Positionals

[Valence]

This age old debate tends to divide players between the ones that are more attached or have roots into action games, while it just annoys the ones with more classical rpg or tactical rpg affinities. It's cool to have jobs with demanding positionals, some with mild positionals, and some with no positionals.

1) Removing something without replacing is what SE is a champ at and only results in watering down the job system at the profit of fully focused encounter design.
2) Removing them is not a solution, and would alienate half of the melee dedicated population, even if they get replaced by something else.
3) Introducing new melee DPS jobs without positionals (new, therefore not alienating other job mains) should only come as an exchange for more intricate and complex rotations.
4) Focusing on melee DPS intricacies and complexity should come with the insurance that they also double down on ranged complexity because otherwise we're gone again for another expansion with huge debates with ranged proponents and melee proponents tearing each other apart on job difficulty and damage balance.

[Isurith]

This age old debate tends to divide players between the ones that are more attached or have roots into action games, while it just annoys the ones with more classical rpg or tactical rpg affinities.

I'm actually feeling the opposite. Like, I'm an action game player. All type of action game, be it DMC, MGR, Bayo, or souls-like.
And I pretty much hate positionnals. Because that doesn't bring anything "action-y" to the gameplay, this is just clunky, forcing me to do small side step from times to times if I want to parse correctly.

Maybe some others answers are right. Positionnals in itself could be something valuable, but their implementation just suck tbh. No skill required, little to no thinking ahead, and mild annoyance when boss decide to turn without tank input for whatever reason.

I really don't think it would water down the gameplay to remove them. Maybe on Monk, to be fair I hate Monk (for other reasons) so I'm not the best to talk about it. But on the others jobs it's clearly not needed. SAM, DRG and RPR would be better without it. Nothing of value would be lost.

[Turtledeluxe]

I'm actually feeling the opposite. Like, I'm an action game player. All type of action game, be it DMC, MGR, Bayo, or souls-like.
And I pretty much hate positionnals. Because that doesn't bring anything "action-y" to the gameplay, this is just clunky, forcing me to do small side step from times to times if I want to parse correctly.

Maybe some others answers are right. Positionnals in itself could be something valuable, but their implementation just suck tbh. No skill required, little to no thinking ahead, and mild annoyance when boss decide to turn without tank input for whatever reason.

I really don't think it would water down the gameplay to remove them. Maybe on Monk, to be fair I hate Monk (for other reasons) so I'm not the best to talk about it. But on the others jobs it's clearly not needed. SAM, DRG and RPR would be better without it. Nothing of value would be lost.

Your criticism doesn't make any sense. It doesn't take any skill, it doesn't take any brain power, but it challenges you when the boss moves. Conclusion: remove it.

Please help us understand what you're trying to say aside from deleting yet another thing from the game in the name of homogeny/getting better parses with no effort.

[Isurith]

Your criticism doesn't make any sense. It doesn't take any skill, it doesn't take any brain power, but it challenges you when the boss moves. Conclusion: remove it.

I see no contradiction. It doesn't require any skill, but it just sometimes a mild annoyance when boss decide to reposition itself out of the blue because tank pulled it 1 pixel too much to the north. That doesn't change my previous fact.

And by no mean I'm aiming for homogeny/getting better parses with no effort. I already said in a previous post that yes, melee (and jobs as a whole) are getting easier everytime. That's not a positive to me (tho it can be argued but that's another debate).

But defending positionnals as a something that add difficulty is ridiculous to me. It's nothing more than a checkbox every once in a while. And just not a fun one.

I'm not willing to die on a hill against them because I don't mind in the grand scheme of things. But defending it seems very silly to me.

[Sjol]

Please help us understand what you're trying to say aside from deleting yet another thing from the game in the name of homogeny/getting better parses with no effort.

Making it so that specific jobs get positionals based on their class fantasy would be less homogeneity to me, not more. Right now all melee DPS get it. That's homogenous within the role. The more I think about it the more I like NIN with backstrikes and MNK with multi-positionals. SAM could even get front positionals and armor, though the chaos that would cause during multi-tank busters seems high. Also, I like the DRG PVP ability that does more damage the further away you are. I guess there's more design space to positionals than flank/rear with slight DPS loss and I wish they would use it.

[Valence]

I agree with most of your points here and was glad to see this.

My personal frustration is that the current design of positionals feels bad. They feel tacked on with little rhyme or reason as if to exist to add some minor complexity to the job. Some of what I've heard is a sub set of players who don't mind positionals, but don't like how they're implemented now.

I hear you about not wanting the jobs made even simpler. There are certainly jobs that I go to when I'm brain dead and jobs I go to when I want a challenge.

I also would be okay with some jobs having positionals that only work in specific positions if they were designed better. *cough* backstab.

The frustrations outlined by a bunch of people are good ones both in favor and against. I think it's a difficult problem and little trust that SE will get it right.

I'm also wondering why certain skills are arbitrarily flank or rear, and some are none on most melees tbh.

Trick attack being rear made a huge sense, and rewarded proper positioning. Iajutsu would make sense to be positioned as well, but perhaps too punishing with the cast times. On the other hand, would reward tank-target positioning a lot more. MNK having positionals on every GCD made sense for the job. etc

On the other hand they could remove positionals on RPR and make the job more rotationally demanding in exchange since the job positionals are a total joke. But, perhaps this would annoy RPR mains so idk.

If none of this rings true with you, then melee isn't going to offer any appeal over a ranged one. If we remove all spatial constraints on melee, then you're left with a ranged job. And we have lots of those already (more than melee). We've seen a steady simplification around melee gameplay in the name of making the role more accessible, in terms of reducing positional counts and making missed postionals less punishing (potency loss rather than breaking combos). I think if you erode it further, the category might as well not exist.

I can't believe you're actually making this fallacy. If melee was a ranged job, it would have ranges over 5 yalms on its weaponskills, and yet it doesn't. If we removed all spatial constraints on melee, then every weaponskill range would go over 5y long.

However yes, removing positionals by definition expands the amount of space accessible for maximum output, while keeping them makes part of that space smaller in damage output. But if they were ranged, the whole arena would be valid to land shots, yet it's not the case. You're only saying that because of giant hitboxes, and they're apparently going away next expansion anyway.

Another difference that I've seen in various games is that ranged classes get hit with specific kinds of mechanics to force movement. I'm not sure how much that happens here, but it's definitely a possibility to build into the encounters.

It used to happen more in the past (yet not enough, but it did happen more than today). Today in fact, what puts range and melee apart in terms of mechanics is which mechanics force you to stand away from the boss hitbox, especially in EW (with those gigantic hitboxes). But even before EW's hitboxes, fights were already designed with melees in mind, the difference is that they sometimes had to disconnect a bit and work to keep their uptime, but any competent melee player hit 99% uptime regardless.

The real issue is having mechanics that actually force long and arduous movement from specific targets (like Pantokrator baits, etc), which would actually give rphys some meaning, but I guess you could also just bring a SMN and it would be the same anyway.

[Isurith]

On the other hand they could remove positionals on RPR and make the job more rotationally demanding in exchange since the job positionals are a total joke. But, perhaps this would annoy RPR mains so idk.

I would gladly take that. Remove Shadow of death (or make it being refreshed by the end of a combo) and positionnals, and give me a more complexe rotation instead.

[Lyth]

Making it so that specific jobs get positionals based on their class fantasy would be less homogeneity to me, not more. Right now all melee DPS get it. That's homogenous within the role.

This is a bit like saying that Magical DPS are homogeneous for them all having some degree of cast times on their spells. There comes a point where all jobs in a role category have to have some degree of common gameplay features, or else it ceases to be a category.

You don't necessarily need a lore justification for this. Does a painter have cast times when painting a picture? If so, why should Pictomancer have cast times? The reason is simple. If you take away the cast times, it ceases to belong within the role category. You've created a physical ranged job, but you've just mislabeled it as magical ranged.

Front positionals tend not to be a thing because then you have to design all your fights without cleaves, which makes tank gameplay less interesting (although a lot of fights opt for this role-based simplification). Samurai fought in wars, so I doubt they had a rule against refusing to kill an enemy soldier who had carelessly left their flank or rear unguarded in battle. Can you imagine how ineffective that would be in actual combat? You could just keep your back to them while attacking and they wouldn't be allowed to hit you.

With regards to your earlier comment, the reason why Physical Ranged don't have a role defining mechanic is because any time one is added, it gets phased out due to complaints. I think if you allow to happen on every role, all jobs will converge into that very design as an amorphous mess, and that's where the real homogenization lies.

Remove Shadow of death (or make it being refreshed by the end of a combo) and positionnals, and give me a more complexe rotation instead.

You do realize that any existing complexity in RPR's rotation is due to the existence of Death's Design, right? It's the entire basis of Double/Triple Enshroud.

[Avidria]

This is a bit like saying that Magical DPS are homogeneous for them all having some degree of cast times on their spells. There comes a point where all jobs in a role category have to have some degree of common gameplay features, or else it ceases to be a category.

I mean I kind of feel like the biggest common gameplay feature of melee is the requirement that they be in melee range to do nearly all of their damage.

[Sjol]

This is a bit like saying that Magical DPS are homogeneous for them all having some degree of cast times on their spells. There comes a point where all jobs in a role category have to have some degree of common gameplay features, or else it ceases to be a category.

...snip...

The fact that they all have cast times is part of the homogeneity, but they have other things that differentiate them.

BLM ignores normal mana rules and has a heavy penalty for interruption.
RDM has their 1,2,3 combo, a balance bar as well as their dual-cast mechanic.
SMN ditches casting times and could definitely use some more differentiation.
PIC is TBD

Positionals all being the same feels homogenous. I think that's why some people are not arguing for their wholesale removal, but to apply them intentionally to specific jobs.

Front positionals tend not to be a thing because then you have to design all your fights without cleaves, which makes tank gameplay less interesting ...snip... Samurai fought in wars, so I doubt they had a rule against refusing to kill an enemy soldier who had carelessly left their flank unguarded in battle ...snip...

With regards to SAM, the class fantasy and the reality of war are at cross-purposes, but in modern times in the West, samurai are entrusted with a certain amount of honor and attacking from behind would be counter to that. It could be very different from a Japanese viewpoint, but that's an area where I'm not really versed.

Front positionals could be a thing if you also got protection while in the front. I'm not the biggest fan of this idea, but I do recognize the design possibilities.

With regards to your earlier comment, the reason why Physical Ranged don't have a role defining mechanic is because any time one is added, it gets phased out due to complaints. I think if you allow to happen on every role, all jobs will converge into that very design as an amorphous mess, and that's where the real homogenization lies.

I think the only things that need to be true for Ranged Phys role is that most abilities have non-melee range and that they do physical damage because those two things are in the name. Everything else has been de facto true but is subject to change.

RPhys tend to distinguish themselves via other means, though I do think it's in bad shape when it comes to combat differentiation.

BRD is heavily proc-based and a ton of oGCDs, sometimes an annoying amount if you have bad ping
MCH has overheat GCD, oGCD pairing thing and is probably the least distinct
DNC has the dance matching mini-game and is probably the most distinct