Feedback From a Longtime PvP Enjoyer

Crystal Conflict is pretty good. Like its not perfect, no MMO pvp has ever been perfect, but for what the devs have given us, its pretty good and I am very satisfied with it because there really is a lot to like, and a few things to dislike, here are my pros, cons, and changes after grinding to crystal

Pros:
- The class balance is actually great. There is only a few classes that are a balance mess (WHM chief among them) but most classes outside one or two feels more or less viable even if others are better.
- The matches are nice and quick. Ain't no one want to spend 10-20 minutes losing, you get stomped, you get right back in there.
- The class identities in pvp are actually pretty amazing to be honest. I personally play 4-5 classes in pvp and they all feel unique and fun in their own way.
- Every class has something satisfying to its kit to pull off, Samurai's instant gib, Ninja chain killing people, Warrior's control, etc.

Cons:
- WHM. Fast charging LB that hits for a good chunk and stuns everyone a football field away is stupid and just too strong. Polymorph getting rid of other classes LB is the worst thing in pvp in my honest opinion, nothing feels worse than getting turned into a pig as a sage and watching your bubble vanish
- The death process should be revamped. If you die, you wait 10+ seconds, which is fine, but whats not fine is when the timer is up, the load screen is punishing if it takes longer for your game to load in for whatever reason, losing 1-3 seconds may not seem big, but it can absolutely matter. Loading screen also takes away your ability to communicate with your team, which probably no one has anything super relevant to say anyway since you looking at an all black screen.
- The obstacles on the maps can be pretty dumb. The wind map in particular I find grating as it forces everyone to use their guard and save it for that special time. Sure you CAN get in the chocobo marker to break your fall and even get a little buff for it, but while you doing flips in the air your team is still down there fighting and you are taken out of the battle, so the risk / reward aspect isn't very rewarding.
- The bots and win traders are going to stop anyone from actually caring about working towards the top of the data center. Multiple players and streamers have been reporting a person who is using two accounts to boost himself up by matching them against each other and sabotaging the other team. This person is currently #5 on Aether because of these methods with nothing being done

What I'd Change:
- You die, get your loading screen after 2-3 seconds, then get "locked" inside spawn room while the counter is still going down.
- Sprint is automatically applied whenever you are in spawn
- Make DRG LB marker more noticeable
- Nerf WHM LB charge speed and polymorph getting rid of opposing LBs / abilities
- Increase CD of primal rend by 5 seconds (reward to holding it for big moments and not using it on CD)
Only put a few balance changes because I've only played a few classes

I'm shocked at how popular CC is right now. It was popping all Friday night through to Saturday on my world. I've never seen pvp go a full 24 hours in the history of ffxiv before. The queue was still less than 1 minute at 4am GMT lol on an EU datacenter. I know it won't last forever but I think that shuts down any opinions that pvp isn't viable in this game. There just usually isn't enough new content and rewards to sustain it, but you can see what happens when they add a new mode + new currency type + return of garo at the same time. Praise aside yeah this thing needs some serious balance changes and more noticeable visual indicators of certain things asap.

-The game has zero matchmaking leading everything to be streaky wins or losses.

-You can't derank.

-Purify needs to be on a shorter CD or give a longer immunity and it needs to work on everything. Getting silenced or polymorphed and being unable to purge it is ridiculous.

-WHM is straight up broken.

-One shot LB's should not be a thing. Going from 100% HP to 0 with no indications at all of what happened is asinine and shouldn't be a thing.

-The respawns are horrid. Either the timer needs to be reduced by 6 seconds or they need to completely eliminate the slow load to black and rez animation.

-Getting matches with multiple tanks and healers on a single team is straight up unfun.

-One and done 2 minute matches are horrible, especially with LB's causing the match to constantly snowball.

-Overtime is a HORRID mechanic. Either the crystal reaches the end or the match keeps going.

-The crystal moves too fast. Either the crystal needs to move slower or they need to give us a proper ranking system with best out of 3 rounds.

-If they want this mode to be role agnostic then they need to REMOVE the roles. They tried to make tanks and healers "flavors" of their roles but they just made the mode a broken mess by doing so. Either significantly reduce healer dps output and make them actual healers or completely abandon the concept of roles and make a truly role agnostic system which includes reducing tanks damage mitigation.

The mode was fun at first, but as I made my way to plat 1 I found myself no longer wanting to play the mode anymore. Its frustrating and no longer fun. I'm tired of getting stunned every 15 seconds by a warrior and beamed by a WHM 3 or 4 times match.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ransu

-Purify needs to be on a shorter CD or give a longer immunity and it needs to work on everything. Getting silenced or polymorphed and being unable to purge it is ridiculous.

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Having an uncleansable debuff on its own isn't necessarily an issue. The only debuff in PVP that's relevant enough for this is WHM's, and WHM's poly needs a longer CD. Silence on BRD and RDM I think is fine.

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-One shot LB's should not be a thing. Going from 100% HP to 0 with no indications at all of what happened is asinine and shouldn't be a thing.

-The respawns are horrid. Either the timer needs to be reduced by 6 seconds or they need to completely eliminate the slow load to black and rez animation.

-Getting matches with multiple tanks and healers on a single team is straight up unfun.

-One and done 2 minute matches are horrible, especially with LB's causing the match to constantly snowball.

-Overtime is a HORRID mechanic. Either the crystal reaches the end or the match keeps going.

-The crystal moves too fast. Either the crystal needs to move slower or they need to give us a proper ranking system with best out of 3 rounds.

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What do you even mean dude.

'It's too fast'
'It's too slow'
'it's too slow'
'it's too fast'
'it's too slow'

Do you want the matches to be 10 minutes or not? If all the damaging limits go away you're never going to clear the damn point. If people can respawn after only five seconds you're never going to clear the damn point. If the crystal moves too slow nobody can score a point, the games will always go into overtime, YOU GOTTA DEAL WITH THE PREVIOUS TWO ISSUES EVEN MORE. If damaging LBs don't exist to break attrition the only thing that's going to exist at most ranks are tank stacks filled with healers to out-bore-to-death the other team.

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

Do you want the matches to be 10 minutes or not? If all the damaging limits go away you're never going to clear the damn point. If people can respawn after only five seconds you're never going to clear the damn point. If the crystal moves too slow nobody can score a point, the games will always go into overtime, YOU GOTTA DEAL WITH THE PREVIOUS TWO ISSUES EVEN MORE. If damaging LBs don't exist to break attrition the only thing that's going to exist at most ranks are tank stacks filled with healers to out-bore-to-death the other team.

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This is complete and utter nonsense. There's more than enough stuns and burst abilities that focus fire can cover. You don't need a damn 1 shot from 100% hp LB that takes ZERO skill to use.

As for the crystal, I hate how fast it moves because if one team is winning the majority of the match and pushes it all the way to the end but then gets LB'd and stunned to death from a WHM/WAR combo you can literally have the crystal at your end of the map before the team can completely respawn. THAT is dumb and shouldn't happen.

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Originally Posted by MetalMonad

What I'd Change:
- You die, get your loading screen after 2-3 seconds, then get "locked" inside spawn room while the counter is still going down.
- Sprint is automatically applied whenever you are in spawn
- Make DRG LB marker more noticeable
- Nerf WHM LB charge speed and polymorph getting rid of opposing LBs / abilities
- Increase CD of primal rend by 5 seconds (reward to holding it for big moments and not using it on CD)
Only put a few balance changes because I've only played a few classes

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All CC should be able to be removed by purify or shield, the fact that white mage has the ONLY CC that is not an LB with that strong a CC is busted. You should be able to remove it too, White mage needs to feel some pressure.
Just make LBs immune to CC, it's their ultimate ability, let them fire it off, it's kinda BS to have us fight against LBS that can be fired around a corner while others require you to walk in the fire.
Remove ground potions from ranked. WHY ARE THEY EVEN THERE, SWEET JESUS THAT IS DUMB. Imagine punishing ranged classes for being ranged by letting players scoop up free full heals.
Improve or fix server tick issues. Server ticks can destroy LBs far better than any CC, I've lost so many kills due to: HP going over 50% despite being way under while pressing Ninja LB, similar issue for MCH LB, Zantetsuken NOT EVEN HITTING ANYTHING if the server feels like it, and CC applying to you once your in shield because it hit you while in shield.

I feel like adding on these basic solutions would solve MANY problems PvP has at the moment. Also: keep transmog/mounts out of top 100. If they won't go hard on cheaters for cheating, then give them the same rewards each time and they'll leave and let those of us that actually want to have fun, have fun. (Currently top 100 rewards are only Adventurer plates, if they keep it that way, then maybe cheaters will get bored and leave.)

They need to do some tuning and maybe even a rework or two (RPR is badly designed and GNB is horribly undertuned)

Stop people from respawning after game is over, make the respawn actually work as timed and intended.

Remove or shorten the swooping in camera to the zone, make the plates show bit longer, shorten the start idle time by at least 10 seconds.

There's a lot more to be done, but hopefully they will commit to making it better.

Fix the WHM limit bug and change or delete the imp skill.
Remove all instant death abilities.(Sam, Ninja and Mech)
Rework GNB its really bad.
Shorten cooldown on purify.
And let us rightclick on enemies names to see adventure plates while we're waiting for matches to start. We can already do it with our teammates but not the opponents? Why?

Oh and remove the Sharlian map it's boring compared to the other 2.

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Originally Posted by MetalMonad

Crystal Conflict is pretty good. Like its not perfect, no MMO pvp has ever been perfect, but for what the devs have given us, its pretty good and I am very satisfied with it

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I usually was a critic of their PvP here, but I probably agree to this too, despise me and the people I know from Feast PvP since a long time probably don't really like it as much, I still think the devs pulled off a good job if you look at it for what it is - a bit more casual PvP mode.

You just can't have a simple PvP mode and balance it for an competitive environment, like we had in The Feast. But if you remove the competitiveness, you can introduce way more 'fun' elements in it. Ideally PvP players asked for a more complex PvP mode that is also fun, but I don't think this is the game for it or rather not the playerbase for it anymore.

I always advocated to bring back "the fun" into PvP in a dozen comments here over the years;

• to bring back more cc, for every job and not just some
• to have a personal LB and let it be more impactful
• to make dmg more unpredictable and not just raw ever digitsame values
• to have a variety of maps
• to have maps that interact with the player (lava/wind, speedboosts, health/strength/def potions on the map like in the og Feast mode etc. etc.)
• to get rid off those damn potions (and their delay..) and bring back the faster recuperate
• to bring in decorative rewards for attaining a high rank/commitment, people often discussed having like a pvp mentor crown-icon that resembles your rank, but the potraits take over that area now too
• no real rewards for players outside of top100 was 'unfun' too for many players

The devs really delivered or tried to deliver on all those points. And I hope they listened to the feedback from the players to get to that result and it is not just a coincidence now.

I think people who criticize the gamemode on those topics now have to be careful for what they are really asking for and should take a look at what The Feast was. Would you rather have only a cc every 15-45s, when you say there is too much cc? Would you rather want your LB to not kill anything from time to time, when you say sam/drg/whm lb are too strong? Would you rather want to sit in a 20min range dps queue only to lose in 1min, when you not get the group you wished you would get?

The mode is much more friendlier and faster to get into for the player, at the cost of it being even more casual.

Let's get to some issues:

• I have played bronze - crystal tier ranked matches - I haven't felt any major increase in game quality, matchmaking system seems to have failed completely - now that you can grind your way up with a lucky streak. With the numbers this PvP mode has now, you really dont need a gold player in crystal matches. But now that everyone is in every tier, you could just let bronze play in crystal too. So idk, its broken beyond repair atm
• I really would like to see a death recap, show what killed me in dmg numbers&skills, many players probably don't know what hit them because of the design of the lb's - those 10+ seconds respawn time are ideal to show that info
• the cloud nine map is a bit too open/big/slow2walk, the blackfeather mini event only lets 1 person grab the feather, I think it should let everyone who positions correctly
• I didn't like to see Feast Ranked accessories back, this is like a first indication that top100 gear might follow the same way at a later point. The 'everyone is a winner' mentality that we have now is not comparable with systems from the past, where losing was integral part of PvP. If nothing is rare in the game, everything becomes trivial with time. Not every player likes everything to be trivial. Else you can add ultimate weapons to the moogle event.
• maybe give the players the ability to instant respawn once per game, 10s +loading time is very long, or 5s +3s each death
• it is harder to carry a game now as it was in the previous PvP modes I think, especially if you play a bad job. Your own contribution matters less with a teamsize of 5, in some way it has become what I feared - more like a diceroll/russian roulette who wins

Maybe still worth to think about different skilltrees or traits, PvP rank is still absolutely meaningless, it could be expanded. Maybe being able to chose which LB we want to use etc.

Also the old 8vs8 Feast maps could be redesigned for CC to have more maps, could have a flood that lets you drown or something.

Anyway, again, think the content is a good and fun contribution, just not for people who want a more hardcore/complex/indepth PvP experience, it might not be enough to bind them longterm.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

-The game has zero matchmaking leading everything to be streaky wins or losses.

-You can't derank.

-Purify needs to be on a shorter CD or give a longer immunity and it needs to work on everything. Getting silenced or polymorphed and being unable to purge it is ridiculous.

-WHM is straight up broken.

-One shot LB's should not be a thing. Going from 100% HP to 0 with no indications at all of what happened is asinine and shouldn't be a thing.

-The respawns are horrid. Either the timer needs to be reduced by 6 seconds or they need to completely eliminate the slow load to black and rez animation.

-Getting matches with multiple tanks and healers on a single team is straight up unfun.

-One and done 2 minute matches are horrible, especially with LB's causing the match to constantly snowball.

-Overtime is a HORRID mechanic. Either the crystal reaches the end or the match keeps going.

-The crystal moves too fast. Either the crystal needs to move slower or they need to give us a proper ranking system with best out of 3 rounds.

-If they want this mode to be role agnostic then they need to REMOVE the roles. They tried to make tanks and healers "flavors" of their roles but they just made the mode a broken mess by doing so. Either significantly reduce healer dps output and make them actual healers or completely abandon the concept of roles and make a truly role agnostic system which includes reducing tanks damage mitigation.

The mode was fun at first, but as I made my way to plat 1 I found myself no longer wanting to play the mode anymore. Its frustrating and no longer fun. I'm tired of getting stunned every 15 seconds by a warrior and beamed by a WHM 3 or 4 times match.

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No thanks, there is no "broken mess". Healers are support roles and it is definitely more fun that way. I', not speaking exclusively from the WHM perspective, I'm talking about the other healer jobs. Having them as support rather than the classic heals with debuffs and DPS skills and the option to use some heals and buffs makes fore much more interesting matches.

if there is a "broken mess" I would look more towards those skills that can one-shot players- either nerf those skills or make those skills more visible so that other players are more aware with all of the visual mess that's onscreen.

I like game-play hazards. Adds some variety and tactics to otherwise static matches. I wouldn't mind more ways to counter turbulence, but it also makes for some nice game changing moves. Just need to learn to work it to your advantage.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

-One shot LB's should not be a thing. Going from 100% HP to 0 with no indications at all of what happened is asinine and shouldn't be a thing.

-Overtime is a HORRID mechanic. Either the crystal reaches the end or the match keeps going.

-If they want this mode to be role agnostic then they need to REMOVE the roles. They tried to make tanks and healers "flavors" of their roles but they just made the mode a broken mess by doing so. Either significantly reduce healer dps output and make them actual healers or completely abandon the concept of roles and make a truly role agnostic system which includes reducing tanks damage mitigation.

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-And that’s what separates the good players from the average. There’s plenty of indications. SAM can’t one shot you unless you hit the SAM and get the debuff. NIN can’t one shot you unless you’re below 50%, look at his LB bar? Am I missing any other LBs that take you from “100% to 0?”

-That’s not how overtime works, friend.

-Healers and Tanks are support. Think of it more like a MOBA or Overwatch.

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Originally Posted by MetalMonad

- Nerf WHM LB charge speed and polymorph getting rid of opposing LBs / abilities

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WHM's Polymorph needs to be nerfed to the ground as CC that cannot be purified is, imo utterly ridiculous. They have way too much pressure in their kit.

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Originally Posted by Nubrication

-And that’s what separates the good players from the average. There’s plenty of indications. SAM can’t one shot you unless you hit the SAM and get the debuff. NIN can’t one shot you unless you’re below 50%, look at his LB bar? Am I missing any other LBs that take you from “100% to 0?”

-That’s not how overtime works, friend.

-Healers and Tanks are support. Think of it more like a MOBA or Overwatch.

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You literally sneeze on a sam and it activates their Chiten. There's literally no real counter play to their LB.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

No thanks, there is no "broken mess". Healers are support roles and it is definitely more fun that way. I', not speaking exclusively from the WHM perspective, I'm talking about the other healer jobs. Having them as support rather than the classic heals with debuffs and DPS skills and the option to use some heals and buffs makes fore much more interesting matches.

if there is a "broken mess" I would look more towards those skills that can one-shot players- either nerf those skills or make those skills more visible so that other players are more aware with all of the visual mess that's onscreen.

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Except the game mode is supposed to be role agnostic which means tanks and healers should be dps with flavors of support skills.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

You literally sneeze on a sam and it activates their Chiten. There's literally no real counter play to their LB.




Except the game mode is supposed to be role agnostic which means tanks and healers should be dps with flavors of support skills.

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It is role agnostic. There are no required jobs. Role agnostic does not mean that each role is identical.

Tanks have DPS skills, the commons skills, and more defensive skills than a DPS .Healer, even with the reduced number of skills, also have more DPS skills than in PVE, with the commons skills and more healing skills than a DPS - but less healing skills than in PVE. Eaxh healer does also play very differently from each other in PVP, there can be arguments whether the healing could get buffed a bit, perhaps on sage.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

-The game has zero matchmaking leading everything to be streaky wins or losses.

-You can't derank.

-Purify needs to be on a shorter CD or give a longer immunity and it needs to work on everything. Getting silenced or polymorphed and being unable to purge it is ridiculous.

-WHM is straight up broken.

-One shot LB's should not be a thing. Going from 100% HP to 0 with no indications at all of what happened is asinine and shouldn't be a thing.

-The respawns are horrid. Either the timer needs to be reduced by 6 seconds or they need to completely eliminate the slow load to black and rez animation.

-Getting matches with multiple tanks and healers on a single team is straight up unfun.

-One and done 2 minute matches are horrible, especially with LB's causing the match to constantly snowball.

-Overtime is a HORRID mechanic. Either the crystal reaches the end or the match keeps going.

-The crystal moves too fast. Either the crystal needs to move slower or they need to give us a proper ranking system with best out of 3 rounds.

-If they want this mode to be role agnostic then they need to REMOVE the roles. They tried to make tanks and healers "flavors" of their roles but they just made the mode a broken mess by doing so. Either significantly reduce healer dps output and make them actual healers or completely abandon the concept of roles and make a truly role agnostic system which includes reducing tanks damage mitigation.

The mode was fun at first, but as I made my way to plat 1 I found myself no longer wanting to play the mode anymore. Its frustrating and no longer fun. I'm tired of getting stunned every 15 seconds by a warrior and beamed by a WHM 3 or 4 times match.

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I agree with this list to an extent. I'd rephrase some of it myself but more or less on board with it.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

snip

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1. I don't think you should be deranked so long as the nonsense that is current matchmaking and job balance is a thing.

2. Purify being on a 2 charge system would allow for us ONE single allowance for server ping screwing us without becoming too overpowered. It would also counter the constant spam of CC abilities that is free to do and unpunishable in many cases currently.

3. One Shot LBs aren't "awful" so much as there's no way to know when/if they're happening. Can't see DRG LB, SMN can bahamut you from a mile away out of nowhere, NIN can chain kill you at half health meaning all they have to do is sit back and let the rest of their team dps you and then just go in for the kill. Having no way to punish and/or escape LBs outside of people cheating is really not great.

4. Respawns feel like they take an eternity yeah. Especially in a mode this fast if even some of the party wipes at any given time in the intro it might as well be over in casual.

5. Getting matches with multiple tanks and healers is indeed unfun, especially when you're a team of 5 dps vs a healer 2 tanks and 2 dps. One could argue the lack of burst would balance it out but if one of those tanks is WAR you can pretty much just get destroyed anyways.

6. I don't mind quick matches, I do mind that they're usually that quick due to the job balance issues.

7. Overtime is fine but it needs tweaking. Over time basically MAKING everyone stack on crystal to be fish in a barrel sucks for everyone.

8. I used to think the crystal moved too fast until I got higher in rank and saw a more "balanced" match in play. It's intended to be fast runs the issue is the res timing and cc locking that makes those seconds feel more lost if server decides to screw you.

9. Roles are agnostic they just need finetuning. Things like WHM and RDM are overtuned, WAR is close to what I'd want all tanks to be aimed around in terms of the "on paper" concept. Being able to control the battle and guard the point is good but more people would play tank if they didn't all have to play WAR to do so.Fewer kits need to have the answer to EVERYTHING while some have the answer to nothing. If they fix this it'll work.

From another thread:

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Originally Posted by Tobias_Azuryon

I see the a sort of categorization of skills to make this possible:

Mitigation = Keeping yourself/allies from dying.
CC = stun/silence/bind/heavy
Utility = Buffs/Debuffs both to targets and to allies.
DPS = obvious

In a more balanced world to me the roles would be:

TANK = Mitigation/CC
HEALER = Utility/CC
RANGED DPS = DPS/Utility
MELEE DPS = DPS/mitigation
MAGIC = DPS/CC

All of them would still HAVE dps and personal utility, but some would excel where others do less. Some kits have literally everything you could need and others have baffling lack of options.

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