It is time to get rid of them SE...

[Saefinn]

Fix them, don't delete them. Summoner is a pet class, give more to do with pets. Though I feel SMN in its current state is really clunky to play, I can see what they were trying to do, but the result hasn't had much in the way of pay-off. I've always been in favour of doing more with the Egis, not less.

[Gallus]

Fix them, don't delete them.

That's what they've tried every time. And they've failed.

I agree with the TC, it's about time they get rid of them entirely. SE has been unable to make them interesting gameplay wise, and aesthetically speaking, they couldn't be more ugly, so good riddance, not a single aspect of them will be missed. If anybody wants to have fun with cute flying pets you always have a million pokemon games.

[Saefinn]

That's what they've tried every time. And they've failed.

I agree with the TC, it's about time they get rid of them entirely. SE has been unable to make them interesting gameplay wise, and aesthetically speaking, they couldn't be more ugly, so good riddance, not a single aspect of them will be missed. If anybody wants to have fun with cute flying pets you always have a million pokemon games.

They tried to fix them? I don't recall them really ever doing much with them after ARR this feels like the first time they have tried to rework them. Previous expansions their attention was much more heavily drawn on making them a Bahamut mage and very minor egi tweaks. With dreadwyrm, death flare and demi Bahamut, leaving those who liked 2.0 SMN wondering when they'll add more egis or evolve how they work from 2.p into newer content. Personally I like both aspects.

As for the "don't like it go somewhere else" attitude, I reflect it back at you mate. You want to play a mage without Egis, pick up Black Mage. You wanna play a game with non-egi like summons then play FFXI. SE designed this iteration of SMN as using egis from the ground up, built a lore around it, teased new ones more than once and made it a part of the job's identity.

[Valmarus]

That's what they've tried every time. And they've failed.

I agree with the TC, it's about time they get rid of them entirely. SE has been unable to make them interesting gameplay wise, and aesthetically speaking, they couldn't be more ugly, so good riddance, not a single aspect of them will be missed. If anybody wants to have fun with cute flying pets you always have a million pokemon games.

And if you don't want to play with pets you have plenty of other DPS and healer jobs to choose from. Don't take away the only aspect of the only jobs that focus on soemthign different. Jobs are already becoming too generic, especially tanks and healers. That's the most pointless thing to do in a game where being able to change jobs is a core feature.

I really don't know why they're trying to make every job good at everything. In a game where you can freely change jobs it's fine to make content where certain jobs excel over others in that specific circumstance (as long as you don't make it so one job excels at all content over others) and expect your players to change their jobs to match. For endgame leaders I think it's acceptable to encourage (but not force) people to have multiple jobs so they can change depending on the content you're about to do as long as you give them priority on gear for jobs they consider to be their main. I think SE is making a big mistake making everything generic. Taking away the only pet job instead of fixing the pets would be an even bigger one.

[Len]

Agreed. I wouldn't miss the egi if they were gone, and I hope that them being slightly de-emphasized in Shadowbringers they're inching us closer to their complete removal in the next expansion.

Summoner shouldn't be a "pet" class that has some kind of entity following them around like a dog. If you want that experience, wait for them to release the Beastmaster/tamer limited job and live out your dreams.

[Dyvid]

That's what they've tried every time. And they've failed.

I agree with the TC, it's about time they get rid of them entirely. SE has been unable to make them interesting gameplay wise, and aesthetically speaking, they couldn't be more ugly, so good riddance, not a single aspect of them will be missed. If anybody wants to have fun with cute flying pets you always have a million pokemon games.

Should we delete Demi-Summons too because they don't work all that well either? They have a weak 150 potency attack and can miss Enkindle if moving. If you don't like cute flying pets, there are 16 other jobs to chose from.

Agreed. I wouldn't miss the egi if they were gone, and I hope that them being slightly de-emphasized in Shadowbringers they're inching us closer to their complete removal in the next expansion.

Summoner shouldn't be a "pet" class that has some kind of entity following them around like a dog. If you want that experience, wait for them to release the Beastmaster/tamer limited job and live out your dreams.

Len, with all due respect I think we are past the should of, could of, would of point in job development. We have permanent pets and temporary pets. Going forward SE needs to build a solid rotation around Egi and Demi. After which it's time to add one and done summon spells rather than more Demi. You cast Odin, it does a straight line attack that damages everything in it's path, the vanishes. You cast Alexander, it does a AoE attack then vanishes. And so on.

P.S. I think Beast Tamer is going to be a Pokemon style mini game Limited Job.

Honestly I didn't read the whole thread but I always wondered why the Egi's weren't handled as the summons from FFXI.

Since the game was so reliant on dodging AoE and position for melee, they didn't want to obstruct other players view with massive beast. The also said but i'll don't think its as true today that they didn't want to diminish the Primals we are fighting. So Egis are designed small that have both the aspect of the original primal and it's elemental counter part; Fire Sprite

[Saefinn]

Agreed. I wouldn't miss the egi if they were gone, and I hope that them being slightly de-emphasized in Shadowbringers they're inching us closer to their complete removal in the next expansion.

Summoner shouldn't be a "pet" class that has some kind of entity following them around like a dog. If you want that experience, wait for them to release the Beastmaster/tamer limited job and live out your dreams.

This is the kind of thing I was saying back in beta when SMN was announced because my vision of what a summoner should be was different. I came from a FFXI type SMN and argued they made it work there, "why this". My initial reaction to egis was that they were a terrible idea.

But it was my first DPS job in XIV as I was also levelling SCH. I liked the job a lot and I micromanaged my pets for both. So I decided that I liked the job but never considered it a true SMN and my mind changed on it and the egis grew on me. Now I understand the dilemma they face as a result of this, they can rework it to be more in line of what people expect of a summoner job but then have all those people who like the version of SMN they've already created be upset. In a way I expect this is why the job has felt a little like it has had an identity crisis because they can upset people who like what they made or upset the people who have opinions on what SMN should be and have chosen the option of "try to please both at once".
I kinda think the way they probably should have gone about it is to leave Arcanist as a completely different job, have the egis as an upgrade on Carbuncles and make Summoner into a different job. Because I legitimately like the current style of SMN, even if I think there are fixes/tweaks needed to parts of it.

[Saefinn]

Should we delete Demi-Summons too because they don't work all that well either? They have a weak 150 potency attack and can miss Enkindle if moving. If you don't like cute flying pets, there are 16 other jobs to chose from.

"If you want Charizard and Moltres you should play Pokemon."

I think that's what their response ought to be. :P

[Karshan]

Fix them, don't delete them. Summoner is a pet class, give more to do with pets. Though I feel SMN in its current state is really clunky to play, I can see what they were trying to do, but the result hasn't had much in the way of pay-off. I've always been in favour of doing more with the Egis, not less.

I for once would like for a real pet class to exist that people who want a pet class can go to, so that FF14 summoner can get rid of egis and continue on his route to be much more a SMN the likes of other final fantasys. But with tweaks to adapt it to an MMO system, like Bahamut and Phoenix were set up.
There is a whole fantasy ideal with summoners in final fantasy (for instance, ff9 is what pops in mind), and because here it's a mmo they turned it into a pet class and kinda ruined the fantasy. It was ok before the Demis, but now that they shown we can have REAL summons adapted to an MMO, I think it's time to get rid of the "by default" system.

I wish they'd do an ACTUAL pet class fully axed on pets and pets alone (beast master ?) to carry on the classic pet job from MMOs and not force SMN to do it.

[Saefinn]

I for once would like for a real pet class to exist that people who want a pet class can go to, so that FF14 summoner can get rid of egis and continue on his route to be much more a SMN the likes of other final fantasys. But with tweaks to adapt it to an MMO system, like Bahamut and Phoenix were set up.
There is a whole fantasy ideal with summoners in final fantasy (for instance, ff9 is what pops in mind), and because here it's a mmo they turned it into a pet class and kinda ruined the fantasy. It was ok before the Demis, but now that they shown we can have REAL summons adapted to an MMO, I think it's time to get rid of the "by default" system.

I wish they'd do an ACTUAL pet class fully axed on pets and pets alone (beast master ?) to carry on the classic pet job from MMOs and not force SMN to do it.

This is my point in one of my other posts. I'd have probably done them as two jobs. Because putting all expectations of SMN in a Final Fantasy game aside what they made in ARR when they announced SMN was a good job and it was fun to play and people who played it enjoyed it and liked what they got. But it was never really a "true" SMN. So they've put themselves in a dilemma. On the one hand, you've got people who love what they did with the job and don't want to lose that. Then on the other you have Final Fantasy fans wanting the job to be reflective of what a SMN should be in the series. Then you've got people like me who're a little from column A and little from column B.
The approach I'd had taken is to make them 2 separate jobs. Keep what is currently SMN as ACN instead and make egis an upgrade of Carbuncles. Because by this point, we have 2 jobs squashed into 1 and could be where some of its problems lie.