Summoner could of been so much cooler...

When I heard you could be a summoner, I thought you would be able to summon Ifrit how hes portrayed in boss fights (not as big, but I feel he could be as big as the Iron Giant enemies). I thought you would be able to control him like he was your character with unique skills and such. What we got was this lame "pet" system. How un-gratifying is it to summon Titan only to have him be a floating pebble? Completely de-values the name "Summoner".

I would switch to a summoner instantly if you could summon a Primal (their real model, not the pet one), take it over and play as the Primal with a unique hotbar of skills.

Really a shame how it was handled.

We're sorry.

You gotta remember it's about balanced characters. Your ideas of summoner sound cool, and I agree I would like to play this way, but if you can summon Ifrit big size into battle and control him to crush everything on the field with hellfire, then how is anyone else in battle supposed to matter? Otherwise summoning Ifrit would do the same damage as summoning the egis, but then people would complain your ifrit is too big and taking up too much of the screen. This is an MMO, and sadly everything you play has to fit into the MMO mold.

Here you go.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml

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Originally Posted by Uriahnool

You gotta remember it's about balanced characters. Your ideas of summoner sound cool, and I agree I would like to play this way, but if you can summon Ifrit big size into battle and control him to crush everything on the field with hellfire, then how is anyone else in battle supposed to matter? Otherwise summoning Ifrit would do the same damage as summoning the egis, but then people would complain your ifrit is too big and taking up too much of the screen. This is an MMO, and sadly everything you play has to fit into the MMO mold.

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Thats a fair argument. If Ifrit was double a player models size it would not take up that much room, and I know he has to be balanced.

I actually like the egis personally. Though I agree they could've handled it better like more summoner-like spells from the utility spells, instead of spells like fester and tri disaster(tri disaster having a really cool spell-casting effect, which makes me really sad), and instead of just changing the model of the topaz, and emerald carbuncle to their respective egis they could've changed their spells around instead of just being the same thing, except with egis. Also changing the summon icon.

Other than that, is also the egi problem of 'why would you not use garuda'.

Its impossible for them to use the ifrit/titan/garuda models but scaled down due to ps3 limitations and hell...the bloody poly count and more with the models themselves as it is.

What they should have done though is at least scale up the egi's to the size they are when we fight to obtain them. THAT would have been fair. I fought a character sized ifrit egi to obtain him, then ended up with one half the size.
Bloody hell?

I would've liked if they scaled up the size of the egis too.

Just so I could ride them.

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Originally Posted by Keramory

Its impossible for them to use the ifrit/titan/garuda models but scaled down due to ps3 limitations and hell...the bloody poly count and more with the models themselves as it is.

What they should have done though is at least scale up the egi's to the size they are when we fight to obtain them. THAT would have been fair. I fought a character sized ifrit egi to obtain him, then ended up with one half the size.
Bloody hell?

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I freelance 3d model and have been a modder for years for games. I understand polygon budgets, but say if your character model faded and was replaced by one of the summons, perhaps reduced in polycount slightly it would not be a huge problem. Thats a bogus excuse, the game handles quite a large amount of polygons decently considering the amount on-screen during a FATE, if your own character was removed and replaced it would be fine!

It's a lore issue and a mechanical issue. Primals--for all intents and purposes--only want to become more powerful; to top it off, they really only care about their respective beast tribes. They'll kill those that defy them, and Temper just about everyone else. And the more crystals they're fed, the more faith they receive, the stronger they get. From a lore perspective, it doesn't make sense that any one summoner would be able to control something like that--especially when you consider that it takes a Free Company to summon a full-sized Primal.

And as Urianhool said: size is a problem. Ifrit, Garuda, Titan? Especially Titan? They're all huge. Even if they were the size of Iron Giants, there would still be a crowding issue. People complain that they can't see through the ability effects; they wouldn't be able to catch a single glimpse with 3 or 4 different Primals engaging the enemy.

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Originally Posted by Idrael

I would've liked if they scaled up the size of the egis too.

Just so I could ride them.

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Hope you didn't plan on riding Ifrit or Garuda. Ouch.

It's for the best. With the current summoning system, you don't drain mana having monsters summoned and floating around. It would get really old really quickly seeing full primal models floating around everywhere.

I guess they could re-use the bloodpact system. Supercharge your Egi, resulting in a full primal model (scaled down), which rapidly drains your mana but boosts summon damage.

I'm not an ideas person, so w/e.

Just FYI, the actual summoning system is not in place yet, only the pet aspect of it. The summoning aspect will be set up in such a way that it is powerful and impactful, like summons have always been in the FF series. He didnt want everyone running around with their own primal on a leash because it would cheapen the importance and intimidation of the power the primals have.

Instead he has the essence of the primal as an Egi that can be used as a pet, just a fraction of the power that a primal contains. Later on he will introduce the Free Company Primal Summoning system where only one Free Company will have access to summon the primal at a time which is earned through defeating it in the open world (mush like how Odin is now). then for a one shot use, the Free Company will be able to call upon the full power of the primal to use against their foes. "Everyone on the server will know Ifrit has been used, the skies will darken and turn red signifying that the primal is once again set loose upon the world to once again be reclaimed."

Little detail has been released regarding this to date. It would be really nice if Yoshi-P could mention the FC Primal Summoning stuff again, for all the new players who may not have been following every tidbit of information since 1.0 was released.

Rest assured, the Summoner is not complete and it will have more of an impact than what you are asking for.

Egis are just terrible, the only one that even looks "close" to their original primal is titan.

FFXI had a great summon system, they are not huge but not super small either. They also look the same.

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Originally Posted by EmeraldSerenade

It's for the best. With the current summoning system, you don't drain mana having monsters summoned and floating around. It would get really old really quickly seeing full primal models floating around everywhere.

I guess they could re-use the bloodpact system. Supercharge your Egi, resulting in a full primal model (scaled down), which rapidly drains your mana but boosts summon damage.

I'm not an ideas person, so w/e.

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Bloodpact idea would be cool. Just a temporary buff to whatever, that also changes the model/scale.

Also, I never really got tired of seeing Fenrir running around in FFXI :D Then again when I played, Fenrir was apparently the most sought after summon and it was somewhat rare to actually see one. I'm sure things changed after I stopped playing.

I would suggest that during the red summon buff (spur i think it was) egis should change shape so that they more resemble the original primal, just chibi version.