Bring positive RNG

[Jeycht]

You gonna need to be more specific.
I don't understand how you want to change melee combo into rng combo. Especially with actual potency. It's gonna be a nightmare to week1 savage if your dps is rng because the game decide you are not going to do your best skill.
Or you need to fundamentaly change how the game works.

Did you try ultimate? They are pretty rng, especially TOP.

[Valence]

Really? I play rng jobs all the time and I don't see the problem at all. The thing with rng procs and similar mechanics is that as long as they are on a high sample amount during a whole fight the rng result on the final damage tends to drown a little into said sample. Not saying it has no impact mind you, but I do feel the true eye sore when it comes to damage variations is whether you dh crit or not on your big nukes, that have a very low sample size, which introduces insane swings. I'd totally agree for example if midare or hoshyo were on a proc, that would be nuts. It was actually the case for BRD when barrage didn't guarantee Refulgent and you had to use it on empyreal when RA just didn't want to proc. Do I miss the intricacies? Sure. But the damage variance felt very bad.

I also tried ultimates yes. I am not talking about rng markers and debuff vomit no. The mechanics remain the exact same into the exact same order. The rng is merely flourish variation on the same scripted choreography. It's not about tactics and RPG agency, it's about quickly adjusting your dance to a cue. There is so little else left in the game that the only way for them to bring difficulty is to crank up the perfect execution to ludicrous levels, add body checks everywhere, and make everything the most punishing possible when you miss a step, precisely because there is little rng left to introduce chaos and the unexpected.

[Mikey_R]

You need to take into account that not everyone wants RNG in their jobs. Some like the fact they can plan everything out, some like the RNG nature, this is why there should be a spectrum of jobs that fill all those niches of playstyle. The same is true for positionals, not everyone likes a positional heavy job, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't exist (RIP Monk).

If we also go back to what you call 'positive RNG' (from the first post), you seem to be looking too much from one side. I've already mentioned RNG on DRG combos for Fang and Claw/Wheeling Thrust, so I'll talk about the others.

Thundercloud. Now, I'm not a BLM main by any stretch of the imagination, but I imagine, if everything lines up and you get your Thundercloud proc/Fire 3 procs when you want, it feels good, but, what if you don't get them. You are relying on them for movement, and they just won't proc. That is going to feel bad and I'm pretty sure that's why Sharpcast is as it is now, for more leeway. Yes, Swift/Triplecast exist, no you cannot rely on having them available when you need them.

AoE Dots on Bard, the only reason it felt good was because it proced a lot, I don't see you mentioning single target, which is a dead giveaway.

Dark Knight, technically, you didn't need Dark Dance, to activate Reprisal and reset Low Blow, Dark Dance just increased the chances of it happening.

Having a boss randomly buster you without warning is bad design, you will need some sort of tell that it is going to happen, then, assuming there is no guarantee that the boss is going to use a certain number of these busters, your performance in combat is entirely dependant on what the boss does and everything is out of your hands. Plus, it is just pressing a button to counter, i would hardly consider this as 'positive rng' and would actually consider this negative, however, I might be misunderstanding exactly what the intent was.

I also know you liked the old MCH combos with the ammo system, of which, the ammo is there to specifically negate the RNG.

There is something very common in all of these points, and that is the fact you have some sort of control over the RNG, whether it is DoTing more enemies for more proc chances, increasing the chance via Dark Dance, getting those guaranteed combos via ammo and, I suspect, having Flourish on Dancer helps in the burst phase as you can guarantee you have the required procs available, or the mass accumulation of Chakra on Monk during Brotherhood etc.

The RNG feels good when it works for us, when it activates, however, you also have to take into consideration when it doesn't. Those periods of time where you don't have something to help manipulate the RNG in your favour. Those times your 12 on Dancer never procs, or you never get a feather. Those times you want just that one Repertoire proc for a full power Pitch Perfect just before you go into Mage's Ballard, never getting the Verfire/Verstone procs on RDM, never generating a chakra stack between Bootshines on Monk etc. We have all had those bad patches, but they are the things that stick out more rather than the times it benefits us.

And, to comment on guaranteed procs in burst windows, if you were to take them, it would feel even worse. As you have already mentioned, not getting Refulgent Arrow back in SB in the burst felt really bad and the same can be said for other cases as well.

Again, to reiterate, I have no issue with jobs being RNG based but to claim RNG is the thing every job needs so that encounters can feel fun again, you are mistaken.

[Jeycht]

I can already see a huge difference in my opener if I crit or not and that can be enough to wipe on dps check if the team is unlucky and can't compensate even with a lb (it's rare but that often happened in p8s when we tried week1 or on p1 TOP since we don't always use "meta comp")

I'm asking you how you want it to be to understand what you mean by an exemple of "rotation" or something but you don't provide any.
Atleast a game exemple.
But tbh I don't see how that could happen without a massive change, at that point you should simply switch to another game.
If I want a MH like fights I play MH.

[ZiraZ]

Really? I play rng jobs all the time and I don't see the problem at all. The thing with rng procs and similar mechanics is that as long as they are on a high sample amount during a whole fight the rng result on the final damage tends to drown a little into said sample. Not saying it has no impact mind you, but I do feel the true eye sore when it comes to damage variations is whether you dh crit or not on your big nukes, that have a very low sample size, which introduces insane swings. I'd totally agree for example if midare or hoshyo were on a proc, that would be nuts. It was actually the case for BRD when barrage didn't guarantee Refulgent and you had to use it on empyreal when RA just didn't want to proc. Do I miss the intricacies? Sure. But the damage variance felt very bad.

I also tried ultimates yes. I am not talking about rng markers and debuff vomit no. The mechanics remain the exact same into the exact same order. The rng is merely flourish variation on the same scripted choreography. It's not about tactics and RPG agency, it's about quickly adjusting your dance to a cue. There is so little else left in the game that the only way for them to bring difficulty is to crank up the perfect execution to ludicrous levels, add body checks everywhere, and make everything the most punishing possible when you miss a step, precisely because there is little rng left to introduce chaos and the unexpected.

Have you done TOP or any crit as melee?
Very relevant to the topic of rng, I don't think you would've ever suggested that fang & claw and wheeling thrust rng thing if you've done fights like top p1 and p3 or any crit. and yes mechanics can absolutely can have small changes in the way you map true north and the way you "maneuver" a mechanic to squeeze positionals, specially when you are being risky.
I know the same is true for casters(real casters) and healers, I suppose the game is currently very different for range phys(and smn).

[Gemina]

Really? I play rng jobs all the time and I don't see the problem at all. The thing with rng procs and similar mechanics is that as long as they are on a high sample amount during a whole fight the rng result on the final damage tends to drown a little into said sample.

Ranged jobs don't have to worry about positional attacks. I believe that's what everyone is trying to get you to understand. For EX encounters (especially with echo) and below, melee jobs can pretty much ignore positionals unless they are min/maxing, but for more difficult encounters the potency losses on missed positional attacks are going to add up very quickly to the overall raid damage. Especially for DRG.

Jobs like BRD, DNC, and even BLM to a certain extent are pretty heavily based on RNG. Enough to the point where poor/great RNG can affect the overall performance of someone who is really putting in an effort play effectively. Even if you are not a serious PvE player, you can do something like expert crafting or big game fishing to see how RNG can make or break even a player who knows full well what they are doing and puts in a ton of effort towards their stats to "hopefully" swing RNG in their favor.

I don't think mount drop RNG is anywhere close to interesting RNG. It's just frustrating and nothing else. 99 totems to make up for it is just silly. I ain't gonna farm something 99 times. But I'm gonna get accused by people that like farming that I'm not the main audience of that mechanic so... idk.

It's not supposed to be interesting. It's supposed to be frustrating. Could you imagine how quickly this content would die out if mounts were handed out like candy? The RNG and totem system is designed specifically to give the content longevity. It gives the players who choose to participate in the fights later in the patch a fair chance to get their clears. The fights also drop weapon coffers, weapons, sheet music, and a crafting mat. You can desynth the weapons for an additional chance at obtaining the crafting mat. Some of these items are also marketable and fetch a good amount of gil for them if increasing this number is something you place importance on.

There really is no such thing as positive/negative RNG when what determines if it is positive or negative rests solely on the outcome.

[Valence]

You need to take into account that not everyone wants RNG in their jobs. Some like the fact they can plan everything out, some like the RNG nature, this is why there should be a spectrum of jobs that fill all those niches of playstyle. The same is true for positionals, not everyone likes a positional heavy job, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't exist (RIP Monk).

I never stated the opposite.

I've already mentioned RNG on DRG combos for Fang and Claw/Wheeling Thrust, so I'll talk about the others.

Thundercloud. Now, I'm not a BLM main by any stretch of the imagination, but I imagine, if everything lines up and you get your Thundercloud proc/Fire 3 procs when you want, it feels good, but, what if you don't get them. You are relying on them for movement, and they just won't proc. That is going to feel bad and I'm pretty sure that's why Sharpcast is as it is now, for more leeway. Yes, Swift/Triplecast exist, no you cannot rely on having them available when you need them.

If you get a sharpcast for every thunder cast and more like you do today, is it still RNG? I don't think it is, it's just fake at best. The whole deal has always been about adjusting to it, but now you barely do that at all. You pop sharpcast every time and get a free proc to use until the next. Very rng, very adjustment, much wow. If anything sharpcast thundercloud has turned into a cumbersome non standard lines fodder.

AoE Dots on Bard, the only reason it felt good was because it proced a lot, I don't see you mentioning single target, which is a dead giveaway.

The reason it feels better on AoE than single target is because you can feel the damage it does, unlike on the latter which is just carpal tunnel. Does it still feel good today? A bit more than Bloodletter spamm, for the aforementioned reason. Does it actually feel super rewarding? No, because it's not tied anymore to dot prepositioning, rng variations, and skill. Now you pop the song and you just spamm it.

Dark Knight, technically, you didn't need Dark Dance, to activate Reprisal and reset Low Blow, Dark Dance just increased the chances of it happening.

Yes, and it was a nice skill, a thousand times more interesting than "press a button and get x% mitigation, that's it". Not only do you mitigate and do your job as tank, but on top of it you get rewarded for it.

Having a boss randomly buster you without warning is bad design, you will need some sort of tell that it is going to happen

Yes and no, it depends of the buster. Something that will delete you? Sure. ARR was full of smaller hard hitting attacks, boss crits, etc, that introduced a lot of chaos.

assuming there is no guarantee that the boss is going to use a certain number of these busters, your performance in combat is entirely dependant on what the boss does and everything is out of your hands.

It's no different than any proc job. Provide a high enough sample, on small enough potencies (not nukes), and you're good to go.

I also know you liked the old MCH combos with the ammo system, of which, the ammo is there to specifically negate the RNG.

The ammo is exactly like dark dance. It doesn't make your rotation deterministic. It even adds complexity to the burst. I don't understand what you're trying to prove with the ammo example?

There is something very common in all of these points, and that is the fact you have some sort of control over the RNG, whether it is DoTing more enemies for more proc chances, increasing the chance via Dark Dance, getting those guaranteed combos via ammo and, I suspect, having Flourish on Dancer helps in the burst phase as you can guarantee you have the required procs available, or the mass accumulation of Chakra on Monk during Brotherhood etc.

The RNG feels good when it works for us, when it activates, however, you also have to take into consideration when it doesn't. Those periods of time where you don't have something to help manipulate the RNG in your favour. Those times your 12 on Dancer never procs, or you never get a feather. Those times you want just that one Repertoire proc for a full power Pitch Perfect just before you go into Mage's Ballard, never getting the Verfire/Verstone procs on RDM, never generating a chakra stack between Bootshines on Monk etc. We have all had those bad patches, but they are the things that stick out more rather than the times it benefits us.

Control over the toolkit and bringing player agency is great. I'll never say the opposite.

Can't say I agree with your examples though. Feeling like shit about things like that sounds to me like you just don't enjoy rng and proc jobs period. You tell me that I am looking too much from one side, but it sounds like you're not doing better there tbh.

And, to comment on guaranteed procs in burst windows, if you were to take them, it would feel even worse. As you have already mentioned, not getting Refulgent Arrow back in SB in the burst felt really bad and the same can be said for other cases as well.

That's because it was (and still is) your main nuke/attack. It would be like making midare a proc.

Again, to reiterate, I have no issue with jobs being RNG based but to claim RNG is the thing every job needs so that encounters can feel fun again, you are mistaken.

Again and i'm sorry but this is also a gigantic strawman.

I can already see a huge difference in my opener if I crit or not and that can be enough to wipe on dps check if the team is unlucky and can't compensate even with a lb (it's rare but that often happened in p8s when we tried week1 or on p1 TOP since we don't always use "meta comp")

If you crit yes. Did you even read what I wrote above on crit variance vs proc variance?

I'm asking you how you want it to be to understand what you mean by an exemple of "rotation" or something but you don't provide any.
Atleast a game exemple.

I have no idea what you're asking or referring to?

If I want a MH like fights I play MH.

Ah yes, the "if you dont like something, just quit the game" argument. Nice.

[Valence]

Have you done TOP or any crit as melee?
Very relevant to the topic of rng, I don't think you would've ever suggested that fang & claw and wheeling thrust rng thing if you've done fights like top p1 and p3 or any crit. and yes mechanics can absolutely can have small changes in the way you map true north and the way you "maneuver" a mechanic to squeeze positionals, specially when you are being risky.
I know the same is true for casters(real casters) and healers, I suppose the game is currently very different for range phys(and smn).

No, TOP is one ultimate I haven't done. I suggested that wheeling and fang thing without the positionals in mind, which is true, and I probably deserved the memes on first page, but as I said, you could perfectly move the positionals out of those and give them to the fixed sections of the combos. Either way, I'm not gonna die on that hill, and certainly not for melee jobs. As I've said, fair enough. Makes me even less willing to play melee, but that's not what I main, and if you enjoy deterministic stuff, then that's great for you. As stated in the OP, I'm mostly giving feedback about my own tastes.

Still amused that people are literally fixated to that detail though.

Ranged jobs don't have to worry about positional attacks. I believe that's what everyone is trying to get you to understand. For EX encounters (especially with echo) and below, melee jobs can pretty much ignore positionals unless they are min/maxing, but for more difficult encounters the potency losses on missed positional attacks are going to add up very quickly to the overall raid damage. Especially for DRG.

Wow, wow, slow down. I've never said anywhere that melees should ignore their positionals, even if positionals those days are very close to this already for 95% of the content anyway.

Jobs like BRD, DNC, and even BLM to a certain extent are pretty heavily based on RNG.

Come on, I can buy this for BRD and perhaps DNC/RDM (which aren't full rng jobs), but BLM? rng and proc jobs are an endangered species.

Also question: if melees aren't allowed rng on some of them, then why do I have to eat fixed bland combos on MCH?

Enough to the point where poor/great RNG can affect the overall performance of someone who is really putting in an effort play effectively. Even if you are not a serious PvE player, you can do something like expert crafting or big game fishing to see how RNG can make or break even a player who knows full well what they are doing and puts in a ton of effort towards their stats to "hopefully" swing RNG in their favor.

Are you really comparing expert recipes and fishing to pve proc jobs?

People thinking that good or bad rng actually murders pve performance are being pretty delusional, cf my post higher. The biggest variance culprit is dh crit on low samples and nukes. Procs do not happen on those.

[Mawlzy]

RNG generates variance about a mean. Definitionally, you cannot have the positive without the negative.

[Valence]

You're trying to bait the use of the terms in the OP into a direction they were definitely not intended as. Why are you speaking about mathematical positives and negatives? And how do you even define encounter mechanics under such a metric?