New Frontlines

I really don't think they're adding this to kill off Feast... The amount of planning and development that must have gone into Shatter would suggest that they always planned for its release, it's not a case of "Well, Feast failed, lets go back to Frontlines then", they just had this in the works and now its ready.

Do I think Feast has issues? Absolutely. Much like Diadem though, I think it's potential out weighs its flaws... If they can sort out the matchmaking and rating system it might actually be enjoyable... Heck, I'll default to a previous suggestion; The seasonal rankings shouldn't be tied solely to Feast... We should have Secure, Slaughter and The Fold all brought up to Lv60 (likely with some adjustments to standardize mechanics and scoreboards), and rather than the season being "How good are you at lucky are you with Feast", we'd have a Ranking Roulette that would effectively keep all PvP alive... Bit of legwork to balance that out, since Frontlines and Wolves' Den are vastly different, but in the long run I think that would be ideal... Any new PvP they add would just expand the Ranking Roulette, rather than replacing old content...

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Originally Posted by Isala

I know you've seen the posts in here, where teams of silvers are matched against unranked and bronze. Don't pretend this is just an learn to play problem. Yes, there are a lot of learn to play problems, but the biggest issue is, and always has been the matchmaking. The second biggest issue is the match throwers who are still, as of yet, unbanned.

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I have seen the posts, but I don't buy that this makes the matchmaking somehow "broken" or "unfair." Matchmaking is not perfect, sure, but is that really surprising? The game tries to create even matches based on the ranks of available players, but unless the number of players active in each rank is completely even, then there is no way in hell that the teams would be perfectly balanced. Someone, somewhere, is bound to get the shaft and have an unbalanced set of ranks. That's a given, and there's not really a whole lot that SE can do about it.

Further, a player's ranking is not the be all end all of their skill. A bronze player does not, necessarily, suck. They might just not have time to play as frequently as a gold player. I'm not saying that losses don't happen because of bad teams. They do. It happens to everyone, but that's the point. It happens to everyone. We all have the same odds of getting a good or bad team. Which is the same in this game as it is in any competitive game. All you can do is play the hand you're dealt, especially because getting an unbalanced set or ranks across the two teams does not automatically equate a loss. Playing well can make all the difference. If you need proof of that, then you only need to look at the leader boards. I've seen the top solo-queued players range anywhere from 60-80% victory rates. You mean to tell me that they're all just super lucky? Somehow I doubt that.

Bottom line is that if people spent more time trying to improve and make the best of the matches they get rather than complaining about the system being somehow "unfair," then Feast wouldn't be nearly as toxic as it is now. Bad luck happens, sure, but it happens to us all. In any other game you are expected to roll with the punches. Why should this game be different?

We wouldn't be complaining if it was just a match of silver/bronze/gold together. -1/+1 is what we're asking for. What we're complaining about is a match where our healer gets the achievement for the very first match, against a team of almost full silver. There's a lovely screenshot of that match posted in the thread. 3 silver, losing my Gold Promotional Qualifier because of a completely new player versus 3 silver. How can you "improve" that? There is no way a healer who is stepping into PvP for the very first time is ever going to know what to do against three veterans.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

We should have Secure, Slaughter and The Fold all brought up to Lv60 (likely with some adjustments to standardize mechanics and scoreboards), and rather than the season being "How good are you at lucky are you with Feast", we'd have a Ranking Roulette that would effectively keep all PvP alive.

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I'm not so sure about this. I like the idea, but there are a few things that might cause some snags.

The first is that SE might very well not be allowed to do it for the same reason that they would not be allowed to suddenly bump up all the level 50 PvE content to 60. Not every subscribed player to FFxiv has Heavensward. SE is obligated to be considerate of players who have not purchased the expansion, because regardless of whether or not they bought it, they are still active subscribers. The fact that queues for Secure/Slaughter are dead makes no difference (no one queues for the Coils anymore either, but you don't see those bumped up to 60). What's important is that, if anyone tries to point a finger at them being unfair, they can hold up those game modes of proof that they have not been neglecting their subscribers. Nor can they be accused of trying to "force" subscribers to buy the expansion by undercutting the level 50 content. It's totally stupid, but I can see why SE might have their hands tied on this one.

The second potential snag comes with mixing casual content with the more hardcore content. As you pointed out, WD/Feast are very different from Frontlines, and the game modes attract different players who don't necessarily mix well. Remember what happened when casual players who regularly queued for Seize queued solo into WD? They got destroyed. As soon as a single pre-made WD group joined up in the Friday Night Fights, the casual players would get utterly pulverized. With that in mind, what do you think would happen if you threw a level 60 Fold and Feast in a roulette with Frontlines? The exact same thing, most likely.

The problem is with the roulette filling the blanks in queue lines. Dedicated PvP'ers who find Frontlines a little too casual will most likely be directly queuing for WD or Feast after they finish their roulette. When DF uses the roulette to fill in the blanks, those poor casual players will get the shaft by being thrown into a match with seasoned players. Vice versa, the Feast/Fold players will end up with one or two people who are only there to get their tome bonus and have no interest in attempting to win (sound familiar?). Honestly, I'm not sure if there's a way around this problem.

I think they should remove Secure & Slaughter imo. Honestly there's just too many PvP modes for the amount of players actually doing PvP, it splits up the PvP community too much giving longer queue times, hence less people doing PvP due to the mode split.

They should keep The Fold and market it as a practice mode for The Feast 4v4. Make 8v8 Feast it's own thing. The GC requirements are just a nuisance too, just adding to the length of the queue. I really want to see PvP do well but they need to remove restrictions and keep the modes to around 3 at the most. Give players more incentives to play. Introduce a few TT cards, minions etc which have a chance to drop on each victory.

Have the same game modes (Feast, Seal Rock, Shatter or w/e it's called), but just different maps/layouts and skins on artifacts for a scenery change.

It's just important to have a strong foundation. Stick to a few, excellently made game modes with different scenaries/skins etc until you can implement fixes and incentives for more players to play. Let the community grow, make a tutorial for PvP, do something with the morale stat, sort out matchmaking... etc etc.

Don't just keep adding new content for the sake of it, effectively killing previous modes and keeping the playbase scattered.

Though I do miss Seal Rock with the Flames, I think adding this in 3.3 seems like a bad idea. It would be a nice addition to add in after Season One of the Feast has completed though (especially because it will be a similar game type).

The PvP community is very small in FFXIV, splitting it up only leads to unreasonable queue times. 3.35 with no GC restrictions would be a good time to release this.

They need to stop doing this crap, really. Give the players more details so we can tell you if its a good idea, because what they've been caning out lately has been lackluster at best and not something players can invest in longer than your typical 4v4/8v8 player head bash session.

Anyways my speculation is they're going for a PvP Strategy Mode. The crystals could be resources that your players have to gather for points (hoping we can use them to get special weapons or support mechanics). I see a pillar with an odd cross on it, so I'm guessing a checkpoint system or a base of some sort that players have to capture. The area looks genuinely big, there's also a bridge in the second picture on the far left, maybe that's where our base spawn point is?

I dunno. With how they are dealing with content as of late I'm going to leave some more low expectations as I did with Feast which was also lacking in diversity. :/

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Originally Posted by Isala

We wouldn't be complaining if it was just a match of silver/bronze/gold together. -1/+1 is what we're asking for. What we're complaining about is a match where our healer gets the achievement for the very first match, against a team of almost full silver.

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That's fair, but, to be equally fair to SE, how do you propose they fix that problem? Lets look at our options here:

• They could bar new players out of 4 v 4 Feast. It would save high ranked players from being slotted with completely fresh players ... but that stops new players from even playing the game mode. They'd literally be slamming the door in new player's faces.
  
  
• They could try rank restrictions ... but they did that in the original Wolves Den, and we all know how well that worked out. Queue times went down the toilet, and the game mode died so fast it was almost as if it didn't exist in the first place.
  
  
• They could do a limited, seasonal, rank restriction, preventing new players from queuing up with anything other than unranked players ... but that wouldn't really work either. Early in the season, when everyone's rank is reset, it might work. At least, new players could queue and get into a match. However, it's entirely possible that they'd be placed in a match with one or more people who were previously in the top 10. Like I said, Bronze or Unranked does not necessarily mean you suck. People will learn that very clearly when Season 2 starts. New players would either be crucified or cost that progression player their qualifier, which is the same problem we have now, just lower in the rankings.
  
  Still, at least it's better than screwing up a gold qualifier right? Not necessarily, because the system would be incredibly unfair to the new players. Consider a new player trying out feast for the first time late in the season. If all the regular players have had enough time to rank up to silver or higher, their queue times would be astronomical. It would be the equivalent of telling them not to play at all, which is flat out not fair. They might not be good (yet), but they pay their subscription too. The game mode is for everyone, not just people who want to make a stab at getting to a higher rank which really gives them nothing unless they're at the very top of the leader boards.
  
  
• Another "barring" option is to have new players locked out of ranked game modes until they've filled a certain number of casual matches in 8 v 8 of Frontlines ... The idea is appealing, but, quite frankly, it wouldn't make a huge difference in the results. 8 v 8 and Frontlines are radically different from 4 v 4 solo-queue. You might not get the "first time" notification, but you'll still be getting an untested player who is fresh to the game mode. I can guarantee that the odds of them keeping up are just as low as they are when they queue up fresh. It's better than nothing, sure, but in the end a loss is a loss. Those new players are only going to learn through that experience, even if it comes at the expense of someone's qualifier.
  
  
• What is probably the best option is for SE to implement an unranked 4v4 "training" or "practice" mode; however, that would still require players to queue for it, and those queues would come at the cost of queue times. There's really no way to have it all, in this circumstance.

Making new modes is - and will always be if nothing changes - a temporarily fix for frontlines. At it's current state I feel lucky if I get more than 30 matches a week.

Giving rewards to top 100 players on each datacenter wouldn't hurt the community.
It could work on week to week basis and be like FC abilities. For example activate an ability that increase GC seals income by 10% (just an example from the top of my head).

At least do something to ease the queues.

SE will not spend resources on old content; asking to raise secure/slaughter to lvl 60 seems like a waste of breath.

best way to keep frontlines active = make a super rare mount drop randomly after each 1 lol make it tradable even better XD