Thread: Fix Summoner Once and For All in 6.0 Please!

Originally Posted by Exodus-E

Or they could simply go back and "fix" Arcanist, so Summoner (and to a lesser extent, Scholar) gets fixed through it as well.
And once again, it's already way too late to separate them from a story/lore standpoint, which has been solid/consistent since ARR.

Also, you keep forgetting all the supplemental resources that rely on Summoner having Egis around (trailers, artwork, CG renders, encyclopaedia, etc.).

Squeenix doesn't care about the lore much when it comes to balancing jobs ( "glaring" straight at you, WHM and AST) as long as it kinda works out for them, and even if it did, it could easily be explained by simply saying that were capable of making demi-summons instead of egi-summons just because at this point of the game, we have been exposed to garuda/ifrits/titans aether for quite some time now over all those encounters we had (without falling into possession). Which would not only explain the WoL point and title as the strongest SMN, but also the fact why other certain NPCs can only summon egis.

Or they just rework the entire thing from scratch. Also, were disgussing gameplay here so supplemental ressources are the last thing on this planet which should stop us from getting a properly functioning job.

Originally Posted by Exodus-E

As far as I'm aware, WHM's and AST's lore are still consistent/intact.
They may have changed mechanically, but they still retain (most) of their toolkits as they were presented within their respective stories.

Then how do you explain WHM random focus of light magic, despite borrowing the powers of nature, with the latter being almost nonexistent?

What about AST take on Neutral Stance and the cards? Squeenix literally altered the Job quest dialouge when they dumbed down the cards to what it is today.

Originally Posted by Exodus-E

They may add new toys such as Trances/Demi-Summons or what-have-you. But Egis are not going away.


That's a slippery slope.
If people wanted to change the story/lore because they "don't like it", then where would that lead us? and where would that end?

Classes/jobs' stories/lore are just as important to this game's universe as the MSQ.

In any case, them "reworking" both Bard and Machinist is proof that they can change a job mechanically while also keep its story and identity intact.
And I expect the same out of Summoner in the near future (while keeping Egis around).

My point on this is, the current SMN we got, is not what i'd call a Final Fantasy Summoner. In any Final Fantasy game which had summoners, the summons were not only the flashiest, they also had a real impact, if you played any of these you might know what i am talking about here. The FFXIV Summoner however, does not live up to this legacy. It is a generic Caster that just happens to have a Pet following him arround that vaguely resembles a summoned creature, but the actual Summoner Job starts the moment you get Bahamut, and not before that.

FFXI managed, despite being being a far older Game, to actually create a really interesting Summoner Job, which i think the FFXIV team could learn a thing or two from them.

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki...nal_Fantasy_XI)

Originally Posted by Exodus-E

Aaaaand there we go.
The usual "because it's not like past FF games" post, despite previous FF games also having their own "interpretations" on their own elements (FF11 in particular).

Please refer to the following posts on my stance regarding those tired old arguments:

• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...30#post4578230
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...84#post4643884
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...38#post5132938
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...23#post5366523
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...78#post5459878
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...16#post5512016

The point is that it's not a valid excuse.
Otherwise we'd go down a very deep rabbit hole regarding "what's a job supposed to be like or not" (e.g. Scholar, Blue Mage or Sage).

First of all, your obligatory Linkspam post doesn't mention anything new that has been mentioned already in this Thread(some of it even by yourself).

Second, don't complain about other People's desire of wanting a proper SMN that has its main focus (as stated by one of your Links btw) on Summoning when you spout the similar hipocricy yourself with "it has always been like that, since ancient times in this game".

And just shooting a idea off just because it is "someone else's design only shows how ignorant people like you are and how less they care about the combat system as a whole. Every Player that has experienced multiple MMORPG's in their lifetime notices in no time, that the combat system of FFXIV, is mediocre at best since it is lacking alot of things, and a good chunk of it comes from the way how Jobs are designed in the first place. It is not that theyre not working, its more like that they are far too similar from one another and in the case of SMN, the SMN is up tolv49 still just a Arcanist gameplaywise, and some reskinned egiglamour wont fool anyone here.

Tl;dr, imo, if we truly want to have properly functioning jobs then we shouldnt expect bandaid patches over time to fix things, some Jobs need a Operation, and SMN (altrough not a large one, if compared to healers and tanks) is one of them.

We can keep Egis AND add more summons through the next 2 expacs, to make it feel more and more like a classic FF summoner.

Having Egis doesn't prevent summoner from being a summoner anymore ; it was the case when there was only them where they felt underwhelming compared to primal counterparts.
But they added a completely new side and hopes and possibilities when they created Bahamut (and you just have to check the job trailer reaction videos when Bahamut appeared to understand just how popular and loved classic FF summons and summoner are...). And they further expended on that with Phoenix.

To me adding more summons and reworking the kit to dwelve more into pet interactions is the way to go as it is a win / win : Those who like Egis still have them and they are better integrated in the kit, those (like me) who very much prefer summons are also happy since they have them as well.
The only ones unhappy would be those who actively hate Egis and want them gone, but even though it was understandable in the past when they appeared to be in the way of summons, it is not the case anymore and Devs proved it by adding 2 summons, and reworking Egis for the 1st time in Shadowbringers.

Originally Posted by battleshadow66

No thanks, the Arcanist toolkit doesn't even fit the SMN job well. It works well for Scholar though. Miasma, Bane, fester, these spells feel like they were added into before SMN was being worked on and the devs just said, "f it, looks good". A lot of what Arcanist does fits Scholar well, but feel wrong for SMN.

Hard disagree. Summoner was designed around Arcanist first and foremost and it shows in how imbalanced Scholar has been historically for being tied down to half of Summoner’s toolkit. Hell the Arcanist instructor literally tells you how to unlock Summoner once you finish the class quest line, not Scholar. And the Summoner questline makes repeated references back to Arcanists and Arcanima while Scholars only acknowledge it once. Scholar the job and scholar the title are also treated vastly differently within the context of XIV’s overall lore, the latter is used to refer to experts in general and is often used interchangeably with other terms while Allagan aetherochemists are called out explicitly multiple times and are directly linked to Summoners in their job lore. Scholar, the job, is mostly contained within itself, and while it is associated with Tacticians aesthetically, Arcanists are also linked to that in general, while Scholars make up a subset of that group historically.

Mechanically speaking Scholar only really cares about Energy Drain and Aetherflow as tools which are easy to rename and functionally replace. Everything else isn’t necessary. I would like Scholar and Summoned to coexist within their Arcanist roots equally but when push comes to shove it’s Summoner that will be tied to it while this game lasts. That’s why their role has remained as DPS since 2.0’s launch and SE has persisted in minimizing Scholar’s connection to Arcanist in the wake of a potential split.

Any talk of 'fixing summoner' is going to have a lot of tension between the people who enjoy the current job, which is enjoyable, and the people who don't because it fails to evoke (heh) the very iconic final fantasy job/concept people have a lot of attachment too.

I don't think it is impossible to satisfy both needs, but I think it is important to recognize the second camp is super valid even if they don't play summoner at all right now. It is probably up there with Red Mage in how iconic it is to the game line and the integration of your actual summons into your identity leaves a lot to be desired. And even though Red Mage couldn't actually be a healer/damage hybrid because trinity, they did a good job of heavily integrating its identity as a versatile caster into its kit in a way that satisfies that callback.

But like... the problem is that in most games summons are either 'super spells' or pseudo-limit breaks? Or entirely alter the composition of your party? They are mega-iconic because they mechanically signify something 'bigger' than other mechanics, and that obviously doesn't work in an MMO (at least, without entirely changing summoner to being some absurdly high downtime caster or something, and that already is evoked a bit by how you cycle to getting the 'big' summons, it honestly does feel like your charging up your call meter through the fight, its neat). However, even little touches, like making more of your personal spells summon 'stands' like Dreadwyrm Trance does would do a lot.

Like having every aetherflow ability and major oGCD come with a flashy egi or mini-primal doing a thing for you would be a great way to make your big spells feel like mini summons. Carbuncle could do Fester, Tri-Disaster would be a great way to get our other three ARR primals (No, not you King Mog, maybe you can do addle or something you irritating piece of garbage, we got the tech to make job actions visually different based on how the ranged ones do Peloton) in there. Devotion could have a summon associated with buffing show up above your pet so its not weird that Garuda is giving people damage.

And, of course, Egi glams (and maybe even letting you glam the starting 3 as whatever summon you want) because people identify strongly with summons about as much as they do with pokemon.

Its way less about summoner actually being different and more about it feeling different. Visual feedback is huge in how abilities impact you and how a job feels, which is why despite doing only 150 potency landing a bloodletter feels way more meaty than doing say... a 250 potency cascade on dancer. Its the aethestetic fantasy that is really failing here, not the mechanical one.