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

[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.

[Jeeqbit]

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

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.

You knew what you were implying.

Well you can believe what you want.

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.

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.

[Mayhemmer]

Well you can believe what you want.

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

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.

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.