The Fields of Glory (Shatter)

Can we drop a moon on the Fields of Glory?

Community team now
https://i.gyazo.com/e9e1dab29baa3aae...cebcb30127.png

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Originally Posted by auron_seifer

Okay real talk now, I have to ask this because I'm genuinely curious, are you guys retarded? Can you read at all? Reading comprehension anyone!?

Where do you get the balls to come here and ask people for feedback, ONLY TO IGNORE IT ALL AND DO THE MOST RANDOM ASS CHANGES I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY WHOLE LIFE?

Seriously, there should be a mandatory limit on how dumb people can be, especially when those people take my money every month...

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http://i.imgur.com/Ujw9MVI.gif

This is actually really frustrating. I think I'm starting to understand why so many vet PvP players seem exhausted/apathetic about offering feedback or suggestions, it's apparently somewhat like shouting into outer space at the top of your lungs.

Maybe there's also a disconnect between the perceived needs of the JP datacenters and NA/EU, possibly leaning toward favoring the concerns of the (majority?) JPvP playerbase. For example, on the Subreddit someone commented that JP has a more common Caster/Cometeor-stacking meta across all 3 GCs in Shatter.

Regardless, I still find the actual PvP in FFXIV really fun. PvP — as in Players using abilities to directly, tactically combat other Players.

But Feast is dead right now, Seize is dead right now. And Shatter's awkward design — which does reward conflict, yet also doesn't encourage it and actively gives players too many ways to avoid it, creating a lethargic and tedious pace to many matches — feels interesting as a neat mini-game on the side, but also feels like a weak substitute for the modes that made me become interested in PvP in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Titor

Can we drop a moon on the Fields of Glory?

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Which would turn it back into Carteneau Flats? I am definitely okay with that.

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Originally Posted by kisada

they have outright said that they keep it in for lore-based reasons. it has literally nothing to do with issues of impropriety.

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Originally Posted by Guesswhat

The last time I heard they spoke about it, GC restrictions are mainly there because they are afraid of match fixing.

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This was confirmed in Live Letter 24 last August. This link to the forum digest shows below:

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Originally Posted by Cherzy

However, it’s not for lore reasons that we haven’t removed these limitations; it’s because we are concerned about PvP being abused in ways such as creating fixed matches resulting in moral degeneration. However, as an attempt to reduce matching times we’re exploring whether we can make a system that places you in content without waiting for 72 players and then fills in the other members as they queue. Naturally, we have not completely ruled out removing the Grand Company restrictions; however, we would like to have some restrictions in place for PvP.

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Maybe if their system wasn't this flawed, people would like it a lot more and "fixed matches" or "win trading" wouldn't even be a thing.

So, I'm not too familiar on if they implemented any active methods against win-trading in feast besides punishing egregious traders high on the rankings. In any case, I still think it is a weak excuse to apply to 72-mans especially. Without GC restrictions, who knows which team your win-traders will end up on. Even on opposite teams, getting enough people to truly affect the outcome of a 72-man is very obvious and easy to report.

SE said they're focused on queue times but are ignoring that whatever they do, GC restrictions will always screw over the GC with the most people queueing. But people want to switch the GC winning most that month so they'll go there anyway. So either pick long queues and more wins or short queues and many losses. No one wins.

The one silver lining I can see to the reduced magic damage on Icebound Tomeliths, is that it will encourage more PVP on the part of casters and DRKs at activated tomeliths. While everyone else is killing the crystals, casters and DRKs should be killing other players.

Unrelated to these current changes: Could the devs please look into the minor issue where the south point, Owl's Nest, is slightly farther away from the Allagan Tomelith compared to the other spawn points, meaning that the south team always caps their Allagan Tomelith slightly slower than the East and West teams.

It's not a big deal, but it seems like an easy to fix oversight.

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Originally Posted by KayVonTrarx

This was confirmed in Live Letter 24 last August. This link to the forum digest shows below:

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good catch. that wasn't initially to my recollection

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Originally Posted by Beckett

The one silver lining I can see to the reduced magic damage on Icebound Tomeliths, is that it will encourage more PVP on the part of casters and DRKs at activated tomeliths. While everyone else is killing the crystals, casters and DRKs should be killing other players.

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I don't follow... Did they make Dark Knight deal magical damage when I wasn't looking? It's primarily physical damage last I checked... Most of its magical based attacks aren't even worth contemplating in this scenario, and the ones that are might as well hit the tomelith as well... I don't see how this would remotely shift Dark Knights focus at tomeliths, it's a slight nerf to Salted Earth and Dark Passenger, Unleash and Abyssal Drain really aren't worth using in PvP at all IMO, and Unmend is only viable in a ranged/chased situation... I'll still put Salted Earth down on a tomelith such that it damages the tomelith and enemy melee, I'll still aim Dark Passenger to Blind enemy melee and deal some damage to the tomelith... Same for Carnal Chill and potential Tar Pit (depends how you want to use that Heavy/HP drain).

It's a slight nerf to Dark Knight if anything, which I guess is fine given Dark Knight always handled better in Frontlines than Wolves' Den, but I really can't see this shifting focus away from the objective... My combos were physical, last I checked, all the magical based attacks worth a damn are on cooldowns and might as well still hit the tomelith...

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Originally Posted by Nalien

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Fair enough. I was going off of previous posts that were mentioning how DRK would be affected by this nerf, and didn't consider the specific abilities they'd be using on the Tomeliths.

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Originally Posted by Beckett

Fair enough. I was going off of previous posts that were mentioning how DRK would be affected by this nerf, and didn't consider the specific abilities they'd be using on the Tomeliths.

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Technically it is still an unneeded nerf on DRK (however trivial). It's more an example of how bizarre the change is (reducing Magic dmg, which has odd side-effects, rather than just scaling damage to Ice by distance, which would remove ranged safety ... etc).

I apologize it took so long here is a more clear translation of the most recent Dev post:


We'd like to thank everyone for their feedback regarding The fields of glory! There was a lot of great feedback presented by our PVP community! In accordance with the long queue times we'd like to talk about our plans to remove GC restrictions. The adjustment for this problem took a lot of consideration from us. So in accordance with this feedback we've decided to decrease the length of the matches by reducing the amount of data to be collected to allow our players to queue sooner rather than later. We may consider removing the scoreboard to help achieve this change.

We saw a lot of great suggestions about making The Fields of Glory more pvp-oriented. In order to decrease the impact of the PvE element of destroying the Ice we've decided to decrease the amount of magical damage taken by Ice to encourage mages to make correct tactical decisions on the battlefield and target other players. We had to think very hard to make this adjustment. We had intended originally to increase the defense of the Ice against all ranged attacks however our current server limitations make this very difficult.

In order to promote quicker queue times among the Grand Companies we have decided to limit the number of players you may queue with at one time from a Full party of 8 to one other single player provided they are in the same Grand Company. We believe this change would allow more players to queue separately and thus giving more freedom for the switching of Grand Companies.

These adjustments will be active following the release of patch 3.35! Following patch 3.38 we will be releasing a new Frontlines mode. So we encourage all of our pvpers to rush for the current rewards as they will be unobtainable in the future! Please look forward to it.

We would like all of our players to continue giving us wonderful feedback on the forums and in game . All of your feedback is taken into consideration, then we ignore it and do our own thing. But we appreciate it all the same.


*(Not really a translation of anything new, just a bit of poking fun at the devs about the upcoming(terrible) adjustments in patch 3.35)

--- I fail --- lol.

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Originally Posted by Cleanse

--- I fail --- lol.

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Hey I mean grammar aside it at least feels like legit square logic right now.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

Following patch 3.38 we will be releasing a new Frontlines mode.

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I want to say "already ?!"
Maybe it will be a new mode without GC restrictions.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

I want to say "already ?!"
Maybe it will be a new mode without GC restrictions.

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There is no new mode in 3.38 he was joking. Although funny, that post might get you banned a few days if they consider it impersonation of an SE employee Cynric lol.

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Originally Posted by Dimitrii

There is no new mode in 3.38 he was joking. Although funny, that post might get you banned a few days if they consider it impersonation of an SE employee Cynric lol.

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Baah Yeah you're right I'll add a little note at the bottom. The thought of that happening did cross my mind lol.


I did get quite the giggle out of people thinking it was legit. Though I figured the bottom line about ignoring us would be a dead giveaway.

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Originally Posted by Dimitrii

There is no new mode in 3.38 he was joking. Although funny, that post might get you banned a few days if they consider it impersonation of an SE employee Cynric lol.

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Well, technically the second season of Feast should start up sometime in the future, assuming SE hasn't completely done away with the entire concept of PvP by then; so, maybe we'll have that to play instead ...

I know a lot of people like to hate on Feast for one reason or another, but I'd much rather queue up for the second season of that, then keep going with the Shatter snooze-fest. Call me crazy, but I prefer my PvP to have actual PvP in it; so, I'm hoping that the players who feel the same way start to queue for Feast again once the second season starts up. The occasional match of Front Lines is nice and all, but having this as the only option for "PvP" is just plain demoralizing ...

I don't get why they don't remove GC restrictions. I don't think any players like them.
I'd rather face a premade then sit in a queue for an hour without it popping and then log off.

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Originally Posted by Februs

Well, technically the second season of Feast should start up sometime in the future, assuming SE hasn't completely done away with the entire concept of PvP by then; so, maybe we'll have that to play instead ...

I know a lot of people like to hate on Feast for one reason or another, but I'd much rather queue up for the second season of that, then keep going with the Shatter snooze-fest. Call me crazy, but I prefer my PvP to have actual PvP in it; so, I'm hoping that the players who feel the same way start to queue for Feast again once the second season starts up. The occasional match of Front Lines is nice and all, but having this as the only option for "PvP" is just plain demoralizing ...

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Feast was somewhat fun but we'll have to see how they do it. I have a feeling s2 will be Doa

I don't understand why people say shatter has no pvp in it? Everytime shatter match I been in rather its 72 or 24 there is a lot of fighting all over the place.

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Originally Posted by Kai_Lee

I don't understand why people say shatter has no pvp in it? Everytime shatter match I been in rather its 72 or 24 there is a lot of fighting all over the place.

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Everytime I get it everyone focuses on ice and hardly engages aside from a few ranged picking off people and sometimes after an ice dies.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

Everytime I get it everyone focuses on ice and hardly engages aside from a few ranged picking off people and sometimes after an ice dies.

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It could be your data center maybe?

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Originally Posted by Kai_Lee

I don't understand why people say shatter has no pvp in it? Everytime shatter match I been in rather its 72 or 24 there is a lot of fighting all over the place.

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Sometimes I get matches like that, and Shatter is fun in those matches. Really — I have a great time in intense Shatters with a lot of smart competition between teams.

An increasing majority of the time, though, I end up in matches where everyone seems exhausted and just wants to be left alone to kill Ice and get it over with.

I see it not as a problem of Shatter not supporting (even rewarding) direct player conflict, but instead providing too many legitimate ways to avoid it and still score high points. Often, teams that avoid conflict don't necessarily even win by the end, but the mob mentality sees points going up by a huge chunk each crystal and decides that's good enough.

If your team (or especially 2 or all 3 teams) has overall passive or unconfident players, it then turns in to a lot of awkward waiting, standing around, map travel, half-hearted base captures, half-hearted skirmishes that go nowhere, etc. It's tedious and feels more like FATE farming than the Frontline PvP I experienced in Seize.

Queuing up for PvP is already a gamble on my NA datacenter because even after deliberately choosing a minority GC, sometimes the queue is just low and it's a long wait. Shatter adds double RNG to the "Will I get a PvP match?" question — first, I need to achieve a queue pop. Then, I need to get a match where players actually want to fight and take objectives or zone out nodes, instead of just standing around watching the Ice spawn timer.

Gambling on the Shatter queue for PvP is increasingly not feeling worth it for me, and I don't like feeling this way because I really enjoyed Seal Rock and looked forward to every queue pop.

But seal rock was the same thing, there are matches with just endless fighting all over and then there was matches im won doing not much but watch the other alliance fight while we steal their nodes. I enjoyed them all regardless of what kind of matches im in.

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Originally Posted by Kai_Lee

But seal rock was the same thing, there are matches with just endless fighting all over and then there was matches im won doing not much but watch the other alliance fight while we steal their nodes. I enjoyed them all regardless of what kind of matches im in.

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I'd argue the biggest difference is that Shatter feels way more static than Seal Rock. In Shatter, crystals are always in the same spots and spawns are somewhat predictable. Small crystals die way too fast too, so you don't even bother going for them when they spawn at the other end. It leads you to defending the same position over and over. In Seal Rock, you can't know where the next tomelith will spawn, and you also have the A/S ranks to keep you on your toes. Going after tomeliths in other areas of the map is also possible. Overall, that leads to less standing around.

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

I end up in matches where everyone seems exhausted and just wants to be left alone to kill Ice and get it over with.

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I think that the map design of Shatter is just not conducive to good fights. Firstly, in the middle, you can fight one team for a bit but the 3rd will always pincer & cause a retreat on all sides. I have never had interesting or long fights in the middle but the map makes you go there.

Secondly, every objective's zone in Shatter is flat. This helps everyone PVE ice but makes 3-way pvp tedious without any tactical advantages.

IMO, Seal Rock had good fights because of its map design. There were multiple routes that didn't cause 3-way traffic jams BEFORE the objective. Furthermore, pincers weren't an instant retreat because there were actual defensive positions with the ramps/cliffs.

Shatter makes 3-way PVP tiring. Along with the overly PVE game mode, it's obvious PVPers are frustrated.

The only reason seal rock had even a chance of standing around was because sometimes 2gc would tunnel vision leaving the third alone. Which is an issue with having a 3 way system. Username and thekk I believe covered shatter issues pretty well. The best times I've had in shatter are in 24 where as 72 is a crapshoot

Please remove the GC restrictions! It will make the mode more fun!

How about you stop making Seal Rock irrelevant. I have not gotten all the rewards, and now there is no way I will be able to. When this new map came out, I thought of it as an addition, not a replacement! When I was a kid, I'd play these pvp type maps for the fun of playing them all! Please don't ruin that variety.

This is why, when I sugfested the idea of "Shatterdays" on Aether data center, I encouraged people to queue for BOTH Shatter and Seize.

You get one, or the other, and both effectively stay relevant.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

How about you stop making Seal Rock irrelevant. I have not gotten all the rewards, and now there is no way I will be able to. When this new map came out, I thought of it as an addition, not a replacement! When I was a kid, I'd play these pvp type maps for the fun of playing them all! Please don't ruin that variety.

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I ramped up the Seal Rock attempts to get the Coat and title BECAUSE I knew that the new map will be a replacement, the PvP players are niche minority and as a result when a new mode comes out all of them will flock there, and render the other modes impossible to queue for. Its why Reddit has several says put aside for Carteneau. I would suggest asking them to do the same for Seal Rock or hope that RNG for the roulette puts you there. Because there is not enough people to keep two modes relevant, especially when one of them is dangling a silver and blue mount in their faces.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

Because there is not enough people to keep two modes relevant, especially when one of them is dangling a silver and blue mount in their faces.

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That mount is such a lame reskin too. Only reason I queue for shatter is because I like to PVP and it's the only mode that's at least semi active atm. I couldn't care less about that mount and would queue to seize or secure instead if the modes were actually active regardless of me not getting the new mount.

Aside from growing to like PvP, the ADS mounts are the main reason I PvP. I asked an asked for an ADS mount since Patch 2.1, and when they finally added it, they make it a PvP reward (still kinda pissed about that). I have neither yet, but it's thr reason I remained patient through an entire night of losses last night. If I stop now, I'll never get it.

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Originally Posted by Kai_Lee

But seal rock was the same thing, there are matches with just endless fighting all over and then there was matches im won doing not much but watch the other alliance fight while we steal their nodes.

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I've seen others claim this too, so I guess personal experiences in Seal Rock varied a lot:

All I can say confidently is that for me, personally, the vast majority of my Seal Rock matches involved a lot of contesting nodes, skirmishing, and conflict. Even if I landed in a team that wanted to avoid fighting, it didn't work, because:

• Nodes would spawn in dangerous territory, where they needed to be claimed and held (a simple zerg could not drain it of all points)
• Our own nodes could be contested at any time (even by sneaky NIN, etc), necessitating a return home and more conflict (a simple zerg could not secure all of our nodes' points at once)
• Doing anything to a node required fighting off anyone else present, swatting away anyone attempting to switch its identity, or dodging anyone trying to stop you from switching the node for yourself — there was no taking anything in Seal Rock without direct contest and wiping out the immediate competition first

In Shatter:

Yeah, you can definitely disrupt the enemy team, annoy their DPS, or even score a handful of kills while opponents try to focus Ice.

But I usually see this as a failed strategy unless one team is overwhelmingly more powerful or coordinated than the opposition, because the GCDs diverted away from attacking the Ice just is not made up by the kills scored, nor does that disruption stop enemy DPS enough to edge out your own team.

At the very least, it requires way too much planning and coordination to work out well or feel fun in a PUG full of uncertain strangers. "Zerg the Ice" is a lot more reliable in that situation.

For my personal experiences, Seal Rock was majority hard conflict, small minority waiting games. Shatter is increasingly the inverse.

Another thing that continues to frustrate me is as PLD, my ability to CC and defend strongly feels like a pointless gimmick at Shatter Ice pops.

Yes, I can run around Stunning DPS blowing CDs or Aegis Boon the random Bind+Cometeor on the melee pack, but better results come from just blowing FOF and tunneling the Ice as hard as possible.

In Seal Rock, my personal DPS felt far less important as long as my team could defend our node or push the opponent out of theirs. Aegis, Testudo, Cover, Stunlock, off-heals, Silence, all of this felt like it made a huge difference at the most important points of Seal Rock matches.

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Originally Posted by KayVonTrarx

words in post #271

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I completely agree with everything you said here, these are good observations and reflect my own experiences as well.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

Because there is not enough people to keep two modes relevant, especially when one of them is dangling a silver and blue mount in their faces.

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This is so simple to solve that it makes me really frustrated, though. Especially since the solutions are already everywhere in PvE, precisely to prevent outdated content from being hopeless for newer players.

Make a daily map rotation with bonuses for winning that map. Make the Roulette give a payout beyond the first match of the day. Make a daily or weekly quest to win specific maps or all maps. etc blah blah. I, you, we, all of us can easily sit here all day long coming up with simple solutions that would incentivize queuing older maps. Instead the devs just bulldoze over them and drop a new map and seem almost pleased that the old one is abandoned.

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

Another thing that continues to frustrate me is as PLD, my ability to CC and defend strongly feels like a pointless gimmick at Shatter Ice pops.

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The same kind of point could be made about healers. With the constant fighting going on plenty of heals were needed and you could harass people trying to capture nodes.

In Shatter, if people tunnel on the crystal and no healing is required (sadly, that happens pretty often) the only thing I can do is attack it myself with my pitiful damage (no cleric stance) that is only about to get worse with the increased magic resistance.

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Originally Posted by Thekk

The same kind of point could be made about healers. With the constant fighting going on plenty of heals were needed and you could harass people trying to capture nodes. In Shatter, if people tunnel on the crystal and no healing is required (sadly, that happens pretty often) the only thing I can do is attack it myself with my pitiful damage (no cleric stance) that is only about to get worse with the increased magic resistance.

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Agreed.

On the few matches that I've been forced to play as Whm whenever there was a crystal up, HoT's were more than enough to keep people alive. I hardly had to worry about stray players running out of range either, because they are hardly ever attacked. By the end of the match, I usually end up casting a lot of sleeps just to troll enemies, cuz' why not? I'm a pretty crummy healer; so, it's still enough to keep me entertained, but I imagine that seasoned healing veterans might find Shatter to be pretty boring.