"Friendlies"

[Kantei]

This has turned into some what of a long post. So tl;dr version first. Roughly 9000 to 10k characters, so give me 9-10 posts before responding.

Tl:dr
We've been running a closed circuit PvP between linkshell members.
Its a great training tool for newer members.
Its takes the pressure and frustration out of pug groups.
It provides insta ques for r30 and above members.
It provides your people with alternative rule sets to play with.
It mixes players, it makes higher ranks group with lower ranks.
It mixes players, each tends to learn specfic tendicies of other members.
It mixes players, getting more members used to one another, getting your group "frontlines ready*
It is flatout the best way to introduce healers and blms to PvP.
You can practice tactics, and request the other team to employ tactics you wish to learn to counter.

[Kantei]

The past month or so Team Siren has been getting members together for what we call friendlies. I was attempting to wait to get TS's PvP guide together, but given our recent success with it, I figured I would get the information out there for the community to pass judgement on.

Our link shell has been attempting to do 4 v 4's for a while now. For the past few months. It was much easier before the match making update. But we would set up, 1 v 1's for money, and 4 v 4's for stress free learning runs.

The main purpose and spirit of friendlies is setting up stress free PvP matches that attract all walks of life. It is not win trading, our matches last anywhere from 60 seconds to 10 mins.

For now I will speak of how last nights friendlies turned out.

[Kantei]

We have been running friendlies for a few weeks, and the increased link shell chatter from us having fun while gaining serious exp caught the attention of most the members in the link shell. Slowly and surely our newer members, and older members who have remained semi-active/quiet started asking if Friendlies were happening tonight or any time soon.

We let them know they should be happening at any time of day, evening, and night, if you want to group up, and keep it friendly, then just speak up in the link shell and see what happens. Since that talk, 30/40/50 friendlies have been happening at varying hours each day. With 30 and 40s only happening when players who haven't maxed a single class yet get involved.

[Kantei]

Our friendlies have been happening between players ranked from as low as 1 to as high as 31. And remained balanced based on self imposed rules(more on that later). A few days ago a group of rank 5-10 had so much fun in them, and learned so much from our higher ranked players coaching them in between rounds, that almost that entire group of players who had little PvP experience, nor real interaction with each other, always group up when they are all on, and speak to each other like they've been in and end game static with each other for months.

Beyond that, most of them solo que without fear of pugs anymore. After being coached, they understand the roles, flow of battle, and when the loss was the groups fault, their fault, and simply when the other team had better team work. After friendlies, and actually getting enough time in PvP to understand it, losses in solo que seem less intimidating.

[Kantei]

Back to last nights Friendlies. We have been promoting signing up for friendlies days in advance, we started a website to further organize us, they begin on the 5th for us.

When we said tonight's friendlies are starting, we had 11 people instantly sign up, and almost had a second set of 4 v 4 going. Most of the people organizing it were locked into the first group, so the second group never fully formed. We still managed to swap a few in as members dropped/had to go.

We grinded friendlies for roughly 2 hours. Our ranks ranged from 1 to 29 during the first hour, to 8 to 31 during the second hour. Our teams roughly looked like this.

Tank: R1 T:R21
Melee: 27 M: 23
Ranged: 22 R: 30
Healer: 11ish H: 18ish

[Kantei]

Group A's average rank: 19.5 Group B's average rank: 22. The individual ranks listed are not 100% accurate, but the rank averages are. We swapped many members and at the moment I don't have my information in front of me. Swapping members in and out during the two hours, both groups average bounced as low as 17 and as high as 22.

We let both group A and B's members know, if B would like to improve on things like surviving focus fire, you can request that A focus fires set person in B. If someone wants to work on situational awareness, group A could request B to employ split damage tactics.

[Kantei]

Group A ended up blowing B out of the water. Given that the ranks were so far apart, from round 1 on, we stated PvE gear only. In this starting group the r18 healer had 6 healer PvP upgrades, while the r11 healer had none starting out, his main PvP class was Ranged slot.

This lead to blow out matches, given that both teams had healers that were new, and because friendlies are there with training in mind, we didn't restrict the healer with 5 skills from using them because we wanted the healer to get used to employing them in battle. Group A and B had pretty much our 2 best melee and ranged paired up on both times, one being a husband/wife combo sitting right next to each other. Regardless of which team the healers were on, they were going to have a very rough time against DPS combos that have been playing together for months. So we didn't restrict either healer from using skills.

[Kantei]

For example, playing as a DRG myself, I noticed that the healer was following my advise, used aqua fluid on me, and got repose off on me twice, ll around a proper and solid opening move for a rank 11 healer. But my maxed out fetterward, completely negated their opening move, and made our advice useless. For all intensive purposes, we asked our drgs to stop using fetterward so healers could see how their opening moves would play out against players of similar rank. That enabled the healers in a great way.

Group A still had a huge advantage though. So we allowed group B to wear PvP armor. Group A still had advantage, so we sick Tank/ranged on their tank to get the ranged playing as a healer, more into the flow of things such as healing others, situational awareness, and still having at least one person trying to interrupt his spells. A few rounds of that, and he really started to gain traction as a healer.

[Kantei]

Right when the ranged who agreed to be group B's healer finally caught stride, our rank 18 healer (19 and almost 20 after winning most matches against the other team) had to go. We replaced our rank 18 healer with a r31 healer.

Now most would say, you were blowing out the other team and you thought it was fair to add the level 31 to your team? We'll we had to let husband and wife combo continue to play with each other for the math to be right.

What is interesting, is the matches were much closer than before. It was more of a fair fight with the rank 31 on our team compared to the rank 18. This is because unlike our rank 18 who still needed to learn his flow, we all know our rank 31 healer fully understands their role, flow, and situations they will be placed in

[Kantei]

Our rank 31 healer asked, what PvP skills do you have as healer? Group B's said only purify, group A's said OK I will only use purify then. When the other healer bought attunement, our healer allowed itself attunement. These ended up being much closer matches, without either team having to pull their punches.

We also tested out other rule sets, we made everyone play naked, 0 gear, just your weapon. Extremely close matches with those rules. We also did crafting/gathering clothes. Maybe the fairest rules we have encountered to make up for rank differences.

Fun and learning aside, group A made most of the exp that day, and group B had 1-2 members who had joined the link shell that day. Those two members complained a bit, not knowing most days friendlies aren't so one sided as they were today, but if we must we will balance out exp at the end. We balanced it out by win trading 6 matches at the end. We allowed them to win each of those matches in about 30 seconds by not healing at all.