On the Removal of Positionals

[CKNovel]

They said, then made bosses in EW easier to hit with less positional requirements thus all the giants / wall bosses.

I quite remember they mentionned increasing the boss hitboxes to ease melee uptime, not the positionals.
Back in shadowbringers, they already ease up the positionals, MNK's Earth Reply would gave them free positionals if I remember correctly.

Second savage tier of ShB, bosses forced a lot of disconnect, I remember E8S forced so much disconnect BLM and SMN wiped the floor with all other DPS. Even Red Mage was quite high.
In Third tier they started designing bigger hitboxes to ensure a higher melee uptime.

[W00by]

Typical.

Ok i'll made it clear, since you are dismissing or avoiding on purpose my point... and calling it "hollow argument" (yeah right)

It's not a matter or like/dislike.... I say NO to a a loud minority asking to introduce/reintroduce a bad and poorly designed gameplay mechanics that no other MMO use (or like i said for situational purpose).

It's time you start to open you eyes on how crappy and useless FFXIV positional are.... They clearly were added in the first place to create a false feeling of "action" in a quite static MMO.

An like i said, if you want "action" go play BDO (or maybe GW2 if you want a strange hybrid between tab targeted and action with no positional ^^)

Again, this argument is really hollow. You have no statistics to PROVE I'm in a loud minority (even as I am providing lots of statistics proving that the current positional-filled melees are really popular), and no proof that the vast majority want positionals removed. Unless you can poll the entire playerbase to prove me wrong, this argument will always be hollow.

You still have no in-game, evidence-based argument for why positionals create more frustration than fun. I encourage you to stop using the other games comparison because, again, other games are not FFXIV, therefore FFXIV does not have to be like every other game.

Good try though.

[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.

[W00by]

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".

Yeah, it's tragic, but I understand that feeling and perception are king when it comes to game design, and no amount of evidence-based argument can convince someone who does not like positionals to like them. But it's my hope that by at least pushing back enough that detractors realize their argument is entirely perception-based and holds no actual water from a design standpoint that they will realize it's okay to dislike something that's objectively well-designed, and that they can just play another job (or accept that they're playing melee suboptimally) if they subjectively dislike it. There are a dozen-and-change jobs that don't have to worry about melee positioning at all, and even melees that barely care about their positionals at all, so it's not as if they have no where to go. My hope is that they realize it's not okay to try and shape everything in the game to your liking without ending up in a homogenous shlock. We'll see if anyone listens, but at least I can demonstrate to others.

Why? because they're not for everyone.

After all, it's okay for something to not be for everyone. I'm a high-end ultimate raider, but I don't even have a single crafter at 70. I've also never done BLU raids because I don't like the spell collection. And, despite raiding on every other role, I've never played healer because I just don't gel with it.

But that's okay.

It doesn't have to be for everyone. As long as it's there for someone and there's a reason it exists, and it isn't HURTING anyone, it's fine.

[HikariKurosawa]

You're right I should just unsubscribe from this game. Enjoy your positionals. I like how your opinion isn't personal because you already get what you want lol. What an entitled elitist jerk. I hope the game dies because of people like you. I can always resubscribe when you're the only ones left and they are forced to change the design to cater to people like me. Elitists are the smallest minority.

Just in this thread I get people looking up logs another player took of my gameplay to invalidate my opinion because I didn't hit 100% of positionals. You people are toxic and horrible for the game's health. You don't deserve to be pandered to and I genuinely hope that the game's health suffers because of you. Dawntrail MSQ is not good like endwalker was. The devs are not lucky this time with WoW controversy and asmongold giving them the success that endwalker had for free. All of the reviews are complaining about the game, and even the elitists are unhappy with the job design. If you're pushing away the casuals and not even happy as elitists, what is the company going to do? Something has to give. I hope they ban things like fflogs and remove positionals to start off. Clearly it's not good if people are weaponizing them on the forums to invalidate the voices of others.

You don't play healer because you don't enjoy it. I play melee because I enjoy it aside from positionals. I can't help wanting to be optimal. I can't win because I feel bad to not hit positionals, but I find hitting positionals to be annoying busywork that takes away a lot of fun. Have you ever heard of a catch 22? Because that's what positionals are for me. Can't win either way. Only choice is to unsubscribe. Which I did. My account runs out august 7th. I haven't played more than an hour this entire month because the MSQ is so bad this time around. It literally puts me to sleep within minutes of playing it, but I don't want to skip the storyline. Another catch 22. Can't win with this game currently so what's the point of subscribing? The community is toxic and entitled, the gameplay doesn't care about what I want, and the story is unengaging.

[W00by]

You're right I should just unsubscribe from this game. Enjoy your positionals. I like how your opinion isn't personal because you already get what you want lol. What an entitled elitist jerk. I hope the game dies because of people like you.

I am sorry that your experience is negative right now, but I assure you, I am not saying "you should just unsubscribe." And I'm sorry that you aren't enjoying the game right now. But who's being a jerk here -- me, trying to have an evidence based discussion with you? Or you, telling me you hope the game I love dies? I didn't look up your logs, and I didn't invalidate your feelings -- quite the opposite. I'm just trying to engage in discussion here. You, who have accused me of "yapping" and being a toxic elitist, are the one being unkind here. But I understand you're frustrated.

Also, my opinion is personal. Part of the reason I want positionals to stay is because "I like positionals." But that would not be a strong enough argument for them to stay in the game. If anyone in this thread had provided me a real reason they should be removed -- something rooted in the game's design, or the objective implementation of positionals -- I would weigh that objectively. But people rarely do. And any objective criticism of positionals, I feel has a stronger argument to the opposite as to why they are an effective mechanic.

"Positionals limit fight design!" No they don't. They enhance it by making mechanics more engaging on melee since melee have to both do the positionals and the mechanic simultaneously. There are some bad mechanics, but the great ones feel so great on melee this expansion.

"Positionals limit job design!" No they don't. Square Enix has never removed something from the game and added back something cool and interesting to take advantage of the absence, not once. Until there's precedent for this, I refuse to believe they wouldn't just remove them wholesale.

"Positionals are trivial and boring busywork!" Not any more than cast times are busy work in fights that don't allow you to move. Sure, sometimes the boss doesn't challenge you to do them, but in the content where the extra damage from positionals hypothetically matters, positionals are very challenging and engaging (while not forcing you to pursue that challenge if you don't want to).

"There should be melees without positionals!" There basically are, RPR and MNK are barely thinking about them right now, and with Huton removed, NIN is almost never caught unawares and can always manipulate whether they want to do a side or a flank. Even SAM has enough timer leeway to switch order between side and flank combos depending on what Sen they have. Pretty much only Dragoon and Viper feel "prohibitive" with their positionals at times.

"Positionals make it hard to optimize!" Not really. The gain for hitting all of them is very small, and even then, a player who misses all their positionals but crits more can still do more damage than a player hitting all their positionals. The very top end shouldn't be factored into analysis, optimization should hardly matter here.

Other than "I don't like them," I haven't seen an argument that can't be countered in favor of positionals. I don't cite these arguments because I like positionals. I cite them because they're true, and have been confirmed to be true for me in my years of playing this game.

I'm really not trying to be elitist or gatekeep. It's fine to dislike them. But until someone can provide me arguments based on in-game design or numbers, I can't see any argument for positionals to be removed. I assure you that if I truly thought it was for the best, I'd welcome their removal. But, come on -- Aiming DPS is hemorrhaging players, and healers are on strike! Is melee really the role that needs changes right now?

I hope someday, you can return to the game and enjoy it, but maybe it's time for a break.

[Ramiee]

You're talking to a contrarian troll W00by don't worry about it lol.

[W00by]

It's a good rhetorical exercise to argue with a contrarian troll! Helps keep you on your toes.

Besides, they've provided me a good opportunity to demonstrate to readers not involved in the conversation why positionals are beneficial. I'm thankful for that. o7

[HikariKurosawa]

Holy TLDR. All you do is yap about your own opinion with zero consideration for the experience of others. You are the one being a jerk. You might as well have ignored every post I made and just yapped about your own feelings this entire time. It's like me posting just gave you justification to say your own takes rehashed.

Good for you getting what you want. Hope it works out for you, real happy for you and stuff. All you demonstrated is that you like positionals and think they should stay because you like them and they are largely inconsequential to ignore. So inconsequential that they are part of the reason I unsubbed from the game.

[W00by]

Holy TLDR. All you do is yap about your own opinion with zero consideration for the experience of others. You are the one being a jerk. You might as well have ignored every post I made and just yapped about your own feelings this entire time. It's like me posting just gave you justification to say your own takes rehashed.

Good for you getting what you want. Hope it works out for you, real happy for you and stuff.

I really hope so too, thank you!