot of ways and, after the buffs, WAR frequently does as much or more damage, so DRK has no real niche. If it had the same output, people would at least give it more a go due to maybe preferring a different playstyle. (Granted, people are still playing it, obviously, but you get my point). RDM doing more work for the same damage but better raising potential isn't a bad thing, and it has good party utility aside from that since it has a damage buff and extra party mit with Magick Barrier. Those are pluses. But if it ALSO does less damage, then people are going to shy away from it a lot more at the high end.

Though note again, when it comes to the general playerbase and more casual content and even midcore stuff like Extremes, RDM is still pretty widely played and much more than BLM is. BLM being more played than RDM is only a thing at the very high end levels of play/players.

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Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu

The Devs really doubled down on SMN's reputation as the caster with Mobility since the beginning of Endwalker. Lots on instant spells with a few casts here and there. But pretty much very similar to a physical ranged for the most part.

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To be fair:

This was already true.

SMN in ShB was highly mobile. DWT and FBT were all instant casts. Bahamut was 4 hardcast Ruin 3s and 4 instant cast Ruin 4s. Egi-Assault 1 and 2 were GCDs from 5.2 or 5.3 on (I forget which), and had two charges each with 30 sec CDs. So every minute you got 8 outright instant cast spells (4 total Egi-Assaults and 4 Ruin IVs), and 8-10 (depending on spell speed) instants under DWT/FBT.

...and you had Ruin 2 then (it upgraded to Ruin 4 under the Further Ruin proc) meaning even if you used up all those Ruin IVs, you still had free movement at a mild damage loss.

SMN was highly mobile in ShB already. I remembered playing it in E5N once and thinking of how darn MOBILE it was when the part with all the lightning bolts came out and I hit a DWT and was able to just dance through the whole thing without issue. SMN is another one of the cases where at least some of the stuff it's blamed for actually started in ShB, not EW. (Not all, but a lot, of "EW kinda sucks" complaints about Job designs date to ShB, and in some cases SB, not EW itself. EW's just getting all the blame.)

.

EDIT:

Well, was trying to make shorter posts and just split them up...that didn't work out well. But hey, I think the above one was better off with just that little bit in it, so it's staying this way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Oh, for the curious, I found Laryzur's video on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNG1QNQPlNE
Summoner Changes | FFXIV Endwalker Media Tour

If you can't tell from his voice (he's a bit of a character and sometimes sounds more sarcastic when he's not being), he was legitimately excited about it. He did a video with Mr Happy around that time where they were discussing it and he was legitimately super excited about it. You can also see from the comments people were generally excited about it as well. So no matter what people say now, a lot of people then were legitimately very excited about it.

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Not to be dismissive but honeymoon phase is definitely a thing. And to be fair there was a LOT of hype once the job action trailer got released.

I don’t think anyone denies that we were all excited for SMN initially, flashy animations, big attacks, 2 casters in one expansion with a gap closer, it looked to be good

Then we actually got it and we found out it has a depth that would make a roadside puddle in the middle of El Niño jealous and it all kinda fell apart

I don’t think content creators reaction to the media tour is a good yardstick here

Well, I'm more referring to my "brief history of Summoner" where I was talking about what people said did and didn't "feel" like a Summoner to them. How SB was really the first time it felt like a Summoner rather than a WoW Warlock, and EW got people excited because they thought it finally looked like a Summoner. And note there Laryzur saying that it felt like one to him with summons going off left and right rather than infrequently and how he said there's "really no filler" referring to old SMN having several filler phases where you were a DoT/Ruin Mage.

Fair?

The problem is new SMN is all filler phase, even the Demi’s don’t feel like a burst phase because you are still just spamming aspected ruin 3 but now all of that potency they could have put into an interesting burst phase they just dumped into enkindle

If anything the primals being reduced to colouring your ruin 3 cast makes it feel less like a summoner because the summons become the least important part of the class (to say nothing of the absolute slot of playing the class sub 80 where they don’t even change the base animation of ruin 2/3)

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

If anything the primals being reduced to colouring your ruin 3 cast makes it feel less like a summoner because the summons become the least important part of the class (to say nothing of the absolute slot of playing the class sub 80 where they don’t even change the base animation of ruin 2/3)

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I'm not entirely sure how much it'd help with the 'boredom' aspect, but I'd imagine it'd be way more 'visually hype' if the summoning of a demiprimal gave you an aspect of their body for the duration of their 'trance', like you summon Garuda, you have Garuda's wings and claws, and those wings are why you can cast and move at the same time. Titan gives you Titan big hands and you clap those together for Mountain Buster instead of slapping the inside of your book. Ifrit gives you big Ifrit claws and you lunge with them for the 1-2 melee combo

Also instead of the summon being a GCD (that has massively delayed damage), it could be an OGCD, with Enkindle remaining as the 'big ultimate' kind of move. So instead of Garuda appearing, doing Aerial Blast and then sodding off, it'd be you the SMN, with Garuda's power fused to you temporarily, doing Aerial Blast. Guess then you'd have people going 'oh but then you don't 'summon' so it's not a 'summoner' is it' and the like, though

Also I've always felt like old SMN was trying to be Shadow Priest or vice versa, rather than Warlock. Especially given the DWT/Voidform comparison, and now Bahamut/Mindbender is kind of applicable

I said this before, but the "up side" to SMN's simplicity is in the next 10 years, it can only become more interesting. The original SMN had reached a point that there is nothing you can do more to it without messing it up even further. I feel AST and MNK are also at that point while DRG is getting there.

I think the popularity of the SMN's rework (data matter, not opinion) will probably encourage SE to try and do similar thing to other jobs. After all, you can't just leave a job mostly the same from expansion to expansion. And if it has become so convoluted to make new change, it's better to hit the reset button so you have room to grown in the future.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I said this before, but the "up side" to SMN's simplicity is in the next 10 years, it can only become more interesting. The original SMN had reached a point that there is nothing you can do more to it without messing it up even further. I feel AST and MNK are also at that point while DRG is getting there.

I think the popularity of the SMN's rework (data matter, not opinion) will probably encourage SE to try and do similar thing to other jobs. After all, you can't just leave a job mostly the same from expansion to expansion. And if it has become so convoluted to make new change, it's better to hit the reset button so you have room to grown in the future.

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MCH was also redone in 5.0 to give it a new foundation they could grow on

What did 6.0 MCH give us- an extra 10% damage down after we begged for half an expansion of MCH being in the toilet

They really don’t have a good track record of these “reset redesigns” actually going anywhere, new PLD being diet GNB is another example

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I said this before, but the "up side" to SMN's simplicity is in the next 10 years, it can only become more interesting. The original SMN had reached a point that there is nothing you can do more to it without messing it up even further. I feel AST and MNK are also at that point while DRG is getting there.

I think the popularity of the SMN's rework (data matter, not opinion) will probably encourage SE to try and do similar thing to other jobs. After all, you can't just leave a job mostly the same from expansion to expansion. And if it has become so convoluted to make new change, it's better to hit the reset button so you have room to grown in the future.

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Given what has happened to DRK (Discount WAR), PLD (Discount GNB), MCH (Not expanded after being reset), the entire healer role (Massive mess all around), I think we should stop pretending that the dev team resets jobs to expand upon them in the future, the real reason they reset jobs and make them really similar to another job is to make them easy to work with for the tiny job design team, that's all it is.

I expect DRG to become a RPR clone and for AST to become much more like WHM in 7.0, all because that would be a lot simpler for the tiny team to balance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I said this before, but the "up side" to SMN's simplicity is in the next 10 years, it can only become more interesting. The original SMN had reached a point that there is nothing you can do more to it without messing it up even further. I feel AST and MNK are also at that point while DRG is getting there.

I think the popularity of the SMN's rework (data matter, not opinion) will probably encourage SE to try and do similar thing to other jobs. After all, you can't just leave a job mostly the same from expansion to expansion. And if it has become so convoluted to make new change, it's better to hit the reset button so you have room to grown in the future.

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DRK, MCH and healers say hello. (I'm holding out comments about PLD until 7.0, but yeah as of right now..discount GNB with ranged attacks)

Trust me, this is what I thought initially too back at Shadowbringers launch. I wish that thought process was proven right instead of wrong

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

MCH was also redone in 5.0 to give it a new foundation they could grow on

What did 6.0 MCH give us- an extra 10% damage down after we begged for half an expansion of MCH being in the toilet

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MCH was never the same situation. The original concept was overwhelming reject in 3.0, and 4.0 was an emergency remade, that was remade again in 5.0. MCH never had an solid identity or concept. They were all done so the job don't get scrab all together.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Given what has happened to DRK (Discount WAR), PLD (Discount GNB), MCH (Not expanded after being reset), the entire healer role (Massive mess all around), I think we should stop pretending that the dev team resets jobs to expand upon them in the future, the real reason they reset jobs and make them really similar to another job is to make them easy to work with for the tiny job design team, that's all it is.

I expect DRG to become a RPR clone and for AST to become much more like WHM in 7.0, all because that would be a lot simpler for the tiny team to balance.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zairava

DRK, MCH and healers say hello. (I'm holding out comments about PLD until 7.0, but yeah as of right now..discount GNB with ranged attacks)

Trust me, this is what I thought initially too back at Shadowbringers launch. I wish that thought process was proven right instead of wrong

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I feel all of these answers are missing the point I'm trying. Rather you guys are just leaning on what I said as a convenience way to beat on a dead horse that had been beaten to zombie. If anything, these replies further prove my point more than anything. None of the jobs mentioned had a complete tear down and re-imagination like SMN did. Had instead of remaking the old SMN, the new SMN was introduced as a new job I don't think anyone would have blink. The job was "fundamentally" changed. Whether all of the job "rework" are still just more or less adjusted/tackled on/patched up on the same foundation.

Again, the fact you all insist SE has been doing a bad job with these classes, that just re-enforce my point that maybe they all need a complete tear down like SMN.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

MCH was never the same situation. The original concept was overwhelming reject in 3.0, and 4.0 was an emergency remade, that was remade again in 5.0. MCH never had an solid identity or concept. They were all done so the job don't get scrab all together.








I feel all of these answers are missing the point I'm trying. Rather you guys are just leaning on what I said as a convenience way to beat on a dead horse that had been beaten to zombie. If anything, these replies further prove my point more than anything. None of the jobs mentioned had a complete tear down and re-imagination like SMN did. Had instead of remaking the old SMN, the new SMN was introduced as a new job I don't think anyone would have blink. The job was "fundamentally" changed. Whether all of the job "rework" are still just more or less adjusted/tackled on/patched up on the same foundation.

Again, the fact you all insist SE has been doing a bad job with these classes, that just re-enforce my point that maybe they all need a complete tear down like SMN.

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I agree that they need a complete tear-down, it's just given their track record with even just reworks doesn't give me much faith that they'll actually do a good job with it or expand on it much mechanically.

I don't really like current summoner, it goes without saying that I think Shadowbringers or Stormblood were the best installments (outside of pets dying in combat), but it still feels fresh despite its glaring issues.

If say, despite my usual consistent bitching about DRK when possible, if it got a complete tear-down and was given its own combat identity, I'd be less frustrated and might have more ideas on how to expand upon that rather than looking at it now and just seeing that its old iteration with Shadowbringer QoL would be pretty solid and trying to find a middle ground.