The general direction of job changes is straight asinine. Literally NO ONE benefits.

[WhimsicalPacifist]

Old Summoner mains are ticked off because the class went from a piano to an abacus with three beads in complexity. If you want to play the new version, fine but recognize that any success with the new version is pointless. It's a caster that doesn't cast more than Samurai. Would you like to eat your red skittle or your green skittle next? It's such a hard decision, you poor you. Truly a full and complete rework; any harder and heads may explode. No don't think too hard, that's dangerous! Maybe they'll need to change it so that the order of skittles is set because an suboptimal choice is currently still possible.

Full history of Summoner for context:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiD95kbP4Xo

As for tutorials, they are technically there beyond the Hall of Novices. It's what the class quests originally were beyond just setting lore. Unfortunately the introduction of the lower difficulty option made them redundant (arguably justified; the extensive reworks gutted tools that some of the class quests had been designed around ie Titan-egi tanking).

[Lustre]

Old Summoner mains are ticked off because the class went from a piano to an abacus with three beads in complexity. If you want to play the new version, fine but recognize that any success with the new version is pointless. It's a caster that doesn't cast more than Samurai. Would you like to eat your red skittle or your green skittle next? It's such a hard decision, you poor you. Truly a full and complete rework; any harder and heads may explode. No don't think too hard, that's dangerous! Maybe they'll need to change it so that the order of skittles is set because an suboptimal choice is currently still possible.

Full history of Summoner for context:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiD95kbP4Xo

As for tutorials, they are technically there beyond the Hall of Novices. It's what the class quests originally were beyond just setting lore. Unfortunately the introduction of the lower difficulty option made them redundant (arguably justified; the extensive reworks gutted tools that some of the class quests had been designed around ie Titan-egi tanking).

I was levelling summoner before EW dropped, and it had more depth at lv60 than many of my jobs at 80 did. It wasn't hard, but it expected you to pay a lot of attention, and rewarded you accordingly for it. Then when it got reworked, it lost all of that depth. I finished levelling it for completions sake, but I didnt enjoy those 30 levels at all. Havent really touched it since except for specific scenarios during FC mount farms where I want a load of burst right at the start of a fight. If I want a caster, I play my red mage. Seems to do the same as SMN, but better, and more utility/fun.

[E-Zekiel]

For the most part, I agree, though with that said I didn't like summoner before (this is not my summoner char) and now I do. But at the same time, I'm not much of a mage-player, and I don't really play summoner super often anyway. Other than that? I dual mained paladin and ninja for years. I dropped ninja after they did the big change-up. Admittedly, I found the changes fun, still? But it wasn't what I wanted out of the class. I basically wanted a rogue, and the little bits of magic were a cool addendum in between my badass melee skills. After the changes, the class felt like a melee mage.

Which, again, don't get me wrong...it was fun, it just wasn't what I wanted out of the class. So I moved to samurai.

Now samurai has this massive change and it just plain doesn't feel as good. At this rate I'll just be only playing paladin I guess.

[MikoRemi]

The devs can't prevent people from being assholes and sandbagging on purpose. But the players can very well report something like Cure Mages. Yes, you can do that. It's legitimate. If they refuse to deal damage, even after you ask them to improve, you are in the right.

The issue with that is I would be stacking reports given my seemingly bad luck with encountering such types. And while Cure Mages are easy to spot, it is difficult with some of the more subtle types such as Offtanks not provoking which kill me or another party member, seeing rotation errors in high level content(relevant content whether dungeon or raid), and so on.

The other issue is that this behavior at large is encouraged by others since much of the time I try to point it out politely at first(ie; “Hey, instead of pressing Cure II all the time, try using Holy to not only stun the enemy but also deal damage”), I get blasted for telling people what to do and it has resulted in being kicked simply for pointing out something like that. Is it the most common experience with the latter? Not really but I can’t really say much to a potential group of friends as one person. If this behavior was called out more often by the community it would help, but were busy trying to be nice and welcoming more to a detriment at times when trying to get people to play decently(not perfectly mind you), is discouraged.

[Sequora]

The problem is that numbers disagree with you. Summoner is more popular than its ever been, despite what veteran players are saying.

I’ve switched over to red mage for now. Red mage is honestly one of the best designed jobs. Perfect level of complexity, spell animations, and theme. All of their buttons feel like they serve a very specific purpose. Their rez feels like an actual utility thanks to dual cast. It’s also the most popular caster by a fairly large margin.

I like the general direction of the rework, but they stripped it most of the way down, but didn’t add enough back. The job feels like what it should have played like at a level 50 cap. We need an extra button or two that adds depth somehow.

There’s very little thinking. They also kept aetherflow for some reason.

All that being said it’s still more popular than its been and I’m sure the development team sees that as a success.

[CKNovel]

The problem is that numbers disagree with you. Summoner is more popular than its ever been, despite what veteran players are saying.

Everyone agrees and like the Summoner direction.
A lot of people don't want to come back to ShB SMN.

All PvP jobs are far more complex than SMN and they have less buttons.
What veteran don't like is that the job is a lego job, very shallow complexity. And they fear that SMN will get the MCH treatment, one more button when they desperatly needs much more.

[EhvaTaco]

The issue with that is I would be stacking reports given my seemingly bad luck with encountering such types. And while Cure Mages are easy to spot, it is difficult with some of the more subtle types such as Offtanks not provoking which kill me or another party member, seeing rotation errors in high level content(relevant content whether dungeon or raid), and so on.

The other issue is that this behavior at large is encouraged by others since much of the time I try to point it out politely at first(ie; “Hey, instead of pressing Cure II all the time, try using Holy to not only stun the enemy but also deal damage”), I get blasted for telling people what to do and it has resulted in being kicked simply for pointing out something like that. Is it the most common experience with the latter? Not really but I can’t really say much to a potential group of friends as one person. If this behavior was called out more often by the community it would help, but were busy trying to be nice and welcoming more to a detriment at times when trying to get people to play decently(not perfectly mind you), is discouraged.

Just report this. Don't let it go unpunished or nothing will change.

[Sqwall]

At this point, it's plain obvious you guys COMPLETELY lost the plot.

We can all understand you guys have a massive influx of new players and wants to make game/content accessible.

However, you guys mistook for making the game accessible to making the game dumb and boring. You want to lower the FLOOR, not the CEILING.

This is why we have a forum absolutely filled with pissed off players. Anyone who is dedicated and likes your game are pissed off. SMN, NIN, SAM, MCH are not happy. MNK has been pissed off for months already. Look over to the other forum. You are bleeding healers. Every DC is literally bottlenecked on Healers. WTF do you think is that?

And casuals? The people you guys are supposedly pandering to? Those people who don't spend time optimising? Here's the kick. THEY DON'T CARE. They don't use DPS meters. They don't know the damage difference. It doesn't do shit. They are not going to say "Oh yay, my damage increased by x% because now I don't have to do y".

You're right....I don't use DPS meters...i'm on PS5. And yet....I can still play competently and pass current relevant content.

We have a SMN and MCH in our static raid, from what they say (I can't see the numbers...again PS5), that our MCH is the top DPS in our static. He seems to thoroughly enjoy the job and he has been playing it for almost 4 years. The SMN decided to main the job simply because it was IDK....better to play now? "It's not a janky mess anymore.", his words. And I agree.

MNK players that I have played with have warmed up to the new MNK (myself included), and I'm am actually curious about it so I ask them in party chat. "Hey, you like MNK now?" It's always the same answer. "At first it sucked and I was upset about the changes. But after I relearn all the muscle memory the job is stupid fun!"

Healers in my static have never complained about DPSing. In fact they literally compete over who does the most DPS, and I just shake my head. That's like saying I just don't want to be last....or 2nd to last.

[Megguido]

Old SMN mains, me excluded, don't like the new version because they wanted to keep the messy, AI crippled mess from before. Not everyone wants change, instead they complain about it endlessly. Familiarity is something deeply integrated the human psychology.

Now, don't hit us with psychology and "human doesn't like change" lecture. SMN went from piano to snoozefest: The only decision a SMN needs to make every fight is "is it safe to stay still 5s to cast 2 red ruins, and then go to melee for 5s ?", every 60s or so. We had DoTs timings, Demi summons attacking in sync with us, DWT and Bahamut separated from each other so we have more flexibility over our burst phase, on-demand mobility and resource pooling with assaults and Ruin 4, and overall more oGCD buttons to press. For reference, I needed to lower my GCD as low as 2.23s with current SMN to match the number of actions per minute I used to do in 5.X at 2.48s.

The most crippling AI dumbfckery was ghosting when we summoned a demi too fast after a pet action, and it wasn't even fixed with the rework. They had to rework Searing Light entirely so we cast it directly, which they could have done back in july 2019. The other AI issues were pretty minor, like Phoenix ghosting its 8th Scarlet Flame because it spent too much time casting its AoE heal.

Lastly, we "old mains" don't necessarily want old SMN back, we just want a SMN that plays as a lvl 90 job, not a lvl 60. On the other hand, it makes the job attractive to a lot more people now, it's just sad for the couple of nerds that loved the playstyle. Bonus kek point : lvl 90 capstone ability is really just a flashier version of our lvl 30 ability with 100 potency on top.

[LauraAdalena]

As an old summoner main, I don’t like her summoner because I have to summon the primals with only size adjust. No carbuncles.

But no really. I like the concept but the lack of depth is an issue. However it wouldn’t be one if the speed would be more favored in gear and if the bosses made you gear around them in terms of sps and gearing for multiple classes and builds wasn’t ass in this game. I’d be okay with a job where the complexity was in gear and having to adjust rotation to the gear.