Quote Originally Posted by Ehl View Post
Yes, it is true that any individual party member could summon, but in each game there was only one of whatever spiritual entity the summoner was calling forth. What I mean is that there was only one spiritual entity named Ifrit, there was only one Shiva, there was only one Fenrir (and there can be only one Highlander!), and so on.

By making it so that each spirit can only be utilized by one group (or individual) at a time means the integrity of the mythos in FFXIV will be strengthened.

I can't speak for how things were in FFXI, but from the descriptions people are giving of the summoner class in that game, it sounds like everyone who had the job unlocked and took the time to level it up got the same avatar/pets. To me not only does this cheapen the jobs abilities it undermines the integrity of the mythos. Why? Because Having multiple "Ifrit spirits" flying around contradicts the fact that the story indicates that Ifrit is a singular entity.

Perhaps a compromise could be reached if instead of having the Primals as avatar/pets the summoner could summon Elemental Spirits to aid in combat and the Primals (or famous summons from FF's of the past) must be achieved by competitive means.

The role of a summoner is to call forth spiritual entities using rituals or ceramonial magic to aid in battle. Making it so that whichever group has fought and obtained the primal must work as a team to perform some type of "ritual" to boost the power of the spirit makes this more like an actual summon. And, if the "rituals" or tasks that are done to boost the power of the Primal must be lead by a Summoner class/job that would be even more awesome!

IMO this idea given in the OP souds very interesting.

Again we really will know nothing untill 2.0 is launched.
In FFXI it was essentially the same - Your party members (like other FF games) could summon, however there's only a few storybased characters (like other FF games) who can actually summon the diety themselves, whom existed primarily during the Zilart era.

Basically there's only 1 person who actually succeeded in Summoning Fenrir in "modern times" which promptly ended up killing him. In FFXI you had to fight a copy of the god called Avatars, which basically means you're only seeing a copy of them, not the actual diety themselves -- There are a few who are actually awake but still only offer you a fraction of their power and there's some who aren't going to allow you to fully control them (Odin and Alexander.)

The thing most people forget is, Yoshida isn't talking specifically about FFXI and the copies as "cheapening", just the idea as the series went on Summoning has become pretty much a staple of the game when before they were just elaborate nukes, so it's not the copies, because every summoner and their grandma will be running around with a lesser summon, but they clearly have to have some importance unless SE goes the lazy route and just allow you to level into summoning them.

In XIV vs XI, XIV's primals aren't offering their power to anyone, thus summoners won't be able to summon even a copy of them, but Free Companies will be able to get a Card to allow one time summon of the god itself. In XI, they offer you their power in exchange if you beat them.