Why Not Remodel the Summons?

[AdamFyi]

The real problem is Summoner does not even feel like a Summoner.

Because FFXIV Summoner is not the same as FFXI Summoner. The lore behind the two are completely different. The same can be said about the other FF's in the series. Could the design team have done something? Probably. Should they? Probably not. It's a design choice. They can't please everyone. Someone is bound to complain about the new designs if they reworked them.

[nbiscuitz]

...may be let the summoner 'transforms' (have the primal looking aura wrap around the player) into the primal and can only use that primal's ability. ticks down TP while transformed. spends mp for primal abilities.

gets new job ability that regains tp may be while not transformed.

[Spellbinder]

Because FFXIV Summoner is not the same as FFXI Summoner.

Just my opinion, but FFXI has nothing to do with the current iteration of summoners not feeling like summoners.

[LineageRazor]

Just my opinion, but FFXI has nothing to do with the current iteration of summoners not feeling like summoners.

I think a lot of people would disagree with you. A lot of dissatisfied Summoners - in this very thread, even - have been pointing out how Summoning was handled in FFXI and asking, "Why can't our Summons be like those?"

FFXI's take on Summoner isn't the only reason the current iteration of summoners don't feel like summoners, but it is too much to say that it has nothing to do with it.

As a FFXI Summoner myself, though, I think a lot of the nostalgia is misplaced. Almost from the day it was released, Summoners in FFXI ALSO complained that Summoners there didn't feel like Summoners. Due to the long delays between opportunities to use an Avatar's special abilities, Summoners were pretty poor in terms of DPS, and so generally were shoehorned into healing duty. They were third-rate healers, but their innate MP regen and large MP pool made them passable. A Summoner spent roughly 95% of their time with no summon out, due to the fact that Avatars steadily consumed MP as long as they were out (part of the reason for SMN's huge MP pool). Eventually, SE made improvements that helped move Summoners out of the third-rate healer category (some Avatar abilities were put on seperate cooldowns, Avatar MP-over-time cost was reduced and more MP regen gear was added, and so on), but by then Abyssea had come and gone and turned the whole metagame on its head anyway.

As for the visual appearance of Avatars, they were the exact same size and shape as the real Prime Avatars - but that doesn't mean they looked particularly good. Both they and the originals were crude models with a very low polygon count. While textures and vertex averaging helped hide it, viewed from certain angles it was easy to see that, for example, Titan and Ifrit had rectangular arms. The fact that they were so large meant that they often obscured the view, especially if there were a lot of Summoners around.

I didn't hate FFXI's Summoner, but in terms of playstyle FFXIV's Summoner is a lot more fun. That's just my opinion.

[Akiza]

This iteration of Summoner took the Black Mage Bio and Miasma spells then based the whole job around it when the job should of been based around the Pets. Summoner's main attack power should come from the Pet and DoTs should be secondary. The Egi we fight in the job quest should be the Egi we get but we get a smaller Egi with different spells. The Egi we fight can use all of their corresponding Primals abilities as well as summon elementals themselves.
Ifrit-Egi- can use eruption and summon fire elementals that cast fire 2 when we fight him.
Titan-Egi- can use weight of the land which drops a heavy debuff and 15s DoT effect
Garud-Egi- can use razor plumes and summon Chirada-Egi and Suparna-Egi

[Aureyo]

You guys are so worried about the size and image it's unreal.

Let's say we have XI sized summons that were with us. So we go into an instance in say WoD and have 4 summoners. Sometimes it happens, so every Summoner pulls out Ifrit-Egi and then goes to town on the first boss. Let's say other alliances have Summoners and pull out their Ifrit's and start attacking the first boss. This is now a visual mess seeing multiple Ifrit-Egi's going up to said boss and potentially blocking it from view. Would I still be able to target it? Yeah, I can make some filters and basically tab over to the boss, that's not really a problem, but what about telegraphed attacks or for the Main Tank to even see where the target circle is for a particular mob. You guys are trying to create a visual nightmare. Please think about these things further instead of just saying oh we need bigger summons.

[LunaSnowfield]

SMN? a fun job? .. No .. geez no, my main was a smn and i leaved it months ago because it was all about

ruin+3 dots

an thats all you do.

[BreathlessTao]

To answer OP's question - because the dev team is small, there are way too many other (bigger) things that need focus (at any given time), and it would require too much work. 8)

[Spellbinder]

FFXI's take on Summoner isn't the only reason the current iteration of summoners don't feel like summoners, but it is too much to say that it has nothing to do with it.

Point taken, but coming from the perspective of someone who only has passing familiarity with the Final Fantasy series, and has played capable pet classes in other games, a correlation to Final Fantasy XI doesn't have to be made to say, "something feels slightly off."

Please think about these things further instead of just saying oh we need bigger summons.

Please don't assume that FFXI-sized summons is the only solution. If you've seen the new benchmark, people have been suggesting that Ifrit-Egi "looks" bigger (I personally just think it's because of the camera angles, but that's besides the point). Do you see people freaking out that Ifrit-Egi looks "too big"? That if there were multiple summoners in the party, nobody would be able to see?

Edit:
All that aside, summoner has issues more important than just aesthetics that need addressing.

[Jotaku]

i think they would reshape it as a chibi version of primals, more detail, and is lore friendly, because we are using a portion of their power, of course in a chibi version :P