Yet another SMN thread: SMN is the only job that doesn't have a gauge/proc management

[Mostly_Raxus]

I wonder what old SMN mains, whose option of job was butchered for this, would say about that, after all the people who wanted easy jobs already had them ingame and its not like the skill ceiling means that the skill floor is high. "Easy to use but hard to master" is the gold standard

as a former smn main that plays current smn i would say yippee, i love the new smn, i have nothing to prove to anyone about skill floors/ceilings, im playing a game, the class is fun, its not all rng and procs, boo hoo, if its not something you like dont play it, but dont try to diminish the opinions of people that do like it, its fine, it doesn't have to be anything but what it is. your gold standard in not mine, everyone here is arguing opinion but for some reason think it fact.

[WaxSw]

Won't respond to your attempts to put words in the general player bases' mouths.

Also you:

Lots of people like Summoner as it is.

. I have a significant amount of playtime in XIV and SMN is my favorite DPS job. I think it's the best designed so no point going back and forth what you feel others think. Just speak for yourself. You also aren't posting any data on this other than vague polls that happened...somewhere?

Literally here, on the official forums, here let me link you the thread. While this is a sample data of players invested enough to interact with the game in social media (as this poll was posted in several places other than the OF) the fact that SMN stands as one of the top 3 worst rated jobs basically contradicts the whole dialogue of "highly invested people love it" because taking that poll and the number of likes and comments people supporting the job and comparing it with people talking about how problematic and badly designed it is shows that the latter seems to be more common than the former.

You may like it, and its perfect that way, your opinion is yours but I once again have to repeat. PEOPLE. ASKING. FOR. SKILL. CEILING. DON'T. INVALIDATE. YOUR. PLAYSTYLE. In the same way BLM has standard and non standard there is nothing wrong with people wanting SMN to be more, you can keep the simple playstyle and those who want more can try to squeeze more out of it that they currently can't.

Sure, if you want to have options for all classes to play like Summoner or have an even easier mode than why not? Not really sure how you envision this but fine

The opposite actually but that is a talk that is irrelevant in the end.

A few here have some strange nostalgia for it but not many

Once again I summon the poll and the constant complaints of experienced players over the EW years, people play it but its not a few those who have "strange nostalgia" (a.k.a they butchered the job and gave nothing back)

I'm sure SE is seeing how popular the class is now and will see they have successfully revamped it. Am curious what they add to it next expansion but I'm going to bet it will stay similar to what it is now given popularity

See? This is something I agree, not because the current SMN is a success or anything, as I've said like it or not its a problematic job for the game and caster balance, but because if EW is anything to go by, they are very unwilling to make changes.

as a former smn main that plays current smn i would say yippee, i love the new smn, i have nothing to prove to anyone about skill floors/ceilings, im playing a game, the class is fun, its not all rng and procs, boo hoo, if its not something you like dont play it, but dont try to diminish the opinions of people that do like it, its fine, it doesn't have to be anything but what it is. your gold standard in not mine, everyone here is arguing opinion but for some reason think it fact.

You do realize that we're not diminishing oppinions, we are saying that a skill ceiling does not contradict a skill floor (outside the point is mentioned where SMN existence fucks caster balance seriously), you can keep your easy to play SMN but at the same time, as zephyr said, this is a product for the masses and in those masses there are people who want to squeeze more out of the job design and its fine to give them something.

Just a clarification, is not "my" gold standard. The "good design is easy to use hard to master" is the bushnell law which is basically THE gold standard.

[Boblawblah]

You do realize that we're not diminishing oppinions, we are saying that a skill ceiling does not contradict a skill floor (outside the point is mentioned where SMN existence fucks caster balance seriously), you can keep your easy to play SMN but at the same time, as zephyr said, this is a product for the masses and in those masses there are people who want to squeeze more out of the job design and its fine to give them something.

Can you give me an example of how I can keep the exact same simple playstyle while you're allowed to 'squeeze more out of the job'? What would that look like?

EDIT: I hate the post limit btw, it discourages good conversations.

Now I haven't really played SMN at anything above an Extreme so I'm probably not the best person to answer this, but there's a few initial ideas that I could think of off the top of my head.

- Making the order of the summons have an impact on the gameplay. -

You know how the legos kinda have set charges. Garuda has 4, Titan has 3 and Ifrit has 2 and the fact that Ifrit has a GCD that has a cast time. Why not apply that to the order instead of the actual summon instead, and to have that damage ramp up and gain different interactions depending on how many summons you summoned before? To give an example.

• Ifrit is summoned first. Ifrit has 4 charges and the primal attack. Summoner now gets the "Eikonic Influence" buff that gives a 10% damage buff to the next Summon.
• Titan gets summoned next. Titan has 3 GCD charges that now has a 1.5 GCD cast time has 2x increased base Potency. The primal attack now gives a vuln up to the initial target of the primal attack. Summoner gets an "Eikonic Influence" stack.
• Garuda gets summoned last. She has 2 GCD charges that are now hardcast for 2.5 seconds and has 3x increased base potency (much like the Ifrit GCDs from the system now). The primal attack now gives anyone standing in the circle a vuln up and a DoT that keeps getting refreshed if the target stays in the AoE.

Of course there's a lot more interactions other than those 3, and it all depends on the order of the summoning.

Like maybe if Ifrit gets summoned first there's really no buffs at all, then if he gets summoned second, then the Primal Attack has a DoT on the target, and if Ifrit gets summoned last then the primal attack is guaranteed a Crit/DH hit.

Or maybe we can also experiment with party buffs with the interactions as well. Maybe if Garuda gets summoned as a second primal, the party gets a massive movement speed ala Combat Peloton once she appears. Maybe Titan drops a mini shield to the party when he comes out etc...

Point is, you now have an option to stick with the old playstyle of Garuda -> Titan -> Ifrit, OR you can mix it up depending on what you need during the encounter. Options gets opened up, and there's now a skill ceiling while the skill floor is low.

I really like this!! I would actually be more encouraged to learn more about optimizing if something like this was in game. That said, I wonder if this would be nearly enough for the hardcore players. I get the feeling this would be just as braindead as the current iteration of SMN.

[Payotz]

Can you give me an example of how I can keep the exact same simple playstyle while you're allowed to 'squeeze more out of the job'? What would that look like?

Now I haven't really played SMN at anything above an Extreme so I'm probably not the best person to answer this, but there's a few initial ideas that I could think of off the top of my head.

- Making the order of the summons have an impact on the gameplay. -

You know how the legos kinda have set charges. Garuda has 4, Titan has 3 and Ifrit has 2 and the fact that Ifrit has a GCD that has a cast time. Why not apply that to the order instead of the actual summon instead, and to have that damage ramp up and gain different interactions depending on how many summons you summoned before? To give an example.

• Ifrit is summoned first. Ifrit has 4 charges and the primal attack. Summoner now gets the "Eikonic Influence" buff that gives a 10% damage buff to the next Summon.
• Titan gets summoned next. Titan has 3 GCD charges that now has a 1.5 GCD cast time has 2x increased base Potency. The primal attack now gives a vuln up to the initial target of the primal attack. Summoner gets an "Eikonic Influence" stack.
• Garuda gets summoned last. She has 2 GCD charges that are now hardcast for 2.5 seconds and has 3x increased base potency (much like the Ifrit GCDs from the system now). The primal attack now gives anyone standing in the circle a vuln up and a DoT that keeps getting refreshed if the target stays in the AoE.

Of course there's a lot more interactions other than those 3, and it all depends on the order of the summoning.

Like maybe if Ifrit gets summoned first there's really no buffs at all, then if he gets summoned second, then the Primal Attack has a DoT on the target, and if Ifrit gets summoned last then the primal attack is guaranteed a Crit/DH hit.

Or maybe we can also experiment with party buffs with the interactions as well. Maybe if Garuda gets summoned as a second primal, the party gets a massive movement speed ala Combat Peloton once she appears. Maybe Titan drops a mini shield to the party when he comes out etc...

Point is, you now have an option to stick with the old playstyle of Garuda -> Titan -> Ifrit, OR you can mix it up depending on what you need during the encounter. Options gets opened up, and there's now a skill ceiling while the skill floor is low.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Stuff

We will see how the class looks next expansion. I'm sure SE has more player data than 221 people from the forums. lol

Anyway not overly invested in arguing opinions, especially where I'd feel emotional enough to type in all caps with periods between each word. I'm having fun - more fun with the class than ever before so that's all I care about. But since I like how things are now I don't have to be all that concerned unless changes are being made by the devs.

[Payotz]

I really like this!! I would actually be more encouraged to learn more about optimizing if something like this was in game. That said, I wonder if this would be nearly enough for the hardcore players. I get the feeling this would be just as braindead as the current iteration of SMN.

No worries. I like scrolling up so I found your reply. And it's not really a matter of "nearly enough for the hardcore players" and more so "is it a good foundation?"

There's a lot of ideas like this that won't necessarily raise the skill floor (unlike my healing rework suggestions KEKW) but just opens up the jobs in general, and I think ideas like this is what the job design needs right now instead of just having the skill floor = skill ceiling design formula.

Hopefully they experiment in this direction rather than be content being cookie cutter soon.

[ZephyrMenodora]

No worries. I like scrolling up so I found your reply. And it's not really a matter of "nearly enough for the hardcore players" and more so "is it a good foundation?"

There's a lot of ideas like this that won't necessarily raise the skill floor (unlike my healing rework suggestions KEKW) but just opens up the jobs in general, and I think ideas like this is what the job design needs right now instead of just having the skill floor = skill ceiling design formula.

Hopefully they experiment in this direction rather than be content being cookie cutter soon.

I do appreciate the thought you put into this system. I'd be very interested in changes like this.

Personally I also want to summon Leviathan and flood the arena.

[Eorzean_username]

You may like it, and its perfect that way, your opinion is yours but I once again have to repeat. PEOPLE. ASKING. FOR. SKILL. CEILING. DON'T. INVALIDATE. YOUR. PLAYSTYLE. In the same way BLM has standard and non standard there is nothing wrong with people wanting SMN to be more, you can keep the simple playstyle and those who want more can try to squeeze more out of it that they currently can't.

Not the best example, since the broader playerbase very clearly continues to generally avoid BLM, because it's considered too difficult to manage and play correctly.

So in BLM's case, it absolutely is "invalidating" players — in this case, those who would like the "I'm a Wizard pew pew" classic "mage" fantasy, but cannot wrap their heads around how much anticipation, slidecasting, and plotting BLM requires to not become a completely-collapsed and near-useless mess in a real encounter.

However, that's championed as "okay" and a "gold standard Job" by skill-fixated players, because their needs are being met, so they think nothing is wrong — and thus react with hostility to the idea of changing anything about it.

I'm not trying to attack anyone, and I'm not saying anyone is wrong for appreciating BLM's more demanding, methodical, and subtle gameplay. I'm just stressing that it's very easy to become biased about, so to speak, "whose ox is being gored" — the reality is that someone is going to be unhappy in any outcome or scenario, because you're dealing with people who approach FFXIV in diametrically-different ways, and for diametrically-different reasons.

[Raikai]

Not the best example, since the broader playerbase very clearly continues to generally avoid BLM, because it's considered too difficult to manage and play correctly.

So in BLM's case, it absolutely is "invalidating" players — in this case, those who would like the "I'm a Wizard pew pew" classic "mage" fantasy, but cannot wrap their heads around how much anticipation, slidecasting, and plotting BLM requires to not become a completely-collapsed and near-useless mess in a real encounter.

However, that's championed as "okay" and a "gold standard Job" by skill-fixated players, because their needs are being met, so they think nothing is wrong — and thus react with hostility to the idea of changing anything about it.

I'm not trying to attack anyone, and I'm not saying anyone is wrong for appreciating BLM's more demanding, methodical, and subtle gameplay. I'm just stressing that it's very easy to become biased about, so to speak, "whose ox is being gored" — the reality is that someone is going to be unhappy in any outcome or scenario, because you're dealing with people who approach FFXIV in diametrically-different ways, and for diametrically-different reasons.

One thing that worked for me, in regards to the BLM difficulty, is that I used to be way too intimidated by the amount of work required to play the job properly and often frustrated because it seemed impossible to maintain a perfect rotation while solving the encounter mechanics, but then eventually it dawned on me that it's okay to have some degree of failure with your rotation during progression, simply because (generally) you don't have to dps to your best with any job until your party gets to see the enrage. If anything, it's more important that you land those Addles and use your Manashield where you should.

After that I started to enjoy BLM way more, because the mastery of the job is directly tied to that specific fight's progress.

[Eorzean_username]

[...]but then eventually it dawned on me that it's okay to have some degree of failure with your rotation during progression, simply because (generally) you don't have to dps to your best with any job until your party gets to see the enrage. If anything, it's more important that you land those Addles and use your Manashield where you should.

Yeah, this is interesting to point out — it's certainly the sort of thing that a lot of the more "skill-fixated" players try to argue, and to a degree, it's a legitimate point: many players worry more about the perfection of their rotation than is, objectively, numerically-necessary just to "win the game".

This opens up a bit of complex commentary, so I'll spoiler-tag it to prevent creating scroll-clutter.

To some degree, I think the "skilled segment of players" has kind of created the feedback loop that led us here — years of passive-aggressively complaining about, memeing, and mocking players who aren't "in the loop" on optimal practices leads the broader playerbase to become self-conscious and overly-concerned about small mistakes and "parse colours", which then causes the developers to try to calm people down by just removing the ability to make mistakes. Which, of course, is definitely "easier" than trying to make human beings stop being prideful and egotistical towards their "lessers" after they become skilled at something.

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But that's certainly not the only factor — there's also just human nature at play.

I think that most people simply do not want to be told, "Well, you're doing it wrong, but your performance is still adequate enough to not fail completely" — which is what most of the backhanded assurances given by Discords, etc, tend to sound like to players who are trying to gauge whether they're playing correctly.

This creates a general atmosphere where, regardless of how true it is, most players tend to see the game's Jobs as having only two outcomes: "failing" (non-optimal) and "succeeding" (optimal).

And I think a lot of players just do not like the idea that they're "failing" compared to the "ideal" rotation, even if the ideal rotation is not objectively necessary just to clear content.

This is why I think it's not as simple as a lot "skill-focused" players try to make it seem — the argument, "Well, let's just make the Job harder, because you'll still be able to clear content with the easier rotation".

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First of all, most guides won't even explain the "easy" rotation — because most guides want to teach you the "correct" way to play, and in the FFXIV community, that's interpreted as maximizing your damage potential. The people who make guides inherently see no reason to explain how to play at a mediocre level, because they assume that people can accomplish that on their own.

So when someone goes looking for a guide to their Job, it's all or nothing — they either get exposed to things like Optimal Drift and Alternate Lines, or they get nothing at all. If someone does try to make a "consolation prize" guide, it's usually not shared very broadly, and also usually dunked-on heavily by a lot of the "skill-focused" playerbase, because... again... it's imperfect.

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And second of all, "good enough" is just not what most people actually want.

Players don't want to think, "I'm playing the crappy version of my rotation, because it's easy, and that's what I can handle!"

They want to think, "I'm playing my rotation correctly, and I'm doing well as a result!"

The first perspective may be more realistic, but the second perspective feels far better to someone in terms of having emotional fun while playing a game.

This is why players will gravitate towards Jobs that they feel that they can intuitively play "correctly", and become averse to Jobs that they feel like they "fail" too frequently or too easily.

Let's say there's two Jobs, "Job A" and "Job B".

Job A is easy to play optimally, but has a low damage ceiling.

Job B is hard to play optimally, but has a high damage ceiling.

Let's also say that Job B played poorly ends up doing about as much damage as Job A played optimally.

I think most players will gravitate towards Job A, by a significant margin — because they don't care about their actual raw numbers nearly as much as they care about their parse colour (which has been conditioned by the community using things like "gray" and "green" as potent insults), as well as just not feeling like they're constantly messing up and failing... because that's psychologically-unpleasant.

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This is something that I think the argument, "Just make it more complex — if you don't like it, you don't need to do it", fails to take into account: people would rather decisively-succeed, than struggle and fail constantly, even if the numerical outcome is identical in both cases.