Yoshida is considering the removal of the GC restriction in PvP content.

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In response to a question regarding lengthy PvP queue times:
"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."

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

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Courtesy of sindoreiikitten's thread on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...yt&sh=2e8cc5c0

Moral degradation, huh?

What I don't quite understand is: Aren't 6+ premades pretty much already "farming for one single grand company"? What's there to worry about, that's already a thing. I don't quite understand what spy activity is supposed to be in this context either. Anyone got pointers?

If they removed the restriction how could people farm for one free company? And what spy activity?

I believe the "farming for one single Grand company" is a mistranslation. I think Yoshi-P is referring to the concept known as "fishing." (i.e. someone queuing for a match and dropping out if they don't get the GC/party/other condition that they wanted).

As for spy activity, just one player in communication with players in another GC via external methods can give the GC being feed information an advantage.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

I believe the "farming for one single Grand company" is a mistranslation. I think Yoshi-P is referring to the concept known as "fishing." (i.e. someone queuing for a match and dropping out if they don't get the GC/party/other condition that they wanted).

As for spy activity, just one player in communication with players in another GC via external methods can give the GC being feed information an advantage.

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Ok so spying can already be done, as for the not getting the grand company you wanted, that just...pathetic? They could just remove them and make blue team, red team etc.

I'm not entirely sure fishing / win trading is going to be a large issue for Frontlines of all things, especially if the GC restrictions are removed and the queues become as fast as they should be. At any rate, they'd be less of an issue than the present GC restrictions.

Supposedly we already have some unpoliced healers win trading dropping I am told. If the games actually consistently get 72s during prime time it won't be that much of an issue. When premades in 72s get double teamed they generally don't have that great a win %.

The real thing is that it will make people congregate to 3 servers. Further killing little servers, since cash shop transfers aren't blocked. Meaning on aether at least Gilgamesh and Balmung will see more people trying to get into premade pvps for wins.

Nice post, this really should have been something looked into in 2.o. But maybe they will actually try to build community pvp servers.

Hopefully this consideration of removing the GC restrictions actually gets them removed and makes it in time for 3.4. I'm somewhat close to getting the white ADS mount, but the queues have been absolutely awful lately. What was once 5 wins a day is now down to 1-2, making it very hard to stay motivated.

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Originally Posted by NovaLevossida

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.

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With speed hacking, tomestone farmers, proven win-trading, and cut-throat behavior and animosity caused by rankings in Feast and they're worried about GC restriction-less Frontlines causing moral degradation and spying (as if that can't already happen)?

Okay.

Four questions? Amazing interview, the partition one was particularly important imho. Randomize people to a team, stop making me lose faith in your range of thought Yoshi. "Afraid ppl will choose the same team every time" is how I read it.... Dont give option, alla Claws / Fangs.. I see super lazy mode going on.

edit: interview

I guess you won't have to worry about moral degradation when there's no one playing PvP.

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Originally Posted by Stormrider

The real thing is that it will make people congregate to 3 servers. Further killing little servers, since cash shop transfers aren't blocked. Meaning on aether at least Gilgamesh and Balmung will see more people trying to get into premade pvps for wins.

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PvP'ers are already kind of stuck with server transfers since doing so resets your feast ranking, though I suppose that may just mean there'd be a mass exodus in between seasons.

"Moral degradation" is the same phrase he used the last time he answered a question about gc restrictions. Honestly it sounds so absurd that Im led to think its a poor translation

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Originally Posted by Enlial

PvP'ers are already kind of stuck with server transfers since doing so resets your feast ranking, though I suppose that may just mean there'd be a mass exodus in between seasons.

"Moral degradation" is the same phrase he used the last time he answered a question about gc restrictions. Honestly it sounds so absurd that Im led to think its a poor translation

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I hope they meant morale degradation. Still incredibly silly, but not quite so.

"Moral Degradation" is a strange term. It's basically saying if GC requirements are taken out, a lot of people automatically become assholes. Perhaps it's bad translation.

"Spy Networks"... I take it this means people reporting what other players are doing outside of the game? That might be happening in some teams already. You can't control it because it's outside of the game. Communication in game when you're in PvP is mostly disabled so what can be done, has been done.

"Teams farming for a single GC"... That happens anyway. It was literally ruining the launch of shatter, making some GC's queue times unbearable.

By removing GC requirements, more people will play PvP because it will just takes 24 or 72 players in total to start, not x Adders, x Flames and x Mael. That's the end goal here and it's been echoed for ages. Just have the team you're assigned be completely random.

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Originally Posted by NovaLevossida

Courtesy of sindoreiikitten's thread on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...yt&sh=2e8cc5c0

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I don't get it. So Yoshi is afraid of human nature? Spying is already being done by people who put up streams and reporting to their ls of the opposing teams actions so that's nothing new. I've seen ppl throw matches by just going afk and not to mention the amount of people who do it just for the tomes or even bandwagon on one GC when its on a winning streak. Yoshi needs to focus on the bigger issue and implement a gameplay system that isn't so restrictive. I used to be able to solo 1-2 ppl back in seal rock as a war and this was before the nerf to tank damage. Some people might say war was op but it really wasn't. Against another competent dps I could have and had died on multiple occasions so its all player skill when its 1v1.

If Yoshi P wants to do some tests he can start by implementing a lobby system for matchmaking. Default will be 8v8v8 and expand from there with people able to join in mid match as a spectator for their respective GC, if there are no spots currently available. Once the match everyone returns to the lobby and the people who joined mid match as spectators can now enter the lobby and hopefully enter the next match, assuming there are enough people to balance out the 3 GC's.

I like frontlines so its quite the shock to see the new pvp dead so fast copared to seal rock. Just goes to show how design of Shatter was not up to par.

Does anyone believe that the real excuses is moral degradation (live letter I saw was translated cheating basically)? If nothing else SE spins excuses right up until they say no you can't have more inventory and no we can't really fix housing take a room instead.

The simplest fix is making another separate battle ground. Japanese can que as GC if they want and NA can que without and if someone wants to que either or they can risk whatever the que monster brings. They can remove it from the roulette if they have to. Getting 3 games in an hour is more productive then 1 roulette in 60 mins. I can't speak for the other data centers but I have a feeling Balmung, Gilgamesh, and the rest would field games almost non stop on aether.

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Originally Posted by Stormrider

Does anyone believe that the real excuses is moral degradation

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No. It doesn't make the slight bit of sense. "If we remove the teams people may spy on the other teams or requeue till they get a specific team." Wut.

There are some hidden assumptions in this answer. If not it makes little sense.

I can see that it would be easier to go full premade without GC restrictions. That may cause x% more frustration among pug teams.

Spy? That's already possible with 3rd party chat etc.

It looks like it's assumed that some sort of GC-thing will be in place no matter what. For example: you are currently in Immortal Flames, queue frontline and end up in Adders. You hate adders and you quit. Or you do anything you can to sabotage. Is that what it's meant by spy? The point here is to remove 'em entierly from frontline. Which means this would hardly be an issue.

One thing that can make sense is that you changed GC because you ended up hate some peolpe in that GC. With GC restrictions it's guaranteed you wont randomly end up in the same team. Remove GC restrictions and once again you can be demoralized, and/or try and sabotage if you end up in the same team. Which can causes a snowball effect.

they should make it so if you que for pvp even if you are kicked you get a time out so no one can fish for a other team. people are going to try and log out get kicked and re que no give them a time out

Well they have to do something cause otherwise Frontlines will be completely dead again.

This was already said in Live Letter 24 last November. 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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It has been closing on one year since then. He just said the exact same thing down to the moral degradation line which makes no sense as people in this tread have already pointed out. I'm not holding my breath.

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Originally Posted by KayVonTrarx

It has been closing on one year since then. He just said the exact same thing down to the moral degradation line which makes no sense as people in this tread have already pointed out. I'm not holding my breath.

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Hundred percent agree with nothing being done. One year of lore, one year of cheaters, any takers on what the excuse will be in November?

I'll believe it when I see it... I still think they should just take the Grand Company restriction and roll with it by just giving it a damn purpose... Ranked Frontlines could work IMO, perhaps even better than Feast...

Still wouldn't mind seeing the restriction at least reduced instead though, a mercenary type concept has been kicking around here long enough, seems like a solid middle-ground to me...

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Moral degradation, huh?

What I don't quite understand is: Aren't 6+ premades pretty much already "farming for one single grand company"? What's there to worry about, that's already a thing. I don't quite understand what spy activity is supposed to be in this context either. Anyone got pointers?

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Adders had a premade on aether during 2.0 i ran into them all the time its nothing new to frontlines

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Originally Posted by KayVonTrarx

It has been closing on one year since then. He just said the exact same thing down to the moral degradation line which makes no sense as people in this tread have already pointed out. I'm not holding my breath.

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Exactly this. SE and Yoshi have led us down this path before, and nothing happened. It's clear and total bulls***. Even if you believe that they're actually working on it, exactly what kind of tests can they possibly be doing that take more than a year? Further, what kind of tests could they possibly be doing that can measure the effects of 'moral degeneration' in the PvP community? I curious of how they could even have accurate results for such a test when they're not even testing the PvP community directly.

Quite frankly, this is the kind of lingo used by corporate big wigs when they don't actually have an answer to a question or don't know what they're talking about. Nothing more.

Farming a single grand compagny and the spy thing, even with the GC restriction, it happen.
it's not hard to have friend in a other GC, and make 2 GC farming one.
any restriction can do nothing about it, i don't think you can even control this.
If SE fear the pvp to be abused, GC restriction don't help for this, players still joining the GC they want and can organize anything easily, the GC restriction don't prevent anything.
And it's annoying like you said because you can't make any pvp without abuse. it happen with the premade in the feast, it can happen in the frontline, because a few players don't have respect for the pvp at all and try to control it.

The JP players must play FL way different, cause I've played on all 3 GCs for the pony and the thing their pugs all had in common was a mutual hatred of their own GC's players and a constant paranoia that the other two teams were in some collusion to team up against them.

In the end I don't think anything will change for FL. They'd probably just make a new mode that is not connected to GC if anything. Right now the GCs are tied into the queuing structure, score screen, the achievements, the mounts, map doodads, lodestone, etc. If they can't even make it so you can queue with a chocobo out, I don't think they can untangle the web of code for this change without just making something new.

Yoshida's point on Grand Company restrictions is a fallacy.

First off, this isn't an RvR game like DAoC, GW2, ESO, etc. This is BGs we're talking about. Spying in BG PvP is pretty nonexistent. The community is so niche I doubt anyone cares about these issues Yoshida is worried about. Desperate times calls for desperate measures.

Secondly, has he stepped into PvP before? The enemies are pinpointed on the map after the first objective usually. This makes the game even more predictable.

As for farming for one single Grand Company, what can you do about premades?

Yeah they don't really fix stuff, they just make new content and hope people forget. The other stuff gets left to die, example Diadem. I don't think we'll see GC restrictions gone.

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Originally Posted by PotatoTree

The JP players must play FL way different, cause I've played on all 3 GCs for the pony and the thing their pugs all had in common was a mutual hatred of their own GC's players and a constant paranoia that the other two teams were in some collusion to team up against them

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Hahahahaha... I cannot count the times I've heard the "ganging up" excuse or the ""premade" accusation just because the other team was getting the better of an unorganised, worthless mess of a PUG back in the Cartenau days especially.

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Originally Posted by PotatoTree

The JP players must play FL way different ...

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I play on both Aether and Elemental data centres with Frontline PvP and I can attest to the differing playstyles of the NA and JP players.

The JP matches have less blowout games, with all three teams in contention to win every game. They also have Cometeor stacking (now Terminal Velocity stacking with the magic ice resist) macros which help PUGs use their LBs in a coordinated fashion. They also do not have any carries nor pocket healers as far as I recall which contributes to every match being even. In some games, no one even gets a battle high or if they do, they get targeted instantly. Also, the Japanese people are willing to switch to a healer and do so in the first 15 seconds if there is not two in your party.

On the actual forum topic, we all know that everyone who plays PvP wants these GC restrictions gone. As someone has said previously, it's integrated into a lot of the UI so it's probably nigh impossible to remove it from the current modes without creating new assets but should be possible for future modes.

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Originally Posted by Rilasha

The JP matches have ... Cometeor stacking (now Terminal Velocity stacking with the magic ice resist) macros which help PUGs use their LBs in a coordinated fashion.

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Knew the nerf to casters on tomeliths in Shatter were probably attributed to this.