SMN Why don't we hear about egi glamours anymore?

[MirronTulaxia]

Not this argument again...

Especially considering that:

1. Pre-FF10, summons were little more than glorified spells
2. Each FF game has different takes on certain jobs

Summoners in FF14 do summon something (Egis and Demis).
Now whether you agree with it or not is something else entirely.

Besides, the same could be said about every other job in the series in general (and FF14 in particular).
Like say, BLU or DRG in FF11, or SCH in FF14.

Personally, I'm OK with this incarnation of the Summoner job, and I'm hoping they continue expanding on it.

Outside of XIV, all spells under the category of Summon Magic (or the equivalent) either directly involved a summon or was a summon itself. What you said isn’t remotely a rebuttal and just indicates you don’t know the series terribly well. I didn’t say anything about Egis. Nor did I say that they had to model a particular game. But the series standard should be followed. If they swapped the names of White Mage and Black Mage in XIV but nothing else responding with “well each game does it differently” is pretty moot at addressing what was said. You should think things through a bit more when replying instead of leaping to the defense of a poor decision.

As well you’re just making a logical fallacy by trying to point out other jobs, but none of your examples really violate the series standard. Outside of really XIV, which is part of the issue. Though Scholar isn’t really a good example of that.

[Exodus-E]

Outside of XIV, all spells under the category of Summon Magic (or the equivalent) either directly involved a summon or was a summon itself. What you said isn’t remotely a rebuttal and just indicates you don’t know the series terribly well.

The problem here is the lore/rules they set up for this game.

Summoning Primals is very, very dangerous for everyone.
Thus, the only option for implementing the Summoner job here was through that one "loophole" (i.e. creating constructs based on them).

Besides, the summons from FF10 to FF13 weren't "spells" exactly, since they could be (somewhat) controlled.
But they were involved in one way or another.

I didn’t say anything about Egis. Nor did I say that they had to model a particular game. But the series standard should be followed.

But you did imply it by stating, and I quote:
"As is it really is a disservice to the job"

And you do call upon summons (as pets) to fight alongside you, and they're based off the classic ones besides (Ifrit, Titan and Garuda).
And through a certain skill (Enkindle), you command them to use their "signature moves" (Inferno, Earthen Fury and Aerial Blast).

Anything else is just extra (in this case, using DoTs), since that's pretty much what the Summoner job was in previous games: only about summoning.
Which is why they complemented it with other jobs/abilities in past games (such as Black Magic or White Magic).

If they swapped the names of White Mage and Black Mage in XIV but nothing else responding with “well each game does it differently” is pretty moot at addressing what was said. You should think things through a bit more when replying instead of leaping to the defense of a poor decision.

• White Mages have consistently been known for using healing spells and having Holy.
• Black Mages have consistently been known for using attacking spells (with the classical elements of Fire, Thunder and Blizzard) and having Flare.
• Summoners have consistently been known for summoning creatures to fight alongside them.

So theme-wise, they're pretty much on point here.
If they swapped names while keeping their roles, THEN we'd have a serious problem.

As well you’re just making a logical fallacy by trying to point out other jobs, but none of your examples really violate the series standard.

• DRG has a dragon minion to fight alongside you in FF11. The series standard had them fighting alone.
• BLU has a middle-eastern motif in FF11. The series standard had them having a domino mask and a cape (european motif).
• SCH is a healer and has a fairy companion in FF14. The series standard had them relying on their grimoire alone (and using spells from both schools of magic).

So they kind of do?

[MirronTulaxia]

Snip.

I have... no idea how you've come to some of the conclusions you have on my stances. I'll try to be more mind numbing explicit in the hopes that you'll get what I'm saying.

1a. The lore is set up after the jobs are done. Plain and simple. They have bent lore to justify things in the past. We even have NieR, literally another series, represented as a continuation of that games story here in this game. You really can't use lore as a defense for anything.

1b. I did not, at any point, say that we should summon Primals.

1c. Creating constructs is perfectly fine. My issue is not with the fact that we have constructs. It's that the entirety of your moveset is not constructs or construct related.

1d. You still performed a "spell" to summon them.

1e. It isn't just X-XIII where they were involved. Every FF, outside of XIV, where you have a Summon Magic or specifically Summoner job, all things in that category are either the summons, or tied directly to them.

2a. I didn't because why it's a disservice has zero to do with Egis. They could all be Carbuncles, they could all have full on Trial level Primal size, it would change absolutely nothing about my stance.

2b. The issue is they fight alongside you instead of for you, in your place, so on and so forth. Only so many ways to say the basic thing. And I can think of ways that you could have something that is closer to being a Summoner than what we got without it necessarily being a pet job.

2c. The extra stuff is the issue, yes.

2d. And those were composite characters, not one job. The job, in and of itself, is just summons.

3a. And all of those are accurate to their jobs here, except Summoner. Summoner is known for summoning... and that's it. Summoner is not known for DoT spam or invocation.

4a. Dragoon really only has a small number of core traits to it. Fight with a lance. Jump. That's really it. And the very first Dragoon, FFII, they're known for fighting with dragons, so you're really off on that point already.

4b. Aesthetics aren't a violation of the theme, and you're wrong about that to boot. Quina does not, in any way, wear a Domino Mask and a Cape. I can point at Kimahri, Quistis, Strago, or if you want specifically jobs then I can point at the Gun Mage, which predates XI's and does not, in any way, resemble that. No matter which way you slice it they don't have a consistent aesthetic focus, not exactly an issue.

4c. Scholar appears in something along the lines of four games. Barring having a book and using magic you can't really point at much of an identity. FFIII they have items and scanning as a gimmick of sorts, low level magic (I want to say even lower than Red but I'm not positive and ultimately moot). FFXI they have an entirely different theme of basically having access to both but having to commit to one or the other. And TA2 they use books but their spells are all innately destructive and hit everyone on the field, enemy and ally alike. There are probably more but the only major consistent theme is "they use books". And prior to Shadowbringers where they cut a bunch of their moveset I would say they did have a fair balance of healing and damage.

[Exodus-E]

Ah, now I see your point(s).

Apologies for earlier, but whenever people complain about SMN not being "true to past FF games", they usually refer to the Egis themselves (instead of anything else).

With that out of the way:

1c. Creating constructs is perfectly fine. My issue is not with the fact that we have constructs. It's that the entirety of your moveset is not constructs or construct related.

2c. The extra stuff is the issue, yes.

So that's what you meant all along.

Yes, while it's true that most of its toolkit doesn't involve its summons, I'd argue that from Stormblood on-wards they (slowly) started taking steps in the right direction.
With the introduction of Aetherpact -> Devotion or the altered Egi Assaults, for instance.

So I'd say it's just a matter of time before SMN becomes far more involved with them.

Still, the job itself should be able to defend itself (to complement its summons), so at minimum, those Ruin-related spells should stay.

[Shougun]

• Summoners have consistently been known for summoning creatures to fight alongside them.

So theme-wise, they're pretty much on point here.
If they swapped names while keeping their roles, THEN we'd have a serious problem.

Would disagree with original ARR meeting Summoner theme very well in that Summoners are known to summon grand creatures pretty much exclusively, even those without scale (Carby) were pretty unique and had some sort of regal element about them, of that then each of these creatures, even the small ones, call down pretty excessive and visually incredible attacks.

Egi, as a visual set piece themselves, at no point meets grand summoning or really any sort of regal look (SMN do have access to carby, though- although perhaps slightly subjective in that some people might think potato is regal lol), in general the egi are pretty much the opposite of everything all the other FF summoners did visually, except perhaps the enkindle part of the egi (that is pretty big magic spell, at the time it was added at least). While mechanically SMN are for the most part a one off casting mechanic there has still be quite a diversity in general of what those one offs do (and then implementation even after that), so almost any sort of mechanic would 'fit' the SMN (pretty much any mechanic is 'ff summoning' one off, pet, party replacement, etc). Wanting to note at this point Demi of FFXIV are pretty grand. Which is to say there has been very little mechanical consistency with summoners but there has been a VERY and probably only consistent element of visual and conceptually thematic view of summoners- one that summons greatness to visually spectacular treats.

Anyways we've obviously not ARR SMN anymore, so if we're talking about the ShB SMN at level 80 I'm sure we agree, but I just wanted to narrow your definition down because 'calling/summoning just about anything is summoner as depicted by the FF series' I would say is definitely incorrect (I've added words simply to show that you need more words to give the proper image of FF's summoner, as it shouldn't be that vague if you wanted to recreate the image). Summoners, of FF, called down a specific type of action, one that had OOMPH whether it be cute like chocobo butt stumping, elegant and beautiful, gaudy and excessive, demonic and aggressive, it was always "extra", incredible like drowning the world in water or blasting through the planet's crust with it's laser beam. Now you'll need to pull that back a bit for MMO setting but you don't have to pull it back as hard as they did, as proven by many other MMOs with magical pet jobs with impressive presence on the field.

If you had to describe FF summoners visually in a single word it would be things like 'excessive', significantly more so than any other job- and consistent across all variants of the job (except ARR summoner). Which egi are definitely not lol; although, with their enkindle being sort of neat, though definitely 'minimized' and are definitely minimized compared to some of the other job's in this game's obnoxious actions, though we'v got our huge freaking pillars of fire and energy now with big chonking summons like bahamut. So like I said SMN has changed quite a bit since ARR, and perhaps you were making that definition without thinking of where we came.

That I just wanted to make your definition more specific because with what you have you could have beastmaster or puppetmaster be in vague theme of summoner depending on how you built it, Shaman in WoW is a summoner because he draws totems and uses magic (assuming to meet your creature definition we write the totems are alive in lore somewhere), no that is way too generic of a definition that fits just about anything if you wiggle it, summoner of the FF series is definitely not just a job that calls some random small stuff to do things- it's a job of calling forth incredible beings (almost exclusively otherworldly) that give treats of gravitas and absurdity (how and what they do being only vaguely consistent, how they are presented is the most consistent part of being a summon). That I'm saying this because a key part of their definition is not in your definition, that you can't have that vague of a definition if you wanted to successfully and consistently recreate their image, obviously as you can see from every other FF game in the series- this grand, extra, image is very consistent and therefore absolutely part of their job visual design (at the start of SMN's life in ARR pretty much any other MMO out there with a magical pet/evoking job had way more oomph, which was nearly a crime to FF summoners because that's been their thing since ever- but they've obviously corrected that since then and FFXIV's magical pet/evoking job is holding it's own a lot better and leading in some ways).

Would be like black mage but all the spells are tiny and barely explode, no one would be happy with that (very clearly as progression the black mage is meant to be making impressive moves, it's a core part of the identity- visual theme). I only nitpick this much because you're talking to someone who felt they didn't go far enough (mechanically) and you're using a very wiggle-able definition, one with so much wiggle room that it could produce ARR's summoner (or other weird things like a shaman from WoW) and I thought ARR's egi only summons and non-primal combat focus was a 'disservice' to the image of being a 'FF' summoner (disservice seems to be the word in trend, I don't think I used that word back then but just for cadence I used it there lol). Something that I had argued fairly strongly about back when SMN was fresh, and I feel, even if coincidentally, quite listened to (and hence why I often defend that SE does actually listen and take feedback and thank them for when I can notice). Demi makes it a lot better, and I quite like the assaults concept, hence I frequently thank them for, and which is why I keep adding I think they've brought the job in the right direction and should maintain this direction hard, and harder if possible, perhaps even taking those notes of change earlier (without huge retcons at least).

Like moogles have a visual theme, it varies slightly, but if someone called chocobos moogles and moogles cactuars that'd just be nonsense. Summoners have a visual theme, that is easy to detail just by looking at them in their context of their own game and in comparison to others with them in it- it's the most consistent part of them (said a few times will say a few more times, as if you're going to find the identity to something and little elements change here and there but one stays the same you can call it the defining feature as it becomes the through line concept between each iteration, grandness is part of that).

In terms of systems (mechanic's not visual focus) of other games for Summoner you have to parse out jobs, job menus, and jobless games. In every game that has job system of summoner it pretty much exclusively relates to summons, well except FFXIV lol. In this way FFXIV might be seen by some as a diluted vision of Summoner. In games that have jobless situations but have the summoner action it's almost always either under the summon menu in battle or at least made available through unique summoning items/actions (like materia dedicated to summons), in this case FFXIV's summoner may be seen a big negatively but the situation is quite a bit more vague. Of course to note one of the biggest well known summoners of the entire FF series (Yuna), is definitely known for both her curative magic and summoning and she is frequently referred to as a summoner (as she is). Though you could say that's mixing job title with other activities, like an engineer may also be a volunteer fire fighter- that doesn't mean being an engineer has anything to do with being a fire fighter. So I think this is where Mirron focuses on, pretty much in all occasions the massive focus of something called summoner should be on summon actions. This is something back in ARR, beyond just visuals, that I had also really wished for SE to work on- and while maybe not as much as I'd like, and that's fair since they've lots of resources to spread (and people who liked previous mechanics, so they try to maintain that relationship and add elements), it's certainly a lot more and bigger too. So in both ways they've improved the job in a way I had really wanted, I thank them for that- besides I didn't dislike the ARR mechanics as much as I felt it missed the identity mechanically (well and visually).

Anyway I wanted to disagree (perhaps some extent to MirronTulaxia as well, if they are suggesting just about any sort of summoning no matter what it looks like is 'ff summoner' as there has been an element so consistent that is core to the identity of being a summoner (like using blue magic spells must look like monster spells)), that there is a 'visual' component to FF summoner, a component that while maybe needing to be dampened for MMO games doesn't need to be neglected (as other MMOs shown, as FF shows themselves via FFXI and their Demi), and it's not like as you are suggesting blue mage can be eastern or western / can be whatever visually so it doesn't matter (even though it does if we're talking actual spell effects, which is the only core of that job, there is no core on other parts as it's been inconsistent there, that job has to have monster spells as visualized by the monsters is the visual core that can't change without seriously gambling the job's thematic identity)- that because you made one example of inconsistency so therefore Summoner can be whatever too. Perhaps you weren't trying to make that comparison, honestly I think you weren't, but I read it as such potential and if you were then no- for summoner there is a visual component that has been in every single FF game (all summons have had what I would I guess lazily and quickly call "impact" or "grand presence" both in summon and summon effect). There is a visual aesthetic to summoner, that is absolutely key description to the job. You may have aesthetic changes for blue mage but it's rather irrelevant for that job when the only key has been monster spells.

Which isn't to say I'm condemning ShB's summoner- I'm not and I wouldn't because I think they've found the right train tracks and just need to keep riding them (each expansion they emphasize the primal and the grand). I've complemented and thanked SE multiple times for changing direction (each expansion no less) away from just egis and it's majority non-primal related actions. That they move into more primal related and more oomph attack content (as I've asked for both mechanical and visual changes), as the job has changed a lot since ARR in terms of visual and mechanical focus. Just keep adding more primal related stuff wherever possible, it's why I say I cheer them on now as I think they've got it and will take it to great places (unlike when I was really worried in ARR wondering how they could have so little of it relate to primals and also make WoW's Warlock have more bang than their most 'bangin' job class in all of the the entire series (SMN)- just didn't seem right at all, but that's not really true anymore ~! <3 ).

[MirronTulaxia]

Ah, now I see your point(s).

Apologies for earlier, but whenever people complain about SMN not being "true to past FF games", they usually refer to the Egis themselves (instead of anything else).

With that out of the way:

So that's what you meant all along.

Yes, while it's true that most of its toolkit doesn't involve its summons, I'd argue that from Stormblood on-wards they (slowly) started taking steps in the right direction.
With the introduction of Aetherpact -> Devotion or the altered Egi Assaults, for instance.

So I'd say it's just a matter of time before SMN becomes far more involved with them.

Still, the job itself should be able to defend itself (to complement its summons), so at minimum, those Ruin-related spells should stay.

It's fine. I didn't clarify as stringently as I should have.

As far as ShB representing it more... I don't feel I really agree. Like, I have a vague idea of what a Summoner could do without being a pet class that still feels like it's summoning and such, but the Arcanist with some transformations we currently have is not really it.

[HeulGDarian]

I felt like i should clarify a bit cause its been bugging me . What i said engineer i meant a computer one not a mechanical one bio and miasma isnt related to garlean technology nor is it poison cause in ff14 there is no such thing as poison magic. for example malboros bad breath is water and earth atributed. To go into every little detail i have managed to find. Healing is basicly repairing since aether carries information of the being it stems from which is why we can repair stuff without having to call upon the elementals for it something that to whm is buffling . in the whm lore its regarded as suicidal , astros call upon the power of the stars and constellations corresponding to the 12. Ruins are supposedely the most basic of function you can create its the hello world of attacks its the unaspected form of every elemental attack in the game which is why it had so many variations , that been said i think im partialy wrong about this for the simple reason that ruination as a magic hasnt had as much explaining . You only see arcanima only in one place outside of sch/smn/acn lore and that is the ascians. every single one of them is an arcanist but they can also wield elemental attacks cause of how much stronger than us they are ill be back to this when i explain egi and demis. Bio and miasma as i said are not poison magic since there is no such thing, what miasma does is inject your aether into the enemy to constrict theirs which causes the lungs to collapase. i know this from 3 sources:
first the tooltip of the debuff says straight up lungs collapsing
second the lore of black rose which tells you how its victims die
and third thancreds condition that allows him to restrict his own aether
Bio says contagions are spreading. which tells me fck all and i have never seen any mention as to how it relates to arcanima hopefully theyll give some lore piece like they did to this expansion with miasma
Lastly the demis egis and carbuncles the crescento of arcanima magic constructing a familiar from the information you get from a piece of aether. this is the same thing we do with healing. carbuncle has as a medium gems not crystals emerald being wind topaz earth ruby fire , what also needs to be mentioned is that they are linked to your aether this is why when tataru became an arcanist and she got scared the carbuncle left her "a ps here everything explained below needs to be done by the smn without fear or slip up else he will have to start over or straight up fail lore wise keep that in mind"

[HeulGDarian]

. and from this we come to where summoner branching begins we find out that we can summon primals the same way we summon carbuncles by using a piece of their aether to replicate them only instead of gems we use the primals aether fast forward a bit and we learn that to have those 3 egis we need to constantly have their aether stored . after pondering awhile getting more efficent with the basics learning painflare tridisaster and shadowflare respectively an explosion of aether a more efficent yet costly way to cast our prior jamming aether and something that they could have bothered explain instead of turning it into the worst pet ability to ever exist . were about to delete our 1 terra homework folder when our mentor tells us hey i found a way to bypass the restriction of summoning only 3 primals trance . trance is basicly a way to transmute the aether we spent and use that to trasform into a state that allows us to gather even more aether . basicly since we cant summon to do more austerities we have to replicate it and then use it to gain its powers then shadowbringers came in with the complaints 30 seconds of my life are too long and threw it out of the window. after "studying" a bit more for awhile our mentor comes upon a book that was willing to teach us an important lesson we can use the trance aether we spend to transmute that to do a demi summon. after 10 levels of tease we finally get demi bahamut. This is our summoning slow but efficient and doesnt harm the earth instead of what those ascians fellows were doing . Then shadowbringers comes in and drops the bomb you dont need a medium to create something with arcanima you can do whatever you like the reason we cant and the reason the summons harm the world is cause we dont have enough aether. you can replicate any spell and kind of an effect as long as you have aether . no need for elementals no need for 12 no need for nothing and this links back to what zenos did when he got the "echo" he could become one with the summon. This whole thing started by arcanima this is why all these remove dots they dont feel summoner like are infuriating to me. what summoner is doing is summoning what summoner is however is so much more than that its a branch of something much bigger he doesnt just summon he literally creates he destroys he repairs he controls and this is just one branch imagine what SCH who branches out into a different kind of familiar could reveal if given the time and effort smn and acn had . THIS is why sch /acn /smn dont have an identity crisis and THIS is why what shadowbringers did to aetherflow chain, something that also removed the highest risk highest reward gameplay, was the worst mistake they could have done. If after all this i have not managed to change anyones mind then im sorry , i will strongly disagree on every kind of cheapening of this job for the sake of fanciness . THIS is summoner and im out.


PS i had to write this shit twice cause my phone refreshed the page

[Shougun]

PS i had to write twice cause my phone refreshed the page

Totally intend to read the rest of it later mate but just wanted to share a neat tip as I've experienced phone issues too lol. If you request desktop page, usually in the settings (top right option section usually) in your mobile browser, then you can get access to edit and such like on your normal computer. Can help sometimes.

[Shougun]

I felt like i should clarify a bit cause its been bugging me . What i said engineer i meant a computer one not a mechanical one bio and miasma isnt related to garlean technology nor is it poison cause in ff14 there is no such thing as poison magic. for example malboros bad breath is water and earth atributed. To go into every little detail i have managed to find. Healing is basicly repairing since aether carries information of the being it stems from which is why we can repair stuff without having to call upon the elementals for it something that to whm is buffling . in the whm lore its regarded as suicidal , astros call upon the power of the stars and constellations corresponding to the 12. Ruins are supposedely the most basic of function you can create its the hello world of attacks its the unaspected form of every elemental attack in the game which is why it had so many variations , that been said i think im partialy wrong about this for the simple reason that ruination as a magic hasnt had as much explaining . You only see arcanima only in one place outside of sch/smn/acn lore and that is the ascians. every single one of them is an arcanist but they can also wield elemental attacks cause of how much stronger than us they are ill be back to this when i explain egi and demis. Bio and miasma as i said are not poison magic since there is no such thing, what miasma does is inject your aether into the enemy to constrict theirs which causes the lungs to collapase. i know this from 3 sources:
first the tooltip of the debuff says straight up lungs collapsing
second the lore of black rose which tells you how its victims die
and third thancreds condition that allows him to restrict his own aether
Bio says contagions are spreading. which tells me i have never seen any mention as to how it relates to arcanima hopefully theyll give some lore piece like they did to this expansion with miasma
Lastly the demis egis and carbuncles the crescento of arcanima magic constructing a familiar from the information you get from a piece of aether. this is the same thing we do with healing. carbuncle has as a medium gems not crystals emerald being wind topaz earth ruby fire , what also needs to be mentioned is that they are linked to your aether this is why when tataru became an arcanist and she got scared the carbuncle left her "a ps here everything explained below needs to be done by the smn without fear or slip up else he will have to start over or straight up fail lore wise keep that in mind"

. and from this we come to where summoner branching begins we find out that we can summon primals the same way we summon carbuncles by using a piece of their aether to replicate them only instead of gems we use the primals aether fast forward a bit and we learn that to have those 3 egis we need to constantly have their aether stored . after pondering awhile getting more efficent with the basics learning painflare tridisaster and shadowflare respectively an explosion of aether a more efficent yet costly way to cast our prior jamming aether and something that they could have bothered explain instead of turning it into the worst pet ability to ever exist . were about to delete our 1 terra homework folder when our mentor tells us hey i found a way to bypass the restriction of summoning only 3 primals trance . trance is basicly a way to transmute the aether we spent and use that to trasform into a state that allows us to gather even more aether . basicly since we cant summon to do more austerities we have to replicate it and then use it to gain its powers then shadowbringers came in with the complaints 30 seconds of my life are too long and threw it out of the window. after "studying" a bit more for awhile our mentor comes upon a book that was willing to teach us an important lesson we can use the trance aether we spend to transmute that to do a demi summon. after 10 levels of tease we finally get demi bahamut. This is our summoning slow but efficient and doesnt harm the earth instead of what those ascians fellows were doing . Then shadowbringers comes in and drops the bomb you dont need a medium to create something with arcanima you can do whatever you like the reason we cant and the reason the summons harm the world is cause we dont have enough aether. you can replicate any spell and kind of an effect as long as you have aether . no need for elementals no need for 12 no need for nothing and this links back to what zenos did when he got the "echo" he could become one with the summon. This whole thing started by arcanima this is why all these remove dots they dont feel summoner like are infuriating to me. what summoner is doing is summoning what summoner is however is so much more than that its a branch of something much bigger he doesnt just summon he literally creates he destroys he repairs he controls and this is just one branch imagine what SCH who branches out into a different kind of familiar could reveal if given the time and effort smn and acn had . THIS is why sch /acn /smn dont have an identity crisis and THIS is why what shadowbringers did to aetherflow chain, something that also removed the highest risk highest reward gameplay, was the worst mistake they could have done. If after all this i have not managed to change anyones mind then im sorry , i will strongly disagree on every kind of cheapening of this job for the sake of fanciness . THIS is summoner and im out.


PS i had to write this twice cause my phone refreshed the page

What I'm reading in a sort of summary, where the values of certain things listed may be much higher or lower depending on preference but exist in some format, correct me if I'm far off, is an appreciation of the connection the job has with the world of the game, the semi-unusual/unique aspect of being a job of science (engineer, the general field, like), and the progression of the job (until some recent expansions changed that up) which took it's historical growth and added to it rather than changing it all up unlike now more recently has started to buck it's history for it's future and you don't really like that it's tossing out some of it's history. That the job had a feeling of slow burn and logical story telling non-destructive progression of it's mechanics (which I think seems to be your focus, of the mechanics and how it relates to it's development story wise).

Just to add for context back in ARR SMN, and I'm not saying SE did this because I suggested it because these things can be coincidences, but I had personally said (long before demi/ahk morn content- right at the release of SMN) an idea of using the architecture of SMN's aetherflows to build into a trance state of being able to summon much more classic FF entities (that are not the actual thing due to lore). In over many, not necessarily one big post, posts I had detailed battery mechanics that included using aether stack build usage, leftover elements in the air (like Bahamut's), and a cycle that rested upon the smaller cycle to build SMN to a state where it could cast higher state egis (basically what demis are- never used the word demi but almost exactly had described a system that came to exist, though to be fair I also described like 10 other options in non-stop idea vomiting as I was quite frustrated and wanted to prove that SE didn't have to kill the lore and still could make changes).

Now going back to discussing old SMNs in two parts of art and then mechanics:

I never thought the mechanics or lore were bad in the sense of it being a job of it's own, new to the series sort of stance- like if we had just called it Arcanist the whole time and never tied it to Summoner of the FF series (as a job based identity game that FFXIV is). Arcanist would have been pretty cool. However, as a Summoner (of the FF series, not just the generic terminology) I felt they had missed the identity in a severe way. If you look at all the other FF Summoners there is absolutely a visual aesthetic to what it 'does', it's not just some random creatures like you can summon a bunch of imps exclusively and that's 'what summoner, for FF, in a nut shell' it's clearly not. To suggest there isn't an visual consistent aesthetic I would say is verging on if not actually intellectual dishonesty.. You may say that the egi are actually grand or are regal (strongly disagree) but to say there isn't a visual aesthetic of what they appear of and how they do it is.. well that'd be just wrong. Like a ranger isn't a black mage even though in the FF series both can hit really hard. And a ranger doesn't simply shoot stuff, because black mage does that too, a ranger shoots stuff with a bow or at least other ranged projectile physical based weapons (sometimes jobs have multiple potential equipment choices)- that visual (and mechanical) aspect is required to make ranger. Summoning isn't simply calling some creatures to do stuff, as demonstrated by FF (the word itself as a definition is obviously more general, but when we talk Dragoon I'm clearly not talking about the British army or the other video game Legend of the Dragoon). There is the allowed subjective nature of art but there is still a consistency of words to describe differences, like those games of spot the difference you do as children- if you put all the FF summons together you'd not spot much difference (expect graphical age) and if anything you'd spot the similarities first; however, you add FFXIV's ARR variant and you'd be like "yeah something happened, this one is different- I can vaguely a see relationship it but this one is the most different clearly compared to the others- the others are visually power incarnate and this one is mellow and whimsical".

I know you weren't talking about the art side of things that much but it really bothers me when people play word salad and or act like art doesn't matter or it was all the same. To be clear it's not something I'm accusing Exodus-E of either, as I've not talked to them long enough to know (could just be their preferential bias/don't care about recreating Summoner too consistently and would like higher variance, maybe they don't bother so much with art and find mechanics to be worth far more, etc), but it is absolutely something I experienced when talking about Summoner in the early ARR days, lots of ignoring history of the job or pretending visuals don't matter in a game series/company famous for caring about their visuals, or redefining word play shuffling to defend the job as it was. Most often because they liked the lore as it was (found it different) or felt the lore to be untouchable which I experience quite a bit (there is a certain very conservative reverence you might find of the lore some people have, where it's impossibly untouchable except for when SE touches it), but I've no qualm about acanist's lore (or mechanics, both were fine)- only SMN's image and history. Not about arcanist or if arcanist was interesting, it's about summoner and particularly FF's summoner which isn't a generic caller of somethings or even just magical things, it call's grand beings, just like all the other FF including FFXI). There was also often being accused of things I had never said- at one point it become popular to say people wanted size for size primal, like the screen filling ifrit but for every summoner- which I had never said, and regularly said things against like scaling them down so it doesn't ruin gameplay (as a 1:1 would have), but still keeping them grand. At one point I had to quote every single post I had made in a thread to prove what was suggested I said never actually happened lol, the hand waiving of their basically only consistency (caller of grand things) and generation of disinformation was really something back then. Anyway, art clearly matters as they spend massive parts of the budget of games on it, that they've got people paid just to organize a consistent style (art directors who have a very important job), and while it might not matter equally to everyone (some play dwarf fortress without any graphic mods, only text based games, wouldn't care of it looked good or not, that's their choice) in general it does matter (not talking quality like 4k, but what it says, like how you can generally tell what class any jobless FF character is by how the designer designed them- because they made the art speak to you). I feel like these discussions tend to get really... manipulative I guess is the best word. Which may be way I come in like a bulldozer..? Past frustrations perhaps making me feel like WOAH WOAH HOL' UP. Like it's okay it not be an element that matters to someone personally, but it feels quite silly when in discussion of FF and particularly FFXIV to see it like as if art and the narratives it tells doesn't matter as a whole, that there wasn't a consistency of what Summoner did- that there isn't a visual narrative that does and has existed. Maybe in other words, very regularly top three reason why FFXIV is touted better than WoW is people like the art style more. Which all of that wall and above is to say art direction and narrative is relevant and you can't just describe a complete narrative through basic mechanics and it be that, the art is also part of that theme, that also changes in expectation can be amazing but also can be .. totally not.. lol which I'll mention again later.

Now onto the mechanics and I think where we more lock heads a bit. In all the games that have SMN as a job the job focuses explicitly on summons, so in this way the expectation that a summoner should pretty much spend all their time summoning is pretty standard. FFXIV is indeed a job based game too, not like say FFX or other games where the job system is more vague (like what job is Vincent? Well you can kind of name a few but he's not just one clearly). So I hope you can agree with me that there is difference between past expectation and current, even if you think this version is better (that slow burn to get to summoner vs all the other ones where you get right at it). Carried onto that is that those past jobs whether they be job based or non-job based get right to the 'good stuff' too, there is no significant build up to wow like most other jobs where you start with fire I to get to Ultima and other cray cray spells. If anything Summoner follows the opposite trend of getting to big stuff early and then not evolving too much beyond that, just constantly pretty damn big- where some other jobs might reach "OH MY GOD WHAT THE HECK" for one spell but for the most part ride below Summoner (and also the powerlevel of summoner tends to start out crazy and end up being just okay by the end).

Again you may feel this is done better in FFXIV, but I hope you can agree that both the art and the build up / mechanical focus are not -standard- interpretations of "FF's" summoners (subverting standard expectations isn't always bad, and it can be good or bad depending, but I hope you allow me that I didn't appreciate it and so I viewed it as bad lol). The word is generic in that you can argue well in WoW the warlock is a summoner, and yeah sure they summon stuff- but clearly FF's idea of what a summoner is, what a dragoon is, is not what the rest of the world calls it- so we shouldn't take it through a generic lens, and FF has a long history to reference, it's not like one game to go by, a game series that likes to do call backs to itself with slight variations (like blue mage always uses monster spells and monster visuals, but maybe the rest of the job is who knows).

Finally you do get to the idea of subverting expectation and trying to do something new with something old, while not changing it too much. Which is important to do, else things get stale or just memes like EA sports/fps game version 3009, exactly like the one in 2001 with better graphics and more loot boxes- hype! This is where you get things like blue mage changing it's history, and it works, but you don't see blue mage suddenly not use monster spells lol. This is why I brought up the samurai example, if FFXIV's samurai used shields only rather than katana's, and they made this wonderful lore for it, even if it looked cool, you could at least 'see' how some people might be annoyed right? That changing something so core about it, away from even bows and spears, forgetting katanas for a second, that would just be like "what are you doing...? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?". That like lets make a more fun example, SE releases a very realistic FF20 where there is no magic, but they have what they call a black mage which is basically like a battle alchemist that throws different sorts of bombs (showering the enemy in fire and other effects)- because the rest of the game lines up with this vision.. you know that might actually pass for most people who buy into the game theme as a whole (wouldn't you say? maybe not everyone wanted a hyper realistic FF but... it could work if the whole game them'd that yeah?). Now lets go back to Summoner, talking about the art vision for a moment, all the other jobs basically go ham, black mage for example, Yoshida's favorite job, is basically big boom explosion city, there is nothing super grounded about it as it drops near screen filling magic on the regular, so there is clearly in the general sense of the game world no limit on magical power- and then suddenly we come in with this job that's like OH BUT FOR YOU WE HAVE LORE THAT CHAINS YOU UP... It no longer feels good, okay so we can have incrediboom for all the jobs but the job that is MOST known for excess in summoning visually insane other worldly beings to do visually insane things? No thank you. So to complete my example of the black mage that is actually a battle alchemist, put that battle alchemist in a world where you've super insane summoners, full holy magic healers, dark knights using dark magic, and then suddenly the black mage idea that might have worked feels like "why.. did you do this..? why did you chain the job up when you've not done so else where? you've made it less cool in a setting that doesn't even actually need that" (like demi shows the lore didn't need to chain summoner).

Although I'm fairly the real reason was because originally Yoshida wanted to have open battle field Free Company primal summoning, and he also really enjoys doing things a bit different (which like I said subverting expectations isn't always bad), as he has also called himself a contrarian (and the lore existed to help back that up for later, as he has said himself gameplay is first lore follows (vague reinterpretation, he didn't say it exactly like that).

Now of course the less cool part is subjective, since some people would probably still think battle alchemist is pretty neat even in that setting lol, but you can at least "see" where someone might come from right? There is a subversion of expectation but it's not even consistent and can easily be seen as a negative to those who had an expectation of at least "semi-greatness". That this job has had a proven history of being absurd and a demonstrated relationship between the dialog (menu / item choices) / job title of summoner and using explicitly summoning content, shown by all of it's history and one of the only consistent things about it (mechanics of what the summons did precisely shift lightly, sometimes greatly, the visuals and relationship to the title of the FF series however had not until early FFXIV- like shifting ranger away from bow into throwing spears.. could be cool, could just be "what in the world did you do that for?"). Subverting expectation can be important and cane make some really interesting things, like maybe I just said a spear based range class and someone in the back started paying attention- "oh.. yes? I love that, why don't we have more spear throwing?" "where are my engineer jobs?" "not all jobs need to start out so obnoxious, how about a slow burn SMN?" etc).. But at least I hope you understand where someone can be frustrated, that FFXIV's summoner, in ARR, did not follow the only things really consistent about being a summoner, which was consistently about summoning great beings to do great things, and more than a soft focus on summoning or a generic focus on calling any sort of creature (else we could say FFXI's beastmaster when using jugs is equally a summoner, and that's silly). It was and has since inception a hard focus on summoning content and a hard focus on a particular visual aesthetic, something they've definitely done past ARR which is why I keep mentioning it as I don't want my post to read like I'm against what they've done since ARR as I feel they've worked both parts that are the only parts that have consistently made SMN SMN (like only part that makes Blue Mage is monster spells, core themes to their job identity). Though I do feel it was unfortunate they hadn't started that way from the beginning, I feel SMN would potentially have been able to use the past resources to greater effect then (perhaps we'd have our glamour system or more primal choices by now- instead of having to keep changing mechanics). Also want to make this point that experimenting with the identity of SMN in teh situation of a job based game is probably not a great place since the title of the job makes the expectations, you don't call something a black mage and make it a warrior-- BUT in a game where job titles are far looser (like the FF that don't have standard jobs, FFIX/X, etc) you'd be forgiven playing with the identities a lot more since it's not as clear a thing to pick to be what you picked (no job system, no title to describe the entire character in one word that paints a consistent mechanical and visual image).

Anyway, I can see why you like Arcanist (which I'll refer ARR variant of SMN under too since I felt it really missed the mark thematically) and if you tell me you liked the idea of SMN having a slower burn / more grounded approach I'll believe you too and I can imagine why (like black mage being a battle alchemist in a very grounded no magic setting would be fine with me, but not fine if we had magic else where for other jobs), but I will counter with that there has been both an aesthetic and mechanical consistency since the beginning and both of which were neglected for the first version of SMN and that while we may disagree on what the best SMN should be now that least we can both see that you liked what was not the standard interpretation, a subversion of expectations if you will (which isn't always bad, but can definitely be that way- like if you might feel if blue mages did not use monster spells even if the lore was pretty good), and I liked clearly the more classical variant and expected great feats from it because of it's history even if it wasn't and shouldn't have been replace your party level theatrics because that'd be just silly lol (nor that it didn't have to break lore to be that way, as proven with demi).

I don't think we'll agree on what to do with SMN but maybe we definitely see each other eye to eye? I think I get it, where you're coming from. I don't think what you like for why you liked it is bad (like if I like a certain flavor of ice cream you don't like, sure whatever right?), I didn't even mind Arcanist as it's own identity, it's own job to be it's own thing, just that I think it subverts the identity of Summoner too much in a way that I don't really care for and while admitting that sometimes subversion can be nice but in this case I don't think it was especially as it was tweaking with the core when the rest of the jobs in the game didn't (blue mage uses monsters, subverting their history for east / west doesn't tweak it's core). I don't really care for it being slow burn or more calm down when I have hyper obnoxious hecta penta super triple ultra flare black mage standing right next to me, that doesn't mean you have to agree with me though, of course lol.