Why Couldn't SMN summon everyting like Bahamut?

[MomoOG]

It generally needs to be temporary if your going to include something of that size, mostly for the sake of visibility and not overdoing the graphical effects. The Egis are a reasonable enough of a size to allow them to remain on the field for long periods of time without making things hard to see. FFXI had the larger summons and they were annoying as hell when left out for long periods of time, none the less if you had multiple summoners hanging around in the same place.

I guess people have different memories of FFXI summoners. SMN in FFXI with their awesome looking summons was the most iconic memory of the game for me.

[Draginhikari]

I guess people have different memories of FFXI summoners. SMN in FFXI with their awesome looking summons was the most iconic memory of the game for me.

The Avatars in XI were not optimized well much like quite a bit of XI and would literally cause graphical slow down for some individuals. SMNs were often relegated to glorified healers due to their large MP pools and their summons would use would be brought out for one ability then dismissed because of those issues. Iconic doesn't really mean much when it makes gameplay more difficult as result. The Egis appear to be a means to provide the summoning and pet functionality without compromising visibility.

[Jerbob]

SMNs were often relegated to glorified healers.

Going to make my usual reminder that SMN in XI hasn't been this way for nearly a decade and is still going strong. SMN's myriad difficulties back then were due to bad scaling systems and an almost complete back of gear with Pet bonus stats, perpetuated by developers who seemed to not know how to make a pet job work; the fact that it works well now demonstrates that the problem was not with the pet-focused theme of the job.

With regards to Bahamut, I think this embodies the problem I have with XIV's SMN. SE have repeatedly said in the past that a pet-focused SMN wouldn't work because of the size of the summons, among other things, and this goes some way to proving that was at least in part a lie. It's not around for long, but it's there. This Bahamut just illustrates that they can do anything they want to. They choose to make SMN the way it is.

Watching the video again, I can't help but notice that the green skeleton-bird still does almost nothing. The most exciting thing it does is die. I also can't help but notice that 90% of what's happening is the character throwing direct spells at a target. 20 seconds of a (admittedly really good looking!) Bahamut summon, most of which is filled with hurling spells out of a book, doesn't make SMN any more appealing for me; instead, I'm frustrated for what it could have been all the more.

I know that a lot of people are super excited about this, and I'm happy for you all! I was just hoping for something a bit more fundamental to change. I knew it was a futile wish, but they often are.

[Draginhikari]

Going to make my usual reminder that SMN in XI hasn't been this way for nearly a decade and is still going strong. SMN's myriad difficulties back then were due to bad scaling systems and an almost complete back of gear with Pet bonus stats, perpetuated by developers who seemed to not know how to make a pet job work; the fact that it works well now demonstrates that the problem was not with the pet-focused theme of the job.

With regards to Bahamut, I think this embodies the problem I have with XIV's SMN. SE have repeatedly said in the past that a pet-focused SMN wouldn't work because of the size of the summons, among other things, and this goes some way to proving that was at least in part a lie. It's not around for long, but it's there. This Bahamut just illustrates that they can do anything they want to. They choose to make SMN the way it is.

Watching the video again, I can't help but notice that the green skeleton-bird still does almost nothing. The most exciting thing it does is die. I also can't help but notice that 90% of what's happening is the character throwing direct spells at a target. 20 seconds of a (admittedly really good looking!) Bahamut summon, most of which is filled with hurling spells out of a book, doesn't make SMN any more appealing for me; instead, I'm frustrated for what it could have been all the more.

I know that a lot of people are super excited about this, and I'm happy for you all! I was just hoping for something a bit more fundamental to change. I knew it was a futile wish, but they often are.

I'm well aware of the drastic changes to all the pet jobs over the years. I was around when BST gained prominent for awhile. It took a very long time for BST, PUP, and SMN to be worth much of thing and occurred during the later years of XI when the game had already lost a lot of its steam. Whether it is now or not, XI pet system was not real well thought out when it was first introduced.

[Jerbob]

I'm well aware of the drastic changes to all the pet jobs over the years. I was around when BST gained prominent for awhile. It took a very long time for BST, PUP, and SMN to be worth much of thing and occurred during the later years of XI when the game had already lost a lot of its steam. Whether it is now or not, XI pet system was not real well thought out when it was first introduced.

That's absolutely true, but the fact that it works -now- and the only thing that's been changed is supporting gear and potencies, not the core system, illustrates that the core system is fundamentally sound. I was mainly trying to address this:

Iconic doesn't really mean much when it makes gameplay more difficult as result.

by expressing that the gameplay isn't necessarily more difficult, flawed, or otherwise inappropriate when using the pet system XI employs. Apologies for any confusion.

[Shougun]

I guess people have different memories of FFXI summoners. SMN in FFXI with their awesome looking summons was the most iconic memory of the game for me.

I remember them looking awesome and I always thought a Summoner was a badass when I saw them lol, but I also remember a lot of mechanical issues (heard they're better nwo but I've not played any sort of recency). Although pet based jobs are not impossible, they're usually easier with turret sort of systems though.. like WoW's current Warlock does a crap ton of damage in pet spec but he's also dropping pet turrets like no tomorrow (sometimes 11+).

I think the current direction is pretty cool, I'd still love to see the Egi image tweaked via some progression in the future (or glamour) and I think changing bio and other poison related skills into one of the primal elemental would be awesome, but over all pretty damn cool.

I do think people's guess that Bahamut is not really under your control but more like WoW's stuff (big turret of doom) but I'm cool with that. Overall that trailer of summoner screamed summoner to me, to me summoner issue was mostly an image issue - like if they had FFXI's image but kept exactly FFXIV's mechanics I imagine the biggest issue people would complain about on the forums would be making pets easier to control and everything else would be relatively minor (well that and Garuda contagion lol). That's my imo at least, while I like to think about other ideas (different styles of summoner) I'm happy they didn't change it so much that people who love it don't recognize it anymore.. that's dangerous XD (just trading off on who is happy then, rather than overall happy gain).

Wonder if they're going to keep building on Bahamut or if we'll see another Elder Primal / Pinnacle Summon.

The Avatars in XI were not optimized well much like quite a bit of XI and would literally cause graphical slow down for some individuals.

Never heard of issues of having a summoner out.. and I had a meh PC back then, that must have been some really nice toaster they were using . I think adding a faded look for your allies's pets would a nice option though, Diablo 3 has a lot of stuff on screen and I think a really nice touch was the faded pets. For the most part being able to see your Summoner's Garuda is not really relevant to your party, except to your self, so a graphical option might be convenient.

Will be better for Odin events too, so I think they should think about that. Odin having 50+ Summoners all Bahamuting it up. I still think Bahamut seems like an excellent edition but being able to minimize impact on other people who just don't care what job you're playing only that you're playing it.. this option will be good