@_Flux_ I cannot confirm it because I have not looked at too many people playing it yet but I seem to notice a lot of people talk about equipping subclass weapons freely. I thought that there was still a mechanic needed to unlock the weapon in a method such as a weapon extension in our current game in order to let a weapon be usable as a subclass. To me that is the only obstacle I feel that shouldn't exactly be necessary but I have not seen how difficult this actually is in-game. On the other side, however, I have seen players playing with the affix system already and it definitely looks similar to what we have already but simply twisted around where instead of using fodder weapons you are using capsules dropped by enemies instead and the number of capsules increases your chance of success. The players I watched already had quite a bit of capsules just fighting enemies so I can imagine this should be much more approachable to new players who don't realize they are likely already holding affix-related fodder and materials.
Along with the removal of things like "basic" healing like Resta and Megiverse and it being pushed onto one-use items that have a charge and that both the Force and Techer have unique variations of the "Resta Sign" for healing I am very curious to see where the game goes in terms of players taking hits, being "tanky," or pushing for states like high health/low health boosts. The newly defined skill trees look very small and do not seem to provide these sorts of bonuses but I do not mind as the weapon-related and class-related mechanics still seem to synergize with one another. My worryomg would start if skills like "Iron Will" wasn't a main class exclusive and pushed everyone into playing Hunter again just because it was "easy mode" like it was in the original game.
From what I have seen as well, the new Chain Trigger operates on a timer regardless of your combo count like it did in the original game so you only have a period of time to get to the combo you want before breaking the chain. I have seen players fail to break the chain and immediately reactivate Chain Trigger afterwards whereas the original game punishes you with a hefty cooldown. The cooldown only seems to exist when you actually break the chain this time but failing to break the chain means rebuilding it when starting it over. Their combat options definitely look to me like they have merged properties of the Hero and Gunner together (the new Infinite Fire seems like a more mobile Infinite Fire/Brand New Star) and Shift Period seems to take elements of both Heel Stab and Final Storm. I would still love to have the Hero's speed (dash-shots cancelling into Moment Trick and back, for example) but the Gunner definitely seems to be pulled back much more than the other classes due to how obnoxiously broken they were in the original game even after their nerfs. Like the Fighter, my main gripe with the Gunner was that they performed very well if you got over their relatively clunky (compared to the Successor classes) nuances.
The Techer also looks fun this time around due to how they have a counter-attack and from what I have seen their gameplay is simply much faster, tighter, and more aggressive than they have ever been in the original game despite looking largely the same. I am still unable to confirm if whether or not the techniques used are the same as the Force which would be my only complaint if it is the case because I really do feel the technique-based classes all suffered from having access to the exact same techniques but it only differed in sheer numbers (Ilgrants being very powerful regardless and as a result class combinations specialized in certain techniques more than others but was otherwise an overly bloated "variety" of techniques you would never really use for most situations unless an enemy weakness called for it or because you had enough raw power to use one technique for everything). I personally do not believe that the "Foie" a Force has should be the same kind of "Foie" a Techer, Bouncer, Summoner, Hero, and Phantom should have access to because while the Force is one of the best users of it due to its elemental mastery it is strange to me how much the technique-casting classes can overlap in a nutshell.
