The new very cool Aulus Mal Asina Mount!

Is it time to "Initiate soul extraction?" Is this a dead mount already as only 600 people will get it from PVP tournaments, or will it be available for purchase later on?

Yeah I'm not a fan of super exclusive items only avaliable to a tiny fraction of the playerbase, Feast is dead whenever I queue for it so its not an option to just go play and try and earn it.

It's already been advertised as a pvp season reward exclusive so best you can hope for is a recolor or altered variant as a mogstation item

Kind of feels like this game has an investor or something pushing for them to promote the feast super hard lol
as far as i can tell it's been on life support for years and they just keep throwing more exclusive rewards at it trying to bribe people to do it

Why are they making Feast rewards when feast is dead?

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

Why are they making Feast rewards when feast is dead?

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Worse yet, it's largely dead because a lot of PvP enthusiasts - myself included - are deliberately avoiding it to due to questionable design decisions such as the removal of the chat function, the disproportionate amount value of the healer role and the lack of action against known win traders who have risen through the ranks of multiple seasons.

I don't mind no chat function, it makes the experience far far more pleasant without the regular salt. I mind win trading of course, and I think dps needs help in pvp to compete with healers (who have already been nerfed twice)

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Worse yet, it's largely dead because a lot of PvP enthusiasts - myself included - are deliberately avoiding it to due to questionable design decisions.

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It was dead even before that, those questionable decisions were designed to try and get people playing the mode. Think around season 3 or so people started to complain about queues due to lack of healers. Only difference was back then many matches could end in the first minute or two instead of being drawn out.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

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It wouldn't surprise me if they made healers so powerful in an effort to lure people to the role. Yet coordinating DPS with random people to the extent that is required to eliminate a decent healer is way too difficult for the vast majority of players...especially when seasoned veterans can be thrown into a ranking match against beginners.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

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The decline may have begun back then though it was still fairly healthy. I used to see a lot of familiar faces hanging around the PvP hub waiting on queues and chatting with each other. That hasn't been the case since Heavensward, sadly.

All you need to do to QUICKLY kill a healer is have a full team focus fire on it, you can even mark the healer. How hard is that?

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

All you need to do to QUICKLY kill a healer is have a full team focus fire on it, you can even mark the healer. How hard is that?

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Fairly hard. Which is why the lack of a proper chat function is so frustrating. When I play Overwatch, I tend to slip into the 'commander' role and offer guidance and propose plans to my team. It works out well often - sometimes tunnel vision is shattered and people begin playing more effectively. In FFXIV, however, I can't chat in real time - I have to rely on predetermined buttons that don't often convey the nuances of what can turn a game around. Worse yet, I've made a lot of friends in Overwatch simply by being able to chat properly. That isn't possible in FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

Yeah I'm not a fan of super exclusive items only avaliable to a tiny fraction of the playerbase, Feast is dead whenever I queue for it so its not an option to just go play and try and earn it.

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Removing exclusive rewards isn't going to help make it less dead. I've never had a single iota of desire to play Feast, but I don't begrudge them trying to lure people in with cosmetic items.

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Originally Posted by Beckett

Removing exclusive rewards isn't going to help make it less dead. I've never had a single iota of desire to play Feast, but I don't begrudge them trying to lure people in with cosmetic items.

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Overwatch is one of the biggest PvP orientated games to launch in recent years. The developers stated outright that adding exclusive rewards to PvP was a bad call. A ranking system alone is enough.

Remember the Garo crossover event? A lot of people got into PvP and things were very active for quite some time as even casual players worked towards acquiring the rewards. Feast would be enjoy a similar activity boost if everyone could get the new mount or gear set simply by winning, say, one hundred matches over the course of a season.

I like Feast, but I wish they would, in time, give us alternate ways to attain mounts. They can be recolored so they differ from the Feast version. Even previous mounts only available to savage raiders can be gotten in time as our levels increase.

Feast is like danging a carrot in front of someone, and when they reach for it, beating them with a stick that's full of rusted nails...and on fire.

I'm honestly surprised they kept that in the rewards, there were threads asking them to change it in all the regions.

Yea I wish, but i ones ask this, and PvP player eat me alive. "no, you PVE player have all of mount" no like you can't get it if you tray to farm.

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Originally Posted by LastFireAce

Yea I wish, but i ones ask this, and PvP player eat me alive. "no, you PVE player have all of mount" no like you can't get it if you tray to farm.

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{Same}. I don't even care if they leave it in PVP but Feast has such a poor reception from the community, they could always tie it to achievements like # of kills or assists like the minions are.

If they release it in mog station and you buy it, it will only give them more incentive to do this.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Fairly hard. Which is why the lack of a proper chat function is so frustrating. When I play Overwatch, I tend to slip into the 'commander' role and offer guidance and propose plans to my team. It works out well often - sometimes tunnel vision is shattered and people begin playing more effectively. In FFXIV, however, I can't chat in real time - I have to rely on predetermined buttons that don't often convey the nuances of what can turn a game around. Worse yet, I've made a lot of friends in Overwatch simply by being able to chat properly. That isn't possible in FFXIV.

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Maybe they need to allow in team chat, as long as they don't allow you to chat with the other team, like in frontlines or rival wings.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

Maybe they need to allow in team chat, as long as they don't allow you to chat with the other team, like in frontlines or rival wings.

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That is what we used to have and they removed it.

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Originally Posted by Beckett

Removing exclusive rewards isn't going to help make it less dead. I've never had a single iota of desire to play Feast, but I don't begrudge them trying to lure people in with cosmetic items.

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They still could make them exclusive rewards. Some nice trophys, great looking glamour or even just awesome titles should imo be enough as a reward for those that truly want to play this. IMO if you truly love it and do it for the competition than being in the highest ranks should be main factor and some rewards just the extra on top of that. Putting mounts in there that were requested by a lot of none PVPers (hellhounds) or that are part of the MSQ (the chair) is just a bad move..I mean only a really small amount of people will get that. Together with no rank decay and cheaters in some of those places it really does not motivate me to even try.

Heck why is it fine that the hardest content in this game (Bahamut Ultimate) has only recolored weapons while PVP which is kinda a niche in a PVE game gets all those exclusive items? I mean we cant forget that there also quite some mounts and pets behind PVP achievements. If those are not enough to draw people in to play this..than maybe it should just stay a niche in this game. (And I kinda believe that a lot of PVPers are probably quite happy if only those play it that want to do it seriously)

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Heck why is it fine that the hardest content in this game (Bahamut Ultimate) has only recolored weapons while PVP which is kinda a niche in a PVE game gets all those exclusive items? I mean we cant forget that there also quite some mounts and pets behind PVP achievements. If those are not enough to draw people in to play this..than maybe it should just stay a niche in this game. (And I kinda believe that a lot of PVPers are probably quite happy if only those play it that want to do it seriously)

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esports.

Yoshi has mentioned a desire to get XIV into that realm. You can’t do that without people playing.

I'll agree with the rest. Though I like the Feast and PvP, if you don't catch the initial wave you're doomed. And that's the problem, the content is not long lasting. The GARO event was a step in the right direction. Plenty of glamour and titles with 3 mounts! with so many ways to get them. It brought some PvP modes back to life. I'd grab all the previous and current seasonal rewards and put them straight into the PvP vendor. Buy them with an absurd amount of Wolf Marks or just achievements.

Or like I suggested in a similar thread:

1) Put them into the PvP vendor list.
2) Give them a price (Hound Collars)
3) Get Hound Collars by completing different PvP milestones in the different modes. (Amount of kills, amount of damage, damage healed, assistances, bases taken or whatever the mode's objetive is)
4) Alternatively, put in place a system where you can trade an X amount of Wolf Marks for a Hound Collar.
5) Change the Feast seasonal rewards completely. Give them: A title, the trophy, plenty of Hound Collars and an icon (Similar to the mentor's icon) representing their PvP rank or if they are the top 10. There, you have the bragging rights.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

It was dead even before that, those questionable decisions were designed to try and get people playing the mode. Think around season 3 or so people started to complain about queues due to lack of healers. Only difference was back then many matches could end in the first minute or two instead of being drawn out.

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You keep saying this yet the most active PvP has ever been came during 3.5, when Grand Company restrictions were removed and they did the Garo "event." I could queue at nearly at hour same the dead of night and expect to wait no more than ten minutes. Stormblood rolls around and Frontlines has become a bot riddled mess, every single job is incredibly simplified, healers are better tanks than actual tanks and gimmick modes like Rival Wings are being promoted despite demand for more traditional PvP modes.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

All you need to do to QUICKLY kill a healer is have a full team focus fire on it, you can even mark the healer. How hard is that?

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I've had four DPS wail on me for over a minute with little to no avail. I've even held out against five far longer than I should. No one role should be able to shrug off a bloody light party yet unless you catch an inexperienced healer—which I am, at least in PvP—making mistakes, it will take forever and a day to bring them down.

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Originally Posted by Beckett

Removing exclusive rewards isn't going to help make it less dead. I've never had a single iota of desire to play Feast, but I don't begrudge them trying to lure people in with cosmetic items.

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What do you think incentivizes people more...

1) A mount only 600 players out of thousands will obtain
2) A mount everyone can work towards at their own pace by purchasing it with say, Wolf Collars, which themselves are awarded each season

As Theordric noted, Overwatch is the most popular PvP orientated game since Halo. Neither has relied on exclusivity to promote competitive play because it simply doesn't work. When the average player perceives they have little to no chance obtaining something, the incentive may as well not exist.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

while PVP which is kinda a niche in a PVE game gets all those exclusive items? I mean we cant forget that there also quite some mounts and pets behind PVP achievements. If those are not enough to draw people in to play this..than maybe it should just stay a niche in this game.

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Feast queues are deader than a door-nail right now. If you want ANY chance at all at any reward (and you're not a healer), you've got to no-life it and pray that RNG blesses you with a healer that has two brain cells to rub together so you don't get positively curb-stomped.


SE should step back and consider this: If even exclusive, severely-limited rewards aren't getting PVP queues to pop, then maybe...JUST maybe...the system is broken and needs to be looked at more closely as to WHY the outcome you want (getting more people to PVP) isn't happening.

I mean, there are so many reasons beyond the rewards themselves being attainable by such a sliver of players. That aside, there are so many glaring reasons why people aren't PVPing:

1) Frontlines is full of bots
2) Feast is a toxic cesspool where your hands and feet are tied and you're told to swim. To say nothing of win-trading and alts clogging the leaderboards, or people sitting on their ranks so that queues aren't even possible.
3) Rival wings is full of speed hackers -- if it pops at all.

No amount of technologically marvelous chairs, void-born hounds, or slick-looking demonic armor can make us want to slog through that and act like everything's just fine.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

esports.

Yoshi has mentioned a desire to get XIV into that realm. You can’t do that without people playing.

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Well they should really start to question if their PVP is able to really function as esports. If you need a lot of requested rewards to have people even playing it then maybe its just not big enough for esports. (And they should make sure that cheaters, bots and people sitting on their ranks dont happen before they have something that can truly be competitive)

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

You keep saying this yet the most active PvP has ever been came during 3.5, when Grand Company restrictions were removed and they did the Garo "event."

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Most of that activity was frontlines. Feast still had the same issues, if I remember, since the Garo event only required a small amount of Feast wins for one mount, and it was more efficient to do frontlines for wolf marks. Feast never had GC restrictions as it was. You can generally tell how rare Feast play was by how few people had either Fenrir pup or the little airship mount, since both needed a decent amount of wins.

Also, when Rival Wings came out, we had the same ten minute pops. The only reason we don't see it populated more is that pvp can only support 24 players on the off season, and it needs 48. Every single time there isn't a need for pvp, it always gets down to 8v8 and 15-30 min pops. Eureka eliminating even the need to do it for tomes is not helping either.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Well they should really start to question if their PVP is able to really function as esports. If you need a lot of requested rewards to have people even playing it then maybe its just not big enough for esports. (And they should make sure that cheaters, bots and people sitting on their ranks dont happen before they have something that can truly be competitive)

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To be blunt, they don't need to. They want it esports because Japan in general has no real MMO or MOBA esports presence due to liking everything to be japanese only. As long as one thing does it for them, flaws don't matter. That's arguably why FFXIV even succeeds so much, there simply are zero decent AAA Japanese MMOS out there.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

2) Feast is a toxic cesspool where your hands and feet are tied and you're told to swim.

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You know, it has nothing to do with this.

Every single competitive game out there has some serious issues with skill balance that seem impossible for devs to control. If you went out and played fighting games competitively, the skill gaps between players are enormous and tend to the hardcore, driving out players from online and hurting the genre. FPS, same thing. SE is trying their best to reduce the gap between players, but people can't win; the skilled players just keep skewing everything.

I could imagine someone sitting in a boardroom looking at PVP streams on countless monitors like the Grinch and saying "DAMNIT! WE MUST STOP THEM FROM WINNING...BUT HOW?!" :)

It feels like someone higher up likes to punish players with an insane grind when many of them ask for game enemy models to be made as mounts. Want a hellhound? HAHA go no-life Feast for 24 hours a day for 3 months. Want a tiger? HAHA go hunt A and S marks for the next 2 expansions. I like working toward a goal though, so I'm working on the tiger. I'll probably get it in 7.0.

Feast is like a way worse version of wow's arena
imagine the healers from that game, except you have very little crowd control and no interupts to actually keep their power level in check
and no chat function either, because coordination has to be as hard as possible

I'm curious if the other regions and language forums also request these items or have as much disdain for pvp as the majority of the player base.