Start of new PvP seasons vs major content release

The fact that some pvp seasons start just at the same time as major patch content releases is annoying. If one wants to enjoy first the story and new content first week, then the weeks after it's savage raids... when do I even find the time to consistently play ranked pvp??

This knowing that it's gonna peter out at some point as well so I can't tally that much, and it's also probably not helping for the amount of people that actually take part in those at the ranked level.

Please move pvp season openings to minor patches.

For w/e reason they have this mindset of they only do bigger job balancing in big patches only, includng pvp ones, with few exceptions, it would be much better to space pve and pvp apart indeed.

I also don't get why they don't do more minor balancing patches neither, I'd love to see many small patches that each time give minor potency buff/nerfs for finetuning aswell.

Better for the game's health too with less dry spells of nothing new being added for a while.

They keep releasing new seasons one after another without any breaks years on end. I fondly remember one of the Feast seasons starting on Christmas day :p

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Originally Posted by Valence

The fact that some pvp seasons start just at the same time as major patch content releases is annoying. If one wants to enjoy first the story and new content first week, then the weeks after it's savage raids... when do I even find the time to consistently play ranked pvp??

This knowing that it's gonna peter out at some point as well so I can't tally that much, and it's also probably not helping for the amount of people that actually take part in those at the ranked level.

Please move pvp season openings to minor patches.

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Makes sense to me. I don't even do raiding and there's not really time between new content and life to squeeze it all in. I have yet to touch the loporrit tribe. Or any of the treasure map content post initial release.

Tbh I think this is a non-issue, why move the opening? It just ensures that there is also something else to do aside from story and raids.

I don't know about you but ranked takes a significant investment in time every day, much like raiding. Combining both is possible but you end up with days crammed with nothing else but XIV for weeks, and tbh I don't think it's healthy to base content consumption in the game around no lifers (which I'm not even, but imagine the people that barely have their evenings...), especially when there is so many content lulls after said big releases.

The main problem is that this CANNOT be delayed, much like raiding and they are on a timed window (ranked especially). Both are also active generally in the evening. Both types of content conflict hard with each other.

Honestly, I just stopped caring after season 3. I would love to play ranked (especially given the extreme skill range differences in casual mode), but the mode literally dies a week after a new season.

I'm all in favor in having new seasons start during the minor x.x5 updates instead of dropping at the start of a main patch, but I also think they need to change the ranking system. Personally at this point I'm ok with the ranking system going back to how it was in season 1, however, crystal ranks (and maybe diamond) need rank decay so people just cant hit top 100 and sit there the rest of the season without playing anymore.

They could easily start the Season a month late and cut off the mini-Season at the end of the patch.

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Originally Posted by Valence

The fact that some pvp seasons start just at the same time as major patch content releases is annoying. If one wants to enjoy first the story and new content first week, then the weeks after it's savage raids... when do I even find the time to consistently play ranked pvp??

This knowing that it's gonna peter out at some point as well so I can't tally that much, and it's also probably not helping for the amount of people that actually take part in those at the ranked level.

Please move pvp season openings to minor patches.

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are we talking about series pass or 'rank reset' season? because i can tell you 90% of us dont really care about one of those.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Honestly, I just stopped caring after season 3. I would love to play ranked (especially given the extreme skill range differences in casual mode), but the mode literally dies a week after a new season.

I'm all in favor in having new seasons start during the minor x.x5 updates instead of dropping at the start of a main patch, but I also think they need to change the ranking system. Personally at this point I'm ok with the ranking system going back to how it was in season 1, however, crystal ranks (and maybe diamond) need rank decay so people just cant hit top 100 and sit there the rest of the season without playing anymore.

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The problem with the vaunted rank decay is that it literally asks people to keep investing bottomless amounts of time into ranked just to stay afloat. In the current system you already need to play sometimes a hundred of games just to reach crystal depending on your luck and skill, and then if you continue playing you actually have more chances to drop back down to Plat just because of shit day or luck than actual decay.

I honestly have no idea how ranked would turn with such a system pulling people down all the time.

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Originally Posted by Towa-Musa

are we talking about series pass or 'rank reset' season? because i can tell you 90% of us dont really care about one of those.

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I have no idea what those mean?

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Originally Posted by Valence

The problem with the vaunted rank decay is that it literally asks people to keep investing bottomless amounts of time into ranked just to stay afloat.

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That's kind of the point. Instead of reaching rank and then stop playing cuz you don't want to risk losing rating, rank decay will keep you engaged.

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Originally Posted by Valence

In the current system you already need to play sometimes a hundred of games just to reach crystal depending on your luck and skill, and then if you continue playing you actually have more chances to drop back down to Plat just because of shit day or luck than actual decay.

I honestly have no idea how ranked would turn with such a system pulling people down all the time.

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It took me about 80 or so games in season 1. I did it in less than 50 games after the full reset in season 3. If you're actually decent you can carry yourself through the lower ranks relatively easily.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

That's kind of the point. Instead of reaching rank and then stop playing cuz you don't want to risk losing rating, rank decay will keep you engaged.

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You completely missed my point. I'm actually not sure it will keep you engaged for the aforementioned reasons:

- Past a point I'd just give up considering the ludicrous amounts of time invested.
- I am not sure how I'd feel about continuing playing once reaching crystal since it's kinda doomed either way. You either drop from decay, or you drop from natural swings up or down anyway. In any case, I do have the feeling that it would actually repel most ranked pvpers but the top 50, because for most the goal is to reach crystal as an addition to having fun. People were talking about rewards to keep playing ranked, that's one of those.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

It took me about 80 or so games in season 1. I did it in less than 50 games after the full reset in season 3. If you're actually decent you can carry yourself through the lower ranks relatively easily.

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What lower ranks? I'm not even speaking about lower ranks, I'm speaking about Plat to Crystal, which is where most of the climb lies anyway since it's 9 grouped risers to go. I had a season where it took 190 games. Another with a lot less. It's wild rng unless you're a regular top 10.

A: Natural swings are supposed to happen. That's the entire point of a ranked mode. Going through the ranks isn't some form of progression, its a RANKING. That's the biggest problem people seem to have with ranked is they don't accept that simple fact.

B: If it took you nearly 200 games to go from plat to crystal then you are definitely doing something wrong.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I have no idea what those mean?

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okay so there's a difference between a new season and a new series pass, one is just meaningless while the other one is basically where the goodies are, such as glams and mounts... so series pass or new season as in rank reset?

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Originally Posted by Ransu

A: Natural swings are supposed to happen. That's the entire point of a ranked mode. Going through the ranks isn't some form of progression, its a RANKING. That's the biggest problem people seem to have with ranked is they don't accept that simple fact.

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The point is still going completely past your head. We're not speaking about a game where this is the sole thing people do all day. We're speaking about a MMO where there is much, much more content and various activities. This alone, makes the point of traditional ranking you'd find in overwatch or whatever online competitive game irrelevant for that specific case.

You probably missed the countless threads about a month ago that were all debating on what keeps MMO players motivated to play something, about rewards and whatnot. Ranking was not deemed to be a reward important enough in all of those apparently.

Edit: actually

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Originally Posted by Ransu

B: If it took you nearly 200 games to go from plat to crystal then you are definitely doing something wrong.

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Okay boomer. What name are you playing under, I can't seem to find you on any rankings? Or which seasons on Aether? Because I'm heavily suspecting we're just not playing under the same kind of environment and circumstances at all. If you have in mind all seasons before the current one on Aether where the crystal pool starts at rank 900 or in the thousands, then just lol. I think I reached crystal the first seasons under 30 or 50 games too yeah. Not exactly hard with such huge player pools.

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Originally Posted by Towa-Musa

okay so there's a difference between a new season and a new series pass, one is just meaningless while the other one is basically where the goodies are, such as glams and mounts... so series pass or new season as in rank reset?

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Why are people calling a series a pass?

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Originally Posted by Valence

Okay boomer. What name are you playing under, I can't seem to find you on any rankings? Or which seasons on Aether? Because I'm heavily suspecting we're just not playing under the same kind of environment and circumstances at all. If you have in mind all seasons before the current one on Aether where the crystal pool starts at rank 900 or in the thousands, then just lol. I think I reached crystal the first seasons under 30 or 50 games too yeah. Not exactly hard with such huge player pools.

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Well, considering in season 1 the top 100 was in the 4k score range and my best crystal score was only 2200... you're not gonna see my name anywhere in the rankings list since they only show the top 100 and ranked is sadly so dead now that there's barely 30 people in the current top 100 on aether. I've sadly given up on ranked after season 3 and don't even try to queue anymore because every time I try to play ranked the queue times are over 30 minutes.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Why are people calling a series a pass?

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Okay, you're just trolling lmao

I don't really think that's a metric you can or should use when everything, but your own play is RNG and you would have to review several matches to see if Valence is playing well or just getting bad luck.

I don't think that's trolling Towa. I think your off topic. The thread was about moving the rated season time to a lesser patch schedule. This doesn't really effect the series except every other season when it drops though it's pretty much just filler activity or just happens for most people on this forum(I would guess). So why does it matter?

Mr. Happy called it and here it is. The too many S names confusion.

I'm genuinely puzzled by the term. I haven't watched a mr happy video in years, so you'll excuse me if I am not familiar with all his vocabulary...

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Well, considering in season 1 the top 100 was in the 4k score range and my best crystal score was only 2200... you're not gonna see my name anywhere in the rankings list since they only show the top 100 and ranked is sadly so dead now that there's barely 30 people in the current top 100 on aether. I've sadly given up on ranked after season 3 and don't even try to queue anymore because every time I try to play ranked the queue times are over 30 minutes.

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Yeah, thanks for making my point. We're just not playing in the same kind of environment. There is an unbridgeable gap between a large pool of players in diam/crystal and a low one like it's been the case on my datacenter since Season 3. Generally if you get to crystal here you're already top 100 or top 60-75 depending on the season (odd or even). I too reached 1k + crystal rating on the first seasons and it didn't take that much time. Granted, this was also before they changed the system and allowed dropping from crystal.

You also say yourself that you stopped after S3, which is where pvp numbers dwindled in ranked, and people got better at it as well, at least at that level. You're judging from an outdated, and extremely misinformed point of view, and from a richer environment in player amounts.


Edit: but yeah, I'm not even sure why we're having this discussion, the OP was about spreading pvp ranked seasons to lower patch activity so that not all the big content gets out at once..

I'm using raise on this thread because I do think it's important for the next expansion.

I'm not a big fan of CC (I've played in some seasons, but I much prefer FLs), but I can see Valence's point.

Ranked CC queues die extremely quickly and RNG remains a notable factor of the climb which, naturally, slows players progression. The rush to reach the higher ranks before the queue dies demands a regular dedication of time, and trying to fit this time into the vast wave of other new content which appears at the same time can leave players conflicted.
Would it not be better for such content to be more evenly spread out, giving players the chance to take an active part in everything, rather than having to pick and choose. That said, would starting new seasons outside of major content patches worsen the current issue of quickly dying queues?

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Originally Posted by Towa-Musa

okay so there's a difference between a new season and a new series pass, one is just meaningless while the other one is basically where the goodies are, such as glams and mounts... so series pass or new season as in rank reset?

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Probably a bit pointless in my replying to this given how long it's been, but I will anyway:

I would have thought it obvious which they were referring to given the specific talk of CC rankings. You might see it as 'meaningless' and only have interest in the 'goodies' offered by new PvP Series', but for other players ranked CC is content that they enjoy and want to be able to play actively, without sacrificing participation in other new content.

Would be nice if rank gets the raid treatment and gets delayed for a week. That's just me wishing though.

More importantly, preseason for CC should have been a thing. I've eventually stopped caring after seeing that there was going to be no breaks. 3 months one season, 1 month the next season, rinse and repeat. Doesn't help that you can only play rank at a certain time frame. I blame how the rank system currently is, but that's for a past discussion.

Thing is, pvp is currently benefitting from the one week delay for savage, ironically, which is good but only leaves one week free to play ranked before savage actually starts.

Of course this is less of a problem for the odd pvp seasons that don't release with major tiers, but they still do release with ultimates in the same fashion...

As always, PVP is an aftertnought.

Bumping this because this is a real problem that needs to be fixed, and SE's release schedules altered.

Even if I just decided to drop pve raiding altogether, I have lived through the hell of having ranked AND savage/ultimates releasing at the same time, and it seriously harmed my ability to dedicate time into both contents that both run on limited time, pve before it becomes over geared and turns into catch up (you either get a static running it when it's current, or you get a static later in the tier when it's not current anymore), and pvp before queues just peter out.

This is almost like the devs think that people doing multiple types of content don't exist, and that you must pick anyway. Meanwhile once those busy releases are past you, you end up in months long patch lulls where nothing happens and you're going after scraps. Pvp could be a way to help alleviate those lulls, but no, for some unfathomable reason it has to drop the exact same day than major patches do, competing with savages or ultimates. Honestly this is just harming both modes for no reason at all.

Feeling this. They really need to de-sync their ranked pvp and raid release schedule.

It really bothers me, esp. as somebody who only got into raiding and ranked pvp relatively recently. I know it's massively annoying for veterans of both raiding and ranked pvp as well, but since I don't have much experience with either I don't even know what I want to focus on. If I choose "the wrong thing" I might regret it for months until there's new content/a season reset. I already botchered my first ranked season because I chose a job I'm weak at and stuck with it too long (when I switched the queues were already dead) so I have been waiting eagerly for months for the new season. But I also missed my opportunity for my first real raiding attempts because I could neither play on patch when DT (and its EX fights) dropped nor when the first savage tier released.

And like many others I really don't have the option to spend all my time on FF14 for weeks after patch release to make sure I catch those critical windows of opportunity. Even as somebody who spends quite a bit of time on playing, the hours of my evening are limited like those of everybody else. People who have to work and/or have commitments will have a hard time doing both types of content.

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Originally Posted by Valence

This is almost like the devs think that people doing multiple types of content don't exist, and that you must pick anyway. Meanwhile once those busy releases are past you, you end up in months long patch lulls where nothing happens and you're going after scraps. Pvp could be a way to help alleviate those lulls, but no, for some unfathomable reason it has to drop the exact same day than major patches do, competing with savages or ultimates. Honestly this is just harming both modes for no reason at all.

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This is what I'm wondering as well. I know not everybody plays pvp but they need to expect (or even just know thanks to their metrics) that there is an overlap between pvpers and raiders. So by simply changing their release schedule they could lessen the content drought for a subset of players.
But despite making use of this readily available option for smarter content distribution (they wouln't give a subset of the playerbase extra content, they'd just change the release rhythm of what they develop anyway) they just take the worst possible route and undermine themselves.
It's a real head scratcher.

That's going off subject but picking a job that doesn't click with you and playing for a while with it in ranked is not a wasted effort in the long run. It's still practice, and you still learn from it. In fact it's probably important if you want to go high enough, especially top crystal, to have played most jobs at least in casual a little, the difference with someone that just "knows" what other jobs do compared to you with actual basic play experience is pretty big.

Anyway I just feel like that everything recently has shown pretty clearly that they're just unwilling to even consider touching to their holy schedules and planning even if it harms the game in the process.

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Originally Posted by Llynethil

For w/e reason they have this mindset of they only do bigger job balancing in big patches only, includng pvp ones, with few exceptions, it would be much better to space pve and pvp apart indeed.

I also don't get why they don't do more minor balancing patches neither, I'd love to see many small patches that each time give minor potency buff/nerfs for finetuning aswell.

Better for the game's health too with less dry spells of nothing new being added for a while.

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Other games when stuff is unbalanced or not working right. They have a PvP patch. SE we only really try to fix stuff every 2 years. I don't know what to call it. But it isn't' healthy for growing the game. PvP is a never ending balance job of players vs devs. But here we are devs are "see you in two years". Then you get players it's fine just counter it, as if you can't be sunned/controlled repeatedly. Or the game already doesn't have the best interactions of abilities.

This is still a problem.

I know they will never alter their holy rigid release schedules but this is still happening and I'll complain anyway. Most ranked pvp seasons compete with other FOMO content, and this time it will be Occult Crescent.
This almost feels like the devs actually want pvp content to fail because everybody but the most hardcore are busy with the new content every time.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I know they will never alter their holy rigid release schedules but this is still happening and I'll complain anyway. Most ranked pvp seasons compete with other FOMO content, and this time it will be Occult Crescent.
This almost feels like the devs actually want pvp content to fail because everybody but the most hardcore are busy with the new content every time.

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let's be real
no one takes pvp seriously in NA, among the players themselves
the scene is a divided antagonistic mess

eu pvp while it may be a tad better is also extremely niche

only JP has an ok/good scene going

I would not doubt the devs know this. So why care?

doesn't make sense

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Originally Posted by AristocraticCorgi

let's be real
no one takes pvp seriously in NA, among the players themselves
the scene is a divided antagonistic mess

eu pvp while it may be a tad better is also extremely niche

only JP has an ok/good scene going

I would not doubt the devs know this. So why care?

doesn't make sense

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They've been trying pretty hard at making pvp into something consistently since the game started, reworking it again and again until the arena mode is actually played and active. If they know this, don't care, why are they pouring resources into it? Why are they making official tournaments? If it's so doom and gloom why are people making their own tournaments (there was one no later than today actually)? Why have they been setting up queue syncs on FL and RW since forever?
This honestly feels like indulging a little into doom and gloom posting.

The reality is that their release schedule has been horrendous this expansion so far, but it's also been a problem for ranked pvp since forever as well.

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Originally Posted by Valence

They've been trying pretty hard at making pvp into something consistently since the game started, reworking it again and again until the arena mode is actually played and active. If they know this, don't care, why are they pouring resources into it? Why are they making official tournaments? If it's so doom and gloom why are people making their own tournaments (there was one no later than today actually)? Why have they been setting up queue syncs on FL and RW since forever?
This honestly feels like indulging a little into doom and gloom posting.

The reality is that their release schedule has been horrendous this expansion so far, but it's also been a problem for ranked pvp since forever as well.

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and pvp has become something, in JP

even their coverage of the regional tournament in JP had higher production value than that of NA, why? because it likely does not make sense to invest as much money an effort into the NA version of it when compared to JP

even job balancing clearly revolves mostly around what happens in JP and what JP players suggest

but feel free to continue believing what suits your view of the situation best

Okay, so if I understand correctly, you're only interested in arguing over which region has it best and worst (even JP had their match making crystal split removed for the first time... so much for that)?
Well I'm not. That's not the point of the OP.

I slightly wish they would find a way that meant we didn't have to travel for CC but still allowed for the bigger pool they were hoping for. I find it such a pain for just one or two before I've got to travel back for something.

I mean even this season that was on my home DC I couldn't even manage to play that much. I think it's actually the season where I've played the less games, because of the release of OC that killed the queues for the whole first week, and they never really picked up a lot after that. Then it's just about playing past bed time when the crystal player base finally decides to get at it.

Except for the second week at best, it's always been 30+ min queues even at prime time in the evening for diam/crystal.