Why Couldn't SMN summon everyting like Bahamut?

[missybee]

I do feel like Summoner in XI looked decidedly cooler (in terms of summons, at any rate).

I get not wanting to have Titan's giant, loin cloth-wearing booty blocking the whole screen, but even a mini Titan would be cooler than our floating nugget (I would 100% glamour the Titan minion as my summon).

That said, I think Bahamut and the rest of the new SMN abilities look pretty great.

[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.

[ErikMynhier]

If this is something you can do on the fly, I fully expect people to have him out and run through the Quicksand yelling "THE END IS NEAR!!!"

[Shougun]

If this is something you can do on the fly, I fully expect people to have him out and run through the Quicksand yelling "THE END IS NEAR!!!"

Assuming it requires the Dreadwyrm Trance (as it looks like) it won't be possible will be difficult, maybe in housing areas though .

Dreadwyrm needs aetherflow consumed, which Summoners have Bane (target), Fester (target), Painflare (target), and Energy Drain (target). Change one of those to a targetless low cooldown ability and yeh.. Quicksand is going to be a Bahamut party for a while lol.


Although. . . the really determined might go build it else where and bring it in ready XD.

[basketofseals]

Again SMNer player base doesn't get it. If the egis were designed the way you wanted in the current game structure. You would basically be BLM with different animations. If that is what you want ask for it. Not a pet job, with a persistent pet.

But SMN isn't a pet job. The pet for most intents and purposes is just a glorified DoT.

[Moonlite]

But SMN isn't a pet job. The pet for most intents and purposes is just a glorified DoT.

Well then instead of all these EGI complaint threads say you want spell animations not pets. I am sure that the dev team can make spell animations and remove the pet.

To the 11 players SMNers were so awesome. Go back to Quicksand caves and soloing worms. To the people who never played 11 it was not a golden age of awesomeness. If they didn't know a brd or rdm they could go days/weeks with out getting a group. So they would go kill worms by themselves since worms can't move. They would use only one pet since it had a 0 mp consumption carbuncle. It was like that for years.

[Jerbob]

To the 11 players SMNers were so awesome. Go back to Quicksand caves and soloing worms. To the people who never played 11 it was not a golden age of awesomeness. If they didn't know a brd or rdm they could go days/weeks with out getting a group. So they would go kill worms by themselves since worms can't move. They would use only one pet since it had a 0 mp consumption carbuncle. It was like that for years.

Going to make my usual reminder that SMN in XI hasn't been this way for nearly a decade and is still going strong.

I know it's a favourite passtime on XIV forums to bash XI, but it's not helpful to refer to events that happened in the late 2000s. I've done the soloing worms and bombs, and I've had my fair share of rants on the XI forums about SMN in the past - things were bad. Were bad! But you're talking about getting merit points on Colibri with bards and red mages, and soloing worms in QSC. That was in 2006. It was more than a decade ago. There have been times when jobs in XIV haven't done well for a while; that doesn't mean they're cursed to oblivion forever. A few potency tweaks and most problems are solved fairly quickly.

I mean, XI has its faults, just like all games, but out of date information does not help informed decisions to be made. Just because the XI gear team couldn't figure out how to type "Pet: Magic Attack Bonus" for years doesn't mean a pet-focused model like XI's is unworkable.

I'm sure there are reasons why XIV's SMN is the way it is, but let's talk honestly about what those reasons might be instead of dismissing alternative ideas because of old prejudices that simply don't exist anymore.

[Moonlite]

snip

I am referring to smn was useless pre page parties and abyss. But the simple fact that most jobs became over powered leveling machines in abyss/page era. So basically you want smn be like abyss powerful? We are still in the grouping era of gameplay MMO hence why I referred to the dregs smn was. When we get to the decline era when no one plays with each other, I will refer to the abyss/page era.

I actually feel you are greatly misrepresenting smn from 11. We could have said it was such a disregarded job they had to put the biggest gate to an expansion built around it. CoP proms fun times, ughh. They never got pet skills balance right.

Let us also mention 11 smn is in such a great spot now you can afk and farm using the current in game design. I quit before something called sparks was added. But I am told you can just afk in a spot where mobs agro and don't link and farm forever.

[Silverquick]

I'm sure there are reasons why XIV's SMN is the way it is, but let's talk honestly about what those reasons might be instead of dismissing alternative ideas because of old prejudices that simply don't exist anymore.

Or we can just accept the fact.... they're two completely different games... and what worked in one... does not work in the other.... and stretching it to fit isn't going to work.

.....Due to, completely different group related play, interface issues, lag, graffical abilities, Raids... right down to the base level game play differences in the way the trash mobs, mechanics, spells, agro, and boss mobs work.

That would be a good start.



Why did you need to use Sleepga, Sleep, and Sleep 2 for Crowd Control I FFXI?
Mostly because each individual mob was about as strong as a boss mob in this game, so you were literally just doing one boss mob battle to another back to back... and a single mob could destroy any single character... or the whole party.

What's different here?
Tank agro is much stronger, they can tank multiple hits from multiple crowds of mobs, and *shock* *boggle*, now suddenly and mysteriously AoE damage is actually usable in this game as to where it was useless in FFXI.

That's only one example... but an obvious one that shaped the base gameplay in each.