Dear Squeenix: Instead of using FOMO to promote PVP...

They should probably redirect all the other side content budget to PvP, maybe then we would have worthwhile things to get from ranked and actually something to buy with Trophy Crystals on top of that.

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Originally Posted by ThaCa

They should probably redirect all the other side content budget to PvP, maybe then we would have worthwhile things to get from ranked and actually something to buy with Trophy Crystals on top of that.

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You want more things to buy with the Trophy Crystals? Here's a completely radical idea...

Make all the Series level rewards Trophy Crystals, then put all the past ranking armor, weapon and mount rewards from before the big EW PvP revamp into the Trophy Crystal store, and stuff like the armor sets, mounts, emotes and framer kits that have been in Series Rewards also straight into the Trophy Crystal shop.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

You want more things to buy with the Trophy Crystals? Here's a completely radical idea...

Make all the Series level rewards Trophy Crystals, then put all the past ranking armor, weapon and mount rewards from before the big EW PvP revamp into the Trophy Crystal store, and stuff like the armor sets, mounts, emotes and framer kits that have been in Series Rewards also straight into the Trophy Crystal shop.

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I would take that, at least I'd have something to use them for.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

You want more things to buy with the Trophy Crystals? Here's a completely radical idea...

then put all the past ranking armor, weapon and mount rewards from before the big EW PvP revamp into the Trophy Crystal store

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Players who didn't play ranked PvP in the past, because they didn't have "enough time" are the same players who now post on Reddit that they grinded the complete Series within half of the Patchday.
I think it is quite ironic that the difference between losing (700 Series Exp) and winning (900 Series Exp) a match, is only 200, so only like 20% more compared to your reward for just existing. I think its pretty bad if people doing 100 losses in row (or even bots) get past rewards.

Personally, I just kind of wish frontlines and rival wings gave an actual comparable amount for time spent.

Crystalline Conflict should be able to stand on it's own rather than just being a means to an end for the majority of people playing it.
Kind of screwed up how CC gets a big rush for people that just want the reward and then gets worse over time while the alternatives are such bad return on time investment that the entire reward structure is hinged on a big short term rush at the beginning of a season.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

I think what they mean to imply is that you are not very good at pvp which in turn could easily make the people that are playing with you think it was infact you that is throwing the same way you think they are the ones throwing.

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I never claimed to be good at it, but I never throw a game as a matter of principle.

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Originally Posted by JamieRose

I never claimed to be good at it, but I never throw a game as a matter of principle.

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Even when I'm losing, I try to be as big of a thorn in the other team's side that I can, even if it's stalling their victory by only a few seconds. Or I'll chase down the player that has annoyed me the entire match. If I'm going down, I'm taking someone with me. :p

Everyone you think is throwing could very well think the same of you.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

What if they just made it so that the battle passes just didnt expire. What if they made it so you could just choose any of the ones released up to the current point and work on it until it's finished?

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Said it in wow and will say it here. "seasonal" rewards should just be put into a pool of possible rewards.

Do x and you get a token to pick what you want, that way people can have a reason to participate in any season even if the latest reward doesn't fancy them.

I apologise forum format isn't really suited to posts like this so it will be a brief bit of flooding/multiposting to get it over with.

I'll start off with the rewards part and move onto the problems with the system later.
Fomo sucks for me. I hate it, I came from a PVP game that had FOMO and I couldn't always do it, sometimes I was injured or in poor health. FOMO works and players do feel bad for "missing out" and they feel pressured to play. That PVP game drained me for other reasons and it's quite similar to CC. I do still enjoy XIV's PVP and Frontlines but not a huge fan of CC.

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Originally Posted by Lacksz

I *personally* agree with you that CC is not fun to play, but there's no "FOMO" involved in promoting CC, in fact, one of the main reasons that killed CC "Ranked" mode is the lack of rewards & incentives in general.

And if you mean by "FOMO" the Series Malmstones AKA PvP Battle Pass .. it takes 1 day of spamming CC to get to level 25. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, exp almost the same. The entire new PvP system is designed to satisfy casuals.

Even Sprouts are running around in Gridania wearing the Archfiend set for example.

You have no excuses, if you couldn't reach series level 25 then it is what it is.

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This post seems good natured at the start but the rewards are there and they are limited. They're straight out FOMO. At the end of the post you even say:

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it takes 1 day of spamming CC to get to level 25.

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While it's true it COULD theoretically be done in one day, that's not healthy and I'll go out on a limb here and say it's also maybe not what the development team wanted. The battlepass rewards seem very aimed towards a long grind and there'll be a breakdown below once we're done with this post.

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You have no excuses, if you couldn't reach series level 25 then it is what it is.

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This one's a bit off, while I can see where you're coming from with the "just one day" aspect this may be an MMO and people like yourself and myself may play enough to get to 25 but that 1 day of constant grinding may not be for everyone. You will have players who put it off, you will have players who have unsubbed (the director even stated this is fine) and perhaps returned for the holiday break who may be trying to catch up on other things they've missed and even players who have circumstances in life that prevent them from playing due to real life commitments such as work, family, education and poor health.
So you're right: it is what it is as they would say on twitter & discord.

However is that really a system that works? I want to quickly move onto the time aspect which you mentioned: 1 day of grinding. There was a good post breaking some of it down here

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Originally Posted by ZavosEsperian

Series rank 25 requires an individual to acquire a total of 108,000 Series Rank EXP

Frontlines, being a mode where there are 3 different outcomes, is a bit difficult to average per say, but generally speaking if you were to get a perfectly even amount of games where you come in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd an equal number of times, this would be equate out to roughly 108 games. FL games run, on average, 15 mins from my experience so this would roughly take, on average, 27 hours to complete assuming the average.

Crystalline Conflict on the other hand is a bit easier to math out correctly since there are two possible outcomes. Assuming the average, this would be 137 rounds of Crystalline Conflict. The shorter match timer does speed things up, but a single overtime where a stalemate occurs can easily cause the match to run as long as two or three matches since overtime's time limit is theoretically infinite. As such, the average time used will be equal to the duration of a match, being 5 mins. Using this metric, the average time required for CC is about 11.4~ hours total.

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This is about right, my own calculations made for somewhere else came out at 118,000 S EXP but it could be 108k. I calculated for 118 and came out with 148 games and used an average time of 6 minutes per game (accounts for setup & post game) flat and looking at adding in the queue times, overtime etc separately. It works out with setup to be around 13.5 > 14 hours based on your 137 games figure and almost 15 hours on 148.
As you said there was no time taken for queue timers etc, so if we give an extremely swift & generous queue time of 45 seconds we're looking at a little over an hour but there's going to be natural downtime in there.
Time to dump tomes, dump wolf marks, stretch, tend to your body and accept life exists. For a grind that's around 14-15 hours you're looking at something more like somewhere between 2-5 hours of downtime.
Overall it works out as a little under a day but definitely in the range of 15-18 hours when you account for variables and downtime.

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Originally Posted by ZavosEsperian

tl;dr you can do it in a day via CC but you will hate yourself at the end of it due to imbalanced and unfun game design

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You certainly could, but I don't think any health professional would recommend even your lower 11.4 hours estimate in one day. We only have 24 hours in a day, if someone is extremely efficient and sleeps for 4 cycles lasting 6 hours & 15 minutes either way for waking/sleeping then you have 17.5 hours to get your XIV PVP wins in. That's not a lot of time for health, the downtime or queueing.
Players learned during this season that grinding CC isn't so easy as knocking out a swift 15 hour session and that leads us onto the next point.

I lost the post so this poor rewrite will have to do:

To get to lvl 25 you're putting in upwards of 12h, but why is it 12h? Because of the length of a season & patch cycle? Is that a good enough reason? Is it to bolster player numbers? To remind me to knock out a quick PVP game when I get a chance? 12-20 hours in raw game time is a lot of time. It's not a reward for winning matches, it's only there to show you put time in.

If it's 12h+ to bolster player numbers then there's more important questions like why is this required, why aren't players playing PVP already and why are we bribing people who don't want to be in PVP with mounts? That cheapens the PVP modes.
Could the PVP modes be changed? Mess with the formats? More than 1 frontline map a day, a true roulette? a playlist/roulette that drops people in CC, RW & FL, maybe game modes that aren't so netcode reliant and turn based like the series' was known for.

Why is the reward currently FOMO? Could they be put into alternative unlock systems that don't require PVP and aren't time gated? True evergreen content to unlock. That would solve the problem of players who don't want to be there and this

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I don't really think I'll ever be interested in the current PVP system, don't get me wrong it's pretty decent but I rather just play a more PVP team based game... I think the only thing that would motivate me to play ff14 PVP is good glams or something. Currently I have no real reason to feel rewarded for playing it with a lot of the rewards being Job gear that doesn't really appeal to me or mounts which I don't really collect.

I guess if they also made PVP more fun somehow? idk it's decently fun but nothing that will get me wanting to play it a lot.

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This really gets to the heart of the problem with rewards. Players are in it for the glam or mount if there is one and they're not there for the PVP. There's something missing and that needs to be looked at, not a reward if you sink 4/5ths of a day into PVP every few months

This couldn't fit in the last post where it was most suited so it can be padded out with some of the extra stuff

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

Good question, I keep seeing the notion something being not fun, but generally when asked about it they often fail to identify their actual issue and just keep going in circles, leading ultimately to no changes at all or to changes that may lead to "see you guys did the thing and it is still bad, just remove it".

Players are good at identifying that there is a problem for them to begin with.
They are really bad at identifying what the real issue for them is let alone what solution would even work.

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I agree, It's not really up to the players to come up with solutions and when you look at forums anywhere you'll see that everyone has differing ideas on what to fix, like the rewards above.
Jeff Kaplan for the disaster he was as a game director did have one thing right: tell them how the game system makes you feel and what you think is wrong with it.
Hopefully then the developers can try and find a way to change, improve and refine systems in ways that don't negatively impact other players.
I would say if you look at some of the replies you'll see some elitist views and some views which are dismissive too. That makes it harder to get to that root cause of how they feel. Forums by their nature are a very poor avenue for feedback due to their public nature.

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Originally Posted by JamieRose

How about not being screamed at by someone who fancies themselves the world's greatest shotcaller but is just being a jerk in alliance chat?

Honestly, I have more fun playing Mahjong than I do trying to unravel the nightmare that is FFXIV PvP.

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Unfotunately that is the way of Frontlines and my best advice would be to toggle off alliance chat before you enter. Some may balk at the suggestion but if you don't like obnoxious sound effect macro spam, seeing people argue or giving out wrong commands then there's really no better solution.
I personally toggle it before I play FL and I miss out on some of the fun but I also gain a +10 in sanity by not hearing macro spam constantly.

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Originally Posted by JamieRose

I am also tired of losing. Very, very, very, VERY tired of losing.

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It's hard to toggle that mental state but if losing a game makes you feel bad and you're only there for the rewards then I'd suggest you don't force yourself to play for the piece of FOMO gear. You love mahjong and that's okay. Mahjong takes far, far more skill than FL or CC even with CC's focus on macro. You can rest comfortable knowing you're having fun with tiles (:

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

Fomo is alright as concept for Ranked imo. But not for this casual Series structure, it doesn't need to be that restrictive.

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The other part of your post I won't comment on because it relates to a FOMO schedule and I'm against battlepasses in general but I do say that I absolutely disagree with this statement.
FOMO is not a great concept for ranked, it promotes people playing just for rewards and while that sounds great in principal it does mean you have people who will play only to grind out a reward like you see even with the current battlepass. The purpose of ranked modes are generall the following:
-Aim for & achieve personal goals
-Grow as a player by learning from your mistakes
-Play on an even playing field with people at the same skill level with the same objectives
While that doesn't always necessarily happen (applies to almost all ranked games) it is significantly diluted when you attract people to play a mode and bolster numbers for a reward only. You have no guarantee that the people going into it will have the same goals as you.
In every competitive gaming community there's one incredibly hard to swallow pill and that is that ranked modes are their own reward. Games you should be able to count on being consistent and pushing you as a player to improve.

That does bring us onto player motivation, who is in the matches and bring us onto the meaty beast below:

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Purposely throwing a match is a ToS violation, so I think that some people just do the bare minimum, even if it's just getting KO'ed and running back ad nauseam. They are technically making an attempt, just not a good one. But I do think that a lot of people just don't understand that FF XIV PvP isn't just player vs player.

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This is the one that says it best and it said it 11 pages in. Not only is it against what's listed in the prohibited activities but it's an example of unsportsmanship like conduct.
Sandbagging, autopiloting, running it down. Whatever degree you want to look at or what you want to call it: it's lethargic behaviour and it goes against the spirit of PVP, you are aiding the enemy.

It's not just you. In a CC lobby there's 9 others, 4 are directly on your team and 5 of them on the other team might be expecting a good match if they aren't losing it at the prospect of being rewarded quickly like they've been trained.
Going back to those statistics from earlier 137 games. If you are sandbagging/throwing 137 games that's not just 137 instances of you griefing, because you're impacting 4 players in a lobby each time at a minimum. That's 548 others who are dragged down with you because you're in a PVP mode you don't want to be in solely for a reward.

(cont...)

You take the figure for 148 games, that's 592 people you will be dragging down with you.
You don't want to be in PVP, you may even be in ranked if such rewards were implemented and you're disrupting every game because you're sandbagging for a mount you can't get through other means.
When I want to play a PVP title I do it because I want to have fun, to work together, to be challenged.
If I load in and see someone running it down on my team then I will feel demotivated. If we win I will feel angry that the victory was tougher than it could have been because someone was trying to exit the lobby ASAP for some quick series EXP.
If I'm on the opposing team and I see someone running it down and it's a stomp that snowballs then I won't feel satisfied, I won't feel challenged and I won't feel a sense of accomplishment. The victory will be hollow.
So when you account for around half the other team feeling that you're looking at 962 others who are now having a poor PVP experience and if everyone in the lobby is disappointed that's up to 1332 people who have been impacted and all because they need to put in their 12+ hours and 140-150 games average to unlock a mount which is timegated and unavailable through other means where they will not be griefing others.

The poster I quoted was correct when they said it's not just player vs player. These are team based modes and you are expected to play them as such. You want people in that game mode who are there to play as a team and win, not because they have some mount or armour set dangled over their head for making it through a rough day or two's heavy grinding.


There are things that are at odds with this battlepass system. The time required to complete it is unfriendly to those who take breaks from the game or have limited time due to the fomo nature of rewards and it breeds an environment where people are playing a mode they don't want to play. The last few days of CC this season and the meltdowns all over attest to that problem.
Some real work needs to go into questioning why the reward system is setup the way it is and finding ways to have rewards that PVPers may want to keep them invested and looking at other non-time gated means to unlock the rewards down the line in an alternative mode.

I get the sense of achievement and prestige these are supposed to give but none of this makes sense when put together. It seems to me as if it's a system for the sake of a system and it chased the current battlepass trend in gaming to get there.

Apologies for the length & multiposts: the character limit does not work well for someone so verbose with quotes.

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Originally Posted by anw

Holy wall of text

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As far as the battle pass goes, this one is very tame when compared to everywhere else. And it can be grinded out with ease. I've been at it pretty regularly since yesterday and I'm well into rank 11. My goal is 25 by next reset, and that will be easily doable.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

As far as the battle pass goes, this one is very tame when compared to everywhere else. And it can be grinded out with ease. I've been at it pretty regularly since yesterday and I'm well into rank 11. My goal is 25 by next reset, and that will be easily doable.

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That's very good for you!

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Originally Posted by anw

You certainly could, but I don't think any health professional would recommend even your lower 11.4 hours estimate in one day. We only have 24 hours in a day, if someone is extremely efficient and sleeps for 4 cycles lasting 6 hours & 15 minutes either way for waking/sleeping then you have 17.5 hours to get your XIV PVP wins in. That's not a lot of time for health, the downtime or queueing.
Players learned during this season that grinding CC isn't so easy as knocking out a swift 15 hour session and that leads us onto the next point.

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Admittedly, the character limit got the better of me because I had to cut a portion of my explanation short to keep it inside the limit. The times I listed were mainly related to overall match times and not all of the extra time involving queues and the 1 minute of setup time. It would likely come out closer to the time you gave if adjusted for that but even then it is somewhat variable where the time can be as short as 15 hours but the upper bound limit can be extremely high for some players due to when they can play the game not lining up with primetime.

No sane person would, or should, grind everything out in a day for a multitude of reasons however people will likely do it because of the rewards since they, until an alternative method is given to acquire them, are affected by FOMO. This type of content does not fit in with the rest of the game's content philosophy in my view.

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Originally Posted by anw

FOMO is not a great concept for ranked, it promotes people playing just for rewards and while that sounds great in principal it does mean you have people who will play only to grind out a reward like you see even with the current battlepass. The purpose of ranked modes are generall the following:
-Aim for & achieve personal goals
-Grow as a player by learning from your mistakes
-Play on an even playing field with people at the same skill level with the same objectives
Games you should be able to count on being consistent and pushing you as a player to improve.

That does bring us onto player motivation, who is in the matches and bring us onto the meaty beast below:

This is the one that says it best and it said it 11 pages in. Not only is it against what's listed in the prohibited activities but it's an example of unsportsmanship like conduct.
Sandbagging, autopiloting, running it down. Whatever degree you want to look at or what you want to call it: it's lethargic behaviour and it goes against the spirit of PVP, you are aiding the enemy.

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Thing is, people try harder if there is a carrot on the stick, you get people who care to win and care if they lose. If losing doesn't matter in Ranked, well no1cares, then why should they try to play super well? It is wishful thinking. You need consequences if you aren't playing well enough for the tier you are in, every other game does it too, it creates incentives to play well. And because everyone plays well, you won't be able to grind it by spamming matches as u suggested. And a frame kit for your portrait isn't really that big incentive to players.

Regarding TOS stuff, yeah try to find the guy who plays bad on purpose, try to convince the GM's that somebody is cheating. Often it took dozens if not over hundred reports until something happened a week or two later(not always before the reward was sent out by mogmail). People don't get caught automatically in this game, there is no anti cheat. Having ranked PvP and supervising it properly would take a lot of human resources. Its the question what road SE wants to go with PvP, they chose to release a fun not so tryhard mode which is fine too, but this won't work for Ranked. They treat their players a bit too much like babies the last years if you ask me.. A lot of things only get easier, while staying very grindy, it is a recipe for boredom.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

You want more things to buy with the Trophy Crystals? Here's a completely radical idea...

Make all the Series level rewards Trophy Crystals, then put all the past ranking armor, weapon and mount rewards from before the big EW PvP revamp into the Trophy Crystal store, and stuff like the armor sets, mounts, emotes and framer kits that have been in Series Rewards also straight into the Trophy Crystal shop.

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I'm more confused why this isn't a thing yet. It's been over 4 seasons. Surely someone would realize they should add back in season 1 items by now?

I'm honestly fine if they lock some glamour + emotes into PvP ranks and then only after acquiring the rank at any season, does it become unlocked in the Trophy store. Rewards from previous seasons will also be unlocked if you reach the same required rank this season to prevent FOMO. All these changes do is just make Ranked PvP have similar reward structure to what EX and Savage does currently - a required skill level check to gain your rewards. And then overtime, the rank requirements for those rewards can drop for newer ones. It would make sense too, since rank PvP is more of a "high-end" mode. Not everyone can obtain EX and Savage rewards, and that's perfectly acceptable in those types of content. That kind of content can also be done unsynced once enough time passes with each expansion - with increasing ILVL and Skills. Not sure why they haven't done something similar in the current PvP reward list. No one can then complain about FOMO or lack of time because they can always spend time on another season to get the rewards.

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Originally Posted by anw

That's very good for you!

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Not related to any responses (thanks for your response to my post btw), you can circumvent the 3000 character limit by editing a post, so you can cut and paste what is currently too much somewhere else, edit and then paste it back in.

As I'd said in a thread in the pvp forum. I feel like the non trophy crystal rewards should be added to the trophy crystal vendor when the season pass ends and the next one begins. Then it's either get it free during that season or earn crystals and buy it later. Though I'd probably do something like 10K trophy crystals for the portrait sets, 15K for minions, 20K for the mounts/glamour coffers

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

As I'd said in a thread in the pvp forum. I feel like the non trophy crystal rewards should be added to the trophy crystal vendor when the season pass ends and the next one begins. Then it's either get it free during that season or earn crystals and buy it later. Though I'd probably do something like 10K trophy crystals for the portrait sets, 15K for minions, 20K for the mounts/glamour coffers

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Agreed, under the pretense of putting the Series Pass content in the shop after one extra Pass ended (i.e. Series 1 rewards come into shop when Series 3 releases, Series 2 rewards come into shop when Series 4 releases, etc.), hopefully permanently after that break.

Would bring the reward back, but give "some" urgency to play the current pass minimally rather than only playing when things appear in the Trophy Crystal shop.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

Agreed, under the pretense of putting the Series Pass content in the shop after one extra Pass ended (i.e. Series 1 rewards come into shop when Series 3 releases, Series 2 rewards come into shop when Series 4 releases, etc.), hopefully permanently after that break.

Would bring the reward back, but give "some" urgency to play the current pass minimally rather than only playing when things appear in the Trophy Crystal shop.

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TBH I'm pretty sure a majority of the player base forgets PvP even exists until that notice comes up that a season, series, or the Garo collaboration is going to end lol

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

TBH I'm pretty sure a majority of the player base forgets PvP even exists until that notice comes up that a season, series, or the Garo collaboration is going to end lol

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Makes me really wonder if people want the rewards for liking them or wanting them purely they are gone otherwise...

I'm saying this as someone who treated the seasonal events this way until I said "I don't care anymore".

I do hope the Series rewards become permanently available at some point. If 6.4 added the series 1 rewards and then series 2 in 6.5 and so on, that gives 3 patches or roughly 1 year of exclusivity of the items, which is plenty imo. That's how long holiday items stay exclusive before going on the online store. It would be a real pain if they were just gone forever since no one likes fomo and it was one of the biggest complaints about Feast. I enjoy PvP, but feeling like I HAVE to do it to get the items before they go away diminishes that enjoyment since I have to play even if I don't feel like it. I also like the idea of making the series tracks permanent and just letting people choose which one they want to progress.

As for whether PvP is good or not, that just comes down to opinion. It would be good if the technical issues were solved (doubtful), but I think it is still fun to play. Most people do not have the mental for PvP, especially not in this game. PvP is a type of gameplay where losing is not only highly likely, but inevitable. If you're the type of person who doesn't have fun unless you win, you will struggle to enjoy PvP. That's fine, it's just a matter of realizing it's your personal preference rather than a problem with the game.

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Originally Posted by PangTong

If you're the type of person who doesn't have fun unless you win, you will struggle to enjoy PvP. That's fine, it's just a matter of realizing it's a matter of your personal preference rather than a problem with the game.

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Yep. I prefer winning (who doesn't?) but I have accepted that I am going to be losing more often than not, so I've had to turn that part of my brain off while grinding CC. Well, mostly. Sometimes people fail so hard I can't help but feel a little salty. The difference between a win and a loss is negligible, sure, but that's not really the point sometimes. There are moments where I sit here and think "How did this happen? Seriously, how?" At the end of the day, it's a team effort, so you rise and fall together.

they should add those previous Battle Pass Rewards to the purchasable Rewards, after the Season has Concluded.. kinda like Overwatch 1 did it, but without the Annual Lock. That way it would be more fair and nice, which is why it will never happen.

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Originally Posted by anw

why are we bribing people who don't want to be in PVP with mounts?

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Most players need to be bribed for everything. They need to be bribed with a huge amount of XP and Tomestones for the daily roulettes to get them into all kind of PVE content. They need to get bribed with rewards for every PVE content in general. Otherwise they would do the content maybe just once to have it seen and then never again. When there are rewards behind PVE content, a lot of players do it as long as it needs to get what they want and after that never again. And PVP is no exception. Without rewards the participation in content would be very low.

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Originally Posted by RyuuZero

they should add those previous Battle Pass Rewards to the purchasable Rewards, after the Season has Concluded.. kinda like Overwatch 1 did it, but without the Annual Lock. That way it would be more fair and nice, which is why it will never happen.

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At most I could see them cycling back through every so often, but then that would probably cut down on the participation a lot, so I don't think it's likely. It might be better to re-add items in a way that they could be purchased with wolf collars, and I'd be fine with that. The Hellhound weapons are neat and all, but I think that more needs to be added to that vendor.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

That kind of content can also be done unsynced once enough time passes with each expansion - with increasing ILVL and Skills. Not sure why they haven't done something similar in the current PvP reward list. No one can then complain about FOMO or lack of time because they can always spend time on another season to get the rewards.

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I mean, that is the challenging point with your thinking, you think it a feature, I think it is a wasted potential. Imagine there would be a cooler version of the same mount or cooler weapon if you do it sync min ilvl instead of doing it unsync 2 addons later. That would somewhat keep the difficulty of what it once had. PvE should be fixed to be like that, PvP shouldn't have those same flaws as PvE. Keep the veteranplayers entertained in PvE and PvP. Atm all that minimum ilvl does is give you orchestrion scrolls at a higher droprate and for Bluemage there are some achievements, but it is not integrated in the core-PvE aspect of the game, outside of partyfinder grps just doing it for the challenge.

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

Thing is, people try harder if there is a carrot on the stick, you get people who care to win and care if they lose. If losing doesn't matter in Ranked, well no1cares, then why should they try to play super well? It is wishful thinking. You need consequences if you aren't playing well enough for the tier you are in, every other game does it too, it creates incentives to play well. And because everyone plays well, you won't be able to grind it by spamming matches as u suggested.
Regarding TOS stuff, yeah try to find the guy who plays bad on purpose, try to convince the GM's that somebody is cheating.

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Thanks for the reply. I agree that some people try harder if there's a carrot on a stick and that's certainly true when a reward isn't guaranteed unless you tie it to some criteria related to performance. When there's no performance related criteria to obtaining a reward and you can obtain said reward by spamming games that's when the motivation to play well eludes some. The posts were less about just ranked but the PVP system & reward structure they have in place at the moment but your response was certainly appreciated.
Quoting your post was about the concept of ranked rewards & unique ranked rewards being tough to implement because of those players who will play only for the reward and don't quite care so much about winning because they can grind it out (which you certainly can for the standard BP/series rewards under the current structure). It was something that Blizzard had problems with when they introduced the unfortunate golden weapons into Overwatch's ranked mode and you had players only there for the end of season points & to grind out enough for a skin.
I still stand by the hard to swallow pill about ranked, most games can get away with a tiered ranking system to make you feel rewarded & motivate you to perform with end of season rewards but in general a ranked mode's objectives are usually those more balanced games against players of your own skill giving you a challenging environment to learn & grow as a player. -And yes a frame kit isn't a huge incentive to make a push to be in the top 10% of players, I agree with that.

I also feel the TOS thing on performance/throwing. It is almost impossible to find someone who is sandbagging on purpose outside of systems where you are matched based on skill/ranks etc and even then there's various degrees of throwing/soft throwing a game that require more game sense & restraint to pull off.

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Originally Posted by PangTong

I do hope the Series rewards become permanently available at some point.
I enjoy PvP, but feeling like I HAVE to do it to get the items before they go away diminishes that enjoyment since I have to play even if I don't feel like it. I also like the idea of making the series tracks permanent and just letting people choose which one they want to progress.

As for whether PvP is good or not, that just comes down to opinion. It would be good if the technical issues were solved (doubtful), but I think it is still fun to play. Most people do not have the mental for PvP, especially not in this game. PvP is a type of gameplay where losing is not only highly likely, but inevitable. If you're the type of person who doesn't have fun unless you win, you will struggle to enjoy PvP. That's fine, it's just a matter of realizing it's your personal preference rather than a problem with the game.

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Your concept is a solid one and your views on how playing PVP to get limited time rewards is one that I can relate with too.
I also highly agree on the mental state for PVP. PVP games aren't for everyone, well, everyone can have fun and are welcome to play but that mental strength & attidue are something else. Learning to accept a loss is something a lot of people struggle with and even more struggle with the concept of learning from your mistakes in a PVP game where it's easy to have an out and offload the blame on a variety of things.
I was playing PVP games seriously for a great deal of time and over the years I've grown as a player learning to accept the inevitability of a loss, how to not blame others for my mistakes and learning to reflect on my own performance & decisions, looking back on things I could & should have done instead. When I was young I used to be gutted whenever I lost, there's the times I raged and got angry at losing, being diappointed and letting it impact my play and it took an considerable amount of work to hammer that out.
Again, that's not something everyone can do and if you're the type of person to rage or feel bad at losing then grinding out PVP games can be tough on you mentally.

Really loved the post, solid input.

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Originally Posted by ACE135

Most players need to be bribed for everything. They need to be bribed with a huge amount of XP and Tomestones for the daily roulettes to get them into all kind of PVE content. They need to get bribed with rewards for every PVE content in general. Otherwise they would do the content maybe just once to have it seen and then never again. When there are rewards behind PVE content, a lot of players do it as long as it needs to get what they want and after that never again. And PVP is no exception. Without rewards the participation in content would be very low.

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The post was less about human nature and more to do with the absurdity of the reward situation. It's a somewhat rhetorical question there to open up looking at PVP, the reward system & looking at other ways to increase engagement with PVP beyond simply dumping a mount behind 12+ hours of grinding. You can kinda see where I was going with it since the posts also then go on to talk about alternative ways to get the rewards that aren't just PVP related, and considering other types of PVP content and I certainly agree without any rewards engagement would be rock bottom. I'd like to say that was mentioned in the posts but I've got a feeling it was in the first draft of post #3 that was lost and I was simply too out to remember it at the time.

I agree that a lot of players are chronically unmotivated to run PVE content again without being bribed too or having a gameplay system for it to tie into. The people out there who want to run a bunch of duty roulettes just to enjoy playing with others is considerably lower than the people who pump & dump their roulettes for tomes and I know that you certainly won't ever see me in LOTA, ST or WOD without that little demon cat girl bribing me to be her very bestest friend weekly.
I don't think it really needed to be said but it's a good reminder that things like wolf marks, tomes & the PVE exp you earn for participating in PVP are just as essential as the new PVP rewards & things to buy with those currencies; again, the posts mostly covered most of this as far as I can recall and the purpose was about players being in content for long periods of time that they dont want to be engaged in, don't care etc except for grinding out the reward.
Still a good post to strike up discussion so thank you.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

At most I could see them cycling back through every so often, but then that would probably cut down on the participation a lot.
The Hellhound weapons are neat and all, but I think that more needs to be added to that vendor.

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Agree on both points and again would love to see other ways of getting people to engage with PVP beyond the current battlepass/fomo system.
I like that they're putting some time into CC (even if I don't personally play it regularly) doing new maps but it still feels very strange that it's only in the PVP section of the duty finder while there's a frontline roulette. I think I suggested it in my mega posts but I'd love to see new PVP roulettes, maybe a mixed mode type of deal where it fills in for all three (preferably weighted so it doesn't try and fill CC endlessly) and there are more maps on offer. Even maybe more than just one FL map a day to make that a true roulette and allow players to manually queue for the maps they want too so if they hate the idea of getting seal rock they can still queue for the other maps as they wish and the FL roulettes don't take too big a hit to queue times. I know I'm strange and an outlier but something like that is incredibly spammable for me, variety is the spice of life as they say...

Anything. Anything at all. The Garo collab is fab, I like the series rewards they're doing, the other rewards I get from PVP and my time in it but y'know, something a bit more exciting to drive regular engagement of the game modes would be amazing.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

Not related to any responses (thanks for your response to my post btw), you can circumvent the 3000 character limit by editing a post, so you can cut and paste what is currently too much somewhere else, edit and then paste it back in.

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thank-you ever so much for this info!

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

I mean, something as simple as rank flexing is enough reward for some. Look at those who pay for a carry through ultimate just for the ability to wear the title as an example.

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Lol. Who cares? Show me who cares about TOP100. Only time ppl care is when they get some reward. And ppl playing PvP dont care at all, thats why the quee is literally dead.

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Originally Posted by JamieRose

Did you just accuse me of throwing?

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No. I accussed you of playing PvP just cause of series rewards. You dont rly care about PvP alone. Thats why you cant answer my question.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

PvP does need less FOMO, since it is pretty heavily luck based as it is as you have to get randomly assigned competent teammates.

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4 months to do 100 losing matches that take around 5 minutes. Dunno how simpler to make it. Just a login reward? Yes, I agree past series rewards should be reobtainable how Yoshida promised, but I wouldnt call it a FOMO. Ppl really dont have dedication for anything nowadays, yet they demand everything.

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Originally Posted by SaltyDaddy

No. I accussed you of playing PvP just cause of series rewards. You dont rly care about PvP alone. Thats why you cant answer my question.

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I mean, a lot of people are probably doing CC for the rewards alone. It's quick, it's easy and the penalty for losing is negligible at best. I'm certainly not doing it only for the thrill of battle. People don't have to enjoy something full stop to participate. That doesn't make them any less worthy than those who do. They just have different motivations. I think the mode is fun enough, sure, but if I wasn't suitably rewarded then I probably wouldn't bother. I'm not a huge PvP person.

Personally, I'm of two minds. On one hand, I actually enjoy a bit of VERY CASUAL pvp in the game. The Crystal Conflict matches are a blast, and even the Frontlines are fun for the daily duty.

That said, I'm also not a big fan of FOMO. I'm probably a bit salty, because I was literally *minutes* from getting the PvP set last season (I'd literally taken the day off work to farm for it, not realizing how early the game was going offline for maintenance), so I would definitely appreciate an opportunity to re-obtain that.

Generally speaking, I think FFXIV has had a pretty good balance of "try to get items as soon as you can, but if you miss out, you'll have a chance later on as well". Obviously, most Holiday items end up on the Mog Station, which is a bit of a double-edged sword sometimes (if nothing else, I'd like to see some of the old quests come back around, even if the rewards were missing, just for completionists' sake).

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I mean, a lot of people are probably doing CC for the rewards alone. It's quick, it's easy and the penalty for losing is negligible at best. I'm certainly not doing it only for the thrill of battle. People don't have to enjoy something full stop to participate. That doesn't make them any less worthy than those who do. They just have different motivations. I think the mode is fun enough, sure, but if I wasn't suitably rewarded then I probably wouldn't bother. I'm not a huge PvP person.

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Well, I didnt said playing PvP just for the reward is wrong. But I dont understand, that if you doing content that is not your cup of tea just because you want the reward, and then complain that the content is not for you. People should stop going after every single reward the game offers. If you dont enjoy the thing, dont do it. Is few pixels worth hours of your bad time?

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Originally Posted by SaltyDaddy

Well, I didnt said playing PvP just for the reward is wrong. But I dont understand, that if you doing content that is not your cup of tea just because you want the reward, and then complain that the content is not for you. People should stop going after every single reward the game offers. If you dont enjoy the thing, dont do it. Is few pixels worth hours of your bad time?

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Nah, but you did imply it with that comment. I'm not complaining about having to do it either. I may need to vent my frustrations every now and then because playing with other people can be grating sometimes, but the ends justify the means in my book. Sure, it's not exactly my cup of tea, but it's still drinkable. An MMO has plenty of grinds that aren't always fun but give nice rewards at the end. For me, this is no different, though as I said, I do think CC is fun enough. Seriously, I love the casual aspect of it. As someone who typically loathes PvP, it's not a bad time at all. I'll take CC over doing BGs in WoW any day. The best approach is to never expect to win. After going at it for over a hundred matches though, that starts to wear me down, but the grind is nearly done at that point. Again, CC can be fun but overall it's a means to an end for me.

PVP is a waste of development time and I'm tired of seeing it being used primarily as patchnote filler for otherwise dry updates.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

PVP is a waste of development time and I'm tired of seeing it being used primarily as patchnote filler for otherwise dry updates.

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Still better content than Island Sanctuary and alike that are basically one and done. Considering it's potential longevity to most other content it should get much more dev time and resources to not end up as half baked attempt.

Casual queue keeps firing throughout the day even during the more quiet parts of patch cycle, so there's definately people just playing it for fun.

There's still a lot of work to be done to make it even half as good as it could be though.
For example, I have friends who would love to play it but don't want to queue solo, yet people are really torn on party queues even with the current lack of balance in Casual queue which shouldn't be an issue if the matchmaker system actually put any proper weight on things.
Quick chat is incredibly insufficient and spammy compared to ping systems of most other games and lacks proper visual cues and recycles sound effects on multiple commands instead of having clear ones for all of the important calls.
Reward structure is still complete jank, meaning Ranked is pointless outside of your first ever Season. At least they added something to Crystal Trophy store this time despite being just reworks of old gear, Wolf Collars / Trophy Crystals / Wolf Marks need to be expanded upon even if it steps on stuff like Allied Seals or old Tome mats to offer real alternatives.

Both CC and Rival Wings would benefit from Roulette.

PvP could also have their own "Relic" grind including all the game modes if they were properly supported among other things.

Yet as things are, PvP is vastly under utilized and under supported. Which is a shame because the potential is there.

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Originally Posted by anw

Unfotunately that is the way of Frontlines and my best advice would be to toggle off alliance chat before you enter. Some may balk at the suggestion but if you don't like obnoxious sound effect macro spam, seeing people argue or giving out wrong commands then there's really no better solution.
I personally toggle it before I play FL and I miss out on some of the fun but I also gain a +10 in sanity by not hearing macro spam constantly.


It's hard to toggle that mental state but if losing a game makes you feel bad and you're only there for the rewards then I'd suggest you don't force yourself to play for the piece of FOMO gear. You love mahjong and that's okay. Mahjong takes far, far more skill than FL or CC even with CC's focus on macro. You can rest comfortable knowing you're having fun with tiles (:

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What can I say, I'm a mutant that love board games.
Thank you for the advice, much appreciated.