SMN's Egi Appearances ~ one final, humble request

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I've read a ton with regards to this topic, I've read both sides.

The conclusion I've come to?

Sure, lore-wise it wouldn't be appropriate to ret-con the Egis' appearances into something more traditionally 'FF summon-like'... the aetheric manifestations need to stay.


But, in keeping with the lore explanation, I still believe their visual appearance could be a lot better delivered upon. And should be.

Not saying they have to be massive, incredibly ornate, or aetheric carbon-copies of the originals...

I am saying however that I think you can do us one better SE. You don't have to, but it would be for the fans & I believe it would make a ton of your player-base very happy.


Why? This' a Final Fantasy game & look back to Summons historically in this franchise.

The current iterations do not meet the 'come to be expected' standard of Final Fantasy.

Sure, this' a different take, a different title, and you're entitled to do with it how you please... it's your baby. But...


There is, in a sense, a precedent us FF fans have come to expect and perceive with regards to the Summoner Job.

And that precedent I feel is forsaken in favor of keeping with the lore and a bit too heavy-handledly taken seriously when it comes to readability in MMO encounters.

In other words, I know your reason for keeping them small & hard to select is so it doesn't disrupt the player's playability/readability/view.

What I mean is, you could stand to make them just a 'slight bit' larger & retain a solid foundation of readability for the player (in my opinion).

As well, I believe we wouldn't 'have' to go any larger if they were filled in with a lot more detail/interest-of-appearance in general.

Though, personally I think a tad larger would go a long way, especially in conjunction with finer details.


Additionally, you could make them leagues more detailed/interesting while still keeping with the crystalline appearance set by the lore.

Heck, you could even marginally hybridize their appearance and make it still fit lore-wise.

A Summoner could perhaps have the power and the knowledge to incarnate these Egi's with even greater aesthetics/properties akin to their avatars simply as they grow in their art for summoning.

You could explain that without a single ret-con or build upon the lore in that fashion.


So in conclusion, with all gratitude & respect for you & your company, to Yoshi-P,

I & the up-voters of this thread humbly ask you reconsider updating these models to better deliver on the informal FF precedent of what it is to be a true FF SUMMONER.

#forFFjustice

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Parz3val

So after posting endlessly in the Rework Summoner thread, I came to the conclusion this topic needs revisiting.

Even if you've already said no SE, I think you must change your answer somehow, for FF-Justice.

There's a reason SMN's have been & currently are such a hot debate topic on these forums & I bet if you polled the whole of the player-base you'd get very mixed reviews.

I believe one thing we can almost all agree upon is improved Egi appearances (a little more detail, a littler larger) wouldn't hurt & would in fact, be welcome.

In all my postings, I feel I hit upon the primary issue with ARR's SMN quite well... classic FF Summoners were all about SPECTACLE, there is practically none with our SMN. This is a result of 3 questionable design decisions:

1) DoT-centric sustained damage dealer.
2) lack of awesome aesthetic prowess.
3) baby booger/potato 'pets' instead of almighty, mythical beings.

The core design of SMN is mostly unlikely to change... so changing #1 is out.

Changing both #'s 2 & 3 together would go a VERY LONG way.

Now we've fought Lore like crazy, we're stuck with these marginal Pets instead of awesome Summons... I think we'll just have to deal with that.

However...

I) A slight increase in scale & level-of-detail for the Egi's would do wonders.

Also, part of the problem is how we need these Egi's to feel powerful... and numbers are less integral than animations/spell-effects.

II) Improved Enkindle/Egi Spell/Rouse/Spur Animations would do wonders also.

Give us that feeling of Awesome Power.

You don't have to blow up our screens, just do things like wrap Ifrit Egi in a swirling inferno, have him roar, have his claws rip the air in crimson stripes... Garuda Egi gusts, screams, & tornadoes... Titan Egi boulders, slams, & shouts... etc.

SE, even if you won't budge on their appearance (which you really should, at least a little)... return that SPECTACLE to the Job.

Give us the Summoner not which we deserve, but which Final Fantasy deserves.

#forFFjustice

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Parz3val

My general takeaway upon reading all 6 pages atm - just a tad bigger would be ideal & redo Garuda Egi.

With very minor increased scale, I think very minor detail/texture improvement across the board wouldn't hurt.

Less booger/chicken/mallow jokes, more awesomeness.

Great bonus idea (imo) - ground Titan.

I personally think grounding Ifrit would be awesome too, let Levi & Ramuh Egi's float.

I love the way Ifrit Primal crawls around like a fearsome Reptile, his Egi should emulate that (again, imo).

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Similar threads that echo this feeling:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ghastly

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...?highlight=egi

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...?highlight=egi

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...?highlight=egi

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...?highlight=egi

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Coming from Final Fantasy 11 where the summons looked really good; its sad to see that garuda looks like nothing more than a booger with wings.

I stopped playing SMN bcz of looks of the egis

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...ns_by_Tazz.jpg
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...er_artwork.jpg
http://www.ffcompilation.co.uk/ffviii_images/eden6.jpg
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...ry-CCFFVII.jpg

oh yes, traditionally summons in Final Fantasy look like Giant Robot Mechanized Death Machines... We all want that, now don't we? :P

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Point of this being, the Egi's are fine the way they are.

Most summons in previous FF games are not machines (Alexander has always been a machine and Eden is FFVIII only). Anyway, I think the official response to change the Egi's appearance (even if slightly) was no.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nestama

Most summons in previous FF games are not machines (Alexander has always been a machine and Eden is FFVIII only). Anyway, I think the official response to change the Egi's appearance (even if slightly) was no.

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wooosh, right over the head.

I was making a joke. The point of my comment is that if they were to change the appearance, it would probably be to something that resembles the actual Primals even less than they already do. I don't think anyone holds any illusions that the Summons of Final Fantasy XIII actually resembled the traditional appearances of the Summons from previous installments of the game in anything more than a superficial form, and even then it was only when the summons were in their humanoid forms.

Point being that according to Final Fantasy History, Summons do not need to resemble their traditional forms. Heck, Final Fantasy XII did away with the traditional summons practically all-together (they were instead the names of Airships and not Summons), instead that game ended up with the summons Belias, Chaos, Zalera, Zeromus, Hashmal, Ultima, Exodus, Cuchulainn, Shemhazai, Adrammelech, Famfrit, and Mateus. Many of Final Fantasy XII's Summons were actually boss monsters in previous installments of the Final Fantasy series, Zeromus and Ultima being notable examples.

I like them, they just need to be a little bigger.

I agree with the OP, I think the amount of hype and questions that came about from the Hunt promotional picture with carbuncle summoned is proof enough that a lot of people are generally underwhelmed with the appearance and direction that the team has gone with the Egi designs.

I've seen quite a few arguments from other threads and from a few comments Yoshi had made about not going the route of XI with full on large scale summon models, but i would like to imagine there must be some half-way point that would give us more satisfying summons than what we have currently.

I agree the Egis need to be more detailed and humanoid in appearance. Regardless if Square Enix says no because of lore people will still brush it off and make more threads that Egis appearance needs to be changed.

Y'know I never speak up in these threads, but everyone seems to forget a major reason to keep them small and a little boring right now.

Room for expansion.

That is to say, if the game goes on long enough and the Summoner class is expanded upon in updates to come Square Enix will want room to make the summons cooler and more interesting at higher levels. So keeping it simple here during the early days keeps them from having to play a game of one-ups-manship against themselves everytime they want to upgrade things a bit.

One day you might have the ability to have Titan-Egi 'hulk' out and use Rage of the Earth for high, cool-looking AE damage for example. But if you have a big badass titan by your side now, that won't be so special if you do get it.