Positionals

[IruruCece]

The most directional requirements a job should have is at best two.

Hard disagree. Play jobs with fewer positionals if you don't like them. They already exist within the game, and Monk, much less ANY OTHER JOB IN ANY OTHER ROLE, does not need to conform to a set template like this. If Monk becomes "Dragoon, but PUNCHES", then they may as well delete the job at that point.

We've already seen that homogenization of the tank and healer roles has not resulted in better job design overall, nor has oversimplification changes some of the very basic issues people have when playing with others in this game: some folks are just bad at their roles. But just because a bad griefer of a tank moves the boss all over the place like a jerk, or the boss moves on their own, doesn't mean that positionals need to go or be reduced. Just like how the solution to healing being a challenge shouldn't have been to strip away so much of each healer's flavor (so those things could potentially find their way back into the game with Mobile Healer Gundam Funnels).

A major flaw with your FFLogs parse numbers argument is that we've already seen that giving players the means to ignore positionals for a solid minute, on command, didn't change Monk's population for an appreciable amount of time. We already know that turning GL into a trait hasn't made more people put in more parses into FFLogs than Samurai, Ninja, Dragoon, OR Black Mage. We also know that when Monk WAS outparsing other melee DPS earlier into ShB, that wasn't changing the population either.

Monk's problems go far, far beyond being asked to move to the left or right of a target sweet spot behind a boss in order to land positionals. Over-simplification, specifically to appeal to people who do not want to engage with the game's mechanics, much less the individual mechanics of the job they're playing, is not and never will be the best solution for this. If you're going to use the numbers of parses to justify changing something about a job, why are BLM's more or less as is? Fewer people are playing them, right? Why not overhaul them, make them more like, I dunno, Red Mage! Why are SMNs complaining about anything? Thousands more raiding SMNs are putting up their parses over most other jobs in the game!

[Fendred]

Hard disagree. Play jobs with fewer positionals if you don't like them. They already exist within the game, and Monk, much less ANY OTHER JOB IN ANY OTHER ROLE, does not need to conform to a set template like this. If Monk becomes "Dragoon, but PUNCHES", then they may as well delete the job at that point.

We've already seen that homogenization of the tank and healer roles has not resulted in better job design overall, nor has oversimplification changes some of the very basic issues people have when playing with others in this game: some folks are just bad at their roles. But just because a bad griefer of a tank moves the boss all over the place like a jerk, or the boss moves on their own, doesn't mean that positionals need to go or be reduced. Just like how the solution to healing being a challenge shouldn't have been to strip away so much of each healer's flavor (so those things could potentially find their way back into the game with Mobile Healer Gundam Funnels).

A major flaw with your FFLogs parse numbers argument is that we've already seen that giving players the means to ignore positionals for a solid minute, on command, didn't change Monk's population for an appreciable amount of time. We already know that turning GL into a trait hasn't made more people put in more parses into FFLogs than Samurai, Ninja, Dragoon, OR Black Mage. We also know that when Monk WAS outparsing other melee DPS earlier into ShB, that wasn't changing the population either.

Monk's problems go far, far beyond being asked to move to the left or right of a target sweet spot behind a boss in order to land positionals. Over-simplification, specifically to appeal to people who do not want to engage with the game's mechanics, much less the individual mechanics of the job they're playing, is not and never will be the best solution for this. If you're going to use the numbers of parses to justify changing something about a job, why are BLM's more or less as is? Fewer people are playing them, right? Why not overhaul them, make them more like, I dunno, Red Mage! Why are SMNs complaining about anything? Thousands more raiding SMNs are putting up their parses over most other jobs in the game!

My point in the above post is that monk having omnipresent directional requirements and a massive haste buff is counter intuitive. Given their speed, they're already losing dps from having a shorter window to reposition and keep track of their buffs. So adding yet another button, which adds yet another buff to keep track of on top of all that, does nothing to dismiss the issue whatsoever. It just exacerbate the issue.

Dragoon works because its a single long rotation, so at some point you just know what to press. Samurai is about building up burst DPS. Monk's key feature is being fast, so lessening the number of positional requirements does not detract from the job's character. It just makes it more balanced with the other melee dps. Otherwise, what is SE going to do? The only thing left besides eliminating positional requirements would be buffing its raw damage through the roof so that it matches the performance of other melee in hard content, and make it an utter god in all casual content.

Edit: Another perspective is that its the speed of the monk that weighs more negatively on the job, because each button press represents a decision, an expenditure of mental resources, from the player. So the monk has to perform more button presses than a dragoon or samurai to achieve the same result. Forcing directionals on top of that just adds more human resource consumption to each button press. So it wears out players faster, and then performance degrades. It's a significant issue in FFXIV because of how long some boss fights take.

[IruruCece]

Given their speed, they're already losing dps from having a shorter window to reposition and keep track of their buffs. So adding yet another button, which adds yet another buff to keep track of on top of all that, does nothing to dismiss the issue whatsoever. It just exacerbate the issue.

Positionals, even right now, are straight up not hard to land and never have been. They have never been hard to perform beyond whatever stuff SE makes a boss do, and they've even given us extremely handy, omnipresent markers at the boss' feet to let us know if we are or aren't flanking a target. If you position yourself correctly, you will NEVER have to travel very far to switch between positional requirements, even with the current speed we're permanently set to at 80.

The challenge isn't in performing the action, it's in responding correctly to what the encounter is throwing at us. You can say that about every single job in the game. That's where the challenge and depth come from. For BLM, the solution to fights that demand movement that interrupts their DPS cycles is not and should not be "complain on the forums that a fight is hard to cast in and should be changed to suit their job better." What it is, and should always be, is something that a player can work their way through using the tools at their disposal, and a little effort on their part to learn the fight and play better with every attempt. Furthermore, pretending that Monk is unique in player stress just because it's fast ignores the vast array of challenges faced by every other job in the game.

If you don't want to play jobs with positionals, play the jobs without them. There are plenty. I do not want Monk to be more Dragoon-like or more Black Mage-like. I want it to be Monk, and like it or not, positionals are and have always been part of that. The continued lack of interest in playing the job in raids among the community suggests that simplifying the job while once again failing to resolve long-standing issues with its kit was the wrong call to make. The answer to that shouldn't be to make it even easier to play, and if the devs do decide to lean in that direction, then whatever they do come 6.0 needs to be a rework that makes what happened to Machinists look like a minor button cull, while also being liked after the fact.

Until SE proves otherwise, I expect little and less from them in regards to making MNK better, and for me it's staying shelved until that mythical time allegedly approaching us all come 6.0.

[VentVanitas]

My point in the above post is that monk having omnipresent directional requirements and a massive haste buff is counter intuitive. Given their speed, they're already losing dps from having a shorter window to reposition and keep track of their buffs. So adding yet another button, which adds yet another buff to keep track of on top of all that, does nothing to dismiss the issue whatsoever. It just exacerbate the issue.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand what MNK is and what's actually wrong with it. Their multiple positionals and GCD speed are one of the few things left on the job that still has synergy after SE has stripped it of everything. Asking players to keep track of these things with a less than 2 second GCD isn't counter-intuitive, it's called expecting some level of skill when playing the job and there's nothing wrong with that. IruruCece is right, if you want to remove MNK's only engaging thing it has left, then just play SAM or DRG.

I'm also going to be honest, if you struggle to hit positionals as MNK, it's either because a mechanic is preventing you, or you're simply not good enough. It is not that hard to keep track of once you play the job long enough, especially when it's literally the only thing you have to do on MNK at this point. (As well as the copious amounts of positional mitigation that other melee wish they had, even if Riddle of Earth is bad)

[LeonKeyh]

My point in the above post is that monk having omnipresent directional requirements and a massive haste buff is counter intuitive. Given their speed, they're already losing dps from having a shorter window to reposition and keep track of their buffs. So adding yet another button, which adds yet another buff to keep track of on top of all that, does nothing to dismiss the issue whatsoever. It just exacerbate the issue.

Dragoon works because its a single long rotation, so at some point you just know what to press. Samurai is about building up burst DPS. Monk's key feature is being fast, so lessening the number of positional requirements does not detract from the job's character. It just makes it more balanced with the other melee dps. Otherwise, what is SE going to do? The only thing left besides eliminating positional requirements would be buffing its raw damage through the roof so that it matches the performance of other melee in hard content, and make it an utter god in all casual content.

Edit: Another perspective is that its the speed of the monk that weighs more negatively on the job, because each button press represents a decision, an expenditure of mental resources, from the player. So the monk has to perform more button presses than a dragoon or samurai to achieve the same result. Forcing directionals on top of that just adds more human resource consumption to each button press. So it wears out players faster, and then performance degrades. It's a significant issue in FFXIV because of how long some boss fights take.

I've admittedly only leveled MNK to 80 then set it aside, but I only remember Back and Flank positional requirements which, if you're close to the transition area, 1.5 seconds is more than enough to move between. Also, even a MNK not hitting positionals or hitting positionals sporadically would do good DPS. The fact that there are so many positionals give them a higher skill ceiling which is great for players that are looking for a complex melee class.

Also, the MNK rotation may be a little complex, but it was fairly easy to get into a rhythm with the positionals and it _feels good_. You brought up Dragoon and that has something that I would like to see with MNK though. MNK has very little visual indicators on whether or not you're actually hitting positionals (bigger numbers, if you know what the numbers should be). Whereas Dragoon has 1 ability that I'd love to see at least on MNK; Raiden Thrust. It replaces the combo starter with a slightly higher potency ability if you hit your positionals. It'd be great to see something like that because it's a nice visual indicator that pops up and says "Good job!" Having Dragon Kick replacing Bootshine with another ability if you hit the positional would be more interesting than the current Leaden Fist (double Bootshine potency) at the very least.

Maybe it's just me though

[Fendred]

I've admittedly only leveled MNK to 80 then set it aside, but I only remember Back and Flank positional requirements which, if you're close to the transition area, 1.5 seconds is more than enough to move between. Also, even a MNK not hitting positionals or hitting positionals sporadically would do good DPS. The fact that there are so many positionals give them a higher skill ceiling which is great for players that are looking for a complex melee class.

Also, the MNK rotation may be a little complex, but it was fairly easy to get into a rhythm with the positionals and it _feels good_. You brought up Dragoon and that has something that I would like to see with MNK though. MNK has very little visual indicators on whether or not you're actually hitting positionals (bigger numbers, if you know what the numbers should be). Whereas Dragoon has 1 ability that I'd love to see at least on MNK; Raiden Thrust. It replaces the combo starter with a slightly higher potency ability if you hit your positionals. It'd be great to see something like that because it's a nice visual indicator that pops up and says "Good job!" Having Dragon Kick replacing Bootshine with another ability if you hit the positional would be more interesting than the current Leaden Fist (double Bootshine potency) at the very least.

Maybe it's just me though

Yeah, having some kind of visual indicator that we are hitting from the right position would help. In practice, mobs move around and come in various sizes, so its a fact of life that monks miss positionals very often in comparison to other melee jobs. The devs moved large chunks of our damage out of positional bonuses and into our base damage to compensate. If a dragoon or samuarai has to fight a large turtle, they have several abilities to use before hitting their positional related ones, so they have very generous amounts of time to move into the correct position. Monks don't really have that option without blowing abilities, which leads to more buttons to consider on a class with a 20% built in haste buff.

[Mikey_R]

If a dragoon or samuarai has to fight a large turtle, they have several abilities to use before hitting their positional related ones, so they have very generous amounts of time to move into the correct position. Monks don't really have that option without blowing abilities, which leads to more buttons to consider on a class with a 20% built in haste buff.

If you have time to prepare for your positionals on Dragoon/Samurai based on what an enemy is going to do, you have time on Monk. Any experienced Monk doesn't even have to think about what position they have to be in for each ability, they think, Bootshine is next and instantly know it is a rear positional. Also, Dragoon alternates Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw, a rear and flank positional, if you say you struggle to do it on Monk, so you also struggle to do it on Dragoon as well?

It just sounds like you need more practice on Monk rather than there being a fundamental flaw with the job.

[Fendred]

If you have time to prepare for your positionals on Dragoon/Samurai based on what an enemy is going to do, you have time on Monk. Any experienced Monk doesn't even have to think about what position they have to be in for each ability, they think, Bootshine is next and instantly know it is a rear positional. Also, Dragoon alternates Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw, a rear and flank positional, if you say you struggle to do it on Monk, so you also struggle to do it on Dragoon as well?

It just sounds like you need more practice on Monk rather than there being a fundamental flaw with the job.

Of course the monk knows where he needs to be to do max damage. He just physically can't get there in time all the time. Try doing that when trash mobs are running around. It takes a few seconds for tanks to pick them up, and the monks attack speed means its better to hit him in the face than wait. Another example is when bosses decide to turn around without warning to do some mechanic like Argath. Because monks attack so quickly and Argath's hit box is so large, you're guaranteed to land a hit out of position before you can even consider hitting true north or that other ability we have now. That's just life when a dude has a 20% haste buff and 100% positional requirements on all attacks.

[wereotter]

If you have time to prepare for your positionals on Dragoon/Samurai based on what an enemy is going to do, you have time on Monk. Any experienced Monk doesn't even have to think about what position they have to be in for each ability, they think, Bootshine is next and instantly know it is a rear positional. Also, Dragoon alternates Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw, a rear and flank positional, if you say you struggle to do it on Monk, so you also struggle to do it on Dragoon as well?

It just sounds like you need more practice on Monk rather than there being a fundamental flaw with the job.

It's more that the monk player has less time to prepare to adjust on the fly and hit the positional than the dragoon does.

One is a high speed job, the other is not. One has positional requirements on every skill, meaning you have to CONSTANTLY be watching for any time an enemy might turn (like if it's doing an attack that targets a healer) while the other has the majority of skills not having this requirement. And this doesn't even consider bad tanks that either spin the bosses around erratically, or who hold a boss with just its nose sticking out of an AOE, making it impossible for the monk to hit any positional requirements (this happens SO much in the newest level 80 dungeon)

I play both jobs, and positional are a much bigger deal that you have to watch constantly on monk than on dragoon. If a boss turns in the middle of a dragoon's rotation, they've lost nothing, except on three skills in the entire rotation.