First look at Beastmaster

[Zofian]

Look, very happy to see the game on course for a unexpected comeback, going by what's been announced. But I'm going to start dial down my own hype to cautious optimism. Things really are looking up though.

That aside, I am glad to see Beastmaster pushed back to 7.56, as it really needs polish and a decent way from being ready.

One main issue I see with Beastmaster is that it really spits in the face of everything that Hermes stood for in the MSQ. We're just straight making and unmaking creatures all the time- even sharing a similar visual effect and colour when doing so (Job quest text cannot explain that away). Also, going by the footage (in development of course), the beasts don't even look at/acknowledge/glance at you (like our chocobos do). They're just 'there' and it looked pretty jank when they were following the character around in Limsa. There was no unique elegance or flow to differentiate them from the ones that spawn in the wild. Nothing to show they were 'tamed' really (no kind of collar or flashy-worn-item to dress them with a little). And overall I'm disappointed that it's an aether-based job (that summoner was already doing, pretty much) and not really 'actual beasts'. But this can all be refined and I hope this happens (maybe this will, alongside hinted upgrades to companion), given they have plenty of time do so. Also I wasn't fond of the caging graphic (I figure we will be able to job skill glamour over this in 8.0 though- but the one shown is ok I guess) and the overall capture process looked effortless. Perhaps adjust or refine it so that you have to get the health down to within a particular few % within 60-1% health (randomly set per mob spawning event), or it will fail if outside of that. Or some other quick mini-puzzle trick onscreen thing to do while battling and attempting (fast pattern match reflex action maybe? similar to dance games).