On the Removal of Positionals

[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?

[CKNovel]

I think both your points are valid.

Positionals are a way to make melee DPS more engaging, dance around the boss and to rewards them with a bit of DPS.
Positionals are worthless and can be ignored. But at the same time we're a community that seeks to optimize Sanctuary Island.
When shifting from any other class to melee, positionals can be difficult to get the hang of it and be frustrating at first.
The rewards doesn't seem to be the problem, but the execution.

Wouldn't it be possible to keep what works as positionals and remove what feels frustrating for the melee beginner?

[Valence]

You could make positionals work on physical ranged if you wanted to, and this wouldn't be the first game to try it. Lost Ark did it as well.

I know what you're getting at with arc lengths increasing proportional to the distance from the center. One way that you could work around this is by incorporating strafing movement tools. There's a built in lock-on feature in the game that melee players used to use to maintain directional autos while performing positionals. You'd basically just need to take the same feature and make it such that your strafe speed was significantly faster than your standard walk speed. Alternatively, you could let players strafe-roll along an arc into position. It could work really well for a Shaaloani-themed dual pistol gunslinger.

I don't think there's anything wrong with adding in a mix of positionals and/or casts to physical ranged. You might be able to argue in favor of more damage if you could incorporate a mix of casts and positionals, but you'd need to get physical ranged players on board with it first, get it implemented, and then argue the change, which is very roundabout. The big problem is that physical ranged doesn't really offer anything in terms of damage, uptime, or support utility that magical ranged doesn't do equally well or better. If there wasn't a role party bonus for physical ranged, I'm sure that it would always be replaced by an additional caster. The devs basically need to identify why this role exists and what value it adds.

I don't understand the sudden obsession with giving positionals to rphys when people are fighting tooth and nails to keep them on melee DPS because it's part of the role's identity. Why do you want to make rphys have them too? I'm really puzzled by that sudden idea. I find the idea of adding cast times and positionals to rphys extremely lazy to be perfectly honest. We could come with so much better and unique for that role...

Even melee players are extremely split on the issue of positionals, and you want to suddenly spread them to other roles as well? If I wanted to play a melee with positionals, I'd play a melee with positionals. I hate positionals, that's why I don't main melee in serious content. People ask non melee mains to leave melee alone with positionals, I respectfully ask people to leave rphys alone with this in return as well.

Edit: We need to remember as well that everything used to be a lot more immobile back then, encounters and jobs alike. Current PCT is as mobile as HW MCH. All modern casters are more mobile as HW BRD ever could hope to be. Some small cast times like Iajutsu wouldn't upset anything though, as long as it's not HW levels of casting, and it's not defining of the caster identity either, but that's the whole thing, it's not gonna redefine a constraint for rphys out of the blue. It's not going to change anything.

What rphys could need is a complete refocus on non deterministic rotations and a constant challenge on the choice of skills used. Ammo was a perfect example of this. Not hard by any means, but still required constant attention depending on the patterns. We could build upon this and make it more interesting. Honestly speaking what defines a physical range? Projectiles, that require ammo, be it MCH or BRD (idk about DNC, could perhaps inspire itself from pvp DNC which is very unique). A lot of mechanics could be built around ammo with a constant need to play around it during filler phases for instance. It could go beyond simple procs.

[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.

[Supersnow845]

I’m gonna say that I came around on positionals as my original position was I think there should be a melee without positionals, but in reality there functionally is- RPR

it’s probably not optimal but I just started getting my soul gauge to 100 before I spent it to get shroud gauge and using that you can basically use true north to cover every positional (except maybe like 1 around gluttony)

With RPR you need to do like 1 positional every 2 minutes when you plan around true north, that’s fine with me, the rest of the melee can keep the positionals I don’t want to remove them for people who like them

[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]

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.

which is why I am arguing that they should change the job design for all melee. most shouldn't have positionals or should only have rear(nin), while monk and viper should be positional heavy because it makes sense for them thematically.

currently the devs are trying to appease everyone and in the end everyone ends up complaining because you can't balance the desires of players who want positionals and players who don't want them in a way that satisfies anyone. It makes most sense for the snake themed viper and martial arts themed monk to have the most positionals. It doesn't make any sense for samurai to have positionals as they should strike true with a sharp blade, nor dragoon because you just thrust straight into the target. It does make sense for nin, but only for rear positionals because it is an assassination themed job. reaper I don't care about at all and will never think about so I can't remark on that.