Should they remove positionals at this point?

Basically:

Does increased uptime and optimal GCD mistake minimization do more dps than the potency loss of missing a positional.

If yes, than positional should be removed. How many threads have been started begging tanks to not move mobs?

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

That is factual wrong though. Melee DPS have uptime to consider (trying to minimize GCD loss when having to move/get away for AoEs or mechanics), oGCD weaving so as to not clip GCDs, planning out CD usage to line up with your rotation/fight mechanics/raid buffs to maximize DPS.

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Yes, uptime AND optimal rotation have always been the biggest factor in doing decent DPS.
YET
YET people in this thread act like missing few positionals during mechanic wombo combo and such will somehow murder their DPS. I mean, if it was pre-2.4/3.0 era DRG like I've mentioned earlier then they would have a point, but that's not the case anymore.
I suspect some of them had been called out for poor performance (due to aforementioned factors) but decided to blame it all on positionals.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

There is a ton of far more interesting ways for a DPS to squeeze out their DPS.

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Name some, I've yet to see anyone bringing up anything noteworthy in this thread to compensate for removal of positionals.
It's always 'UHH I don't like positionals, dev should just delete it!' 'Positionals aren't hard at all! I JUST have 'difficulty' doing them during certain part of the fight.', and my favorite 'There are better ways! (proceed to not name any)'

If they don't like positionals then there are 5 other jobs for them to move to (actually casters have to deal with position too, but positioning instead of positional. Range physical DPS can move freely but often have to deal with more mechanics due to it).
Every jobs in this game have upsides and downsides, but no, people want to have their cake and eat it too.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

That is factual wrong though. Melee DPS have uptime to consider (trying to minimize GCD loss when having to move/get away for AoEs or mechanics), oGCD weaving so as to not clip GCDs, planning out CD usage to line up with your rotation/fight mechanics/raid buffs to maximize DPS.

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There are mechanics that force casters to move, and they lose 100+ potency for every GCD missed (gets pretty bad on BLM which is why they get more movement utility, smn might be the only exception but they have more stuff to keep track off), while melee lose 20-60 per GCD on a positional loss if they can still hit the boss. Creative use of utility (just like True North for melees, for casters Swiftcast, Manipulation, Dual/Triplecast etc) to keep their rotation going when they have to move.

Seiryu is mentioned but the in/out and left/right (requires slidecasting/timed casts to keep rotation going without getting smashed) is annoying for casters, too - while melee might miss out on one of two positionals with no True North but can still hit it. Actually the warp to the furthest person is supposed to punish casters as well. In first is supposed to benefit melee, and Out first is supposed to benefit casters. Coursing River pretty much ruins everyone unless a caster has utility up, and you can arms' or surecast slappy hands knockback for one or two extra GCDs.

But you say, hey bards and machinists can keep moving and shoot: currently they take a damage loss and are reliant on other jobs for their damage ceiling (dragoon, scholar really helps brd), no knockback immunities and harder time managing enmity.

The thing I will agree with is relying on the tank to not spin the boss and position properly is kinda meh but other dps jobs have their own drawbacks to it as well.

Usually if there is a lot of movement the DPS check is set very low (SeiryuEX has a light one) anyway to make up for it.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Basically:

Does increased uptime and optimal GCD mistake minimization do more dps than the potency loss of missing a positional.

If yes, than positional should be removed. How many threads have been started begging tanks to not move mobs?

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Does dragoon, monk or samurai underperfoming due to the positionals in comparison to other dps?
Not really.
https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statisti...044&dataset=80

Asking for a mechanic removal just because you guys want higher number is absurd, what does make you think that SE removing it will give you the potency bonuses you get right now from positionals? Rotfl no, they will nerf you down in order to balance stuff out, they wont give you that potency number for attacks from all directions.
There is no need to change it, classes you guys mention are completely fine with it and balanced.
If you want to have big number play a summoner, there is nothing that chains you to play one class.

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Originally Posted by Connor

The most popular job right now from what I’ve seen is Bard, followed closed by Red Mage. I think it’s telling that the most popular DPS jobs are the ones that have no positional requirements whatsoever and simple, easy rotations (Bard technically doesn’t even have a standard rotation).

I think that if melee didn’t have positional, the gap between ranged and melee would become smaller.

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https://ffxivcensus.com/2018-12/

All classes are similarly popular.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

That is factual wrong though. Melee DPS have uptime to consider (trying to minimize GCD loss when having to move/get away for AoEs or mechanics), oGCD weaving so as to not clip GCDs, planning out CD usage to line up with your rotation/fight mechanics/raid buffs to maximize DPS.

There is a ton of far more interesting ways for a DPS to squeeze out their DPS. Positionals are just one way that doesn't mesh well with most of the fight designs and depending on the fight you can miss out on the positional damage at no fault of your own.

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Yes and there are already classes that does it and doesnt have positionals, go try them out and leave the melee dps for those who like it that way.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

Yes, uptime AND optimal rotation have always been the biggest factor in doing decent DPS.
YET
YET people in this thread act like missing few positionals during mechanic wombo combo and such will somehow murder their DPS. I mean, if it was pre-2.4/3.0 era DRG like I've mentioned earlier then they would have a point, but that's not the case anymore.
I suspect some of them had been called out for poor performance (due to aforementioned factors) but decided to blame it all on positionals.


Name some, I've yet to see anyone bringing up anything noteworthy in this thread to compensate for removal of positionals.
It's always 'UHH I don't like positionals, dev should just delete it!' 'Positionals aren't hard at all! I JUST have 'difficulty' doing them during certain part of the fight.', and my favorite 'There are better ways! (proceed to not name any)'

If they don't like positionals then there are 5 other jobs for them to move to (actually casters have to deal with position too, but positioning instead of positional. Range physical DPS can move freely but often have to deal with more mechanics due to it).
Every jobs in this game have upsides and downsides, but no, people want to have their cake and eat it too.

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I literally named some. You even quoted what I named. This is the worst attempt at a strawman that I've ever seen.

The bottom line is positionals are a relic from the 1.X days when mobs were more stationary. And as they are in fights now they just cause you to have a loss of performance at no fault of you own, which is not fun and not a reflection as your skill as a player. If I clip my oGCD into my GCD that is on me. If I move into/out of an AoE or move too late/early for a mechanic to maximize uptime, that's on me. The mob spinning around on its own or mechanics that prevent you from being able to do positionals is not the fault of the player, and its frustrating.

And again, other games have succeeded and had fun melee jobs without positional gimmicks slapped onto all of them.

From my experience playing MNK (since ARR) and SAM, I think outright removing positionals would make the melee classes all kinda flat unless something changed about each class to make them more unique. Positionals were also tied to the reasoning for giving Melee DPS higher potency due to both the angle a mob had to be hit AND the increased danger of being melee.

A quick skill adjustment on True North for longer duration and less recast time is all thats really needed to not invalidate but smooth out the experience for melee and thats if we even really needed an adjustment at all.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

I literally named some.

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You named what's ALREADY IN THE GAME, something positionals are supposed to work in conjunction with. I am asking for a replacement in lieu of positional removal.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

The bottom line is positionals are a relic from the 1.X days when mobs were more stationary. And as they are in fights now they just cause you to have a loss of performance at no fault of you own, which is not fun and not a reflection as your skill as a player.

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Guess what, genius. The current bosses from ARR through SB are pretty damn stationary too, EX trials, Savage fights, 24 man bosses, most of them anyway.
This whole bosses movement kills my DPS and my puppies are way, WAY overblown.
Or did you mean mobs as in trash dungeon/overworld mobs that die in like 10 seconds?

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

The mob spinning around on its own or mechanics that prevent you from being able to do positionals is not the fault of the player, and its frustrating.

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Again, stop pretending this is somehow an extremely common occurrence. It isn't, not in any fights where DPS matters anyway.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

And again, other games have succeeded and had fun melee jobs without positional gimmicks slapped onto all of them.

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Feel free to go enjoy them. God forbid XIV being its own thing for once.

Wonder if they could get rid of true north by giving all positional jobs a passive mechanic that is a buff that increases by one for each successful positional combo chain of 2 or more (positional that is merely one button doesn't count), up to 5 buff stack (no timer), each missed positional ability consumes one buff and makes it successful. Vaguely a more friendly true north, less customization but does give players another button for something else.

Could mess around with numbers if it's too strong or weak - like the cost to earn, cost to spend (like instead of one buff consumed it's X), max stack, or even have a passive "1 buff will return every 2 minutes if no stack exists" sort of thing as a soft safety net (start fights with a small failsafe).

As a side bonus for those who keep the stack high all the time (not missing positional) give them like 3% movement speed per stack lol (helping melee run out of circles and back into enemies, 5 stacks of 3% is 15% boost in combat).

Even as someone who loathes positionals with a fiery passion, I don't think they need to be stripped and banned from the game entirely. In other games, I just don't play the jobs that have them, since I know I hate them. That's generally the rogue types.

It just sucks that here its *every* melee, keeping me out of an entire type of job. Ninja makes sense cause of the whole backstab thing, and monk is built from the ground up around positionals, but I really don't see the point in drg/sam having them. Would be nice to have some jobs with them for those who like it, and some without.

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Originally Posted by seraseth

Would be nice to have some jobs with them for those who like it, and some without.

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Summoner, Black mage, Bard, machnist.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Wonder if they could get rid of true north by giving all positional jobs a passive mechanic that is a buff that increases by one for each successful positional combo chain of 2 or more (positional that is merely one button doesn't count), up to 5 buff stack (no timer), each missed positional ability consumes one buff and makes it successful. Vaguely a more friendly true north, less customization but does give players another button for something else.

Could mess around with numbers if it's too strong or weak - like the cost to earn, cost to spend (like instead of one buff consumed it's X), max stack, or even have a passive "1 buff will return every 2 minutes if no stack exists" sort of thing as a soft safety net (start fights with a small failsafe).

As a side bonus for those who keep the stack high all the time (not missing positional) give them like 3% movement speed per stack lol (helping melee run out of circles and back into enemies, 5 stacks of 3% is 15% boost in combat).

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Monks, dragoons or samurais doesnt need buffs.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Monks, dragoons or samurais doesnt need buffs.

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Not really a big buff, 15% movement speed it's just a little treat for doing well that doesn't increase your damage much. It's optional anyways, doesn't need to be there - I just thought a good player might feel special being swift. Ranged players can already hit stuff wherever on the battle ground so w.e lol.

If you're talking about the True North then it's not really a buff to good players, it just makes True North proactive to your mistake and encourages you to do well while you can (because if you did poorly in a row you'd still not get anything extra). I added section on what to tweak just in case it's too strong (or weak, which I doubt a bit). Hopefully to the point of allowing another skill in each melee's repertoire (so they have something more interesting to think about than "omg tank is spinning the boss again...").

Its not removing the system but putting the system more onto you, in a friendly way, such that you think less of the tank or a weird mechanic SE wanted to try with the boss, where if you've done well so far then you're good to go when something goes off for a little bit (think of a different more interesting skill rather).

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

You named what's ALREADY IN THE GAME, something positionals are supposed to work in conjunction with. I am asking for a replacement in lieu of positional removal.

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Melee already have the things I mentioned plus their job specific quirks. I fail to see how taking away something like positionals will be anything more then convenience and allow the player to focus on the more skill based systems in place rather then one that can be interrupted because of fight design, and again loss of DPS at no fault of the player.

Also, positionals don't work in conjunction with those aforementioned systems. They are their own thing. Using a CD at a mobs flank or a mobs rear has no bearing on a CD or oGCD. So again, I fail to see how those are "working in conjunction with positionals".

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

Guess what, genius. The current bosses from ARR through SB are pretty damn stationary too, EX trials, Savage fights, 24 man bosses, most of them anyway.

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They are stationary except when they're not. Got it. Doesn't change the fact there are fights where the design of the fight makes positionals impossible to pull off for some amount of time and again lowering the player performance at no fault of the player.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

This whole bosses movement kills my DPS and my puppies are way, WAY overblown.

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Hyperbole and strawman. There's nothing here that resembles an argument.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

Feel free to go enjoy them. God forbid XIV being its own thing for once.

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Ignoring other games and trying to develop in a vacuum is, in part, what caused 1.0 to flop in the first place. The game already has a ton of things that make it its own. Removing one bad design decision won't kill that.

Besides, the devs are clearly edging away from positionals. We'll probably see it almost entirely removed if not completely removed come 7.0.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Not really a big buff, 15% movement speed it's just a little treat for doing well that doesn't increase your damage much. It's optional anyways, doesn't need to be there - I just thought a good player might feel special being swift. Ranged players can already hit stuff wherever on the battle ground so w.e lol.

If you're talking about the True North then it's not really a buff to good players, it just makes True North proactive to your mistake and encourages you to do well while you can (because if you did poorly in a row you'd still not get anything extra). I added section on what to tweak just in case it's too strong (or weak, which I doubt a bit). Hopefully to the point of allowing another skill in each melee's repertoire (so they have something more interesting to think about than "omg tank is spinning the boss again...").

Its not removing the system but putting the system more onto you, in a friendly way, such that you think less of the tank or a weird mechanic SE wanted to try with the boss, where if you've done well so far then you're good to go when something goes off for a little bit (think of a different more interesting skill rather).

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SE would have done it if they wanted to, but they didnt.

Guys, making game easier doesnt mean it will be more fun, the fun is where you are trying to solve problems on your own and beat the level/encounter, beating something that didnt came automaticly and easy has a significant impact on your game. You cant just take away risks or make them irrelevant, playing melee has it, playing tank has it, playing caster and healer has it, its a bad side of the class which you have to deal with it on your own.
Catering to players that does not bother to get better or to try will ruin this game.

Today is a MS boost for bad players, tommorow it will be auto CD use, and in the next year you will not even have to play the game at all, its time to stop. If someone want a class without positionals, there are already classes without them, if they dont like the game simply dont play it.
Easier that, easier this, DRK has been reworked from complex and fun class to play to the unrepairable mess of a class just because SE wanted to make it more accessible to people. And people now are asking for melee dps change, they dont know yet what would have SE need to do to make it come true, it will not be good at all, and i bet my 1 mln gils that if they would remove positionals from these classes and had to rework them, the same people who wanted it will complain about the rework, because deleting mechanic that has huge impact on class will not come without expense of balance hell and changing a lot of stuff around the class.

Removing positionals will force SE to rebalance or even rework the classes completely, and those changes would not be the good stuff, SE has really weak balancing team to do it, they will just destroy the classes for a year or even longer. The less they touch the better.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

SE would have done it if they wanted to, but they didnt.

Guys, making game easier doesnt mean it will be more fun, the fun is where you are trying to solve problems on your own and beat the level/encounter, beating something that didnt came automaticly and easy has a significant impact on your game. You cant just take away risks or make them irrelevant, playing melee has it, playing tank has it, playing caster and healer has it, its a bad side of the class which you have to deal with it on your own.
Catering to players that does not bother to get better or to try will ruin this game.

Today is a MS boost for bad players, tommorow it will be auto CD use, and in the next year you will not even have to play the game at all, its time to stop. If someone want a class without positionals, there are already classes without them, if they dont like the game simply dont play it.
Easier that, easier this, DRK has been reworked from complex and fun class to play to the unrepairable mess of a class just because SE wanted to make it more accessible to people. And people now are asking for melee dps change, they dont know yet what would have SE need to do to make it come true, it will not be good at all, and i bet my 1 mln gils that if they would remove positionals from these classes and had to rework them, the same people who wanted it will complain about the rework, because deleting mechanic that has huge impact on class will not come without expense of balance hell and changing a lot of stuff around the class.

Removing positionals will force SE to rebalance or even rework the classes completely, and those changes would not be the good stuff, SE has really weak balancing team to do it, they will just destroy the classes for a year or even longer. The less they touch the better.

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I never argued to give bad players a MS boost, nor did I argue to remove the positional. Also the change was strictly suggested so all positional DD could lose True North and gain a new skill that can do something else more interesting (like new level 70+ skills).

A bad player who ignored their positional would still do less damage. But a player who did well for a while and then missed one due to a mechanic spin or tank spin wouldn't suffer, because they'd have a few "one time True North" buffs stacked up, if they started to miss a bunch in a row then they'd get no positional bonus cause they'd burn through all their buffs.

The mechanic wouldn't remove positional, just remove an ability and make the player rewarded by being good generally while allowing them to get a new skill that does something else. The MS was only an aside thought for good (not bad) players.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

Feel free to go enjoy them. God forbid XIV being its own thing for once.

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"Its own thing"... that gets toned down almost every patch where melee DPS get adjustments.
If it was such an objectively good gameplay mechanic, SE wouldn't rebalance it all the time to minimize its impact so much.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

"Its own thing"... that gets toned down almost every patch where melee DPS get adjustments.
If it was such an objectively good gameplay mechanic, SE wouldn't rebalance it all the time to minimize its impact so much.

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They only rebalance it because the average player is so abysmal that unless you literally press the buttons from them, you won't get any decent performance that SE expects you to do.

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Originally Posted by AxlStream

They only rebalance it because the average player is so abysmal that unless you literally press the buttons from them, you won't get any decent performance that SE expects you to do.

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Why is everyone always so down on "the average player"? You realize that the vast majority of all players are mostly average, right? The super players (and also the really terrible ones) are a pretty small minority. If average players can't do or don't like something, it's probably poorly designed.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

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Whatever I guess. I'm done having this discourse.
But mark my words.
If they somehow remove positionals the playerbase will definitely come up with new excuse to justify their poor plays, that much I can guarantee.
Remove positionals today and they will ask for removal of CDs next (and some people already did, actually), slippery slope and all that.
Something will never change, whether it's ARR, HW, or SB.

Please god almighty above, No.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Why is everyone always so down on "the average player"? You realize that the vast majority of all players are mostly average, right? The super players (and also the really terrible ones) are a pretty small minority. If average players can't do or don't like something, it's probably poorly designed.

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In this case "average" means the majority, the most common. Not average performance. That's why everyone is always so down on the average player. Reaching lvl 70 and not knowing the basics of your job happens frequently and doesn't need "super" performance for it.

If anything, the poor design is in dungeons being easy enough that those players can be carried to cap without learning how to play decently.

I'd rather not see positionals removed. I like moving about the enemy for them.

That being said, I would like to see some changes to make their near-instantly spinning towards random targets or the like less frustrating.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Why is everyone always so down on "the average player"? You realize that the vast majority of all players are mostly average, right? The super players (and also the really terrible ones) are a pretty small minority. If average players can't do or don't like something, it's probably poorly designed.

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If you are terrible at this game you are borderline afk or RPing in the chat while fighting. The average player seems like they spam 1-2-3 while watching netflix. As soon as something asks more than that, you see multitudes of threads on here saying "X is poorly designed" "X is too hard" and now it's "positionals should be removed". Yes, this expansion has been rough on melee DPS as a whole. Has that stopped good melee DPS players from performing? No. They adapted, they adjusted, they learned. The average player didn't because it wants to watch netflix and press 1-2-3.

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Originally Posted by AxlStream

They only rebalance it because the average player is so abysmal that unless you literally press the buttons from them, you won't get any decent performance that SE expects you to do.

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Without "the average player" you seem to hate so much, this game wouldn't exist.
It's logical to appeal to your playerbase.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

Whatever I guess. I'm done having this discourse.
But mark my words.
If they somehow remove positionals the playerbase will definitely come up with new excuse to justify their poor plays, that much I can guarantee.
Remove positionals today and they will ask for removal of CDs next (and some people already did, actually), slippery slope and all that.
Something will never change, whether it's ARR, HW, or SB.

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Is it so hard to accept that some people simply don't like the mechanic?
It's not to "justify being bad", nor asking for a removal of CDs. You are using outliers as a generality here.
Some people don't like the mechanic. And not having a single melee DPS job without positionals is disappointing. That's all.

Not everything revolves around being good or bad. There is no slippery slope of any kind. Just a legitimate request not to see an already dying mechanic being kept for no reason to the point of not having a single alternative.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

Is it so hard to accept that some people simply don't like the mechanic?
It's not to "justify being bad", nor asking for a removal of CDs. You are using outliers as a generality here.
Some people don't like the mechanic. And not having a single melee DPS job without positionals is disappointing. That's all.

Not everything revolves around being good or bad. There is no slippery slope or any kind. Just a legitimate request not to see an already dying mechanic being kept for no reason to the point of not having a single alternative.

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But there's nothing objective about it being a dying mechanic. I and other players like it, at most just wanting some fixes to visual/actual discrepancies. I'd be fine also with seeing the bonuses be something other than pure skill-gap forming damage, maybe providing future safety or mobility for risks or forced movement taken with positionals. But I like moving around my enemies. It's fun.

That's not to say I'd be opposed to an alternative, so long as it provides me with the same need to think ahead a bit. But I don't want it to see it removed just because some people have difficulty with it. I'm sure some people have difficulty with stutter-casting or oGCD weaving as well, and would like to see those people less negatively affected by their latency, but I certainly don't want to see those aspects of gameplay outright removed.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

But there's nothing objective about it being a dying mechanic. I and other players like it, at most just wanting some fixes to visual/actual discrepancies. I'd be fine also with seeing the bonuses be something other than pure skill-gap forming damage, maybe providing future safety or mobility for risks or forced movement taken with positionals. But I like moving around my enemies. It's fun.

That's not to say I'd be opposed to an alternative, so long as it provides me with the same need to think ahead a bit. But I don't want it to see it removed just because some people have difficulty with it. I'm sure some people have difficulty with stutter-casting or oGCD weaving as well, and would like to see those people less negatively affected by their latency, but I certainly don't want to see those aspects of gameplay outright removed.

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It is objectively being toned down every patch where balance changes happen for melee DPS. That's an objective fact. If dying is too strong of a word for your liking, then at least recognize that it's definitly not as strong of a mechanic as before and has been constantly pulled back to be made less and less impactful.

And I get that some people like it. What I ask is for these people to understand that some don't, and that the melee DPS role completly left that part of the playerbase out.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

It is objectively being toned down every patch where balance changes happen for melee DPS. That's an objective fact.

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True, but it's also devoid of context. The Monk changes were given literally as "band-aid" changes to be replaced with 5.0. The Dragoon positional changes before that were in line with the stated goal -- reduced skill-gap. Neither shows a sole aim to phase out the mechanic, else we wouldn't have certain jobs still just as, if not more, affected by frustrating positioning than they were in Heavensward.

More importantly, though, think about how much patch content this expansion has been made to fix unintended consequences of some other change. The ability of melee to manage their positionals were hit incredibly hard with the SB changes. Compensation should have been due at the start of SB, but, unsurprisingly, they've not noticed the effects of losing flexibly timed non-positional skills until

Each melee initially had far more skills that had no positional requirements. On Monk and Ninja, especially, one could slip in an extra cross-class skill into the rotation at faint TP inefficiency or negligible DPS cos or faintly delay one of their DoTs for until a spin would occur, utterly removing the positional risk. I would actually posit that positionals were easier to manage in Heavensward than even now, after all the buffs diminishing them, just due to that. Its just that we had actual near-constant access to means to ignore positionals rather than a 90-second cooldown and each positional being worth less.

The reductions we have now are necessary just to reach the same performance over a positionally frustrating piece of content that we had before. Note that the one job that has seen no reductions to its positional costs (60 potency per missed positional in terms of Shinten, higher if in terms of Guren or Seigan or an effective Gyoten), is also the one with the most control over its timings of position-less skills. Everyone else lost their control, and was compensated. Samurai retains that control, and was not compensated.

And historically, the trend of positionals is far from uniform. The positional bonus attached to Demolish was originally nonexistant, and then irregularly small making the skill most "okay", after Fracture, later-ID, and ToD, to use from the wrong position. In ARR, Ninja scarcely even had positionals. The portion of dictated positions, i.e. the prevalence of position-dependent gameplay, has only increased over time.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

What I ask is for these people to understand that some don't, and that the melee DPS role completly left that part of the playerbase out.

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So just because some people don't like it, they should remove it?

Positionals were always a poorly used mechanic that added little to nothing to the game. You were either with a tank or they might as well not exist, there is no class in the game that has crowd control and needs to set up and like Rogues did in WoW before. The only major thing it ever did was cripple you for playing a monk solo because... reasons? The fact they have already watered it down down as much as they have or are just turning them off in some content. It isn't doing anything but making its continued existence more meaningless and showing how inconsequential they are. The bosses spinning around because they absolutely have to face their target for any abilities is just adding to the issues.

They can take all the cost savings in server performance to add more things to the cash shop.

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Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

So just because some people don't like it, they should remove it?

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The story of the Official Forums. Just because people can beat content with it, doesn’t necessarily mean it is worth having.

I don't get the idea that positionals prevent you playing solo.
I solo'd most of ARR as NIN and I have to say without positionals that would have been some boring stuff.
You don't need a tank to use positionals.
You time your attacks as the enemy is in animation lock, or you can stun them, or with enough practice, move to the rear/flank at the exact moment you need to, and if you're quick enough you can get it off before the mob rotates.

While not removing it, they maybe should redesign it. Its get frustrating and goofy if you dancing the safety dance for no reason or the boss insta spins

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Originally Posted by Fyce

Without "the average player" you seem to hate so much, this game wouldn't exist.
It's logical to appeal to your playerbase.

Is it so hard to accept that some people simply don't like the mechanic?
It's not to "justify being bad", nor asking for a removal of CDs. You are using outliers as a generality here.
Some people don't like the mechanic. And not having a single melee DPS job without positionals is disappointing. That's all.

Not everything revolves around being good or bad. There is no slippery slope of any kind. Just a legitimate request not to see an already dying mechanic being kept for no reason to the point of not having a single alternative.

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Those "some people" could play the jobs that doesnt require to play around positionals, there are 12 of them if they are willing to play any class.
There is already an option for them, jobs with positionals are absolutely fine and balanced, why change the thing for a small minority of players? What will this change for better in this game but making it more boring and less unique?
Removing this mechanic from the melee dps equals to the balance havoc, do you want to break balance for 4 melee jobs just for appealing to the players who does not even bother to read the skill description?
If they dont like it, they dont have to, there are jobs for them if they dont mind.
Its like complaining about tanks that have to take the beating.
Please change the tanks because i want to play them, but taking damage is annoying i dont want that!

At this point i doubt any new, newbie or casual player actually complains about this stuff, its just people that are super lazy (so lazy they cant even push themselves to try out different job) and struggle to adapt. Dont adapt the game to the players who doesnt want to adapt to the rules in it, this kind of practice has never gone well for any mmorpg. There are "average" players who could adapt and do well, there is no need to change anything. If anyone has problem to press few buttons and move left analog stick, then im sad to say this but this game is not for him, sorry candy crush awaits.

What if they added a buff to each positional action where you can get the next positional potency of a positional action regardless where you hit the boss but it only gets applied if you hit the positional with the 1st positional action.
For overworld it should work like potd/HoH stuff no flank or rear positions on basic mobs. Boss fates A and S ranks should still have positionals

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Originally Posted by Fyce

Without "the average player" you seem to hate so much, this game wouldn't exist.
It's logical to appeal to your playerbase.

Is it so hard to accept that some people simply don't like the mechanic?
It's not to "justify being bad", nor asking for a removal of CDs. You are using outliers as a generality here.
Some people don't like the mechanic. And not having a single melee DPS job without positionals is disappointing. That's all.

Not everything revolves around being good or bad. There is no slippery slope of any kind. Just a legitimate request not to see an already dying mechanic being kept for no reason to the point of not having a single alternative.

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The "average player" doesn't have to use positionals if they don't want to. Unless you are raiding savage/uwu, you can clear content without using any positionals. Why not just leave positionals in tact for players who want to complete challenging contents and min/max?

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Originally Posted by Kallera

The story of the Official Forums. Just because people can beat content with it, doesn’t necessarily mean it is worth having.

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Does enjoying a mechanic make it devoid of merit too, then, I wonder?

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Originally Posted by Seddrinth

Disable positionals when solo. That I support 100%. But, no, they should not disable positionals for raid. It separates good players from bad players. Bad players like myself couldn't hack it playing melee so I went ranged. Good players should be rewarded with higher deeps that they deserve.

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I'd offer a slight adjustment to this:

Make positionals easier to pull off when solo. They're already technically doable. I do them consistently. It just looks really stupid because you have to stand some near-infinitesimally small distance from the enemy's center of hitbox, move and instantly strike, repeat. (May be more difficult at higher latencies; my latency is low, as if to compensate for inane packet loss.)

All that needs happen to both smooth positional use in content now that our more flexible skills by which to avoid positioning (Mutilate, Fracture, Touch of Death, etc.) have been removed is to check twice for positionals -- once at queue initiation and once early in the animation -- and take the "best of".
Add to this a more natural turning speed to mobs so they're not spinning like tops, and solo positioning can be fun rather than feeling like an exploit just to get off properly.

Or heck, bring Defense into the equation instead, such that the benefit varies with mob level and perhaps even type. As a side-effect, rampant damage scaling is curtailed a bit, level sync procedures facilitated, cleaves given a natural mechanic for gradual damage reduction (cumulative mitigation across Defense), and so forth.

Hopping onto this all kinds of late. Personally, I like positionals. I'm coming from GW2, which has a super active combat style (even the mages) so it's nice to play a class where I'm always moving around. I also like having to think about what I'm doing. I still have a lot to improve on, but it's a nice challenge. I do kind of agree with taking them out from solo play, but a part of me still kind of enjoys trying to land skills properly. Obviously, it doesn't work most of the time, but then I always find odd ways to entertain myself in a game.

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Originally Posted by Schan

I'm sorry but if that is what you enjoy while playing DPS I would advise you to play ranged physical dps instead. Arguably you get targetted by more mechanics as well so from the tiny insight this post gives me, it seems you should be right at home with ranged physical dps.

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I almost exclusively play tank. Positionals don't matter to me *personally* but when I'm having to move a boss (I raid savage the bosses are movement heavy) or when the party has to move to stay alive, I see the melee in my raid and in various group content unable to land their positionals while we're doing what we need to as a requirement for staying alive.

You say you like positionals and I do not, but since you wanted me to elaborate more let me tell you what *I* see when it comes to positionals which you sort of touched on yourself but I'll take it a step further.

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The frustration comes mostly from how lately bosses just spin around like crazy; they're massive or they decided to create a insta death zone in said areas you need to land your positional.

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What I see when it comes to the combination of positionals and mechanics is the melee DPS jobs (sam, mnk, drg, nin) being penalized and missing out on dps through absolutely no fault of their own. Now granted they do when they have to run outside of a hitbox to survive a mechanic but when melee are in melee range doing mechanics correctly, there is no reason why they should suffer a dps loss/penalty simply because some designer made some arbitrary inane requirement where you have to be in just the right spot for full damage because it adds "depth." You may like it, but I consider it utterly asinine. A melee in melee range that is able to stay in melee range and does their rotation correctly while doing movement heavy mechanics correctly, should never receive a nonsensical dps penalty because they weren't standing in the "correct" place, true north notwithstanding.

Edit: Let me just add though, that based on the design decisions we've seen so far, I have a feeling that positionals are on the way out or may be reduced to fewer attacks with that sort of necessity.

Some of the newer savage/extreme raids have mechanics that require a melee dps to miss out on positional potencies and true north has too slow of a cool down to cover all of those instances.

If they are set on keeping positionals, I would like the true north CD reduced to 15s to make it fair for the melee's in content like this. More often than not, my team mates will opt to run as ranged dps on these fights so positional mechanics can be ignored, we just bring NIN along for the TA buff.

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Originally Posted by m3eansean

Some of the newer savage/extreme raids have mechanics that require a melee dps to miss out on positional potencies and true north has too slow of a cool down to cover all of those instances.

If they are set on keeping positionals, I would like the true north CD reduced to 15s to make it fair for the melee's in content like this. More often than not, my team mates will opt to run as ranged dps on these fights so positional mechanics can be ignored, we just bring NIN along for the TA buff.

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This is why I thought they could pre-bake true north into melee DD as a passive give and take mechanic based on performance (and remove true north for another new skill each melee can toy with, level 70+ job specific skill would be neat). For whatever reason some mistook this as an argument to remove positional, which it wasn't.

Before either A. mechanics mess you up or B. other players do, so even if you're doing it all right sometimes it just feels bad to miss them and there wasn't a thing you could really do. Also if they add in a passive pre-baked mechanic then SE can play with the boss movement a bit more and not mess up melee.

Tl;dr of the concept was as you do well you get a few "exceptions" that will automatically be consumed on a failure to meet the positional, meaning it works on the fly but too many failures will cause it all to spiral out as one would expect (there would be a max buff stack, so you can't store 1,000 and then forget how to play lol).

Another concept I thought of was that all positional melee get a dash move by double pressing the movement key/stick (hotkey can be rebound). Based on direction it'll dash you to one of the sides of the boss ring (flank left, flank right, back) such that if you were on the back and double tap right it'll circle you to the right side and for a few seconds lock in that positional. Meaning even if you were moved out of position it'll count as that direction positional. Forward should be either manual still.. or at least a triple tap, just for safety lol (and that's a vary large dash distance for some bosses.. which makes it less realistic looking).

Alternate controls that might be more consistent and easier would be not based on where you are on the circle but just what you press such that double tap right is always the right side (even if you were on the left side), forward is on the butt of the boss, and left the left side (so if the boss is spinning mad you can nail it perfectly given that you're trying to move).

Add a short cooldown, and it'll only work when you're in very close vicinity to the boss's circle. Should work such that if you're free to move it's not too much to move manually if you didn't feel like double tapping, but when things start to get funny you could better lock yourself into position temporarily (via a movement, you still have to play the game lol). I think the first is a bit friendlier to mishaps though, since if at a split turn mechanic the boss changes where you hit even though you felt it was their "right side" then the exception buff would save it from failure.

Also just to let you know True North lasts for 15 seconds, so a 15 second cooldown is uh.. pretty intense :D.