Is Smn losing its AOE?

[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.

[Mezzoforte]

I saw the workflow in the LL, and I didn't see much are shown, it seemed like all single target attacks.

They will still be doing outbursts with their summons. Bahamut and Phoenix both have AOE explosions from their outburst use. Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit all cause AOE dmg on summon. Their outbursts are also all AOE. Garuda especially summons a standing AOE wind dmging zone. Titan has aoe explosions from outburst and so does Ifrit. We will be losing bane but we are getting so much more.

[Vallhallix]

No, all the summons seem to have AoE like Phoenix, even Bahamut was given one, including their ''ultimates'' when you first summon them which work as AoE burst. Garuda also still has the placement AoE. If anything they made AoE rotations less awkward, and made them more suitable for on demand use with no downtime, which is a good thing, because there were times in pulls where old SMN felt awkward because one phase wasn't up because a tank was pulling wierdly or at a random pace. SMN rework removes that trouble since we now have AoE always available to cycle through with the trances.

[MellowMink]

It would surprise me if Outburst was removed from the game altogether; there still needs to be some continuously repeatable AOE spell that's better than Ruin III while there are at least three target enemies, for consistency with other jobs that have similarly available options.

[MercuryD]

It would surprise me if Outburst was removed from the game altogether; there still needs to be some continuously repeatable AOE spell that's better than Ruin III while there are at least three target enemies, for consistency with other jobs that have similarly available options.

It looks like outburst will upgrade to tri-disaster at 74 (based on the tooltip in LL demo)