
(07-05-2017, 01:44 PM)Momo Wrote: I actually spoke about this very thing in a post about lore explored personal stories. Since the emergence of summoners as a job in the game, and the very beginnings of understanding primals, I sought out a loophole to allow my character to take up this job ICly. The above loophole that has been mentioned, where each City-state sends forces out to dispatch primals as they crop up over time, is the one I used myself, and one which is mentioned directly in the Ul'dah storeline dealing with Ifrit.
Jump to current expansion, we have that story that I used for my character, directly validated by the summoner MSQ. What I found to be the rarer thing, was not the survival of members necessarily, but rather the proper aetheric ability in those survivors making them rarer. Which was fine for my character, as he was a Paladin who was sent afield to help against Ifrit and so he gained the ability of a summoner.
The harder part of playing a summoner during the earlier community? When one managed to work out a story, one had to convince others that it was plausible, and after that, one had to reign in their own abilities and not be overpowered with them. Having all the summons doesn't make a lot of sense, because of the amount of ability and battle one would have to see to accomplish that or the number of ways you would need to figure out to work towards that would be a little ridiculous unless you put a lot of time into it. Having bahamut isn't out of the question, but is too OP imo, and of course certain primals aren't available period which requires an extra bit of imagination on everyone's part to make work.
Is being a summoner hard because of MSQ? I would venture in my experience: not really. Is it being a summoner made harder because there are a lot of people who either don't accept the job well in a low powered world, or RPers who can't handle reigning in their own power believable? Yes, much more so.
It's interesting to hear about the experiences of someone who's played an IC Summoner, for reals. I, myself, have no issue with people theoretically being lucky enough to summon one Egi, as you say. It's about on par with what we're shown in 4.0, so not impossible.
The reason I keep poking this thread, however, is because, as a LS leader, I need to take the temperature and feelings of 40+ people into consideration on the matter. I think your last paragraph really hit the nail on the head, to be honest. My ultimate goal is the comfort of the people in my guild: both on the side of those who find their immersion bent or broken by the presence of someone who can summon a mini Ifrit, AND the side of those who want to play an IC Summoner without feeling like others are avoiding/ignoring them based on their character's IC job class. It's a very tricky line to walk with many of the advanced job classes, with Summoners being around the top of the list in terms of how people perceive characters with those abilities.
Again, I personally agree that summoning one Egi for an average-ish adventurer type is plausible with the right backstory. But if the general consensus sways a different direction, I just have to do what's best for the comfort of my existing LS members. Your insight is interesting though, and it sounds like you haven't had -too- much trouble making connections, most likely due to the restraint and responsible considerations you've taken with your character's path to becoming one (which is good!)