3.2 PvP: Feast Game Mode Discussion Thread.

[Vejjiegirl]

All this talk about matchmaking.

Let me just remind everyone what happened to WD when they implemented rank matching. It died.

In the perfect world we have enough of a population for match making to work and not kill queues, but be careful what you wish for. If doing this means increasing queue times from 1-3 minutes to 5-45 minutes, no thanks.

YEP this is correct matchmaking via PVP rank is what ultimately killed The Fold.
When The fold was first introduced there were no que restrictions via PVP Rank, but then people started to complain that they were getting matched up with people that were higher rank then them, keep in mind this was in a time when rank 0 players didn't have access to all pvp skills so they had to unlock them by ranking up.


Squarenix changed how the Duty finder handled matchmaking and it caused quetimes to become extremely long. This was because The Fold matches up via PVP Rank Total. For Example.

If you are rank 0(Bard) and you que up and the Duty finder Matches you with aRank 1(Paladin), rank 23(Scholar) and a rank 50(Monk).
The Rank total of this 74. You will end up in que until another group of around 64->84 are matched.

(This is also how win traders trade wins in The Fold(Light Party) btw they just make two teams that are around the same Total rank and then enjoy instant ques over and over and over...All they need to do is make sure they are in a Language setting that isn't used much like [D] )

If you are rank 0->10 the odds of getting into a game are very low unless more players around the same rank as you que.

[Teiren]

I didn't know that happened, but that makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure which is the lesser of the two evils: Long, possibly infinite, queue times or mostly worthless games. Indeed, proper matchmaking could likely end up meaning very extreme queue times in this game, if you even get into matches at all. I guess playing worthless matches is better than not playing at all, but I'm not sure.

I think it's still way too early to determine that. 2 weeks should be enough time to see if lack of serious matchmaking makes for a better experience.

[Delmontyb]

I would love to see Tank Actions Matter in PvP... For example, Provoke.

It would be cool if:

1. It would change the target of the player (who is provoked) to now be on the tank.
2. It Increased the Defense of all other players, while lowering the def of the tank (for the player who was provoked) - giving more incentive for the player who was provoked to focus on the tank. This would be something like 10s) So the tank would take more damage, etc, but other players would take less damage. The defensive buff would only apply against the player who was provoked, other players wouldn't have this impact.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

[Delmontyb]

Can we increase the Wolf mark cap from 20k?

[tehomegaking]

[*]4 on 4 - Solo

regarding 4 on 4 - Solo

I'm actually really happy with the 4v4 solo mode. I've been playing den since close to the start and I've watched as dozens if not hundreds of players join the den, get steamrolled by premades, and then quit.
Premades basically killed Wolve's Den back in the day, then the match rankings put the final nail in the coffin... To see both of these problems addressed is very encouraging.
Yeah, having to deal with random teammates is very, very frustrating at times, but we are all in the same boat and I feel the truly good players can still come out on top as the feast really puts far more control in a good players hands than WD did.

Regarding gameplay, the sprint change was needed as maintaining your TP and thus sprint time through items/skills was too convoluted for new players. This streamlines it and allows newer players to not be such a burden by lacking the understanding of this once key aspect of gameplay.

However, I feel the sprint nerf in regards to the time was a little too harsh. Mobility has always been a problem in FF 14's pvp, but sprint alleviated it to a large degree. Meeles really need sprint up during their burst to secure hits or else you can be easily kited, and we also need it for general mobility purposes. As it stands we get 10 seconds of sprint, that's basically 4 GCD's. We need to use this both to get in range and to secure hits. 10 seconds I feel is just cutting it too fine for everything we need it for. Under perfect conditions for a burst, 10 seconds will suffice, but that rarely happens. I think the time should be slightly increased to give us more leeway in what we are able to do during sprint. 13 or 14 seconds should do, maybe even at the expense of a longer cooldown.

This would be less of a problem if a large portion of gap closers didn't punish you for using them in high level play. Shoulder tackle, Spineshatter Dive and Overwhelm (when spec'd) begin the diminishing returns on stun, which you really never want to do unless absolutely necessary.

So, in the past, sprint was needed as a gap closer and a means to keep on top of your opponent during burst, yet now we need to do those exact things in half the time? I feel this leads to stagnation and slowed down gameplay, which is something that should be addressed.

Perhaps slightly increasing sprint time 13/14 seconds (maybe with a longer cooldown), or allow us to spec into skills like with ninja's Overwhelm. Being able to have the option to choose whether or not we want the stun on shoulder tackle/spineshatter as we can with overwhelm would be a godsend.

[Kolsykol]

Snip

Swtor had a really cool system in place for tanks in pvp. Taunts decreased the damage dealt by the target taunted for all players except for the tank taunting. It showed on the scoreboard how much damage the tanks prevented. You also had a '' guard '' ability which transferred 50% of dmg taken to the tank.
Playing a tank in Swtor was actually a ton of fun. And it really mattered. A good tank leaping around interrupting, harassing and guarding his/her team m8s could easily win you the match. A dps specced '' tank class '' could still do it, but not as well as a tank specced one.

[Thorbot]

I know everyone seems to think Astros are op right now but every plat team I played in team ranked yesterday all ran a whm yet I still see a lot of hate towards whm for no reason. It really seems to me that smn and ast are pretty in-line and that only the lowest skilled players still think they are op. I think the most op class right now is pld though. They just bring way too much to the table compared to war or drk.

[Kyani]

WHM is the baseline atm. AST performs a good bit over it, and SCH performs a lot under it.

I think SCH and BLM are the two worst classes in Feast right now, and they both have the same problem - a high reliance on finishing casts and no real backup plan.

[Altanas]

The Feast does feel as if one can simply ignore mechanics. So far the queues have been longer than the actual game. I am writing this from the perspective of a 100% win rate. Overall, fights are far too quick and this has to be addressed. I would like to see:

1. There should be more than one round per game. It should be best of three given how long the queue can be.


2. It should not be safe for the opposing party to go into the other teams safe zone. I am not saying it should not be possible, but it should be high risk high reward. Place a medal coffer far in, but also place some kind of activatable hazard the defending team can turn on and unleash on you.


3. The middle part of the battlefield where the parties rush to meet should not be static. It should be a live platform. Perhaps with
a) walls that move
b) walls that appear in different patterns
c) hazards (eruptions, ice slides, titan bombs, instant KO falls, etc)


4. Players should have the option to pass their medals to a teammate, with a relevant cooldown.


5. There should be various tactical play modes automatically activated by the server per round, eg.

a) Basic 4 v 4 or Basic 8 v 8 as currently implemented

b) Alternatively, a mode which locks half of each team in the safe zone, and basically encourages half the team to work on Defence while the other team go out to slaughter.
So:
- half the team battle the other side's half team
- the reserves stay to battle crates or something for a party bonus, say team wide heals, team wide stoneskin, or even summon a primal.

c) A play on the above, an Endurance mode, 1 on 1 battles until one side's team has been culled.

d) Yet another play on the above, but a Tag Team mode. If a player runs back to their safe zone a reserve can run out into the battlefield. The player who has returned to the safe zone will have his HP frozen and become unhealable until he returns to the battlefield. This will play a lot like Street Fighter Vs games.

e) Stamina Gauge and Weapon Prowess Mode, aka: Calm Things Down Mode. Make battles more realistic, by bringing weapon handling into full effect and tie actions into a stamina gauge reminiscent of FF14 Version 1.
- A tank should be able to Perfect Defend so long as his stamina gauge has enough juice.
- A dragoon should have a 100% effective parry, but it drains blocks of his stamina gauge.
- A monk is going to have Perfect Counter so your not going to want to gang up on him/her.
- And for mages it would work similar, the higher your stamina gauge the more instant your skills are, before being reduced to FF11 style casting times!

[Februs]

actually the debuff is quite strong. I held 9 in one match as a tank, a drg dragon dived towards me and it took about 1/3 of my hp and for a tank that's a lot from one move but the healer was still able to keep me up in tandem with me using defensive cooldowns properly because the other dps was trying to kill the healer to prevent me from being healed. I think the biggest issue is that regardless of whether or not healers have medals they ALWAYS provide the greatest threat by keeping their party alive and that is always an issue.

Was this a casual Match or Ranked match? Because I'm finding that there is a HUGE difference between how they play out.

In 8 v 8, it's not at all uncommon for a Tank to soak up +9 stacks, because the game mode can last that long. I've done it myself, and I totally agree with you that the spike I saw in my damage intake was pretty substantial. I spent the rest of the match running away from enemy Dps just to hold onto my medals. It was actually kind of a refreshing change from the usual way matches play out. I cannot say the same in 4v4, though.

In the ranked matches I've played so far (in which I'm almost exclusively playing as Tank), I'm lucky to pick up 4 medal drops before the match abruptly ends. By the time I start actually noticing the spike in dmg from the vulnerability increase, the match is over. So, in the Ranked matches, the Heavy Medal Debuff hasn't been all that significant, and Dps still opt to take the ranged players over fighting a tank (except for in one, memorable, case in which the teams seemed fixated on picking on the ninja for some reason). Honestly, in most of the matches I've played the enemy team has been actively trying to avoid fighting me and makes a straight sprint for the ranged player on my team. Healers and ranged are still priority targets, regardless of how many medals I'm holding.

Personally, I agree with Myon in that this needs to be adjusted for balancing. There are two ways that I can see them tackling this: The first is to adjust the scaling of the Heavy Medal debuff depending on game mode. The vulnerability should scale higher in solo ranked and lower in casual 8 v 8. The second option would be to simply extend the length of the solo ranked matches by increasing the point cap.