Please stop alienating the playerbase with job total reworks

[Aravell]

I'm asking sincerely, not to be sarcastic, and recognizing without question that many jobs could use a little extra thought in terms of design, but isn't that the sign of a successful rework?

I mean, from experience with MMORPGs: NO rework is appreciated. If we listen to the MMO fanbase in general, the job needs to retain its identity (which can mean anything and everything; Zofian talks, a little above, of colors for example as being an important identity base. Something I personally don't understand at all); but still undergo changes so that you don't die of boredom after playing the same character for 3 expansions. That's... Complicated. In fact, if we're honest: the original playerbase would certainly grumble no matter what they did, because beyond the design, there's also an attachment to the character that goes far beyond the rational appreciation of a rotation.

In the case of the summoner, it seems to me (and I could be wrong here) that the class is played more now. So it's rather a success from their point of view, regardless of whether the old-timers are angry or not.

I'm not talking about success metrics, I'm saying that none of their reworks were received well by the original playerbase of the job, and that's the problem.

You know how they can get a handle on what changes would make the playerbase of a job happy before they make any changes? Polling the players! Yes! They can actually ask the players what they enjoy about the job before making any changes that would make them unhappy instead of just changing things without saying anything and then saying "Meh, the players will complain anyway".

There were many avenues they could've taken SMN instead of this undercooked abomination. If they learned that the players enjoyed DoTs, they could continue a pseudo-DoT job with the current design by having several aether siphon skills that players have to manage that will slowly fill a gauge until you can summon the flashy primals that we have now. If they learned that the players enjoyed egi management, they could make the summons flashy but have them stay after being summoned so the players can manage their attacks. That's only 2 ways to have the current visuals of SMN while having aspects of what people enjoyed about old SMN, there's never a need to completely delete a playstyle from the game on a whim.