GC Restrictions and Frontlines Discussion

So with the news from a recent interview:

http://gamerescape.com/2016/08/01/e3...oshida-part-2/

Yoshida is considering removing GC restrictions from PvP.

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That said, I’m guessing your question was meant to imply that Grand Company restrictions were the root cause of your queue time. I would like to clarify that what I’m most concerned about when it comes to lifting this restriction is not about the lore or inconsistency with the narrative, but the moral degradation of our players. I’m mainly worried about new problems appearing that don’t exist at the moment, such as spy activity and particular teams farming for one single Grand Company.

That being said, I do plan on running some tests, so please stand by just a bit longer.

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But, before GC restrictions are removed, I'd actually like to take some time to ponder why it's even an issue.

Obviously, the main complaint centers around uneven queue times. But, shouldn't we be asking why that exists? Why is it that there is a disparity between Flames / Adders / Maelstrom?

Is it because the MSQ funnels players into a GC and we just don't feel like changing for the sake of shorter PvP queues? I've switched between all three GCs and as a player that started out in Ul'dah, the Flames does feel like home.

Is it because we've already invested ourselves into a GC before finding out about queue discrepencies? AP doesn't matter much in FL and ranks are so easy to achieve that I feel it's maybe more related to the GC locked achievements.

Or, is it something much more cynical and it's just a bunch of people hoping to get carried by the higher win-rate of a specific GC?

I often hear about people wanting to PvP with a friend but being incapable of doing so because of GC restrictions. Why not just switch GCs?

Mounts and such

Its the same reason we can't have race specific things. Everyone wants things that everyone else has and doesn't want to be locked down to something even though its part of the games design.

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I often hear about people wanting to PvP with a friend but being incapable of doing so because of GC restrictions. Why not just switch GCs?

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It's really nerdy but for me my GC is kind of like my identity, I picked it for personal reasons. For most of my friends that don't get much time to play, it's a lot of busywork to do for a restriction that only really seems to exist for lore reasons. It's just kind of terrible to push the companies as this big important personal choice and then feel forced to be somewhere you don't want to or maybe don't even like.

I was really excited when the Crystal Braves showed up because I thought it meant that the companies would end up allying and it would give them a lore reason to rework the PVP, but I'm sure most players know what happened there lol

I am 12 runs from my mount. I missed 2 queues this weekend because after 1+ hour in the queue of doing other things like working on my gathering I ended up stepping away and missing it. 1+ hour for queues the system is broken. I would love to queue up and get who ever the next 23 other people are.

He has been considering for years now, I would love to see a blog-post saying: "We are going to remove the GC restriction!"

I think there are many reasons why people may not wish to switch GCs.
One is that their GC feels like a home or their are proud of it.
Gridania felt like a home to me. And so does the Order of the Twin Adder.
I was kind of proud of it.

But when I queued in PvP, we were loosing so much.
In Seal Rock we once only had 35 points when the match was over. 35!
Time and time again, I saw our GC lacked so much organization in PvP. I felt ashamed.

Sometimes only 6 people will join, and 4 are healers. And no one will change jobs...
I wanted to switch, but after all, it is kind of my home.

Another reason, I think, is achievements. Each GC has their own achievements for PvP and other things, supply quests, leves, etc.
When switching GCs, you can't complete them.

I want to at least do as many achievements as possible before switching.

I often want to queue with friends and FC members in FL, but we can't be on the same team. Even if we queue at the same time, we often don't enter together.

Also, even if one person switched GCs to speed up queue times, it probably won't effect much.
Depending on the data center, hundreds if not thousands will need to change.

For example, on Carbuncle server, 42.8% of players are Gridania.
Only 20.3% are Limsa Lominsa.

It's quite unbalanced. Rather than encouraging hundreds of people to change GCs for PvP, removing restrictions makes it much easier to fix PvP.

The que time issue came from the Feast. Get rid of it and just have Frontline.

It sucks when in Mana data center Maelstrom always 3rd and when I change to Immortal Flames the performance is pretty good like I got the horse at Seal Rock only, but at Shatter Adder is leading... Until 1000 campaign I only got 220 wins and still not getting black ADS.

As for why people don't switch: It's annoying because you have to rank up again. Who wants to do that ? nobody.