"Positionals Are Bad Because Other Players Can Impact Them"

[W00by]

This is an argument I see leveraged in opposition to positionals in many of the threads that have cropped up about positionals here. Even popular streamer Preach, in his recent stream about the announced Viper changes, argued that one of the reasons positionals are so disliked is the way bosses can prevent you from doing them, or a bad tank might position the boss in a bad way that makes them hard, or even impossible, to land successfully. The argument more or less goes: "Since these things exist outside of my control, they make positionals unfun to execute because even when I'm trying to hit them, sometimes I miss and it isn't my fault."

While that feels like a fair stance, I encourage you to look at . . . any other role in the game? You will see they are just as susceptible to interference by other players as melees are.

For instance, if I'm playing caster and an inexperienced Tank points a boss that happens to have a cone cleave AoE attack, I might get hit by the cleave and have my cast cancelled by the damage. My only option is to move out of the way -- potentially losing DPS to do so. Or, if I'm on a high damage caster like Pictomancer and a tank dies, I now hold threat from the boss and its autos can cancel my casts or kill me. But it wasn't my fault, and there's nothing I can do about it except die or wait for some tank to provoke. So should casting, or perhaps even tanking be removed?

Or maybe I'm on Healer and I'm in a burst phase, but a melee DPS accidentally soaks a mechanic. I might have to drop a damage GCD in order to heal them or they'll die, even though it wasn't my fault they got hit. I could just ignore them and let them die, but it's objectively the wrong decision to favor my one damage GCD over the life of a melee DPS. But why should I have to heal them at all, if it wasn't my fault they took damage? Would removing healing prevent this frustration?

Obviously, these hypothetical removals are ridiculous, and I hope this illustrates why arguing that positionals need to go due to how other players can impact them is similarly ridiculous. This is a Massively-Multiplayer Online game, and other players of course have the power to impact us for better and for worse. Sometimes that can be annoying, but we shouldn't remove casts because Tanks can break them and we shouldn't remove healing because DPS might take extra damage in certain parties. Therefore, it also seems fair that we shouldn't remove positionals because they're harder to execute with certain tanks. I mean, compared to the other proposed damage losses here, losing a full cast of a long-cast spell can be several hundred potency, but a positional is 50 or 60 at the worst, so melees are on paper even less punished than Casters or Healers in this regard.

Hell, eliminating all the bad also gets rid of all the good. For every time I've had a Tank playing DDR with the boss, spinning it all over, I've also had a skilled tank that always keeps it turned exactly where I want it -- especially in high end content where it matters. I'd hate to be denied moments after the duty where I can go "Man, that tank was good!" simply because sometimes, a tank was lacking.

[kurkee]

I agree, especially in regards to the last part. A big part of high level skill expression can come down to having a sympathetic view for the other roles and accommodating them. A skilled tank has nuances in their playstyle that will make healing and doing damage easier. It made me appreciate my team when I was on dragoon in something like E8S, just as an example. My tanks were able to accommodate her positioning to minimize the damage of her teleports and it showed a level of competency that was especially satisfying to execute. If it did not matter and positionals weren't a factor, I understand how other players might prefer that, but there's something especially satisfying about facilitating teamwork on the micro level like that.

In addition, I personally think rewarding players for leveling different roles, trying them, and understanding them has always been a cool part of this game's design. Even a minimal grasp on one role makes you better at the other ones as you try to engage with the whole party's mechanics while helping them achieve their win conditions. A good machinist would know that I really don't want to move away from my Starry Muse ley lines and will find another safe spot since they're more capable of moving at that time. Ultimately, acknowledging other roles is a big part of the game's whole premise. It's a JRPG. Teamwork is part of the genre and that's really cool.

[Icycrits]

100% agreed.

It's insane that so many people clamoring for the removal of positionals when the failure condition for not hitting one is, more often than not, -40 potency. You don't have to hit any positionals in roulettes or alliance raids. You don't even have to do it in some ultimates. It's just a little bit of skill ceiling for those who want to show off thorough pre-planning, foresight, and mastery over some jobs which would otherwise be 1-2-3 simulators. It's part of the reason I fell in love with XIV's melees and find others lacking in other MMOs.

[ValStormbreaker]

The problem with positionals is that most players do them incorrectly and move too much. They don't realize the point of them is to reduce as much movement as possible.

There are sadly tons of really bad and misleading guides filled with misinformation. For example, this is incorrect:



This is correct:



Ideally you'd want to hug the orange line where flank meets rear, and stay there, only taking a baby step to the left or right as needed. Too many people follow the first example, and scramble to do this, which is what gets party members killed:



when what they ought to be doing is this:



A combination of community-borne misinformation, people making a bigger deal out of positionals than they really are, and inexperienced players moving way too damn much when they don't need to, is where the problems come from.

[Mikey_R]

The problem with positionals is that most players do them incorrectly and move too much. They don't realize the point of them is to reduce as much movement as possible.

There are sadly tons of really bad and misleading guides filled with misinformation. For example, this is incorrect:

No, that is correct. That is the zones that the game considers Rear and Flank. Don't believe it, test it yourself.

This info is useful incase you end up in those situations where you are closer to the front for whatever reason.

[Aco505]

As the above poster said, it's important to know about the flank area close to the front side in instances where the boss looks at you, because with careful positioning you can still hit the flanks. An example would be the last boss of the Dead Ends when moving to the wall or if you get the NE spot in Dark and Light in P11S.

[Selvokaz]

interesting...

[nalgene]

You mention it in your first paragraph but I find that bosses repositioning themselves is the more limiting factor. I know people talk about how 'the majority of the game can't play their job properly' but I don't usually have tanks holding a bosses position still / predictably enough to do melee positionals. It's more the constant uncontrollable movement of bosses that makes me not care about them.

[Post]

I think it's telling that tanks basically have no way that they are negatively impacted by other group members in the examples.

The worst I can think of is somebody pulling trash ahead of them, but unlike every other role, not only is it incredibly easy for tank to supercede enmity now, it would take an absurd effort on other players to maintain harassing a tank and not just a reasonable mistake.

My point being that tanks should maybe be affected by their group a little more; before the enmity changes it wasn't difficult to hold aggro, but this 'other players positively and negatively impact your performance in an MMO' was more fairly distributed among roles, allowing groups that managed their aggro with e.g. Elusive Jump to let their tanks dish out more damage.

[kashi11]

Tanks are effected by healers not healing, other tanks not swapping correctly, or other jobs dropping mechs on them in some cases.