"An Egi By Any Other Name" (and how they're gonna implement/justify actual Egis)

[Exodus-E]

(This topic is a bit of both, lore and general discussion-related, so I'm putting it here)

As we've seen thanks to this quest, it is possible to alter the appearance of an arcane entity by simply focusing on the "image" of something else while in the process of summoning it.

And while the appearance of said entity will indeed change, fundamentally it'll remain the same as the original, at least in terms of "composition" (ex: Ifrit-Egi -> any Carbuncle = still a fiery melee-based entity).

This, of course, opens up *a lot* of possibilities when it comes to color variations for Carbuncles, but still...one (BIG) question remains:

How are they gonna handle other Egis (such as Ramuh-Egi or Shiva-Egi)?

Here we're talking about completely altering their aspected structure (nature, skills, etc.), so this is not about using an "image" applied to an existing entity; it's about changing it entirely.

So if they ever implement other (actual) Egi models in the future, they'll have to justify their existence by an alternative method for changing what we already have (while reminding us that our "aetheric reserves" are already at their limit by creating 3 separate Egis).

Thoughts?

[Zojha]

Well, there is no real issue up to the point where they give the egis new effects of a different element.

At that point, it's no longer a glam, but rather a new egi and would have to replace the appearance of one particular egi while having a quest associated with it that basically tells you:"We found a way to allow you more egis by exchanging one for another".

Honestly, though? I think the dev team is going to push new egis very far into the future to avoid having to make new effects in the first place.

[LineageRazor]

Making the Carbuncles interchangeable in the way that they did set a bad precedent, in my opinion. Now folks are going to expect, say, Shiva-egi to be able to handle all of the attacks of all three existing Egis, and that means designing attack animations for all of those different attacks. Doing this with Carbuncle was easy; the three colors are all pretty much the same model, so design an attack for one and you've done it for all of them.

I, too, fear that additional Egis glamours will be delayed or even canceled outright because of this, and the best we might be able to hope for are additional Carbuncle colors, like Aphinaud's Onyx Carbuncle, or Ulan's Diamond Carbuncle.

[Exodus-E]

Making the Carbuncles interchangeable in the way that they did set a bad precedent, in my opinion. Now folks are going to expect, say, Shiva-egi to be able to handle all of the attacks of all three existing Egis, and that means designing attack animations for all of those different attacks. Doing this with Carbuncle was easy; the three colors are all pretty much the same model, so design an attack for one and you've done it for all of them.

I, too, fear that additional Egis glamours will be delayed or even canceled outright because of this, and the best we might be able to hope for are additional Carbuncle colors, like Aphinaud's Onyx Carbuncle, or Ulan's Diamond Carbuncle.

I think they did mention something about "making certain Egis stick to particular roles" (like making Ramuh-Egi a Caster-type pet only) in a previous interview.

But yeah, without official confimation (how it'll be justified in-lore, or which models will be next) there's not much to go on.

Which is worrying...

[Jandor]

The carbuncles did set a bad precedent IMHO.

I expect (hope) though that the reason that egi's can look like carbuncles and the reason we can get some new actual summons are different.
Something like that we'll basically get a quest where Y'mhitra figures out that you can hold more egi's so long as you only hold the barest minimum of aether for those you don't intend to summon anytime soon.

[Eloah]

If i remember correctly they indicated that the reason this was such an undertaking was because they are revamping the structure to allow for your personal choice for each role. Because, in addition to the whole, "no new Egi" debacle, people also complained that Titan is basically useless, and that they would like to be able to use him more, and they said they were working to fix that. Now did they specifically say we are making a system for role swapping, no. But the only logical way for Titan to become more "viable", if they plan to stick to the Caster, Melee, and Tank Pets, if if he could be placed in another Role. And while it might take some time, which they have had plenty of since we were supposed to get glamours in 3.0/3.1, doing a simple swap for both Egi and animations is not as hard as it would seem, just time consuming. It's like our clothing and how it can fit each body style.

[Lambdafish]

But yeah, without official confimation (how it'll be justified in-lore, or which models will be next) there's not much to go on.

Which is worrying...

Honestly I would be in the same boat if not for one thing. The official word we have to go on (said around 3.4) is "3.5 is the skeleton of egi glamour where we will get carbuncles, and then every other patch from then on will get one glamour." And the thing is... the we got the skeleton, and the next patch is 4.0. I'm willing to bet that egi glamours themselves are being tied into 4.0 development (and that the 5 glamours are being planned in one go), and the reason we haven't heard much is the same reason we haven't heard much of anything about 4.0.

[Torquil]

Honestly I would be in the same boat if not for one thing. The official word we have to go on (said around 3.4) is "3.5 is the skeleton of egi glamour where we will get carbuncles, and then every other patch from then on will get one glamour." And the thing is... the we got the skeleton, and the next patch is 4.0. I'm willing to bet that egi glamours themselves are being tied into 4.0 development (and that the 5 glamours are being planned in one go), and the reason we haven't heard much is the same reason we haven't heard much of anything about 4.0.

It also makes sense to tie a significant egi addition to the skill restructuring. It's not a given that the two will relate, but it's plausible.

[CatStarPrime]

I'd love to call up a real Shiva-Egi and see her cast "Diamond Dust", I'd die from happy nostalgia.