Positionals

[Avidria]

I just can't believe this happened just purely because of positionals, mostly because it seems almost impossible to keep track of people doing positionals in a dungeon because it's mostly AOE, and also because just by being on the rear side of the boss you're getting most positionals automatically anyways, I mean unless you were dpsing from the front standing next to the tank all boss fight long?
If so you have bigger problems than just not doing positionals and he was probably just not happy with a dps standing next to him which is understandable, that's just not a good idea in general even if dungeon bosses don't cleave often.

People like to think they pay better attention than they do to be fair. I once had some guy get on my case for not using battle voice on cooldown for trash pulls in a dungeon. He was a total jerk about it, but he was right, so i fixed it immediately, but he continued to whine and moan and made some snarky comment on the final boss about how id "finally done it once." Stuck in my head as one of the nastiest people I've encountered in this game - a rarity, thankfully.

Anyway some people are jerks and like to fixate on stupid things to be jerks about. Id fully believe it of someone picked "this guy isnt shuffling back and forth enough" to be The Thing for them.

[Asako]

One thing that might be nice about removing positionals is that perhaps you'd see the melee spread out a bit more instead of being stacked on top of each other at the rear-flank boundary. Looks kinda silly when it happens. I'd still prefer to keep them, though.

I'd prefer they stay, but if they do get removed I hope we get more interactive bosses like P2.

[CelestiCer]

I'd prefer they stay, but if they do get removed I hope we get more interactive bosses like P2.

P2S is a watered down ( no pun intended ) wall boss in disguise to me. The supposedly unique Arena design players praise? did not make it any more enjoyable besides it having a gigantic hitbox and despite it having a cool looking Limit Cut, or at least for me from my Samurai's PoV cause. I care a lot more about how my Job feels during a fight. Like are my Iaijutsu cast times really that tight? but in P2S, I stand still to long for mechanics to resolve, nothing feels tight at all its very forgiving which boils down to it becoming a striking dummy for a lot of the fight until we roleplay Bumper-Cars which isn't interactive - despite its unique arena design which looked great.

That doesn't mean Fights without Positionals or Wall-Bosses can't be great... even though I coincidentally find P7S / P8S p2 / P12S p2 the least fun yet ironically P10S a wall boss a lot of Fun. I also don't see how giving up Positionals promises us more interactive bosses or more simplifications as Endwalker Savage has proven us pretty differently. I find ShB Savage more interactive then EW like the comparison between E11S and it's discount version P11S

[Asari5]

Add more positionals please! (especially to Monk)
And give me some juicy feedback when I hit them, because it's difficult to tell that currently.

sounds good. i dont play monk often but when i do i still do the old positionals unintentionally xD
but thats still more egaging than just standing there or jumping around without aim

[Kathryn]

I just can't believe this happened just purely because of positionals, mostly because it seems almost impossible to keep track of people doing positionals in a dungeon because it's mostly AOE, and also because just by being on the rear side of the boss you're getting most positionals automatically anyways, I mean unless you were dpsing from the front standing next to the tank all boss fight long?
If so you have bigger problems than just not doing positionals and he was probably just not happy with a dps standing next to him which is understandable, that's just not a good idea in general even if dungeon bosses don't cleave often.

You can choose to not believe it all you like, it happened the guy was abit of a douche about it aswell, as I had only just returned to the game I asked my husband what the heck he was on about as I had genuinely forgot that positionals were the crappy part of melee, honestly i havent done a dungeon since and if I will again ill go RDPS.

[mallleable]

What if they replaced postionals with directionals. Like you can have attacks that deal more damage while you are strafing or attacks that deal more damage while moving forward. This way, the positioning minigame is character relative, and will always be present no matter what shape the boss's hitbox is. A new UI element could be created to indicate what direction inputs you have active for visual clarity like how we have a cast bar. True North can can still exist for when you should not be moving.

[Lyth]

I think some roles just naturally attract different types of players. Tanks always have some potential to cause wipes. FFXIV has tried its hardest to design the anxiety out of tanking. You have auto-healing tanks who don't have to worry about losing aggro, coupled with auto-positioning bosses and an excess of defensive actions including invulns. And still, to this day, players talk about tankxiety and refuse to tank because of it.

If you're the sort of player who is actually determined to tank, then you never would have needed any such changes to get into the role in the first place. You'll wipe countless times and learn from your setbacks every time, because you naturally have thick skin and are driven to succeed. That's not something that can be taught.

Simplifying a role does not draw in new players who were not already determined to take up the mantle in the first place. Simplification only devalues their effort and devalues their experiences.

Melee DPS likewise draws in players who tend to be very obsessive about their performance. You'll find that solitary pixel that lets you maintain uptime, knowing that the slightest offset will instantly kill you. You'll stay on the boss until the very last instant before disengaging, to the point that you'll send your healers into a panic. And you'll know the fights to the point that you can recall every single movement and rotation the bosses make from memory.

And if that sounds like a horrible, awful way to play the game, then that's probably true - for you. No amount of change to the role will ever convince you to stick with it. You'll try it out, level it up, and then eventually drop it in favor of the roles you've naturally shown a preference towards in the past. After all, you didn't need any convincing to play them in the first place.

Design roles for the people who love it, not for the people who hate it.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Add more positionals please! (especially to Monk)

I'd like more positionals for monk also. I could then organize my action bars into flank and rear positionals.

And give me some juicy feedback when I hit them, because it's difficult to tell that currently.

Yes, please! Increase the number of postionals for monk, then provide obvious, visual feedback telling us if we hit or flub a positional.

[RinaB]

I wasn't specific enough in my original post. When I said EW in particular feels anti melee is because there's way too many moments in bosses or even trash where you're just constantly forced to stand out of range until a mechanic is over or you have to run out of point blank aoes as soon as you try to do some damage. It's frustrating and just feels like bad game design. It's been mentioned many times in this thread but it's pretty pathetic when people are defending positionals as some engaging form of gameplay. If we had better Job design and more interesting rotations Noone would bat an eye at the removal of positionals. Outside of a couple of rogue abilities, wow never had positionals on anything and it's never been an issue. People Def don't play melee to do flank and rear attacks either Lol and as mentioned in the thread there's no indicator showing you actually landed it. If they want to keep them in the game, give indicators they landed and make them more important.

[Reinha]

Melee DPS likewise draws in players who tend to be very obsessive about their performance. You'll find that solitary pixel that lets you maintain uptime, knowing that the slightest offset will instantly kill you. You'll stay on the boss until the very last instant before disengaging, to the point that you'll send your healers into a panic. And you'll know the fights to the point that you can recall every single movement and rotation the bosses make from memory.

Yes, doing high damage whilst maximizing uptime in melee range is the point of melee jobs. The fact that none of the above actually describes positionals should tell you why there exists melee players who are drawn to the role but would enjoy it more without a clunky mechanic with zero in-game feedback.

Design roles for the people who love it, not for the people who hate it.

Design jobs for the different people enjoying the same role, not for gatekeepers or players who want to homogenize jobs within the same role. Hopefully viper or the melee after that will have no positionals.