SMN Job 7.0 Feedback

[Anvaire]

I think this image is worth more than a thousand words:

I think that perhaps the new Bahamut is supposed to be Phoenix and Bahamut combined at least skill wise - But the greater concern is why the devs think the easiest job needs to be easier to use? If anything it is the opposite or perhaps they mean more flexible? The sole annoyance on SMN is its rigidity, but that isn't the same as being "hard to use"

If anything, Solar Bahamut is just a slap in the face. Regardless of how it looks we have a Bahamut, I would rather they had added Demi Zodiark or Odin or Alexander (though I personally don't really want Alexander). I think once the media tour info comes out we will get some answers but i've not seen much positivity about this addition at all. But who knows, maybe it will be another Scholar situation where its negative until we actually play it. That's a stretch of copium though.

[Kreyd]

I think this image is worth more than a thousand words:

Maybe we just overlooked the 1,000 page long thread where SMN's asked for space-dragon.

[ZnowKaizer]

Leaving a comment so I can find this thread quicker.

[Mecia]

This 'being a good foundation' premise of 6.0 SMN was dumb anyway because it wouldve continued to be braindead from 1 to 90. Its been proven to be a dumb premise by way of 5.0 MCH which is just as lobotomized.

I would take Stormblood SMN back with all its quirks over this.

[Ggwppino]

dunno, who makes me pay €12 a month for another 2/3 years? If only you could request a refund for the expansion, if only I could.

After 7 years of playing and paying, I really lost all the desire I had to play.

But is it possible that care in jobs no longer exists?
But does it seem normal to you that I pay €140 a year and have a pet bar next to my bar that is of no use?

Does it seem normal to you, regardless of the simplicity or otherwise of the job, that literally Bahamut, Phoenix, Garuda, Titan and let's add Bahamut Mecha ARE THE SAME? no inspiration, no imagination, no nothing!
But it's ff14, that's okay, it's made by the savior of saviors!

Does it seem normal to you that there is a pet that doesn't give a damn about anything? Literally useless! With the fact that it despawns constantly it doesn't even serve as a cheerleader.

If it were called "Generic Name Online", would you really pay €140 a year for a game like that?
I guess there would have been a revolt! But no, hey, it's Final Fantasy 14, made by Yoshi-P the savior of saviors, that's fine.

wtf, guys.


I feel redpilled now lol

[DrForester]

On the surface, I honestly don't mind the changes that much.

I'm curious to see how the searing light changes impact buff rotations. Would be great if it wasn't as tied down to the 2 minute rotation for when a fight requires us to get out of synch with it.

I don't mind getting a new big summon, but I am disappointed it's a Bahamut clone. Seems it could have been anything else to give it some more personality. Would have been great if it was Alexander.

I guess this last part remains to be totally confirmed, but it looks like we're still going to be very mobile, and I would have loved to have seen more hard casts so that the job feels more caster-y. I wouldn't mind the "SMN is just the 4th Phys Ranged" jokes to end.

[Eorzean_username]

I'm just going to post the same response in both of the 7.0 Summoner Threads that seem to have gained "front-page traction", because... even years later, I still honestly have no idea how SE actually gathers and transmits feedback, nor how they decide which Threads to "listen to" or "read".

So at this point, I'm just taking the "spray and pray" approach.

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I would like to offer my own feedback on the presented 7.0 Summoner changes as a longtime player and fan of the Summoner Job — not just in FFXIV, but across Final Fantasy games in general.

Solar Bahamut

Lorewise and conceptually, I don't object to the idea of the WOL finally creating their own unique Summon, seemingly as a fusion of Hydaelyn / Solar / Crystal concepts and the "purified" concept of the "true", pre-Allagan Bahamut, as well as being an obvious contrast to the twisted "Lunar Bahamut" that was created by Fandaniel.

I do, however, also find it "boring" to have Yet Another Bahamut — I do not enjoy being the "Bahamut Job", compared to the more classical identity of FF Summoner as the "Mythical Pokémon Collector".

The excitement for me about Summoner was always seeking, finding, and discovering strange new creatures and beings to Summon... not obsessively fixating-upon one single Dragon.

I would have personally been far more interested in seeing an addition such as Odin, Alexander, the Warring Triad, Zodiark, or... basically anything that's not Bahamut.

SE, you are giving me severe "BAHAMUT FATIGUE". After having endless Bahamut shoved down Summoner's throat since Heavensward, Bahamut has stopped being "cool", and just become "exhausting". I am so sick of Bahamut and Dragons.

Mechanically, I also think that it's very unexciting to simply add a ghostly palette-swap of the generic "1-minute-burst-phase" model.

However, I am aware that there was a conscious design decision for the 7.0 design-period to avoid disrupting the current "rotational formulas". Therefore, I would say that my greater disappointment — if I "can't have everything" — is the choice of the new "burst-phase Summon", rather than the mechanic itself.

In other words... if we were being given something like, "Demi-Bahamut / Demi-Phoenix, but with Alexander graphics"... then, I would be much less frustrated, because at least I would be able to feel like I'm still becoming "more of a Summoner", fantasy-wise.

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Lack of Leviathan, Ramuh, and Shiva

I find this extremely disappointing — as in, "there are no words in the English language that sufficiently and accurately convey the extent of the disappointment that I felt upon seeing the Summoner portion of the 7.0 Jobs Livestream".

I'm playing a Final Fantasy Summoner. I want to Summon things. That is what I do. I locate and collect the "Summonable Beings", and then I Summon them.

Just like Blue Mage does not want to have nothing in its Spellbook but 50 Bahamut Skills, right? Of course, Blue Mage wants to collect a wide variety of Monster Skills, from a wide variety of different classic Final Fantasy creatures...

...Well, it's the same for Summoner. I want to collect a wide variety of Summons... not repeat the same tiny set ad-nauseum.

I honestly struggle to believe that we're going to reach Summoner Level 100, and yet still not have as much variety in our Summons as that level 70 Allagan computer from the Stormblood Job Quests.

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Lack of rotational development

Again, I understand that this is a conscious design decision for the 7.x period.

However, I am nonetheless disappointed that Summoner's overall rotational flow and structure will be remaining as "automated" and simplistic in 7.0 as it has been during the 6.x period.

I do not find the current Summoner model satisfying to repeat in prolonged use, and it makes me feel strangely "tired" of playing Summoner very quickly each time that I do... because, it feels like there is barely anything to really "learn" or "do", and the design is unusually and conspicuously "repetitive-feeling" to me, even amongst FFXIV Jobs.

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Continued development of Ruin and Fester

I feel that the 6.0 redesign of Summoner rendered Ruin and Fester into thematically-incongruous and inappropriate "vestigial organs", which should be redesigned and reflavoured to better fit the new Summoner identity.

I am disappointed to see that we're instead going to receive "Super-Ruin" and "Super-Fester".

To me, this feels painfully uncreative, uninspired, and unexciting.

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I have further thoughts, but it seemed like too much to post inside the flow of a preexisting, ongoing thread.

So I have also made a dedicated separate thread, wherein I elaborate in more detail on my thoughts about the 7.0 design direction for Summoner, and make a frankly-desperate attempt to propose a potential way to still salvage the situation within the limited development time that remains before 7.0 Release:

Implementing Leviathan, Ramuh, and Shiva as simplistic "Aesthetic Swaps"

[Sylvain]

I am so disapointed.

I really had hope that they'd raise a bit the difficulty of the job. Make it... well a caster and not a range with 2cast/min.

So, the visual is great, nothing to say about how the new bahamut looks, it looks great.
I'm not even mad at the whole "No shiva Ramuh Levi" because I wasn't expecting them.

However, SMN effectively gets its last skill at lv 86. Lv 90 is only a skin rework of its basic skills, and the showcast reveal that there's effectively nothing new.
The new bahamut is just a reskinned Pheonix/Baha, you'll spam the same button for 15s with 1 ogcd somewhere in the mix.

SMN is a job that has nothing new that remotely changes the rotation from 86 to 100.
This is utterly disapointing.

When the job rework was revealed, I was hyped. I mean, the logic is sound, you have 1 big burst summon and 3 minor one. The minor one can be done in any order, some have cast, mobility, some have instant. You're meant to know which summon it is best to use to avoid having to cast during movement. This is no different than a BLM needed to manage his Xeno and Triplecast... Basically, manage your movement tool which would be your summoning order.

This would have been great provided we'd need to do more than 2 cast per minute.

How is it possible for the dev to look at SMN and say "yes, this is a caster...". SAM has more cast than SMN!
A melee has more cast per minute than a caster!

Even RDM which we was made fun of on release for having "so much mobility" is litterally a static slug compared to SMN.

At this point swap SAM to caster and place SMN in the range section.

[Roda]

This 'being a good foundation' premise of 6.0 SMN was dumb anyway because it wouldve continued to be braindead from 1 to 90. Its been proven to be a dumb premise by way of 5.0 MCH which is just as lobotomized.

I would take Stormblood SMN back with all its quirks over this.

This is what gets me. Level 15 is where the foundation should start, maybe 30 if you wanna slow burn it to the jobstone. Having your "foundation" be realized at LEVEL NINETY, and now extending it into level 100 is just dire.

As a SB and ShB SMN enjoyer i'm really banking on PCT to sate my thirst for resource budgeting and manipulation that the previous SMN iterations gave me, and I will mourn BST being sentenced to limited job hell 'cause I miss my pet gameplay so bad.. I've been checked out basically this whole expac 'cause they deleted my favorite job and didn't bother to replace it with anything.

[Metricasc]

This 'being a good foundation' premise of 6.0 SMN was dumb anyway because it wouldve continued to be braindead from 1 to 90. Its been proven to be a dumb premise by way of 5.0 MCH which is just as lobotomized.

problem is overall, ever since the MCH rework in 5.0, they have always found ways on expanding it, first with chainsaw in 6.0, and now with the follow up to chainsaw, a second charge of drill and a new action after wildfire, while also giving MCH back its unique party mit tool after realising that being a selfish phys ranged was not the best idea. some of the old plans for MCH rotation? that was moved to DNC.

7.0 SMN does nothing of note to build upon the foundations that 6.0 SMN brought to the table on top of how poorly they dramatically changed it from it being an interesting class in gameplay to a class with cool visuals but with a gameplay complexity that is the lowest of any class in the game. and what they add? a new baha added only for 2 min windows while making the other 2 existing ones swap every odd mins with visuals that pale in comparison to the level 70 baha which up until now was the 2 min summon, a new fester that just exists, and 2 new actions with a follow up to the new baha and the buff you press for 2 mins. while also showing that they are unwilling to add more casts back to a caster that already spends less time casting than melee classes.

the way they made sol bahamut fit makes it also scream that they wanted to make this class a 3 min class but then was told that the 2 min meta was still sticking around.