A more summonery Summoner

[Asierid]

I played Summoner for 10+ years in XI, but I refuse to touch it in this game because it's a watered down version of what a Summoner should be.

That's great. XI is over there, go play it. I'm tired of the whole "I played XI it should be lyke dis". Cool, we don't care. This is XIV, a different game with different things. Going off on some wild tangent about how things are not like Everquest doesn't help your cause.

what a Summoner should be.

Which is what exactly? Like XI? Too bad that version of SMN is completely different from the majority of FF games.

So basically, you're mad that SMN isn't what you wanted? Good thing there are other jobs to play and other games that "did SMN correctly".

I'll take those rose glasses from you now, they seem to be making you crazy.

[Saggo]

TL;DR: There are only 3 games that pre-made Summoners alternate abilities. 14 is an FF game and can be critiqued against the series. Of the summoning trends easily seen, 14 falls short at all of them: primary ability, primary damage sourcry at-will spike damage, and persistence.

This is why there are always complaints and a lot of them.

I still enjoy the job and it's still my main.

Yes, my first post is a SMN complaint.

ALL summoners had other spells and used those primarily.

I agree to a degree, but if you look at the trends, mechanical and thematic, it's only partially true. I like to include Tactics because it's a very iconic implementation of the job system.

Mechanically, the most often, if not only, reason to not always summon is some form of MP management in overworld or dungeon crawls. But this was important for white mages, black mages, any magic user really, not a summoner only theme.

In 14, MP management is a fight-to-fight basis, not the entire dungeon crawl. It's no different of a balance with a black mage fighting the entire dungeon with his black magic.

Not always the best munchkin damage combo, but good damage, and telling someone to only use the best combinations in a single player game is a touchy and subjective debate.

Thematically, in the games with a job systems and the summoner job (including the very first incarnation of it), 3, 5, and Tactics, that's all the job did. Not so in 14.

Only three games had pre-defined summoner characters with alternate abilities, 3, 9, and 10. Two of them it was still their primary source of damage without some trickery of the mechanics, not so in 14.

Of the games with the summon ability assignable, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, and Tactics, to various degrees of efficiency you can create a useful job combo that relied primarily on that ability. Not really so in 14.

In all the games with the summoning ability, 3 all through 13, it was used most often for at-will spike damage, not as a concurrent minor supplement. Not so in 14.

The most recent games, 10, 11, 12, and 13, actively developed the trend into interactive summons, acting persistently and also used for primarily at-will spike damage. Actually one of the few areas 14 continued, but very halfheartedly given their limited abilities and supplemental damage.

14 also took away a lot of versatility from SMN, itself a growing trend in the series, when it comes to healing, buffing, debuffing, and crowd-control. But most people understand that it's an artifact of the Tank/Heal/DPS system. It's just a head-scratcher that they took all our healing and gave it to SCH.




Of the jobs given to me to play, I personally enjoy this one the most. While I don't care about DoTs as primary damage, I think the job (absent of any series trends) is mechanically sound, and I really like pet mechanics and versatile jobs.

But SE made 14 a Final Fantasy game, and they very deliberately called this job Summoner. It is not unreasonable to critique the game and the jobs against the series. They ignored time-honored traditions, both old and modern. It's easy to see why people, myself included, are so frustrated with their choice of implementation.

And it's easy to see why it seems like there are a lot of whiny SMNs. It's not just one thing SMN did different. Each theme or mechanic SMN bucks will frustrate a different group of people and SMN disregarded a lot of time-honored traditions.

Which is what exactly? Like XI? Too bad that version of SMN is completely different from the majority of FF games.

Well no, it actually did pretty well at continuing the trends, it was their primary ability like 3, 5, and Tactics. It was their primary damage source of damage, like 3, 5, 9, and 10. It was primarily at-will spike damage, like... all of them. It was a versatile job, like most of them. And it provided a persistent summon, like 10 and continued in 12 and 13.

[Asierid]

Well no, it actually did pretty well at continuing the trends, it was their primary ability like 3, 5, and Tactics. It was their primary damage source of damage, like 3, 5, 9, and 10. It was primarily at-will spike damage, like... all of them. It was a versatile job, like most of them. And it provided a persistent summon, like 10 and continued in 12 and 13.

Those 3 examples are nothing like X/XI, which everyone is mentioning. SMN in every other instance was nothing but a spell that did spike damage (not even a pet) at the cost of high MP with no control over the "pet". Otherwise you were a watered down magic class. X and XI changed this by allowing the player some control over the pet and giving the player more utility outside of being a ghetto black/white mage.

Two different methods. Everyone complains about wanting the X/XI version without thinking about not only the implementation of such a system at this stage, but the fact that the dev team wants it to be different from XI, so it won't happen anyway. You can summon primal spirits. You control them. You are a summoner.

This isn't XI, which is what people want it to be.

[Saggo]

Those 3 examples are nothing like X/XI, which everyone is mentioning. SMN in every other instance was nothing but a spell that did spike damage (not even a pet) at the cost of high MP with no control over the "pet". Otherwise you were a watered down magic class. X and XI changed this by allowing the player some control over the pet and giving the player more utility outside of being a ghetto black/white mage.

Well, yes, thank you for the history lesson, but I assure you it wasn't necessary. I've played every numbered game and numbered sequels. I've been playing or watching Final Fantasy for nearly two decades. I had the Final Fantasy Wiki up when I typed that. I can even give you numbers. 7 of the numbered games were instant spells will splash graphics, for 11 years of history. 5 of them had persistent pets, of which FF11 is apart of and is 14 years of history. 5:7 is not an insignificant ratio. I even gave specific examples of each trend and the titles that exemplified them.

So yes, I will again reiterate that 11 was more like the Final Fantasy series Summoner than 14. It did Summoner better, weighed against the series.

Two different methods. Everyone complains about wanting the X/XI version without thinking about not only the implementation of such a system at this stage, but the fact that the dev team wants it to be different from XI, so it won't happen anyway. You can summon primal spirits. You control them. You are a summoner.

This isn't XI, which is what people want it to be.

You seem to be confusing two different arguments, granted it was a long post. I'm not frustrated that 14 isn't like 11. I'm not demanding that it be like 11. I'm frustrated with and criticizing Squenix for throwing out 11 titles and 25 years worth of a game series in favor of WoW's Warlock.

If Squenix didn't want their game critiqued against the series, they shouldn't have called it Final Fantasy XIV. They chose to leverage their series for marketing and mechanics, so now we are allowed to do that.

[Asierid]

If Squenix didn't want their game critiqued against the series, they shouldn't have called it Final Fantasy XIV. They chose to leverage their series for marketing and mechanics, so now we are allowed to do that.

Let's see...

But SE made 14 a Final Fantasy game, and they very deliberately called this job Summoner. It is not unreasonable to critique the game and the jobs against the series. They ignored time-honored traditions, both old and modern. It's easy to see why people, myself included, are so frustrated with their choice of implementation.

Except that the concept of XIV's SMN is hardly against Final Fantasy series lore just by how it works. So in order for it to be a FF game, we have to go back to SMN being black mages with a one hit wonder button that needs to be flashy and not really useful in anything. So, by this logic, we need to go backwards, game play wise, in order for people to be happy because a majority of FF games had this mechanic for the class, therefore they should have stuck with it since it was a "tradition". Or you can just jump on the "It's not XI, I WAN BIG SMNZ" bandwagon and ignore the dev interviews which stated that you should go play it if you want XI.

Got it.

Again. FF series dictates that a summoner is someone who summons primal entities, it's the common thread in the class throughout the series. You do that here just like you do in XI. You have a handful of abilities that your pet can use that you can control, like in XI. The only distinct difference between the two is the inability to delve into healing magic (Again, a first in X/XI. It was mainly a DPS before then). So yes, -we- are wanting it to be like XI. SMN was and has always been a watered down DPS role with minor support options. Just because two games out of the 14 use them a healers doesn't make it a gold standard.

It summons. It controls them. It does mainly DPS. Fits into the majority of the series just fine. Everyone in here doesn't want this game to be XI apparently, yet the first thing they want when explanations go out are for XI-like abilities, regardless of the classes past. Sounds like wanting it to be like XI to me.

Stuff

It doesn't fit into the trinity, as explained above. Doing SMN the way it was in XI will only result in it being like XI, useless compared to other classes that excel in the role, and unpopular. I didn't mind SMN in XI at all, but to attempt to work that into how this game works would only result in the class being broken (OP or UP)...again. Best to leave it as it is and work in summons and summon abilities as we go along into further games. At least they gave SMN the respect to balance out their abilties and give them a solid stat spread for once...

Least SMN is in line with everyone else (minus the cap on Bane, that makes no sense) now.

[Alberel]

Those 3 examples are nothing like X/XI, which everyone is mentioning. SMN in every other instance was nothing but a spell that did spike damage (not even a pet) at the cost of high MP with no control over the "pet". Otherwise you were a watered down magic class. X and XI changed this by allowing the player some control over the pet and giving the player more utility outside of being a ghetto black/white mage.

Two different methods. Everyone complains about wanting the X/XI version without thinking about not only the implementation of such a system at this stage, but the fact that the dev team wants it to be different from XI, so it won't happen anyway. You can summon primal spirits. You control them. You are a summoner.

This isn't XI, which is what people want it to be.

The thing is FFXI's SMN was mechanically sound, just very poorly balanced. There was actually no reason to change it and Yoshi's cited reason for doing so is incredibly misguided.

The reason Yoshi didn't want to implement FFXIV's SMN like XI's was because he thought XI's incarnation was unpopular due to its passive gameplay. The reality is that it was nothing to do with passive gameplay. EVERY job in XI had a lot of passive gameplay simply due to the resource systems the game used (MP was slow to regen, TP required dozens of autoattacks to regen). XI's SMN was unpopular due to it having such ridiculous MP costs to keep the pets out and an absolutely stupid shared cooldown for all its skills; it was just pathetically weak as a result of poor balancing and zero attention from the devs for years.

If they had simply lowered the damage on some of their abilities, lowered the cooldowns proportionally and entirely removed the shared cooldown across all skills SMN could have been well balanced, fun and popular.

XI's incarnation of SMN is thematically one of the best ways to have done it in an MMO setting. You have to realise that the traditional nuke-style summons would not work in an MMO simply because the job would end up playing like a BLM. SMN simply has to be a pet class in order to ensure it plays differently to the other casters. XI accomplished that very well mechanically; the problems all stemmed from poor balance. When the dev team decides to implement a job like SMN in a way that is different to XI (where it worked well for an MMO) yet uses entirely incorrect reasoning to justify that change then everyone here has a valid reason to be complaining about that difference.

The 'this isn't XI' argument doesn't really hold up anyway. This isn't WoW either yet we're stuck with a WoW warlock playstyle...