PvP from a casual new player (very long)

Hello! I've been playing for a few months now, have a few lvl70s and dipped my toes into PvP here and there as queues allowed and wanted to share my concerns as to why PvP is so disconnected from most players. Personally i've played many PvP games, including getting arena titles in WoW a few times and i've talked with many different people on their opinions and experiences, it helps me compare and analyze from both a "casual" and "hardcore" perspective. This is not ment to address the current issues like Light Medals, Box health, queue times, etc...

I'll start with listing the currect overall problems and then proceed on proposing solutions:

The game does not attract the "PvP Crowd"
I'll be blunt - the starting experience of the game actively turns away most PvPers, with almost all of them quitting before level 10. The most cited reason is, to put it gently, "slow combat", with "boring art design" coming in second. The former stems mostly from a very long Global Cooldown (GCD), long cast times and being unable to move while casting; the latter comes from the general art direction of the game as being on the extreme side of "family friendly" and "safe", with little sex appeal or "coolness" in character, armor, weapon and animations design.

Starting PvP is overwhelming
Any new player (especially the type that stays with FFXIV as noted above) that manages to reach the Wolve's Den is confronted with an entirely new set of abilities, all given out at once. The interface simply lines the abilities on the main bar with no concern for where they should be and overwhelming the player with "having to set up the entire UI all over again". This is a very archaic way of doing it, it might've been acceptable during Ultima or Everquest times perhaps. Feast Quartermasters don't show off the gear without getting a rating, so less motivation for players.

Nothing matters in PvP
The biggest reason why players don't stick with it is because the entire experience is completely disconnected from the rest of the game. While there is a case to be made for glamours (but then the glamour system is badly designed to begin with) there is nothing to take in or out of the PvP sphere. Nothing a player does in PvP affects anything else in the game and this insularity offers no incentive to participate.

Skillgap is too wide
The difference in skill between a regular PvPer and a newcomer is too wide, leading to new players feeling frustrated from "losing all the time". New players are unable to tell what is happening, leading to regular surprise deaths or feeling like the enemy is undefeatable. Matches drag on with little variance followed by sudden defeats. This comes from and leads to new players being unable to understand and analyze each encounter, unable to learn from it, leading to frustration and demotivates them from trying again. This demotivation leads to an easy quit because there's no motivation (reward) to balance it.

Can we address all of these? Not without fundamental changes to the spirit and gameplay. PvP will stay irrelevant until a major rework of the combat and reward systems is done. While i'm sadly not a game dev i can still provide possible solutions from personal experience of what works and doesn't.

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Any new player must be allowed to easily get in and out of PvP. Creating a new character should let anyone choose to start in the Wolve's Den BEFORE the entire lvls 1-15 starting experience, leaving the Den would then put them into the starting experience as usual.
Players start only with their main damage combo, and then going into a Hall of Novice variation called Hall of Pups with the same challenges but featuring the PvP Actions. This can be skipped to award players all the actions, but also providing a cussion for those who may feel overwhelmed to practice it in peace.

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Interface changes must be made to better serve the gameplay. Since addons aren't allowed all of this falls onto the devs to improve the UI. Player characters should be voice-acted and announce enemy and friendly cooldowns, both through audio and as a chat bubble. Simple chat messages are unaccepable as a solution to communication. Examples:

• When a WHM casts Benediction (or Assize) the character exclaims "Benediction!" for everyone to hear. Similarly, when a NIN uses Assassinate, he/she should exclaim "Die!"
• Divine Benison's shield visual effect should remain on the player until it wears off.
• When an enemy casts Protect one of your teammates should exclaim "The Dragoon is being Protected!"

This is important as it lets all players know that a major healing cooldown was used and avoids the feeling of not being able to kill the enemies for no reason.

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The Party interface must also feature basic info on all members with cooldowns and target-of-target. Nameplates should feature buffs and debuffs, each individually togglable from the PvP Profile. Shift-clicking on any of these elements would announce its status to the party, such as "Hallowed Ground has 10 seconds cooldown." or "Hallowed Ground is ready!" - these must have chat bubbles and be ideally voice acted.

Any abilities given out by the PvP profile that replace the existing ones must find and replace the current player spells in their respective positions on the action bars, NOT simply laying them out with no rime or reason all over the main bar. Any spell that doesn't directly match existing ones should be given out of a special "New PvP Actions!" window popup that shows any actions the player hasn't put on their bars (can be toggled off in options). This should address the issue of being overwhelmed by a messy UI.

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There must be a major rework of the reward structure of PvP. My suggestion is made of 3 parts:

It is of utmost importance to tie a tangible reward for participating PvP matches for things outside of PvP:
Every Feast match played should award 30 Tomestones of Creation and Poetics, with additional 60 Creation and 10 Mendacity if you win that match.
Astragalos should award 150 Poetics per match, winning also grants 150 Creation and 15 Mendacity. Similar rewards would also apply to other PvP activities.
This gives PvE players an incentive to wet their feet in PvP while motivating PvPers to play more so they can also progress on their PvE goals without being forced to run dungeons or raids (letting PvPers access more glamour from PvE vendors?).

Another part of the rewards structure is loot. Current PvP items are nothing but glamour, and i must say that almost all of them are terrible-looking, the devs really need to get new talent onto the PvP design as nothing in there appeals to PvPers (though i'm sure many will disagree, subjective and all that). That said - the items are nigh but pointless, there must be tangible PvP loot. What i propose is the following:
There must be a set of armor and weapons for every 10 levels. This would be a green-quality set, similar to the Grand Company items and featuring all armor and weapon slots for every 10 levels with relevant stats that are usable outside of PvP. This lets players effectively PvP while leveling and keeping the gear up to date without having to go into dungeons. This must be done alongside the existing GC, crafted and vendor gear as a very competitive alternative, otherwise it will be seen as "more useless loot". Levels 1, 10 and 20 are green-quality gear, levels 30 and 40 are similar but with set bonuses, levels 50 and 60 are blue-quality matching Ironworks/Shire gear in power.

The final part of the reward structure is end-game gear. PvP Ranks should award end-game equipment that is usable outside of PvP. For example, as of patch 4.2, the following Ratings could award:

• Bronze - 310 armor
• Silver - 330 armor, 320 weapons
• Gold - 345 armor, 340 weapons
• Platinum - 360 armor, 355 weapons
• Diamond - 370 armor and weapons
• Feast Winners - 380 armor and weapons.

This means that very dedicated PvE players would be very motivated by pursuing PvP, casual PvE players would find another venue of getting low-end upgrades and PvPers would get compatitive items to let them enter endgame PvE content without churning through the low-end. Obviously the above item levels must be updated every content release to match the current progress.

There must also be additional items that can be purchased with Wolf Marks, all items are bound and untradable:
DoW/DoM/DoH/DoL food, Materia, Crafting materials, Exp Scrolls, Tickets, new crafting books for PvP items, Prisms, Potions, Currency exchange like 1000x Wolf Marks for 50x Tomestones of Creation (all Tomestones, Ventures and Seals should be available).

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also most pvpers quit the pvp scene or the game entirely, rip

I like that PvP is disconnected from PvE with the exception of the skillset.

It'd be nice if pvpers could grind to fuel their pve endeavors, however your fourth option isn't going to necessarily attract the good kind of pvers. The people who do pvp do it because they enjoy the competitiveness and the rewards reaped from coming out on top.

The fact that you gain exp to your pve lvl and getting tomes has only attracted people to come into frontlines only to sit their and alt tab and watch movies or w/e simply because they get something out of it regardless of their participation or win/loss and because pvp match completion is faster than dungeons or PotD. They need to rework how kicking those people out works or adding a system where you get currency for participation rather than just sitting there since pvp match success hinges on group coordination.

With pve it's all about leveling and gearing quickly with the least amount of effort and if pvp is the way that best matches this then they are going to opt for it, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

As a new player who enjoys PvP, I have to say it's nice to have a MMO with the PvP disconnected from the PvE aspect of the game for many reasons.

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Originally Posted by RuneFox

As a new player who enjoys PvP, I have to say it's nice to have a MMO with the PvP disconnected from the PvE aspect of the game for many reasons.

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Oh, don't get me wrong. I plainly aggree with how skills are separate, how there are no levels and gear doesn't matter. I like all that. I'm only trying to address PvP participation. This doesn't affect how the PvP is structured.

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Originally Posted by Gokki

This doesn't affect how the PvP is structured.

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PvP is like PvE, it requires experience. Do you give up whe you failed Titan extreme? Most of us continues to try until we beat him. PvP is the same logic, just keep play and gaining experience on how to react and counter a real player. In time, you will also be a veteran

I agree the rewards need a significant boost. There are attractive glamour sets and a few mounts after a large amount of runs/wins but then what? Wolf Marks should be exchanged for variety of items, I like the idea of everything you listed.

In my opinion the long queue times keep me from queuing often unless it's a weekend and I have all day to wait.

There should also be some sort of "adventurer in need/needs competetors" type of reward set on every frontline mode that isn't shatter.

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Originally Posted by Oliekin

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Well you can "fix" this with: everytime u kill a person it gives u tomes/xp for rewarding you to play. Or you destroy an object or capture a base which should be lower than actually killing a person. Something like this: 10kills gives u 10% of your XP bar and 20 tomes. Or smthing like this.

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Originally Posted by Bahati

I agree the rewards need a significant boost. There are attractive glamour sets and a few mounts after a large amount of runs/wins but then what?

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The problem with this is it attracts to many "i dont care just give me my reward". Theres reason why was there boom of new players playing pvp. Like: farming tomes for anima, light farming and after all that the garo event. Now we are in 4.0 with quick chat. :P

You won’t think skill gap too wide if you played 3.0 pvp... lol

I have always thought that we needed a Hall of the Novice-style place for PVP matches.

It would be nice if wolf marks would have any use. Even 6 materia or infusion potions would be enough for me.

Tomestones are already a big reward for pvping, i found it easier to pvp to get them than doing dungeons or trials.

Sorry for being late to the party here. This is a nice, well thought out post. Thanks for the time you spent putting your thoughts together. Here's my take on these points:

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Originally Posted by Gokki

The game does not attract the "PvP Crowd"
I'll be blunt - the starting experience of the game actively turns away most PvPers, with almost all of them quitting before level 10. The most cited reason is, to put it gently, "slow combat", with "boring art design" coming in second. The former stems mostly from a very long Global Cooldown (GCD), long cast times and being unable to move while casting; the latter comes from the general art direction of the game as being on the extreme side of "family friendly" and "safe", with little sex appeal or "coolness" in character, armor, weapon and animations design.

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I agree and disagree with points here. The PvP in this game is not well polished and is very lacking from a pure PvP view-point. So yes, players who have a pure focus on PvP are probably going to be very disappointed in FFXIV. 95% of the content - especially good and fulfilling content - is in PvE. SE just isn't putting enough resources into PvP. Though I disagree about the art direction. I think there's plenty of sex appeal if that's what you're after, and I think there's a lot of well designed armor for "cool" factor of various classes. I'm well pleased with the aesthetics of this game, and I actually find the art style to be more mature then WoW.

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Originally Posted by Gokki

Starting PvP is overwhelming
Any new player (especially the type that stays with FFXIV as noted above) that manages to reach the Wolve's Den is confronted with an entirely new set of abilities, all given out at once. The interface simply lines the abilities on the main bar with no concern for where they should be and overwhelming the player with "having to set up the entire UI all over again". This is a very archaic way of doing it, it might've been acceptable during Ultima or Everquest times perhaps. Feast Quartermasters don't show off the gear without getting a rating, so less motivation for players.

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I absolutely agree with this. SE, in attempt to make getting into PvP easier, made it much more annoying to get into with having a completely different set of abilities and requiring that players have to redo an entirely new UI just for PvP. If SE wanted to be serious about PvP they would put in the time and resources to add abilities in the game with design balanced for both PvE and PvP. Right now they just design for PvE and delegate a very small team to balance for PvP - a feat that they could only accomplish by removing most of the abilities in the game so they only have to balance around a handful of abilities. They just don't want to put in the work required to make PvP challenging and balanced, and the incentives to make it easier for new players (much fewer buttons to press) also works to send them away (having to redo setup for those special PvP buttons). It's a mess.

And also - yes, the feast quartermasters should show what they have to offer. Seeing what kind of shiny's you can get is a good incentive for players.

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Originally Posted by Gokki

Nothing matters in PvP
The biggest reason why players don't stick with it is because the entire experience is completely disconnected from the rest of the game. While there is a case to be made for glamours (but then the glamour system is badly designed to begin with) there is nothing to take in or out of the PvP sphere. Nothing a player does in PvP affects anything else in the game and this insularity offers no incentive to participate.

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We have a few good threads here recently where players here like the idea of PvP world zone where what happens in PvP can matter for more than an instanced 12 minute game. Otherwise I don't see this as a big issue. I loved PvP in WoW and outside of world PvP, I found plenty of enjoyment in battlegrounds and a little bit of arena of which the outcome also had no effect outside of those instances.

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Originally Posted by Gokki

Skillgap is too wide
The difference in skill between a regular PvPer and a newcomer is too wide, leading to new players feeling frustrated from "losing all the time". New players are unable to tell what is happening, leading to regular surprise deaths or feeling like the enemy is undefeatable. Matches drag on with little variance followed by sudden defeats. This comes from and leads to new players being unable to understand and analyze each encounter, unable to learn from it, leading to frustration and demotivates them from trying again. This demotivation leads to an easy quit because there's no motivation (reward) to balance it.

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It's not the skill gap that's too wide. It's map knowledge and the complexity of what's going on. SE really dumbed down the "skill" of PvP to very few buttons so the skill ceiling and the skill floor are actually quite close, almost to its detriment (there are a few players who hate this and are very vocal about it but I think its almost necessary given that they split PvP abilities completely off from PvE abilities). Even Shatter, the most commonly played PvP map, is at first not intuitive and the knowledge of what wins you games doesn't come strong until you've had quite a lot of hours put into the mode. If I wanted to write a guide on Shatter, it would very long, having to explain ice spawn patterns, points earned from controlling a base vs. points earned from killing players vs. points lost from dying vs. battle high/fever changing those things vs. proper positioning and when to press forward vs. getting sandwiched and demolished...it's a lot. Hell and I still don't know all that goes on in Rival Wings. And in Feast - there's nothing that teaches you in game about the medal system or how hard it is to out damage a good healer. A new player in the feast is just hacking and slashing at a brick wall for 8 minutes and then doesn't understand how their team lost when they managed to get more kills because they picked up all the medals and increased damage taken by a lot. And now there's that dumb light medal damage reduction status...

Map knowledge is gained by experience and lot of players might not have the patience to gain that experience, and duck out of PvP when they don't know what the hell is going on and how games are being won and lost. I think Frontlines is a failure because they are way too big of maps with too many rules and an element of RNG that makes too big of a difference. Tone down the size and scope of these maps and simplify the rule sets and give us standard CTF / King of the Hill etc. and then PvP can be a lot easier understood by new players.

Your analysis here is spot on, but slightly misdiagnosed skill gap with map knowledge.

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Originally Posted by Gokki

Can we address all of these? Not without fundamental changes to the spirit and gameplay. PvP will stay irrelevant until a major rework of the combat and reward systems is done. While i'm sadly not a game dev i can still provide possible solutions from personal experience of what works and doesn't.

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I think for PvP to be successful, they do need to address these issues. A major rework does need to be done, in my opinion. I think this is what FFXIV PvP needs:

1. A full, dedicated team delegated to focus on PvP
2. Actual direct communication between development and the community, with a reasonable frequency
3. Remove PvP abilities and reintegrate PvE abilities into PvP and rebalance them for both. I can't tell you how many times I've used an ability in PvP thinking it did some of the same things in PvE (like healing on Storm's Path) or vice versa (like a +damage debuff applied by butcher's block). This should also fix the healing problem.
4. Tone down the size and rule sets in our PvP maps and make in depth map knowledge available in game somewhere.
5. More rewards other than titles and glams to give wolf marks more meaning.
6. More swift action against bots.

Remove the barrier of having to reset your UI just for PvP. Make maps easier to learn. Increase rewards. Remove bots. Talk with us so we can have discourse about these ideas and why you think I might be wrong about my proposals. I think these things will increase PvP participation.

I think the "talk with us" is perhaps the most important thing here. Kaposhipi kindly informs us from time to time that they're collecting feedback to pass on to the dev team -- which is great, don't get me wrong.

But we'd kind of like to know what's getting shared and what the dev team has to say in return. I know it can be hard to nail down and everything is in a state of flux as to whether it will or won't be implemented, but a little back-and-forth discussion would be absolutely refreshing.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

I think the "talk with us" is perhaps the most important thing here. Kaposhipi kindly informs us from time to time that they're collecting feedback to pass on to the dev team -- which is great, don't get me wrong.

But we'd kind of like to know what's getting shared and what the dev team has to say in return. I know it can be hard to nail down and everything is in a state of flux as to whether it will or won't be implemented, but a little back-and-forth discussion would be absolutely refreshing.

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Other games have taken an strong dev to community communication approach, and it's really working for those games. The first I noticed of this was Riot Games with League of Legends having great back and forth between the community and the developers. That's obviously turned out really well for them. Blizzard took note and has done the same with both Hearthstone and Overwatch. Those games also have benefited very positively with that approach as well. I think SE follow suit, especially for PvP which is really not in a healthy state.

Quasi-"skilled players" in pvp just play bard.

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Originally Posted by Geryth

Other games have taken an strong dev to community communication approach, and it's really working for those games. The first I noticed of this was Riot Games with League of Legends having great back and forth between the community and the developers. That's obviously turned out really well for them. Blizzard took note and has done the same with both Hearthstone and Overwatch. Those games also have benefited very positively with that approach as well. I think SE follow suit, especially for PvP which is really not in a healthy state.

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Ideally, the Live Letters should be used as an opportunity to engage the player-base more, especially the NA and EU communities. It actually seemed like they were a lot more open in the past, yet nowadays a chunk of time is devoted purely to advertising FFXIV related merchandise whilst major concerns within the community go without mention.

I think pvp needs a unique skill design like wow in the classes, something like dk's death grip, the freezing of the wizard, the ability to copy a dk's enemy ability, and the druid's transformations (all this from the world of warcraft as an example), and so on, class fancy is not only visual, it is also physical, and not to mention the skills that should be very fast, the cast system does not work and stun too, I will always take 100% damage from a mage for example.

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Originally Posted by Notcs

I think pvp needs a unique skill design like wow in the classes.

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We had this. Each job had unique abilities while maintaining some of their core PvE abilities.

I've always wanted to try PvP, for glamour rewards if nothing else, but lacking a way to "test the waters," I just keep putting it off. Being hit with all the skills all at once is certainly jarring, but at least Wolves' Den offers all the time you want to sort and read and organize. I might not grasp anything optimal, but at least I can sorta work out how the pieces work and fit together.

But, still in a learning period, I'd rather not jump in the deep end, knowing I may effectively be dead weight while I figure out what's going on. It's one thing to get a handle on how my own skills work together, it's another beast trying to figure out how my contributions have an effect on the match as a whole, while it's happening.

But I guess if botting is as bad as it sounds, maybe it doesn't really matter how bad I am while I try to understand what's happening. Gotta be better than a bot, amirite?

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

I've always wanted to try PvP, for glamour rewards if nothing else, but lacking a way to "test the waters," I just keep putting it off...But I guess if botting is as bad as it sounds, maybe it doesn't really matter how bad I am while I try to understand what's happening. Gotta be better than a bot, amirite?

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Nah, the open-forum PvP content here is harsher than the real thing :P. I know that feels though. I used to avoid any kind of ranked content in PvP games out of fear of failure and potential toxicity. Just realize that you have every right in the world to be a beginner or unsuccessful, so long as you try. If you're in a solo queue for something, don't indulge players who behave as if they have the right to a skilled teammate and that you're depriving them of it. It's really on them if they can't handle probability and the fact that not everyone is equally skilled.

Regardless, the PvP is probably way more chill than you're expecting. As you said, people will probably be happy just to get a queue pop and/or team members who aren't bots.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

I've always wanted to try PvP, for glamour rewards if nothing else, but lacking a way to "test the waters," I just keep putting it off. Being hit with all the skills all at once is certainly jarring, but at least Wolves' Den offers all the time you want to sort and read and organize. I might not grasp anything optimal, but at least I can sorta work out how the pieces work and fit together.

But, still in a learning period, I'd rather not jump in the deep end, knowing I may effectively be dead weight while I figure out what's going on. It's one thing to get a handle on how my own skills work together, it's another beast trying to figure out how my contributions have an effect on the match as a whole, while it's happening.

But I guess if botting is as bad as it sounds, maybe it doesn't really matter how bad I am while I try to understand what's happening. Gotta be better than a bot, amirite?

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Why does people think there is any toxicity shared between pvp players i dont understand it.
In fact, people playing pvp for fun and are rarely rarely any negative towards others.

You have much easier way to experience negativity and toxicity in PVE content especially raids than you have in PVP. People are happy to get a match there.

Most people are worried about so many other games where 'rank" =Elitisim, just like min max raiders, there are some min max ranks who were so bad that SE had to implement the Quick chat feature. Not all pvpers are like that ,but there is a problem with toxicity just like every part of an mmo.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Why does people think there is any toxicity shared between pvp players i dont understand it.
In fact, people playing pvp for fun and are rarely rarely any negative towards others.

You have much easier way to experience negativity and toxicity in PVE content especially raids than you have in PVP. People are happy to get a match there.

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Oh trust me, S/E ban the Feast party chart for a really good reason.
A lot of them arent quit PvP, they are permanent banned, but they just need to put S/E as scapegoat
It is always a fun sitting in Tryhard primal discord and seeing all of the dramas.