Playing the Melee DPS role quest made me realize how much I want an actual Gun Class.

Yes, Machinist uses Rifles as their weapon.

But their entire class fantasy is about being an Engineer that summons/uses gadgets in battle. Not necessarily about the Guns themselves.

Watching Merlwyb in the Melee DPS role quest made me realize just how much I really want to see a Gun class that is all about the Guns and Ammo.

Hell, if you wanna give it a twist, make it a Magical Ranged DPS where instead of Ammo you shoot various aspected Aether. Magic Guns.

We used to have a Gun class (which was advertised by Merlwyb in ARR). It was called Machinist and it was all about guns, loading your ammo rounds and shooting. It was boring compared to Bard which danced around doing arrows from various angles, especially in Stormblood after the cast times were removed from both. Machinist went extinct, while Bards were everywhere and extremely popular.

So SE decided to revisit Machinist and change them from being about guns to being about a variety of machines and gadgets, as their job name implies. Their rare heated combo was made permanent because its animations were more fun. And after the change, it was extremely fun and it's one of the main DPS I've used this expansion along with Summoner.

I use a gun as a machinist.

technically we already shoot magic bullets. that's what the lunchbox is for on your hip. you're converting your aether into bullets.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

We used to have a Gun class (which was advertised by Merlwyb in ARR). It was called Machinist and it was all about guns, loading your ammo rounds and shooting. It was boring compared to Bard which danced around doing arrows from various angles, especially in Stormblood after the cast times were removed from both. Machinist went extinct, while Bards were everywhere and extremely popular.

So SE decided to revisit Machinist and change them from being about guns to being about a variety of machines and gadgets, as their job name implies. Their rare heated combo was made permanent because its animations were more fun. And after the change, it was extremely fun and it's one of the main DPS I've used this expansion along with Summoner.

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SB MCH (and HW MCH) weren't changed because they were boring, they were changed because they were way too hard and/or punishing for the general playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Tlachtga

SB MCH (and HW MCH) weren't changed because they were boring, they were changed because they were way too hard and/or punishing for the general playerbase.

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In Stormblood, yes, the overheat system was too confusing for players. They didn't really know whether overheating was meant to be a good thing or a bad thing. But let's be honest, they could have changed the overheat system to make that simpler and clearer without overhauling the whole concept of the job. Everything like ammo and recharging could have remained and just made the overheat system braindead simple so you just spend it when a gauge caps.

Which brings us to why they overhauled the whole concept of the job to move away from ammo and recharging... because it was boring compared to Bard that everyone was playing instead of it.

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Originally Posted by Tlachtga

SB MCH (and HW MCH) weren't changed because they were boring, they were changed because they were way too hard and/or punishing for the general playerbase.

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I'm sure I don't have the full picture but I just looked up a video of SB MCH and it looks quite a bit more fun and engaging than what we have now.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

In Stormblood, yes, the overheat system was too confusing for players. They didn't really know whether overheating was meant to be a good thing or a bad thing. But let's be honest, they could have changed the overheat system to make that simpler and clearer without overhauling the whole concept of the job. Everything like ammo and recharging could have remained and just made the overheat system braindead simple so you just spend it when a gauge caps.

Which brings us to why they overhauled the whole concept of the job to move away from ammo and recharging... because it was boring compared to Bard that everyone was playing instead of it.

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you keep saying they changed it cos it was boring, i don't remember the devs saying that at all.

i remember the devs reworking MCH out of the blue, saying something along the lines of the focus moving away from ammo and reloading and to gadgets is because Gunbreaker was dropping and GNB had ammo and reloading, and they didn't want the job theme to overlap. nothing about the job being boring though.

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Originally Posted by Tlachtga

you keep saying they changed it cos it was boring, i don't remember the devs saying that at all.

i remember the devs reworking MCH out of the blue, saying something along the lines of the focus moving away from ammo and reloading and to gadgets is because Gunbreaker was dropping and GNB had ammo and reloading, and they didn't want the job theme to overlap. nothing about the job being boring though.

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I don't have a horse in this race, but from a development standpoint, a well-run studio wouldn't go through the massive effort of reworking a class if there wasn't something fundamental they felt they needed to address with it. Such a change results in frustration from players who liked the old design, and it also costs a bunch of money (dev time) instead of none. My best guess is that they may have said something about being considerate of overlapping themes due to the upcoming Gunbreaker, but it's incredibly unlikely that Mechanist would have been changed because of Gunbreaker. People have a variety of opinions about Yoshi-P, but his project management skills are well-documented, making it hard to imagine that he would have green-lit a rework without a much more salient reason.

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Originally Posted by Tlachtga

you keep saying they changed it cos it was boring, i don't remember the devs saying that at all.

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They didn't. But as I said, nobody was hardly playing it and the change moved away from something like...
shot1... (RNG chance at) shot2... (RNG chance at) shot3... click reload... repeat
...to all this exciting stuff that wowed everyone in the Job Actions trailer.

I even just went back to check survey data on fan websites from Stormblood and it was the least played DPS of all, while Bard was the most played.

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i remember the devs reworking MCH out of the blue

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It wasn't entirely out of the blue. Everyone was playing BRD over it. It seemed like they needed to do something.

https://youtu.be/jaGxC7wnBDo?t=685 (one of the most replayed moments, too, proving how well the changes were received)

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saying something along the lines of the focus moving away from ammo and reloading and to gadgets is because Gunbreaker was dropping

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I don't remember that but it is true they would want to differentiate. However, the ammo system on Gunbreaker is really for melee explosions so it's not quite the same and the only real gunshot is their ranged Lightning Shot.

Personally, I would not be opposed to them making a ranged physical DPS with cast times, but the HW BRD/MCH were kind of the wrong way to go about it as they basically just took movement away from them, and in exchange they didn't even get much in return as both only got one OGCD attack (Empyreal Arrow for BRD and Gauss Round for MCH)... Pretty sure they were just about bottom tier DPS that were absolutely needed as MP batteries even when they removed movement in exchange for more damage.


If they want to make a physical caster, they can make one. But they need to build it from the ground up to be a caster, and not just add cast times to the existing ranged phys classes.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

We used to have a Gun class (which was advertised by Merlwyb in ARR). It was called Machinist and it was all about guns, loading your ammo rounds and shooting. It was boring compared to Bard which danced around doing arrows from various angles, especially in Stormblood after the cast times were removed from both. Machinist went extinct, while Bards were everywhere and extremely popular.

So SE decided to revisit Machinist and change them from being about guns to being about a variety of machines and gadgets, as their job name implies. Their rare heated combo was made permanent because its animations were more fun. And after the change, it was extremely fun and it's one of the main DPS I've used this expansion along with Summoner.

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Actually Merlwyb was an advertisement for the Musketeer class they had planned to release in the game before it was rebooted via ARR. It even had an actual class icon which marked the guild location in Limsa back then.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

I'm sure I don't have the full picture but I just looked up a video of SB MCH and it looks quite a bit more fun and engaging than what we have now.

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Imo, it was. Stormblood MCH was my favorite dps job. It took me until reaching 90 and seeing how little it got going from ShB to EW to realize how much I missed pre-rework MCH. Now I don't even touch MCH outside of PvP.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They didn't. But as I said, nobody was hardly playing it and the change moved away from something like...
shot1... (RNG chance at) shot2... (RNG chance at) shot3... click reload... repeat
...to all this exciting stuff that wowed everyone in the Job Actions trailer.

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Do you misrepresent every older iteration of jobs you talk about? If the devs didn't say a thing, maybe don't lead with implying they did.

Machinists use rifles? I wish, they have like 2 and the awful 1 handed animations ruin them.

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Originally Posted by Mayhemmer

Do you misrepresent every older iteration of jobs you talk about?

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No... it literally was shot (RNG chance at shot2) (RNG chance at shot3) and one of the least played jobs of all. What we have now is far more fun.

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If the devs didn't say a thing, maybe don't lead with implying they did.

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I didn't imply they said it. What I meant is... they overhauled it for a reason ie. it was boring and nobody played it. Why else would it have become so flashy and exciting like Bard?

I like to play mostly machinist: revolver, rifle, machine gun match his appearance.

I suggest the following new job for FF14 7.0: The gunner or grenadier.

It is the physical equivalent of the Black Mage. Slowly, you have to know the mechanics of the game content well to position yourself with enough time to load and fire the cannon or howitzer. But then this job really deals damage.

Basic mechanics are based on loading and firing similar to the red mage in two-stroke. However, there are also three- and four-stroke mechanics that are set up in two-stroke: Charge, Propel, Fire or Charge, Propel, Aim, Fire.

Mines can be laid instead of AOE.

A special feature of the gunner is his need for bombs or mines, which must be provided by craftsmen. These can be used in the particularly powerful four-stroke rotations.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

What I meant is... they overhauled it for a reason ie. it was boring and nobody played it. Why else would it have become so flashy and exciting like Bard?

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Uhh, BRD was never flashy and exciting back then. The flashiest skill BRD had in HW was Empyreal Arrow, the stuff you were spamming a lot like Straight Shot and Heavy Shot were hardly exciting. The more likely reason that MCH wasn't played by a lot of people is that it was a highly technical job that required low ping to even function properly and that's why it got reworked.

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Originally Posted by GlowClam

It is the physical equivalent of the Black Mage. Slowly, you have to know the mechanics of the game content well to position yourself with enough time to load and fire the cannon or howitzer. But then this job really deals damage.

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We used to have cast times on Bard and Machinist in Heavensward. What happened was Bard became known as "bowmage" and went extinct (nobody played it and many Bard mains quit the game). Machinist had them too in addition to the issues I previously mentioned, so it wasn't exactly an appealing alternative. What you did was enabled a cast stance (Wanderer's Minuet and Gauss Barrel), you had to stand still and cast to do more damage, but you could disable the cast stance and move around, however your attacks would do significantly less damage. So where you could get away with it, you would enable the stance, stand still and cast. I didn't like this at first on both these jobs, but it grew on me... and then they removed it in Stormblood, leading to Bard's popularity exploding again in a complete 180.

Once SE has moved away from something it's hard to see them repeating it, although I'm not opposed to it and it would be nice for variety sake.

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Basic mechanics are based on loading and firing similar to the red mage in two-stroke. However, there are also three- and four-stroke mechanics that are set up in two-stroke: Charge, Propel, Fire or Charge, Propel, Aim, Fire.

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To a degree, Machinist did have an Ammo load then fire system. It's just that can't carry a job. Bard was doing all these flashy jumps and flips and was super fun to play, while Machinist was just standing there loading and firing as you described.

Aiming is an interesting idea and there is an aim system we use for quests, but SE mostly just has variations of "buff damage", "buff defense", "do damage" or "heal" as job mechanics.

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Mines can be laid instead of AOE.

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I suppose that is an idea since Machinist does it in PvP. Most jobs lost their "damage areas" except Dark Knight with Salted Earth, Ninja with Doton and Summoner with Garuda's attack.

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A special feature of the gunner is his need for bombs or mines, which must be provided by craftsmen.

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I couldn't see SE doing that. They had that dilemma with both Machinist and Gunbreaker and didn't go for it. Gunbreakers just magic their ammo and the only reason Thancred doesn't is because he can't use magic.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Uhh, BRD was never flashy and exciting back then. The flashiest skill BRD had in HW was Empyreal Arrow

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I am not talking about Heavensward. I am talking about Stormblood, where it exploded in popularity again, in stark contrast to Machinist.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

No... it literally was shot (RNG chance at shot2) (RNG chance at shot3) and one of the least played jobs of all. What we have now is far more fun.

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Turns out if you boil down any job to 3 buttons, it'll sound boring. Who would have thought. You're knowingly misrepresenting how it played. Or maybe you don't know, and you're just full of it.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I didn't imply they said it. What I meant is... they overhauled it for a reason

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See:

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Which brings us to why they overhauled the whole concept of the job to move away from ammo and recharging... because it was boring compared to Bard that everyone was playing instead of it.

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You knew what you were implying.

They overhauled it because they don't know how not to go heavy-handed. They didn't need to take the nuclear route, but whether I like it or not, they would likely have reworked it eventually anyway. I doubt old MCH would fit neatly into their little modern 2-minute design.

Learning how to efficiently manage ammunition cooldowns and the heat gauge to maximize damage windows was infinitely more engaging to me than pressing Reassemble, three 600p buttons, and going back to that shot1 > shot2 >shot3 spam that exists now more than it ever did in the past. Modern MCH puts me to sleep.

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Originally Posted by Mayhemmer

Turns out if you boil down any job to 3 buttons, it'll sound boring.

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That's the thing, it wasn't always 3 buttons. Sometimes it was the same button because of RNG. The animations were also boring compared to Bard. Part of my point was that Machinist stood still, held up their gun and shot.

Bard was doing all these flips and angle attacks with lots of weaving and animations and it was just really fun to play. Machinist did have this in their heat phase, but the problem was not always being in their heat phase and the confusion players had over it.

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You knew what you were implying.

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Well you can believe what you want.

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Learning how to efficiently manage ammunition cooldowns and the heat gauge to maximize damage windows was infinitely more engaging to me than pressing Reassemble, three 600p buttons, and going back to that shot1 > shot2 >shot3 spam that exists now more than it ever did in the past. Modern MCH puts me to sleep.

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Sure, it was fun to someone who likes a technical class and something to become skilled at. Even the cast times in Heavensward grew on me as something to become good at. Many jobs were like that in the past. But animations seem quite a big deal to people as well and affect the feel of the job.

No matter how good a job is, if its competition is just easier or has the more flashy animations and comparatively more frequent spikes of excitement, it's probably going to lose the popularity contest. There are still jobs faced with that crisis even today and probably always will be if they don't play the same way, especially as the amount of jobs keeps expanding.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Well you can believe what you want.

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Nice dodge. Again, you knew what you were implying was based off assumptions rather than anything tangible.

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No matter how good a job is, if its competition is just easier or has the more flashy animations and comparatively more frequent spikes of excitement, it's probably going to lose the popularity contest.

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Well that desire for flashy animations and frequent, easy dopamine hits at the press of 1-2 buttons is what, I can only guess, led the devs to dismember my once-favorite job and replace it with something I find far less rewarding or exciting technically. Seems to be a trend. One people aren't thrilled with. But I suppose there's always players out there with lower standards, so at least somebody is happy.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Why else would it have become so flashy and exciting like Bard?

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There's nothing exciting about modern MCH, and I'm someone who plays it fairly often. Three versions of drill and a glorified DoT, oh boy!

I like the aesthetic of a gun job but it's definitely the one I play when I want to turn my brain off.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

There's nothing exciting about modern MCH, and I'm someone who plays it fairly often.

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Alright, then we just don't see it the same way. I enjoy the heat blast BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM even though it's spamming 1 button. I enjoy the animations of the Heated combo (and it always being active now). I enjoy weaving Gauss Round and Ricochet lots. I enjoy the additions of Drill, Air Anchor and Chain Saw. I like the difference for the AoE as well. All of that to me, is fun and exciting.

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I like the aesthetic of a gun job but it's definitely the one I play when I want to turn my brain off.

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Oh I absolutely agree it is one of the easiest, most braindead jobs, but that doesn't mean I don't find it fun. I suppose some people just can't have fun if it's not extremely complicated and technical with a high skill ceiling.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Alright, then we just don't see it the same way. I enjoy the heat blast BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM even though it's spamming 1 button. I enjoy the animations of the Heated combo (and it always being active now). I enjoy weaving Gauss Round and Ricochet lots. I enjoy the additions of Drill, Air Anchor and Chain Saw. I like the difference for the AoE as well. All of that to me, is fun and exciting.

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Yes I can see now you're big on watching spell effects and not so much on the actual gameplay bit, so your position certainly makes sense in that context.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I suppose some people just can't have fun if it's not extremely complicated and technical with a high skill ceiling.

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Wishing a job required a little brain activity isn't necessarily the same thing as wanting it to be "extremely complicated and technical." Job design isn't a binary choice of super hard or completely braindead.