How boring is PVP now?

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

Rather than restrict premade teams, this is a great chance to see new premades.

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Premade with no restriction breaks the game. If they allowed a whole 24-player alliance premade into Rival Wings and compete against non-premades, they would probably have a 100% win rate and the opponents get 0%. Premade vs non-premade isn't fair and it would raise the barrier of entry significantly because now you must have good connections to basically form a static and be available to play same time as them to have any chance at making progress on win-related rewards. The only fair way for full premades to exist is separate premade queue and solo queue, the same way rated Feast never put premade against solo players. Unfortunately for frontlines, when matches shrink from 72 to 24 size then a whole force can be a premade, or all the good players can transfer to the same GC and not use freelance to get 100% winrate and unbalance the game.

I agree that a full alliance premade isn't terribly fair. But let me make a few corrections:

• First, premades aren't unstoppable. The only difference between a premade and non-premade is coordination, and I can say I've defeated/outsmarted premades with groups of randoms before. Takes some effort, but it IS possible.
• Connections have little to do with it. Sure, a good connection is what we all want, but it's hardly a requirement to make a team of friends to play with consistently.
• Freelancer is forced on any premade teams, so as to avoid a situation where players all transfer to one GC then queue as premades. I know there's been a movement to stop queueing Freelancer lately to reduce the chances of ending up on teams with bots, and it needs to be said that that does little more than return us to long queues because of GC imbalances. The skill of the players on your team matter far more than what color you're playing for.
• Speaking of, Rival Wings will not follow Frontlines' team setup, and instead aim for a conventional 2 team format. Ravens vs Falcons. Red vs Blue. No choice in which team you end up on. I would say that's a bit more fair, or at least less exploitable.

I appreciate theoretical possibilities and have seen a lot of crazy things in my time, including teams with no healers coming 1st. But I promise the matches I've been involved in recent weeks had such an enormous skill divide between teams that it would have taken divine intervention for the dominant side to stumble. I'm longing for the time when all teams had a chance and matches came down to the wire. That's my hope for Rival Wings. Close, competitive, exciting matches, fast queues, high participation.

PvP was re-worked in order to attract more players.
However, since we don't know numbers, it's hard to say if SE succeeded or not.

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Originally Posted by Zeonsilt

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I would call my datacenter critically bad atm. Adding exp reward did more to boost participation than gameplay changes but it was a temporary boost because the need for exp is finite and most people left when their jobs were capped. We've reverted back to no duty pops at off-peak hours (or 2 hour queue) and the peak hours having only 1 match at a time across the datacenter.

I expect largely increased participation tomorrow because it's a content patch. How long it lasts really correlates with how long it takes people to attain rewards. Garo was a huge boost to pvp activity because it gave people many gearsets and mounts to grind. That's the only time pvp ever had such a large injection of rewards all at once, and a garo pvp trailer to promote it. So... I stand by thinking the health of content correlates to the amount of time it takes to earn rewards and there usually are not enough pvp rewards to stimulate participation from patch to patch.

Can't read peoples mind or anything, but I'm pretty confident the nr. 1 reason people premade with 4+ players is to steamroll the other teams, ganking up those kills. Sure, on paper it's fully possible to beat a veteran premade team, I agree, and have done so myself, but for the majority of the times, playing with randoms vs premades (assuming premades are skilled) is a losing battle no matter how much of a skilled tactical genius you are. If people won't listen to you, tough luck.

Back in 3.x when queues were miserable it could become extremely frustrating when you'd play multiple days juggling between premades 24 vs 24, in an ever losing battle. These days it's not really an issue, considering the frustration factor, due to freelance and much better queues.

Imo, frontline should limit premades to light party. But I'm no nazi about it.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I would call my datacenter critically bad atm.

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We are from the same datacenter.
Well, yesterday i played 8vs8 Feast, and:
>Sunday
>Prime time - Evening
>Same people every match

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I expect largely increased participation tomorrow because it's a content patch.

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Until everyone got that new mount, i guess.

TL;DR FF XIV PvP playerbase is too small.

With regards to premades, I again want to clarify a few things:

The only difference between a premade and non-premade is familiarity and coordination. Neither of those are exclusive to premades. Maybe tougher to achieve, but it is within the realm of possibility.
Most premades are veteran players who - in Shatter's case - have a deeper understanding of the mode, and the various ways to score. If there's no ice to score on, we actively fight other teams, generally the lead team, or whomever attempts to take the offensive against us. I personally am always scanning the field for prime targets like battle highs or healers, or weakened targets to secure points from. That might sound cruel, but it's simply taking advantage of the various ways to score. And it needs to be noted that the descriptions for all Frontlines modes include "as well as defeating enemy players."

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Originally Posted by Zeonsilt

TL;DR FF XIV PvP playerbase is too small.

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More like significant amount of player stopped playing PvP with new system :^)

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Originally Posted by Newmanxeno

It’s fun if you have a premade. Right now on Primal, Maelstrom is the dominant force. Getting a team together to knock them down is fun.

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I am on Hyperion as well and like to do Premades. I will look you up.