Job Change Suggestions for SMN

[Exodus-E]

So more like the Demi's we currently have

Not really.

Egis can be commanded in a variety of ways (through the pet hotbar), like staying at a specified location or focusing on a target while you focus on another.

And most importantly, they're "semi-independent" and stay as long as you want/need them to.

Demis on the other hand, are only available through a short burst window and can only attack (and even then, only the same target as you).
Plus, they have difficulty attacking while moving since they keep following you (unlike Egis).

So as you can see, it's not quite the same.

[Grimoire-M]

Egi glamours are really the only way to implement the majority of the other Primals without serious button bloat. SMN is already in need of a serious amount of consolidation and a look back at why they kept Aetherflow for so long in the first place. To me, they could remove a ton of cooldowns and rely on states to track where SMN is in during its rotation while using Aetherflow as a clock. Aetherflow unlocks Trance, Trance cycles the Demi-Egi, and all the extra buttons get consolidated down.

[Tulzscha]

Egi glamours are really the only way to implement the majority of the other Primals without serious button bloat.

I'd prefer a loadout system to glamours. Glamours take away all the summons' identities. If we could go out and collect a dozen or so egis and each was at least slightly different with a few unique ones here and there but we could only put 3 or 4 on our action bars at a time, I think that would be ideal but probably more complex than the devs would like.

[Exodus-E]

I'd prefer a loadout system to glamours. Glamours take away all the summons' identities. If we could go out and collect a dozen or so egis and each was at least slightly different with a few unique ones here and there but we could only put 3 or 4 on our action bars at a time, I think that would be ideal but probably more complex than the devs would like.

These don't have to be mutually exclusive (could be managed through a dedicated UI window).
But yeah, so long as they also have their own unique animations/effects/etc. then it's alright.

[ADVSS]

Not really.

Egis can be commanded in a variety of ways (through the pet hotbar), like staying at a specified location or focusing on a target while you focus on another.

And most importantly, they're "semi-independent" and stay as long as you want/need them to.

Demis on the other hand, are only available through a short burst window and can only attack (and even then, only the same target as you).
Plus, they have difficulty attacking while moving since they keep following you (unlike Egis).

So as you can see, it's not quite the same.

Yeah you do definitely bring up some good points because those few issues were probably garbage binned from demis since they dont last long enough to need to place/heel/attack/obey. Maybe there could be(bad suggestion probably)a way to maintain the demi's time out/ refresh it like botd? I know, this is a terrible suggestion, but...

I'd prefer a loadout system to glamours. Glamours take away all the summons' identities. If we could go out and collect a dozen or so egis and each was at least slightly different with a few unique ones here and there but we could only put 3 or 4 on our action bars at a time, I think that would be ideal but probably more complex than the devs would like.

I'd like to wait and see what they do with BLU with its next update. Why is this relevant? Because giving SMN its own ui page dedicated like BLU has, would potentially cause an uproar from all the other jobs. It could also just cost a lot of work and resources. I can actually attatch this request to one made about skill glamours for other jobs, and then maybe they would be okay with having yet another page added. After all, the pvp page for jobs exists as well, so maybe its not as bad as im thinking to implement. I'm not saying that egi glamours cant be a thing, but im just saying that they would have to spend some time and resources to make it work better than just typing a command in the chat box and forgetting how to undo it a year later. That being said, they could possibly go a long with the idea, if they make sure that other jobs arent going to nuke them over making smn special. And I think the best way to do this is combining both suggestions to a common cause.
This, is also assuming a lot. btw for starters, we don't really know what direction theyve chosen for smn in 6.0, we can only guess. I think theyre probably trying to phase egi's out, thats just my observation. Arcanist being the base for smn however says otherwise, so maybe they will stay.
If thats the case, then its just a matter of them taking feedback seriously about the issue. We were told "more to come" but its been what, 6 years now? Maybe longer? Maybe they've been working on it the whole time, theyre awfully quiet about it if they have. So either something big is being worked on, or not.

[ArcaneCarbuncle]

Personally I'm not a big fan of any suggestion that includes "cycling" through Demis/Trances. Current SMN is already inflexible enough with 2 Demis and especially Pheonix is sometimes annoying due to its rigid timing. If anything, Demis need to be more flexible, instead of doubling down on rigid timer.
I do however think there is some potential in identifying what does and doesn't work about Demis and Egis each and creating a unified concept in which Egis function as weaker, permanent "Pets" that build up a ressource used to summon Demis as flexible Burst Phases.
Best of both worlds, imo.

I'd prefer a loadout system to glamours. Glamours take away all the summons' identities. If we could go out and collect a dozen or so egis and each was at least slightly different with a few unique ones here and there but we could only put 3 or 4 on our action bars at a time, I think that would be ideal but probably more complex than the devs would like.

"Unique" Egi aren't going to happen. All that would lead to is the majority of people simply using whatever the internet maths out as the best combination of pets, which would defeat the purpose of having them all in the first place. Glamour allows for the Devs to include a good number of the summons currently in game and at least make them visually distinct without having to worry about a balance that doesn't exist.
And what Identity? Honestly, look at earlier Final Fantasy games and tell me where the difference lies between, say, Ifrit, Shiva and Ramuh, because outside of the elemental wheel there rarely was any.

That said, they could still very much use a loadout system to manage Glamours, and between the Blue Mage Spellbook and Egi Assault I wouldn't be surprised if thats what they were going for.

I'd like to wait and see what they do with BLU with its next update. Why is this relevant? Because giving SMN its own ui page dedicated like BLU has, would potentially cause an uproar from all the other jobs. It could also just cost a lot of work and resources. I can actually attatch this request to one made about skill glamours for other jobs, and then maybe they would be okay with having yet another page added. After all, the pvp page for jobs exists as well, so maybe its not as bad as im thinking to implement. I'm not saying that egi glamours cant be a thing, but im just saying that they would have to spend some time and resources to make it work better than just typing a command in the chat box and forgetting how to undo it a year later. That being said, they could possibly go a long with the idea, if they make sure that other jobs arent going to nuke them over making smn special. And I think the best way to do this is combining both suggestions to a common cause.
This, is also assuming a lot. btw for starters, we don't really know what direction theyve chosen for smn in 6.0, we can only guess. I think theyre probably trying to phase egi's out, thats just my observation. Arcanist being the base for smn however says otherwise, so maybe they will stay.
If thats the case, then its just a matter of them taking feedback seriously about the issue. We were told "more to come" but its been what, 6 years now? Maybe longer? Maybe they've been working on it the whole time, theyre awfully quiet about it if they have. So either something big is being worked on, or not.

Bard has had its own Gimmick in the form of Performance for years and the number of people complaining about it is vanishingly low. If anything most player would probably welcome the potential for more visual customization.
And I'd wager it woudn't be hard to implement at all. Repurposing UI elements isn't all that difficult, and there are already plenty of loadout systems in the game they could base a "Summoning Spellbook" on.

I'll never understand how people can think they are phasing out the Egi. One of the major SMN changes going into Shadowbringers was making the Egi a more active part of your Rotation, which is the exact opposite of getting rid of something last I checked. They might make further adjustments to how they function, but im fairly certain they'll keep them around; especially with how they've kept the general gameplay idea of every other job they've reworked, so I dont see why they'd make sweeping changes to Summoner specifically.

The last mention of Egi Glamours in an at least semi-official fashion was actually in May? June? of this year during one of the Live Letter reruns. They might not have mentioned it at newer Live Letters and such, but Yoshi-P is certainly not shy about reconfirming Egi Glamours as a thing when prompted; if they had scrapped the Idea completely he'd simply ignore any mention of it.

[ADVSS]

Bard has had its own Gimmick in the form of Performance for years and the number of people complaining about it is vanishingly low. If anything most player would probably welcome the potential for more visual customization.
And I'd wager it woudn't be hard to implement at all. Repurposing UI elements isn't all that difficult, and there are already plenty of loadout systems in the game they could base a "Summoning Spellbook" on.

I'll never understand how people can think they are phasing out the Egi. One of the major SMN changes going into Shadowbringers was making the Egi a more active part of your Rotation, which is the exact opposite of getting rid of something last I checked. They might make further adjustments to how they function, but im fairly certain they'll keep them around; especially with how they've kept the general gameplay idea of every other job they've reworked, so I dont see why they'd make sweeping changes to Summoner specifically.

The last mention of Egi Glamours in an at least semi-official fashion was actually in May? June? of this year during one of the Live Letter reruns. They might not have mentioned it at newer Live Letters and such, but Yoshi-P is certainly not shy about reconfirming Egi Glamours as a thing when prompted; if they had scrapped the Idea completely he'd simply ignore any mention of it.

Ah thats right performance is a thing, and ive seen some requests for a step dance for dancers as well. When you say rerun, do you mean from an much older LL? Have they added more egi glamours since the 3 carbuncles in HW? If he reconfirms its still on the table, thats great news. I am being realistic though, that is to say we havent seen anything more for 5-6 years. Thats a very very long time. This reminds me of the "Companion(s)" tab, in which supposedly the Chocobo wasnt going to be the only one we got, however....

[ArcaneCarbuncle]

Ah thats right performance is a thing, and ive seen some requests for a step dance for dancers as well. When you say rerun, do you mean from an much older LL? Have they added more egi glamours since the 3 carbuncles in HW? If he reconfirms its still on the table, thats great news. I am being realistic though, that is to say we havent seen anything more for 5-6 years. Thats a very very long time. This reminds me of the "Companion(s)" tab, in which supposedly the Chocobo wasnt going to be the only one we got, however....

During the 2 month gap due to Covid they reran a bunch of LLs from back in ARR with Yoshi-P in chat answering questions and commenting on things.
Apparently in the 2.2 one there was a discussion in Chat about Egi Glamours with Yoshida chiming in reaffirming that they are still happening.

- Egi related conversations were touched, but unfortunately YoshiP didn't comment any further. "That is still something to come in the future", "We can't talk about Egi yet" implying that yes, something related to Egi (glamour? new Egi?) will come in the future, just unspecified

Quote from the r/FFXIV discord.

Your timeline is off by quite a bit, Carbuncles were added in late HW, which was early 2017, so less then 4 years. Which is still quite a bit to be fair, but it's important to note that Egi Glams wouldn't be a high Priority item and according to what we know about the Dev process would be the a thing they only really have time to work on when everything else is done. Of course thats gonna take time, especially as they'd have to create models, Attack Animations and figure out ways to deploy the system in the first place (as the initial system is a simple model swap but they'd need one that'd allow them to swap out attack animations as well).
That said, between the Blue Magic Spellbook as a template and Egi Assaults they theoretically have everything they need to make it happen.
If anything it wouldn't surprise me if they introduced EA's partially for this purpose.

Companions are a somewhat different beast, they were last mentioned during ARR afaik and then fell under the radar until Yoshi-P confirmed the guy who was responsible for that system was moved to another team.
Egi glamours on the other hand have been mentioned during Interviews and such at least once a year since their initial release, and usually reaffirm they still want to do it, its just taking them a bit.

[ADVSS]

Companions are a somewhat different beast, they were last mentioned during ARR afaik and then fell under the radar until Yoshi-P confirmed the guy who was responsible for that system was moved to another team.
Egi glamours on the other hand have been mentioned during Interviews and such at least once a year since their initial release, and usually reaffirm they still want to do it, its just taking them a bit.

Considering been playing since ARR beta, i admit couldnt remember whether it was the end of ARR or sometime in HW. I agree then, that if that is what they are working on. I still feel like its been an extremely long time, and as you said they have systems now in place esp with BLU. Performance being a thing, as well as other things in motion, then it is definitely possible. I am uncertain of the current time frame, though, even if it isnt something they arent prioritizing. We get less dungeons per patch as well as numerous other things, that theyve decided to focus their resources and time on. I figured the egi glamours would have been something they could have done by now at least, but I suppose they are probably going to propose/reveal the system at the very least by 6.0. If you guys have to wait longer, I have no real answers for it. I also agree with the actions glamours that have been popping up every once in a while, as some of their culling/replacing of skills on certain jobs makes no sense to me at all.

[ArcaneCarbuncle]

Considering been playing since ARR beta, i admit couldnt remember whether it was the end of ARR or sometime in HW. I agree then, that if that is what they are working on. I still feel like its been an extremely long time, and as you said they have systems now in place esp with BLU. Performance being a thing, as well as other things in motion, then it is definitely possible. I am uncertain of the current time frame, though, even if it isnt something they arent prioritizing. We get less dungeons per patch as well as numerous other things, that theyve decided to focus their resources and time on. I figured the egi glamours would have been something they could have done by now at least, but I suppose they are probably going to propose/reveal the system at the very least by 6.0. If you guys have to wait longer, I have no real answers for it. I also agree with the actions glamours that have been popping up every once in a while, as some of their culling/replacing of skills on certain jobs makes no sense to me at all.

I mean, they sure are taking a long time, but with how long it sometimes takes them to implement even basic QoL changes it just doesn't surprise me.
If its not out (or at least mentioned again) by 6.0 I'm going to be concerned as well, and not just for the prospect of Egi Glams but for the job as a whole.
But for now it seems they still want to do something with it, so we'll see.