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

[Tlachtga]

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

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.

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.

[Jeeqbit]

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.

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.

[CidHeiral]

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.

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.

[Tlachtga]

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.

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.

[LilimoLimomo]

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.

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.

[Jeeqbit]

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

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.

i remember the devs reworking MCH out of the blue

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)

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

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.

[Mayhemmer]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Jeeqbit]

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

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.

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

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?

[Aravell]

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?

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.

[Mayhemmer]

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.

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.

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

See:

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.

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.