PvP needs another GARO-like event

I'm not saying we need to specifically bring GARO itself back (and I doubt it's feasible at all for legal/licensing reasons), but I think another long-term PvP event similar to it would restore a lot of life to PVP. I think GARO had a number of things going for it that a new, similar event would benefit from:

1. First, it had a wide variety of rewards, which included a full gear set with weapons, titles, and three different mounts.
2. The rewards were a mix of long term grinds (Makai Master, Raigo, etc) and short term rewards that could be obtained more quickly (Like if you only wanted a specific chest glamour or weapon).
3. The rewards involved a mix of token grinding (buying weapons/armor via wolf marks) which gets people queuing regularly, and winning matches (the mounts) which means people have to put effort in and there's less people playing poorly because they'll get marks/their roulette bonus regardless.
4. You could obtain the rewards via both Feast and Frontlines (in terms of wolf marks and racking up wins), but there were also a few specific to each, namely the FL/Feast-specific horses. Rival Wings wasn't a thing when GARO first launched, but if there's a new similar event, putting at least one reward behind winning RW matches would be a good idea too, I think.

I understand that it takes a lot of work on the devs' part to come up with an entire gear set/other rewards and model them and get them in game, so if something like this isn't already in the works, I won't expect it soon- But GARO provided a great many rewards that got people doing PvP, and if SE made a mistake, I think it was ending the event without any word on plans for something to replace it. Its absence is a not-insignificant factor in the longer queue times.

I won't argue if GARO should have been permanent or not- I personally don't really like event rewards that are unobtainable forever when the event ends, but I got what I wanted out of GARO and I'll be fine if it never returns. If we get a similar event, I think the amount of rewards devs need to make paired with PvP being niche in this game means the event spanning a few expansions, but not being permanent, is probably fine.

I also won't argue that GARO ending is the only reason PvP queues are terribly long right now, either. SE forcing 72-man matches is, IMO, probably a bigger problem when we're just talking about the length of queues, but there are already other threads discussing that.

I'm not too picky about what a new long-term PvP event should be. I think the GARO rewards fit neatly enough into the game's general aesthetic while still being unique and most people I know think the outfits looked pretty good. If SE wants to work out a licensing deal with another franchise, or even comes up with something all on their own, I think either would work just fine.

I am going to say "No!"
I am unable to support this idea.
PvP does not need to use reward to attract a crowd whom have no interest in PvP at first place.
What PvP need is a stable and solid population of players who actually want to PvP whether there is a reward or not

One of the rare occasions I'll agree with Divinemights. People need to want to PvP, not just have an excuse to. That is exactly why the mode goes through periods of intense activity and then promptly dies. I'm playing Onsal Hakair because I want to, not because there's a mount in it tied behind the achievement. But that is a minority, once the novelty of it being new wears off and people give up on the achievement for the most part, we'll be back where we started. I remember playing battlegrounds on WoW for hours a day just because I genuinely enjoyed playing the mode, I had nothing to gain from it (had most of the achievements, I had better gear from ranked/raids, I had no reason other than "cos it's fun").


Part of the problem is caused by these events, there is no reason to consistently play the mode. Just get the reward and stop. It needs to actually have some kind of progression to make it worth doing as well.

NO! That event was garbage and an undue cause of stress! The rewards were too difficult to get because of the insane requirements and PVP in this game is horrible anyway!

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Originally Posted by JamieRose

NO! That event was garbage and an undue cause of stress! The rewards were too difficult to get because of the insane requirements and PVP in this game is horrible anyway!

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so dont play it then

They could make wolf marks a more attractive currency to accrue and spend in general.
As of now, I only really use it for prisms and dark matter, seeing as how desynthing for BC3s has become trifling.
When anything new comes out, the queues are popping fast enough, I can usually get the new shiny stuff I want within 3 hours or so.

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Originally Posted by JamieRose

NO! That event was garbage and an undue cause of stress! The rewards were too difficult to get because of the insane requirements and PVP in this game is horrible anyway!

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That's the wrong reason to not want something.

We need events that encourage playing PvP, not events that simply encourage queuing up for PvP. Getting people who frankly don't want to PvP into the mode is not a good thing, if anything it's a bad thing. It ruins the quality of matches and ultimately turns people away, then after a week once the hype has died down and people have gotten their reward? Dead mode. People who don't enjoy PvP were never going to stick around, people who might have enjoyed PvP and active PvPers will have been put off by the abysmal quality of matches that an influx of people not interested in PvP brought about. It's hard to have fun when you're looking at a constant stream of "We've already lost" and other pointless complaints, honestly I think they should give FL the Feast treatment and just block chat at this point, give some more Quick Chat options for FL, because I'm sick of watching half an alliance type instead of play...

If SE cannot design an event or system that actually gets people to engage with PvP properly, I'd rather they just not bother at all. I'm so sick of the prevailing attitude of "I'm just here for the new reward and I'll just complain if you don't carry me" that Garo/Mog Tome/IronMan mount bring... Problem is, if SE designs an event like that... Guess who complains that it's too hard for them to do? People not interested in PvP to begin with. No... Just don't bother with these events at all... Focus instead on polishing up PvP and implementing things that almost all other PvP related games have to keep player interest. Why we don't even have a prestige system, for example... Just Rank 50 PvP and that's it? I haven't seen PvP EXP for years...

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

I am going to say "No!"
I am unable to support this idea.
PvP does not need to use reward to attract a crowd whom have no interest in PvP at first place.
What PvP need is a stable and solid population of players who actually want to PvP whether there is a reward or not

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This x1000

Implementing a stupid reward and event system like the garo event to lure PVP wanna-bes into the fray is not a solution.
No one wants those type of players on their team, period.
NO PVP EVENTS. Fix pvp.

They need to fix PVP, not band-aid it with band-aids that don't even work.

I agree because FFXIV will never have good PvP. They tried for years, and it hurts me to see how much wasted effort went into PvP that nobody really wants to play. For a game this size, PvP activity is remarkably low, unplayable even. I simply dont see SE suddenly waking up and making a good system when there is zero evidence they even have the skills in their design team for it, much less technological backbone. As such, these events are the only chance to have a week or two of activity while we wait for new content to come. The game is REALLY content starved, and PvP events are a nice way to get some cheap playtime into it.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

We need events that encourage playing PvP, not events that simply encourage queuing up for PvP. Getting people who frankly don't want to PvP into the mode is not a good thing, if anything it's a bad thing. It ruins the quality of matches and ultimately turns people away, then after a week once the hype has died down and people have gotten their reward? Dead mode. People who don't enjoy PvP were never going to stick around, people who might have enjoyed PvP and active PvPers will have been put off by the abysmal quality of matches that an influx of people not interested in PvP brought about. It's hard to have fun when you're looking at a constant stream of "We've already lost" and other pointless complaints, honestly I think they should give FL the Feast treatment and just block chat at this point, give some more Quick Chat options for FL, because I'm sick of watching half an alliance type instead of play...

If SE cannot design an event or system that actually gets people to engage with PvP properly, I'd rather they just not bother at all. I'm so sick of the prevailing attitude of "I'm just here for the new reward and I'll just complain if you don't carry me" that Garo/Mog Tome/IronMan mount bring... Problem is, if SE designs an event like that... Guess who complains that it's too hard for them to do? People not interested in PvP to begin with. No... Just don't bother with these events at all... Focus instead on polishing up PvP and implementing things that almost all other PvP related games have to keep player interest. Why we don't even have a prestige system, for example... Just Rank 50 PvP and that's it? I haven't seen PvP EXP for years...

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They can't even count how many regular players they have. They design maps that need 72 players and create unplayable ques all for except a few hours. Your idea is much better then more Garo or Mogtomes. But it means SE would have to start over on a smaller scale. Maps and modes should probably be no larger in scale then folds two teams of 8. Once the numbers say that those maps are successful build on that.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

I am going to say "No!"
I am unable to support this idea.
PvP does not need to use reward to attract a crowd whom have no interest in PvP at first place.
What PvP need is a stable and solid population of players who actually want to PvP whether there is a reward or not

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Agree with this. The problem is that pvp isn't good enough for most people to play for fun. It needs rewards as it is.

Garo is what got me in to PVP and had me playing it for quite a while! I mean MMO PVP is and always will be terrible, but that's part of the reason why Garo was (mostly) good.

The good parts were that you could get all the armor and weapons without having to win, just play games, get marks, and get your rewards. Plus the item level of them (at the time of the event's release) meant you could use them to gear up alternate jobs for a little while.

The bad was requiring wins for the mounts. I mean I got all of them eventually but given how long the 72 man matches last (and they can feel like a real slog) the correct choice would have been just make it X amount of games played.

I'd love a Garo-like event that encourages you to play lots of games but not require wins so as to not impede progress.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

The bad was requiring wins for the mounts. I mean I got all of them eventually but given how long the 72 man matches last (and they can feel like a real slog) the correct choice would have been just make it X amount of games played.

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The reason why it required wins was to stop people AFKing for the mount and deliberately throwing or just outright memeing. I'm genuinely surprised you could not see that given this is exactly what has happened with previous rewards that only required people to play matches.

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Originally Posted by BloodRubyXII

The reason why it required wins was to stop people AFKing for the mount and deliberately throwing or just outright memeing. I'm genuinely surprised you could not see that given this is exactly what has happened with previous rewards that only required people to play matches.

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Never saw it happen in the hundreds of frontlines/feast matches I did, but I'll take your word for it.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Garo is what got me in to PVP and had me playing it for quite a while! I mean MMO PVP is and always will be terrible, but that's part of the reason why Garo was (mostly) good.

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Dude pre garo pvp was my favorite game for like 2 years. 4v4 feast, 8v8 feast, seal rock,lvl 50 slaughter, lvl 50 secure, ice thing, even smear the healer thing people would que up for on fridays nights. I loved all of it minus the wait times. It was legit a good game. I really wouldn't care if they axe pvp at this point. Currently I root for anything that funnels casuals in and have the hc pvpers spit them out, so they change pvp again.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Never saw it happen in the hundreds of frontlines/feast matches I did, but I'll take your word for it.

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I've literally posted numerous chat screenshots in this section about times where I've messaged people after games to ask why they threw complete with their answer explaining exactly why they did it on purpose. Also you don't have hungry like a wolf 50 game achievement, so I doubt you've played "hundreds of matches". Well actually, I know you haven't lol. Frontlines? Well idk after seeing that, especially seeing as we had an entire thread about what happens when you only have to play matches to get rewards, and it wasn't even the only one, "but I'll take your word for it."

I'm makai master and topped FL leaderboard I'm good at pvp I want more rewards om nom nom

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Originally Posted by BloodRubyXII

Also you don't have hungry like a wolf 50 game achievement, so I doubt you've played "hundreds of matches".

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Wrong achievement, I have the Look who's coming to dinner achievement. I'm 444/500 for Look Who's Coming to Dinner, so... you're wrong. Frontlines I'm 618/1000. So yeah, I've played hundreds of matches.

For some reason that Hungry like a wolf achievement didn't apply retroactively. =/

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Wrong achievement, I have the Look who's coming to dinner achievement. I'm 444/500 for Look Who's Coming to Dinner, so... you're wrong. Frontlines I'm 618/1000. So yeah, I've played hundreds of matches.

For some reason that Hungry like a wolf achievement didn't apply retroactively. =/

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Ah, fair enough mate sorry. Raising the evidence that other people have in fact complained and it's not an isolated incident though still stands.

I dislike PvP in general is why I joined this game as it is not a big factor. I do the frontline daily roulette sometimes for EXP but the long queue regardless what job I'm on is a turn off. On that note if garo-like events help the queue be very fast then it is worth it imo.

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Originally Posted by JamieRose

NO! That event was garbage and an undue cause of stress! The rewards were too difficult to get because of the insane requirements and PVP in this game is horrible anyway!

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you had more than an entire expansion to do it. if anything it was too easy.

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Originally Posted by JamieRose

NO! That event was garbage and an undue cause of stress! The rewards were too difficult to get because of the insane requirements and PVP in this game is horrible anyway!

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https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4c/31...3ca982f55f.jpg

Ugh, please no. I never want to see a Garo like event ever again. The pvp in this game is very subpar compared to others, it isn't this games strength. If they start tunneling rewards into PvP like Garo again, I'll just go play a better PvP game.

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Originally Posted by Decante

Ugh, please no. I never want to see a Garo like event ever again. The pvp in this game is very subpar compared to others, it isn't this games strength. If they start tunneling rewards into PvP like Garo again, I'll just go play a better PvP game.

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delete this

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Originally Posted by BloodRubyXII

delete this

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I'll explain a bit more then. It took me two months to complete the Garo event. 30+ min queue times for Feasts, meaning I couldn't do anything else while waiting for a queue to pop. I came from WoW, and played Arena and Rated BGs there almost exclusively, and if this game started putting its eggs in its current PVP basket, I'd go back to WoW in a heart beat because the actual pvp here is lightyears behind WoW. The server ticks at an incredibly annoying pace and the GCD is way too slow compared to the very limited amount of abilities you have to actually be interesting. There is very little nuance to PVP in this game compared to pretty much every other PVP MMO I've played. If they are going to put resources into pvp, I'd rather them actually work on making it more interesting to play so they don't have to use carrots on sticks to get people to. After Garo, i never wanted to touch pvp here again. If they offered a better actual experience, my opinion would change, but for now, I'd rather have Garo like events ie full on events with tons of special armors and stuff, be a part of content that I enjoy doing, rather than feel like a chore doing.

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Originally Posted by Decante

I'll explain a bit more then. It took me two months to complete the Garo event. 30+ min queue times for Feasts, meaning I couldn't do anything else while waiting for a queue to pop. I came from WoW, and played Arena and Rated BGs there almost exclusively, and if this game started putting its eggs in its current PVP basket, I'd go back to WoW in a heart beat because the actual pvp here is lightyears behind WoW. The server ticks at an incredibly annoying pace and the GCD is way too slow compared to the very limited amount of abilities you have to actually be interesting. There is very little nuance to PVP in this game compared to pretty much every other PVP MMO I've played. If they are going to put resources into pvp, I'd rather them actually work on making it more interesting to play so they don't have to use carrots on sticks to get people to. After Garo, i never wanted to touch pvp here again. If they offered a better actual experience, my opinion would change, but for now, I'd rather have Garo like events ie full on events with tons of special armors and stuff, be a part of content that I enjoy doing, rather than feel like a chore doing.

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so dont pvp then. i dont like pve, but you dont hear me crying about not having the ultimate weapons or good pve gear. i also came from WoW, where I got r1 on rsham and glad 5x on 3 different classes, deme who plays dancer was 3x glad on his DK, we happen to like the pvp in this game, it's a matter of opinion, I don't do anything i don't want to do. The Garo event was up for like 2 years, maybe longer, with multiple periods of time where the queues were really good for unranked 8v8 Feast (and then 4v4 when that got removed).

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Originally Posted by BloodRubyXII

so dont pvp then. i dont like pve, but you dont hear me crying about not having the ultimate weapons or good pve gear. i also came from WoW, where I got r1 on rsham and glad 5x on 3 different classes, deme who plays dancer was 3x glad on his DK, we happen to like the pvp in this game, it's a matter of opinion, I don't do anything i don't want to do. The Garo event was up for like 2 years, maybe longer, with multiple periods of time where the queues were really good for unranked 8v8 Feast (and then 4v4 when that got removed).

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You're right, it is a matter of opinion, and if you enjoy it keep enjoying it. We're allowed to like different things. But I don't enjoy it, and my vote in response to the original OP is I'd rather them focus on what I feel is great about this game, the story telling and PvE content. And I want to be clear, I'm not saying you are wrong in liking it, or attacking you, but simply wanted to offer my own opinion because quite frankly, none of my WoW friends will touch this game in its current PvP state, and I can't blame them since all they care about is PvP. That being said, I'm genuinely curious why you feel it is superior to WoW since you seem to have arena experience? I'm open to you changing my mind bc I'd like to convince my friends to play, but my first hand experience is exactly what I described.

EDIT: I actually just saw your original post. We agree more than you think. These events do exactly what you described, they create this boom or bust environment for PvP. My biggest issue was Feast queue times. i was late to the party, i started playing several months ago, so people were already done with Garo by the time I started. They need to improve the pvp not throw rewards at it, make ppl want to play it for the sake of playing it.

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Originally Posted by Decante

hat being said, I'm genuinely curious why you feel it is superior to WoW since you seem to have arena experience?

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Multiple reasons why I feel the experience I have here in terms of enjoyment is superior to what I had on WoW as a decent player.
1) Solo queue. Something we asked for on WoW as early as BC and never ever got. I can queue a ranked mode whenever I like, multiple things happen once you get into Glad range on WoW (back when it wasn't locked to a specific rating) - members of your team get burnt out, some of them don't want to push out, some of them want to sit when they're safe when you might want to push on - you can't do anything if one person drops out. No matter how active your btag is, this will happen every season and the cycle of playing different comps, and different teams wears thin on you after more than 13 seasons of it.
2) On WoW you absolutely have to PvE to compete on gear. It is way easier to raid Mythic and do a weekly + chest every week than it is to farm gear PvPing on WoW. In what universe does that make sense? When we asked for them to do away with vendors and conquest caps, this wasn't what we were expecting in return. In comparison, the Mists of Pandaria gear system for PvP was a stroke of genius because unlike previous expansions and the first season of WoD (lol coin rogues), you absolutely had to have PvP gear to PvP, and it was obtainable by everyone at every level. All you need to do was cap conquest, and the cap was based on your rating. 2200 gear was removed and replaced with aesthetic rewards instead and is largely why people consider S15 one of the best PvP seasons of all time, even if when it was current everyone complained about LSD/LSD2 comps.
3) Being queue sniped by counter comps, queue dodging, DDoSing etc - absolutely rampant. People think the wintrading and boosting on here is bad, they have absolutely no idea. All it takes is for you to play a few games with a Rogue on Skype that's coming to you with glad exp and you trial them for a few games to see whether they're a good fit for your season push, it doesn't work out, the next week out of nowhere, every single time you queue into a game you get hit off.
4) The gameplay is just awful now.
5) Every single job right now is viable up to a certain point in Feast, just some are clearly far better than others. Some specs on WoW are absolutely unplayable at any level of the game, even at the bottom. Certain seasons of Disc, Holy (Priest), Demonology, tank specs etc being an example.
6) I really like the Tank/Healer/Melee/Range comp idea.
7) I can play anything I want as long as it's level 30 (so anything) without having to farm any kind of gear or talent tree. If your class happens to be bad in Battle for Azeroth and you don't already have a geared alt; you're out of luck. First you have to re-level it to max, which means doing the vast majority of the entire BFA story questline over again. Then you have to level up the necklace. You also have to get gear that provides favourable traits to that necklace (btw whilst we're on this, this is all pve btw). Then you have to do the whole war story thing for better access to azurite farm. Also, more azurite farm. Then you have to remember to PvE every week to improve that gear, balancing this against playing Arena games to get your weekly gear from that too. For every single individual class. Some of the lads wanted me to come back and play for a bit in May and I said ye sure why not, but I'd already sold my account so I just made another one and bought all the expansions. I then had my mates boost my Lock to 120 from 110 by spamming Freehold Heroic back when you could get 120 in 4 hours doing that. Only to find that I had to go back and do the storyline in order to access a lot of gear/dungeons, better azurite farm etc and I simply could not be bothered, I just wanted to go into 3s and BGs and stomp things man but I did zero damage and there was no gear accessible to me solely from PvP that would allow me to do that at that point. At least in previous expansions you just get railed for a few days and do some 2s, then you'll have enough currency to buy gear.

Or I could just log onto FFXIV and select any one of these to play.
https://i.imgur.com/SOCXOtS.png
Job useless one season? No problem, simply swap my weapon and I can play something else!

The argument here is really "Ok, so you want everything handed to you". Honestly - in that scenario - yeah, if the gear was obtainable solely by doing Battlegrounds/Arenas and was the best PvP gear I could get (which would make obvious season), absolutely I'd do it. But there's no logical reason for me to do that when I can just simply come here and play w.e I want and be instantly on a level playing field to earn rewards.

Sure I had to PvE in Cata, LK and BC for gear, but it wasn't something you had to do, it was just seriously recommended that you'd have like mana trink, bauble, smourne, tarecgosa etc. Not everyone had the PvE gear but they would still be able to compete in PvP gear because you made a concession on resilience in order to have more damage. The trade-off for wearing PvE gear over PvP gear right now is anywhere from nil to being a benefit, especially when you can farm specific trait gear in PvE, you can't PvP - you get what you're given.

Probably some other reasons but these are the main ones. The only thing that I truly miss are Battlegrounds, I could play those both unranked and ranked for hours and hours despite having nothing to really gain from doing so other than because "it's fun". It's not like I don't miss WoW, I genuinely do, but FFXIV is way better suited to me than that game is right now.

Upvoted for a well thought out response and also showed a few of my hater friends it too, one said he'd download the trial and give it a go because in the gearing regard, we agree. The idea of not having to grind PvE or just gear in general is rather nice. I also like being able to switch jobs whenever I feel like, that actually is a plus for the PvE portion too. So I can absolutely see why you prefer it. I guess I just value the things I mentioned earlier a bit more, but what you said is FFXIV's great strength both in PvP and PvE, and overall I am loving the game and those are some of the reasons why. I hope going forward, they add some more complexity to the jobs, for example, I find MNK in PvE pretty active and don't notice the long GCD there as much, but it is super simplified in PvP, same with WHM, the two jobs I've really played in PvP.

Anyways, thanks for your responses, you seem genuinely passionate about the pvp here and that's a good thing, I actually feel bad for my originally terse post. It seems like the community cares about the state of the game, I hope they continue to improve it. I would like to enjoy it more because I'm dying to find a competitive game to get back into, and I've gotten super into the PvE aspect of the game, something that I never was interested in in WoW. I will say one positive thing about FF14 PvP though is that the new Frontline's design is pretty fun. Welp, Happy New Year's to everyone, cheers!