Positionals

[Nothv13]

The game is way too forgivable in a lot of ways and this is pretty much the core reason "why noone improves anymore".

- Shared TB? Invul.
- Boss is not in the middle? Np, he´ll port at the next mechanic.
- You wiped in 99% of the content of the game? Here "click easy mode" or you´ll get a straight up buff each restart anyway.
- Positional potencies? Who cares about them on DRG / NIN. You could even stuck behind the boss as MNK and do about 10% less damage. Still enough to beat the current E9-E11s, maybe even E12s if the other DPS know their job.
- You´re double lefthanded and blind on one eye? Here is a DNC for you.
- A handful of bosses don´t even have any positional requirements.

The list goes on. And in all cases, Melee and Caster still have a comfortzone in DPS. Phys. ranged don´t have them thx to the "i don´t care" factor. The game got dumb´d down enough and more than enough players proved that positionals are no issues as much as casting times are. You just practice a boss fight and get used to it. TN and RoE are for such badass mechanics where you clearly can´t play positionals. So what´s the point?

Imagine the game will get dumb´d down more and more. BLM will get less casting times, positionals will be removed, healer can instarezz permanently, whatever. Would be funny to see how it´s going on when the so called "elitists" have nothing even near challenging left and leave the game. No more guides, no more balance discord or other stuff "lazy players" can rely on. Could be really funny to see how things going nuts.

It´s up to the player to improve, not to the game to become easier unless it´s absolutely unplayable, which is definately not the case here.

Why have a mechanic confined to one role that is so inconsequential? Having something simply for the sake of complexity is piss poor game design. If you want complexity, it needs to be meaningful, otherwise it is just empty annoyance. The positionals used to be quite meaningful, but apparently they have not tested well through the years since they've been removing the meaning from them constantly.

[Ralph2449]

So they are ultimately pointless, add nothing but more movement that can be completely ruined by numerous things outside of your control.

I would absolutely not say that, it is a nice small challenge to try to optimize when it is possible throughout an encounter, improving between each pull. The fact that it isnt as impactful is also good because it turns it into a personal challenge rather than a "OMG I MUST DO THIS OR MY DPS HALVES!!"

So again not being able to get positionals 100% of the time doesnt hurt anyone, if a person is so annoyed they cant do that then they should look inwards, it isnt the game's problem to fix, it is theirs.

[ssunny2008]

Why have a mechanic confined to one role that is so inconsequential? Having something simply for the sake of complexity is piss poor game design. If you want complexity, it needs to be meaningful, otherwise it is just empty annoyance. The positionals used to be quite meaningful, but apparently they have not tested well through the years since they've been removing the meaning from them constantly.

If you want more meaning on them, then go for that 150 potency loss if you´re not playing them? I would welcome that. They could even go back to ressource management and other stuff combined with them.

As i said, the most stuff happened thx to the dumb downs and the gap between a good and a "bad" player is close, but it still exists. Positionals on that side are part of this gap especially on MNK. If they get ride of them, i want SE to get ride of casting times, because i clearly hate them. Nothing is more boring than waiting 2-2,5s until you can move again.

In kind of complexity it´s atleast still one of the last things which fresh up the gameplay in some way. I hate to say it, but this game is already a noob / casual fest. This whole topic exist because someone didn´t want to improve or didn´t used the given tools. As i said before, 98% of the game are no-brainers. You don´t even have to read half of your skills, because they´ll highlight in the needed combo.
All that won´t change, Yoshi follows his clear vision of "dumb down everything". PvP and healers will be the next step. But hell, don´t take the last part of complexity away from us, no matter how bad it seems to be implemented. You won´t be a better player when you choose the easy mode. It just makes the game uninteresting and boring.

In kind of NIN / DRG i´ve given some ideas before to make them somewhat more interesting and "background-depended", because their positionals are indeed useless / meaningless. But in case of MNK... the whole class cries POSITIONALS! and that´s fine.

[Nothv13]

If you want more meaning on them, then go for that 150 potency loss if you´re not playing them? I would welcome that. They could even go back to ressource management and other stuff combined with them.

As i said, the most stuff happened thx to the dumb downs and the gap between a good and a "bad" player is close, but it still exists. Positionals on that side are part of this gap especially on MNK. If they get ride of them, i want SE to get ride of casting times, because i clearly hate them. Nothing is more boring than waiting 2-2,5s until you can move again.

In kind of complexity it´s atleast still one of the last things which fresh up the gameplay in some way. I hate to say it, but this game is already a noob / casual fest. This whole topic exist because someone didn´t want to improve or didn´t used the given tools. As i said before, 98% of the game are no-brainers. You don´t even have to read half of your skills, because they´ll highlight in the needed combo.
All that won´t change, Yoshi follows his clear vision of "dumb down everything". PvP and healers will be the next step. But hell, don´t take the last part of complexity away from us, no matter how bad it seems to be implemented. You won´t be a better player when you choose the easy mode. It just makes the game uninteresting and boring.

In kind of NIN / DRG i´ve given some ideas before to make them somewhat more interesting and "background-depended", because their positionals are indeed useless / meaningless. But in case of MNK... the whole class cries POSITIONALS! and that´s fine.

Healers and PvP have already been hit, or have you not seen the 1 button dps and simplified healing or the combos merged to one button.

DRG and NIN positionals are worthless and don't really add anything to the class. Monk was built on positionals but they still keep toning them down and even give them extra true north like ability. If they are going to keep going the route of de-emphasizing positionals even on the class designed for them, they should just get rid of them. There are much better ways of adding complexity to classes than just slapping a position requirement and a small potency buff on a few skills. Even something as small as a need to interrupt a boss with a skill (often enough the tank can't always do it) can do it or adding encounter design that requires more than just avoid aoe area, press button do damage for dps. Hell for the DRG, they could add complexity by making the jumps a bit of invicibility so that DRG could actually play the high risk high reward style being able to jump to avoid the most common type of AoEs, save your spineshatter and dragonfire to stay in dps range or use them on cooldown to burst.

[VentVanitas]

Monk was built on positionals but they still keep toning them down and even give them extra true north like ability. If they are going to keep going the route of de-emphasizing positionals even on the class designed for them, they should just get rid of them.

It is given more positional mitigation than other melee because of the fact that it has more focus on them, it is to even things out so MNK isn't unnecessarily punished whereas the other melee would not be. SE even changed Riddle of Earth to reflect that they do not want MNK to be a melee ranged BLM that just sits still and only does mechanics, even if said RoE change was objectively worse. Positionals (actually, just one positional) have never been more important to land on the job than ever before because of how polarizing Leaden Bootshine is. Even then if you wanted to argue "why have so many positionals on MNK if Bootshine is the only one that matters," that's a problem with the design of MNK, not positionals.

There are much better ways of adding complexity to classes than just slapping a position requirement and a small potency buff on a few skills. Even something as small as a need to interrupt a boss with a skill (often enough the tank can't always do it) can do it

No, interrupting casts/mechanics isn't adding complexity. SE has already tried this and all it amounts to is creating annoying wipes because you forgot to use the skill that is utilized literally nowhere else in the entire game or fights being busted beyond challenge. (anyone remember early Stormblood One Ilm Punch?) Interruption or stunning isn't a choice or an expression of skill unlike positionals. It's an ultimatum, another fight mechanic.

Hell for the DRG, they could add complexity by making the jumps a bit of invicibility so that DRG could actually play the high risk high reward style being able to jump to avoid the most common type of AoEs, save your spineshatter and dragonfire to stay in dps range or use them on cooldown to burst.

DRG already has to plan its jumps because of Mirage Dive and animation lock. This has been discussed a million times already, but giving DRG's jumps invincibility or dodge just like old FF games cannot and will never work with how FFXIV's encounters currently function.

(God. Take a shot every time I said positional in this post.)

[ssunny2008]

Healers and PvP have already been hit, or have you not seen the 1 button dps and simplified healing or the combos merged to one button.

Of course i did, but it´s going to be simplified even more. I remember the lines "to open it for more casuals" or something similar from the stream.

DRG and NIN positionals are worthless and don't really add anything to the class. Monk was built on positionals but they still keep toning them down and even give them extra true north like ability. If they are going to keep going the route of de-emphasizing positionals even on the class designed for them, they should just get rid of them. There are much better ways of adding complexity to classes than just slapping a position requirement and a small potency buff on a few skills. Even something as small as a need to interrupt a boss with a skill (often enough the tank can't always do it) can do it or adding encounter design that requires more than just avoid aoe area, press button do damage for dps. Hell for the DRG, they could add complexity by making the jumps a bit of invicibility so that DRG could actually play the high risk high reward style being able to jump to avoid the most common type of AoEs, save your spineshatter and dragonfire to stay in dps range or use them on cooldown to burst.

With the rework of RoE SE took even some seconds of "no positional requirements" out of MNK, for the better or the worse... it´s boss depended. There are several mechanics where you definately can´t hit positionals and RoE was and is a welcome addition is this case to save that 1 or 2 skills from losing potency. I personally don´t use TN very often, only when i obviously expect a longer "stuck in place" time you´ve at any current bossfight. (e.g. E9 platforms, E10 portals, E11 rings, E12 diamond dust)
It´s not possible without such tools and still up to the player to use them or not. Even if there are like 5s left, i´m going to play positionals if i can.

Those were my 5min brainstorming ideas for NIN / DRG if you´re interested in it: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5508499 , nothing special, but atleast something you´ve to care about.

The thing is, that ppl complain too much. Imagine SE goes into that forum and just check the headlines which are like 3-4 times "positionals are bad" in the last month, but they´re not reading through them, they might go the way to make them more and more braindead like they did in the past. That was and is a big issue. Complaints about everything.
Of course you can arque like "they´re worthless, give us something better", but what? Look at what we got. Tanks, current MNK, MCH, etc... They got changed and in kind of complexity not for the better. GL is gone but nothing is left but more ogcd´s. Tanks... do i really have to say a word about them? MCH is just straight up boring to play... healers play all the same and it´s probably going to be even worse etc...

Instead of getting ride of such "issues", they could advance them. GL was fine with all the tools to maintain it and you had atleast 2 openers to keep things rolling. It got advanced, but hey... ppl still complaint for whatever reason. Now positionals should get doomed or in case of some other writers here even "buffs as passiv" or whatever.

All that stuff just need to stop and the players should finally accept it and start to improve instead of complaining all day long. It´s one thing if a skill is completely useless or a class unplayable, but another if you just ignore the given tools or straight up bad at gaming. All classes should go back to their roots in some way and get special skills which let them shine. Not only melees.

- Let MNK his positionals
- Work more with DRG jumps
- NIN with advanced ninjutsus and more combinations
- Tanks back to their own and not that ultimate stance, invul for any TB and that 5-6 key burst every 90s
- Healer with more than DoT + 1 cast
- Give us ressources back, but class depended and not overall the same
- Get ride of "job skills"

There is a lot to do in kind of class design and i would welcome any new original and unique addition. But i´m really not a fan to take something, which works fine, out of the game. We´ve seen this a lot in the past and it just sucks.

Sad to say that SE´s goal seems to be a perfectly casualized balanced game. There is no need for customization or special tools you can work with. They want to put every subclass in their specific role with the same tools and gameplay, just different animations and more or less skillspeed. PvP is another perfect example and i highly doubt that it´ll get better with Endwalker. The limitations are actually the biggest issue, NOT the solution.
Imo, we should stop arque about removing positionals or whatever and demand that SE brings back what we lost and that they have to create more unique tools for the classes which are not just ogcd´s or a jobgauge you fill with 123. I´m pretty sure even those hard casuals or glamhunter will get bored at the time, when every class plays pretty much the same and we continue to grind the same treasure maps, fates, raids, 6 locations etc... each expansion just with a new level and new optic.

[ssunny2008]

No, interrupting casts/mechanics isn't adding complexity. SE has already tried this and all it amounts to is creating annoying wipes because you forgot to use the skill that is used literally nowhere else in the entire game or fights being busted beyond challenge. (anyone remember early Stormblood One Ilm Punch?) Interruption or stunning isn't a choice or an expression of skill unlike positionals. It's an ultimatum, another fight mechanic.

Tbh that´s another big issue. SE doesn´t force the use of such tools very often, they got even ride of a lot of them or made them "job skills". Stuff like E8s addphase were great on that side, because you had to plan "who first" and you could adjust at any time if necessary, when one side has to less damage or something went wrong, whatever. Esuna isn´t forced often enough too and you see the gap between a good and a bad healer already in dungeons if it´s used or not. Such moments were you would be like as healer: "Oh cool, we´ve a bard, someone less to cleanse." , would be cool.

Teamplay, strategy and the overall pressure on the players got pretty much deleted in the favor or casualization / balancing. It´s all about damage and how to keep uptime as long as it´s possible, meanwhile stack / spread and avoiding aoe´s. I don´t know any other MMO which got so repetitive and primitive over the years.

[IruruCece]

They've been constantly lowering the cooldown and even added charges to true north. They even gave monk, essentially a second true north. Its almost to the point that true north just serves as an additional button for something so inconsequential. They've also lowered the potency differences.

It's almost as though they've been repeatedly catering to people who expect to be catered to rather than accepting they need to get better and practice more, which still hasn't made Monk more popular as a DPS job. If nothing else, SE should make successful positionals hit harder again, because it's clear that catering to people who start threads admitting they don't even play the job but think its hard to play hasn't actually fixed a single problem with the job or attracted more high-end raiders to it.

The currently existing True North is a downgrade from what it was prior to this patch, and it previously allowed Monks to ignore positionals for a solid minute when well timed with Earth's Reply. It's almost as if SE doesn't want people to not engage with these mechanics, but rather they want True North specifically to be used in short bursts when a boss makes landing some positionals more difficult. It's meant to be used in a pinch, not something that allows you to ignore boss mechanics for almost an entire burst phase all the time.

So... what's your solution here, boss? Double melee range? Triple it? People will still complain about encounters making it hard to do the things expected of them anyway, ignoring that this is the entire point of those mechanics in the first. Like you helpfully point out, every job has a "comfort zone" in a boss fight, but these typically come with PRACTICE and a better understanding of the fight's mechanics. I can't tell you how many times I've entered raids with BLM friends who complain, ad infinitum, about how unfriendly an encounter is to their DPS, how hard it is to find time and space to cast in. There have been plenty of encounters where I've asked myself how am I going to consistently "get in there" and do the damage I need to be doing.

The solution in both cases has been to practice, get better, and accept that sometimes there's too much out of your control to safely DPS properly in. But a living DPS that is still doing damage where and when they can is still more valuable than a dead one. You cannot and will not be able to hit every single positional in a raid. A caster will not always get every cast in on their burst phase. A DOT might fall off. A self-buff might fall off. Mechanics that force these challenges on the player are intended, and players are expected to work around them by design.

If you don't like positionals, Monk isn't for you. Not every job is for everyone. It is kinda sad that positionals are pretty much all Monk has going for it in terms of both identity and as a marker of player skill, though. SE should do something about that.

[Nothv13]

If you don't like positionals, Monk isn't for you. Not every job is for everyone. It is kinda sad that positionals are pretty much all Monk has going for it in terms of both identity and as a marker of player skill, though. SE should do something about that.

Did yo know BLM have more tools to deal with their dps downtime issues than MDPS do along with a much simpler rotation? Did you know all MDPS have positionals? Hell, DRG has an ability that requires you to hit 2 positionals to even activate it. I'd expect that on the Monk, nope shoved onto DRG for some stupid reason instead of tying it to their current mechanical focus.

[IruruCece]

Did yo know BLM have more tools to deal with their dps downtime issues than MDPS do along with a much simpler rotation? Did you know all MDPS have positionals? Hell, DRG has an ability that requires you to hit 2 positionals to even activate it. I'd expect that on the Monk, nope shoved onto DRG for some stupid reason instead of tying it to their current mechanical focus.

You seem to not understand that BLMs have their own challenges forced onto them by mechanics outside of their control. Every job does. That's the point.

You do make one valid point: Monks SHOULD have more interactions between their buttons to make the positionals more rewarding. If there is a single thing from DRG I'd like to see on Monk, it'd be more of that. Successful positionals should result in more powerful variants of moves, it'd be easier visual (and numerical) feedback on pretty much every level. It might tick off people who think they are being harshly punished by SE for failing one or several, but I don't really care too much about what they think anymore.