What's wrong with FFXIV's PVP?

1) Ranged is OP at high skill and UP at low skill.

A) Targeting is the hardest part of FFXIV PVP. Knowing who to hit when and being able to acquire the your target is vital. If a target can't be acquired by everyone, there's no point in the team hitting them at all. This means a skilled player will always focus certain roles based on ease of targeting.
B) And ease of targeting means melee jobs, but many of those jobs aren't really appreciably tankier. The defensive CDs most melee DPS get aren't strong enough to compensate. SAM for example can reduce damage taken significantly, but it only lasts 5 seconds and has multiple uses. Their barrier only applies if the skill hits 2+ people AND it has a cast. This makes them an excellent candidate for focus fire.
C) While melee DPS can eventually beat most ranged in 1v1, 1v1s pretty much never matters in serious play. The only strategy that works is an entire team hitting one person to get past the ridiculous defensive kit every player has. Trying to disrupt the backrow assassin-style is pointless.

All this combines to create a meta where ranged sit back and wait for melee to die. Which brings us to our next problem...

2) Roleless queueing means that in higher ranks where skill is predictably competent battles are won or lost before they're ever fought.

A) There's basically no strategic complexity in Crystalline Conflict, the goal is always the same. Reduce their numbers before they reduce yours. So battle is all that really counts and the problems from (1) really start to shine through.
B) If there was a draft-pick style way to select your job you could try to compensate for your team's poor synergy, but there is not. Some team comps simply do not work. If you put a samurai on a team with 4 ranged, she's going to get focused down and die and basically be worthless because the rest of the team will be untargetable making that component of difficulty null and void. And once she's dead it's a 5v4 and her team will get steamrolled.

The problem isn't class imbalance primarily (though this is an issue). It's the innate advantage of ranged damage and how it shapes the battle. There's no point in going after them for aforementioned reasons, which means it's all about which frontliners go down first.

3) The lack of player agency over the shape of matches means the meta pretty much can't be disrupted.

A) You can't communicate ingame to suggest doing something weird that plays to your team's strengths.
B) You can't queue with your friends to practice these strategies. Even if you could, you can't queue with your friends to USE them.
C) To win you need to play classes that fit into a winning strategy, which just further reinforces everything boiling down into this.

So how do we fix this?

I don't know. Things are actually worse off than they initially seemed in my view. Before everyone knew the "right way" to play Crystalline Conflict things seemed vibrant and fun. Low skill level players are stuck in that moment. They're hung up on class balance with some legitimate views but often waste their time complaining about things like SAM's LB, which has a number of obvious easy counterplays when you understand it.

Square is not good at balancing PVP modes when they come out; they generally listen to low skill players who haven't actually invested enough time into things to understand what's actually going on. I am sympathetic here though, because they're trying to make the mode more palatable, but it almost never works.

In my view, Crystalline Conflict needs a dramatic rework. The biggest issues I see are: the common pool of defensive abilities, the power of CC, the frantic pace, and the difficulty of targeting.

In my view:

• The number of abilities need to be further reduced and each should do more damage.
• Movement speeds need to be lowered.
• Everything should be a skillshot.
• Replace guard with a shorter window parry or dodge or self-heal, based on class.
• Get rid of recuperate & purify.
• Reduce the amount of CC.

Basically I am suggesting that they keep going in the direction they've been moving. Further reduce the amount of ability bloat and the complexity. Make every individual action count more and shift around where the difficulty is in play away from targeting being a major struggle.

Your first point discusses about the lack of mitigation but then your second post wants to nerf what small terrible mitigation we have?

Because people burst down healers and no one but WHM can defend against that, as a SGE Protect and REcuperate (because of my TINY hp pool) is the only thing that keeps me alive half the time.

I've never heard of this "Ranged is OP" perspective until now. The only op ranged is really RDM because they can shield damage dot etc. People are just talking about it less because less people are at high enough a rank to see the truly good RDM players who basically can't be countered if they're played properly, and people constantly go after WHMs instead of them making them easy to gank.

SAM along has multiple gap closers that also do damage and as someone who literally just had a match with a SAM who had it in for me the whole match, are not underpowered against range in literally any way.

The "ridiculous defensive kit" doesn't even work properly when guard can sometimes take several slams of the button to go off (which could then mean you toggle it off with a second press) and Recuperate is a managed resource pool that you have to keep on top of during the match. I would talk about how it's really STUPID that an enemy can be in your base but because you're full health they can run "through you" to the health pot which I think is broken and needs to be changed, but even that wouldn't stop classes like NIN/SAM/WAR/WHM/RDM.

Your example of a SAM with 4 ranged doesn't have a problem with the kit, it has a problem with the team not helping burst targets or buff the SAM appropriately. Which is a communication problem and/or dumb player problem.

By limiting abilities, getting rid of mitigation, and making everything slower you get rid of the appealing things about the mode compared to Frontlines. Frontlines is a boring slog of a mode that is dependent on RNG and long pvp doesn't mean good PVP. CC is fine as well, you just need Purify to be fixed and stop letting classes like WHM and others have multiple purifies if the rest of the "role" won't get it as well.

What's wrong with FFXIV's PVP?

1. Tab Targeting

The End

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Originally Posted by Tobias_Azuryon

Your first point discusses about the lack of mitigation but then your second post wants to nerf what small terrible mitigation we have?

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I wouldn't call the mitigation we have small--I would call the mitigation that specific jobs as part of their particular kit (like Samurai) small. The shared mitigation is powerful. It's strong enough to make you almost completely invulnerable for 5 seconds + keep you sustained in combat against anyone's abilities for a good long while. It makes 1v1s pointless. It's what has us locked into the meta of "the team targets the easiest person to burst down and do it" mindset. And the reason why melees get the short end of that stick is they're the only person everyone can target basically. Ranged, the ability to attack from a distance, is super powerful because of the effect it has on targeting.

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Originally Posted by Tobias_Azuryon

Because people burst down healers and no one but WHM can defend against that, as a SGE Protect and REcuperate (because of my TINY hp pool) is the only thing that keeps me alive half the time.

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If you got bursted down 1 on 1, then that's because you don't know how to use your defensive abilities. No one should be killing you fast enough 1v1 that your team can't come help you. And if it's a team bursting you down, it's because you aren't positioning yourself correctly to avoid that (or couldn't, say you were pushing). Melees, like samurai, cannot currently defend themselves against getting bursted down AND have to expose themselves to it in order to do anything. As a healer you can hang back at the start of the battle and you should.

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Originally Posted by Tobias_Azuryon

SAM along has multiple gap closers that also do damage and as someone who literally just had a match with a SAM who had it in for me the whole match, are not underpowered against range in literally any way.

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Gap closers help you get in, but they do nothing to protect you once you're in. It can negate the advantage a ranged player has on you in a 1v1 situation, but the problem is that it only makes that person targetable to you (not the rest of your team) while making you targetable to the WHOLE enemy team. It's basically suicide unless other people go in with you and if you have a bunch of ranged players on your team they won't. It's not in their interest to expose themselves to you, so ultimately they wait for you to die and then they die. They have super powerful defensive cooldowns, but there's not much incentive for them to put themselves into situations to use them voluntarily.

With some team comps a lot of this isn't an issue. If you have 3 melee players on your team, or 2 and one of them can do a fair bit of CC & disruption things are going to be fine. But you will never find a samurai that performs well who is stuck on a team with 4 ranged people unless the people he's up against are completely incompetent. It just doesn't work.

Another thing that might help explain the problem...

Samurai doesn't have enough mitigation to tank for 4 ranged players if they end up grouped with them and they have no choice but to try to. They will be the focus of the enemy's fire due to their lack of range, there's no way around this. But if they give them more mitigation, then they won't be balanced in situations where that range/team comp isn't causing an imbalance.

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Originally Posted by Snowborn

If you got bursted down 1 on 1, then that's because you don't know how to use your defensive abilities. No one should be killing you fast enough 1v1 that your team can't come help you.

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It's nice of you to think that the team even looks at healers in the back getting ganked and helps them even when pinging a milliion times lol. My "defensive abilities" are "e.dosis" that's it. And pnuema which has a cast time which can be easily interrupted and due to purify jank and classes (like SAM) having stun, just prolongs the inevitable. Even if I get it off the SAM can also recuperate which means its burst will easily outdo my mitigation lol.

In a perfect world with premades where I COULD hang back and do my job that'd be one thing, but as of right now if I so much as blink in the general direction of a WAR/WHM/NIN/SAM, I'm target numero uno (which makes sense) but have no ways of dealing with that like WHM. (Stun, easy self heals, protect dps and easy LB). It's not saying you CANT take down a WHM, it's just that by default they have a lot more than me and saying "you're not using your defensive abilities" when I have guard and edosis isn't really saying much lol.

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Originally Posted by Snowborn

Melees, like samurai, cannot currently defend themselves against getting bursted down AND have to expose themselves to it in order to do anything. As a healer you can hang back at the start of the battle and you should.

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I wish I could play the games you're playing where a healer (especially SGE who is required to be in melee range with the smallest hp pool and kardia only working on its target so we have to actively be selfish and remove our group utility to help ourselves in order to do our highest potency damage) can just "hang back" lol. It's rare if ever, and especially if the party is getting stomped it's really hard to just watch them do all the work while I spam dosis from the sidelines. WHM can literally get in, cast aoe protect, and group heal and still flee and still have more cc options on top of the aforementioned LB lol.

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Originally Posted by Snowborn

Gap Closers

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SAM has a better version of Nebula that allows them to get a dps boost and burst a single target and again I wish I could play the matches where you are in where a SAM gets deleted for pushing behind the main party because maybe then I wouldn't hate them haha. I have sat there being wailed on while party members just dick around. While ONE melee vs multiple ranged may not be great, the case in which this has occured is so few that it borders on impossible. The lack of communication tools and team coordination is the problem, not the kits and definitely not the self heal/mitigations.

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Originally Posted by Snowborn

Another thing that might help explain the problem...

Samurai doesn't have enough mitigation to tank for 4 ranged players if they end up grouped with them and they have no choice but to try to.

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Yeah they shouldn't be able to tank that regardless. That being said your teams inability to coordinate and/or refusal to is an issue with both the playerbase, the lack of communication tools, and the human ability to be selfish twats lol. SAM shouldn't be given more mitigation/survival because it can't tank 4 ranged, but the matchmaking definitely needs to be made better so not only does that not become a recurring instance, but that the role is not "required to" which goes back to balancing issues that aren't specific to SAM.

what's wrong with 14's pvp? that it's more fun and flavorful for every class compared to their pve versions with 1/3rd the buttons

seriously design team, get it together.

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Originally Posted by drtasteyummy

What's wrong with FFXIV's PVP?

1. Tab Targeting

The End

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I love that this somehow has 4 likes, which means 5 of you have not devoted even a single brain cell to thinking the stated problem through. What, exactly, do you replace tab targeting with? You can't even reliably expect someone to be where the game shows you they are, and you want, what, pure positional hitboxes? Do you think automatic targeting would somehow have a more sane target selection routine than the existing tab target routine? Give me a break.

Ranged OP? Since when lmao.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

I love that this somehow has 4 likes, which means 5 of you have not devoted even a single brain cell to thinking the stated problem through. What, exactly, do you replace tab targeting with? You can't even reliably expect someone to be where the game shows you they are, and you want, what, pure positional hitboxes? Do you think automatic targeting would somehow have a more sane target selection routine than the existing tab target routine? Give me a break.

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I mean....they could copy swtor or wow's tab system. FFXIV's tab targeting has always been terrible.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

I love that this somehow has 4 likes, which means 5 of you have not devoted even a single brain cell to thinking the stated problem through. What, exactly, do you replace tab targeting with? You can't even reliably expect someone to be where the game shows you they are, and you want, what, pure positional hitboxes? Do you think automatic targeting would somehow have a more sane target selection routine than the existing tab target routine? Give me a break.

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somebody lost some rankeds lmao I would answer it but Ransu already gave the obvious answer

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Originally Posted by Tobias_Azuryon

your teams inability to coordinate and/or refusal to is an issue with both the playerbase

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I don't think it's my team's fault. They, like you, are afraid of dying because they think they aren't very tanky (even though they aren't that much less tanky than anyone short of a WAR or a PLD). So they don't go in. They sit themselves at a comfortable max range and start attacking a target. This means they only expose themselves ultimately to their target. This keeps them from dying, but it makes them an unattractive target both from a coordination aspect with the enemy team and just from how targeting naturally works (which is really clunky and awful in FFXIV). When 4 people do this and one person doesn't (because they literally can't), the odd man out will die. Every time. I don't know what anyone can be expected to do differently.

You're not wrong that restricting matchmaking so we don't end up with that team comp will make this less common, but then that runs into other problems. People don't want role-based queueing. Draft-mode for ranked would help. There are a lot of solutions that don't line up with what I suggested.

As for your problems with how things are designed, I can't speak to your perspectives--maybe there are problems to be fixed there too. But it's gotten to the point that I don't play ranked anymore because I constantly get paired up with ranged players and the same thing happens every time. If you have any suggestions on what I can do so I can continue to progress in ranked (short of changing jobs), I would love to hear it. As is, I don't have any confidence in the design and I feel like I'm just screwed. I cannot get out of Diamond and into Crystal, maybe I hit my skill limit--but I feel like the problem is with the design.

This might not be very helpful, but if your team is 4 ranged then you should probably sit back and try to peel the enemies that will eventually jump them. They will eventually have to push the Crystal so they can't sit back the whole game anyway.

It sounds like you want a game that isn't ffxiv. Black Desert might be more your style, tho the combat is faster.

What's wrong with PvP is people that actually want to do it are outnumbered by people who are just there for xp.