On the Removal of Positionals

[W00by]

So much yapping I actually cant be bothered to read that post.

I pretty much only play melee and would celebrate the removal of positionals. TLDR.

Then there are all the people that would be playing melee if not for positionals. You are not the voice you think you are.

If you don't want to participate in a discussion about melee DPS, then why are you in a thread dedicated to discussing melee DPS? That's not really the own you think it is...

"I can't defend my position, so I'll just ignore everything you said." The ancient techniques of internet arguments are alive and well.

Regardless, you've helped me prove my point that we care more and our words should have more weight, since you can't even be bothered to ... read. And such.

Edit: Oh, and regarding that last part: I'm so glad you brought that up, because it's always fun to discuss.

The argument that there are a ton of people that would be playing melee if positionals did not exist is complete and utter nonsense.

Melee is the most popular role in the game. It's also the role with the most jobs in the game, but even if you want to go pound-for-pound, job-for-job, jobs like Samurai, Reaper, and Dragoon are consistently winning popularity polls and demonstrating census data comparable to other roles' most popular jobs, like Caster's Summoner, Aiming's Dancer, and even tank's Warrior. And this is of course ignoring the frankly titanic presence of Viper, which is the most popular job in the game (and maybe the most popular job the game has ever had). Square Enix is surely aware of melee's popularity, too, if they were willing to launch two Melee DPS in a row in Endwalker and then Dawntrail.

If positionals were scaring everyone off, would you be able to double Dancer's playerbase and still not even get close to the amount of Vipers in PF? Viper has the most positionals, after all. It's pretty clear, statistically and scientifically, that positionals are not a massive barrier to entry.

And hey, even if they are, maybe they should stay that way. Do we really need LESS aiming DPS players...?

[HikariKurosawa]

Positionals can be ignored and are by most players, it's not a barrier to entry it's just an annoying mechanic.

[W00by]

Positionals can be ignored and are by most players, it's not a barrier to entry it's just an annoying mechanic.

Right. And if it's not too consequential, and some people find it annoying but they can easily ignore it... does it really need to go, if there are people who do like it?

[HikariKurosawa]

Right. And if it's not too consequential, and some people find it annoying but they can easily ignore it... does it really need to go, if there are people who do like it?

I think it should go from most jobs, yes. Not every melee job needs positionals, and reaper is a very poor choice to make the one that isn't positional dependent. Even then, reaper has positionals.

[W00by]

I think it should go from most jobs, yes. Not every melee job needs positionals, and reaper is a very poor choice to make the one that isn't positional dependent. Even then, reaper has positionals.

WHY should they go, though? You personally disliking them isn't a sufficient reason. (And if you read my previous post, I went into detail, as a top-10 Endwalker Reaper in Abyssos on content, about why Reaper's positionals literally don't matter and you can ignore almost all of them. Please look into that regarding Reaper.)

There are lots of reasons for them to stay, but other than "I don't like them," I've never seen anyone provide a SOLID reason for them to go. They aren't barriers to entry, they don't heavily impact other players if you aren't doing them, and they don't even heavily impact YOU if you aren't doing them. What is the reason?

[HikariKurosawa]

WHY should they go, though? You personally disliking them isn't a sufficient reason. (And if you read my previous post, I went into detail, as a top-10 Endwalker Reaper in Abyssos on content, about why Reaper's positionals literally don't matter and you can ignore almost all of them. Please look into that regarding Reaper.)

There are lots of reasons for them to stay, but other than "I don't like them," I've never seen anyone provide a SOLID reason for them to go. They aren't barriers to entry, they don't heavily impact other players if you aren't doing them, and they don't even heavily impact YOU if you aren't doing them. What is the reason?

Why? because they're not for everyone. If you like positionals, play the melee job designed around them. I don't care if viper or even monk were the positional based melee jobs, it makes most sense for them thematically. It doesn't make sense for the rest. Nin should only have rear positionals, dragoon shouldn't have positionals, samurai shouldn't have positionals.

The reason is that people strive to be optimal. Just because positionals can be ignored and are likely ignored by the vast majority, doesn't mean that someone like me ignores them. I do them to try to be optimal because I feel like I am not playing correct if I don't do them since they exist. It bothers me that they exist, it bothers me that I feel like I am doing it wrong if I ignore them.

I am sure that there are many other people like me that begrudgingly force themselves to do them. I do not and have never found it engaging, I find it annoying and that it takes away my enjoyment and focus from the actual boss fight and combat rotations.

If you don't think that's a solid reason, you're just a mean spirited person who wants everything to cater to you.

edit: Let's think of a hypothetical, where true north is reworked to be a toggle ability that just disables positionals for no loss or gain and has infinite duration. Would you still use positionals or would you toggle true north?

[rewd]

Why? because they're not for everyone. If you like positionals, play the melee job designed around them.

That's the problem, we don't have a melee job designed around them. VPR is somehow getting nerfed in this regard, MNK used to be the positional DPS but not anymore. It's perfectly fine if you design a melee job without positionals and one positional-heavy job. But the design philosophy is currently very one-sided and benefits almost univocally those who don't like positionals.

[W00by]

Why? because they're not for everyone. If you like positionals, play the melee job designed around them. I don't care if viper or even monk were the positional based melee jobs, it makes most sense for them thematically. It doesn't make sense for the rest. Nin should only have rear positionals, dragoon shouldn't have positionals, samurai shouldn't have positionals.

The reason is that people strive to be optimal. Just because positionals can be ignored and are likely ignored by the vast majority, doesn't mean that someone like me ignores them. I do them to try to be optimal because I feel like I am not playing correct if I don't do them since they exist. It bothers me that they exist, it bothers me that I feel like I am doing it wrong if I ignore them.

I am sure that there are many other people like me that begrudgingly force themselves to do them. I do not and have never found it engaging, I find it annoying and that it takes away my enjoyment and focus from the actual boss fight and combat rotations.

If you don't think that's a solid reason, you're just a mean spirited person who wants everything to cater to you.

edit: Let's think of a hypothetical, where true north is reworked to be a toggle ability that just disables positionals for no loss or gain and has infinite duration. Would you still use positionals or would you toggle true north?

I appreciate you trying to engage in an actual discussion about "why." It shows a level of engagement I appreciate for this discussion! However, I think your argument is very personal, and therefore not very applicable to the job design.

I don't begrudge anyone that just personally does not find positionals engaging. You are well within your rights to dislike anything in the world -- you could dislike the sky being blue and I wouldn't fault you for it. But this is a discussion about whether or not positionals are a beneficial game mechanic, not just our personal likes and dislikes. So our feelings-based discussions aren't enough. As I said, "I don't like it" is not a sufficient reason for removal, because then the devs would have to remove pretty much everything. Every mechanic will upset someone, maybe even a lot of people, but if there are objective reasons that mechanic is there, it can't just go without an evidence-based analysis of why it might upset people. And if them being upset is just "I don't like doing that," then providing them an alternative is a much better option than removing the thing they dislike -- like FFXIV provides an alternative in all the casters, tanks, aimings, and healers.

Additionally, you are (kind of unwittingly) arguing that FFXIV should remove anything "annoying" that stands in the way of being "optimal." Designing around your stance would necessitate that anything that adds friction to a job, even if that friction is MINISCULE, be removed because it's "a little annoying." So what does that leave for the higher end of players, not just on melee but across every job? It leaves absolutely nothing. We are barely holding on, fighting for our 1-2% increase over other players who are ignoring positionals. Would you take something even that small away from people, when it doesn't benefit you at all to remove that thing (apart from removing a mild -- and personal -- annoyance)? Other jobs have optimizations that are WAY more niche and weird and unintuitive than "hit the boss the right way."

As you said, no one is forcing you to do positionals. You admit to forcing yourself to do them. If you don't like them and are forcing yourself, maybe you should consider playing another job or role -- but you could also just accept that ignoring them is suboptimal and just have a good time regardless. As you say, games are supposed to be fun. If being optimal isn't fun for you, then why try to be? More of the community needs to realize this.

[Galvuu]

WHY should they go, though? You personally disliking them isn't a sufficient reason. (And if you read my previous post, I went into detail, as a top-10 Endwalker Reaper in Abyssos on content, about why Reaper's positionals literally don't matter and you can ignore almost all of them. Please look into that regarding Reaper.)

There are lots of reasons for them to stay, but other than "I don't like them," I've never seen anyone provide a SOLID reason for them to go. They aren't barriers to entry, they don't heavily impact other players if you aren't doing them, and they don't even heavily impact YOU if you aren't doing them. What is the reason?

Unfortunately, as was stated by some people earlier in the thread, a lot of players are averse to any sort of skill expression/skill ceiling. The penalty for positionals is absolutely minimal- we're talking 1/2%- but some people feel "punished" because they either can't execute them or can't be bothered to put in the time to learn how to do it. That seems to be the crux of it.
Positionals actually fulfill two roles quite well- they add a layer of skill expression/raise the ceiling without being too punishing and they add a bit of depth/fun to the melee dance, either by figuring out how to safely land them or plan your True Norths. It's really one of the most innocuous ways of achieving both things... but this is FF XIV, so here we are, for the 100th time, discussing that they should be removed because some people "don't like them" or "feel punished".

You've addressed it yourself, but the argument it leads to more interesting jobs/encounters seems to hold no water to me- you can design a job and then add positionals on top changing nothing about it. Same for encounters. By seeming everyone's admission, missing them isn't a big deal, so they don't even need to factor into... anything really.
I agree with everything you're saying, but you're not gonna get a better answer out of positional detractors- it boils up to a combination of "I don't like this mechanic", "I don't like this allows for people to play better than me" and "it will, somehow, lead to better jobs/encounters".

snip.

It's exactly because the reward is mostly negligible that positionals are fine. I can see an argument that a mechanic that slashes your damage by 30% and a beginner can't tackle might be problematic (although I actually think some jobs should be like that too). There are already jobs with almost no positionals, to the point that ignoring them (or using True North) makes it irrelevant. We don't need to grind every job to mush to appease this hypothetical "beginner". The comparison with long cast bars is once again relevant- should we delete them from PCT or BLM because this "beginner" has never dealt with them coming from another job? Absolutely not. Same argument here.

[HikariKurosawa]

Unfortunately, as was stated by some people earlier in the thread, a lot of players are averse to any sort of skill expression/skill ceiling. The penalty for positionals is absolutely minimal- we're talking 1/2%- but some people feel "punished" because they either can't execute them or can't be bothered to put in the time to learn how to do it. That seems to be the crux of it.

I want to address this part of your post again, because you have selectively chosen to ignore points people are bringing up.

Positionals are easy, they are annoying. I do them because they lead to higher dps and it's a team game. I find them annoying and it puts me off of the game because I play games to have fun. It's not about being punished, it's not about inability to execute them(lol what an insane point), it's not about not bothering to put in time to "learn how to do it"(aka pressing A or D for half a second before pressing one or two specific abilities). It's about begrudgingly engaging in a system I think is unfun in a video game, an activity designed for fun and nothing else.

Get over yourself.