Summoner Memories

[Yukagama]

Pure memories!

[Duelle]

You can't expect SMN in XIV to have everything at once, they have 3 egi's Ifrit, Garuda and Titan, and most likely with plans to add more later. If they just added a bunch now it would imbalance them compared to other classes. Odds are in the future during the 1st lv limit they make will add 1 or 2 more egi's add another sense of depth to the SMN's strategy while at the same time increasing the depth of strategy for every other class.

Agreed. I'm curious to see the direction they'll take Leviathan-Egi and Ramuh-Egi once those enter the game. Not to mention Shiva-egi. By pacing their introductions of the primals the devs are also giving themselves plenty of time and room to maneuver as the game ages.

It was easy to tell XI's SMN had taken the piss by the time Odin (high damage/insta-kill) and Alexander (party-wide invulnerability) became obtainable. Some might have felt awesome but those two avatars were broken on so many levels that it's not funny. And became quite evident when SMN was being used to cheese the terribly-designed Arc Dynamis Lord as well as Voidwatch boss mobs.

If you give one class to much it causes imbalance and you end up with something like XI. You have to realize the way things are being done in XIV is to prevent that as much as possible, to make every class/job a viable option in combat and to never run into a scenario where one class/job won't be used because it's overshadowed by another class/job.

This a thousand times over. As I've repeatedly said elsewhere, "something's gotta give".

[Kirith]

If you give one class to much it causes imbalance and you end up with something like XI. You have to realize the way things are being done in XIV is to prevent that as much as possible, to make every class/job a viable option in combat and to never run into a scenario where one class/job won't be used because it's overshadowed by another class/job.

Making every class the same sure makes development easy, doesn't it? Unfortunately it also makes the game forgettable, and that is exactly why these threads keep appearing. Despite everything Yoshida has been gleefully rambling about, the developers of this game have chosen the most lazy design possible. Summoner is the glaring black spot on the rotten fruit simply because the visual differences between FFXIV and FFXI (and other FF games) are impossible to miss.

Yes, the FFXI SMN sucked in its own way and lacked balance, yet this thread proves how many truly loved the class just because it was made with the objective of being appealing first and functional second. Can you imagine people remembering FFXIV's summoner fondly in over 10 years from now, wishing they could summon their Egis again and step into battle? Of course not, because they're small, ugly, forgettable. (Despite being fairly functional!)

[ufufu]

Wow, watching those XI videos and all I can think about is how clunky and slow everything is.

[Duelle]

Yes, the FFXI SMN sucked in its own way and lacked balance, yet this thread proves how many truly loved the class just because it was made with the objective of being appealing first and functional second. Can you imagine people remembering FFXIV's summoner fondly in over 10 years from now, wishing they could summon their Egis again and step into battle? Of course not, because they're small, ugly, forgettable. (Despite being fairly functional!)

So you'd rather have a gimped class with low functionality barring a specific circumstance (in the case of FFXI, cheesing boss encounters with super high damage/insta-kill moves) over a job that works and is well-designed but is "less pretty". I figured the summoners that endured the ridicule of being /WHM for close to 5 years until XI's devs started throwing scraps at the job would have learned what happens when you throw design and mechanics to the wind.

As far as the design perspective, niche gameplay severely limits your choices in content, specially when the bulk of gameplay is dungeons, raids and instanced battles. You can't have situations where you're stacking DRGs or stacking BLMs, or where you want two wars and sit anyone that likes playing PLD. It was that sort of thing that killed endgame for me in FFXI (between niche design, the existence of gearswaps, and Utsusemi being mandatory in close to everything that was "hard"). FFXI is a textbook example of how to not balance classes in a game, and why you should create parity in performance. The 14 jobs that are not the "ace" jobs are effectively wastes of code and space in-game, and that's not something I wish to see in this game.

You may berate them for taking inspiration from modern MMORPGs, but thanks to that I'm enjoying ARR way more than I did FFXI.

[KiraJ]

Well being a summoner...i have to agree everyone. FFXI summoner was power, while this one....is just a joke. I hope it gets better towards 75 but i don't think they will change the way summoner is alot....so...yea...

[ispano]

It's the way it is because the traditional FF Summoner does not fit in an MMO and still be balanced. It works in single player games fine, but not here.

[Quesse]

BST/SMN were just throw pet at monster and resummon when it dies, no real threat just keep throwing pets til it dies.

I guess you're forgetting about BST jug timers and the fact that you couldn't normally do this..??? Sure you could throw charmed pets at something until it died but even then there were always mis-charms and you had to manage the hate in-between. You have a very fuzzy memory of ffxi bst.

[Parodine]

I really enjoyed FFXI SMN. There were a TON of issues playing it, but they did eventually get it right. And it was an awesome soloer for a while, regardless.

The Fenrir Fight, YingYing Robe hunting, once you got to 70 for ALL the awesome bloodpacts, the Diabolos fight...

I'm leveling up SMN now primarily because I'm holding on to the hope that they'll fix it...or at least allow mods for the Egi's so that I can pretend like my summon is actually important.

[Zaiken]

Why can't FFXIV primals be the real primals that we fight? I want the real thing damn it, not some Digimon crap. Was so excited for Summoner in FFXIV: Realm Reborn too. The only real summon we get is the Carbuncle.