Removal of Positionals

[Ransu]

Positionals are one of the best features because they enable skill diffirences to be shown through numbers.

Sitting on the corner of a circle and moving 1inch to the left or right is hardly what I'd call "skill." Skill is maintaining your rotation, resource management etc... There is zero skill involved in positionals and they add zero engagement to a fight. They are completely pointless. If they stay, they stay, if they don't, they don't. I don't really care either way, but pretending they add anything to the combat is laughable.

You are asking for something on a similar level to removing headshots for a sniper in a shooter. A weapon type thats all about accuracy. The melee dps in this game is just like that, and therefor has those gimmicks.

lmao what? You seriously tried to compared a skilled precision shot to mindlessly stepping to the left or right of the corner circle?

The moment positionals are removed, you essentialy removed the entire need for the melee dps job to exist in its entirety.

*looks at other mmos like swtor and wow*

Ya your statement here is kind of dumb.

[Mikey_R]

Sitting on the corner of a circle and moving 1inch to the left or right is hardly what I'd call "skill." Skill is maintaining your rotation, resource management etc... There is zero skill involved in positionals and they add zero engagement to a fight. They are completely pointless. If they stay, they stay, if they don't, they don't. I don't really care either way, but pretending they add anything to the combat is laughable.

Whilst that is true if you only count a striking dummy, the fun part comes when you have to try and hit them around mechanics.

I can use a similar case for cast times. You just stand there and not move. Hardly something I would call skill, might as well get rid of them. Obviously, this is a bad take as everyone knows, as soon as you have a mechanic that needs you to move, then cast times suddenly have a big impact on how you play.

Now, True North being as accessible as it is does nothing to help Positionals and the skill required to land them. Making Tue North more limiting, as backwards as it sounds, would make positionals more satisfying to land as you would be required to plan out your movement more. The same can also be said about old Riddle of Earth, making positionals something you didn't have to worry about.

All this to say, positionals were not the issue, the issue was the multitude of ways to make positionals inconsequential. The same can be seen with Summoner. Many many people complain about the lack of cast times on Summoner, and rightfully so. You signed up for a caster, but it doesn't really cast. In the same way removing all cast bars makes a caster not feel like a caster, (effectively) removing most positionals makes them fell pointless.

[AluneTempest]

If we can get better job designs (Tanks and Healers included), no ranged tax and better fights, i agree with positionals removal.

[Ransu]

Whilst that is true if you only count a striking dummy, the fun part comes when you have to try and hit them around mechanics.

99% of the time true north is available when a mechanic comes up and you can't hit a positional. True north also being an oGCD makes this a moot point along with the fact bosses are pretty static in nearly every fight minus a random turn here and there where they move to the edge of the stage for a mechanic...which again, true north...

I can use a similar case for cast times. You just stand there and not move. Hardly something I would call skill, might as well get rid of them. Obviously, this is a bad take as everyone knows, as soon as you have a mechanic that needs you to move, then cast times suddenly have a big impact on how you play.

Comparing caster play to positionals is straight up stupid. Sorry, not sorry, they are not comparable at all. Slide canceling, preplanning leyline placements etc... are massively different from whatever sklillset people seem to think comes from positionals (there are none)

Now, True North being as accessible as it is does nothing to help Positionals and the skill required to land them. Making Tue North more limiting, as backwards as it sounds, would make positionals more satisfying to land as you would be required to plan out your movement more. The same can also be said about old Riddle of Earth, making positionals something you didn't have to worry about.

It really wouldn't. All this would do is make boss fights even more limited in design as they try to maintain what little balance there is left between melee and ranged.

All this to say, positionals were not the issue, the issue was the multitude of ways to make positionals inconsequential. The same can be seen with Summoner. Many many people complain about the lack of cast times on Summoner, and rightfully so. You signed up for a caster, but it doesn't really cast. In the same way removing all cast bars makes a caster not feel like a caster, (effectively) removing most positionals makes them fell pointless.

Positionals are being made inconsequential because the devs are slowly seeing them as a problem and a limitation to boss fight designs. Its why so many boss fights now are having full circles that disable positional requirements. P2S was one of my favorite fights from the last tier because there was so many interesting mechanics and so much moving around and the boss jumping around etc... which made the fight a lot of fun and the devs had the freedom to do that because they didn't need to account for positionals. If that fight had to take positionals into account it would have been way more static and several mechanics would have been different. Would have likely been a boring fight.

If we can get better job designs (Tanks and Healers included), no ranged tax and better fights, i agree with positionals removal.

I'm fine with ranged taxed going away now that uptime for melee is basically 100% due to the massive hitboxes lol.

[Valence]

The ranged tax has never made any sense at a decent raiding level, for that uptime was not a problem once optimized, smaller hitboxes or not.

[Ransu]

The ranged tax has never made any sense at a decent raiding level, for that uptime was not a problem once optimized, smaller hitboxes or not.

True, but they didn't want ranged numbers running away. Ironically the larger hitboxes show the same problem in the other direction with melee.

[Mikey_R]

99% of the time true north is available when a mechanic comes up and you can't hit a positional. True north also being an oGCD makes this a moot point along with the fact bosses are pretty static in nearly every fight minus a random turn here and there where they move to the edge of the stage for a mechanic...which again, true north...

I already stated that True North is one of the reasons why positionals seem pointless and that it should be more restrictive. With that, it also means you shouldn't necessarily be able to hit all positionals, however, a skilled player will be able to hit more and more as they learn the fight and so contribute more, just like how BLM has to plan all the instacasts so that they can keep casting.

Comparing caster play to positionals is straight up stupid. Sorry, not sorry, they are not comparable at all. Slide canceling, preplanning leyline placements etc... are massively different from whatever sklillset people seem to think comes from positionals (there are none)

At the very core, it is about restricting movement options. Casters do this by having cast times, melees did this by having positionals. Since they are different limitations for the same problem, the player has to employ different mindsets for each, which is what made them a more unique experience. And, just to point out, even if you want to talk about bosses rotating randomly, you can predict when the boss is going to turn, fights are scripted after all, and for the most part, they will just turn and face a player, so anticipating this by moving to a more favourable position to react better is part of the fun, in the same way BLM plans out their movement tool usage.

It really wouldn't. All this would do is make boss fights even more limited in design as they try to maintain what little balance there is left between melee and ranged.

Positionals are being made inconsequential because the devs are slowly seeing them as a problem and a limitation to boss fight designs. Its why so many boss fights now are having full circles that disable positional requirements. P2S was one of my favorite fights from the last tier because there was so many interesting mechanics and so much moving around and the boss jumping around etc... which made the fight a lot of fun and the devs had the freedom to do that because they didn't need to account for positionals. If that fight had to take positionals into account it would have been way more static and several mechanics would have been different. Would have likely been a boring fight.

In what ways does it limit fight design? What is it about bosses that have a full ring that means you couldn't have positionals be relevant in them? Considering what we have had in the past, I see no reason why it would limit fight design.

Now, for a fun take, does anyone expect to be able to keep a caster GCD rolling full time and lose no damage? No. Every time you clip the GCD, or have to move where you cannot cast, or even use a GCD on a weaker action (Reprise/Scathe), it is all potential damage loss. This is generally seen as accepted, however, if a melee misses a positional, suddenly, people start complaining. Hot take, you shouldn't necessarily hit every positional, in the same way casters won't necessarily be optimal in their GCDs. So why is it one is more accepted than the other?

[Shurrikhan]

I just don't really see the benefit of them. They're not difficult to maintain and they don't really add anything imo. If they stay, they stay, if they don't then they don't and nothing really changes if they go.

Wouldn't that apply for nearly every basic increase to apm?

• Kaiten? I just don't really see the benefit of it. It wasn't difficult to maintain and it didn't really add anything imo. If it stays, it stays, if they doesn't then it doesn't and nothing really changes if it goes.
• Shinten? I just don't really see the benefit of it. It wasn't difficult to maintain and it didn't really add anything imo. If it stays, it stays, if they doesn't then it doesn't and nothing really changes if it goes.
• The Forbidden Chakra / Enlightenment? I just don't really see the benefit of them. They're not difficult to maintain and they don't really add anything imo. If they stay, they stay, if they don't then they don't and nothing really changes if they go.
• Edge/Flood of Shadow? I just don't really see the benefit of them. They're not difficult to maintain and they don't really add anything imo. If they stay, they stay, if they don't then they don't and nothing really changes if they go.

The difference, of course, is that positionals increased button usage was more distinct (in that it used the joystick/WASD, not just another discrete button), was more efficient (it didn't require a unique button), and was more contextual.
I.e.... the most button-efficient and inherently nuance-bearing (even if still not to any huge degree) way one could increase APM.

Now, if you want to make the claim that True North was hot garbage and some other, button-free finite means of leniency should have been used instead, I'd fully agree, but positionals, especially in a fluid abundance, are in themselves and oddly smart design.

[Kazimere]

When the damage difference between hitting your positional and not hitting you positional was significant, then the mechanic of hitting a positional mattered. When you wouldn't get the maximum amount of resources or benefits from not hitting your positional, then hitting a positional mattered. There are various examples of this, but I'm not going to go into them. As it stands, they're just there at this point. The damage difference is minimal, and there is no loss of resources or benefits if you miss one. In essence, you're moving just to move. People get attached to these mechanics, when the mechanic itself is pointless in its current iteration.

[Shurrikhan]

When the damage difference between hitting your positional and not hitting you positional was significant, then the mechanic of hitting a positional mattered. When you wouldn't get the maximum amount of resources or benefits from not hitting your positional, then hitting a positional mattered. There are various examples of this, but I'm not going to go into them. As it stands, they're just there at this point. The damage difference is minimal, and there is no loss of resources or benefits if you miss one. In essence, you're moving just to move. People get attached to these mechanics, when the mechanic itself is pointless in its current iteration.

For some reason I'm reminded of every other tank with caster DPS (target-centered, smaller-radius AoEs) in dungeons: "What? Group them up in front of me instead of spreading them. Dude, it doesn't matter. We can block and parry attacks from behind now. And ffs, why does are those two mobs still at twice the health of everything else? Do you even AoE, bro?"
Or, say, the tanks who insist on spinning mobs constantly because "Positionals are like nothing now anyways..."

Granted, that's more an example of unintended side-effects, but there are considerations attached to these things (in themselves and/or in playing around them) that we might not want removed. Take Bards who still Aetherial-taxi for their Black Mages despite Triple-Cast being a thing. You don't think you'll miss them... until you do.

More than that though... there's just an element of fun lost. Some of these jobs just outright feel better when they're busier, and frequent positionals (as per old Monk) are huge increases to that busyness.