Pet Glamor System

[Nalien]

I would expect they'll make use of the offhand slot;

-Adjust Summon/Summon II/Summon III to require an item equipped offhand, similar to how skills like Shield Bash require a Shield equipped.
-Arcanist now starts with a Carbuncle Ruby, to equip in the offhand slot.
-Scholar now obtains, through quests, Eos Gem and Selene Gem.
-Summoner obtains, through quests, Inferno Gem, Tremor Gem, Vortex Gem.

Carbuncle then needs some new animations;

-Embrace
-Whispering Dawn
-Fey Covenant
-Fey Illumination
-Silent Dawn
-Fey Caress
-Fey Wind

-Crimson Cyclone
-Burning Strike
-Radiant Shield
-Flaming Crush
-Enkindle

Though not necessarily those names, but with that Scholar and Summoner can equip a Carbuncle Ruby and use Carbuncle again, since Carbuncle will be capable of preforming every pet action. New Carbuncle (and Fairy) models are actually very easy to work, because they aren't unique, they're just pallet swaps. Eos and Selene are essentially the same, a Scholar with Eos Gem equipped would summon her for Summon (as currently is the case) and Summon II (which is currently Selene), and that shouldn't take a great deal of work, because the animation are easy to transfer. Different Carbuncles are literally just the same mob with a different paint job, we could probably just dye the Carbuncle Ruby to determine which Carbuncle we get.

Summoner is where it gets difficult. If I equip an Inferno Gem, for example, I'm now only summoning Ifrit-Egi, whether that is for Summon or Summon II, so he needs new animations for the Mage (Summon) and Tank (Summon II) pet types. That creates a lot of work, just for the three existing Egi, plus Carbuncle. I would expect that to be the first step, since it requires the least work. Adding on further Egi just makes things even tougher, but they can come later. If we get a Pet-Glamour system though, all the existing pets need to be interchangeable (sans Egi and Fairies, since they're Job specific). Carbuncle needs to work for all Summoner and Scholar pet animations, Eos and Selene should already work for each others animations, Ifrit-Egi, Titan-Egi and Garuda-Egi all need to work for each Summon type though. Moment Carbuncle and the Egi have those animations, there is no reason we can't see the Pet-Glamour system though, stuff like Ramuh-Egi can be worked on later, we don't really need Ramuh-Egi, Leviathan-Egi and Shiva-Egi in the same patch we get a proper Pet-Glamour system. That would just delay the systems implementation, we certainly want those Egi, but I'm sure we can wait and settle on mixing up the existing pets for now.

The biggest problem I see with all this, is that it is a lot of work for what is essentially a Job specific vanity system... The playerbase as a whole gets little out of this... Solution? Don't make it Job specific. No, I don't mean give all the Jobs pets to glamour, I mean don't lock the Egi/Fairy/Carbuncle to the Arcanist Jobs; Slap them in various pieces of content. It's the Beastmaster approach, having animations for Beastmasters pets isn't a "waste" of resources, because the pets Beastmaster gets are just regular mobs anyone can fight. Do something similar with Egi, have encounters where anyone can go up against the Egi. That way working on these animations isn't of sole benefit to Scholar/Summoner, it adds a new enemy type for everyone.

I think the moment they do that, they can start putting more effort into the Pet-Glamour system and get it too us sooner. It makes the bulk of the Pet-Glamour work unrelated to Pet-Glamours, creating all the Egi and giving them all their animations would be to facilitate new content, rather than just something for Summoner. Something like a Airy model for Scholar could be created for a Bravely Second event, rather than just something for Scholar, for example.