How would people feel if they took positional requirements away?

[Brightamethyst]

Or doing the polar opposite and making them 100% mandatory

It actually used to work that way. Back in 2.0 combos wouldn't progress and buffs wouldn't activate unless you hit the positional. It was changed because DRG and MNK were practically unplayable in certain situations.

[Powercow]

It actually used to work that way. Back in 2.0 combos wouldn't progress and buffs wouldn't activate unless you hit the positional. It was changed because DRG and MNK were practically unplayable in certain situations.

wat

Combos progressed, so did buffs with the exception of Heavy Thrust. Some debuffs didn't (Trick Attack, for example) but I know most did. How do you think anyone did Demon Wall?

[Brightamethyst]

You know, every time we have this discussions I always think back to Cleric Stance.

Cleric Stance was fun. It was a neat mini-game that broke up the monotony of healing and "separated the good healers from the bad." I enjoyed it and was proud of my stance dancing skills. The SB info started coming out, and along with it the anoucement that Cleric Stance was going away. "What!?", we all cried. "Won't healing be incredibly boring without it?" Well, no, as it turns out. Healers are just fine without it. 2+ years later I know no one who misses the stance dance and I think the game is better off without it. Looking back now I'm honestly not sure if CS was actually fun, or if that's just the way it had always been and we didn't know any better.

That's why I don't see an issue with the idea of positionals being removed. After the initial outcry we'd probably all just get used to it and not really miss them much.

[VeolE]

https://media1.giphy.com/media/p0RDMJGgMXF96/source.gif

Me right now, when I read most of these comments wanting "Positional removed" Like nah, game already brain dead enough. And just look how they Massacre my boi DRK/WAR

[Shurrikhan]

wat

Combos progressed, so did buffs with the exception of Heavy Thrust. Some debuffs didn't (Trick Attack, for example) but I know most did. How do you think anyone did Demon Wall?

They did not. You're thinking of later in ARR's lifespan. Impulse Drive did not give you combo progress towards Disembowel, for instance, unless you hit its rear positional. It was for that reason that its positional was instead shifted to Chaos Thrust, since as a combo ender it couldn't do more than lose its own position-dependent direct potency, and later combo progress was guaranteed on any hit and and positional effects were decreased to only raw potency for all but Trick Attack.

[Shurrikhan]

A vocal minority of healers wanted to simplify the dps rotations/options yet here we are. . . a 30 second dot and a filler spam.

I'm probably on these forums at least a few times a day, and I have yet to see a healer who's requested that healer offensive toolkit be condensed -- apart perhaps from solely Cleric Stance, which many called mindless and useless bloat. Can you link me to even one healer asking for the removal of Aero III?

Maybe this was on some obscure Reddit sub-thread? Somewhere even less visible?...

You know, every time we have this discussions I always think back to Cleric Stance.

Cleric Stance was fun. It was a neat mini-game that broke up the monotony of healing and "separated the good healers from the bad." I enjoyed it and was proud of my stance dancing skills. The SB info started coming out, and along with it the anoucement that Cleric Stance was going away. "What!?", we all cried. "Won't healing be incredibly boring without it?" Well, no, as it turns out. Healers are just fine without it. 2+ years later I know no one who misses the stance dance and I think the game is better off without it. Looking back now I'm honestly not sure if CS was actually fun, or if that's just the way it had always been and we didn't know any better.

That's why I don't see an issue with the idea of positionals being removed. After the initial outcry we'd probably all just get used to it and not really miss them much.

Those two things are entirely different though. Cleric Stance added a key as a limitation restricting your other key presses. Positionals invite you to make greater use of your WASD keys or left stick, which are in no way removable components of the game that exist to make a mechanic out of restriction. We can forgive a gimmick restriction being lost. Losing a mechanic that so improves the efficiency of button usage in the game, though? Not likely.

Positionals have no cost except in that they increase the role's skill ceiling, which can negatively affect the few players who might not want to put in as much effort, at least in the style given to the role that both gives and demands the most player mobility, while still reaping full rewards.

[Shurrikhan]

I am with you on the animation lock removal, but at the risk of sounding stupid... what is an ability queue system in this context? Are you referring to being able to queue up a sequence of events before or during combat and they automatically execute when it's their turn, or something?

Apart from movement skills, including Jump, there is no movement animation lock, only uptime animation lock. If someone's seeming to get momentarily stuck in place when using an ability, it's because they're playing with character-facing and auto-turning on and not locking their camera (e.g. via Right Mouse Button) while using actions on their target.

Each animation in this game, with a few 1200 ms exceptions, take up 600 ms of time, with ping costing twice their delay in further uptime loss. GCDs can be queued up to .5 seconds in advance, thus omitting the effects of up to 250 ms of ping. oGCDs do not have that benefit, however. In fact, a second oGCD cannot even be queued at all until the first oGCD is already actuated (i.e. the server has recognized its start of action), iirc. This greatly limits which players can double-weave at what speeds.

[Xau]

It actually used to work that way. Back in 2.0 combos wouldn't progress and buffs wouldn't activate unless you hit the positional. It was changed because DRG and MNK were practically unplayable in certain situations.

wat? the only job what had positional requirement on 2.0 was dragoon, monk did not had that, literally, even if you failed your positionals as monk, you could still progress your combo

[ForteNightshade]

Do people really believe that positionals are the only way to keep melee engaged?

Because that's so absurd I don't even know how to respond to that line of thought.

No, but unless something replaced positionals, DRG would be even more dumbed down than it already is. You actually have to think about your positioning before jumps as you'll be momentarily animation locked. It's the same argument as combo consolidation. Less input or thought from the player leading to the gameplay feeling more boring as a result.

[Powercow]

They did not. You're thinking of later in ARR's lifespan. Impulse Drive did not give you combo progress towards Disembowel, for instance, unless you hit its rear positional. It was for that reason that its positional was instead shifted to Chaos Thrust, since as a combo ender it couldn't do more than lose its own position-dependent direct potency, and later combo progress was guaranteed on any hit and and positional effects were decreased to only raw potency for all but Trick Attack.

Ah, fair enough, I didn't play much DRG in ARR. I just remember the endless threads about Heavy Thrust and the positional requirement.

Still, at least for Monk their combos always worked, regardless of positional requirements.