Thread: SMN Job 7.0 Feedback

I'm just going to post the same response in both of the 7.0 Summoner Threads that seem to have gained "front-page traction", because... even years later, I still honestly have no idea how SE actually gathers and transmits feedback, nor how they decide which Threads to "listen to" or "read".

So at this point, I'm just taking the "spray and pray" approach.

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I would like to offer my own feedback on the presented 7.0 Summoner changes as a longtime player and fan of the Summoner Job — not just in FFXIV, but across Final Fantasy games in general.

Solar Bahamut

Lorewise and conceptually, I don't object to the idea of the WOL finally creating their own unique Summon, seemingly as a fusion of Hydaelyn / Solar / Crystal concepts and the "purified" concept of the "true", pre-Allagan Bahamut, as well as being an obvious contrast to the twisted "Lunar Bahamut" that was created by Fandaniel.

I do, however, also find it "boring" to have Yet Another Bahamut — I do not enjoy being the "Bahamut Job", compared to the more classical identity of FF Summoner as the "Mythical Pokémon Collector".

The excitement for me about Summoner was always seeking, finding, and discovering strange new creatures and beings to Summon... not obsessively fixating-upon one single Dragon.

I would have personally been far more interested in seeing an addition such as Odin, Alexander, the Warring Triad, Zodiark, or... basically anything that's not Bahamut.

SE, you are giving me severe "BAHAMUT FATIGUE". After having endless Bahamut shoved down Summoner's throat since Heavensward, Bahamut has stopped being "cool", and just become "exhausting". I am so sick of Bahamut and Dragons.

Mechanically, I also think that it's very unexciting to simply add a ghostly palette-swap of the generic "1-minute-burst-phase" model.

However, I am aware that there was a conscious design decision for the 7.0 design-period to avoid disrupting the current "rotational formulas". Therefore, I would say that my greater disappointment — if I "can't have everything" — is the choice of the new "burst-phase Summon", rather than the mechanic itself.

In other words... if we were being given something like, "Demi-Bahamut / Demi-Phoenix, but with Alexander graphics"... then, I would be much less frustrated, because at least I would be able to feel like I'm still becoming "more of a Summoner", fantasy-wise.

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Lack of Leviathan, Ramuh, and Shiva

I find this extremely disappointing — as in, "there are no words in the English language that sufficiently and accurately convey the extent of the disappointment that I felt upon seeing the Summoner portion of the 7.0 Jobs Livestream".

I'm playing a Final Fantasy Summoner. I want to Summon things. That is what I do. I locate and collect the "Summonable Beings", and then I Summon them.

Just like Blue Mage does not want to have nothing in its Spellbook but 50 Bahamut Skills, right? Of course, Blue Mage wants to collect a wide variety of Monster Skills, from a wide variety of different classic Final Fantasy creatures...

...Well, it's the same for Summoner. I want to collect a wide variety of Summons... not repeat the same tiny set ad-nauseum.

I honestly struggle to believe that we're going to reach Summoner Level 100, and yet still not have as much variety in our Summons as that level 70 Allagan computer from the Stormblood Job Quests.

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Lack of rotational development

Again, I understand that this is a conscious design decision for the 7.x period.

However, I am nonetheless disappointed that Summoner's overall rotational flow and structure will be remaining as "automated" and simplistic in 7.0 as it has been during the 6.x period.

I do not find the current Summoner model satisfying to repeat in prolonged use, and it makes me feel strangely "tired" of playing Summoner very quickly each time that I do... because, it feels like there is barely anything to really "learn" or "do", and the design is unusually and conspicuously "repetitive-feeling" to me, even amongst FFXIV Jobs.

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Continued development of Ruin and Fester

I feel that the 6.0 redesign of Summoner rendered Ruin and Fester into thematically-incongruous and inappropriate "vestigial organs", which should be redesigned and reflavoured to better fit the new Summoner identity.

I am disappointed to see that we're instead going to receive "Super-Ruin" and "Super-Fester".

To me, this feels painfully uncreative, uninspired, and unexciting.

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I have further thoughts, but it seemed like too much to post inside the flow of a preexisting, ongoing thread.

So I have also made a dedicated separate thread, wherein I elaborate in more detail on my thoughts about the 7.0 design direction for Summoner, and make a frankly-desperate attempt to propose a potential way to still salvage the situation within the limited development time that remains before 7.0 Release:

Implementing Leviathan, Ramuh, and Shiva as simplistic "Aesthetic Swaps"

I am so disapointed.

I really had hope that they'd raise a bit the difficulty of the job. Make it... well a caster and not a range with 2cast/min.

So, the visual is great, nothing to say about how the new bahamut looks, it looks great.
I'm not even mad at the whole "No shiva Ramuh Levi" because I wasn't expecting them.

However, SMN effectively gets its last skill at lv 86. Lv 90 is only a skin rework of its basic skills, and the showcast reveal that there's effectively nothing new.
The new bahamut is just a reskinned Pheonix/Baha, you'll spam the same button for 15s with 1 ogcd somewhere in the mix.

SMN is a job that has nothing new that remotely changes the rotation from 86 to 100.
This is utterly disapointing.

When the job rework was revealed, I was hyped. I mean, the logic is sound, you have 1 big burst summon and 3 minor one. The minor one can be done in any order, some have cast, mobility, some have instant. You're meant to know which summon it is best to use to avoid having to cast during movement. This is no different than a BLM needed to manage his Xeno and Triplecast... Basically, manage your movement tool which would be your summoning order.

This would have been great provided we'd need to do more than 2 cast per minute.

How is it possible for the dev to look at SMN and say "yes, this is a caster...". SAM has more cast than SMN!
A melee has more cast per minute than a caster!

Even RDM which we was made fun of on release for having "so much mobility" is litterally a static slug compared to SMN.

At this point swap SAM to caster and place SMN in the range section.

I'm gonna bet that solar bahamut will have the same potency as bahamut and phoenix. What a joke

Originally Posted by rawker

I'm gonna bet that solar bahamut will have the same potency as bahamut and phoenix. What a joke

Probably not because they want to force us to have Solar Bahamut every buff window since the order will be SolBahamut -> Bahamut -> SolBahamut > Phoenix

Originally Posted by rawker

I'm gonna bet that solar bahamut will have the same potency as bahamut and phoenix. What a joke

It probably won't be but I somehow hope it does cause I had a lot of times in dungeons and alliance raids that my summons would drift into phoenix being inside the 2min window and it's annoying af. A job with such a rigid rotation is a nightmare in content where you have to play with others cause you know, people might take a short break inbetween etc but SMN's clock is ticking unless you want to buffer with an absurd amount of ruins inbetween which is definitely peak gameplay /s

Funny how summoning in FF started off as glorified black magic spells, then it started to have hit points (FFVIII), then you get to order it to do attacks (FFX, FFXI, FFXII), becomes transformers to do its attack with you (FFXIII)... only to be a fighting game tag in FFXIV. Please tell me that it was a progression.

Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

Right now it's closest to the classic SMN, where summon is just a big costly spell. Except they don't feel big after you've cycled rapidly through them a few times. They aren't even spells really. They definitely aren't costly.

Spamming a huge screenwipe style attack every 30 seconds without even having to stop for a castbar is kind of an antithesis to how summoning is supposed to feel. I mean honestly, if they actually want it to feel like a summoned (and not just the seal clapping every time they see pretty colors sense), you'd pretty much have to make the choice of what you summon somewhat cosmetic, or a flavor difference. Especially if you'd expect them to add a few more. Because just summoning off a factory line without cost or commitment isn't summoner. It should feel like a choice of what you spend your time and resources on, but you also don't want to make one or two summons the only ones you ever want to use.

Or then they should make you only able to summon each summon once, refreshing the resources only once you've used them all, but over a way longer period of time than it is currently. Like it should take half the encounter to go through them. I'm talking about one summon per minute tops, with enough timing flexibility to make room for 5+ second summon casts. Make it feel like you are changing the entire face of the battle every time you summon.

Anyway, that's my ideal take on the job. Which they'll never do anything close to, because, while there's no reason it couldn't fit the 120s meta, the devs are so obsessed with it now they can't comprehend not making everything literally fit inside a 120s loop.

Altough, something interesting is that since the cycle will be "Baha, solar, pheonix, Solar, Baha, Solar etc"
Baha and Pheonix will become 2min burst spells.

So in a sens, Solar becomes a weaker 1min burst summon and the two other are back to being the all mighty 2min.

Except that for some reason I'm expecting the gap of dmg between Baha/Pheonix and Solar to be negligible so we'll just have, as of now, no 2min burst. just a 1min burst with 3 different visual.

Originally Posted by Sylvain

Altough, something interesting is that since the cycle will be "Baha, solar, pheonix, Solar, Baha, Solar etc"
Baha and Pheonix will become 2min burst spells.

So in a sens, Solar becomes a weaker 1min burst summon and the two other are back to being the all mighty 2min.

Except that for some reason I'm expecting the gap of dmg between Baha/Pheonix and Solar to be negligible so we'll just have, as of now, no 2min burst. just a 1min burst with 3 different visual.

I thought solar was the 2min one and you opened with it?

Originally Posted by Valence

I thought solar was the 2min one and you opened with it?

Yes, Solar Bahamut is your opener and 2m burst