[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Katchii]

Eeh you do not need to target the pet for that.
Just use "sic" to send it to a different target than you main one.

Sadly yes, the aggro is diverted to the caster now, instead of the pet but you can still grab mobs off a healer (does Titan still have taunt? W/o it, fat chance of getting aggro).

Titan does not have taunt, no. But the big thing is that if the pet is the one being targeted, it means IT would be taking damage not you or the party member.

I guess, the fact that I don't ever really have to worry about the pet at all, in any capacity, means it doesn't feel like a pet class at all. The pet automatically attacks your target, and there's really not much reason for that to be different because it can't be targeted, so it attacking something just brings attention to you, and Summoners are really squishy so asking for more mobs to attack you is generally a bad idea. In group situations where there's multiple adds you don't target each monster individually, you just use an AoE rotation and Garuda because of it's AoE capabilities, and the tank typically has aggro almost automatically because of the threat stance...and in the situation where they don't, the Summoner shouldn't be the one trying to draw aggro as they'll just die in two hits (or less)

The pet is just feels like a set piece, it doesn't do anything to change the game play flavor of the class, the abilities used by the pet could easily just be player actions and you wouldn't notice any difference in game play.

Compared to the way it was prior to ShB and the way other pet classes like the WoW Hunter or Warlock control, it just doesn't feel the same.

[Granyala]

The pet is just feels like a set piece, it doesn't do anything to change the game play flavor of the class, the abilities used by the pet could easily just be player actions and you wouldn't notice any difference in game play.

Compared to the way it was prior to ShB and the way other pet classes like the WoW Hunter or Warlock control, it just doesn't feel the same.

Yeah.. except for the "I'll do the requested ability when I feel like it, not when you order me to!" kind of delay, you are right. Esp. since these moron designers put the actions OF ANOTHER ENTITY onto YOUR GCD, making it feel like your action and not it's. Ugh, that was the point at which I just thought "get rid of the darn thing already!".
The pet might as well not exist. It's pretty much visuals only at this point.

BTW: about the whole "My pet tanks!" seriously, how often does that happen? It should never happen in the first place but sometimes you do get one of those tanks that are half AFK I guess. I usually tank in dungeons, so I wouldn't know. :P

[Katchii]

Yeah.. except for the "I'll do the requested ability when I feel like it, not when you order me to!" kind of delay, you are right. Esp. since these moron designers put the actions OF ANOTHER ENTITY onto YOUR GCD, making it feel like your action and not it's. Ugh, that was the point at which I just thought "get rid of the darn thing already!".
The pet might as well not exist. It's pretty much visuals only at this point.

100% agreed

BTW: about the whole "My pet tanks!" seriously, how often does that happen? It should never happen in the first place but sometimes you do get one of those tanks that are half AFK I guess. I usually tank in dungeons, so I wouldn't know. :P

In groups? VERY rarely, but I saved a few wipes by getting Titan out to tank a little while the healer got the Tank back up after going down to a tank buster or something.

It's mostly solo, Summoner used to feel incredibly powerful and nearly unstoppable solo if played relatively conservatively, even against mobs 1-2 levels higher than you, because you could DoT a group of mobs and keep Titan up with some heals and tank one yourself if necessary and then just watch them melt over time...now? There's no chance of you doing that unless you severely overpower the mobs you're fighting, and even then it's a race to see who kills who first rather than you being able to weather the assault...you just kill them a LOT faster than they can kill you.

[Granyala]

It's mostly solo, [...]..you just kill them a LOT faster than they can kill you.

Hmm I can imagine that being a lame change.
never leveled SMN the "WoW way", since I level classes more or less exclusively through group content.
So I wouldn't know how it felt. Was is as ridiculous as having a hunter pet?

[Katchii]

Hmm I can imagine that being a lame change.
never leveled SMN the "WoW way", since I level classes more or less exclusively through group content.
So I wouldn't know how it felt. Was is as ridiculous as having a hunter pet?

Ridiculous how? Leveling Summoner in ARR, Heavensward and Stormblood in the open world and questing felt almost identical to leveling a Hunter/Warlock in WoW. Having the pet, and playing smartly, felt borderline OP compared to some other classes.

[Hyral]

Esp. since these moron designers put the actions OF ANOTHER ENTITY onto YOUR GCD, making it feel like your action and not it's.

This is the absolute worst. This wasn't always the case, right? When I played SCH during SB I was still very green but I do remember weaving pet abilities between my own and that's why I loved it, but now that I know more of the game I wonder if pet abilities were oGCDs and I just didn't understand that back then.

[Granyala]

Ridiculous how?

Well a hunter is pretty much OP in leveling content. Ridiculously so compared to other classes.

- - - Updated - - -

This is the absolute worst. This wasn't always the case, right?

They used to be automatic / completely independent actions on a pet bar, you could order while you were casting IIRC.
Then with ShB they made off-GCDs out of them. You could still weave but you could no longer order while your char was doing sth else. That was when it started to feel like a character action instead of a pet action.
A few patches ago, they went full retard and put them on the GCD, so basically you now replace filler ruin spells with "pet" spells when the CD is up.

[Hyral]

They used to be automatic / completely independent actions on a pet bar, you could order while you were casting IIRC.

This is exactly what I remember and why I loved SCH so much. Why in the world would they change it? I guess it was too hard for some people to have GCDs, oGCDs and then pet GCDs.

[StrawberryZebra]

This is the absolute worst. This wasn't always the case, right? When I played SCH during SB I was still very green but I do remember weaving pet abilities between my own and that's why I loved it, but now that I know more of the game I wonder if pet abilities were oGCDs and I just didn't understand that back then.

Until Shadowbringers, pet abilities used to be essentially free actions. You could order your pet to cast them whenever without it messing up your GCD or overlapping with another oGCD.

The caveat being that the pet would execute the ability as soon as their own cast and GCD had finished. Depending on the target, there could also be extra delay as your pet moved into range, plus further delays due to bad pathing AI. The end result being your pet took you pushing the button to use Slipstream as being more of a blue sky suggestion than an absolute command. You could sometimes get delays in the 6-8 second range, especially with Garuda. Longer if it was hit by an AoE that interrupted the spell cast and it needed to be done again.

Scholar pet skills still don't work great in Shadowbringers, but they are at least better than what they used to be. The only reason Summoner pet skills function well at all is because they're now completely controlled by the player. It's why I'm all for removing independent pet abilities all together, for both Summoner and Scholar, and having them be directly ordered to perform abilites only. The pet AI has never really functioned well at all.

[Hyral]

The caveat being that the pet would execute the ability as soon as their own cast and GCD had finished. Depending on the target, there could also be extra delay as your pet moved into range, plus further delays due to bad pathing AI. The end result being your pet took you pushing the button to use Slipstream as being more of a blue sky suggestion than an absolute command. You could sometimes get delays in the 6-8 second range, especially with Garuda. Longer if it was hit by an AoE that interrupted the spell cast and it needed to be done again.

I'm not familiar with SMN but the fix for that for SCH was to set your pet to passive in macros when you wanted to cast a heal, it would interrupt Embrace and use what you told her instead. Or to just leave her as passive and position her somewhere and manually use Embrace as a mouse over. It felt like playing two characters and it was amazing. But I think doing that on summoner would be a dps loss? It could be fixed with better AI anyway, where your input would cancel the pet casting by default, your input should always come first anyway. If pet abilities had their own GCD I would probably enjoy summoner more instead of how clunky it feels right now. Though it would still just feel like a pet class and not a summoner to me.

[Granyala]

The only reason Summoner pet skills function well at all is because they're now completely controlled by the player.

My SMN buddy would like to disagree, I often hear her rage in TS because the pet didn't respond quickly enough.

[StrawberryZebra]

My SMN buddy would like to disagree, I often hear her rage in TS because the pet didn't respond quickly enough.

I'll be the first to admit that it's not perfect - The fact it's a significant improvement should speak volumes alone however.

[Katchii]

Scholar pet skills still don't work great in Shadowbringers, but they are at least better than what they used to be. The only reason Summoner pet skills function well at all is because they're now completely controlled by the player. It's why I'm all for removing independent pet abilities all together, for both Summoner and Scholar, and having them be directly ordered to perform abilites only. The pet AI has never really functioned well at all.

For big hit type attacks, I'm OK with this, but to make every pet attack be required to have direct input from the player would completely remove any semblance of these being "pet" classes which would destroy the class to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'd accept the decision to make these classes NOT pet classes and go that direction, but if they want to continue calling these pet classes they should function and feel like actual pet classes, and they mostly don't anymore.

If they want to keep it as a pet class, the fix shouldn't be to remove the pet agency from the equation and put it all on the player, it should be to fix the pet AI and responsiveness so that it does what it's supposed to do better.

[Granyala]

For big hit type attacks, I'm OK with this, but to make every pet attack be required to have direct input from the player would completely remove any semblance of these being "pet" classes which would destroy the class to me.

Agreed.
I guess having the player do everything was just easier than figuring out the AI.

[StrawberryZebra]

For big hit type attacks, I'm OK with this, but to make every pet attack be required to have direct input from the player would completely remove any semblance of these being "pet" classes which would destroy the class to me.

WoW does this pretty well with it's Demonology Warlocks and Beast Mastery Hunters. The pets themselves do their thing automatically, but they respond to what the player is doing too. You use Multishot for example and your Pet gets AoE damage on it's attacks, Barbed Shot increases it's attack speed. Hand of Guldan summons a number of Wild Imps to automatically attack your target, and implosion causes all your Wild Imps to do a Kamikaze.

When it comes to a damage breakdown, probably around 60% or so of their damage is from their pets - And those abilities are usually player controlled to some degree. That keeps the fantasy of a pet spec intact, while not giving the pet AI almost complete control of the players total damage output.

I'm not saying just copy what WoW does, but a pet that is basically a living DoT isn't at all interesting. A pet that needs to be micromanaged to an absurd degree is just pointless complexity for the sake of it in an MMO. There is a middle ground where the players are in enough control for it to matter, but not to the extent that every ability the player has is just an order for a pet.

[Katchii]

WoW does this pretty well with it's Demonology Warlocks and Beast Mastery Hunters. The pets themselves do their thing automatically, but they respond to what the player is doing too. You use Multishot for example and your Pet gets AoE damage on it's attacks, Barbed Shot increases it's attack speed. Hand of Guldan summons a number of Wild Imps to automatically attack your target, and implosion causes all your Wild Imps to do a Kamikaze.

True, however the pets still act autonomously and perform their own attacks during this time, it's just that when the player does something to control them it augments what they're already doing. They are able to do basic attacks, and even some more powerful attacks, on their own.

And on top of that, the main Hunter and the Warlock pets specifically have the ability to be controlled more precisely as far as placement, if they're even attacking at all, which target they're attacking, and have their own independent target.

When it comes to a damage breakdown, probably around 60% or so of their damage is from their pets - And those abilities are usually player controlled to some degree. That keeps the fantasy of a pet spec intact, while not giving the pet AI almost complete control of the players total damage output.

That's what I mean though, if the player was controlling EVERY aspect of the pet damage, it wouldn't feel the same, the pet is supposed to be somewhat autonomous and because of that require some level of player awareness and control in order to optimize your overall damage. Knowing when to pull them back, which pet to use, when to use their special ability, where to place them in a fight, etc... is part of the class, but so is the pet being able to attack on it's own, it IS a completely separate entity from the player, it's not a mindless drone, it's supposed to act and feel like a well trained "pet" that can do it's own thing for a while, not a remote controlled machine.

I'm not saying just copy what WoW does, but a pet that is basically a living DoT isn't at all interesting. A pet that needs to be micromanaged to an absurd degree is just pointless complexity for the sake of it in an MMO. There is a middle ground where the players are in enough control for it to matter, but not to the extent that every ability the player has is just an order for a pet.

And I 100% agree with this, and I would honestly advocate for them to just copy WoW in this regard....they did it right. If the FFXIV Summoner was like a Demonology Warlock where their powers were derived from primal entities while haing a direct connection and control over a single egi that was able to be directed to attack and have both the player and egi power and abilities be augmented or triggered by certain actions from the other, I'd love that.

BUT, for me, one of the main draws is for the solo play where the pet can have it's own independent target and be targeted by enemies. It's something that only pet classes can do, because the player is controlling two separate entities. It affords them tactical opportunities that are otherwise impossible for solo classes. I want that back, if it's going to be a pet class. I wouldn't mind if they went a different direction with it, it's their design choice, but if the class is going to continue being identified as a pet class, it should have this functionality.

[dope_danny]

I guess i forgot to do the lvl.80 Dragoon quest till now and that was interesting. I hope in the next expansion, beyond ishgard housing, we actually do get some quests returning to coethas and dravania to see how things have changed some more like we got a lot of Uldah revisits in the past post ARR.

[Rogalicus]

I guess i forgot to do the lvl.80 Dragoon quest till now and that was interesting. I hope in the next expansion, beyond ishgard housing, we actually do get some quests returning to coethas and dravania to see how things have changed some more like we got a lot of Uldah revisits in the past post ARR.

Honestly this was my biggest disconnect with story so far because I don't feel bad for Nidhogg.

[dope_danny]

Honestly this was my biggest disconnect with story so far because I don't feel bad for Nidhogg.

I think they kind of failed to get across that we really only meet Nidhogg as this weakened, bitter old dragon in a dungeon and afterwards we are dealing basically with a revenant. This ghost driven to exist beyond death purely by a need for revenge so he could never be reasoned with because he wasn't really there anymore. He was just an echoe that refused to move on or maybe even can't. The bit i found interesting was that it wasn't just a case of "hey these elezenn are not the people that committed the murder of your sibling" but the overwhelming majority of the dragons were distant relations at best or like the ishgardians were born long after it happened but Nidhogg was pushing this bullshit with no endgame. The dragoon quest shows a little more of him being the dragon who in Midgardsormrs absence basically fulfilled the role we do now and didn't think mortal men could do it. So what was the endgame when he went mad? take over the whole world? doubtful since strong as he was i don't think he could take on eozrea as a whole, garlemald, othard and so on. He would have probably levelled ishgard and just made it a no mans land. The only people who really would have suffered the long term would be the young dragons who would have their future taken away from them and i like the trailer canon that the warrior of light during heavensward put down his axe, became a dragoon and then the azure dragoon and ended up saving the dragons as much as they saved ishgard, proving that they were the inheritor of Nidhoggs original legacy all along.

Which looking back makes his fathers fascination with us before that look a lot less random in retrospect.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I think they kind of failed to get across that we really only meet Nidhogg as this weakened, bitter old dragon in a dungeon and afterwards we are dealing basically with a revenant. This ghost driven to exist beyond death purely by a need for revenge so he could never be reasoned with because he wasn't really there anymore. He was just an echoe that refused to move on or maybe even can't. The bit i found interesting was that it wasn't just a case of "hey these elezenn are not the people that committed the murder of your sibling" but the overwhelming majority of the dragons were distant relations at best or like the ishgardians were born long after it happened but Nidhogg was pushing this bullshit with no endgame. The dragoon quest shows a little more of him being the dragon who in Midgardsormrs absence basically fulfilled the role we do now and didn't think mortal men could do it. So what was the endgame when he went mad? take over the whole world? doubtful since strong as he was i don't think he could take on eozrea as a whole, garlemald, othard and so on. He would have probably levelled ishgard and just made it a no mans land. The only people who really would have suffered the long term would be the young dragons who would have their future taken away from them and i like the trailer canon that the warrior of light during heavensward put down his axe, became a dragoon and then the azure dragoon and ended up saving the dragons as much as they saved ishgard, proving that they were the inheritor of Nidhoggs original legacy all along.

Which looking back makes his fathers fascination with us before that look a lot less random in retrospect.

I think the real problem is that Nidhogg's Horde is never characterized. The only speaking member of the Horde is Nidhogg, who comes across as a one note evil dragon. The rest of the Horde is just generic mook fodder. So with Nidhogg just being an evil dragon, the whole Horde feels like a rather nebulous, forgettable faction. Then again, FFXIV has a really hard time characterizing their villain factions: the Church was just another stereotypically evil JRPG church and the Garlean Empire during Stormblood are saturday morning cartoon villains (the empire only gets nuance in side stories and background lore, never during the main story). The Ascians were an incredibly bland Organization XIII up until Shadowbringers. The least ridiculous antagonist faction is Eulmore, which benefits from getting relatively little screentime and the narrative establishing earlier on that it's really only Vauthry and Ran'jit who are the bad guys, not Eulmore as a whole.

I think the best villain faction in FFXIV was (3.5) Ilberd's group. Ilberd, Yuyuhase, and Laurentius had plausible motivations and you could trace the chain of events that led them to doing what they did. Ilberd also had genuinely compelling points (the Eorzean Alliance likes to tout how they are all about freedom and unity but it's been 20 years and they have no plans on liberating Ala Mhigo, Ala Mhigans keep whining about their situation and longing for the good old days but nobody does anything, so Ilberd is going to finally do it). Kind of a let down that Yuyuhase and Laurentius were dealt with off screen but not a big deal.

5.0 the Ascians became interesting as of Shadowbringers but it doesn't retroactively make their presentation during 2.0 through 4.55 better.