On the Removal of Positionals

[Lyth]

The core difference is in our mindsets. As a melee main, I want to see more opportunities for skill differentials and optimization to exist within my chosen role. I think a lot of melee players are of a similar mindset and determination, as they just want to be challenged on their role and push themselves to the limits. They don't really pay much heed to whether other roles push themselves or not.

Casting is often cited as being a 'skill differential' on magical ranged DPS, although it's certainly not a unique feature of the role. It sounds like you don't enjoy the skill differential on magical ranged DPS at all, but you also want the skill differential removed from melee so that they don't show you up in front of everyone else. It's really amazing how different the mindsets of players on different roles can be. We are not the same.

I think if you collectively feel as a role that being forced to stop and cast is not enjoyable, then you should be discussing that topic instead of positionals. There are plenty of games that allow movement while casting. You'd functionally be playing a physical ranged job with a 5 second GCD. Far be it for any of us to try to change your gameplay preferences. We just ask that you offer us the same courtesy.

I have no idea how 'positionals limit boss design'. If a mechanic renders a positional temporarily inaccessible, players can always find workarounds, and they've introduced a new system by which they can swap between a 'positional' and 'no positional' mode for specific mechanics like the M4 soft enrage. Melee already have plenty of considerations around AoE mechanics already that intersect really nicely with positionals, so it's not a 'one or the other' situation. They work synergistically to challenge players on the role.

In short, there aren't any good reasons to remove the skill differentials from melee.

[Eudyptes]

The core difference is in our mindsets.

It's just such a weird take to assume that the only possible way to have skill differentials is positionals, which is just increasingly becoming more apparent that it's bad design as fights evolve (again, there is no skill involved one way or the other when positionals are missed because there is no opportunity to not miss them). Most games don't even use any position based combat outside of an outlier skill here and there like a stealth backstab. So unless you think FFXIV is the hardest combat based game to play you gotta concede that other options are possible.

Now, I don't think positionals are holding them back on fight design even close to as much as the 2 min meta vice grip they have going on, but it is still something that has to be in the back of their mind when designing bosses for the sake of balance. This is, once again, evident in the fact they have been pulling the teeth from positionals regularly over the last 10 years. Honestly it's a dying mechanic they just need to put it out of its misery at this point, but I'm sure they will eventually.

Also:

I think if you collectively feel as a role...

This is also very "in a vacuum" thinking. As I mentioned before positionals as they are in FFXIV are a system pretty exclusive to FFXIV. It's not unreasonable for people who just in general like a melee dps role to want a more traditional melee dps experience. Furthermore, and possibly more importantly, is you can't just discredit class fantasy as a major motivation for people to play the jobs they play. I first picked up MNK because I really like the martial artist archtype in other games, and snubbed ARR SMN completely because it was nothing like a traditional FF SMN. So a lot of mechanical critique doesn't necessarily come from a place of "too hard", but rather it makes no sense.

I've been very clear about my stance on positionals as a whole (and I haven't said anything about casting being bad, I think casting and positionals are unrelated entirely as my stance is casting = needing to stay in melee range). That said, I personally wouldn't mind if a single class, specifically ninja, kept them for a form of class identity. I still think it's an overall bad mechanic but it would at least make sense on them. But the rest? Absolutely not. I mean MNK's are famously the "come at me, bro" archtype, so why are they forced to do "backstabs"? That's rhetorical, I know the answer is because of balance and class design from ARR and bosses being very stationary back then, but that time is gone. Same for the rest of the classes. None of them make sense as to why they need to hit x skill in y position. MAYBE some spear flanking on DRG but that'd be pushing it.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day they are never going back to how they were and will very likely be gone sooner or later.