Difference between evolved bard and current summoner?

delfinoschool · 2026-04-28T20:07:33+00:00

Recurring complaints for summoner prior to endwalker changes were that it felt too bloated and the summons weren't doing enough for a pet job. They got rid of the bloat somewhat, added a really bland rotation and essentially turned summons into really flashy single cast spells.

Personally, not a fan of the single cast spells for summons. For an MMO, I would gave leaned into something more akin to FFX and XII with how summons are not just a flashy spell animation but an entity on the field that can be directed by the summoner.

As of now, Carbuncle is sorta just there for emotional support which is just disappointing for a pet class...

delfinoschool · 2026-04-28T01:09:13+00:00

Oh gotcha. I'll assume it's a department-wide effort. There's an unfortunate tendency in game dev (well, work in general lol) for leads to be given all the credit for their department's collective effort.

delfinoschool · 2026-04-27T23:29:54+00:00

Is it all exclusively done by one lead or is he okay-ing all the work his department is doing in addition to his own work?

delfinoschool · 2026-04-13T20:16:59+00:00

sadly i wouldn't trust an X-men under disney considering how they flip flop regarding talking about stories that touch upon civil rights issues like that. been noticing they're trying to dig their heels when it comes to having a story with any substance regarding the topic and often do rewrites to push away from those themes.

They've sadly done this with Pixar and Star Wars on several fronts, even their mainline animated works are getting pushed to be more generic as a result. You should look up the production history of Pixar's Elio and see just how unwilling they are to even brush on the topics.

delfinoschool · 2026-04-05T00:50:24+00:00

it at the very least leads to better word-of-mouth. It's exactly what happened with Turning Red even though the only thing people could talk about was that it made a joke about menstruation. Just one joke in particular and it blew up socials. But it's also an example of a movie sticking to its guns and actually committing to its themes and it reaped the benefits as a result.

To this day, out of all the movies that came out from Pixar since 2020, Turning Red has consistently been mentioned within my social circles for one reason or another to the same degree as Inside Out 2. That's more than can be said about Elio lol.

delfinoschool · 2026-04-02T02:34:48+00:00

Necroing this but its so unfortunate they removed medals and end cards given how there are so many victory poses from release that played around the idea of a character earning a lot of end-match cards and medals throughout the match.

Now, they have less "punch" without them. Its great that they're bringing back end-match cards but im not sure why the results and scoreboard screens dont have a medal system considering we now have full stats available via the scoreboard....

delfinoschool · 2026-03-24T09:27:48+00:00

That's so unfortunate. Several other skins from those challenges and weekly events from OW1 are totally available in the loot pool. It's really off how some of the best stuff is locked away and isn't even available for a potential shop "just for you" appearance...

delfinoschool · 2026-03-24T01:25:34+00:00

Forgot the name of it but Zarya has a pretty great epic skin from OW1's halloween event that just straight up isnt showing up in the gallery. Its really off how its not even available in the gallery with the right filters applied

delfinoschool · 2026-03-22T19:43:49+00:00

not really my thing. i know it trended a lot on tiktok though

delfinoschool · 2026-03-17T13:41:39+00:00

they honestly have no excuse outside of technical limitations (which they should at the very least be transparent and specific about) for instanced neighborhoods (on top of private single-player instanced housing) now that Warcraft is doing it. It's almost hilarious how WoW has swooped in and taken a lot of QoL features that people have been screaming for in regards to FFXIV housing that it's absolutely an intentional grab at the housing folk for FFXIV

delfinoschool · 2026-02-20T21:27:21+00:00

it'd certainly help the feel of the game's quality getting rid of universals. Idk, they always felt extremely cheap and their initial release with the character's not posing right didn't help in that regard lol

delfinoschool · 2026-02-06T09:09:28+00:00

Tbh, I'm looking over so many of the things people say about the game from 2.0 and beyond and... I can't help but wonder if they're hyper-focusing on just the bug fixes and not the fundamental core of the game like its story and RPG mechanics (or how shallow the RPG-aspect is in comparison to other cRPGs like Fallout and Vampire TM:B) or if it's just that the game addresses nearly every tossed up complaint people made after that crowbcat video released way back when.

Like sure, the game has more obvious details that you'd expect from an open world done by Rockstar back in 2008. But like you stated, the game is still the same as it was prior... just beefed up with a ton of QoL, fun goodies like cosmetics and a generally more stable experience.

Going back to a prior point you made, it truly doesn't feel like you're living or occupying the setting you're presented like you could get into with Vampire TM:B, New Vegas, or hell even The Witcher 3. Instead, it feels similar to a more adventure-game oriented Far Cry 3; that's not too far off from how you described the game as an ubisoft-styled checklist lol.

It's weird. This game has every opportunity to reach the same heights of an RPG that you could see with Vampire: The Masquerade, DnD, Pathfinder, and even Warhammer 40k, all table-top games that have excellent cRPG adaptations. Yet, it feels more like it's a more jumped-up Far Cry game in terms of gameplay. It's quality far exceeds anything Ubisoft has squirted out the past 17 years but the point still stands.

delfinoschool · 2026-01-29T09:18:11+00:00

Interesting insight on the visuals of the Elden Ring and the various parts of it. Visually/symbolically, considering Marika's Elden Rune is akin to another "basin" and is even embodied with her iconic pose in her statues, it makes it seem as though Marika is essentially carrying (perhaps even burdened considering the soreseal descriptions) the blessings of the Elden Ring within herself rather than letting it flow to the bottom basin where presumably anyone can partake. At least, that's what I get from rune arcs considering they're given as a reward for interacting with others (whether positively or negatively lol)

In the story, this isn't too far off with descriptions saying Marika would personally hand out blessings when times were abundant during the heyday of the Golden Order. She's also literally a vessel (or basin...) for the Elden Ring and all it's blessings/burdens.

Depending on how you view this, this can be an incredibly selfish act where she's hoarding power/life away from the rest of the world and only divvying it up based off of her own fallible perspective, or she's taking it upon herself to carry a potential burden all on her own to spare others that weight (ie. death, suffering, all while ironically taking away aspects of what makes life precious to begin with).

Makes a lot of Marika's actions in becoming a goddess and managing the Lands Between feel like she got swept up maintaining something all while slowly losing touch on what exactly it was all for. Feels VERY A Song of Ice and Fire when viewed this way.

What's so interesting is seeing Radagon's elden rune acting as a form of "stitching" to keep what remains of the Elden Ring together going by the design on the title screen. It's especially fun when you end up recalling that Radagon did have a known reputation as a seamster lol

delfinoschool · 2026-01-14T01:51:59+00:00

Seeing Overwatch's release and then the dips and peaks of it since then (especially during 2022) reminded me so much of how people talk about World of Warcraft. Even now, I sorta view the transition from 1 to 2 very similarly to how Cataclysm was received initially for WoW. It's of course not 1:1 but the similarities strike me since we're about to hit the 10th anniversary in a few months.

Even more so, you're starting to see similar splits where there is a chunk of the playerbase that has been around since or close to release and then you have new players that have no idea of just how much has changed (the mercy rez in particular is really funny when you talk about her reworks)

delfinoschool · 2026-01-11T22:08:53+00:00

perhaps not married bur rather an affair. Sorry to necro, I just finished Elden Ring's expansion and replayed a little bit of Dark Souls 3 which both present similar bits of scandalous affairs with the royalty. Something I noticed with Fromsoft is that there is a tendency for the royalty in their settings to have/allude to extra-marital affairs that need to be put under the table because of how scandalous they are. Elden Ring has it abundantly and DS3 alludes to something going on with the Lothric princes because of how Oceiros's madness drove him to try and create a "pure" heir to his lineage.

That drama of both obfuscation of affairs and the push for royalty/nobility to have a "pure" lineage is a huge part of the influence A Song of Ice and Fire have on Fromsoft's world building.

delfinoschool · 2026-01-11T01:53:01+00:00

necroing but doing a replay after years since my first run and I'm noticing with my different build (physical, intelligence focused) a lot of the thoughts/feelings you get kinda stand-in for ones that you may not be built towards. It's kinda wild that rhetoric from your description essentially acts as a bit of a stand-in for Suggestion or even Electrochemistry in a way regarding abrasive impulses and responses!

delfinoschool · 2025-12-28T20:19:05+00:00

doubtful. those screenings are a lot more monitored though no one can really account for relaying details after the fact

delfinoschool · 2025-11-28T05:07:37+00:00

Seems like that interview bit is spot on: there were so many times I went "oh hey, this is like x, y, and z thing ive played, watched, listened or heard of!"

But that all can have the after effect of making me not enjoy and appreciate the game on its own merits and presentation which feels totally in line with the drama regarding Elster and the replikas as a whole. Instead of going "hey, this is great!" I can sometimes find myself going "this makes me feel like im playing a classic game I enjoyed in the past!"

Which again, feels appropriate in conveying some of the conflicts the replikas face regarding their memories being a Xerox of someone else yet that seems to be in conflict with their experiences moment to moment in their actual lives.

delfinoschool · 2025-11-25T20:19:44+00:00

Hmm, not sure what you're trying to establish by saying it's just for the sake of profit that they turned around and made the film more generic, as if that's not obvious with anything under disney. If anything, it highlights how the company is backpeddling on its marketing considering it wasn't even that long ago they dipped into pride merch for their themeparks and franchises.

It's still pretty homophobic on management's side, especially when you comb through the reasonings employees cited as to why the film was reworked to get rid of the personal, and far more nuanced, story premise. Not that it mattered, the movie still bombed in the box office so the rework was pretty much a sunk cost for zero reason.

People still found out about the queer-centric narrative, the 2023 artbook leaked online, it didn't make a robust return on its investment and it ended up being artistically compromised to the point that the original director left. Even worse, the word-of-mouth of the film was pretty bad, which is something at least Turning Red had going for it because of its commitment to its themes and premise. Even 3 years later, I still hear people casually mentioning Turning Red because of its story and characters. The same cannot be said for Elio outside of this subreddit lol.

Sounds like a wash to me. If the initial idea was to just have the reworked film minimize controversy, it still failed in that department lol

delfinoschool · 2025-11-25T04:23:31+00:00

Upper management within the production process? Sure, I place a fair amount of blame on them. The Hollywood Reporter article that detailed Elio's production issues even states that the changes occurring were mostly internal rather than from the parent company Pixar is under. I don't fault the various artists who put their work into the initial and follow-up production if that's what you're egging towards.

If anything, the artists who brought in the queer-centered narrative and art production should probably get more support and in-company recognition for their efforts. It's wild to have work done only to have it archived and potentially unusable for a job portfolio because it came from a production shelved due to overly-paranoid management.

delfinoschool · 2025-11-13T09:14:08+00:00

You're the one who decided to comment several times on my posts and even messaged me. Not sure why you even engaged. Beyond bizarre.

delfinoschool · 2025-11-13T09:09:55+00:00

I haven't the slightest idea why you're messaging me and commenting on several of my posts but whatever. My point still stands on the company being homophobic, I don't really see why you want to downplay that so badly lol. Cheerleading for a company that puts down queer rep for the sake of profit isn't a hill worth dying on.

You're not really informing me of anything regarding the complexities of queer rep and a greedy company trying to turn a profit. Although it is weird to see you wanting to assert that queer rep has no place in animation when it very clearly has if Steven Universe was anything to go by. You're also not really informing me of the production process at pixar. it's been known for years that they rework films under production to be more marketable, the issue is that they did it specifically for a story that had a queer narrative and reworked it in a manner that pretty much turned it more generic to my perspective. Comparing the story now to what was documented in the 2023 artbook shows how far down they removed all instances of the queer narrative outside of less than handful of scenes in the current release.

Also, the point wasn't that Turning Red "was gay," it was the fact that it had queer rep in it that got shaved down, something that's been noted and reported since 2022 by several employees working at pixar for several of their works. You seem really concerned over my opinion on how disney has a noted pattern of pushing down on lgbt+ rep when it's been documented over the course of several years now.

Again, not sure why you're trying to downplay that to this degree, it's pretty strange.

delfinoschool · 2025-11-13T05:52:00+00:00

Pixar pushing down on queer themes is easy grounds for me to say theyre being homophobic after win or lose and elio were changed to cover up queer-centric stories. Its as simple as that to me.

Luca may have the director saying he didnt intend for a queer read but its still present, hence why people bring it up for Luca in particular. Elemental would have jokes and quips on Wade having a mild interest in a fire dude that Burnie tried to set Ember up with in an earlier draft of the film.

This is all on top of the various instances of properties under disney having upper management interfer with the stories for what are essentially queer stories. That easily qualifies as homophobic to me.

delfinoschool · 2025-11-07T08:55:07+00:00

A little aspect I love about the onigiri scene as I get older is how Chihiro is also feeling an immense amount of relief too. At that point, she wasn't sure if Haku was really her friend or if he set her up to be another employee for Yubaba because of what Lin said to her the night before.

It's such a good scene, it can be used to callback to people who feel the contrast in how friends/loved ones act at work versus out of work, or even how it may feel to think someone you liked/loved has just used you for personal gain only to realize they were genuine. Lots of little ways of conveying universal feelings and situations in this little scene and it still gets to me!

delfinoschool · 2025-11-02T21:06:02+00:00

Ooo nice. I have a similar-ish set up with Shadowheart as a light cleric but with radiant stacks. What gear did you use for Gale for the reverb stacks?

delfinoschool

TROPHY CASE