Mr.Happy Interview with Yoshi P

[Lium]

In regards to difficulty, I'm sort of torn on this. When I first started playing this game I found the dungeons a lot more challenging than dungeons in WoW and SWTOR, the two games I played before this one. But as time has gone by, I feel the challenge level has dropped considerably. Expert dungeons are a snooze fest and this is coming from someone who is slightly above average. And that's being nice. I don't know if I could consider myself casual since I play the game every day and have multiple jobs at 80. But I don't do savage/ex either and don't really care about BiS gear or min/maxing so I'm casual in the sense that all I do is DF stuff.

I find ARR dungeons and trials to be far more challenging. I actually have to pay attention when I do them and not just because I can't remember them most of the time. And that sort of backs up what I said earlier about the game being more difficult when I first started playing. It wasn't necessarily because I was just learning it, but also because the content itself demanded more.

So, an increase in difficulty at max level would be welcome. HOWEVER, I wholeheartedly disagree with the common forum notion that people are just being carried and enabled a lot. I think that's overblown and exaggerated as the forums are wont to do. The vast majority of my runs are over in minutes. Everyone is silent, everyone does their job and everyone peaces out at the end. On to the next dungeon.

Very rarely do I get someone in my group who is undergeared or is not doing their job. Yes, it's happened, but not nearly as much as the forums would have you believe. This place would make you think that it's a regular occurrence and a massive problem that is severely hampering gameplay.

It's not.

SE has to be careful. They can't increase the difficulty to appease what is in all likelihood a very small portion of the playerbase (like the people who post on the forums) at the expense of the casual players who, according to Yoshi (and common sense) make up the majority. It's a balancing act.

The MMO graveyard is filled with games that tried to cater to more hardcore players.

[Seraphor]

Kinda sounds like "we're thinking we might rework summoner in about 10 years time so we're not going to put any effort in in the mean time.... meanwhile here's Bards 467th instrument!"

[SweetPete]

This sounds like they're getting rid of pets....

I agree with you. I think summoner pets are about to get the axe.

[Lauront]

I don't play SMN, though I know a few people who are very fond of the job. I think an egi glamour system should be added - it's been a common request for a while now and the development team created the perform function for BRD so it can't be a matter of not wanting one job to get special treatment over others.

In all honesty, they could convert them into dots with variable animations based on a stance and little of value would be lost. In fact, perhaps it'd create more scope to vary their appearance and really have them play a role in attack animations. Some might say there is a lore issue with adding more egis but they didn't really cover Firebird's addition and they've stopped really doing job specific quests, so at this point I'd say who cares, just make it work well. Since the pets as objects approach seems to be the cause of many headaches, and unlikely to be improved without engine improvements (which are going to be some way off), I'd be fine with axing them and coming up with something more workable.

[ForteNightshade]

I don't play SMN, though I know a few people who are very fond of the job. I think an egi glamour system should be added - it's been a common request for a while now and the development team created the perform function for BRD so it can't be a matter of not wanting one job to get special treatment over others.

To be fair, you'll find many more Bards screaming to give make Foe's Requiem than you will those proclaiming how great Perform is. They never really asked for a unique function entirely separate from combat.

[BlitzAceRush]

Honestly while I enjoy pet classes and would hate for them to go, I'd rather they actually they build on them, if they do get the axe I'd like it if they went the Dissidia Yuna route for SMN, just get rid of the dots and all trace of ACN and just have every skill summon parts of all the different primals with bigger skills temp summoning the whole (though smaller) thing and Demi's reserved for their bursts, though I feel even though the Demi's are well liked, they're kind of a problem as well as like Egi's before them, people just want more of them, and with how they work, you can only add so many before fights would end before you'd rotate through all of them, so if they did keep adding to them, they'd either need to be cosmetic (Egi glam 2 electricboogaloo) or they could do different things, (runs the risk of never use Titan/Contagion dominance) or they'd just need to work differently from how they do now and not be a big build up burst phase thing.

[Jojoya]

So, I'm just curious what's broken about them. Does Yoshi mean they are at a breaking point because they are so OP? Or does the job really underperform in savage/extreme content?

The breaking point is that they're running out of ideas on what do with the job when it comes to adding new abilities that fit within the current job design theme.

Do they add a new egi or trance? What would make the new one different and interesting from the ones SMN already has outside of being "flavor" variations? Do they add something new not related to egis and trance that's more than just the usual "replace this lower level ability"?

It's a problem they're brushing up against with all the jobs to some degree but SMN has hit that "breaking point" where they're at a loss on what to do next.

[Moomba33]

I enjoy current summoner.....I'm worried they're just going to cut out systems to streamline it. >.>

[Cidel]

I mean, they shifted the goalpost so long for SMN's egi glamours that them saying they've halted work on it to "address" other things about SMN is essentially dodging the question while confirming what a lot of us already assumed. The last interview that contained a question about SMN egis was right around just before ShB which basically got another non-answer along the lines of "I think its about time we reveal our plans about SMN" ...before going another whole expansion cycle without a peep about it. Back in SB it was like: "but we gave you Bahamut, *laughs* and also separately commenting that they couldn't decided whether to release new egis one-at-a-time or as a bundle.

So not only have the goalposts constantly been shifting, the excuses have kept changing throughout, so maybe they are better-off simply turning egis into an aesthetical glamour and just make SMNs a stance/trance DoT mage. I would suggest removing pets altogether but then that'd eliminate their darling little Carbuncles.

[WhiteArchmage]

In all honesty, they could convert them into dots with variable animations based on a stance and little of value would be lost. In fact, perhaps it'd create more scope to vary their appearance and really have them play a role in attack animations. Some might say there is a lore issue with adding more egis but they didn't really cover Firebird's addition and they've stopped really doing job specific quests, so at this point I'd say who cares, just make it work well. Since the pets as objects approach seems to be the cause of many headaches, and unlikely to be improved without engine improvements (which are going to be some way off), I'd be fine with axing them and coming up with something more workable.

That's why I feel it was both smart and worrying that they've moved away from job quests, and removed getting skills from job quests almost entirely. On the one hand, it allows them to rework a job extensively if the gameplay is found lacking, or disliked by the playerbase.

...but then we run into problems like htf is Demi-Pheonix tied to Summoner? At least Demi-Bahamut was explained, but job abilities 71+ just... have no in-game Lore to them at all.