Newbie Rant - Summoner Pets

[Lyrinn]

They're small to help with visibility concerns. You don't need player-sized pets (or larger) blocking the view in an MMO that's heavy on dodging AoEs and dealing with mechanics markers over player's heads.

Exactly this. Giant summons are fine in single player games. They're not fine in MMOs where you have to watch for small markers over your heads or on the ground. I wouldn't mind a compromise like upscaling summons outside of dungeons/raids since we already have goobues and fat chocobos running around but absolutely not for duties.

[HakuroDK]

I happen to know from previous interviews that some of the current egis will be altered gameplay-wise so each egi can adapt to varying situations, so Ifrit will become more than JUST a melee DPS and Garuda will become more than JUST a ranged DPS, then Ramuh and Leviathan egis will fit in there somewhere.

As for appearances... what kind of appearances are you suggesting? I mean, what won't happen is individual summoners getting full-sized summonable versions of the primals. Whether or not the devs are still going to let FCs summon Primals is up in the air, but no individual summoner will get that power.

[kyuven]

Side note: i find it funny that players complain about ffxiv smn wanting summons the size of summons in FFXI but don't complain about monsters being too big... I mean a big ass dragon obstructs your view more than a Titan summon would. Its comical that ppl act like they play ffxiv in first person mode just because there is third person view optionally available. Guess they just really have a too big summon phobia and it stops them from sleeping well at night or something.

Big monsters exist so they're easy to see and target.
Big players and pets shouldn't exist because they're easy to see and target.
also, FFXI didn't have telegraphs and magical rainbow skittle marks that you needed to look out for. Just the boss's motions. Plus it was made when MMOs were a new thing. It's impractical for player features to be larger than the players themselves, as while it may not obstruct YOUR view, a melee pet that's bigger than the caster stands a good chance of standing on top of someone when, say, a mechanic such as t9 meteors is thrown out. Or, to use dungeons, Anchag's magical kill laser of doom.

And they're also impractical outside of combat. FFXI's summons had a key mitigating factor that prevented them from being REALLY annoying: they were ostensibly temporary. They drained MP and thus couldn't be kept out indefinitely. Which means you couldn't create a massive lagfest of summons in Jeuno to block NPCs for longer than a couple minutes if at all.
In XIV, summons last until the caster changes jobs, one or both dies, or manually desummons it. Thus the need to ensure they don't take up as much space even in the field. Can you imagine how congested Mor Dhona would be if summoner pets were the size of fat chocobos?

[DragonFlyy]

Personally I don't mind the egi's size. What I do wish is they shared the models of the primals (just smaller).

[Gilraen]

The thing is that smaller primals don't make much sense considering how Summoners are getting their egis, lore-wise. Summoners, like in XI, get their egis from the primals as a form of power-sharing. The differences is that in XI the avatars respected Summoners after proving themselves worthy. In XIV you're not so much proving you're worthy in as much proving you're able. But the BIG difference is primals, unlike XI's avatars, are so full of themselves that the stick up their arses have sprouted roots. The egis aren't so much a primal's will given form in an aetheric construct the Summoner can handle as it is a pity pittance, a fragment of a primal that couldn't be arsed to give a rat's arse over. They are not our friends, and a Summoner isn't much higher on the 'friendship' scale.

[Adrian74]

This is why I say, If there's going to be troubles with the sizes of pets, etc... Don't make a job like summoner, delete it from game!....

Or make it exclusive to lalas so it fits them....

Or.... CARBUNCLES...

I already use my dear beloved carbuncle in PvP, and it is so blood stained that I call it "Blood Carbuncle"

[Exodus-E]

The thing is that smaller primals don't make much sense considering how Summoners are getting their egis, lore-wise. Summoners, like in XI, get their egis from the primals as a form of power-sharing.
The differences is that in XI the avatars respected Summoners after proving themselves worthy.
In XIV you're not so much proving you're worthy in as much proving you're able.
But the BIG difference is primals, unlike XI's avatars, are so full of themselves that the stick up their arses have sprouted roots.
The egis aren't so much a primal's will given form in an aetheric construct the Summoner can handle as it is a pity pittance, a fragment of a primal that couldn't be arsed to give a rat's arse over.
They are not our friends, and a Summoner isn't much higher on the 'friendship' scale.

You see, here's the thing: unlike FFXI, we're not forming some sort of "pact" with a given summon/avatar.
Instead, we're basically "stealing" a fragment of their essence and manifesting it as an aetheric construct, just as you said.
That's exactly how the Allagans developed the "Summoner" job to begin with (as a way to counter them, by fighting "fire with fire" so to speak).

And you're right: these manifestations are not our "friends" (and neither are the Primals from that matter).
Hells, I don't think the Egis themselves are even sentient beyond what their Summoner commands them to do
(in fact, and IMO, on a scale of sentience between pets would be something like: Fairies > Carbuncles >>>>> Egis).

[Warlyx]

Big monsters exist so they're easy to see and target.
Big players and pets shouldn't exist because they're easy to see and target.
also, FFXI didn't have telegraphs and magical rainbow skittle marks that you needed to look out for. Just the boss's motions. Plus it was made when MMOs were a new thing. It's impractical for player features to be larger than the players themselves, as while it may not obstruct YOUR view, a melee pet that's bigger than the caster stands a good chance of standing on top of someone when, say, a mechanic such as t9 meteors is thrown out. Or, to use dungeons, Anchag's magical kill laser of doom.

And they're also impractical outside of combat. FFXI's summons had a key mitigating factor that prevented them from being REALLY annoying: they were ostensibly temporary. They drained MP and thus couldn't be kept out indefinitely. Which means you couldn't create a massive lagfest of summons in Jeuno to block NPCs for longer than a couple minutes if at all.

pets were forbidden in cities back then ... so no lag in jeuno...

no one ask for fat choco size ....just better models and bigger 1.2 the size or something like that

plus how many summoner u see in content that matters 1 or 0 ...

[Lemuria]

FFXI's summons had a key mitigating factor that prevented them from being REALLY annoying: they were ostensibly temporary. They drained MP and thus couldn't be kept out indefinitely. Which means you couldn't create a massive lagfest of summons in Jeuno to block NPCs for longer than a couple minutes if at all.

Not entirely true. There is equipment to drastically reduce the MP costs to less than or equal to the Summoner's built-in Refresh effect for many of the summons. You could happily keep Titan out forever.

Appearance aside though, I miss their impact. Summoner doesn't feel like a summoner. It's just another DPS caster. The 'summon', while not useless, is just another half to the same whole. They don't have many skills, and the few they do have are relatively weak. Compare that to Garuda's Predator Claws from FFXI or Fenrir's Eclipse Bite. There's just no comparison. The balance here was that the summoner was weak on their own, so their pets weren't just an addition, they were a necessity.

Say what you will about them, they at least lived up to their job title.

[scribble92]

Personally, I wouldnt like to see the egis made any bigger. That would be a pain for the reasons stated. Visibilty of the boss and targetting. Even with their current size they can get in the way. What I would like to see is improved visuals of the egis. Currently, they look like a 3 year old childs attempt at drawing something. They lack any finesse and detail. I mean c'mon, have you seen the attention to detail they put into the faries, look at there wing patterns, the details on their clothing, blinking eyes. Whilst the current egis are just a mess of green,yellow or red lumps depending which you have summoned.