Viper Changes are good, actually

[PeppermintBrown]

No, it wasn't. You just sucked at the job. People who enjoyed how it was shouldn't suffer a boring job due to your incompetence.

Don't worry. In a little over a month it will have been 'this' way longer than it was the 'old' way and then the people who like it as it is now will have had more time with their version and you will be the ones asking for changes to a job other people enjoy and the cycle will continue.

[EdwinLi]

Don't worry. In a little over a month it will have been 'this' way longer than it was the 'old' way and then the people who like it as it is now will have had more time with their version and you will be the ones asking for changes to a job other people enjoy and the cycle will continue.

I am surprised most people are not prepared for changes towards a Job they will obviously not like at this point. It is probably why I am more cautious with new expansion changes all the time.

Each expansion has a tendency to completely change a job towards a way certain players will not like. Certain ones greater than others due to how a Job may end up completely changing their gameplay style.

Machinist Job seem to be the only Job they have not changed much since they established the gameplay style in 5.0 after going through the constant changes it had through 3.0 to 4.X era. They've only been adding on to that foundation each expansion for MCH since then.

[Arohk]

This is gonna be a bit of a shock but you could be doing both. Crazy I know.

and thats how you end up with people complaining about difficulty of normal content, they hyperfocus on their hotbar because of too many buttons and can't see whats going on in the fight.

I have played an MMO before FFXIV that had much harder bosses, even though i had maybe 10 hotkeys instead of 30.

Machinist Job seem to be the only Job they have not changed much since they established the gameplay style in 5.0 after going through the constant changes it had through 3.0 to 4.X era. They've only been adding on to that foundation each expansion for MCH since then.

MCH just feels awful to play to me, i only use it in PVP, i would completly overhaul this job.

[Leonus]

I'm going to repeat what I'm saying in other threads on this issue:
Viper is literally much worse now and here's why.

The short but easily reapply-able 20s debuff (With a 40s max) gave vipers something to optimize, as the other two buffs require almost no thought other than when coming out of your 2/6/8/10 min window.
Before going into your reawakening its its fun to plan how you're going to ensure you go in with atleast 22+seconds of this debuff. Also if you set it up correctly its very easy to just apply a single gcd of gnash inbetween the two reawakens should you have miscalculated the timer! Beyond this I have to wonder if anyone who is saying these changes are good ever played reaper, as reaper's triple enshroud was almost always not worth the effort and very clunky.

Dealing with EX1 Vali and optimizing when the boss disengages you for the application of gnash on the needles (first hit of 3 hit combo on needle one, then use dreadwinder on needle two) then spacing out snaps to allow the timing of the first returning gcd on vali to be gnash was a ton of fun to optimize, and even when it was difficult to do, it was not a big deal as you still had 16-8 seconds till reawaken! Enough time to apply the debuff twice!

Viper was always an easy job. Noxious gash was just the one thing other than uptime and positional you could optimize.
Gnash feels truly like a better version of reapers death's design. It almost makes me wish they would make it a alternate combo for RPR rather than being a single button.

For all intents and purposes, Viper plays very similarly. But the few plates that you had to spin have fallen and all you have now is uptime, and positionals.
If you're saying its better I doubt you've ever tried to optimize it in any content whatsoever, let alone EX+ content.

TL;DR it's the worse and honestly more boring, you did not seriously play viper if you think the noxious gash change is good.

i try to optimize but at the same time, the change doesn't bother me because you can still optimize… just not around NG. Pretending you still cant optimize is disingenuous. People mostly want something to separate themselves from the players they consider mediocre/average/below average and challenge themseleves (even jf artificially). Thats the true basis of the anger and angst.

[EdwinLi]

MCH just feels awful to play to me, i only use it in PVP, i would completly overhaul this job.

I still think they can bring some elements from the PvP skills into the PvE gameplay.

If they wanted to increase damage for attack skills but are concern about mobility then they can implament the slow walk style the PvP mode has for a new combat stance for MCH that focus on Higher damage but lower moblilty so the mobility is still kept but players just need to be more self aware about their slower movement when attacking

The Sniper Rifle is ripe for a Very High Damage Sniper Rifle mechanic that is normally in most Gun Jobs for RPGs and MMOs. It is a matter of how to implement it though I think they can make use of the old Ammo system for the Sniper Rifle skills. Setting it as a skill about performing High Damage attacks but must account for the risk where the MCH cannot move when firing the Sniper Rifle with their Sniper Rifle skills similar to how it is in PvP as a PvP Limit break.

They can use the Ammo system to determine what kind of attacks the Sniper Rifle performs based on which Ammo the Sniper rifle will fire.

[Trich]

Vpr was already a very simple job. The skill expression of not overlapping their debuff turned out to be quite fun to me. Made it simple but satisfying. Now without it the combo just alternates and the winders take no thought just press it. They've taken an already easy job and removed the only skill expression from the rotation. I've been pretty locked in playing vpr this expansion but after playing the rework it just feels so boring. I'm probably not going to continue playing it in this state. I'm very disappointed

[Lamarcy2699]

and thats how you end up with people complaining about difficulty of normal content, they hyperfocus on their hotbar because of too many buttons and can't see whats going on in the fight.

That gives an excuse to take it away from people who enjoy it because? Removing skill ceilings is a surefire way to make your game boring and anger every single person who did enjoy it. You only need to see all the pushback against the VPR changes, and SAM when Kaiten got taken, to notice. It's also not like damage matters in 99% of casual content but matters in 100% of high end content. If someone truly struggles don't design a job around them, encourage them to get better. People will always struggle and complain so give a reason to improve. Doing good damage should be the reward for hard work and dedication to a job, not the expected norm for people to just do. A game should not be forced to be boring because some people struggle.

I have played an MMO before FFXIV that had much harder bosses, even though i had maybe 10 hotkeys instead of 30.

Cool, but this isn't that other MMO is it? This is FFXIV. The way the game fundamentally works is that it cannot create insane fights with tight snapshots or insane movement. The server tick speed is too slow. So to compensate it needs to have a balance of job design with fight design and ever since Endwalker that balance has been shifted too much since jobs got so much easier and fights not that much harder (barring ultimates).

[M1SF0RTUNE]

I'll echo a sentiment that I relayed elsewhere. I hate the changes and it took me doing Expert roulette for a second time (specifically Strayborough Deadwalk) just now to understand why.

Noxious Gnash was not only an ability that required skill and a good sense of timing to naturally upkeep with good muscle memory and practice, but more importantly it served as an additional visual queue that you also had control over.

Previously, when entering the 1-2-3 combo, you have to start with 1 or 2; 1 if you had Noxious Gnash up and 2 if you didn't. However, two important factors were 1. You had full control when to re-apply that buff and how (thanks to Dreadwinder or choosing to double-up on the debuff timer instead of continuously alternating), and 2. You only had to worry about 2 glowing buttons to follow for optimal damage maintenance after every starter. It meant that I spent a lot less time looking at the hotbar and letting the debuff timer help me plan ahead. I can deliberately set myself up to start with 1 several times in a row and that's a choice I got to make and set up for myself based on my needs and the fight I'm getting into.

With the current changes you're now forced to follow a strictly linear combo and it feels clunky and is ultimately making me watch the hotbar even more since the buttons change (unlike other classes where you just hit 1-2-3 to achieve a similar result) and it becomes easier to lose track of where you are in the combo if you stop paying attention to, say, avoid a boss mechanic and/or go into Reawaken which covers up where you were in the combo or DreadwinderVicewinder that can force your attention/focus elsewhere on the hotbar to hit GCD's/oGCD's. This was especially noticeable on Deadwalk's second boss, where I'd be paying too much attention to not getting hit and then losing which part of 1-1-2-2-1-2-1-1-2-2-2-2 I was on without looking down and watching, especially if I was trying to squeeze a Reawaken in which obscures where I was in the combo.

Noxious Gnash was the thread that tied things like DreadwinderVicewinder and Reawaken in and out of the combo. For instance, setting yourself up with 40 seconds with well-planned Dreadwinder management or utilizing Dread Fang gave your Reawaken far more punch, and plus you could weave a Dread Fang in between if you absolutely needed more time. Dreadwinder was also incentivized too since it was able to apply so many buffs and debuffs all in one chain ability, which helped a lot of the flow of the job.

By cutting that thread and simultaneously forcing us to follow a strictly linear longer combo we can't get any breaks out of but can also lose track of thanks to transforming buttons and a confusing gauge, the job now simultaneously has less room for error by forcing me to follow directions more strictly, and is made more boring by removing choice and expression from the job. Brainless and spammy button mashing is not what drew me to the job in the first place.

[Lamarcy2699]

I am surprised most people are not prepared for changes towards a Job they will obviously not like at this point. It is probably why I am more cautious with new expansion changes all the time.

Each expansion has a tendency to completely change a job towards a way certain players will not like. Certain ones greater than others due to how a Job may end up completely changing their gameplay style.

They have only ever changed potencies for the brand new job they released, they have never altered the kit of a brand new job so heavily before, at least to my knowledge. That's why people feel blindsided, that and the lack of communication. They may add QoL but they never have changed core mechanics this heavily for a job that's been out less than a month. They also rarely if ever change the way a job works completely right before savage. They mentioned changing positionals but got a lot of negativity from it and instead of learning to leave it alone like so many asked for instead we get changes almost no one asked for, all these new threads are evidence enough of that.

The main crux of why the changes to VPR are an issue falls into two main categories:

1) There is a distinct lack of communication between the playerbase and the development team behind job changes. Players voices are very rarely heard and it creates a sense of frustration. People take it to the right places (these forums, the leave a suggestion feature) but rarely if ever is action taken, even when the consensus feels pretty overwhelming like VPR right now. They also don't give job change details beforehand and just push it to live test every other patch and pray it goes over well. Changes being made to jobs are far too sparsed out, so if they mess up their maths (which is very common for them, see PLD 6.3 on how it was weaker than before it was changed) and it needs further adjustments youre just out of luck for a few weeks to months.

2) The oversimplification of jobs was already going too far and this made it worse. It really cannot continue. It started with healers becoming homogenized, then the tanks started becoming more simplified, and now we're seeing DPS become simplified to the extremes. MNK just spells your roation out for you now, as does VPR after the changes. Phys range is a joke of a role (MCH the selfish DPS that can't be too selfish, the DNC changes being awful, the lack of variety in jobs to pick from compared to other roles) and magical DPS are all over the place in terms of balancing. Not to mention what they did to SMN. They stripped a lot of optimizations from jobs people enjoyed (BLM and SAM being notable ones), and they continue to erode away job identity with each update they make to the game. Even Yoshi P himself has gone on record to say the game is becoming too easy and regrets it, but that's about all the communication we got so far about what they're planning to do to alleviate it.

[W00by]

1) There is a distinct lack of communication between the playerbase and the development team behind job changes. Players voices are very rarely heard and it creates a sense of frustration. People take it to the right places (these forums, the leave a suggestion feature) but rarely if ever is action taken, even when the consensus feels pretty overhelming like VPR right now. They also don't give job change details beforehand and just push it to live test every other patch and pray it goes over well. Changes being made to jobs are far too sparsed out, so if they mess up their maths (which is very common for them, see PLD 6.3 on how it was weaker than before it was changed) and it needs further adjustments youre just out of luck for a few weeks to months.

THANK YOU for taking the time to emphasize this part. Even if these changes were less controversial -- hell, they could be the bomb dot com -- it's STILL stupid to have pushed them with no prior communication with the playerbase, on SAVAGE LAUNCH DAY no less. Even though they seem well received, I think the BLM and SAM reworks ALSO should have come either later or earlier, this was such a dumb time to change anything. Whether you love or hate the changes, they were objectively handled awfully.

(and for what it's worth i hate the changes)