I thought people might be exaggerating about SMN

[Vegituh]

It is a bit jaundiced to characterize a Job people are enjoying as "bad" and then go on to say that actual data is the only thing that counts.

I could say the same to the people who are claiming that the "data" backs up the rework, but when proven otherwise they say that the data doesn't matter.

Not to mention the amount of people in this thread claiming that the class was bad before. According to said data, a decent amount of people enjoyed that version of the class, including me.

So its okay for people to say SHB SMN was bad, but me saying EW SMN is bad is wrong? People who liked the old class don't matter? Only the new EW SMNers matter apparently.

[Floortank]

So its okay for people to say SHB SMN was bad, but me saying EW SMN is bad is wrong? People who liked the old class don't matter? Only the new EW SMNers matter apparently.

No, it's not correct for people to discard the opinions of people who liked old SMN. I accept those opinions and realize the profound disappointment being expressed. Not being sarcastic.

But! You are definitely not presenting yourself well to say "the data, the data" and disregard all the data right here in the thread, of people saying they like it now, and enjoy it.

I find the reasons for changing SMN to make a lot of sense. It does not lessen the consequences it has had on people who are/were attached to the old Job. I do not think it makes the new Job bad, however. Certainly unpleasant to some who share your POV.

If data is really important, then all data is important, not just the information that agrees with you.

[Vegituh]

No, it's not correct for people to discard the opinions of people who liked old SMN. I accept it and realize the profound disappointment. Not being sarcastic.

But! You are definitely not presenting yourself well to say "the data, the data" and disregard all the data right here in the thread, of people saying they like it now, and enjoy it.

I find the reasons for changing SMN to make a lot of sense. It does not lessen the consequences it has had on people who are/were attached to the old Job. I do not think it makes the new Job bad, however. Certainly unpleasant to some who share your POV.

The only reason I started bringing up "the data!" was due to the amount of people in this thread claiming that SHB SMN was the least played class in the game and that proved that no one liked the class. So I proved that it was, in fact, wrong, and now people are claiming the data doesn't matter.

And dude, you have no idea how unreliable these fourms are for gauging anything about this game. If you go by the fourms opinion, you will have a very misshapen view of this game. Besides, I see a decent amount of people upset with the class rework, and not just in these forums. "All data is important" right?

[Connor]

+1 to a Bard rework it’s been needed for a while lol.

But more to the point of the Summoner I’ve tried but I just don’t dislike it. I don’t find it particularly boring; it’s definitely repetitive and lacking in oGCD, but I don’t think it’s unsalvageable. And as someone who played and enjoyed the old Summoner I think personally I like this one better.

Not that I don’t understand where the people who like the previous are coming from. I’ve seen Bard ‘reworked’ so many times I gave up on it completely, so I’m kinda numbed to that sort of thing myself tbh lol.

I guess the best compromise at this point would be to keep Summoner as it is (in terms of general design) and creating a new class that more fits the themes of the initial Summoner, as a tactical DoT focused dps? That way people who like new Summoner can stay where they can but people who dislike it can still have the same as what they had before? The only thing that’d be missing is ‘pets’, since I’m sure the devs said they’ll never make a pet job again after Summoner/Scholar lol. But then, the Egis were also the least popular aspect of the previous Summoner, at least as far as I can tell. So maybe they could do away with that portion entirely and focus more on abilities focused around DoT-oriented interactions like Fester and Bane?

[Floortank]

The only reason I started bringing up "the data!" was due to the amount of people in this thread claiming that SHB SMN was the least played class in the game and that proved that no one liked the class. So I proved that it was, in fact, wrong, and now people are claiming the data doesn't matter.

And dude, you have no idea how unreliable these fourms are for gauging anything about this game. If you go by the fourms opinion, you will have a very misshapen view of this game. Besides, I see a decent amount of people upset with the class rework, and not just in these forums. "All data is important" right?

The forum is a place to go for information. You're here too, aren't you?

Edit: I hope you recognize the irony of using the forum to express how unreliable forum poster opinions are.

[Vegituh]

The forum is a place to go for information. You're here too, aren't you?

It is generally my last place to go for information. Most people that I have talked to have a very negative view of this place, and considering some of the topics I've seen in this forum over the years I tend to agree.

My best friend, who got me into this game in the first place back in ARR, told me to never come here for information. I tend to check Reddit, Discord and Twitter way before I check here. And the only reason I am here right now was boredom while waiting in queue. Didn't have much else to read. Felt like shutting down some of the lies I saw in this thread, but I'm pretty sure I've wasted my time. Oh well.

[Floortank]

It is generally my last place to go for information. Most people that I have talked to have a very negative view of this place, and considering some of the topics I've seen in this forum over the years I tend to agree.

My best friend, who got me into this game in the first place back in ARR, told me to never come here for information. I tend to check Reddit, Discord and Twitter way before I check here. And the only reason I am here right now was boredom while waiting in queue. Didn't have much else to read. Felt like shutting down some of the lies I saw in this thread, but I'm pretty sure I've wasted my time. Oh well.

"I like new SMN" isn't really an unreliable or outrageous opinion, forum or not.

And taking an interest in conversations broadly is a good thing. Reading does not mean accepting. Actively challenging ideas you disagree with makes the forum better.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

The tl;dr is this. If you did not like old SMN for whatever reason, and do not main SMN currently. You probably enjoy playing it now. It's simple to play, easy to setup hotbars for and flashy and cool for something you decide to queue on with friends or run around doing hunts on when you want to not have to think.

If you played the old SMN, mained the old SMN, or main the new SMN you find out very quickly that the rotation is unrewarding, partially from being so easy that every fight can be approached the same way, but mainly from how simple it is. Your big flashy animations don't feel as good once you realize you're using them every 15 seconds and they aren't a huge potency boost over your flavor of ruin you were casting just before. And the more time you spend on it, the more boring it gets because there's nothing dynamic to fights, and since we have instant casts for at least every 50 of 60 seconds there's little need to worry about trying to finish a spell or being a greedyboi to dodge mechanics. Also we've ironically lost ruin II as the backup "oh crap i need to move a lot and burned my instants already" which is kind of funny to me.

I think samurai casts more than summoner right now, or at least as many times, which is hilarious.

I mained SMN in ARR and HW. It turned into a completely different thing after that, when the pets got taken away and replaced with a walking-particle-effect-DOT-with-latency.
I'm happy with how it plays now, but I'd also love to have a true pet class again some day, with the pet doing the damage and me keeping it alive (and buffed/the enemies debuffed).

[Vegituh]

"I like new SMN" isn't really an unreliable or outrageous opinion, forum or not.

And taking an interest in conversations broadly is a good thing. Reading does not mean accepting. Actively challenging ideas you disagree with makes the forum better.

But "I liked old SMN" is treated as not only an outrageous opinion, but entirely invalid by a lot of people in this thread. The topics all boil down to this:

Player starts thread, unhappy with new SMN. Thread is flooded by people saying "But I like new SMN so you must be wrong" (paraphrasing) and then the thread devolves into a mess and eventually dies before another, almost identical thread, gets opened up. Rinse, repeat. It feels like the whole thing is treading water.

And the worst part is. Neither party is wrong or right. Gameplay is subjective. I liked old Summoner, I liked it a lot. But someone else might like new Summoner just as much. And thats fine. Congratulations, you've got a job you like in this game. The kicker for me though, is that I lost my job. Oh sure I'm still playing it. But for the most part its until 6.1 to see if they actually plan on doing anything with it. Then I might have to give up the Job I've spent the last 5 years playing. That stings.

[kejakalope]

May I point you to this Lucky Bancho census report from April 2021 that says otherwise?

https://imgur.com/GofAisM


And in case you are wondering, Lucky Bancho is pretty much our most reliable source of player data due to the fact that Square Enix does not like releasing much of anything when it comes to playerbase data.


But no, from what I can tell through our available resources, SMN has rarely, if ever, been the least played class in the game. That is just hyperbole from online forum goers to explain why this new Summoner is okay.

That's... a census of people who had cleared E12S and gotten the weapon at the time. that is very emphatically not a population census. Are you seriously trying to beat people over the head with "the data, the data" while thinking there are only 5,100 people playing Samurai globally?

I'll go try and dig up the old info I'm remembering, in any case. It's difficult to parse real Summoner population numbers from simple metrics like "how many people have it at level cap" since that inevitably gives you the total SMN + SCH population instead of just the active SMN population.