After years of playing Summoner, I'm shelving the job and here's why.

[TsundereImouto]

Risk=Reward has been a gameplay standard across many series including FF, have made it so that people will embrace higher difficulty classes/gameplay if they get a suitable reward for it.

Summoner being undertuned damage on top of it's complexity is kicking the class while it's down.

That's true if you look at single player games, but should rarely be true in multiplayer games where people compete with one another for results. It's an extremely difficult line to tread. Imagine Summoners were able to do 5k DPS if you were a literal god and did everything correctly; How would the people who are amazing at BLM feel about being that good? No matter how good they are, they can't beat the best Summoners even if they can beat most.

No. I think a world wherein the top players of both jobs bring equal benefit to their party. The reason to pick a class with Summoner's current kit is because you enjoy the challenge; needing to be better to match someone is just part of that. Classes should be balanced with the absolute highest possible output in mind; if the average summoner is worse than the average black mage, but the best summoner is equal to the best black mage, I think that that's fine--It's just a difference in the complexity of the jobs.

You keep saying Summoner being complex is bad; "kicking the class while it's down". You shouldn't need to compare yourself to other players to know whether you enjoy a job or not. When you enter a raid and pilot the job, do you enjoy yourself? Ignore numbers and tuning. Is it fun? That is the most important question. Balance can be achieved by changing some numbers, but to imply the complexity of the job is negative is something I take issue with; The complexity is why I play SMN in the first place.

[Galaktica]

Summoners don't play like a pet job.

This is my biggest thing right here. It's my problem with SMN and SCH. The pets just seem like an afterthought. Like rather than being your BFF, they just sorta seem like a buff you have to keep alive. The vast majority of your spells have absolutely nothing to do with the pet either. It's just...there most of the time.

Half the time, I forget my pet is even there and to me, that's not okay.

[PriyaJugulataris]

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A) It's true in multiplayer games as well. From MOBA'S to other MMO'S to even shooters (Sniper gameplay, can be rewarding, but high risk)

B) As it currently stands, a player of equivalent skill could easily bring more to a team on several other classes as compared to playing a SMN, for several reasons (damage, utility)

C) The highest possible damage output isn't balanced. Speaking strictly in DPS terms, having classes that excel in varying fights/bring less DPS & more utility is entirely okay, however in the case of SMN, it's less DPS and Utility

D) I'm saying that summoner being as complex as it is, more punishing than any other class on death, while remaining within the 4 lowest DPS is kicking it while it's down. The rest of your statement is your own personal stuff that I... honestly could care less about.



I'm glad you like summoner. Honestly I am. I started as a summoner since day 1 of this game. But it has progressively gone down a path that many people have been disheartened by, as you can tell from the numerous threads regarding the subject, and given the data that we have from sources likes FF logs, it's entirely valid. People have started to outright stop SMN from joining their party finders, and while you can say "that's a dick move" there's no denying that this is a line of thought that's prevalent in the community regarding a class that is underperforming.

[loreleidiangelo]

Why do you believe a higher complexity job deserves to be higher dps? Why do you refer to playing a game as "working" hard?
In my opinion, high complexity jobs should exist for people who enjoy the playstyle; class balance should be agnostic of how "difficult" a job is to master.
I agree that Summoner is undertuned, but the returns shouldn't matter--the core question here is do you enjoy the playstyle or not.

Returns absolutely do matter, not just in this context but in the context of the entire game as well. Do you think more than a tiny handful of people would even be DOING Omega Savage if it weren't for the resultant rewards? Payoff for your perceived efforts is absolutely a core fundamental of virtually every aspect of gaming. SMN's current state is basically the equivalent of Savage giving out i320 gear and Normal i340. You can either "bump SMN's gear" higher so it's complexity is more alluring or you can "tune it's rotation down to Normal" so that effort vs. output is a non-factor. Making "Savage gear" (SMN) AND "Normal gear" (RDM) both "i340" (equivalent DPS) isn't going help much, though for god's sake SE it would at least relieve the sting a little.

[TsundereImouto]

snip.

i said that under the context of the greater conversation. In this thread, people are posting suggestions to change the core of Summoner. Nobody would bother posting a suggestion like "I like how they are now, just make them stronger." My question is why do people respond to Summoner's numbers being undertuned with suggestions to change the core gameplay. My asking "do you enjoy the playstyle or not" after saying "returns don't matter" means, roughly, if you enjoy summoner right now, don't suggest them to change it fundamentally, suggest that they bump the numbers up a bit to bring us in line with other jobs.

I still fundamentally disagree that a job being more complex and difficult to master necessitates it being poorly balanced.

[Averax]

Honestly, your first reason is why i'm enjoying summoner more now.

I loved the idea of playing a summoner, but hated being a dot mage. Being ruin mage is more preferable. Now i want them to give us more pet tied abilities that are not horribly awkward. Someone had the idea of making them similar to BRDs songs, which i personally liked.

[paradigmfellow]

I still fundamentally disagree that a job being more complex and difficult to master necessitates it being poorly balanced.

It matters greatly. There are a lot of people in PFs that are specifically preventing SMNs and MCH from joining their groups because they know that the job is difficult to master and a lot of people are not like Eirene Snow (The best SMN player).