Why are summoners so neglected?

[Belhi]

Honestly, I think the problem with SMN boils down to the fact that we are the main damage dealers and the summon itself is a tag along, which is not something that many people want in a Summoner.
In most other FF games, FFXI included; the GF/Aion/Primal is the power (DPS/Support) behind the ability to actually summon. In XIV we give the mobs a terrible flu and then we blow them up with Akh Morn while the Egi chips away and is otherwise forgettable other then a few minor cooldowns (simplified).

I can see the argument that making the pet more important something SMN is lacking. I think that is a pretty fair criticism. They could probably make it more like WoW's BM hunter where the hunter used abilities to trigger attacks from their pet. Honestly part of the issue could be the fact that SMN is shackled to Arcanist and as such has its spell pool. The only way to solve that would be to remove it from a class and do a total overhaul. Sadly that would probably cost us a new job from a future expansion so I can see why it might not be a popular idea for the devs.

I think a realistic question is what can they do, while keeping the existing link to Arcanist, to make SMN feel more SMN? Building more synergy with the pet I suppose.

[Duelle]

That's implying you still want your original concept/implementation in the first place. My interpretation of the whole thing is that they saw pets in action, didn't like them and then got stuck because they couldn't just remove them outright.

And it really does make sense not to flesh out a system you don't want to have anymore in the first place. You softly phase it out.

At that point your class growth looks half-assed, though. It's like building a house out of wood and then changing your mind half way and building the rest out of fiberglass. Not only would it look wrong, but it would also have structural issues. And as seen with this current situation, you get complaints on both sides.

The same lack of understanding of cohesiveness is why all leveling BRDs hit that point where they get blindsided by Wanderer's Minuet the moment they hit lv52, instead of making the design a complete experience to new players picking up the job while the old players reminisce about how it used to be.

[SendohJin]

that's how most jobs in the game are?

what is this Wanderer's Minuet?
what is this Enochian?
what is this Blood of the Dragon?

which existing job actually has this proper foundational build out that you're talking about?

[Magic-Mal]

I honestly prefer the Trance system and hope they expand on it with other Primals in the future.

The Trance system has an AMAZING amount of potential. It could be made similar to NIN mudras where you have say, 3 primal attacks, and changing Trances changes the icons and attack. So for example, under Titan Trance the Deathflare button changes to Earthen Fury. Which inflicts heavy on enemies, or some sort of debuff. That would be really cool.

[Zojha]

At that point your class growth looks half-assed, though.

Well yes. But the alternative is redoing the thing from scratch, which developers tend to be averse to, both in class and general content design.
Instead of retro-fitting old designs to fit with the new goals, they rather let the old stuff be the old stuff and instead build the new stuff to fit the goals. The ARR sightseeing log was never retro-fitted to be like the HW one, ARR gathering hasn't been changed to the HW system, coils aren't using the Alex loot system, hunting log was discontinued, ARR beast tribe quests weren't changed to the HW system etc etc.
They do the same with class design and for the same reasons. Instead of retrofitting the entire job, they just build the new skills on top to achieve the desired results.

Of course that can't make for a cohesive experience, I gladly agree. It's disjointed and often puzzling. It's just what it is.

[Ririta]

They try to make it pet based, people bitch.

This never happened. Everyone was asking about Ramuh and Leviathan when we were promised them in 2.2. Nobody asked for them to ignore the pets, on the contrary, the most common complaint in 2.0 was on summoner being a "poison mage" and pets being underwhelming. People have also been begging for egis to look better since forever.

The fact that they quickly mentioned this "glamour system" when HW was about to release implies that they knew people would be disappointed over not getting new summons. Heck, him mentioning that "people want to summon all the eidolons" is a huge red flag that he knows what people want.

He just chose to not do it, and then complain that people are dissatisfied.

[Silkerin]

that's how most jobs in the game are?

what is this Wanderer's Minuet?
what is this Enochian?
what is this Blood of the Dragon?

which existing job actually has this proper foundational build out that you're talking about?

nj mentioning some of the worst things they implemented to those jobs. *botd was a so-so adition tho* so much that apparently eno will be changed, and minuet i hope they give bards their mobility back. but if it is to reply to your question, mnk didnt change and was worked upon, nin the same, drg kinda the same, blm eeh, they are still the immobile artillery they used to be but they did in a clunky way.

the issue being, from the start smn was implemented wrong, some people wanted a pet job and others a summoner, instead we got a dot job with a mobile turret that somewhat resembles what both wanted.

The Trance system has an AMAZING amount of potential. It could be made similar to NIN mudras where you have say, 3 primal attacks, and changing Trances changes the icons and attack. So for example, under Titan Trance the Deathflare button changes to Earthen Fury. Which inflicts heavy on enemies, or some sort of debuff. That would be really cool.

now if this was implemented, then yeah, it would make smn feel kinda like a summoner in a new way, but then they should just remove pets from it and make another job entirely focused on pets (beast master ), and make smn work on trance. but i feel like they would never do that, and are now stuck with a half assed hybrid that doesnt want to commit fully to either side nor balance both out and instead does a half baked job at both.

worst case scenario they could just make trance affect the egis, making them stronger for the duration, and when you use akhmorn the egi also does a lesser enkindle move, or just do this with a simple new pet skill buff, just adding a few new skills that interact with the pet somehow would already make the job feel closer to a pet job, and still retain the trance mechanic.

the other way i can see the trance and egi implemented at the same time to please both sides, in a way that could be unique for this installment in the series is making the summoner merge with the egi for a period of time, do somestuff and then split again, like in the game tales of zestiria. after the time is over the summoner has to resummon the egi again. kinda like how schs consume their fairies. but it might be too complex, so the easier solution is still just making a new buff/interaction skill for smn every expansion while working on trance/channeling with the other skills.

[Niqote]

-I honestly prefer the Trance system and hope they expand on it with other Primals in the future. Using Deathflare is really cool looking, and its incredibly powerful. Using Teraflare as an LB3 is awesome. I feel like a Summoner when I do those things. Yeah, the Egis are neat, but I'd rather the Summoner end up with more powerful main abilities and flashy animations than just an ever expanding array of pets that become harder and harder to balance around.

-You don't get to have Summoner both ways.

-The Egis are too small, they're not detailed enough, there aren't enough of them.

Yep, its pretty damn cool to have absorbed Bahamuts powers and use them in battle, it was a huge highlight of the SMN quest too! But they really did try to give it to us both ways.
I mean, why Bio and Miasma instead of DoTs we are using from Ifrit and Garuda? Why Miasma II instead of a paralysis/DoT from Ramuh? Heck, Miasma has usually been a weather effect in FF games.

This isn't something I feel strongly enough that I would ever make a thread about it, but since you brought it up... the design just isn't solid and that is why people complain a lot I think; because the Summoner is strong in some places, but weak in others (As a concept and design)

[Khalithar]

I can see the argument that making the pet more important something SMN is lacking. I think that is a pretty fair criticism.

I think a realistic question is what can they do, while keeping the existing link to Arcanist, to make SMN feel more SMN? Building more synergy with the pet I suppose.

This has basically been my issue with it from the very beginning is that the SMN pet is little more than a glorified DoT spell which is unfortunate for a class that has traditionally been about huge burst and flashy spells and considering just how important the Primals are to the storyline as a concept, the lack of emphasis and importance on the pet in both gameplay and the storyline is kind of unfortunate.

The HW storyline and what that leads up to with Deathflare and Dreadwyrm trance was actually really well done and better fit in with the smn's whole thing of being able to tap in to some of the energy of the primals and I've brought this same point up in a few posts in the past.

I've argued before that SE has basically abandoned the pet system outside of glamours at this point since HW gave absolutely no new pet related spells to SMN and added a spell to SCH that involved them actively dismissing the pet entirely. Now, I noticed in the benchmark that they gave some new toys to Eos and that's a really good sign in my opinion that we'll see some new pet related stuff. As to how to create more synergy, the solution is to expand the pet's abilities and adding more abilities that trigger the pet to do something OR expand the Trance system to make the smn feel like you're really tapping in to the abilities of the Primals OR another thought I had is a bit more extreme and will probably not happen.

The more extreme solution would be that equipping the smn job crystal or learning abilities would replace certain spells. To give an example, imagine that as a Sch, when you learned Broil, it replaced your Ruin button with the Broil button.

But I never felt like smn's are neglected necessarily, they're pretty damn strong.

[Dyvid]

Honestly with HW's new abiilities you could feel the devs being confused on how they wanted jobs to play. Some worked well like BLM because it felt like a growth of the origin design. Others like BRD was a quick fix to complaints from the board; rather than adding new song to increase dps output they chose to change the job from mobile to stationary. Since they didn't know how to add new pets, then went from Summoner to Evoker and then blame the community on the design change.

The reality is the community wants two things in terms of Final Fantasy's icon Summons; large flashy damage dealing summon spells and pets. If SE would have developed FC primal summoning then we could mark one off the list and focus on pets. Now rather than giving up on the whole pet concept, Yoshi-P should have come up with a system that would require more pets. One the comes to mind is an Elemental wheel and time limits on Egi; Ice > Fire > Water > Lightning > Earth > Wind or Shiva > Ifrit > Leviathan > Ramuh > Titan > Garuda. Another would toss out the whole range and melee style for real game play mechanics like single target, AoE, back-up tanks, debuff, crowd control, pvp, etc.... though this method is harder since the core design is relatively simple in nature.

Egi design argument, the first real complaint, that they didn't want to diminish the awe of the primals was solid until they released primal minions. All bets are off now and they could even re-imagine player Egi that look nothing like the original primals but rather a new take on the classics; but they won't.

The reality is they are going to keep going with this whole Trance system but leave is half finished much like the pet design. You'll never get a Ifrit Trance nor will you get a Bahamut Egi. The boards will continue to have threads with for and against the current Summoner design.