first it was crafting and gathers, now it pvpers...

[chocomaid]

People want PVP? In reality, what people want is to destroy the enemy with an overwhelming difference like a person stomping on an ant.

People don't want pvp, people just want to play the big kid in the playground or the gear, dunno, for the stats or for the looks? PVP should never ever be linked to stats or any kind of progression, you should be playing PVP to PVP, cause you can't experience that feeling in PVE. PVP should always be equalized whichever patch or expansion, so beginners or veterans can fight without an advantage or disadvantage.

Your reward should be the case where you triumphed against your opponent(s) with just your skill, intelligence or pure wits. There would be no qualms about matches about "You only won because of your gear". People will be remembered for their effort and skill, not their level of gear/morale in this case.

[Moheeheeko]

because god forbid doing something just because its fun *the audience gasps in shock*

[Malakhim]

Morale didn't damage Wolves' Den, they way they handled Wolves' Den damaged it.

They could have simply split the queues into iLv brackets, instead of what we currently have;
iLv55, where the crafted stuff can actually server a purpose for beginners rather than just using your PvE stuff.
iLv70, where you go once you've started getting some of that iLv70 PvP gear.
iLv90, and so on.
iLv100, you get the idea.
If you add progressively better rewards for winning in those matches, the grind could have been handled much better as well. By the time you get to iLv100, you're either there to play with your Rank 40 gear and they could just add Tomestone rewards instead (if Wolves' Den rewarded you with Mythology? Oh boy would I love that). They could even have changed the Wolves' Den layout a bit with each bracket. How many dungeons did you do going from Lv1 to Lv40? Not to mention different forms of leveling in PvE. Yet Wolves' Den just gets the single arena? Slapping different brackets on it doesn't really give you new places to level, but it's a nice illusion.

With that, PvE gear becomes worthless in PvP and Morale has a very real purpose, it defines PvP gear and you're only punished if you don't bother getting the iLv55 stuff (I think a vendor should have sold this for Gil, too). As you progress and get new gear, you want to try out that gear so you enter the next bracket. That would have provided a proper sense of progression, rather than "I'm now Rank 20, doing the exact same thing I did at Rank 1".

Add to that some additional game modes, and Wolves' Den would have been fine in my opinion. Frontlines seems to have a Capture the Flag and King of the Hill style going for it, why couldn't those concepts have been introduced to Wolves' Den months ago, when everyone was complaining how boring it is doing the same thing over and over? Wolves' Den is meant to be a training arena, isn't it?

With all that, Frontlines as a iLv80 bracket for PvP would actually work fairly well, they could even just add another iLv100 version that people can eventually work their way towards (not in the same update, but once it becomes clear enough would be able, and willing, to participate). People would be able to jump into Frontlines and get a feel for PvP, then they'd go to Wolves' Den to improve; with better rewards and two extra game modes they may not even hate Wolves' Den as much as I do. Frontlines would only end up with three real distinct players with a iLv80 cap; PvE players capped at iLv80, PvP players in iLv70, PvP players in iLv90+ capped at iLv80, with a proper spread the difference wouldn't be too disastrous.

EDIT; Oh, and with iLv based PvP brackets, PvP Roulette would be nice too, to keep people going down to the iLv55 as it's needed. PvP EXP and Wolf Marks rewards daily, with a small amount of Wolf Marks for being the "Adventurer in Need" as well. Perfect.

I absolutely concur with this statement. The biggest problem with PvP isn't morale gear. Especially after 2.28 and the opening up of all abilities, anyone with any real skill(regardless of what anyone says, PvP is still very much skill-based) can trounce someone in i100 gear. One thing that always bugged me about The Wolves' Den is that:

A) The arena is too small.

B) One kill and you're out.

I'm willing to bet that so many people would be all about Wolves' Den if it had a timer and a point system a la FPS like Halo. If you die, you have 20 seconds until you auto respawn unless raised(which might increase the point count or mark bonus for a healer that raises), and at the end of the match, points are tallied based on a variety of factors, and boom. Hey we're having more fun already. This whole "kill off the whole team once and that's it" nonsense makes matches too short and makes queues feel like forever. There's already only so much Mario Kart 8 I can play before dying of boredom waiting for this thing to pop!

Morale and morale gear are the carrots on a stick that keep people ranking up in PvP, but we need more incentives. Create leaderboards, add more PvE XP and marks for each win, etc.

And honestly, we've had people campaign for superfluous things such as marriage, fantasia, and countless others. I think it's more than fair that us PvPers get our voices heard as well. If PvP ain't for you, then it ain't for you, so really, just scram.

[Nalien]

People want PVP? In reality, what people want is to destroy the enemy with an overwhelming difference like a person stomping on an ant.

Can we please stop with strawmans like this? Please?

[Quesse]

You know... They really need to add a leader board for PvP... That's what's missing from PvP; right now you have a sense of progression that's so steep the majority ignore it, but a leader board with perhaps some bonuses attached? That would be great. If you're in the top X for your Grand Company on your server, maybe you can get a discount of Grand Company Seals items or something. Nothing overpowering, just something that could set a clear goal. Shouldn't even need the bonuses to be honest.

We have a leader board for "who obtained the most Grand Company Seals" on the Lodestone already (at least, I think that's what it is), a similar thing for PvP really shouldn't be too hard, or out of the question.

I can see it now:

PVP LEADERBOARD!
1) Fresh Meat
2) Fresh Meat
3) Fresh Meat
4) Fresh Meat
5) Fresh Meat
6) Fresh Meat
7) Fresh Meat
8) Fresh Meat
9) Fresh Meat

[Malakhim]

I can see it now:

PVP LEADERBOARD!
1) Fresh Meat
2) Fresh Meat
3) Fresh Meat
4) Fresh Meat
5) Fresh Meat
6) Fresh Meat
7) Fresh Meat
8) Fresh Meat
9) Fresh Meat

I'm sure you're just joking, but you know that the names of all players in a match are displayed once the match is over, right?

[Nalien]

PvP needs its own stat to differentiate PvP progress from PvE progress. If there was no Morale, there would be no need for PvP gear, and then the person with the advantage becomes the person who's cleared Coil and got the drops.

Now, you might say that they could just set an iLv cap at 50, after all everyone can reach that fairly easily, and then everyone in PvP is equal. The problem with that though, is that then there is no progression in PvP. Without progression, it's just a dead piece of content people say they'd do "for fun", but in reality they try to queue up and it takes so long that they don't, because nobody is doing PvP regularly for progression. For PvP to properly function, it needs a solid community participating in it for more than just fun, if it doesn't, even the people who would just go there "for fun" cannot.

Again, the main problem with Wolves' Den is how they worked progression. They made it far too steep, such that the majority out right ignored it. With no reasonable progression, the majority didn't stick around, and Wolves' Den was left with a community that could barely sustain itself, let alone anyone who wanted to jump in just for fun.

So, again, can we please stop with the strawman that people only want Morale to be "teh leetz!"? That is not the case. Any rational person wants Morale so that Wolves' Den and Frontlines can be functional pieces of content with a community that sticks around to aim for something, so that "casuals" can just drop by for fun when they want, and hopefully stick around to aim for the same gear and become part of the community. It's not even about wanting world renowned quality PvP in XIV, it's simply about wanting a PvP community in a MMO we enjoy.

Once they start bending for the PvP crowd ("OMG! Job "X" is SOOOOO OP!! Nerf IT!!! Buff ME!!!!"), they'll spend the rest of their days balancing a game for PvP'ers while destroying the experience for the PvE'ers.

Congratulations on being ignorant to the fact that they balance PvP and PvE separately. Did the Miasma II nerf affect your PvE experience? Didn't think so.

[Vahlnir]

because god forbid doing something just because its fun *the audience gasps in shock*

To me that was their intention, they wanted people to have fun with it, therefore having more people participating. Otherwise creating such content woulda been a waste, but the OP seems to be operating under the mentality of

...which I strongly disagree with. PvP should be fun and based more on skill rather than gear, which others have said already but I agree with them 100%.

[Alukah]

So, again, can we please stop with the strawman that people only want Morale to be "teh leetz!"? That is not the case. Any rational person wants Morale so that Wolves' Den and Frontlines can be functional pieces of content with a community that sticks around to aim for something, so that "casuals" can just drop by for fun when they want, and hopefully stick around to aim for the same gear and become part of the community. It's not even about wanting world renowned quality PvP in XIV, it's simply about wanting a PvP community in a MMO we enjoy.

News for you: PvP can be a functional piece of content without needing stats.

[Nalien]

News for you: PvP can be a functional piece of content without needing stats.

How about you actually counter every point I made prior to that paragraph, instead of just offering a meaningless blanket statement?

Ignoring the crux of ones argument in order to try and look smart with a single statement really makes you look like nothing more than a troll.

By all means though, only queue for PvP "for fun", damn a stat you seem completely ignorant of simply because you're scared of a challenge. Without a solid community behind the queue times you'll be trapped in a queue before giving up on the content, exactly like what happened with Wolves' Den. There will be some hype for Frontlines, people will get bored with the lack of a realistic goal behind it, they'll try to queue for it occasionally for fun, only to be met with a queue that never ends.

It's like if I was given a super robotic suit to play basketball with NBA players. Would that be fair to them? no because they trained hard to get where they are and it removes a majority of the competitiveness from the game.

Are you really comparing Morale to a NBA player playing in an exoskeleton? Really?!

Do you people have any idea what Morale actually does?