Adding fuel to the fire, Summoner's future

[Estevo]

I've pretty much spent myself talking about ideas and approaches to the game on these forums, and I'm content with what I've said, but what the heck, I enjoy a good arguing every now and then.

How are they going to do this for a single pet without nerfing the crap out of the existing SMN arsenal of spells just to make way for one much more powerful pet?

Well we have multiple pets, whether they're out at the same time or not, and the all of the dot skills are from the arcanist.. and Yoshida said they were considering reworks on the class/job system... so we'll revisit this at a later date!

A pet-based class with the pet as primary DPS is going to be boring. Look at Summoner from XI.

Well for starters, nobody said we had to take ideas from previous games, so looking at it like that, a few thousand doors just opened up, at least in my eyes. Not only that, but why have a pet class if the pet isn't crucial to your power, sure they do 30% of our dps, give or take, but they aren't crucial, they're just frosting on the cake, so to speak haha.

And this about providing support for you pet while it does damage, how is that going to be any less boring than maintaining dots and micro-managing pets.

Well first, you have to change your perspective on your primal allies. I think of the way of a swordsman, how the sword is meant to be an extension of your body, well, these Aether Incarnations are meant to be an extension of your magic power, except, these extensions are kind of alive, but I digress. You are still connected to your primal or carbuncle in a way that a normal pet wouldn't be, at least lore-wise, you tamed a magical creature, and you use your own power and connection to summon him. So in that sense you wouldn't be supporting your pet as much as powering up a certain aspect of your arsenal, and working together with your extension, your ally.

And as for making the summons larger. Is this really a ground breaking issue for some people?

To be honest I don't think it is, but I believe the true problem is that the actual design is just far too simple for any incarnation of a primal, except for maybe Ifrit-Egi, but even he could use a few touch-ups design-wise. (I was going to compare the Egi designs to WoW, but then I double checked their pet design and even they look leagues better than our current Garuda-Egi.) I would have only made this comparison because primals are meant to be different from the elementals, you know with their specific design and individuality, but their egi's are more akin to elementals than primals, and even if they're only a part of the beings, they're still not elementals, and could still retain a few of their design characteristics.



Sorry I said so much, but I enjoy talking/arguing about things like this, it's just fun to think about different interesting designs they could implement and such, and anything is possible, so why not! It doesn't have to be exactly as I or anyone else sees it either, concepts aren't meant to be concrete, their the beginning spark that leads to whatever is created out of it. Even if nothing is done currently, ideas like these could be important for development of the Summoner down the road, and it may be where they want to take it already. All I know is I find the Primals very interesting, and regardless of how they're designed right now, I think the summoner is awsome!

[Dyne_Fellpool]

They should just change the visual/theme of SMN's DoTs to be summoned beasts munching on the mob for damage over time, instead of poison themed.

[Exstal]

Mastermind was a pet micromanagement job in City of Heroes and that class was a blasts to play. The Master provided support damage and Pet Buffs while the Pet was the main source of damage and it was balanced pretty well.

So...Beastmaster, okay.

[Akiza]

So...Beastmaster, okay.

The only difference between the Beastmaster and Summoner in Final Fantasy is that Beastmaster's is a melee dps that charms creatures to do their bidding and The Summoner summons magical beasts. So as pet based jobs in an mmo they should both have the Pet provide the main source of damage and the Master provide support damage, Pet Buffs and Pet skill rotations as well as Pet micromanagement.

Beastmaster and Summoner played the exact same way in Final Fantasy XI except the Summoner's was a healer and the Beastmaster was a warrior.

[BloodPact]

To put it another way I believe that we should have more focus on the summoning/pet aspect of a Summoner than on our DOTs, considering summoners use most of their power in summoning and controlling an eidolon in other games, I'd still like to see the player himself fight, yet at the same time have some more of our overall power be directed towards our summons. They ARE called summoners after all, not "Miasma Poison DOT Master"

That's not going to happen because Summoner like any of the other jobs is an expansion of a base class. By rule, a job acquires all of the abilities from the class it comes from and so Summoner must have everything that Arcanist has.

I think pet classes are really well made in this game. Instead of shifting your entire arsenal to a pet, they complement you, they work together with you to maximize damage (Contagion on your DoTs) in some cases, though this could be expanded a bit more for deeper connection to your egi.

I was also main SMN in FFXI, but that's a different battle system, with a more slower pace and even there Summoner was low tier. In fact, without an avatar out a Summoner was literally a level 37 White Mage with a huge MP pool. I stopped playing not long after the release of Winds of The Goddess, and I can count easily the number of times I was allowed to come Summoner to events, because that was never. I was second job Red Mage and that was timewise my main because no one wanted a Summoner.

Putting more focus on the egi is not beneficial to our job, it's detrimental. If our egi gets KOed in a fight, you can refresh DoTs and still deal some damage while you resummon. What happens if the DoTs or the equivalent main source of damage was shifted to the egi? The egi is KOed and our damage is basically 0 for the entire remainder of the time it takes us to summon it, and if we were to still deal on DoTs you'd have to start setting them up once resummoned.

As for visual appearance then maybe when the add ons thing is released they'll let those who want to change pet appearance go ahead and mod away. For those who are into the lore and story of this game, the form and size of the egi will make perfect sense. They are a small portion of aetherial energy from one of the Primals that you as a single person have managed to bind and form into the visual "spirit" you see in front of you. Primals come from the same source but are a total different deal, the most important from this comparison is their size and appearance being much bigger and detailed because of the exorbitant amount of energy they used to take on their physical appearance.

[Akiza]

If the Pet provides the main source of damage there while the Summoner provides support Dot then we have a higher up time the we do know. Now when the Summoner dies Dots fall off and the Pet disappears bringing our damage to zero while if the main source of damage comes from the Pet while the Summoner provides support damage, buffs and Pet skill rotations then if the Pet dies Summoner's can still let the dots tick while Re Summoning the Pet or swiftcast Summon if its up.

As for the visual appearance of the Pets everyone will jump at the chance to change there Pets appearance I would imagine modders will be able to make money off of players that want to change the Egis appearance so why doesn't square just change the appearance of the Egi and be done with it.

[Dwill]

If the Pet provides the main source of damage there while the Summoner provides support Dot then we have a higher up time the we do know. Now when the Summoner dies Dots fall off and the Pet disappears bringing our damage to zero while if the main source of damage comes from the Pet while the Summoner provides support damage, buffs and Pet skill rotations then if the Pet dies Summoner's can still let the dots tick while Re Summoning the Pet or swiftcast Summon if its up.

As for the visual appearance of the Pets everyone will jump at the chance to change there Pets appearance I would imagine modders will be able to make money off of players that want to change the Egis appearance so why doesn't square just change the appearance of the Egi and be done with it.

Class balance should never be made in consideration that the player is terrible. Also, your uptime should be close to 100% as of now. If it isn't, it's a PEBKAC issue.

Any addons that charge money to be used in any MMO will received a Ceise and Desist letter from the company (as Blizzard has done a few times in the past). Also, modification of appearance is altering the game files which is a swift road to the ban hammer.

[Estevo]

I gotta stop replying to these long posts, but oh well I enjoy it.

That's not going to happen because Summoner like any of the other jobs is an expansion of a base class.

The class/job system is going to be tweaked/reworked/whatever, so let's not assume quite yet.

I think pet classes are really well made in this game. Instead of shifting your entire arsenal to a pet, they complement you

I like the Summoner too, but I believe the pet system leaves much to be desired. I believe that a shift to you complementing your Pet could be an engaging Summoner direction.

in some cases, though this could be expanded a bit more for deeper connection to your egi.

I'm totally for this, so I'll agree with you on this one.

I was also main SMN in FFXI

This is FF14, they are, or at least CAN be different.

Putting more focus on the egi is not beneficial to our job, it's detrimental. If our egi gets KOed in a fight, you can refresh DoTs and still deal some damage while you resummon. What happens if the DoTs or the equivalent main source of damage was shifted to the egi?

If our playstyle shifted to complementing our Egi, this wouldn't matter, since we could support our Egi so he wouldn't die as easily, of course both you and your Egi should be crucial and alive, but that's what would add to the uniqueness of the Summoner!

As for visual appearance then maybe when the add ons thing is released they'll let those who want to change pet appearance go ahead and mod away. For those who are into the lore and story of this game, the form and size of the egi will make perfect sense. Primals come from the same source but are a total different deal, the most important from this comparison is their size and appearance being much bigger and detailed because of the exorbitant amount of energy they used to take on their physical appearance.

Modding is a cheap excuse to not do anything about it, and honestly the only games that I approve of being modded to that extent are GTA and Minecraft, both of which aren't overly creative to begin with. The size is irrelevant, however the form does NOT make perfect sense. As I said in an earlier post, the Egi's are more like elementals than primals, with how simple their design is (Ifrit's design is nice, although he could use some more character as well.) I mean Garuda looks like a Plastic green bird, and Titan looks like a POTATO with a mustache! Not only that, but it's not simple to create an Egi, and not everybody can do it, so it's not a TOTALLY different deal, it requires a lot of power to create/summon them.

[Akiza]

Class balance should never be made in consideration that the player is terrible. Also, your uptime should be close to 100% as of now. If it isn't, it's a PEBKAC issue.

Making the Summoner a Pet based job would mean that players would have to be good because a Pet Based job requires a lot more player skill then a Dot based job. As for terrible players the Dot Based Summoner we have know is designed for ease of use since any player that can maintain dots and Aetherflow which is easy can have high dps.

Q22: Currently, the summoner job is a DoT-focused job, but I want them to be more of a pet-focused job. Are there any plans to change the design of the summoner job?

A22: Controlling the pet would require a lot of player skill so it might be hard to find a good overall balance.

[Akiza]

The problem with addons and mods is they don't apply to console players so if a pc player is walking around with a modded Egi then console players will complain and demand the look of their Egi be changed.