So what happened to changing smn...

[Somnar]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

Early EQ compares to early CoH, in a way... these people had no experience with managing MMOGs; they learned as they went. (Not that it made it any more fun going through their learning process.)

FFXI... Square is cautious about changing things, debatably overly so. They go in very small, careful steps.

Blizzard, I thought, did a pretty good job with WoW. Class balance was solid from the start, and they tweaked and fixed most of the other issues. I an anti-PvP and anti-raid, though, so I can't comment on those.

Future MMOGs are going to become more and more refined as to development and patching processes, I think. We're still not too far from the beginning.

[SharMarali]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

In response to the original post... My guess is that SE hasn't implemented anything to entice SMNs to keep their avatars out all the time because they haven't figured out a way to do it yet.

I can't think of very many things they could do that would convince me that losing 7 MP every 3 seconds for an extended period of time seems like a good idea.

Simply lowering perpetuation cost doens't help the situation. If anything, it makes summoners terribly overpowered at lower levels, and a little overpowered at higher levels too. Lowering the cost of blood pacts would be even less helpful because it would just further encourage summon > blood pact > release > dance about how much MP you have left. Giving us some other kind of incentive to keep them out like higher dmg output when meleeing or higher TP bonus for those BPs that use TP doesn't really help because we still can only keep them out for a few minutes before running dry. So what if you're doing more damage during that time if you're scrambling after that to try to rest back up coz you're completely drained to zero? Our MP pools take a long time to rest up.

I can think of only one thing that could work, and here it goes: Reduce avatar perpetuation cost in proportion to avatar's TP.

Using the "primes" (ifrit, shiva, etc) as an example. As I mentioned, they cost me 7 MP every 3 seconds right now. That's using Yinyang Robe, Evoker's Ring, HQ elemental staff. Which means that, without any of that, a 75 SMN is paying 12 MP every 3 seconds for them. I'm not going to pull autorefresh out of the equation like a lot of people do, because it's not like we can turn it OFF.

Here's my idea. Summon Ifrit at a base perpetuation cost of 12 MP every 3 seconds. Then reduce the perpetuation cost by 1 for every 20 TP, stopping at 100TP. So when Ifrit has 20 TP, he costs a base perpetuation cost of 11 MP. At 40 TP, he costs 10MP every 3 seconds base. At 100TP, he costs 7MP every 3 seconds base. Using the same equipment I mentioned above that reduces him from 12 > 7, he'd cost 2 with 100 TP using this method. A cost of 2 MP every 3 seconds is not only liveable, but those with even more tools to lower avatar perpetuation could actually have him for free once he built up enough TP. You'd still be free to use blood pacts, but you'd be limited to basically just using ones that don't use TP, because otherwise the cost shoots back up again to keep him out.

I've thought of every possible scenario I can think of to try to entice SMNs to keep pets out all the time, and this is the only one I can think of that has the potential to work. The bottom line is, SE made SMN too MP-intensive to expect us to do anything OTHER than summon, blood pact, release. They cost us to keep out, and they cost us to blood pact. I have 1111 MP (I'm an elvaan, leave me alone!) and if I kept one of the primes out and did NOTHING ELSE but have the pet out to melee or whatever, I'd run completely out of MP in about 8 minutes. If I want to chuck out some cures or use some blood pacts, you can figure on running completely out in about half that time, if not quicker.

[Lhun]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

SE is encouraging a little more summoner melee with this new patch. A lot of people say that the new magical bloodpacts "suck". That's because they're newbs.

more TP=More damage. and they burst. Fight goes like this.

Pull mob, tell avatar to assault.
Assault and use petTP macro to let yourself know where they're at. Hopefully, they get to 100+. Skillchain goes off, you cast proper magical bloodpact... ie: heavenly strike. Go O.O O.O o.O o.O O.o at the massive damage. Rinse, reapeat.

[Djonma]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

I don't feel that adding more level 75 stuff will entice people to play SMN.

If you already play the job and love it, sure new BPs are good.
But if you're looking at starting a job and realise you're going to spend 60 levels as a rubbish whm... level 75 bloodpacts don't seem so good.

[Darkhound]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

I havent liked the new blood pacts as much as I thought I would

[framerate]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

I don't know about you, but I'm cool with paying 7mp/tick if my avatar can melee as good as a DRG or a WAR/NIN (or even just a WAR/MNK or some single handed job)

[Zamphire]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

On the topic of Everquest:

I played EQ for 5 years, from when it came out, till when FF came out. The first two years SUCKED. "Working as intended" was quite often Varrents response to complaints. But you have to admit, when SOE took over EQ about 3 years back the game became much better. Updates were done smoother, and never as long (I remember 16 hours of back to back patches. The patch to patch the patch that patched the patch). I honestly believe Varrent just had no idea what they were doing, I mean hell, EQ is quite often considered the game that started the MMO revolution.

[Neppy]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

SE is encouraging a little more summoner melee with this new patch. A lot of people say that the new magical bloodpacts "suck". That's because they're newbs.

more TP=More damage. and they burst. Fight goes like this.

Pull mob, tell avatar to assault.
Assault and use petTP macro to let yourself know where they're at. Hopefully, they get to 100+. Skillchain goes off, you cast proper magical bloodpact... ie: heavenly strike. Go O.O O.O o.O o.O O.o at the massive damage. Rinse, reapeat.

You may be right, but, in the time it took you to get 100% tp with your avatar, 2 level 70 BPs could have been used, and if you rested at all between them and not left your avatar out draining MP you would have alot more MP for the next mob keeping the xp chain going and having spare MP for any emergencies that might come up. I dont think they are done tweaking SMN by any means, wouldnt make sense to just tweak SMN only at lvl 75.

[Nekaru]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

The two things I remember at the fanfare were them wanting summoners to keep their avatars out more, and they were thinking about making the summoning skill be meaningful.

I think by these statements they would like to see Smn become a 'pet' class like Bst and Pup, and have a 'pet' out to help the party.

I think the new meritable Blood Pacts are the first steps of them trying to get summoners to do this, but I still feel it is a long way off. It will be quite some time until a Smn puts a lot of merits into Magic Attack and Magic Accuracy just to test out if the new 75 BPs can be as desirable as the lv 70 ones. (And even then Smn still hasn't been changed for those who are just now leveling the job.)

I hate stealing ideas from other games, but one thing that could benefit a party and warrant having an avatar out all the time is if they gave off an 'aura buff' that gave a benefit to the party members within a certain range.

Another idea I've heard many times is letting the avatars automatically have an en-spell attached to their melee attacks. If the avatar's damage was boosted, and the summoner used an avatar of the element the mob was weak to this could be another reason to keep them out more.

I would still be interested to try a party of Smns and Bsts with a Cor to buff up the pets and see what happens.

But in the end I think this is just the first step in the changes they intend to make, and they just want to see how this one plays out before implementing any more.

[Herrisa]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

Oooorrrrr.. in typical whip-them-until-they-scream fashion... they make it so you can't release your avatar for a few minutes after being summoned. Pray, people, pray that SE is feeling kind and merciful to smn.

[silentsteel]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

What I think they Should add is... Resting with your avie out, Yes the MP would still drain, but you would end up getting it faster, while they're still hitting the mob, does that sound too over powered at all or would mess up something?

[Balodoth]

Re: So what happened to changing smn...

Hmmm, that could be worthwhile. The keyword is could though. You would basically be subtracting ~7 MP per tick of healing. In other words, it's slower going than healing without your pet out. So many SMN wouldn't bother since they'd get MP quicker. On the other hand, if their damage was buffed and cost went down while the pet wasn't fighting, parties might like the idea more.

On the other side of the coin, SMN can only heal while their pet fights if DRG can fight while their pet heals.