Is Smn losing its AOE?

[Dyvid]

It was never going to be FFXI SMN, the pet code is too spaghetti for that, and they have made multiple attempts to fix it. At some point you have to accept that it cannot be fixed with how things are right now, and move in the direction of something that still evokes the flavor of the class while changing it mechanically.

Never said I wanted FFXI SMN, that version was garbage. I liked what we had but 5.XX needed adjustments to make it play more smoothly. And as you quoted, based on what we saw none of the issue we have are being addressed. In fact by moving Egi Assault from pets to Summoner you increase the delay of the attack lol. My click to action is basically 1.5s to 2s. Regardless, even if you use Earth Stance as a strawman argument, you still have a global cooldown that equalized it.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

Never said I wanted FFXI SMN, that version was garbage. I liked what we had but 5.XX needed adjustments to make it play more smoothly. And as you quoted, based on what we saw none of the issue we have are being addressed. In fact by moving Egi Assault from pets to Summoner you increase the delay of the attack lol. My click to action is basically 1.5s to 2s. Regardless, even if you use Earth Stance as a strawman argument, you still have a global cooldown that equalized it.

Nah, see what you're asking for, and what they've been attempting, is much closer to FFXI SMN than literally any other FF. No other FF actually has the summons as pets, it's literally just XI. This version that we're getting now, while still needing some adjustments to make it deeper gameplay wise, is much closer to the traditional SMN, and I'm saying that as someone who absolutely adored StB SMN. The only thing it really even has in common with Geomancer is that is uses elemental attacks, which could be said about BLM and RDM as well, so that's really a false equivalency.

The bottom line is that the limiting factor for SMN and to a lesser extent SCH is the absolutely horrendous pet AI coding, combined with the baseline action lock delay. They've tried multiple times to fix it, and given that it hasn't really gotten that much better since the ARR beta, leads me to believe that the limiting factor on the AI isn't with the AI code itself but rather the base code and function for the game, and that changing that code or function will cause more problems than it will fix. Ergo, given that they are unwilling or unable to fix the limiting factor of SMN as it stands right now, which is a coding function, I'd rather they move to something where those inherent coding/function problems aren't an issue.

Now that's not to say that they couldn't have solved these problems. They could've had the summons all use ranged attacks with unlimited range, and just had Bahamut and Phoenix stay where they're summoned, but I'll say that the system they've come up with has far more potential than what they've been working with and works far better as a baseline they can build upon than what they've had so far.

[Grimoire-M]

Nah, see what you're asking for, and what they've been attempting, is much closer to FFXI SMN than literally any other FF. No other FF actually has the summons as pets, it's literally just XI. This version that we're getting now, while still needing some adjustments to make it deeper gameplay wise, is much closer to the traditional SMN,

If you ignore every version of Summons after IX, sure, that's the case. Mostly due to hardware limitations. Though I'll note some of the versions I'm glossing over did more damage based on you letting them play their animations out, which technically has elements of ghosting in it in that both are damage losses. I think wholly disregarding X through XIII is big blow against this argument though, as all of those games had Summons act as individual party members once summoned, and X, like IV, VI, and VIII before it, featured them as a major point of their plot. Keep in mind that that argument also applies to Beast Master, which everyone also thinks 'should' be a pet job on the mere distinction of Fantasy Monsters vs Fantasy Demigods, which basically boils down to Mundane vs Magical at the end of the day, and also does not even feature in any main series game other than XI along that split. XI is indeed a major influence, but I'd argue if you think SUmmons shouldn't be pets you should think Beastmaster shouldn't get them as well.

Basically, that particular argument is dubiously applied at best. Summoner can be however SE wants it to be. We all can agree they decided to reneg on pets because they couldn't get the AI to work responsively enough for players to be satisfied for a decade, which I can still think of reasonable solutions for (adding charges to pet auto-spells, allowing their AI to be made asynchronous like other mechanics to account for the hardlock issue, and enabling the devs to update their priority list to actually prioritize player input properly). That's not what they decided to do though. They're cutting their losses. If they'd at least kept autos around on Carbuncle I think I would've been happy with it. I would have been much happier if they actually upgraded the Egi graphics instead of going for this lazier route, as it's where 90% of the actual complaint was (Pick any SMN complaint topic, you'll find it on the first page unless the OP said some batshit stupid nonsense). If they had wanted to, they could have put this same animation work into the pets as they were and it would have paid off considerably. Alas, they couldn't be bothered.


And if Demis are still on /heel AI I'm gonna be pissed. Just let us use /place like normal people.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

I think wholly disregarding X through XIII is big blow against this argument though, as all of those games had Summons act as individual party members once summoned

I'm not wholly disregarding X through XIII, those were included in there. Particularly in X and XIII, the summons replaced party members instead of being separate party members in and of themselves, which again, very different from how they function in XI and in XIV. Yes it's different from how they function in I-IX, but it's still nowhere close to XI and how they are in XIV right now.

[Dralonis]

Basically, that particular argument is dubiously applied at best. Summoner can be however SE wants it to be. We all can agree they decided to reneg on pets because they couldn't get the AI to work responsively enough for players to be satisfied for a decade, which I can still think of reasonable solutions for (adding charges to pet auto-spells, allowing their AI to be made asynchronous like other mechanics to account for the hardlock issue, and enabling the devs to update their priority list to actually prioritize player input properly). That's not what they decided to do though. They're cutting their losses. If they'd at least kept autos around on Carbuncle I think I would've been happy with it. I would have been much happier if they actually upgraded the Egi graphics instead of going for this lazier route, as it's where 90% of the actual complaint was (Pick any SMN complaint topic, you'll find it on the first page unless the OP said some batshit stupid nonsense). If they had wanted to, they could have put this same animation work into the pets as they were and it would have paid off considerably. Alas, they couldn't be bothered.


And if Demis are still on /heel AI I'm gonna be pissed. Just let us use /place like normal people.

I am kind've curious about how they came to this decision, While I don't dislike it, I'm in favor of it, I wasn't expecting such a drastic change. I've wanted dots gone for awhile since it definitely didn't feel really SMN to me, sure I wasn't a huge fan of egi assaults but I figured they may change something. Maybe they tried it, it didn't work, harder to tune for and just would've presented different issues that we may have only know once it releases, and they've wanted some heavier changes for awhile now. It seemed like that with Tri-disaster, but maybe they felt it would upset people getting rid of dots completely, but with tri-disaster being the way it is, maybe they felt it was easier to transition for people to getting rid of it. I wanted the demi's out longer and them doing the skills. Also, I did not see a pet action bar at all, So I can only assume your pet will ultimately function as a MCH pet.

They do sorta feel like a Geomancer now, however I feel like Geomancer, if they put it in XIV given interviews, would be more Taoist/ talisman inspired. That said, I would prefer something more like a time mage with dots. something not.. elemental.