Anyone else wished pvp was battleground (big pvp) focused instead arena e-sport.

Especially since the game is narative focused. Modes and maps with drivable vehicles (with abilities and attacks), more strategic elements (pve objectives, bases, artilery, turrets, recources), some actual story campaign with more diversed factions (garlean remnants hiring merceneries, trade companies competition), etc. Btw remind me why can't we get rival wings into roulette from time to time? I feel like it could really bring pve people into pvp and they could be grateful.

Any big PvP tends to devolve into massive balls of people crashing together. They had a chance in early EW to have meta of people splitting up and competing all over the maps but all the whining lead to increased damage resistances because the only way people know how to play Frontlines is zerging and hoping for best. The results? DRK meta that causes people to cry about it all the time, because it's the only way to efficiently combat the deathballs.

As for Rival Wings roulette? It has been constantly requested by PvP players but we often get ignored.

A mode with more mixed and PvE objectives could work, but the best approach would probably be to force it into multiple zones and have good enough reasons for people to not just all stick together.

Last year, Square Enix shut down Fantasy Earth Zero, which was an MMO exclusively designed around the battlefield concept (there was barely any PvE content) that ran for almost 15 years.

Because 5v5 is genuinely easier to stomach than getting sandwiched by 2x 24-man deathballs for overextending and less black or white about what you can and can't do in a match.

Yes the big fantasy of being in an army splitting up and doing tactical manoeuvres and outsmarting another army definitely sounds cool, but this is what it is - a fantasy. The rather realistic outcome is zerging and deathballing because strength in numbers is hilariously broken. The game needs to be fundamentally balanced around such a mode and even then the outcome likely would mean that job diversity could never be as much as it is now in fear of one job going too far with a tool.

Isn't this what Frontlines is already supposed to be in effect? They even removed the factions because it was generating huge imbalances (every good pvper joined maelstrom back then).

It works if you have something like og alterac valley, where you have squads of rogues/druids going behind enemy lines to try and cause a bunch of chaos or collect stuff for the big summon and the likes which results in you having to react to that or get delt a massive blow to your side for not defending, if you make stuff like that it can work, but to make it work in ff14 is .... eh I dunno.

I think people have rose tinted glasses for how "Large" scale pvp is. They had one great game and it excuses the hundreds of absolutely miserable ones where you knew it was a loss 2-3 minutes in, but your only option was to leave and put yourself in the corner or suffer another 30-40 minutes of the overwhelming enemy team playing with you like a cat who just found a frog. They can't even do good match making for five player content why would you want the player count inflated for most content? I do wish PVP was more varied, but I feel like SE just always reskins what they already did in every piece of content they make (not just pvp).

At this point, no. Arena is way more interesting and large-scale modes haven't been good since the first iteration of Frontline.

When Secure was first released, it was valuable to split the alliance across the map to capture objectives. Over time, Frontline has devolved into blob fests that contributed to the wild imbalances you have with damage resistance, etc.. If they ever return to map designs that push teams to spread across the map, I'd say yeah put resources into it. Until then, FL and RW are merely mindless playgrounds.

I would say the smaller scale modes just garner more attention from actual PvP players than the big team battle modes which they usually appeal to. Rival Wings is the closest you'll get to that kind of thing you are asking, and I personally think it's better than FL because there isn't a horribly unfun damage reduction applied to everyone. I will say they probably won't have any major story elements be tied to PvP at all, maybe like cute things such as the grand company lore with why they fight in FLs but that's about it.

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Originally Posted by Atreus

When Secure was first released, it was valuable to split the alliance across the map to capture objectives. Over time, Frontline has devolved into blob fests that contributed to the wild imbalances you have with damage resistance, etc.. If they ever return to map designs that push teams to spread across the map, I'd say yeah put resources into it. Until then, FL and RW are merely mindless playgrounds.

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The main culprit to that evolution is ShB changes with the introduction of Onsal and mount speed increased from 0 stars to 1. It's very easy to come back into the fray no matter where you are or respawn, and makes the mode have a lot less downtime. As a counterpart, it makes it possible for a single blob to cover everything more or less. We had a main blob before, but we could also have smaller skirmish groups around as well that would be able to perform without getting jumped by the main blob in a matter of seconds, especially on secure and seal rock.