Developers Poor Attitude to Summoner

[JunseiKei]

I'm guessing this is yet another complaint thread that players don't like FFXIV's iteration of summoner. It's been said time and time again, each version of Final Fantasy has its own iterations of the jobs. Some are more liked than others, but it doesn't change the fact that it was design choice that the team was going for.

Just be more truthful and say you don't like Yoshida's version of summoner and don't play the class.

[Eloah]

I'm guessing this is yet another complaint thread that players don't like FFXIV's iteration of summoner. It's been said time and time again, each version of Final Fantasy has its own iterations of the jobs. Some are more liked than others, but it doesn't change the fact that it was design choice that the team was going for.

Just be more truthful and say you don't like Yoshida's version of summoner and don't play the class.

I'm not sure what the OPs intent was, but I don't think its entirely that they hate this iteration. It seems more like they are questioning why certain changes are made and not being made to line up with what a SMN should do and what this version is "promising" or "missing". We should have more summons, yes, since the 3 we've had for 4+ years is kinda insulting. Each summon should be viable, but they are not, Titan being the main issue,and we need a heal for our pet more so than oursleves, so the answer to the Physick question was a little insulting, since it basically said "if you want a DPS who can heal play RDM". There are many people who will go ham over the whole, "It's not a traditional SMN" which doesn't exist. But there are an equal amount of people who love the job, me included, and just want to see the issues it has fixed.

[Len]

I'm not sure what the OPs intent was, but I don't think its entirely that they hate this iteration.

The intent of this thread was to highlight the fact that often the concerns of Summoners are often met with apathy, or left entirely unaddressed. Here we are in Stormblood with a mighty stack of issues piled high and the only thing that's been relayed to us so far is that they're working to resolve Demi-Bahamut causing visibility issues.

It just doesn't bode well for Summoner that the director of this game, who has enough pull with the battle system designers to keep esuna in the game, approaches Summoner with a sense of disdain.

[ToasterMan]

I love it when people go ad homenim~ You call me stupid, yet I'm not the one wasting my time playing a game while complaining about it.

The second comment is literally Yoshida's equivalent of facepalming. It's not the "poor attitude toward summoner" so much as "guys, come on, this really doesn't make sense for how we want the job to work." For some reason, people want all the classes to be able to do all the same things and that's the developer [politely] saying they are silly.

That isn't what people want. Players want the jobs to be competitive. Right now RDM completely outclasses SMN in every aspect. There is no reason to bring a SMN over a RDM in a raid. For example, healers want it so that they aren't forced in to switching to AST if they wanted to raid or farm because (understandably) lots of groups only wanted AST because AST could do everything WHM could on top of bringing the best utility in the game.

Here's another example. Discord has gotten so popular because it does everything that older chat clients did and more. It outclasses them in every aspect. I haven't even heard of clients like vent or teamspeak mentioned in ages. They could've stepped up their game or get snuffed out. They got snuffed out. Same thing with Netflix and blockbuster. It's the same thing that will happen if SMN doesn't get addressed. RDM is the netflix and SMN is blockbuster that's still trying to keep up. Sadly, it seems like Yoshi P is perfectly okay with SMN getting snuffed out. That might be okay in our free market economy but not in this game.

RDM brings better DPS along with far greater Utility than SMN ever has. You don't see that as a problem?

[JunseiKei]

I'm not sure what the OPs intent was, but I don't think its entirely that they hate this iteration. It seems more like they are questioning why certain changes are made and not being made to line up with what a SMN should do and what this version is "promising" or "missing". We should have more summons, yes, since the 3 we've had for 4+ years is kinda insulting. Each summon should be viable, but they are not, Titan being the main issue,and we need a heal for our pet more so than oursleves, so the answer to the Physick question was a little insulting, since it basically said "if you want a DPS who can heal play RDM". There are many people who will go ham over the whole, "It's not a traditional SMN" which doesn't exist. But there are an equal amount of people who love the job, me included, and just want to see the issues it has fixed.

Asking for summons is fine, sure, and I do think summoners being able to heal their own pet should be a thing. Unless, summoners being able to extremely effectively tank things that weren't supposed to be tankable with egis were far too easy.

I wonder if this was a reason why sustain was removed?

The question would have been better if it asked if Physic could have been changed back to Sustain for summoner. Better yet, the question as to why Sustain was removed while Physic was kept to be scaled off of MND would have been a better question yet. It would have allowed the developer to divulge into why a decision was made. Instead, the question asked to be given the same kit as another job. Honestly, it's a case of people asking the wrong thing here.

That isn't what people want. Players want the jobs to be competitive. Right now RDM completely outclasses SMN in every aspect. There is no reason to bring a SMN over a RDM in a raid. For example, healers want it so that they aren't forced in to switching to AST if they wanted to raid or farm because (understandably) lots of groups only wanted AST because AST could do everything WHM could on top of bringing the best utility in the game.

Here's another example. Discord has gotten so popular because it does everything that older chat clients did and more. It outclasses them in every aspect. I haven't even heard of clients like vent or teamspeak mentioned in ages. They could've stepped up their game or get snuffed out. They got snuffed out. Same thing with Netflix and blockbuster. It's the same thing that will happen if SMN doesn't get addressed. RDM is the netflix and SMN is blockbuster that's still trying to keep up. Sadly, it seems like Yoshi P is perfectly okay with SMN getting snuffed out.

RDM brings better DPS along with far greater Utility than SMN ever has. You don't see that as a problem?

Comparing programs to practical applications of a job is like comparing apples to oranges.

What people want doesn't mean it's right; better phrased, what people want doesn't mean it's balanced.

I keep hearing the argument that SMN is outclassed by RDM. If you want to actually get someone's attention to the matter, it's best to state the hows. So, how does RDM outclass SMN? The main reason, rather, the only reason I've been hearing, is RDM is easier to play. Okay; RDM has a low skill ceiling. SAM also has a low skill ceiling and deal ridiculous damage, but I've mostly only see MNKs complain about it because they feel they didn't get enough. For some reason, NIN and DRG aren't threatened by SAM. Why? Surely, this is the same situation? Some would say the utility separates them. At the same time, nothing is stopping groups from bringing one melee and two (or even three) casters. Heck, nothing is stopping people from bringing all melee, too.

RDM deals more damage? Maybe, maybe not. Unfortunately, our "only source" for DPS numbers is FFLogs, which is riddled with number bloating. You'll never gain any accurate numbers for what each job can do on its own. At the same time, people claim dummy parses mean nothing.

My take on the situation has been this thus far:
- RDM can raise pretty much whenever. Yeah, it can, but if you have to raise more than what your healers can handle, chances are, you're going to hit enrage, making this "utility" ultimately useless. Its not a RDM's job to raise unless there's a chance you can still clear and both healers are dead. This is just as true with SMN.
- RDM has better utility (?). I guess Embolden (120s) is a good utility? Devotion (90s), Contagion (akin to 2.0-3.x Foe Requiem)(60s), and Radiant Shield (60s) are also utilities and pretty attractive. BLM brings infinite MP and is a great MP battery for that reason while SMN and RDM both are pretty selfish in the MP department.
- RDM can can heal and it's a pretty good amount. This makes me think people expect a DPS to actually stop DPSing and do the healer's job. Under no circumstances should this ever become a necessity in actual group content. This is a means for solo content and the same reason healers have DPS skills. Unless you want them to be forced into parties to heal only and leech EXP (please no), even in open world content. If SE removed Vercure, I'd say good riddance.
- RDM has more mobility than SMN. No, not really. Once a SMN's DoTs are up, they can move around unless they need to use a casted Ruin III/IV. Ruin and Ruin II have the same potency, so it's not like they have a DPS loss then. RDM does need to sit and cast every other spell, otherwise they suffer a loss. While RDM has more mobility than BLM for sure, combined with Tri-Disaster, Ruin II and the nature of DoTs and pet, they have greater mobility than RDM for quite a bit. (Yes, I'm aware Ruin Mastery effects Ruin and Ruin III, however, it is still only a 15% chance- same as my freecure procs on WHM.)

[Chalbee]

The main reason, rather, the only reason I've been hearing, is RDM is easier to play. Okay; RDM has a low skill ceiling. SAM also has a low skill ceiling and deal ridiculous damage, but I've mostly only see MNKs complain about it because they feel they didn't get enough.

It's not that we don't feel we got enough, it's that the effort does not pay out. From everything I've heard, the SMN rotation is much, much more complex and punishing than RDM, but there aren't numbers to justify that. RDM and SMN are either equal or RDM hits harder, but summoners have to work a lot harder. That's a balance issue. It's not sour grapes, I'm not jealous of VerCure. I mean, it's probably too early to have consistent reliable numbers, but this is the complaint I see/hear most.

[Claviusnex]

The second comment is literally Yoshida's equivalent of facepalming. It's not the "poor attitude toward summoner" so much as "guys, come on, this really doesn't make sense for how we want the job to work." For some reason, people want all the classes to be able to do all the same things and that's the developer [politely] saying they are silly.

No it shows Yoshida doesn't really understand one of the problems. His responses show this lack of understanding over and over but instead of trying to understand the job and its problems he pushes back on the players as the issue.

With Exhibit B Yoshida is getting hung up on discussions of ways to resolve the lack of pet healing and confusing that with other types of healing. Sustain was the pet heal and was removed as near as I can tell based on someone's gut feeling. We were left with the useless heal of Physick. We have been saying we need a method to heal our pets. One option is the return of Sustain. Another is for Summoners to base Physick on INT so it has sufficient power to heal the pet. Yet another suggested a two level Physick where it is only more powerful for pets and stays its anemic self for players. Personally Summoners don't need a player heal. All we need is a way to maintain our pet. To me the simplest and most straight forward way to do this is replace Physick with Sustain at level 30. But given how SE frequently does things in a convoluted manner some type of Summoner buff to Physick would also resolve the immediate issue with dead pets.

I had many years where I worked with my company's labs and programming centers in Japan. From that I found it was very important to be concise with problem definition and resolutions. Using the American form of scattershot brain storming frequently led to misunderstandings and tangents being taken. It had nothing to do with the technical competence but the way language translation is processed and understood. While I think SE has a definite lack of understanding of how the Summoner works I also feel some of the problem is the language differences resulting in a lack of understanding of what is being said in the forums. I don't know SE's support structure but I think some of this would work better if they had some highly technical native English speakers distill the conversations into product requirements.