I like the way Summoner works so I don't have a problem with minimal changes. That said, the new summon seems very uninspired. There are many options I would have chosen ahead of Gundam Bahamut
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I have to wonder if they're trying a larger-scale overhaul not just of the jobs, but of the level-sync system, and maybe even things we haven't thought of. This may be one of those things where stuff doesn't seem like they're working on anything because what they're working on is so huge. That's the hope, at least.
Right now, the potency system where mobs likely have HP scaled to potency where damage is scaled up using increasingly large potencies likely makes it difficult to give us our normal kits down-level. A fundamental rework of when we get abilities would also imply how we get abilities (for the ARR and HW jobs) in terms of job quests. There are a lot of systems that are tied to how jobs work and how abilities are coded up. I'm left to hope that we'll get something more significant that what we're getting in 7.0 and if we're not, many people, myself included might be done.
I know that SMN got a full rework with EW, but what I'm seeing added is not a lot.
From the information we have and a bit of speculation.
Searing Light gets a new follow-up attack that seems to be an oGCD.
Fester gets an upgrade, most likely via a trait.
Solar Bahamut being every other demi-summon. But I predict it will behave just like normal Bahamut/Phoenix, so x insta-GCDs (st/aoe) and two oGCDs to deal damage.
It's the first demi summon you get and then appears again at the two min mark. I predict it will be stronger than both Phoenix and Bahamut. This is so that the strongest demi aligns with raidbuffs.
If this is what SMN gets, the difference between lv90 and lv100 playstyles will be a grand total of one (1) oGCD every two minutes.
Really hope I'm wrong, but looking back at something like WAR going from SHB to EW, it was one new GCD every minute triggered by Inner Release (and for DT they seem to just add two more GCDs to this trigger).
For example:
Letter from the Producer LIVE Part IX Q&A Summary (10/30/2013)
Q: Will there be any maintenance fees or other costs for housing, besides the cost of the land and house?
A: In older MMOs, such as Ultima Online, there was a house maintenance fee you had to pay weekly, but in FFXIV: ARR we decided against this system. Similarly, these older MMOs also had a system where your house would break down if you didn’t log in after a while in order to have you continue your subscription, but this is a thing of the past and we won't have any system like that.
There you have it. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...810-30-2013%29
When you continuously delete whole facets of your gameplay engine again and again with absolute peeks like when ShB happened, and you're left with so little to play with, then it only makes sense to me that thinking about bringing bigger, actual meaningful changes again is going to be a colossal work for the simple reason that you'd need to rethink a lot of general systems, intricacies between job design, battle system and encounter design, make sure old content is still playable and relatively decent with those new systems, but also code them and implement them, test them and reiterate the process again and again internally until it's workable. Building whole new things is long and arduous, I should know, I've worked in the game industry for a while.
But they only have themselves to blame for it if that's the case, I still maintain that ShB killed their battle system and they painted themselves into a corner with it. The only systematic reaction they seem to have to bring changes or fix things is to delete what they flagged problematic. They've been at it for so long that if they want to start and proceed differently, it's getting harder and harder as we go. But at some point they'll have to do it, and like for climate change in a way, the sooner the easier. Procrastinating isn't gonna do us any good there.