Quote Originally Posted by Tulzscha View Post
That's your opinion.
No, that is almost certainly the developmental goal of jobs because they almost certainly are running data analysis of players (especially new players) and looking at stuff like quit rates and the like.

On top of this, while you may think you value mechanical mastery and depth over aethestetics and a good job flow, ultimately are you going to chase mechanical mastery on a job that doesn't play well and isn't actually exciting to master? Judging by the popularity of MNK and SCH, despite being fairly strong jobs that reward you a lot MECHANICALLY for mastering them, I would say even 'superusers' demand a certain minimum amount of flash and fun.

Quote Originally Posted by Tulzscha View Post
FFXIV is thriving. I'll admit ShB SMN could use some cleaning up (ghosting in particular) but making it mindless is a bit much, we already have RDM for that. ;P
Yes, it is thriving, and that is sort of a big thing at the moment. The free trial was an absurd success and I strongly suspect it gave them a lot of data on which jobs are A: really popular with new players and B: which ones are popular AND get people to quit.

MNK, MCH, and SMN (And I would say also DRG, DRK, WHM, BLM, and RDM) are all jobs that kinda really need to be great for the new player experience, flashy, and fufill their fantasies of these iconic jobs from the series.

While I think SMN's rotation is very fun and good, the thematic identity of it as a DOT double-weave class sorta... entirely clashes with how Summoners are portrayed in 99% of all FF media as essentially hurling super-spells.

If it was say... Time Mage or something I suspect the job would be far less of a pain point and people would be fine with it being a niche demanding job for the meganerds, but part of SMN's eternal problem is that it is a very fun and well designed class that is way too complex for an identity that is going to heavily resonate with casual players, and is really bad at representing its identity.