To FFXIV Team From a Concerned Machinist

[Darkpaw]

So, over this expansion I have noticed a rather troubling trend that I would like to point out on these forums. About a problem on these forums. Shall we begin with the biggest problem? Heck why not... So here goes.. Why is it okay for the community/dev teams to ignore the entirety of the machinist community for 15 months about the problems the job faces? Why is it acceptable for this to continually happen when the director of the game can issue a public statement on the forums apologizing for using an asset from eight years ago from a version of the game most of the current community has never even played and using it as a seasonal event item that only upset a fraction of a percent of the player base after only a week or two, but for FIFTEEN MONTHS.. the machinist community can not even get acknowledged that the job is busted and in need of a rework. Why are we met with silence when a bard posts up on the forum about a "confusing tool tip" that really.. wasn't all that confusing and gets a near instant response from the community team... but silence once again for machinists.. how do dark knights get to throw their fit.. get buffed and get an open admission that they will get a rework come next expansion... and still crickets from the teams for machinists.. I generally believe that the machinists deserve an answer from someone. To show that their concerns matter, that their voices have been heard the same as everyone else's. But hey according to quite a few machinists out there.. even this won't warrant a reply.. because the teams haven't cared enough about us to give us a response yet.. why start now? I'm sure 4.5 will bring even more epicness to the greatness of bard and machinists will still be the dumpster fire of a job it is.. probably a bigger one come 5.0.. and despite the chorus of voices begging for it to be fixed.. eventually machinist will become everything everyone says it is.. a dead job that no one plays.. anyways.. sorry to take up your time.. throw your salt around about the post or about the machinist problems or whatever.. maybe with enough comments we might get an answer.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Boy, that's a wall of text, ever heard of paragraphs?

[shao32]

MCH and DRK where unfairly ignored this expansión, in post of buffing and reworking Jobs that where complety fine just bcs favoritism, DRKs and MCHs spend a lot time complaing to just get minor buffs that dint change almost nothing on the Big picture or make it worse, this cant be allowed again, MCH deserve a official answer about his situation and future too.

[Duskane]

MCH and DRK where unfairly ignored this expansión.

everyone forgets WHM

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Let me make a few things clear:

1.) The Ravens from 1.0 had quite some symbolic value and rereleasing them in an event that basically insulted the original achievement in terms of difficulty broke old veteran's trust. Let me remind you it is said veterans that continued past 1.0 and supported the game throughout its relaunch with ARR. While a fraction of the playerbase, it warranted an apology due to broken trust of old players and was equally needed from a PR standpoint.

2.) The tooltip for Battle Voice was indeed a bit misleading and disappointed me on first usage since even myself thought it would apply to myself. Keep in mind that a tooltip change is barely any work to fix it, thus a response by the devs is much easier to come by.

3.) DRK players ever since 4.0 were in a constant debate about what to do with DRK. That debate became bigger and bigger with each time WAR, their main contender, received a buff or fix that made them feel more stable - especially the Shake it Off rework gave WAR a group mitigation tool that was completely unnecessary for them to get a good position given their mitigation suite and damage.

In 4.2 they dropped a full rework of 4.x WAR mid expansion, causing an outrage of DRK discussions, page after page of tank balance, countless buff ideas of how to tighten the gap between DRK and WAR PLD. At that time DRKs only strength was Dark Mind's 60s CD. It had weaker damage and mitigation compared to both of it's peers, absolutely no DRK-based utility and the tools it had for itself were quite dislodged (plunge delay, sole survivor doing nothing in raids, 30% DM cost Dark Arts, etc). PLD even got nerfed a couple of times to bring the damage in line with DRK. But the main issue since 4.0 remains:

The dreaded "Dark Arts + Soul Eater treadmill".

Compared to the other two tanks, you have one button you need to press a lot to get performance close to the others which at most time ogcd attacks (which DRK has to do on top of DA). Now I know what ye will say, 3.x had also lots of buttons to press - the difference ist made DRK feel more interactive due to parry procs and DA was risky due to Darkside's MP drain.

What we have now is tons of MP to spend which we do with Dark Arts primarily, for better or worse.

I ask thee: what did Machinists talk about? How much? What solutions? There may have been something, but nothing on scale of DRK, let alone BLM when they cried for buffs. That on top of the difficulty of how to rework MCH compared to other jobs is why MCH is in such a state.

Another problem is: who do you compete with for a raid slot? Logically it should be BRD, but in fact you compete with casters. A bit too much and you become nearly must-pick. The fact you don't compete with with BRD due to their supreme utility and buffs is another underlying issue.

MCH is in a MUCH more difficult spot than any other job and it indeed doesn't get talked about enough when it should.

[Lastelli]

MCH is in a MUCH more difficult spot than any other job and it indeed doesn't get talked about enough when it should.

Uhmmm...I remember a lot of complaints by MCH since the beginning of the expansion though. Many people asked for a total rework because of how clunky FT is and how MCH performance is dependant on ping. But even if MCH didn't complain so much, I think devs should say something because honestly MCH is in a terrible spot right now. We have less than 6400 MCH parses vs almost 39k BRD parses. This speaks more than any thread on this forum.

[SomethingCool]

There have been several posts with well written documents, several bug inquiries, the main contender for mch’s slot has consistently been creeping past mch, and the number of mch clears have consistently been low. I mean it shouldn’t take a lot of complaints for devs to see that brd has been dominating the ranged slot for the entire expansion.

[shao32]

everyone forgets WHM

WHM get much love since they complaing after the skill showcase before the expansion launch, despite lily mechanic is just poor the job its fluid and feels good to play with isnt the case of the clunky and punishing gameplay of DRK and MCH, i always belive healer balance was the best of the game when they nerf balance, but this last AST buff was kinda overkill, its like SE just trow buffs and dont check if the other jobs will stand and spend tons of resources on the jobs that need less help to cement they supremacy bcs reasons.

[Kitfox]

I ask thee: what did Machinists talk about? How much? What solutions? There may have been something, but nothing on scale of DRK, let alone BLM when they cried for buffs. That on top of the difficulty of how to rework MCH compared to other jobs is why MCH is in such a state.

Analysis of class issues and various solutions to them. I would recommend to focus on the OP document and my analysis on the first page. Reddit post about the issues. These both are from over 7 months ago.

Reddit thread with 600+ comments and 400+ upvotes. This is from last week. Front page of this DPS forum also has 9 threads about MCH currently. Surely there's nothing wrong with the class and we've never expressed our opinions.

MCH gets hurts by itemization.
Simple numbers don't lie, MCH raid usage is absolutely rock botton, has been for the entire expansion.

Major bug reports:
Turret delay bug.
Flamethrower bug.
Turret Hypercharge bug.
These were issues since early SB launch and only fixed because we pointed them out. Some of them like the Flamethrower bug, we had to report over 3 times, in multiple languages, and it was only accepted after we piled up excessive proof that it was happening. It has been a freaking struggle to even get bugs through because they're so basic they should've been caught at routine QA before launch.

The fact is that MCH competes with BRD for a raid spot because of Ranged Role Abilities and loses on every front:
- BRD has more freedom with movement. No need to stand still or in melee range because of Flamethrower like MCH.
- BRD gets better and better with itemization because their DPS is tied to Critical Hit. They were already close in personal DPS and it seems like this tier they might actually pass MCH, while MCH gets hurt by itemization as Sks is absolutely useless on them most of the time.
- BRD can take advantage of various raid buffs with their Iron Jaws snapshots pretty much whenever they want, MCH gets absolutely ruined by their static burst schedule when raid buffs don't align or fight mechanics prevent it from happening.
- BRD has stronger raid dps support which can be further enhanced by feeding them MP for even more Foe Requiem uptime.
- BRD has stronger raid defensive support through Nature's Minne and Wanderer's Paean.
- BRD is better against multiple targets due to multidotting, while MCH has very limited options for AoE damage.
- BRD gets hurt less by latency while MCH becomes impossible to play at high ping due to reliance on double weaving and Rapid Fire weaving.
- MCH burst requires blind muscle memory to pull of properly due how Flamethrower works, which by the way can go on cooldown and do absolutely nothing if interrupted too early. Try doing that with a small connection hick up, 800+ potency down the drain.
- MCH glamour is plagued by the Gauss Barrel attachment and lunchbox, which do not change with weapons and rarely match any glamour. Meanwhile, BRD gets unique quivers with every bow. Nobody likes the Gauss Barrel, nobody.

We're only competing with casters because BRD is absolutely overpowered and mandatory. There's no choice for the role slot. Then they get extra attention on the feedback front? Consider me salty.

[Valence]

Please SE, help us. We still have one patch left to go and are relatively early in 4.4. If there is a next expansion, it's still 9 months away. There is still plenty of time to help us somewhere.

And don't tell us that because we've been able to handle this for more than a year that we'll surely be able to do it until 5.0.Until now we mostly had (serious) mechanical and usability issues, but now that on performance alone we're also being utterly and finally destroyed by bard and a ridiculous itemization, and also heavily penalized by that silly mobility tax (which bard isn't even suffering anymore with their insane crit scaling), the job is going down the drain fast this tier.