7.0 Summoner Dreams?

[Mayhemmer]

"The Job Actions of the Summoner had reached its limits. It was barely possible to add new Job Actions, so we decided to do a massive overhaul with the release of 6.0.. The first concept of this overhaul was to remove all DoTs."

I wish there was unified, vocal outcry against this line of thinking, but whether it's what players want or not, they seem to have made up their mind that this is how they want to approach job design. Ever-increasing number of shiny new one-use skills with zero kit interactivity first, and actual developed and deep kits with lots of interactivity second never. It needs to stop.

[Zofian]

Even after 7.0 is released with Pictomancer, Black Mage will remain the only true DPS caster in the game. The only reason I haven't thrown my Summoner job stone in the retainer bin is because I need the inventory slot.

[serow081]

My dream change for SMN in the future is to double down on the current fantasy of getting new abilities unique to each summon. Instead of getting 2-3 swapping abilities per summon, make it 6-8 abilities. Every summon is like temporarily becoming an entire new class for a limited time. Bahamut would be the hard cast spec, Phoenix the dot spec, Ifrit the mid range AOE spec etc etc.

[SieyaM]

I wish there was unified, vocal outcry against this line of thinking, but whether it's what players want or not, they seem to have made up their mind that this is how they want to approach job design. Ever-increasing number of shiny new one-use skills with zero kit interactivity first, and actual developed and deep kits with lots of interactivity second never. It needs to stop.

Speaking of DoTs specifically, with the ever increasing number of effects that are applied to enemies it is becoming more common to hit the hard limit of effects allowed in an NPC. Meaning if you have a job that is relying on DoTs for its DPS, either from the DoTs themselves or their interaction with other parts of the kit, and those DoTs cannot land because of this limit then you have a job that is nearly useless. This will lead to situations where if players know a certain trail is in danger of hitting the limit, this DoT job will be black listed for not being able to perform.

[Jade_Tyrant]

Speaking of DoTs specifically, with the ever increasing number of effects that are applied to enemies it is becoming more common to hit the hard limit of effects allowed in an NPC. Meaning if you have a job that is relying on DoTs for its DPS, either from the DoTs themselves or their interaction with other parts of the kit, and those DoTs cannot land because of this limit then you have a job that is nearly useless. This will lead to situations where if players know a certain trail is in danger of hitting the limit, this DoT job will be black listed for not being able to perform.

That sounds pretty specifically like a mechanical issue that SE should be solving, rather than an issue of job and attack design, and one that isn't even specifically related to us putting DOTs on the enemy since it's happened to players with buffs as well.

[ThorneDynasty]

And yet they have completely superfluous DoTs on jobs like GNB and PLD.

And honestly the healers - But remembering to reapply a DoT every once in a while is all what passes for riveting gameplay for the entire role, so let's not take that away from them.

[SieyaM]

That sounds pretty specifically like a mechanical issue that SE should be solving, rather than an issue of job and attack design, and one that isn't even specifically related to us putting DOTs on the enemy since it's happened to players with buffs as well.

I don't know much of anything about server architecture or the coding of the game itself so I have no way of telling how difficult it would be to remove or increase these limitations. It could be incredibly difficult or even require the purchase of all new equipment which can be very costly very quickly. I doubt it is as easy as just changing some numbers around to up the cap for effects. In the end it is a limitation of the game that probably wasn't even considered an issue until recently since ARR and HW had fewer jobs and abilities over all.

[Silverquick]

How is it not feasible? The only change to be done will be the check where the ability will originate. And I find it quite baffling knowing that pets in mmos aren't a new concept but 14's engine isn't capable of handling such despite having initial code to handle it?

If so, i think this is not a technical issue but a prioritization issue. They have the resources to do so. For sure they have a way to test it and emulate worst case scenarios.

Sieya is actually telling you the truth, that really was the way it came out.
Even I remember it from back in the day how jank the pet controls were. I was one of the players that started in ARR and started on SMN.
And that is exactly what happened. I can remember back in the beginning the only pets I used were either the chicken nugget for solo and overworld play for the provoke... or in dungeons./raids Garuda because you had to for the Contagion power for the DoTs. I think by the time of Stormblood due to the reworks only Ifrit ever got used.

[Manamaru]

I too want to see pets become more important.

It's sad how much they lobotomised carbuncle in this expansion.

They even removed searing light from carbuncle at the start of the expansion which sucked because being able to cast a buff from carbuncle was useful for fights like p2s where you couldn't stand in the centre of the arena.

Now all it does is just sit there cast a shield on you, it may as well not even exist.

Well the people that wanted a “classic” summoner (ignoring ffX of course), and they got a monkey’s paw version of their wish.

Beastmaster is more than likely going to be the return to a pet oriented class. And made it limited, not only for the scope of monsters useable, but also so that the 2 minute meta magical abacus people don’t complain as much about it. But if beastmaster goes well enough and there’s enough demand for a non-limited version, we may see that reflected in puppet master.

[ThorneDynasty]

I don't know how "classic" it really even is, classic summoners were usually cross-classed with WHM or BLM or both, because the summons themselves were expensive screenwipe style attacks you used sparingly. Doing them off the assembly line without even a cast time doesn't really feel like summoner to me.

If they are trying to make it classic, they are failing terribly because pressing the summon button doesn't feel significant at all. Even Reaper's Communion has more decisive built-up oomph behind it.