FFXI Summoner VS FFXIV Summoner

[Mogmi]

Just like to start of saying Summoner has always been my favorite job in the FF franchise since FF10, With Yuna who is my most favorite FF character of all time. I noticed after unlocking Summoner in FFXI and playing the class, I wish it could be more than it currently is in FFXIV, First thing i noticed in FFXI is there is a connection between you and your Carbuncle pet which is absent in FFXIV, Carbuncle in FFXI speaks to the player through the Summoner quest lines and even promises to help and watch over the player when you first meet, It feels like a bond between you and your pet. I also love how in FFXI having Carbuncle is more similar to owning a Pokemon which is what I want more in a Pet Class like Summoner. In FFXI Carbuncle has its own special abilities with Bloodpact Rage and Bloodpact Ward, Bloodpact Rage being where it can use its own special attacks on enemies (Poison Nails, Meteor , Searing Light , Holy Mist) and Bloodpact Ward having Healing capabilities Healing Ruby which restores a single targets HP, Shining Ruby granting effect of Shell and Protect to the party members, Healing Ruby II which does healing to the whole party. Also worth noting to Carbuncle also has its own auto attack move in FFXI as well to enemies which i heard used to be in FFXIV with a "Sic" Command which was removed. Another thing to note as well is in FFXI Carbuncle has a HP bar which you have to look out for, just like with Pokemon, Usually Healing Ruby II would heal its HP when it got low i noticed and its another thing i like about the class in FFXI. One last thing before i end this post of, I wish FFXIV had more summons like in FFXI as well, FFXI has a lot more summons you can do, and I also wish they could add more Summons to FFXIV as well especially Ramuh, Shiva and Leviathan. To summarize in general I wish in FFXIV they could make it a lot more of a pet class as it is in FFXI, I wish they could rework the whole class and make it something special, Like how its really special to me in FFXI.

[jrollins89]

I've long abandoned hope of FF14 Summoner functioning anything like the pet class we've had from FF10, FF11, FF12, FF13, FF15 (kinda), and FF7Remake+Rebirth. Or even the slow cast, long animation, nuker class we had from FF4 through FF9. FF14 Summoner only plays like FF14 Summoner... and FF16's. Which was released after the fact.

I don't like pointing fingers, but I think that Yoshi P or whoever has been in charge of FF14 Summoner's design since the start just fundamentally does not "get" Summoner and why it is so iconic to the franchise, as evidenced by the fact that for over 10 years we were only able to summon the Egi's as opposed to actual Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan. Or that in DT they doubled down and only gave us a second version of Bahamut that no one asked for as opposed to a plethora of other elemental Summons that we've been begging for.

I just really don't see the job turning around into the Pokemon trainer type gameplay a lot of FF11 veterans wanted unless they get someone on the job design team that is actually a fan of the job/summoning mechanic from past games.

[Connor]

Summoner is absolutely up there as one of the most frequently disrespected jobs in the entire game.

Even when the job first came out and they pulled the ‘oh sorry you literally cannot ever have any other summons besides the main 3 sorry not sorry’ bullshit to cover their asses for never adding more (But it’s ok because Summoner is poison mage now!)

They really came straight out the gate with the disrespect to the job; Lunar Bahamut was just the latests in a long line of metaphorical ‘slaps-in-the-face’ to people who actually like Final Fantasy summoners. Where are the countless iconic final fantasy summons the game has to draw from? Like none of them are even remotely referenced by Summoner lol. You can’t even summon a Chocobo to kick the enemy, how is this an FF Summoner?!

It genuinely feels embarrassing to even play it anymore. Like you’re running around with a ‘I’m a clown’ sign stuck to your back. And from what I understand, despite being so brutally ‘sandpapered’, the job still doesn’t perform well. So they sacrificed the job being enjoyable…and gave effectively nothing in return. A hilariously pointless AoE heal tied to Bahamut for absolutely no reason lol

[Carighan]

Even when the job first came out and they pulled the ‘oh sorry you literally cannot ever have any other summons besides the main 3 sorry not sorry’ bullshit to cover their asses for never adding more (But it’s ok because Summoner is poison mage now!)

Oh yeah that's true. I forgot how lame that was. "Here you're the DoT mage now which has absolutely 0 to do with your job's description or intent, but we can't add more models because this game has to run on an Atari 5200 still and now deal with it!".

At least they later added full-size models in the rework, but again, it makes no sense. Clients are no longer limited by that, this game isn't releasing on the Nintendo Game&Watch, it's time to actually use the hardware! And not for insults to the playerbase such as the Temu Bahamut we got now. That is just genuinely cracking jokes at the playerbase genuinely wanting more summons, instead they add an ultra-lame AI-generated-levels of quality reskin of an existing summon. Siiiigh.

[Chasingstars]

(But it’s ok because Summoner is poison mage now!)l

And then the loss of that causes an uproar because people who liked having the equivalent of an affliction warlock can't play that anymore.

But thats also the thing, the pet aspect of summoner was removed quicker than the dot aspect. As it was in that transition from stormblood to shadowbringers where pets didn't have health bars anymore and became glorified dots. And from shadowbringers to endwalker, the closest thing to a dot left is gardua's slipstream damage puddle, but otherwise there is no dots and the pet is just a vibing carbuncle that shapeshifts.

And now you get two limited jobs to cover what was just normal gameplay before. Blue mage gives you plenty of ways to maximize the benefits of your dots and have multiple dots active. While beastmaster is entirely taking over the pet management part.

[Carighan]

The loss of pet jobs is such a weird quirk of MMORPG development in general. As MMOs age, they remove or neuter their pets. I mean on some level I get it, as "proper" pet gameplay (you're the controller, you have an extra entity to also move around boss abilities and stuff manually, plus you are responsible for healing it and all, in return it deals your raw damage/healing output for you) is really problematic for boss design that isn't on the level of old EverQuest 1 or so.

Still, even DAoC removed the Necromancer, the one pet class that always worked out by turning the controller into the pet in a way. Just seems to be a universal truth. Pets get trivialized or removed as MMOs age.

[Valmaxian]

I personally don't want SMN to be a pet class, at least not in the WoW sense. I enjoyed the summon systems in FFX and XII, where you had a limited window of time to utilize your summons' abilities. We have something KIND OF like that now, but with an extremely set way of using abilities. My thoughts:

1. Keep the big, dramatic summon ability, make them different (not always big blast), and let us choose when to use it

2a. Summon primal, keep them around. Cast bar changes to primal commands for duration. Primals' abilities/rotations should feel unique and useful in their own ways.
2b. Some primals enter, do their unique ability, then the caster assumes their aspect, like an Evoker. Odin gives us a sick AF sword, Bahamut gives us wings and a breath weapon, etc

3. Give us a "loadout" option like Blue Mage: ex. Perhaps for a particular fight I want access to 6-8 specific primals, then can swap them out between fights, or dungeons; also, give primals health bars and when they die we use an ability to revive/heal them (at the cost of dealing damage) or swap to another primal.

A few things I think should be considered more than they are now:

Having *a* buff and a basic rotation does not mean a job should be weak (I'd prefer a more complex rotation for SMN, just making a general point). Throughout the entire FF series Summoners have eclipsed every other role in terms of raw power. Square, you need to break out of your self-imposed fears of job balance. Why TF is my once epic job among the gimpiest in the game? Behind RED MAGE?

(Spoiler alert) Last I checked, we had Carbuncle, Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Shiva, Bismarck, Ravana, Bahamut, Phoenix, Lakshmi, Asura, Sephirot, Sophia, Zurvan, Ramuh, Leviathan, Alexander, Odin, Shinryu, Necron (did I miss any??) in the game? Why do I have two Bahamuts and Phoenix with the exact same rotation, and only three of the most basic primals at my disposal?

I didn't attend Y'mitra's School for Gifted Youngsters to be treated like an undergraduate second rate Arcanist.

There. I said it.

[Chasingstars]

The loss of pet jobs is such a weird quirk of MMORPG development in general. As MMOs age, they remove or neuter their pets. I mean on some level I get it, as "proper" pet gameplay (you're the controller, you have an extra entity to also move around boss abilities and stuff manually, plus you are responsible for healing it and all, in return it deals your raw damage/healing output for you) is really problematic for boss design that isn't on the level of old EverQuest 1 or so.

Still, even DAoC removed the Necromancer, the one pet class that always worked out by turning the controller into the pet in a way. Just seems to be a universal truth. Pets get trivialized or removed as MMOs age.

Having variety would be the more preferrable option for an mmorpg in my opinion. Cater to different kinds of players, and just accepting that not everyone will play a certain things. And to provide that sort of options, it requires maintenance and fixing stuff. This is also why I am not exactly as enthusiastic about beastmaster coming later this expansion, as its limited and that means I can't just queue in roulette as beastmaster and play with all the other jobs.

[Ryskim]

In FFXI, every summon has a specific purpose and effect. The fundamental difference between jobs in FFXI and FFXIV, is that you have many ways to effectively play a job in FFXI, but there is only one correct and possible way to play a job in FFXIV. It is that dumbing down of the game systems, how the jobs work, that made many people leave or hate the state of the game right now.

It has been even worse expansion after expansion, where the dev team keeps simplifying every job to the point of making you spam ONE (1) combo for 100 levels nonsop (see DRK for example).

Summoner should summon pets who stay there permanently or maybe add MP upkeep. You should be able to choose any summon you like and each summon should have specific skills or properties depending on the situation you're in.

For some duties maybe Titan is better, or maybe you prefer Bahamut.

In the current state of the SMN, you have to summon Bahamut as part of a very temporary summons rotation, where you have to go through Phoenix and then Solar Bahamut before you can summon Bahamut again. It's simply pathetic because they do not hide it that you are completely forced into a rotation and have no way to choose the way you want to play the job.

I truly miss the old, darker version of the ARR and Heavensward SMN where we had physical Egis with their own auto-attacks, that could be damaged and you could heal. That was a true connection between you and your summons. You could choose Titan or Garuda or Ifrit depending on what you wanted. You weren't forced into 1 rotation for 100 levels.

You could enter POTD and have Titan tank some of the mobs for you.

So to summarize, the dev team is utterly lazy, they simply do not want to complicate themselves with balancing summons and they outright despise pet jobs simply because it's extra work for them. I have come to the conclusion that this is probably the reason why we have a Reaper and not a Necromancer at this moment.

So until the dev team completely changes their ways and put players experience first and not the devs comfort, we're stuck with classes full of skill replacements, oversimplified and dumbed down to the point of making them simply boring. I think the SMN is probably the biggest proof of this. You can't even fill a cross bar with the SMN because it's mostly one skill replacing the other and not adding new skills. And the best summons last only 15 seconds and are locked into a silly rotation you cannot chose not to do.

Jobs should be complicated and difficult to master, not oversimplified to satisfy casual players and make devs job easier. Making games is not and should not be easy.

SMN needs a complete remake and while I know this is not FFXI and never will be, there are many things FFXIV's could learn from the way things are done in FFXI.

[Brandr]

So to summarize, the dev team is utterly lazy, they simply do not want to complicate themselves with balancing summons and they outright despise pet jobs simply because it's extra work for them. I have come to the conclusion that this is probably the reason why we have a Reaper and not a Necromancer at this moment.

I completely agree with this paragraph.
(Also, don't you guys feel the Reaper's Avatar were meant to be a pet and not a skill animation?)

Though, in Final Fantasy franchise, besides FFXI, Summoner was never a pet class, but a huge feared by all nations nuke class.

I'd love a true pet class with true pets, that I would have to care for its needs, wants and training. Someone else in this topic also said that current devs seem to no like pet classes, and I agree with that too. Seems actually to hate it and all aspects of it.