Lets Talk PvP! Current State of PvP and Community Feedback!

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Introduction
Hey guys! My name is Zero! i mainly play on the Japanese Server Shinryu, i am an officer of an english FC on the server which is compromised of both PvP and PvE players, i started the game back in mid 2014 and have been an avid player in both aspects of the game! Now lets get to the discussion! Now that ARR is coming to a close i decided to make this thread regarding the current state of the game for PvP and voice out our suggestions on how we can improve upon the current system of PvP and hope that these changes if possible, be added sometime in the future in Heavensward. I would like for you guys to also voice out what you feel that could help improve the current PvP system as well as what kind of content you would like to see added in the future!

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I think that if you ask an average player what they think of PvP they will tell you that in FFXIV it is just a repetitive gamemode for gear glamour/frontline standings, that FFXIV is a PvE game and your goal should be clearing the final coil every week and doing your daily dungeons, some might also add on to say that the combat in FFXIV is not suited towards PvP gameplay.

They are not wrong to say this, as it currently is, PvP is just a grind fest to get nice glamours and flashy titles. There is a very small community of PvPers who genuinely enjoy fighting other skilled players such as themselves in Wolves Dens and are always looking to improve themselves but they are not rewarded sufficiently for their skill.

Yoshida has stated in an interview for heavensward that he wishes to improve the PvP system in the game.

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24v24v24 or 8v8v8

Now in my opinion 8v8v8 is a much more better fit for frontline PvP not only does it increase the affect of your actions and make PvP less hetic and more skill focused, the same way why 24 player raids are easier than 8 player, it also reduces queue times by a considerable amount. With that being said, not in any way do i feel that 24v24v24 needs to be removed, however they need to be in a gamemode more suited towards larger numbers. In Secure it was well designed, you could have an alliance attacking the other capture zones and another alliance camping nodes at mid, one for defence. However in Slaughter its a big mess of factions all staying at mid for most of the match in an endless Tug of War against each other, and you barely feel that you're making a difference in the fight. What i feel is that Slaughter is a map much more suited for 8v8v8 while Secure is a map much more suited towards 24v24v24.

Wolves Den and MMR system

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It has been confirmed that we will be getting new Wolves Den maps and larger group sizes. But there has also been a hint at a leaderboard system for Wolves Den. We are not sure what kind of system Yoshida is plannning on adding but what do you guys expect or want to see in terms of ranking for Wolves Den? I personally would not mind a MMR system similar to that of games such as DotA 2, Although if there is a large enough PvP playerbase we can get to see a tiered rank system similar to that of Starcraft 2 or League. I am also assuming that Season matches will only be the ones that have this system in place and players can still play the unranked mode of Wolves Den.

Rewards for winning the season and PvP Vanity items
Now to reward these skilled PvPers who manage to surpass the odds and gain victory on the leaderboards there should be rewards such as exclusive titles and mounts given! And i feel that other than gear there should also be vanity items for high leveled PvPers 45+ such as mounts and minions. *cough* *cough* Armored Fenrir PvP Mount.

Frontline Rewards!

Now heres what would really be a great incentive for PvP, rewards to the Grand Company with the most victories in their respective Data Centers. Lets say for the month of May the Maelstorm on the Data Center of Aether has the most wins! All players in Maelstorm Grandcompany of their server will receive a juicy buff such as PvP EXP bonuses/Wolf mark or maybe even non pvp related things such as you would get from Company Actions. This gives more people an incentive to try out Frontlines.

Let me know what you guys think and what other areas that our PvP system needs to improve on!

The biggest problem IMO is that we have unnecessarily long waits for parties to be matched up than there would be otherwise due to the GC restriction; it doesn't take 72 players queued up to start a 72-man game, it takes several more than that because at least 3 parties of 8 have to be fully formed from whichever GC is the weakest. Long queues for the dominant GC, shorter queues but more losses for the least dominant GC, and so we have polarization between two GC's with the third somewhere in the middle; things might balance out with players migrating between GC's except for the fact PVP rank (and ability to make use of associated rewards) is tied to GC and so the higher someone's rank, the higher the disincentive to move.

Frontlines Rewards
I appreciate your starting this discussion, that said based on what I've observed on Primal datacenter the below would not help matters so much as make them worse. Rewarding people for being in the GC that already provides bigger rewards on a per match basis, isn't going to inspire the those in the other two GC's to try harder month after month. Experienced players will move to the dominant GC increasing the polarization, or they'll accept it but be very bitter about it and attrition will result.

Frontline Rewards!

Now heres what would really be a great incentive for PvP, rewards to the Grand Company with the most victories in their respective Data Centers. Lets say for the month of May the Maelstorm on the Data Center of Aether has the most wins! All players in Maelstorm Grandcompany of their server will receive a juicy buff such as PvP EXP bonuses/Wolf mark or maybe even non pvp related things such as you would get from Company Actions. This gives more people an incentive to try out Frontlines.


Match size
Agree that Slaughter, as currently implemented, is more suitable as 8x8x8 than 24x24x24, and likewise for Secure 24x24x24 is the preferable match size... and unfortunately it's one that so rarely pops these days. I think to have enough people for a 72 man Secure match, it takes many more players than 72 to queue up so DF can pick and choose amongst them all to form 9 parties of 8 with 3 from each GC, and the rest just get shafted I suppose. Now that we have two game modes, there aren't that many people willing to queue for as long as it would take to get a 72 Man Secure match to pop now that there's two separate game modes to funnel players between.

good points on all account but i stand on BUFF on this. with the way things are GC restriction all this rewards for gc specific will not work due to the fact that skilled pvp players will move to better gc which does inflation in the skilled players bein in one gc only. dont add gc reward thats one fix, second fix, if yoshi p plan to keep gc base pvp then add mercenaries for ishgard, since they have ties to ac specific nation they can be the mercenary GC where they can Q with either flames adder and or storm. third fix add all those reward mention except for the gc specific reward. 4th fix better map and it rules. the pvp in 14 right now pretty much kill or be killed for the win, they need to add emersion in the pvp. may be a match like labyrinth style where you are ported to a different parts of the map and have to face obstacle.

As I still hope for some Wolves Den revival I also hope for large scale battles without GC restrictions too and some type of small castle siege battleground.
Also some 1 v 1 like Olympiads in Lineage II would be epic, the classes were not balanced in Lineage II and it still was doable.

I know it is not going to happen thought. That is why i still have to play atleast one more pvp MMO all the time as my sidegame to the FFXIV.

Hi Zero. I am happy to see someone take the initiative to help improve the PvP system in this game. I made a similar thread almost a year ago and these were the results: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Long-Term-PvP Although it is a little outdated, it is interesting to see that Square has in fact implemented many of the requests listed there, as well as mentioned implementing the other items later on.

Yoshida has made it pretty clear that he wants more involvement in frontline so that players get a sense for PvP and improve their skills before introducing more Wolves Den content, which makes perfect sense. That is why I would personally like to see more variety in terms of game modes for frontline to get players interested.

Frontlines
In my opinion, the game needs a Capture the Flag frontline of 8vs8. Yes, 8vs8. Not 8vs8vs8. This frontline keeps it to the classical CTF rules between two teams that most players are familiar with. How it's handled would be up to Yoshida's plan of keeping or removing GC restrictions. Keeping the GC restriction would simply have matches between two of the GCs, leaving the third GC out of the current match. But, if they do want increased pvp participation, the GC restriction should be removed entirely. CTF introduces a fun new mode enjoyable by many players and gives tanks a bigger purpose in PvP as potential flag carriers.

Wolves Den
Once the PvP playerbase has increased, then it makes sense to work on Wolves Den. I agree entirely with a seasonal MMR system, as competition generally increases participation. As far as 8vs8 arena, this does seem quite large for teams, and I personally liked the 4vs4 system. In terms of ranked play, having all 8 of your team members online at the same time seems like it would be a challenge in itself and might cause very few teams to queue, but teams of 4 might still be the sweet spot and allow for quicker queues.

I think there are a couple easy changes to make PvP better:

1. Cometeors don't overlap, like you get a 5s buff "resistant to cometeor" on getting hit by a cometeor.

2. Make it so that the center is not the focus for a Slaughter match. Start with the outside nodes, then spawn more outside nodes, and then maybe finish off with a big center battle, but spending 75% of the match in what can only be described as a laggy flustercluck is just plain bad.

Either that or just make it so that the slaughter matches are 24 man. Secure 72 man was pretty good but it never pops anymore and no one remembers how to do it even if it does pop.

Also, other changes include removing GCs altogether.

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Frontline Rewards!

Now heres what would really be a great incentive for PvP, rewards to the Grand Company with the most victories in their respective Data Centers. Lets say for the month of May the Maelstorm on the Data Center of Aether has the most wins! All players in Maelstorm Grandcompany of their server will receive a juicy buff such as PvP EXP bonuses/Wolf mark or maybe even non pvp related things such as you would get from Company Actions. This gives more people an incentive to try out Frontlines.

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I'd switch GCs in an instant, lol.

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Originally Posted by PotatoTree

2. Make it so that the center is not the focus for a Slaughter match. Start with the outside nodes, then spawn more outside nodes, and then maybe finish off with a big center battle, but spending 75% of the match in what can only be described as a laggy flustercluck is just plain bad.

Either that or just make it so that the slaughter matches are 24 man. Secure 72 man was pretty good but it never pops anymore and no one remembers how to do it even if it does pop.

Also, other changes include removing GCs altogether.

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Yeah I think outer nodes should receive a little more attention. Perhaps spawning 3 times during the match rather than one.

I'm all for just having 24 man slaughter and 72 man secure though. 24 man secure is boring and 72 man slaughter is too crazy and frenzied.

No 3 teams. All Grand Companies get together.
2 Merchant Factions pop up - They hire Adventurers as mercenaries.
That means 2 teams.
Players choose their preferred choice. Players "hired" get sorted into separate teams; if they do not get their choice side, they receive a marks bonus (to compensate hiring a merc that doesn't like his employer for in game reason, and compensate people that try to enter with their premade friends but group didn't fit and they now gotta fight em)
Goal is a particular type of Rare Coblyn which has a particular type of rare Aetheryte gathered on its back. Special equipment allows each team to know where it popped in particular areas on the map.
You now have "Capture the Flag" option possible with 2 fronts. Random flag pop at few choice locations to prevent flag camping.
Much better at balance, especially if players aren't shoved into a battle of aesthetics choices and server meshes, premade will be harder, and coordination will be key.
You can keep it low at 8 v 8 and restriction queueing at groups of 4 max (booting full premades).

I agree with everything you have said OP, +1000 for everything, except this!

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Originally Posted by CartherineZero

Now heres what would really be a great incentive for PvP, rewards to the Grand Company with the most victories in their respective Data Centers. Lets say for the month of May the Maelstorm on the Data Center of Aether has the most wins! All players in Maelstorm Grandcompany of their server will receive a juicy buff such as PvP EXP bonuses/Wolf mark or maybe even non pvp related things such as you would get from Company Actions. This gives more people an incentive to try out Frontlines.

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No, please, no! :( This will only encourage more polarization between GCs, and longer queues.
After first week, players will begin to run to winning GC. That GC will keep winning because others GCs will lack players really interested in victory. In the end: 2 GCs with casuals, 1 GC with active pvpers.

In the current state of things, even 'weaks' GCs can win if you run frontlines with premades (or have luck finding good mates). In the end, it doesn't matter if your GC is weak in that data center, as long your premade can be fearsome and score wins.

So, no: No global win/lose.

PvP patches should be released in between major patches, not at the same time new main scenario quests and dungeons and other new content is released.

There should also be some 8v8 matches, where people of any GC can temporarily band together in the same full party in order to win glory for their nation. This will shorten queu times, and long queues have been the biggest factor in the average player losing interest in PvP.

Finally, please be sure to give a wolf mark bonus as a roulette reward, and the weekly challenges, otherwise players like myself who have reached the maximum level will not be motivated, because PvP experience is worthless once you are max rank. I realize the max level will be increased soon, but wolf marks are a huge grind, with very long queu times.

Long post, but an idea for an arena and format for 8v8:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/f...threads/233911

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Originally Posted by CartherineZero

Wolves Den and MMR system

It has been confirmed that we will be getting new Wolves Den maps and larger group sizes. But there has also been a hint at a leaderboard system for Wolves Den. We are not sure what kind of system Yoshida is plannning on adding but what do you guys expect or want to see in terms of ranking for Wolves Den? I personally would not mind a MMR system similar to that of games such as DotA 2, Although if there is a large enough PvP playerbase we can get to see a tiered rank system similar to that of Starcraft 2 or League. I am also assuming that Season matches will only be the ones that have this system in place and players can still play the unranked mode of Wolves Den.

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I agree with pretty much everything you said, and i and many others have posted most of it times and times again on this forums, sometimes even with great support behind, around 50+ likes in some threads.

Yet , and here is where the real problem lies, the devs don't communicate back, not even something like "we acknowledge this issues we are referring" just nothing and this is one of the biggest factors for success in pvp games, the community needs to be listened to and a channel of communication must remain active between Devs and players. I mean, they are probably working on changes right now, but that's part of the problem, they should announce the changes to us BEFORE they implement them so they some kind of feedback, since we don't even have test servers, to avoid futures messes like Slaughter FL was.

Other than that, i'll just point out that i'm not particularly thrilled with the idea of 8v8 arena since the whole point of arena is to be small scale, so that while teamwork is very important your personal skill can also easily change the tide of the match.

Anyway, thanks for the post, good to see that it's not just us people on EN servers that share this issues. :)

The main issue is the Duty Finder queue system itself and how it functions and no amount of PvP balancing or PvP design changes will properly address this flaw. Changing the system so that people in queue are put into a queue pool where they stay until all spots for each group would be filled (using time priority placement) is necessary to fix this issue.

I think people have pretty much mentioned it; Don't enforce the GC restrictions when it comes to match making for frontlines. I actually like the idea of seperating players into two different teams after a queue. It's less chaotic when it comes to large scale battles and eliminates the conspiracy theory of two GCs being butt buddies. Been having better queue times since I swapped GCs but I swear the other two always sandwich toward our side and stay there...

As SE seems stubborn on keeping GC restrictions, a 4th wildcard GC could be introduced. As others have mentioned, this GC could act as a "mercenary" type of GC which randomize what GC they will fight for each time.

Also as others have mentioned: 24 man secure is boring. 72 man slaughter is too chaotic and causes lag for most people. Which makes it an unfair mode. 72 man secure is fun, but dead. 24 man slaughter is the only mode alive in frontline that is actually fun. But the map is too big for this mode.

SE please priorotize queue in the following order:
72 secure, 24 slaugther, 24 secure, 72 slaughter.

72 slaughter would be fine really if the map was utilized better (again: see other posts). Forcing all players at the same location causes lag for most/many people playing and results in unfair experience. Death by lag is NOT fun

On a positive note I must say I really enjoy 24 man slaughter.

Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to host/join battles?

Frontlines is the large scale faction battleground capture the flag PvP so 72 man is fine. What SE needs to add is World vs World pvp where players fight over a large scale map for contested territory, castles and primals.

PvP greatest failiure is the lack of maps. Borderland ruins is suited for 72 man capture the point. Nothing else. Most issues and annoying tactics (cometeor stack) can be fixed with proper non flat/empty maps.

Hallo guys:) I am playing ffxiv for 3 months. So I really love this game, I have almost no complaining but the pvp. It's so much fun (playing on world chaos) but almost no one literally is playing pvp, 1 hour of waiting for a 10 min match :( So I have few thoughts, that should help to find new challengers.
1. Most important of all is the difficulty. The few players playing pvp are as mentioned from someone before are mostly core gamer. For beginners it is really hard to even kill someone, or winning an match. So who the heck (except me) waits 60 minutes to get whipped the sht away? To solved that problem, IL thought they should put a league in it. If someone says play the lvl 30 matches I say, there are still people with good gear and to much experience.I mean leagues like beginner: pvp rank from 1-3, advanced: 4-10 and so on. This would prevent to scare newbies like me from getting whipped out like there is no tomorrow.

2. My second point is a short question : Why are people playing pve? Because you get rewards, go further on in story and trying to beat the raids dungeons, etc.
So why shouldn't square put a small "storyline" into pvp?
Or make bigger rewards, like an overall ranking e.g. ?
If I compare it with league of legends ( Ik it isn't comparable in all), people are playing it, to be the best to achieve ranking.

3. To make it more attractive they should make big tournaments or big events, where you get exclusive items, gear, etc. Like in the seasonal events

That's my point of view and my ideas,cause love the pvp, but there aren't enough people playing it. That's the only problem of A realm reborn and I hope and trying to help to improve it. The most important points are the first two. If square would build these to points in, I think the pvp community would raise into the skies :D

Sorry for any tipping mistakes, I am a non native speaking. And I tipped it from an mobile phone :)
And sorry for the long text, but I really want to have a better pvp. That's all I can do for it, unfortunately.
Sincerely your Squall

And hopefully we will see as all soon, fighting against each other :)

Slaughter should needs a larger map with terrain and objectives. Also since they are adding FC alliances SE should add a castle siege mode with a large map. Where players attacking teams capture outpost break down the castle door and kill the defending teams Primal located in the basement of a 3 stage castle.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Slaughter should needs a larger map with terrain and objectives. Also since they are adding FC alliances SE should add a castle siege mode with a large map. Where players attacking teams capture outpost break down the castle door and kill the defending teams Primal located in the basement of a 3 stage castle.

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I played enough GW2, where the gameplay turned into player vs door, and not player vs player, no thanks to sieges, we need more open field battles with elevation, intetesting terrain, and less striking damage pve dummies....

My Wish list:

• To many modes!!! less modes = less queues. Barely have the critical mass to get matches going
• Slaughter: cap it to 8v8v8 or 16v16v16. Add more enemies on 16v16v16
• Secure: make it 72 match only. This has been killed for good imo.. dont think anything can make people come back to this considering the ne mode coming up in 3.0
• Maps: Slaughter needs its own map. We need OBSTACLES! Not just a flat ground.
• Incentivise balanced party setups/penalize class stacking while in match. Global bonus magic def when blm stack is detected. Update randomly between every 30s-2min
• Remove battle high or give it to a team getting destroyed.
• Give marks reward for challenge log.
• Allow selling of old pvp gear for wolf marks or GC seals.

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Originally Posted by Maxwell

My Wish list:

• Allow selling of old pvp gear for wolf marks or GC seals.

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Trading it for wolf marks would be amazing, i have to agree on that. I would also like to buy pvp materia for gil rather than wasting marks on it.

How about SE implement a better tab targeting system.
Australian servers would be nice also.

Others have said it and I agree: TWO factions are needed. A large reason for this being true, is double teaming. I won't switch GC to the one that is always dominant just to try to get wins for my achievement - my rank is already too high for it to be worth it to me. 90% of the time my GC loses due to double teaming. Two factions ensures this cannot happen, and is a large reason behind much pvp content in games being two sides. The double teaming makes sense when one GC is dominating and the other two go for it, but that is not even what is happening most of the time - it is just a double team from the start of most matches. The other obvious benefit for two factions is the [much] quicker queue time - which is the other main issue with pvp here.

I know they have apparently said that they won't do this, but the two sides is a major needed fix imo. There are multiple suggestions around the forums on how this could be achieved.

Good points. What I liked about 72 man secure was it was the only mode tha gave us an 8 x 8 battle, albeit indirectly as we had to go to a certain point to meet what was probably (but not always) a party of 8 from a competing team. We just don't get that anymore.

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Originally Posted by Game_Over

...The double teaming makes sense when one GC is dominating and the other two go for it, but that is not even what is happening most of the time - it is just a double team from the start of most matches. The other obvious benefit for two factions is the [much] quicker queue time - which is the other main issue with pvp here.

I know they have apparently said that they won't do this, but the two sides is a major needed fix imo. There are multiple suggestions around the forums on how this could be achieved.

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Ehh no, 2 teams would be the worst they can do. You said by yourself "but thats not even what is happening most of the time" and that is correct but also thats the whole point of 3 teams, because with 2 teams the bad team will ALWAYS loose, because they dont have a third team wich could lend a helping hand from time to time and lead the bad team to a few wins every now and then.

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Originally Posted by Sanghelios

Ehh no, 2 teams would be the worst they can do. You said by yourself "but thats not even what is happening most of the time" and that is correct but also thats the whole point of 3 teams, because with 2 teams the bad team will ALWAYS loose, because they dont have a third team wich could lend a helping hand from time to time and lead the bad team to a few wins every now and then.

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The problem is though, that 3rd team is not being helped by teaming up with the winning team - they are still coming in last almost every time. So they team with the 1st place GC, to give another GC 2nd place, and give themselves 3rd. It really has no positive effect at all, except for the GC that is always 1st. In theory I can see what you are saying, but it isn't playing out that way a majority of the time.

Either way, even if they are going to keep 3 factions, the GC restriction needs to be lifted: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...respond-please