Positionals

[Lucyfurr1988]

Hello everyone, since the launch of EW in particular I've been finding boss design is heavily unfavorable to melee in general and especially for positionals. The Alliance raids are the number one culprit for this and it gets so frustrating I just stop caring. Either get rid of positionals or change boss design to accommodate it better. Positionals feel outdated and pointless as they typically only give a small potency increase and with the huge hit boxes and constant turning of current boss design it's more of a hassle then anything.

the easiest expansion to play a melee dps and people are still moaning....

[Jeeqbit]

As a tank main, I used to not like the idea of positionals.

But I mean, when you're playing a DPS, you're not doing tank things and a lot of things have been stripped away (like keep-up buffs), to the point where doing positionals is easier to focus on, and even desired because of how boring farming expert gets on the simpler rotations like tanks, healers and ranged DPS.

It's just a little thing to make you feel like you played well. If there's no difference between trying and not trying then everyone will be playing the game blindfolded because of how you can do your rotation without thinking or concentrating. The result is you just get hit by simple mechanics, not because you can't do them, but because you fell half-asleep doing your rotation.

[Lucyfurr1988]

SMN is the best argument against positionals.

When we can have a mage without casts then we sure can have a melee without positionals.

NIN originally was released without them. The Mudra system was supposed to be "their" thing. Positionals only got added in HW.

each melee other than monk has only 2-3 positionals iirc. smn has 3 casts per minute....

[SomeGuy22]

each melee other than monk has only 2-3 positionals iirc. smn has 3 casts per minute....

Hell, even MNK post rework has only two. The positional-heavy melee has less positionals than fuckin DRG now...

[Lucyfurr1988]

I wonder if part of the reason why this topic is being rehashed now is because Xeno suggested it recently. I think people tend to parrot on whatever they hear without attempting to formulate their own opinions.

the funny part about this is Xeno also said people parrot each other too much - different wording though but same meaning XD

[Lucyfurr1988]

Hell, even MNK post rework has only two. The positional-heavy melee has less positionals than fuckin DRG now...

yes youre right. i dont really play mnk much and havent touched it at all since rework so was unaware of how many it had. or how few i should say...

[SDaemon]

Problem is they are not gonna work on anything, all they do recently is remove and I don't want them to remove positional just to be given an IOU a mechanic or complex rotations 3 expansions later pinky promise from YP.
If they're gonna remove my positionals then I also want them to hand me that new complex rotation or new mechanic in the same patch, and with plenty of info ahead of time for feedback.
So right now I would rather play it safe and just keep my fun positionals.

Personally, I just don't see any fun or value in positionals in the current game state. I can live if they stay as is, it doesn't overly detract from my fun. It just adds zero meaningful contribution to my engagement with the game in their current state and would rather their slow death just be finalized and replaced already. I agree that given SE's track record on combat design and iteration it is unlikely we'll see anything meaningful in regard to positionals for the foreseeable future.

[Sjol]

There's a difference between consistency and homogeneity. Player feedback (particularly that which subversively shapes jobs into similarly feeling gameplay) and the desire to delete systems from the game are what make this a case of homogeneity. Now, I'm not against augmenting it. I just think if people are talking about reducing buttons, making gameplay more streamlined, etc. that all just sounds like said parse driven feedback to me.

Finding the difference between consistency and homogeneity here feels very much like hair-splitting. Please elaborate as both heavily imply sameness between different items.

I can't speak for others, but I don't use or look at my parses. My issues are with the unneeded consistency in giving all melee jobs positionals regardless to whether it aligns with their class fantasy or not. I would actually be okay with positionals being an all or nothing thing if they aligned with class fantasy.

There's just no functional argument for divorcing positionals from melee imo, disregarding evolving combat design. Inherently for melee oriented combat, position actually does matter which is why I'm simply saying that removing it altogether seems nonsensical. Moreover, having it on one class but not others creates a gameplay disadvantage in the melee subclass. If there was a pure spam melee class, it would have be nerfed into the ground most likely.

What would make something a functional argument, here? What makes something a non-functional one? Is there a reason that the disadvantage of positionals couldn't be accommodated for since they're already accommodated for with RPhys?

Also, I don't know what you mean by pure spam melee class.

[Isurith]

I don't get what parsing has to do in this discussion btw. If i want to log on a job i'll play by the rules of the job, whatever are these rules.

But that's doesn't exclude me from saying that some of these rules can be tedious and not fun.

[1313]

I wonder if part of the reason why this topic is being rehashed now is because Xeno suggested it recently. I think people tend to parrot on whatever they hear without attempting to formulate their own opinions.

It's unfortunate, because I've seen a lot of detrimental takes be propagated that way.

I love that you used the term 'parrot', as I often use that term in the same context.