Focus on fixing jobs for the people who already play them

[anhaato]

Job changes should not be based on trying to get more people to play them. If people don't play them now, then it's because they don't enjoy the playstyle or they feel the effort put into it isn't worth it, and changing a job's playstyle to make more people enjoy it usually results in something extremely boring.

MCH and 5.4 MNK are the #1 examples of that. While it's easy to argue that they had self-detrimental mechanics that needed to be removed, to make them an empty shell of their old playstyles has been really awful for the people who mained them before the changes. Especially MCH, which has few buttons and no unique gimmick outside of spamming heat blast every now and then. It alienates the people who had already been actively playing it. People who have spent time learning it, perfecting it, taking it to harder content, gearing it, and optimizing to the best of their ability should not have that effort reduced to nothing on the turn of a new expansion now that they have to either relearn it or find that it's no longer the job they used to love.

Job changes should be made with its current dedicated players in mind. Make it more enjoyable for THEM. More people will come around naturally if that happens. That's why people enjoyed BRD back in 4.x; it wasn't any harder or easier to play than it is now, it just had good results for the effort that was put into it and therefore made people happy to play it.

Unfortunately I'm beyond afraid that this is what they plan to do to BRD and, to a lesser extent because of its current issues, SMN. Jobs should not be gutted or homogenized just to appeal to people who never liked them to begin with. If BRD is gutted then phys ranged as a whole becomes an extremely boring role. The way to make more people play a role is to make its current players enjoy playing it more. That way, they talk about how much fun it is and inspire others to try it out.

[Caurcas]

As someone who played MNK extensively in 5.2/.3 MNK needed to change. It was more work for less damage compared to SAM. Now, the changes they made need some work but overall the job is in a better place. I did prefer 4.x MCH, but all they have to do is give them more interesting buttons.

[hynaku]

I use to main Ast up to 5.0. Now after all the changes they have done to it and now new changes there going to happen in 6.0. I won't ever be playing it again. I don't find it a fun job anymore and don't like play style to it anymore. Maybe they should leave the classes alone or take a survey to see if thats what players would want for changes.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I use to main Ast up to 5.0. Now after all the changes they have done to it and now new changes there going to happen in 6.0. I won't ever be playing it again. I don't find it a fun job anymore and don't like play style to it anymore. Maybe they should leave the classes alone or take a survey to see if thats what players would want for changes.

My AST friend loves what they did to AST, he thinks its much better than the RNG fish for balance that it used to be (and he's mained it since it released in 3.0). To each their own.

[MikkoAkure]

More people play MCH now because the job is no longer a broken, needlessly complex mess with a RNG rotation and a bunch of abilities with no synergy in it. It’s not necessarily because they’re trying to get more people to play it, the job has needed help since the very beginning.

If a job doesn’t have many people playing it, that’s a symptom of a problem. It doesn’t mean that the few crazy people continuing to play the job should be rewarded for their loyalty. I have played MCH since HW early release and the job is much better now than it ever has been, though I think they still have work to do on it.

I may not speak for all MCH players, but you don’t either. I get that people don’t like change, and not all the changes they’ve done have been the best, but at least we can say all the jobs in the game are finally balanced, more or less, and they’re able to add new jobs to the game without completely busting others into oblivion like in other MMOs.

[Lunalepsy]

Job changes should not be based on trying to get more people to play them. If people don't play them now, then it's because they don't enjoy the playstyle or they feel the effort put into it isn't worth it, and changing a job's playstyle to make more people enjoy it usually results in something extremely boring.

MCH and 5.4 MNK are the #1 examples of that. While it's easy to argue that they had self-detrimental mechanics that needed to be removed, to make them an empty shell of their old playstyles has been really awful for the people who mained them before the changes. Especially MCH, which has few buttons and no unique gimmick outside of spamming heat blast every now and then. It alienates the people who had already been actively playing it. People who have spent time learning it, perfecting it, taking it to harder content, gearing it, and optimizing to the best of their ability should not have that effort reduced to nothing on the turn of a new expansion now that they have to either relearn it or find that it's no longer the job they used to love.

Job changes should be made with its current dedicated players in mind. Make it more enjoyable for THEM. More people will come around naturally if that happens. That's why people enjoyed BRD back in 4.x; it wasn't any harder or easier to play than it is now, it just had good results for the effort that was put into it and therefore made people happy to play it.

Unfortunately I'm beyond afraid that this is what they plan to do to BRD and, to a lesser extent because of its current issues, SMN. Jobs should not be gutted or homogenized just to appeal to people who never liked them to begin with. If BRD is gutted then phys ranged as a whole becomes an extremely boring role. The way to make more people play a role is to make its current players enjoy playing it more. That way, they talk about how much fun it is and inspire others to try it out.

They want to make this game way too homogeneous. We need some variety again!

[Jin-]

Rip DRK and MCH. I quickly switched mains after those two were mutilated

They want to make this game way too homogeneous. We need some variety again!

This happens with most MMORPGs when developers want to gather more people to play the game and think it's the reason not as many played before.
WoW might be the biggest example of that

[Colt47]

I actually like Machinist now compared to before. It runs butter smooth and the rotation is easy to keep up compared to before. Dark Knight is more a problem of the abilities just not fitting together well. It takes more effort to deal with the MP aspects of the job than they probably predicted and figured that having a warrior style delirium burst phase would be better than more cooldowns. I can see why they did it: They wanted to have players weave a certain number of cooldowns between swings and they hit a limit on the number they felt was viable, so they made an alternative route in dps to try and make the job interesting. What they really need is Delirium buffing the main attack line and having more useful cooldowns put in the place of blood spiller and quitus. Maybe even do something like Flood of darkness + Blackest Night = group shield while the Eye of Shadow + Blackest night = bigger self shield.

[Jirah]

Hit the nail on the head for both MCH and BRD. I mained and master MCH for years did all the dum Relic crap and raids just to see it totally lobotomized in 5.0. BRD changes were for the worse too now that TP and MP are gone but the playstyle is mostly intact unlike the former but now with DNC being all new and safe and MCH corse rotting, people are nagging for BRD to be some gross hybrid of the two, mechanically toothless as MCH or a shameful Lackluster copy of DNC. Diversity is important we don’t need what the healers and tanks have, that being a total singularity. Homogenized kits.

I’ll say this, MCH is one of the dumbest jobs in the game that even it doesn’t know what it’s strong point is. Not a pet job due to all turret actions changing for the worse and lacking a aoe, if you care about numbers it ain’t no selfish dps compared to MNK SMN and BLM. It’s hardly a support with even some stronger jobs outclassing it like the aforementioned SMN and MNK with devotion and brotherhood being more vital than Troubadour Samba, it has as of 5.5 the fewest skills in the game and oddly enough quite fat in its design with bloat like Gauss barrel and Ricochet being separate, Drill and Air being mostly identical and can easily draft the battery benefit to drill, Bio and flamethrower being filler Aoe, Wildfire fell from grace and no longer is central to MCH power and as a result is a lateral skill, Heat blast is useless too you can just have it gain a speed boost with its 1-2-3 instead of spamming a skill for 6 seconds. Never has a job existed like this with such a hollow playstyle yet somehow has bloat

[Colt47]

Hit the nail on the head for both MCH and BRD. I mained and master MCH for years did all the dum Relic crap and raids just to see it totally lobotomized in 5.0. BRD changes were for the worse too now that TP and MP are gone but the playstyle is mostly intact unlike the former but now with DNC being all new and safe and MCH corse rotting, people are nagging for BRD to be some gross hybrid of the two, mechanically toothless as MCH or a shameful Lackluster copy of DNC. Diversity is important we don’t need what the healers and tanks have, that being a total singularity. Homogenized kits.

I’ll say this, MCH is one of the dumbest jobs in the game that even it doesn’t know what it’s strong point is. Not a pet job due to all turret actions changing for the worse and lacking a aoe, if you care about numbers it ain’t no selfish dps compared to MNK SMN and BLM. It’s hardly a support with even some stronger jobs outclassing it like the aforementioned SMN and MNK with devotion and brotherhood being more vital than Troubadour Samba, it has as of 5.5 the fewest skills in the game and oddly enough quite fat in its design with bloat like Gauss barrel and Ricochet being separate, Drill and Air being mostly identical and can easily draft the battery benefit to drill, Bio and flamethrower being filler Aoe, Wildfire fell from grace and no longer is central to MCH power and as a result is a lateral skill, Heat blast is useless too you can just have it gain a speed boost with its 1-2-3 instead of spamming a skill for 6 seconds. Never has a job existed like this with such a hollow playstyle yet somehow has bloat

Okay, we all know flamethrower is the ugly step child that no one uses except to RP burning forests down. It probably wouldn't hurt to have it do more damage considering it doesn't really buff party damage. However I do like the current iteration of machinist since I can learn a simple rotation and go between jobs to keep my life interesting. The game shouldn't be about being stuck in one job because it requires all the energy in the world to run right, and that seems to be what people are actually advocating 90% of the time on the forums.