On the Removal of Positionals

[Inosaska]

Removing them allows more players to enjoy the jobs without having to worry about where they're standing to hit optimal damage and can focus on the mechanics of the boss fights.

[Mikey_R]

Removing them allows more players to enjoy the jobs without having to worry about where they're standing to hit optimal damage and can focus on the mechanics of the boss fights.

I have a theory, so humour me for a bit. However, it is only a small subset of people who actually care about positionals.

Starting at the more casual players/less skilled, whatever you want to call them. Regardless, these are people who play the game for fun and aren't to interested in optimising jobs. They don't care about positionals so whether a job has them or not is of no consequence. Obviously here, whether positionals are there or not, doesn't matter.

Going to the opposite side, the highly skilled players, the ones who find the optimising of positionals fun would obviously hate the fact positionals are gone.

Then, we have the people in the middle. These can be split into 2 types of players. Ones who want positionals to stay and ones who want them gone. Focusing on the ones that want them to stay, they enjoy trying to optimise for positionals, they might learn fight to fight where to use true north etc. They also understand that missing a positional here and there isn't that much of an issue.

So now we talk about the last set of people, the ones who want them gone. They tend to be the ones who seem to put positionals on some sort of pedestal. If you miss one, it is the end of the world, they are a hinderance to your gameplay, so they should be removed...just because they don't like them.

The problem here, which seems to be a common thread in a lot of things, is the players mentality. As is evident by your post, you seem to put doing positionals above doing mechanics. However, boss mechanics should come first, whether you can hit the positional or not. Optimising positionals come after.

[Valence]

I have a theory, so humour me for a bit. However, it is only a small subset of people who actually care about positionals.

Starting at the more casual players/less skilled, whatever you want to call them. Regardless, these are people who play the game for fun and aren't to interested in optimising jobs. They don't care about positionals so whether a job has them or not is of no consequence. Obviously here, whether positionals are there or not, doesn't matter.

Going to the opposite side, the highly skilled players, the ones who find the optimising of positionals fun would obviously hate the fact positionals are gone.

Then, we have the people in the middle. These can be split into 2 types of players. Ones who want positionals to stay and ones who want them gone. Focusing on the ones that want them to stay, they enjoy trying to optimise for positionals, they might learn fight to fight where to use true north etc. They also understand that missing a positional here and there isn't that much of an issue.

So now we talk about the last set of people, the ones who want them gone. They tend to be the ones who seem to put positionals on some sort of pedestal. If you miss one, it is the end of the world, they are a hinderance to your gameplay, so they should be removed...just because they don't like them.

The problem here, which seems to be a common thread in a lot of things, is the players mentality. As is evident by your post, you seem to put doing positionals above doing mechanics. However, boss mechanics should come first, whether you can hit the positional or not. Optimising positionals come after.

I feel this is a blanket generalization. Perhaps it's true, perhaps it's not, but I do not recognize myself in any of those categories, and the reason I don't like positionals is because I don't like the type of gameplay, whether the UI feedback for them could be better or not, and not because it just "feels bad missing one". Sure it doesn't feel good missing one when you're actually trying, but that's a job constraint and I can respect that. My problem is that I don't feel anything good when actually succeeding at landing them, and that I don't care about that kind of gameplay, I care about my rotation and its intricacies, not where I stand relative to the target whenever I land blows. I do not consider myself casual and I do not consider myself in the "middle" as well. I just consider myself as not the target audience to positional based melee DPS, that's about it, that's why I don't main melees in serious content.

The problem with your analysis is that it's trying to paint people in a bad light by immediately labeling them with "a lack of skill" (your words), and an inability to cope with failure (missing a positional) as soon as they don't like them. Moreso, the vibe that this actually gave me is that you're trying to go for the overused "players with limited skill trying to lower the ceiling because they can't accept that they're not performing at the top otherwise". Don't get me wrong, I'm sure those exist (I actually have a certain someone from those very forums in mind...), but painting everybody that doesn't like positionals into that category feels a little bit insulting.

[Mikey_R]

that's about it, that's why I don't main melees in serious content.

So you weren't a main target for my comparison, which is fine. You don't care about positionals, so, in theory, you don't care whether they stay or go, just more visual/audio feedback would be nice.

The problem with your analysis is that it's trying to paint people in a bad light by immediately labeling them with "a lack of skill" (your words), and an inability to cope with failure (missing a positional) as soon as they don't like them. Moreso, the vibe that this actually gave me is that you're trying to go for the overused "players with limited skill trying to lower the ceiling because they can't accept that they're not performing at the top otherwise". Don't get me wrong, I'm sure those exist (I actually have a certain someone from those very forums in mind...), but painting everybody that doesn't like positionals into that category feels a little bit insulting.

I do admit, skill wasn't the best word to use, but I used it in lieu of a better word to describe what I was trying to articulate. However, I never said that they couldn't cope with failure. I sad they put too much emphasis on how much positionals affect damage and, as a result, they think the are doing much worse than they actually are. So, they want to make the game easier, take away that bit of extra thought, just to satisfy that need. And yes, I am using the old, 'players with limited skills etc.' as that is what it is. It is players blaming the game for their own lack of ability rather than looking to improve themselves.

However, what other group of people are there? The ones that just don't like them for no reason? Should we listen to them? I don't like Dancer, should you listen to me about changing Dancer? Should be obvious, that is an absurd notion. However, you don't try and say what other categories I might have missed? If I am missing something or someone, I need to know. They might have something to say, but we also need to keep in mind what jobs they do and don't play. No point listening to someone who has no intention of playing a melee at all.

There is a surprising amount of nuance when it comes to taking feedback, so the more information provided, the better it can be assessed.

[silentwindfr]

I do admit, skill wasn't the best word to use, but I used it in lieu of a better word to describe what I was trying to articulate. However, I never said that they couldn't cope with failure. I sad they put too much emphasis on how much positionals affect damage and, as a result, they think the are doing much worse than they actually are. So, they want to make the game easier, take away that bit of extra thought, just to satisfy that need. And yes, I am using the old, 'players with limited skills etc.' as that is what it is. It is players blaming the game for their own lack of ability rather than looking to improve themselves.

However, what other group of people are there? The ones that just don't like them for no reason? Should we listen to them? I don't like Dancer, should you listen to me about changing Dancer? Should be obvious, that is an absurd notion. However, you don't try and say what other categories I might have missed? If I am missing something or someone, I need to know. They might have something to say, but we also need to keep in mind what jobs they do and don't play. No point listening to someone who has no intention of playing a melee at all.

There is a surprising amount of nuance when it comes to taking feedback, so the more information provided, the better it can be assessed.

honestly i don't like how positional is a thing for every melee dps job....what define the melee dps job is not positional. some of them don't even make sense actually, a sam attacking in the back? a monk trying to get the hit on the side or the back only? that the point that bother me. identity and diversity of each job.... positional at this date feel forced on the job and for some don't bring anything really interesting. do it make the job harder? honestly, not really. do it bring anything interesting to the job? clearly not.... do it's fun? nope... it's a mechanic that feel outdated for many job.

with the removal of positional of most of the skill or the fact that more and more boss don't need to care about positional it's question the utility of the mechanic. like i have said i'm advocating that positional must be the identity of a job... not of a role. it's like saying every dps must have dot... make no sense. like this they can focus on more diverse gameplay and develop stuff that will be really different and make every melee job really have them own identity.

[Mikey_R]

honestly i don't like how positional is a thing for every melee dps job....what define the melee dps job is not positional. ...

With most people who do want positionals to stay, they also reflect the sentiment that there should be a range of positional requirements, including none at all.

We understand that some do not like them, so we are happy to have a job that has no positionals. However, the caveat there should be that, for those of us that do, we should have a job that caters to that need, then filling out the spectrum between with the rest. Since we have 6, we could even split it between 2 heavy positional, 2 in the middle and 2 with none.

Just to look at it from the other side, the ones who want positionals gone tend to want them gone on every job, they don't want the compromise, which tends to be why there is such a hard wall as resistance for getting rid of them completely.

[Eudyptes]

It is players blaming the game for their own lack of ability rather than looking to improve themselves.

However, what other group of people are there? The ones that just don't like them for no reason? Should we listen to them? I don't like Dancer, should you listen to me about changing Dancer? Should be obvious, that is an absurd notion. However, you don't try and say what other categories I might have missed? If I am missing something or someone, I need to know. They might have something to say, but we also need to keep in mind what jobs they do and don't play. No point listening to someone who has no intention of playing a melee at all.

So here's the thing, anyone who says positionals aren't fun are equally as valid as those who say it is fun. On this point it's moot. So when asking whether they should exist it comes down to more logical reasoning. I've mentioned before in this thread that it's really not a skill issue anymore. Any melee who is good enough to get the rotation down is more than good enough to hit positionals. However, no matter how good you are there are many mechanics that make it actually impossible to hit positionals, and many more than make it possible but not fully predictable to hit them (i.e. you know a boss is about to turn to cast something, but not which specific direction). I also have to wonder how often while bosses/you are moving and you are cutting it close how often latency causes the snapshot to be not quite on the proper position. TN isn't this almighty savior skill either. It helps, but it's still limited. I mean look at the 3rd raid boss right now. He spends more time with half his hit box out of bounds for longer than you can TN (and as far as I could tell he doesn't have the new ring, though the 4th boss does when doing a similar thing). Not to mention all the other general movement mechanics. I actually really feel like he highlights the issues with positionals very well.

To me it's just nonsense to lose damage for no reason when by rights you shouldn't. Or worse, because you are otherwise doing the fight properly. I've yet to hear a good reason why that should even be the case. the "best" argument is that "you don't lose that much so it's not that big a deal". Ok, well then if it's not that much it shouldn't be that big a deal if it's gone either. But I also think that many people who want positionals want much of the older versions and mechanics as well, which do make it a big deal, and that bigger dps loss is why SE has been redicing and removing them periodically, so that melee can keep up in more mechanically advanced fights.

[Galvuu]

Removing them allows more players to enjoy the jobs without having to worry about where they're standing to hit optimal damage and can focus on the mechanics of the boss fights.

I cannot express how much I detest this sentiment, and how much it has poisoned XIV job design over the years.
Why do you enjoy a job less if you miss 200 potency per minute? Why does this minuscule (literally minuscule, like 1%) dps loss impair your enjoyment?
Do people not realize how insane this sounds?
"I like working out, but I can't enjoy it because I don't lift like as much as Jesus Olivares."
People don't enjoy the job gameplay, at least not in a vacuum- no, they enjoy the feeling they're using a job to 100%, but without the ability or determination to actually do it. So, instead, every job must be sanded down to appease the lowest common denominator.
We can't have good players and great players, we cannot have depth in jobs because if there's any barrier of entry, or difficulty in execution, or just any attrition at all, then people won't enjoy it because we're not all doing the same damage or something.
This makes no sense- and there are already jobs where the skill ceiling is underground, to the point an auto-rotation bot can play as well as any human in the majority of content (I'm looking at you SMN).

I don't mean to single you out, but this sentiment, that I see posted frequently in many channels, drives me insane.
I'm not a good tank. I play it sporadically, but I don't put in any effort. I do it for fun. Tanks don't need to be dumbed down so an idiot like me can perform as well as a career tank. It's fine that there are optimizations or depth that I can't reach by practicing 15 minutes, or playing hyper casually. I just enjoy memeing on tank sometimes, I'm not even thinking about my damage being lower than orange percentiles, or that my gcd weaving isn't optimal. If you truly enjoy what you're doing, why does missing two or four positionals a minute for 40 potency each matter? Not criting for a nuke in burst results in a bigger damage loss- does that bother you too?!

[Eudyptes]

I cannot express how much I detest this sentiment, and how much it has poisoned XIV job design over the years.
Why do you enjoy a job less if you miss 200 potency per minute? Why does this minuscule (literally minuscule, like 1%) dps loss impair your enjoyment?
Do people not realize how insane this sounds?

I think the issue for most people is because it feels like a punishment for missing them rather than a reward for hitting them. This is actually a part of why I think positionals are a dumb, outdated mechanic that need to go as well.

To preface, I cut my teeth on MNK back in ARR, and have been primarily a melee dps main ever since, bouncing back and fourth between them. So landing positionals is so ingrained into me I often catch myself doing them on bosses that don't even require them. So this isn't coming from a "skill issue, I can't do them" perspective.

In a vacuum, positionals are stupidly easy. Let's face it, here isn't really much challenge in pushing to the left and right right every few seconds to hit them (esp nowadays when we have only a few to hit). That said, in that same vacuum why not keep them for some bonus damage on something that's not all that hard to do, right? I get where that perspective comes from. But we don't live in a vacuum. The reality is that bosses do not stand still, and no matter how good you are, how fast you are with TN, etc, you WILL miss positionals for something that is out of your control, as well as just doing mechanics properly. This just feels bad to get punished for, especially if you were doing the actual right thing like dodging an AE. On top of that DPS have natural punishments and it's why they are typically designed the way they are. This is something that for the most part extends to all games that have similar roles they are trying to keep things balanced. Melee need to be in melee range in order to hit things. Anytime something forces them out of that range their dps stops. Ranged classes simply do not have this issue. So they are naturally balanced via cast times and/or "ranged tax". So to adding further punishment on top of that is just salt in the wound if bosses are more than just glorified target dummies (which to be fair they kinda were glorified target dummies in ARR).

As for viper, I don't think it's too busy specifically. I have 100 viper, monk, ninja, and reaper right now, and with the exception of reaper they all feel pretty equally "busy". Ninja probably most of all tbh. I'm guessing it was mainly in reference to viper having ability positionals as well as combo positionals while the other classes have one or the other? Idk, I don't think it really needs any changes but I'm always happy to see positionals removed.