Fix Summoner Once and For All in 6.0 Please!

[ItMe]

Highly doubt there will be major backlash if they did remove pets. Many players who main summoner or just delve into it once in a while know how much the pets AI sucks. Many people will praise if the pets are gone. The only thing I see is people want to keep carbuncle around. I think it will become mostly cosmetic. However many hate the egis. Always have. So I completely disagree with you about there being major backlash. I don’t think so.

You underestimate how much people love mascot characters.
You underestimate the power of a cute face and a human's love for their pets.
I would be devastated if they just removed them, and everyone in my FC has been asking for SMN to do more pet things... not none.

[SweetPete]

You underestimate how much people love mascot characters.
You underestimate the power of a cute face and a human's love for their pets.
I would be devastated if they just removed them, and everyone in my FC has been asking for SMN to do more pet things... not none.

I love pets as well. I wouldn’t mind having carbuncle stay around only as cosmetic. With the direction they taking summoner and now with this rework talk I’m not sure egis are going to survive. That’s all I’m saying. If they do manage to survive that’s fine too. Just hopefully square will have something good in store for them. As of now they are absolutely worthless and bring nothing to summoner but a forever dot with an unreliable ai. A few might want the pets to stay but many and I mean many trust me want to see them gone. It’s just the way it is.

[Ivtrix]

Outside of bad pet ai the class mechanically is excellent

Anyone who thinks otherwise needs more time with it

[ItMe]

A few might want the pets to stay but many and I mean many trust me want to see them gone. It’s just the way it is.

Is this just like... your gut take on things? Or do you have data to support this claim?

[Grimoire-M]

Is this just like... your gut take on things? Or do you have data to support this claim?

He’s interpreting the many SMN forum posts that amount to “Please change pets/egi!” in a way that benefits his viewpoint. No one wants Summoner to not care about summons. There’s just a wide variety of suggestions, from Dissidia Yuna-style animations that are functionally the same as a regular GCD spell, to Summonsong Demi/phases akin to the worst of Bard and current pet AI smothered together, to more reasonable suggestions like not changing anything except the underlying engine and net code problems that are the root cause of the pet issues, to pulling out old ARR/HW skills and repurposing them as the low level equivalents to Dreadwyrm and Firebird Trance so that the job’s levelling progression makes some amount of sense again.

If SE wants to completely scrap current pets, that’s their prerogative. Personally I think they should commit to fixing what they have using the best of what worked in prior expansions, just because the only assets people actually hate are the Egi.

[ItMe]

He’s interpreting the many SMN forum posts that amount to “Please change pets/egi!” in a way that benefits his viewpoint. No one wants Summoner to not care about summons. There’s just a wide variety of suggestions, from Dissidia Yuna-style animations that are functionally the same as a regular GCD spell, to Summonsong Demi/phases akin to the worst of Bard and current pet AI smothered together, to more reasonable suggestions like not changing anything except the underlying engine and net code problems that are the root cause of the pet issues, to pulling out old ARR/HW skills and repurposing them as the low level equivalents to Dreadwyrm and Firebird Trance so that the job’s levelling progression makes some amount of sense again.

If SE wants to completely scrap current pets, that’s their prerogative. Personally I think they should commit to fixing what they have using the best of what worked in prior expansions, just because the only assets people actually hate are the Egi.

Ah, I see.
Thank you~

[Xeronia]

I think my biggest problem with the idea of the removal of pets is the systems I see popularly suggested just sound like rip offs of existing classes.

- Move through different trances (Bard songs)
- Execute a series of actions to get a summon to do an attack (Caster Ninja)
- Give us the Primal skills instead (Blue mage)

I also feel a lot of people keep missing the full quote from the Mr.Happy interview which is: "Currently Summoner as a job is reaching somewhat of a breaking point when it comes to the overall play mechanics, so we've halted work on Egi-glamour for the time being to shift focus."

"For the time being" is key here. That itself implies it isn't fully destroyed but rather they are shifting focus elsewhere for SMN. Also what the heck happens to SCH if the pet AI has been deemed to unwieldy. I honestly think is is more in reference to they can't just keep throwing in trances and big Demis or the rotation will become far too long and thus they need to evaluate what to do where to keep the rotation length reasonable.

[SweetPete]

I think my biggest problem with the idea of the removal of pets is the systems I see popularly suggested just sound like rip offs of existing classes.

- Move through different trances (Bard songs)
- Execute a series of actions to get a summon to do an attack (Caster Ninja)
- Give us the Primal skills instead (Blue mage)

I also feel a lot of people keep missing the full quote from the Mr.Happy interview which is: "Currently Summoner as a job is reaching somewhat of a breaking point when it comes to the overall play mechanics, so we've halted work on Egi-glamour for the time being to shift focus."

"For the time being" is key here. That itself implies it isn't fully destroyed but rather they are shifting focus elsewhere for SMN. Also what the heck happens to SCH if the pet AI has been deemed to unwieldy. I honestly think is is more in reference to they can't just keep throwing in trances and big Demis or the rotation will become far too long and thus they need to evaluate what to do where to keep the rotation length reasonable.

Halt could mean permanently or temporarily. We don’t know which it is. I’m thinking if he said for good then that will mean other jobs with pets could see no future in ffxiv. He chose his words wisely. Scrapping pets for good means maybe no beast master etc. I’m taking it with a grain of salt. I’m sure summoner is getting a huge rework. I’m good with pets staying or going. I do however think it’s time for both summoner and sch pets ai code be updated or remove them because gameplay wise it’s just to much of a hassle with the ghosting and spells not even going off when you press the button. It’s sorta ridiculous now. 3 expansions in and still dealing with this mess.

[Beddict]

I wouldn't be surprised to see them gut the Pet mechanic entirely but still give the players the Carbuncle and Egi throughout the Class and Job Quests. Make the Carbuncle automatically summoned and always available, and make any Pet abilities come from the ACN/SMN directly. No more ghosting abilities, no more being locked out of Devotion during Demi-Bahamut, just cast the abilities directly with no Pet AI involved. Plus, as mentioned, the Carbuncles/Egis would still be around so just create a BLU Spellbook type deal for ACN/SMN that lets them choose what they want out at the moment. Pet AI has been bad for years now and so this is probably the easiest solution for SE.

[Xeronia]

An FC mate of mine suggested this so I will just copy paste it here as he put this on a reddit post:

I personally don't see the leap in logic that makes one assume the Egi's are going away when the translated quote says:

"Currently Summoner as a job is reaching somewhat of a breaking point when it comes to the overall play mechanics, so we've halted work on Egi-glamour for the time being to shift focus."

Jumping the gun and saying the pets are done for is a bold claim if this is the basis for the argument as most of SMN and SCH ghosting issues surround the transitions between the trance pets (such as the Demis and Seraph) and mashing pet GCDs with their respective oGCDs (such as EA -> Aetherpact/Enkindle -> EA) .

Most of SMN's current problems lie in it having no clear focus and when it comes to removing anything off of the class, i could make a better argument for the Demi summons being removed and instead having Summon 1, 2, and 3 all upgrade into the summons SMN has from the Demis (ie Ifrit -> Bahaumut, Garuda -> Phoenix, and Titan turns into (meme ahead don't kill me) Alexander).

This would also solve issues related to Egi-Glamour as now each of those summons has a new glamour option related to it from the upgrade and would mean that the devs would not need to work on Egi-glamour as they would now be in essence reusing assets that exist in game. For those concerned about the sizes of these new persistent summons, if this is the direction the team were to go i would expect them to default Bahaumut to small and add in a small option for Phoenix and the player can decide whether they want big summons.

For those who say that the pets are the issue, BRD's gameplay currently is similar to those who suggest SMN should be a trance mage and it too is a class in dire need of a rework.