Summoner - What it needs.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

That's a weird absolute approach though, because it does not make sense to not aggressively take what worked from other long-lived MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2 or World of Warcraft, while also looking at what didn't work for them and hence not repeating those mistakes.

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Not looking at any competitor in the market, not taking any lessons from it and just assuming that what you're cooking up is the best thing since sliced bread is how you end up with 1.0.
We all know how well that went.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Which just circles back to “okay then pin down a consistent design brief for SMN”

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Final Fantasy 11 Summoner. all they have to do is delete one we have create a summoner like how it was in 11 "in" final fantasy 14 forum. that means every summon outside of carbuncle you have fight 1v1 battle to obtain . remove concept of egi's complete make them full fledged summons. with abilities player can press and use. even if they have use 1/2/1/2/1/2 button format at least its better then have 500 buttons for each individual summon

you have summons that act like pets like pheonix, odin , alexander, diablos ( then have call summons one for each individual element in the game like ifirit,shiva, titan, garuda, levithan ramuh.. its not hard not complex. no need tip toe around it. if ff11 can make it work so can 14

sense 14 rips from 11 art work no brainer. or are you saying the average ff14 player doesnt have brain power to manage that type of rotation. besides 2 min meta is a joke anyway does every summon need have every move they have different then others thats over thinking no it doesnt

Lightening is Purple it deals damage thats all that it needs

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Originally Posted by HanakoTheGoth

all this talk about demonology warlock "THIS ISNT WOW" I rather my final fantasy games class design have zero common with blizzard games. at all

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I mention Demonology warlock not because i want a 1:1 copy, but rather that it is an example of how a summoner class design that is summon focused, has depth, is flexible but also simple. Its fun to play. In essence, it has a lot of lessons that the devs could look at when considering the state of summoner and any adjustments they might make.

I think it is healthy to look at other game deisgn parallels and look at what works. WOW isn't fffxiv, and ffxiv isnt wow, but they are both better for taking lessons from each other.

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Originally Posted by HanakoTheGoth

Final Fantasy 11 Summoner. all they have to do is delete one we have create a summoner like how it was in 11 "in" final fantasy 14 forum. that means every summon outside of carbuncle you have fight 1v1 battle to obtain . remove concept of egi's complete make them full fledged summons. with abilities player can press and use. even if they have use 1/2/1/2/1/2 button format at least its better then have 500 buttons for each individual summon

you have summons that act like pets like pheonix, odin , alexander, diablos ( then have call summons one for each individual element in the game like ifirit,shiva, titan, garuda, levithan ramuh.. its not hard not complex. no need tip toe around it. if ff11 can make it work so can 14

sense 14 rips from 11 art work no brainer. or are you saying the average ff14 player doesnt have brain power to manage that type of rotation. besides 2 min meta is a joke anyway does every summon need have every move they have different then others thats over thinking no it doesnt

Lightening is Purple it deals damage thats all that it needs

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Then you just annoy the people who like current SMN because current SMN is more vaguely relayed to Rydia than 11’s SMN is

Plus I mean reading a lot of these "I want to control pets!"-posts that otherwise are happy having it have no gameplay impact, I propose:

* Aspected nukes/AoEs are "commands", you press them, they cause a GCD, but the current summon uses the actual attack.
* Same for the major summon nukes, they're now pet attacks, triggered by GCD-inducing command skills on the Summoner.
* Summons stay out until a new one is summoned (pressing shield aborts them, brings out Carbuncle, buff shield to compensate).
* Reduce damage output slightly, give summons an autoattack that perfectly compensates the damage lost (so we got a DoT again, too!).

Done. I mean of course, about nothing has changed, gameplay is 99% identical. But the pet attacks, that visual distiction seems to be the big issue? (I'm not poking fun at it, I would like that change, but I also don't see the big deal)

Honestly that would be a massive flavour improvement to me

SMN still needs rotational complexity but that would actually improve the job massively in my eyes

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Plus I mean reading a lot of these "I want to control pets!"-posts that otherwise are happy having it have no gameplay impact, I propose:

* Aspected nukes/AoEs are "commands", you press them, they cause a GCD, but the current summon uses the actual attack.
* Same for the major summon nukes, they're now pet attacks, triggered by GCD-inducing command skills on the Summoner.
* Summons stay out until a new one is summoned (pressing shield aborts them, brings out Carbuncle, buff shield to compensate).
* Reduce damage output slightly, give summons an autoattack that perfectly compensates the damage lost (so we got a DoT again, too!).

Done. I mean of course, about nothing has changed, gameplay is 99% identical. But the pet attacks, that visual distiction seems to be the big issue? (I'm not poking fun at it, I would like that change, but I also don't see the big deal)

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we still need more pets not copies of the old ones thou

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Plus I mean reading a lot of these "I want to control pets!"-posts that otherwise are happy having it have no gameplay impact, I propose:

* Aspected nukes/AoEs are "commands", you press them, they cause a GCD, but the current summon uses the actual attack.
* Same for the major summon nukes, they're now pet attacks, triggered by GCD-inducing command skills on the Summoner.
* Summons stay out until a new one is summoned (pressing shield aborts them, brings out Carbuncle, buff shield to compensate).
* Reduce damage output slightly, give summons an autoattack that perfectly compensates the damage lost (so we got a DoT again, too!).

Done. I mean of course, about nothing has changed, gameplay is 99% identical. But the pet attacks, that visual distiction seems to be the big issue? (I'm not poking fun at it, I would like that change, but I also don't see the big deal)

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Personally, I like a lot of this! Something I’d add: many of the past summons/espers didn’t deal damage, they brought utility. Some examples: FF4 Asura, FF6 Stray, Carbuncle, Kirin, Phoenix, Phantom, etc. I don’t suggest they add that amount of targeted utility to the job, but I think Summoner needs more nuance in its rotation. Adding additional utility to certain summons requires the player to choose the best time to summon specific eikons. This could manifest as HoT, movement speed increase, damage reduction, damage increase, debuff resistance, etc.

Also, while I like that you propose the summon doing most/all of the attacking, I personally enjoy contributing to the casting rotation of the job, it just needs more variety - more melee options, some differentiation between ST/AoE, fast vs. slow casts, etc.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Plus I mean reading a lot of these "I want to control pets!"-posts that otherwise are happy having it have no gameplay impact, I propose:

* Aspected nukes/AoEs are "commands", you press them, they cause a GCD, but the current summon uses the actual attack.
* Same for the major summon nukes, they're now pet attacks, triggered by GCD-inducing command skills on the Summoner.
* Summons stay out until a new one is summoned (pressing shield aborts them, brings out Carbuncle, buff shield to compensate).
* Reduce damage output slightly, give summons an autoattack that perfectly compensates the damage lost (so we got a DoT again, too!).

Done. I mean of course, about nothing has changed, gameplay is 99% identical. But the pet attacks, that visual distiction seems to be the big issue? (I'm not poking fun at it, I would like that change, but I also don't see the big deal)

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I dont think this would be terrible, but im not sure it would be good either. IMO it needs a couple of things.

Job mechanics to build up to the bigger burst summons.
Most casted abilities to be either summoning, empowering or preparing to summon.

As an optional extra, i dont know why we have a limited of one summon at a time, personally give me a horde of marauding carbuncles, egis to support the big summon, Could even factor it into a mechanic like the magus sisters delta force. The point is there is something epic about a summoner commanding a horde of summons. I guess they cant let it get too out of hand. Buut if wow a 20 year old game can handle it, im certain FF could.

Whatever they do ill be happy if they move mechanically away from what we have now.

If I saw what SMN would be reworked in to... I'd have said no and kept it how it was. Sure aesthetically it looks good but gameplay wise; it feels bland and boring with little to no skill expression at all. Hell, there are times I feel more like a summoner when playing Blue Mage!