Summoner Issues & Player Feedback

[RobinCoyote]

Old Summoner always felt really clunky to play. It was my first job, and I played it for the MSQ through each expansion. I have a lot of good memories tied up in it, even if I didn't find the old playstyle particularly palatable.

On the other hand I'm not really a fan of new summoner. It's a bit too simple for me. Even so I continued the tradition of playing it for the Endwalker MSQ. I'm really happy people enjoy it at least, even if I find it really bland.

The job action trailer for SMN in Dawntrail was a huge letdown. A few particle effect updates for existing spells and a second Bahamut? Really? You had so many cool primals to choose from and you chose a second Bahamut? I went in looking forward to seeing some cool stuff for my old main in anticipation of maintaining my tradition of playing SMN for Dawntrail MSQ and I left underwhelmed and disappointed. All you had to do was reskin the filler primals after Phoenix phase and I'm sure people would have been happy with even a lazy update like that.

But you gave us almost literally nothing.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I'm sure Neo Bahamut will be cool, but ugh, gutted they didn't add the most obvious Shiva / Levi / Ramuh. I don't care about the story implications - they can 100% write around and they have many many many times. There's no excuse of them not putting them in there. The salt in the wound is 2+yrs worth of waiting just to see if they'll add them in the next expansion. Meh.

Still happy to play summoner, sad to see the direction they went.

I mean, between the Eden questline, and some conversations you have in Elpis, they wouldn’t even have to try that hard to write around them, they’ve pretty much already laid a foundation. lol

I still think it’ll happen eventually… it’s literally the easiest way to add to the job without adding a ton of extra buttons… just hope when they do, they don’t forget our Aquamarine, Sapphire & Amethyst Carby glams!

[Boblawblah]

Odin would be big and flashy. Just saying..

[faiarrow]

I've mained summoner since I began in XIV before HW through the expacs all the way through even Endwalker before I hung up my grimoire to play Black Mage so I could feel something and honestly...

It's all style no substance now.

Our pet has been lobotomised to no longer attack - heck searing light doesn't deploy from it any more because people were too lazy to learn how to place their pets since they reset after every demi. The animations fantastic and are very fancy but you feel like you have very little impact outside of Bahamut burst phase with actual damage. We went from one of the highest DPS mage classes competing with BLM at a top level of play in SB and ShB if you took the time to actually learn how to play the job to 'chew gummies to win.'

DSR has a phase chart that is just coloured circles. For the entire fight. For your gummies and bursts in particular order for each phase. It's great it's accessible to people but it has become heinously boring to play for those who actually enjoyed some complexity in their job. Homogenization is a word thrown around a lot with the job updates ever since EW and it honestly is valid in criticism for Summoner.

Seeing Pictomancer get actual complexity in its combos from what we've seen so far in the PLL was a slap to the face honestly. I'm not asking for HW summoner to return - pet/egi swapping for contagion et al was fun if you could do it but definitely a hard entry bar for the role, and I know people meme about the SB opener being crazy for high end play with how big it was or the amount of weaving you had to do for Bahamut damage, but I feel ShB was the healthiest balance of complexity with easier entry into the role to learn it. You had impact in what you did with damage instead of being an awkward pseudo-support caster, DoTs to manage between burst phases, and something that actually kept you engaged while playing it.

It's hard to be optimistic about the Media Tour for the job because I suspect our issues with potencies and smack colour to win will continue after the job showcase video last night.

[Mondschnee]

I wouldn't say I had high hopes for summoner but I would at least have expected they consider implementing *some* of the user feedback given here on the forums. From what we've seen, it doesn't look like summoner will be an actual caster again, nor does it seem like the gameplay will become even remotely more flexible or interesting... Very disappointing, very boring.

[Thel_Eruyt]

Im actually fine with summoner not casting, well perhaps casting to "summon the primal" but once you are infused by its power I do not feel the need to cast, I was liking the direction they were taking in EW, It made me feel like a summoner not a D.o.t. mage . I admit that it was simple but visually was appealing but now having just a bahamut 2.0 fels lackin and it snot even the gameplay I am mad about but just, we have met like 20 other primals, but isntead of using oen of them we get the fanfic bahamut a pictomancer did.

And I do not get the "the previous bahamut was too allagan so this one is closer to the original" ive seen bahamuts dad and all of bahamuts siblings, (except ratatoskr, for obvious reasons) all of them had normal wings, not swords so I quite doubt thats "closer" to the original... and wasn't Tiamat the one that actually summoned bahamut before the allagans captured it?

[NovaBismarck]

I can see how figuring out the best way forward for summoner is tricky. I've seen all sorts of suggestions. I'm sure it was not an easy path. All in all, people are playing summoner now. So, that means there are plenty of people out there that like well enough. After the rocket science hoops that we jumped in the early game over the years, it did feel pretty dumbed down but I am glad they made summoner feel more like an actual summoner. It still has some really good aspects like the movement. I can see how people who wanted a more complicated class to dive into savage would be disappointed (I had a friend who was in that camp for sure).

The new primal. Looks like a bahamut reskin. My guess is they'll likely give us some good lore based reason that they chose that direction. I saw a handful of people who were excited for a new bahamut, but a lot of the comments from reddit were less favorable. (Thread can be found via google search ffxiv the future of summoner) However, just from being in the camp of primal collector hoping to summon some cool new thing, that one did not land for me from a visual standpoint. I am hoping the actual skills we get for summoner will make it more desirable.
(I honestly hate complaining, because I know people worked hard on it, but certainly someone at the top should have seen that a reskin was going to cause upset).
I will just bury my grief in new dye channel options and that pictomancer ability with the hammer.

[seolhyun]

all they had to do was make the new summon something different. ppl want to be a summoner not a bahamut mage.

[Vandso]

From all the things they could have done, they chose the worst one.

Of all the possible outcomes, they could've:

• Added Ramuh, Shiva and Leviathan during Phoenix phase. Even if it was just visuals, people would be way happier;
• Added Odin or Alexander as a 180s Egi-summon. Again, way cooler than another Bahamut;
• Added a fourth Egi-summon, even that would be fine (as long as it wasn't a remix of the already existing summons);
• Just reskined Bahamut. This would still suck, but it would suck less than having Bahamut to appear 3 times more than Phoenix in a fight;
• Didn't add any new summon, but made the Egi-summons physically attack their target like the Demi-summons, that way it would actually feel like a summoner;
• Added a new gauge that increases by 10 every time you use a lego, and when it gets 100 you can do the big aoe ability. This is way more interesting than simply having a follow up for the party buff, it doesn't even makes sense imo;
• Increased the Aetherflow gauge by 3 and making Energy Drain and Energy Siphon give 3 Aetherflows instead of 2. We need more buttons to press, not another tier for Fester;
• Gave us an ability like Energy Drain/Siphon that only gives 1 Aetherflow but has 30s cooldown. That's another alternative that is way more engaging than Fester 2.

Anyway, the more I think about how the new Summoner sucks, the more mad I get, and we know they won't change anything at this point. At least we now have confirmation that they don't listen or care about their playerbase, at least the western one. I'll just boycott Summoner for the next expansion and pretend I'm still worth something in this game.