On the Removal of Positionals

[HikariKurosawa]

Unfortunately, as was stated by some people earlier in the thread, a lot of players are averse to any sort of skill expression/skill ceiling. The penalty for positionals is absolutely minimal- we're talking 1/2%- but some people feel "punished" because they either can't execute them or can't be bothered to put in the time to learn how to do it. That seems to be the crux of it.

I want to address this part of your post again, because you have selectively chosen to ignore points people are bringing up.

Positionals are easy, they are annoying. I do them because they lead to higher dps and it's a team game. I find them annoying and it puts me off of the game because I play games to have fun. It's not about being punished, it's not about inability to execute them(lol what an insane point), it's not about not bothering to put in time to "learn how to do it"(aka pressing A or D for half a second before pressing one or two specific abilities). It's about begrudgingly engaging in a system I think is unfun in a video game, an activity designed for fun and nothing else.

Get over yourself.

[Post]

Positionals only don't matter from the perspective of no enrages or when weighed against delaying a GCD or oGCD. That wasn't always the case, but it's been designed this way for a long time because missing positionals shouldn't prevent a job from functioning; that's on the order of fire spells healing Ifrit when an entire job is centered around those spells being its strongest. They're intentionally balanced this way for good reason. As far as all jobs losing more and more of them over the years, look around at every job in the battle system. "Streamline" could be considered a design tenet. It doesn't mean that melee jobs aren't designed around them, considering no melee job has never NOT had them, even in ARR where NIN only had 1 oGCD positional per minute.

I'm confident that if they removed positionals entirely that I would feel like there's something missing from every melee. Obviously I'd feel that way in the short term, but long term I know that they don't tend to replace things that they outright remove with anything else.

I can't agree that purely having 2 or 3 combo lines and having to pick which to use at one point in my filler rotation would engage me on the same level. Having choices like when you use actions that skip positionals temporarily or delay their use adds a lot of the fun in replaying fights for me, and I'm wary of changes that would lead a job closer to having a healer, tank or SMN DPS rotation. Like, tanks are just starting to get the agency to position bosses again, and people want to remove one of the main reasons they ought to be allowed to?

[Aco505]

"I don't like this mechanic", "I don't like this allows for people to play better than me"

This argument never made sense to me. As you say at the end of your post, we could use this to complain about (long) casts... or literally anything.

There's several elements in this game that allow others to play better. How many people will actively try to avoid using ranged attacks at all costs and greed well when playing melee? How many people will be mindful of resources to avoid dropping casts during movement?

And we're not even talking about Savage or Ultimate. This is present in every single combat content in the game. Whether optimizing is relevant or not will largely depend on how tight the enrage timer of a given duty is.

[Morphiana]

The discussion around positionals feels like it has become what was the discussion on ammo in WoW / FFXI, and accuracy in FFXIV.

Those aren't apples to apples with positionals, it just feels like it is a piece of the game the community is growing more frustrated with over time which will likely lead to it's removal.

To be honest, I'm not sure why it exists. In EW every boss has a giant hitbox or a hitbox that required no positionals because positionals have always lead to melee having to do more than ranged with less movement around the arena to boot.

If they removed positionals then maybe we can get bosses that aren't giant again. I noticed while replaying Garuda that she's pretty small compared to your average trial boss these days which meant a smaller hit box for positionals. Given how they wanted to make positionals easier it lead to larger bosses.

Sometimes, I don't want to fight Godzilla. Remove positionals, melee already have to contend with a shorter range of movement in a fight. Why add positionals when it leads to wall bosses or huge bosses all the time?

[Router]

If they removed positionals then maybe we can get bosses that aren't giant again.

[Galvuu]

The discussion around positionals feels like it has become what was the discussion on ammo in WoW / FFXI, and accuracy in FFXIV.

Yea, except these are nothing alike, because accuracy is a completely passive thing while positionals are about mechanical player execution. The former is rng, the latter is you pressing the right buttons at the right time. It's literally like comparing crit chance to aiming properly.

I find them annoying and it puts me off of the game because I play games to have fun. It's about begrudgingly engaging in a system I think is unfun in a video game, an activity designed for fun and nothing else.

Oh look. It's you again. This is like, you know, your opinion man (again). Clearly, by the thread and many career melees on it, people enjoy this aspect of melee gameplay, if nothing else to break the routine that are XIV heavily-scripted fights and rotations. And, like it's been said, you're free to ignore them. If it's unfun, don't engage with it- that's no reason to strip it from those who enjoy it and are invested in it.

I do them because they lead to higher dps and it's a team game.

Are you sure about that? And I was nice and picked your highest log. This is starting to be reminiscent of the BLM threads, where you barged in to spout some complete nonsense about how the changes would make it much more approachable for new BLM players and invigorate it in the endgame- turns out both of those were completely wrong and DT BLM was a disaster, heh? Maybe you should take a moment and reflect on what the career melee players are saying here, and be glad that if you hate positionals that much, you can always ignore them at a mere 1% loss that has no real impact in your ability to clear/perform.

[HikariKurosawa]

Oh look. It's you again. This is like, you know, your opinion man (again). Clearly, by the thread and many career melees on it, people enjoy this aspect of melee gameplay, if nothing else to break the routine that are XIV heavily-scripted fights and rotations. And, like it's been said, you're free to ignore them. If it's unfun, don't engage with it- that's no reason to strip it from those who enjoy it and are invested in it.

I'm more likely to unsubscribe from the game since the devs don't care about what I want than I am to stop doing positionals knowing they are optimal. I don't see why you want every melee to have watered down positionals that can almost be entirely covered by true north instead of having 2 melee jobs being positional heavy while the rest are without positionals entirely. You can have what you want, and I can have what I want.

If you enjoy positionals, play the martial arts themed monk or the snake themed viper. For everyone else, there would be every other melee to play. The only thing that is clear is that some people want positionals and some people do not want them. Which means that the devs should make some jobs positional heavy and other jobs have them removed. Like I've been saying, if you enjoy positionals so much you should be supporting this idea because it means you would get to do more positionals. Instead you get 2 positionals per rotation at most because the devs know that if they go too far with it they will make probably the majority of people too unhappy.

If you get bored of the game and need to press A or D twice every rotation to spice it up, maybe you should play a different game.

You picked a logged run of a player who doesn't log their runs because it's against ToS, and broke forum ToS by bringing it up. Good for you kid, consider a vasectomy.

[Lorika]

Would you care to explain why it's "no to everything"? If you look at my more recent posts in this thread, I've supplied substantial information about why I firmly believe in these statements.

In contrast, you have made a blanket "no" statement and provided a hollow argument about other games. First off, there are other games with positionals, but also ... FFXIV isn't every other game? I don't want FFXIV to be just like any other game, so does it really matter if it has a mechanic that every other game doesn't? After all, if you want to play a game without positionals, you can go play one of those other MMOs :^)

I don't think I'm in the majority across FFXIV. But I firmly believe we melee players enjoy positionals, and that most people who make takes like yours don't main melee, especially not at a high level -- which, no offense, is obviously the case for you as well.

Typical.

Ok i'll made it clear, since you are dismissing or avoiding on purpose my point... and calling it "hollow argument" (yeah right)

It's not a matter or like/dislike.... I say NO to a a loud minority asking to introduce/reintroduce a bad and poorly designed gameplay mechanics that no other MMO use (or like i said for situational purpose).

It's time you start to open you eyes on how crappy and useless FFXIV positional are.... They clearly were added in the first place to create a false feeling of "action" in a quite static MMO.

An like i said, if you want "action" go play BDO (or maybe GW2 if you want a strange hybrid between tab targeted and action with no positional ^^)

[Tizzy_Tormentor]

Positionals are completely fine and unintrusive. They give you something to think about while you are executing your rotation, which adds a small layer of depth to the role. Players that want to go the extra mile can show off their stuff by missing as few positionals as possible, while players that don't want to engage with them can just ignore them and not miss much.

The biggest issue I see regarding positionals is feedback and that hitting them doesn't feel rewarding, I actually thought they solved this issue in Shadowbringers with Raiden Thrust, where you hit the last positional correctly and True Thrust morphs into a cooler/stronger skill, but they nixed this in Endwalker, so I don't know.

I sincerely doubt they will ever truly remove positionals, which is fine, engage with them if you want, or don't. Personally, I'd make the penalty for missing positionals higher to alleviate the "they don't add much dps" complaint, but that would just widen the skill gap when the devs want to lower it.

[Morphiana]

They said, then made bosses in EW easier to hit with less positional requirements thus all the giants / wall bosses.

Yea, except these are nothing alike, because accuracy is a completely passive thing while positionals are about mechanical player execution. The former is rng, the latter is you pressing the right buttons at the right time. It's literally like comparing crit chance to aiming properly.

That is not the comparison I made and I addressed that, please read the entire statement. In the very next line I said those aren't apples to apples and the similarity between them is how the community felt about each prior to their removal.

Ammo / Accuracy started out okay then as time went on people became more frustrated with them until the devs finally pulled it.

The same has begun to happen here. Positionals were mostly fine when they became a thing but as time has gone on more and more people dislike them and have begun to speak up about it. This thread alone is 16 pages and it is by far not the first.

They've already weakened positionals considerably from where they were originally. A missed positional used to end your combo and you'd have to start over, now it is just a small DPS loss.

The devs have tried to keep positionals a thing by nerfing them or making fights where they're easier and easier to deal with but it has only made other things worse. We ended up with way too many wall bosses in EW, we have giant bosses now with huge hit boxes, and instead of giving the class something more interesting to keep you engaged, every melee just gets a positional instead.

Lastly, people who play both melee and tanks will tell you... Positionals add near nothing. You already have to avoid more as you have to be closer to the boss with a limited range for movement to keep hitting them as is, adding positionals in is silly.

It's an old mechanic and it could be replaced with something else. Hell, if you really must keep them, then tie some to the 2 min CD attacks so your normal attacks aren't using them. At least that would be interesting, having to change your gameplay positions only at a certain time instead of just mindlessly doing it the whole time.