Are positionals a outdated thing?

[Ransu]

Not doing positionals is outdated When they're gone you're going to miss them

I don't really think I would. I still do them out of habit when I play MNK, but honestly I don't really think they add anything to the game. Its just something I do subconsciously and when there's a mechanic that prevents me from doing them I just pop true north. The concept imo has ran its course and the dev team seems acutely aware of that as they have been reducing the amount of positional's in the game by quite a bit since the launch of ARR.

they're kind of the reason melee get's to do more damage than ranged. hitboxes are so big everyone would be ranged without them

not opposed to removal but what would replace them to keep melee's value?

Positionals have nothing to do with that. Melee do more damage than physical ranged due to the concept of uptime. A physical ranged job can basically have 100% uptime, thus their damage output is calculated based on that fact.

A lot of fights have mechanics that take positionals into account, but you don't really lose uptime and true north just outright negates the potency loss. Without positionals they could focus more on mechanics that push melee away from the boss and create uptime issues for them the same way they create mechanics that force casters to move and disrupt their uptime. Its all about efficiency and finding the best solution to keep up your uptime on the boss and imo positionals don't really add anything to that front other than managing your 2 stacks of true north that are on pretty short CD's.

One of the most interestingly designed fights last tier was P2 and P2S because of the freedom they had with mechanics in relation to the arena. So I am in the camp that removing positionals would allow for more dynamic fight design which the game itself would generally benefit from on a universal scale.

I agree with this. P2S was such an interesting fight and it was really nice not having to deal with positionals. I even did a few clears on my DRG on that fight which was a ton of fun.

[Brightamethyst]

Not doing positionals is outdated When they're gone you're going to miss them

Every time someone says this I think about Cleric Stance and laugh.

[Nihility]

they're kind of the reason melee get's to do more damage than ranged. hitboxes are so big everyone would be ranged without them

not opposed to removal but what would replace them to keep melee's value?

[Esmoire]

I love them and I wish they were back to being on opo opo and raptor.

[Packetdancer]

Not only do I enjoy positionals, I will continue to stubbornly act as if all of the MNK single-target attacks have a positional requirement, even though that's no longer true!

More seriously, I actually enjoy positionals; the fact that not only am I mobile but that mobility is important so that I can shift back and forth slightly to hit positionals is part of why I've discovered I like melee DPS better than caster or physical ranged. Maybe it's because as a healer main I am used to mobility being limited, and melee is the opposite end -- you not only can move while attacking, but unlike physical ranged, you have to as part of your rotation.

Variety is the spice of life and all that? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[SamsonBlacke]

I like Positionals. They're a bonus for standing in the right place.

[Raikai]

I was watching Xenosys and I been agreeing in that positionals are at this point just dumb and a archaic system. Should they just finally get rid of positionals once and for all?

The way the XIV's combat code and GCD are, it makes a bad structure for positional based gameplay. It would be for the better if those were gone and they made up a more interesting system.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

One of the most interestingly designed fights last tier was P2 and P2S because of the freedom they had with mechanics in relation to the arena. So I am in the camp that removing positionals would allow for more dynamic fight design which the game itself would generally benefit from on a universal scale.

[Seraphor]

I'd be down with removing them in exchange for a different way of making melee complex.
Mostly because they hamper boss design because the devs have to account for melee positionals

The devs can, and have, just made positionless enemies for when positionals aren't necessary or dont work.
There's not need to remove them from the jobs when you can just remove them from the enemies when needed.

[KuroMaboroshi]

The devs can, and have, just made positionless enemies for when positionals aren't necessary or dont work.
There's not need to remove them from the jobs when you can just remove them from the enemies when needed.

This is the best answer. Anyone pretending like positional hamstring fight design is conveniently ignoring bosses that are omnidirectional.

That being said, I am not fundamentally opposed to seeing them get removed one day, but only once there is an adequate follow-up system in place that allows for the same amount of skill expression (or ideally more) in melees.