Dengeki Games Interview

[jenova_9]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

ya well, I guess maybe the 12 in FFXIV will just give us their little pokemon versions to use.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

Celestial beings, but not gods on the level of Promathia or Altana. Without being forced to sleep, Celestical avatars would not be able to control their full power and go after each other

Kinda why Aht'Urghan building a new vessel to host Alexander was a bad idea. The catch is they need a host, but those apparently aren't terribly hard to come by.

[jenova_9]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

weren't FFXI summons considered celestial beings that gave you a portion of their power?

---------- Post added at 02:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:08 PM ----------

That's taking it to another extreme though. There has to be some kind of happy middle ground they can take with this job. I mean technically you're right, simply not having the SMN class would do away with any problems of that nature, but it's also kind of cheesy for everyone to be able to use a Summon's powers in a class-based game. In games like 7 and 8 who cares because it's all materia/equipable GF and every character is virtually the same anyway save for minor differences. But in a game where you have defined roles it doesn't mesh so well.

ya that's true. they should either have a summoner class like FFT and FFXI, or not have summons at all.

Though a skill capped Lancer being able to summon a large dragon the size of Diabolos would be pretty kewl.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

How??

Summons do not mean summoner class, please refer to latter half of the series starting with FFVI.

They said multiple hurdles in what seemed like the context of getting one out of the twelve gods to aid you. Also, gods.

[Pwnagraphic]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

The multiple "hurdles" to get summons only reinforces my belief there won't be a summoner class at all.

How??

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

That's taking it to another extreme though. There has to be some kind of happy middle ground they can take with this job. I mean technically you're right, simply not having the SMN class would do away with any problems of that nature, but it's also kind of cheesy for everyone to be able to use a Summon's powers in a class-based game. In games like 7 and 8 who cares because it's all materia/equipable GF and every character is virtually the same anyway save for minor differences. But in a game where you have defined roles it doesn't mesh so well.

FFVI disagrees.

You cannot tell me Setzer, Celes, Terra, Strago, etc did not have pre-defined roles before they learned all that magic from magicite and other skills from relics.

Getting a god to lend you his traits if you kick his ass isn't cheesy at all, either. Thematically, they're supposed to lend their aid to whomever bests them.

[Armando]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

Sounds like Crystal Chronicles all over again. Someone gets stuck with bucket bitch duty.

Eh, you'll probably just need to have a light source in your inventory or use/receive a buff whose purpose is to make you glow.

Worked for Everquest.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

I think most of these questions were made quite a bit more clear than earlier translations of them. Especially about the aggro system being back w/ new methods to learn. I do like that some dungeons may require a light source to explore!

Sounds like Crystal Chronicles all over again. Someone gets stuck with bucket bitch duty.

[DakAttack]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

So, between no summoners and summoners, the middle ground with be half-summoners? Sounds workable to me.

[Malacite]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

Best way to avoid all those problems? Don't have a summoner job.

That's taking it to another extreme though. There has to be some kind of happy middle ground they can take with this job. I mean technically you're right, simply not having the SMN class would do away with any problems of that nature, but it's also kind of cheesy for everyone to be able to use a Summon's powers in a class-based game. In games like 7 and 8 who cares because it's all materia/equipable GF and every character is virtually the same anyway save for minor differences. But in a game where you have defined roles it doesn't mesh so well.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

that would make end game classes look less unique.

News flash: Endgame isn't about being unique.

tanks, DDs, healers, supporters all using their summons in battle.
It would feel too much like Pokemon. It was okay for something like FF8 because SeeD use Guardian Forces for power,

And if there is a symbiotic relationship that benefits the player and the summon alike, all the better. In FFVIII, the more you relied on summons to deal the damage or heal you, the less effective your strategies were and the lengthier they became. Who says having a summon means you have to actively use it?

The reason that SMN can't work in FFXI like it worked in all the other games is because if we give a class that can just output this ungodly level of damage to everything, then the all the other offensive mage and melee classes are not going to have the utility they do. The reason SMNs will never be happy with what they get is because SE cannot give them what they truly want without destroying the balance of the game. So FFXI summoner has to be more of a supporting role with spike damage.

But if everyone can draw benefits from having a summon, there are much fewer balance issues. You seem to want to think that being aligned with a summon means you're going to call it out ritually. What if they go for something more like FFVI or FFVIII where you just call them out when its really needed and they're there to add other benefits?

In FFVI holding a certain magicite would allow the character to learn certain spells and gain extra stat boosts on level-up. FFVIII's summons learned a whole lot of passive abilities that made a tremendous difference in overall performance. What FFVIII did , in particular, would work extremely well in an MMO context.

Summoner has come and gone from the spotlight of the series, just because there's a job system doesn't mean there has to be a summoner class, though.

Why can't SMN just be the one job that really is barred off until you've advanced appropriately enough?

Because that would be taking the original extreme with summoner that SE used.

Remember Star Wars Galaxies? Only the most lucky of players could become Jedi originally. Only the savvy and hardest-working players could have a spaceship of their own. These choices were made in respect to the story of the original trilogy.

The Jump to Lightspeed comes out. Everyone and their grandma can be a Jedi and they had out starships as you create your character. This is going the other way in a completely nonsensical fashion. They just caved in to player demand no matter how little sense it made in respect to the story.

Now we have a Star Wars MMO where Jedi, Sith and even Mandalorians are a regular sight. The Old Republic does have the baggage of the original or prequel trilogies. Now the only thing you have to worry about is having that starship so you can go between worlds. This time, if you just naturall have one out the gate.

See how that's kinda like FFXI summoner. Too inaccessible when introduced, made more accessible at the expense of its lore, but also weakened substantially for the sake of all the other jobs having a role a well.

Best way to avoid all those problems? Don't have a summoner job.

[Malacite]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

Why can't SMN just be the one job that really is barred off until you've advanced appropriately enough?

No honestly, why not? So one job out of 20 (though only 12 originally and soon after 15) can not be taken up right off the bat. A lot of things in FFXI that are very powerful require considerable investment, so why couldn't SMN be that? IMO it's one of the most iconic jobs of the series because of how widely recognized and beloved the summons are. In every game since 3, the summons have been a staple of spectacular effects & even story elements. Speaking of, IIRC in a previous interview Tanaka said that the summons will play a vital role in XIV's plot so in all likeliness story progression is likely going to be a requirement.


Anyway, really digging the comments on them. More God-like this time eh? Methinks that either SMN will (finally) be restored to it's offline power-level (SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE) or as BBQ says, they will be made accessible to everyone in some form, even if it's not in the traditional sense (such as equipping them like GFs in 8)

In XI it was simply too hard to have SMN as potent as it was in the offline games since XI primarily focuses on facing a single foe at time, encouraging crowd control abilities when facing more than 1 enemy. XIV on the other hand has shown we will be facing multiple enemies frequently, which likely means mobs won't be so obscenely powerful as they are in XI either (I mean really why should a regular mob 10 or more levels lower than me have twice my stats?)

That was the big issue. You primarily want to keep hate (and thus healing magic as well) on a single target, which meant some of SMN's more extravagant healing abilities either had to be toned down or were simply irrelevant for most situations.

Likewise, where the job has typically specialized in clearing waves of enemies in a single, massive strike (usually at a considerable cost to MP but still less than a BLM would spend nuking them down) it had to be tweaked to handle singe enemies, reserving the more spectacular/traditional abilities for Astral Flow so as not to make BLM useless. I'm really hoping they fix this in 14.

In a nutshell, BLM is for killing bosses, SMN is for wiping out hordes (and bosses with the really high tier summons like Bahamut, though their damage vs MP is always less efficient than a BLM) and area heals etc... basically the trump card or as I prefer, the "Oh SHIT!" button. Where a BLM & WHM will suffice for most situations, a SMN is called in for emergencies (due to the high MP use). If they can find a way to bring that online and make it fun, I'll be very happy.

[Khalus]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

I think most of these questions were made quite a bit more clear than earlier translations of them. Especially about the aggro system being back w/ new methods to learn. I do like that some dungeons may require a light source to explore!

[jenova_9]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

that would make end game classes look less unique.

tanks, DDs, healers, supporters all using their summons in battle.
It would feel too much like Pokemon. It was okay for something like FF8 because SeeD use Guardian Forces for power,


but I dunno, Summons being mandatory and common for all classes is just too cheesy. Plus even if there are like 12 summons, that's still not much variety when everyone advanced that far will be using them.

but ya, FFXIV is more like FFII than FFI, so I guess this time people can be a jack of all trades.

But I would prefer if people have to change to a summoner type class before they can use Summons.
but with the advanced skills system possibly combining skills from Jobs, I think it might turn out like FFTactics
where you can be a Knight, but still Summon as your sub skills.

I guess that's okay for really advanced stuff, though I don't think summons should be overpowered to the point
where everyone uses them like Utsusemi Ni was abused because it's so convenient. It would be best for summons
to not stand out too much in gameplay.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Dengeki Games Interview

There still might be a Beastmaster class/pet class added later.

I still think SMN has a chance because maybe obtaining the skill to summon something requires a lot more advancement than
merely unlocking an advanced job.

Adding SMN to FFXI by the traditional perspective they applied did not work as well in the online context as it did in the offline context. What worked for Rydia and Yuna didn't work for FFXI's SMN.

To get a summon originally, you had to be level 60 in some other job and have SMN unlocked. Avatar battles were originally level 60 cap fights only. There were no Trial Size versions. That made the job not terribly accessible.

Then they came out with the Trial Size version and the players that like the traditional presentation of the avatars said they dumbed the process down. And to an extent, that was actually true. Queen Asura didn't play pattycake with Rydia for access to her power.

If they're going to make it hard on everyone, the most fair thing they can do is make summons accessible to all jobs.