Down with gc restrictions!!!

So as you may know squenixs has considered getting rid of gc restrictions. Let's help make this happen. Please voice your opinion pro or con.
I am pro, better wait time, smaller servers like mine can finally roll premade.

Lore means stuff. Keep GC restrictions, remove penalty timer changing GCs.

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Originally Posted by EddardStark

Lore means stuff. Keep GC restrictions, remove penalty timer changing GCs.

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The lore for Frontlines makes just as much sense as putting ourselves up for hire as mercenaries, to help with capturing Allagan relics and the like.

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Originally Posted by EddardStark

Lore means stuff. Keep GC restrictions, remove penalty timer changing GCs.

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No, it doesn't. Lore is a completely bullshit excuse, the only reason to keep the current set up is for the ways it enhances PvP. Removing the penalty for switching wouldn't really do anything either, all that would do is make a mass exodus to the "winning" Grand Company all the more common and further skew matches...

The Grand Company restriction is in place for Frontlines (which it is worth remembering has always been sold as "casual" PvP) to create a more welcoming atmosphere, you're automatically part of a team from the get go, after all. Whether you're new to PvP or a veteran, you've already got a team to fight for, I at least quite like the restriction for that alone. I like that my team generally has the same faces, I like that I can spot (and harass) rivals, rather than each match having purely randomized teams that I wouldn't care about at all. Lore really doesn't come into it at all, they can make up any contrived reason for static teams or non-static teams.

What they should do, is both ease up (not remove) the restriction, and enhance the sense of purpose behind the Grand Companies. Honestly, Grand Companies might as well not exist in this game, there is no real reason for them... If we had something like Final Fantasy XIs Conquest system, however, then perhaps they'd actually serve some gameplay aspect, rather than being an arbitrary glamour restriction (which is all they are outside PvP). Whether that ties into Frontlines or not is another question, but I'd certainly like it if I wasn't just winning in Frontlines for more Wolf Marks, but instead to go towards some weekly tally that can bring Twin Adders on top (although this would be in Frontlines, so I should just burn that dream...) for some kind of bonus to all Adders on my server...

As for easing up the restriction; Mercenaries. Opt in or forced, I don't particularly care. Queues wouldn't be instant, but 72 people queue up (20A/24F/28M), hold them all for like a minute looking for 4 more Adders, then just go "Fuck It" and slap those 4 excess Maelstrom in with the Adders for a match as Mercs, with something like "Mercenaries receive a 10% bonus to PvP EXP and Wolf Marks when placing first" to add incentive to actually push for first, rather than sabotaging for your real team. That should improve queues, without completely throwing away the good Grand Companies can bring to PvP...

At the very least I think SE should try for some middle ground, before completely gutting Grand Companies out of the game. Completely removing the restriction and just having purely random teams always struck me as the table-flip response... I'd rather they work on improving something, rather than swinging from one extreme to the other...

Taking out the penalty won't change anything. No one wants to start over.
The merchanary option sounds interesting but id rather have them just gut it and be done with it. 1 pvp rank and a fair playing field for all.

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Originally Posted by SaucepanKaoz

Lol, I found the ninja with teleport hacks. You might wanna avoid doing that while having battle high.

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i smell drama, post proof if you are gonna accuse someone

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Originally Posted by CeveArthu

i smell drama, post proof if you are gonna accuse someone

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^Agreed, proof would be needed, and also in that case, you should just address this issue to SE support instead of just blatantly point your finger at the person.

SE also stated that they would look into the GC restrictions, so while they might or might not remove it, we just gotta deal with it. Personally I do lose a lot of matchs being in the flames atm, I like pvping with the same group of regular people, if GC restrictions were removed, idk how often I would play with them unless I could party with them, and that would require a good amount of them to be on the same server.

Im fine with either decision SE makes.

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Originally Posted by SaucepanKaoz

i dont really care, he lost anyways. Kid had high and teleported to our base several times in and out trying to spawn camp. Emoted the ninja before he ported out and his name showed up. It's really easy to tell when a battle high is teleporting around the map. I aint recording my frontlines lol

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He could have quite simply used "Hide" a ninja ability that conceals them. When ninja uses "Hide" no one can see them and even their battle high/fever status is hidden from the map. The other battle high/fever may have been other people, not the person you are more than likely wrongly accusing.

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Originally Posted by SaucepanKaoz

i dont really care, he lost anyways. Kid had high and teleported to our base several times in and out trying to spawn camp. Emoted the ninja before he ported out and his name showed up. It's really easy to tell when a battle high is teleporting around the map. I aint recording my frontlines lol

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then we are all inclined to believe that he wasnt cheating and you are just upset

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Originally Posted by Houston009

He could have quite simply used "Hide" a ninja ability that conceals them. When ninja uses "Hide" no one can see them and even their battle high/fever status is hidden from the map.

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It doesn't conceal high/fever, there were a few times ive caught out ninjas trying to hide with high

It does, just not immediately. Same as if someone dies with high/fever, it doesn't always immediately shed the status from the map.

I as a ninja, have hid through entire alliances w/ fever and no one suspected a thing. Same as random high/fever ninja suddenly popping on the map attempting to assassinate a teammate.

Interesting, ive watched someone hidden move around the map despite me seeing him hide and then trying to follow him as bait

Perhaps he was Malmsighted (kudos to whoever put that on their bar), even then I'm not sure if that works on hidden ninjas.

From my own experience, "Hide" has concealed the high/fever status since Slaughter (which is why they were the best for spawn camping).

If high/fever appeared on hidden ninjas, It'd make it so much easier to "Detect" them.

I can confirm that ninjas using hide don't appear on the map. I think the battle fever marker stays on the map at the spot they used hide, and it will appear to "jump" when they unhide elsewhere on the map. Maybe it's kind of inconsistent how it works?

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Originally Posted by SaucepanKaoz

Nah, as i said, i dont care.

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If you didnt care then why would you accuse him anyway, it sounds like you had something to prove and then made excuses when you couldnt prove it

I'm still iffy about this topic. In one way, for the interests of keeping PvP as strong as possible, especially for ques, I think removing GC's would be a good thing. There's a lot of pro's to it, honestly.

1. You'd be able to buddy up with friends in a different GC.

2. Que times would surely increase.

3. GC grudge matches would ... not be eliminated, but more than likely replaced by specific premade group rivalries, which I guess is healthier.

4. In the interests of winning, players would be more encouraged to form pre-mades and join PvP LS.

That being said, there are a few things that bother me about it. Someone else pointed out that it's nice to have a sense of belonging to a team, and I agree with that. There's a lot of crap players and noobs in my GC, but I still enjoy seeing familiar faces from different servers. Removing GC restrictions would effectively cut us off from one another, unless you solo qued and got really lucky.

Another thing is pre-made themselves. There's been a lot of chatter about Pre-made groups que dodging and leaving entire alliances empty. I can see this problem, or one similar, happening if GC's are gone. IF the removal of GC's encouraged more players to form premades, the DF might have trouble balancing the solo que'ers. They might get shafted into sparsely populated teams, facing down highly coordinated full teams, and that would be very unfair, especially to those who come from servers with very small pvp communities... though, that might not make a huge difference compared to how it is now. It's hard to say if a stronger pre-made community would be a good thing or not. We probably won't know for sure until it happens ... if it happens.

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Originally Posted by Februs

There's been a lot of chatter about Pre-made groups que dodging and leaving entire alliances empty.

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This is honestly not that big of an issue. Even when a match starts with people missing, it usually fills up before the staging period even ends. The absolute worst case scenario I've seen was starting a match where each party only had like 3 people in it, and even then we were full up by the time the first Tomeiliths went down. Having less players at the start did hurt us, but it only made about a 50 point difference.

As far as GC restrictions go, I would like them to stay in Frontlines, for the reasons already mentioned. However, I would very much like the next PVP mode to be GC-free.

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Originally Posted by Beckett

This is honestly not that big of an issue. Even when a match starts with people missing, it usually fills up before the staging period even ends.

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Worst I've seen took about a quarter of the match to fill up, but that was only one time. I have no idea why it was so slow that day. Having a missing alliance is probably the only time people are actually happy about that 2 minute staging period.

I don't find the Alliance fill up to be an issue as it is now, but it could potentially become an issue if everyone is running in premades. I only thought of this because I've seen the same thing happen in PvE with 8 man parties. There have been times where I can solo que for an instant 8 man duty, but, if I try to que with a couple of dps, the que takes longer because the DF is busting blood vessels trying to do the math on how many spots it needs to fill. It usually sorts itself out in a short enough amount of time, but it might be annoying if constant Pre-mades are taking over all the que spots and leaving the solo quers out to dry. Though, this is more a problem with the DF being run by a half dead pixie with ADD then a strictly PvP issue...

Ummm.... I hope this will not happen. I have certainly enjoyed all the time being in my current GC with all the PVP runs I had so far; Adders rank 40 and flames 50 (No life lol). If you find your team is always on the losing side then you just have to get good. Take on the commander mantle and lead your GC to victory. The queue times aren't so bad too so don't have any issues on that. I just hope they remove the PVP ranks to be GC restricted because ranking up is just too troublesome eventhough its easier now.

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Originally Posted by MimieNya

Ummm.... I hope this will not happen. I have certainly enjoyed all the time being in my current GC with all the PVP runs I had so far; Adders rank 40 and flames 50 (No life lol). If you find your team is always on the losing side then you just have to get good. Take on the commander mantle and lead your GC to victory. The queue times aren't so bad too so don't have any issues on that. I just hope they remove the PVP ranks to be GC restricted because ranking up is just too troublesome eventhough its easier now.

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Lead them to victory? Good luck trying to tell 23 others what to do and have them actually listen, hell I can't even communicate with my team 90% of the time because I'm on Tonberry. Regardless of all that, this is about queue times mostly. It's very difficult to get into a Frontlines match anytime that isn't primetime, unless I want to 20-30 minutes, and I really don't.

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Originally Posted by MimieNya

Ummm.... I hope this will not happen. I have certainly enjoyed all the time being in my current GC with all the PVP runs I had so far; Adders rank 40 and flames 50 (No life lol). If you find your team is always on the losing side then you just have to get good. Take on the commander mantle and lead your GC to victory. The queue times aren't so bad too so don't have any issues on that. I just hope they remove the PVP ranks to be GC restricted because ranking up is just too troublesome eventhough its easier now.

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I don't think the request to remove GC Rank is because of a skill issue. People just want to play with their friends without having to switch GC or mention queue times. I honestly didn't think 24 man Seize existed until now. Also you can be playing the best player on the team, but guess what? You can still lose. You can even be trying to lead them to victory, but you can still lose. Why? Because it depends on the 23 other people. There's no "you just need to get good", you have to hope that your team knows what they're doing. Because why? This game's concept is that. You rely on other people to pull their weight.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

Good luck trying to tell 23 others what to do and have them actually listen, hell I can't even communicate with my team 90% of the time because I'm on Tonberry.

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What if I tell you that they'll listen to you if you're good with basic commands using the auto translate functions or spend some time to ask your japanese friends to give some advice? This is a mmo game so you need to use your connections. Well I'm from tonberry too sooo.... yeah.

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Originally Posted by Lorielle

Also you can be playing the best player on the team, but guess what? You can still lose. You can even be trying to lead them to victory, but you can still lose.

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Yep... losing happens but that is the beauty of PVP. Not gonna be fun if you're gonna win all the time no?

Sick of waiting hour for a game, remove the restriction. Vote mercenaries!

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Originally Posted by MimieNya

Yep... losing happens but that is the beauty of PVP. Not gonna be fun if you're gonna win all the time no?

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Err..That sort of logic doesn't exactly work. You do know there are people out there that get a kick out of stomping their competition into the ground, right? Also that was definitely taken out of context.

Just make a quest that allows you to increase through the petty officer rank, if you CHOOSE to go Officer for Adders / Mael / Flames, you queue up as an Adder . Mael / Flame, until then you're treated into a pool of players who act as mercenaries. Make the quest something like...idk "Kill blah blah blah in Seize Rock or Lead a GC to victory X times" and it'll unlock the quest to proceed higher and get awarded new GC gear thats 170-190 with Materia slots, or crafting materials. It'll promote the PvE community to be like "Oh i need Ancient Lumber and Stone Vigil Lumber to make X, maybe I should go Pvp so I don't have to waste 200k gil on the MB"

Or, "Man, I really don't have a set static for Alex Savage, maybe I should get into PvP and with the Materia make my ilvl 210'ish with penta-melds"

You're the Warrior of Light. You shouldn't be restricted to being a middle tier rank in a GC anyway.

Make the higher tier officer unlock a pvp skill that gives something dumb like 10% HP Resto + Regen, or allow you to charge LB gauges slightly faster, something that inspires your troops.

@MimieNya - You're allowed to like the GC restrictions all you want. Opinions and assholes and all that. But it's a fact that the GC restriction causes gameplay problems - higher queue times across the board 100% of the time (even short queue times would be shorter without the restrictions, excepting instant queues), the natural flocking of most weekly PvE Eso farming players who don't care to win to one of the three GCs on each data center (usually the one with the lowest queue times), and the natural reaction to this flocking where many serious PvPers will go to a different GC to increase chances of victory (which causes GC population imbalances for those active in PvP).

It also causes problems with grouping up with friends and FC mates if they happen to be in different GCs - yes, they can change GCs, but as more and more friends are forced to switch, and you meet more and more people you'd like to PvP with... Where does it end? What if they have other friends who they PvP with in their current GC? You can't have everyone switch over. It just doesn't work. You will either eventually have an entire server on the same GC (never going to happen), or will cut off friends with their friends, friends of friends with their friends, etc. down the network of friends.

The GC restrictions cause problems. That's a fact. So saying something like "it's fine as it is, suck it up" is factually incorrect. Problems are, by definition, not fine, and the GC restrictions cause problems.

If you really want to defend GC restrictions, you're much better off finding and expressing things the restriction brings to the table. There's been a lot of conversation on the cons of the GC restrictions, but far less on the pros. The only way you might convince anyone it needs to stay is by showing them the system's boons.

Good luck with that.

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Originally Posted by Eskuire

Just make a quest that allows you to increase through the petty officer rank, if you CHOOSE to go Officer for Adders / Mael / Flames, you queue up as an Adder . Mael / Flame, until then you're treated into a pool of players who act as mercenaries. Make the quest something like...idk "Kill blah blah blah in Seize Rock or Lead a GC to victory X times" and it'll unlock the quest to proceed higher and get awarded new GC gear thats 170-190 with Materia slots, or crafting materials.

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Do you have any idea how many players would hate the hell out of this due to not liking PvP? Especially considering GC ranks are an entirely PvE system.

There are literally hundreds of overly complicated solutions to fix pvp and only 1 easy one that is fair to most. There are some guys who leveled other gc's. Myself I maxed my main and have both others at 35. Giving those up is a small price to pay for short ques and being able to play with my fc. No gc's would lead to 5 minute ques. Anytime 72 players want to play, game on!

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Originally Posted by Vandril

Do you have any idea how many players would hate the hell out of this due to not liking PvP? Especially considering GC ranks are an entirely PvE system.

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Then don't do it. lol. I hated Alex farming and Atma grinding in 2.1 but I did it anyway because it needed to be done. No one is forcing anyone to do anything, but if you choose to go higher in the Ranks, be prepared to deal with it.

Also, if GC ranks were a PvE system then why lock the petty officers then? what's the point? It's like "Oh look, King Moogle gets Savage mode." big frigging whoopy doo. Go beat it up so you can go up one rank and grind more F.A.T.E.S for seals. Boring. You kill two birds with one stone, you get a universal pool of players for GC's to soften queue times, you get the people who WANT to grind it queueing up, if they hate it. Tough crap, don't do it, no one is forcing you. You get SE to keep GC's that promote both the PvE and PvP community on separate sides.

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Originally Posted by Eskuire

Then don't do it. lol. I hated Alex farming and Atma grinding in 2.1 but I did it anyway because it needed to be done. No one is forcing anyone to do anything, but if you choose to go higher in the Ranks, be prepared to deal with it.

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No, see, people won't have the option to deal with it or just not do it, since this change will never be made to begin with. Let's be real, here. Square will never do this due to the inevitable backlash from PvEers who want nothing to do with PvP.

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Originally Posted by Eskuire

Also, if GC ranks were a PvE system then why lock the petty officers then? what's the point? It's like "Oh look, King Moogle gets Savage mode." big frigging whoopy doo. Go beat it up so you can go up one rank and grind more F.A.T.E.S for seals. Boring.

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What are you even going on about? Regarding your first sentence in the quote above: that makes literally zero sense, so I have no idea what you mean.

Regardless, it's not "if GC ranks were a PvE system". GC ranks are a PvE system. The GC rank system currently involves only PvE content.

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Originally Posted by Eskuire

You kill two birds with one stone, you get a universal pool of players for GC's to soften queue times, you get the people who WANT to grind it queueing up,

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No. What you'll end up with is maybe a handful of new people queuing for PvP that weren't already and the rest of the PvEers complaining on the forum until the system is changed and a PvE method of obtaining the new GC ranks is implemented. At which point the new queuers for PvP stop queueing, Square ends up having wasted time changing the system to appease the (rightful) complainers, and nobody is the better off from where it all started.

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Originally Posted by Eskuire

if they hate it. Tough crap, don't do it, no one is forcing you.

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No offense, but you'd make a truly terrible game designer with a philosophy like this.