The Fields of Glory (Shatter)

[Altena]

I honestly think the addition of individual limit breaks in PvP ruined it.

Secure was fun and required a little bit of finesse, but once Slaughter and individual LB's came out it just became a mobbing zergfest. I still stand by my belief that the original game mode was the best that's been done - mostly because of individual LB's really..

[TiaHariberux3]

I honestly think the addition of individual limit breaks in PvP ruined it.

Secure was fun and required a little bit of finesse, but once Slaughter and individual LB's came out it just became a mobbing zergfest. I still stand by my belief that the original game mode was the best that's been done - mostly because of individual LB's really..

individual LB's arent that bad really.. atleast you cant get trolls/new ppl who just use it on ppl and give your team a big disadvantage

[Thekk]

I notice how random this map doing on the ice. Sometimes you only have normal ice and sometimes only big ice appeared.

That's only for the 24 version. You have either the small or the big crystals. On 72, you always have both.

[Delmontyb]

OK..........Let me answer for everyone and save you some time here............ REMOVE the GC restrictions in PVP!

This would be cool, or at least have it match off of priority:

1. Your GC
2. Your Affiliated GC in your Free Company
3. Open

If I queue as a pre-maid party, it would allow us to play together. - base it off of the leaders GC if needed.

[Eorzean_username]

AEGIS BOON OF TEXT because I really like Frontlines and I want Shatter to work, since I was excited for it before release.

I'm still getting used to Shatter (now that I gave up and switched GCs so my queues are actually popping).

So far, though, I don't understand Shatter. It's kind of PvP, but not really. Note that the hours I can play mean I always have 24-player matches (I've never seen a 72 pop in any mode, ever).

First, here are my immediate negative impressions:

As a PLD I feel basically pointless:

• If I try to approach Shatter like Seal Rock and strategically CC or control targets, I seem to just cost my team a Crystal, because the time I spend Stunning does not even come close to the DPS that the rest of the enemy team outputs while I'm running around doing 110 potency every few GCDs. I get better results when I just smash my face against my GCD combos and tune out the enemy.
• If I try to fall back and protect healers or casters, again, we just lose the zerg. I get better results when I just pretend it's Feast and leave my allies to fend for themselves unless an absolute emergency occurs.
• If I spend Full Swing on a strategic enemy target, I feel stupid, because now I can't Full Swing the next Crystal.

I'm not even sure if Aegis Boon or Testudo are accomplishing much, since aside from disorganized midfield skirmishing when everyone is bored waiting for Crystals, no one is really fighting. I'd much rather have Melee LB or any DPS boost. Maybe this is a datacenter or time-of-day thing?

Feast (before I stopped out of guilt toward people's Ratings) and Seize made me immediately love FFXIV PvP because they felt tactical and satisfying. Shatter feels like farming FATEs. Yeah, I'm getting good XP and Wolf Marks, but if this was my first exposure to FFXIV PvP I would probably think it's very boring and stop.

I apologize if I come across too negative here — I think Shatter has a lot of potential and I like the concept. I'd just rather queue for EX Roulette or PF a Trial if I want to min-max my DPS against stationary boulders.

The whole thing that was nice about PvP when I first tried it during the Seize/Feast meta is PvP was a change of pace from PvE. I was able to feel smart for using all the tools that basically get ignored most of the time in PvE (Stuns, group defenses, Silence, etc).

A comparison that strongly comes to mind is the two Slaughter matches that have somehow appeared in my Frontlines Roulettes.

I have a lot of fun in Slaughter — that's interesting, because both modes are about zerging down an NPC object.

But in Slaughter:

• The battlefield is tight, claustrophobic, and dangerous.
• Enemy confrontation is inevitable and intense.
• In-between Drones, there is non-stop brawling.
• Drone spawns are predictable both in position and clock, so teams know where to condense to, and you can also anticipate and push to slaughter the enemy team and deny their Drones right before a pop.
• Drones spawn in mass quantity, so it's not effective to just zerg one point, the action is necessarily distributed.
• Drone distribution and tiny HP means you must watch your flanks to prevent opportunistic opponents from nibbling on your Drones before you're finished.

Slaughter feels exciting, and despite the NPC objects and deathmatch vibe, I still have a lot of incentive to use all my tools as a PLD, and my team is very much rewarded for me doing so. (Maybe. Hopefully. It seems so.)

Shatter, in contrast... it's like everyone's really exhausted and just wants it over with. I run up to Crystals, and even if I'm in the middle of a huge pack of Flames (sorry guys, ♥ Flames, I just want my queue to pop) or Mael, everyone just ignores me so they can keep DPSing the Crystal harder. And I don't blame them.

I'm not even sure if zerging Crystals and tuning out everything else is the actual optimal strategy.
In fact, I suspect it is absolutely not — but it seems to be the comfort zone that most players in my matches have settled in to, on all 3 teams, and so Shatter turns into a universal meta of 'Get the Crystal, nothing else matters'.

I loved Seize (Seal Rock) most of all, because contesting a node took effort, was exciting, and required prolonged attention and defense. Distributing players correctly was a tactical decision that could make or break the match. Using CC and defenses to hold or overcome a node was an effective and rewarding support tactic.

My positive impressions about Shatter so far:

It's kind of fun to zone out and just smash a Crystal, I guess? It's like a Striking Dummy that's also a piñata filled with Wolf Marks.

The basic idea of the Compress ↔ Expand system is actually interesting. I think the idea is that teams are supposed to collapse on Crystals, at which point they decide between an uneasy truce (just letting each team race their DPS) or a hostile takeover (trying to disrupt and destroy the other teams so they can't take your Crystal Data).

In practice though, unfortunately it's always been the 'uneasy truce' in my matches, and any team that violates this and tries to be aggressive vs. other players just ends up as a meat-headed bully that loses the zerg.

A few times, I've seen some really interesting stuff happen though:

• Flames deciding to farm kills instead of Crystals, chasing Mael around the map (I assume because Mael seemed weakest) and just farming Battle High for all the Flames until they spent the match slaughtering Mael for my points.
• Mael, being bullied, gave up on engaging and just started retreating around the map trying to hold all 3 capture points.
• Flames tried taking our base while we were on the other side of the map at a Crystal, but a team split with mass-Return caused a swift thwarting of the effort.
• Similarly, other matches have tried to focus on a balance of Crystals and Control Points. This is more fun, it vaguely echoes the fun of Seize, but much weaker.

Unfortunately the conclusion every single time so far is that the team that ignores all this side stuff and prioritizes Crystals still comes out on top.

In fact, Flames would have lost the match for that Mael-farming effort if it weren't for a few choice Crystal pops that ended up right next to Flames and allowed them to combine Crystal'ing with slaughtering.

That's what feels frustrating with Shatter so far: all the positive potential is drowned out by Crystals Crystals Crystals, because by the time I travel around the map to do anything else, I've basically just wasted my time and probably cost my team the match.

The map itself is also extremely confusing compared to Seize.

Seize is fun and intuitive to travel around. Shatter's terrain is hostile to the player — that is interesting, it is a challenge to learn and overcome, but I don't enjoy it very much.

I think what frustrates me about the map is that in practice, the map is mostly just a nuisance that gets me disoriented while trying to reach the next Crystal, because the 2D map is hard to navigate when it's constantly leading me into cliffs and walls.

And the Crystal itself is usually located on a convenient path that players who know the map can keep looping around or camping. The side paths feel mostly like a maze / trap to punish new players, then become ignored (not navigated) once a player is familiar with the territory.

Overall, every single time I try to do anything interesting in Shatter — back-cap an enemy base, support my healers/casters, lock down enemies, trap a straggling opponent in a stunlock for a kill — all I seem to accomplish is wasting my team's time and Data.

Every time I just pretend I'm in Bowl of Embers (True), tunnel the NPC target with max DPS rotation, and strafe 3 yalms out of ground AOEs sometimes ... my team pulls ahead.

I feel bad for not being more enthusiastic. It's just, I have PvE for this. Lots and lots and lots of PvE for this. I'd rather have a little more emphasis on PvP, and something to discourage and punish ignoring your opponents.

What I would really like to see is Crystals requiring Control by a specific Company before the Crystal can be shattered, rather than being a dull tunnel-vision cooperative-truce DPS zerg.

ie, Control of a Crystal is established either Seize-like (you must deactivate a field protecting the Crystal) or capture-point like (you must have majority presence in the Crystal's radius).

Once your team controls the Crystal, you can begin breaking it. But if you lose control, then the enemy has a chance to begin breaking it. Points are still awarded on shattering, based on total DPS done per Company.

This would force player conflict — tunneling and ignoring your enemy would mean losing the node, and having your DPS stream shut off as the Crystal becomes unattackable (first) and then opponent-attackable (second).

Thus, when a Crystal spawns, you would either have all your stuff together and wipe off enemy opposition, or you'd fumble it and lose the node. Then, you must divide your resources to hold the Crystal open for your team while your DPS break it down. Much more like Seize.

But that might upset a lot of players, by slowing down the pace of the match.

Ultimately, I also caution the developers to take my feedback in the following context:

• I play PLD in PvP, so my perspective is very different than any other Job (based on my understanding of FFXIV PvP).
• I'm a newish and relatively inexperienced PvP player.
• I don't tend to PvP much in any other games I play, so I'm also not an experienced PvP gamer overall.
• My opportunities to play are at odd hours of day and never on weekends, so I only experience off-time queues, populations, team compositions, and match sizes (I always get 8v8v8 / 24 matches).
• I do not have a pre-made team to queue and coordinate with.

Some of my concerns and complaints may simply be due to approaching PvP from a relatively low level of skill and coordination, so please take into consideration feedback from other PvP players more experienced than me, which may contradict my more naïve impressions.

[Syhrwyb]

quote

Your problems with PLD are the same as mine. Quite frankly, i'm not sure what I should be doing. Mostly just feel like a healer support in 72-man shatter, and a camp watcher in 24-man.

[Eorzean_username]

Your problems with PLD are the same as mine. Quite frankly, i'm not sure what I should be doing. Mostly just feel like a healer support in 72-man shatter, and a camp watcher in 24-man.

If I could Cover, Testudo, and Aegis Boon Crystals (reducing enemy damage), I'd feel a lot more useful.

So far in 72 (which has popped a few times now, the first times I've ever been in full Alliance Frontlines) I'm just another MDPS (making me feel increasingly-guilty for not switching to WAR).

In 24 ... I don't even know, 24 is really mellow and weird. I spend most of my time just waiting around or traveling long, scenic distances with nothing happening and no skirmishes breaking out. When Crystals finally spawn, everyone just meanders over and hopes the other team leaves them alone, because there's not enough resources to bother trying to attack and get a Crystal at the same time. And doing anything but DPS when a Crystal pops just consistently hurts my team, the DPS I lose throwing out Stuns doesn't slow down the opponent enough to make up for it.

It's mostly just Testudo, Full Swing, FOF, tunnel and hope it all works out because pausing for a GCD to go check on the healers or do anything else seems to only hurt my team's chances of success. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the design, maybe that's the intent, to have crazy Crystal tunnel-zergs interspersed with skirmishes between Crystal pops. If so, I think the pacing and tuning is off-kilter somehow.

[Zojha]

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the design, maybe that's the intent, to have crazy Crystal tunnel-zergs interspersed with skirmishes between Crystal pops.

Well, the intent is fairly simple: The shatter points serve as neutral objectives to be contested, much like dragon or baron do in League of Legends or Roshan in DotA. The basic idea is that if you focus on the objective, you'll get easily slaughtered by the other team(s) and therefore, the crystal would be the last thing you do after killing everything else.

And that would work - if people actually got easily slaughtered by focusing on the crystal instead of other players. Most of the time, you can at best burst down one player before your burst skills are on CD and the healers can prevent you from killing any more for a long while.

[Eorzean_username]

The basic idea is that if you focus on the objective, you'll get easily slaughtered by the other team(s) and therefore, the crystal would be the last thing you do after killing everything else.

And that would work - if people actually got easily slaughtered by focusing on the crystal instead of other players. Most of the time, you can at best burst down one player before your burst skills are on CD and the healers can prevent you from killing any more for a long while.

Yeah. If I stop to pursue, attack, or CC a target, nothing gets accomplished, they just escape to their blob or get healed back to full within 1-2 GCDs. And then my team loses a big chunk of Crystal data.

If the intent is as you say, I don't think it's working, because it's the opposite in the matches I've played: I'm penalized for paying any attention at all to the enemy team until the Crystal is dead.

Maybe if Crystals Ice released Aetherial Feedback Frostbite or something, stacking a Vulnerability Up debuff each time you attack it.

So if you ignore and zerg the Crystals Ice, your team will begin getting picked off harder and faster than heals or retreats can compensate for. Or, you can risk some glass cannons off to the side to try taking the Ice down while everyone else is busy fighting.

[Februs]

Your problems with PLD are the same as mine. Quite frankly, i'm not sure what I should be doing. Mostly just feel like a healer support in 72-man shatter, and a camp watcher in 24-man.

Pld's have always had this problem in Front lines, because of the size of the match. Their usefulness really depends on the circumstances. I don't know how helpful this will be to the both of you, but here's a few things I've picked up on since the early Secure days:

• Crowd Control:
  
  In Front lines, a Pld's CC does not have an immediately recognizable effect because of the sheer number of players on the map; so, only rotating stuns to reduce the enemy team's dps output isn't going to get you very far. In most cases, you have to look for specific targets who are worthy of interruption. Namely, 1) anyone who has a recognizable burst, 2) anyone harassing VIP members of your party (not only your healers but also your top dps), and, in the event your team is trying to murder someone, 3) enemy healers. You have to be picky about when and where your stuns will be useful. It's not a bad idea to occasionally take a pause and assess the situation. If you see a place where your stun might make a difference, go for it. Otherwise, you're better off running your burst on crystals and/or the enemy team.
  
  
• Party Defense:
  
  Party defense is actually easier in Shatter than in previous modes, because there's less combat. In the old FL game modes, people were almost always trying to kill one another, so sometimes it was difficult to know when the best time for a Testudo or DV was. You could end up wasting it if the fighting ended early, or if you burned it too soon, etc. Most often you'd want to get as much utility as you could out of it by getting as many uses in one match as possible, but you also wanted it at the ready if you were under attack or were about to attack an enemy with large numbers. There was a trade off to each use.
  
  In Shatter, this has changed a little. People spend most of their time avoiding fights, so it's totally fine to save your defensive CD's in most cases. In that regard, the trade off for burning a long CD like Testudo or DV is much less than what it once was. Depending on how aggressive your team or the enemy team is, you might not even need to use party defense CD's at all. If you want to be overly cautious about it, then you can alternate your DV and Testudo between shatter points that are being contested by an enemy. However, it is also completely fine to save it for moments in which you are undeniably under assault by an enemy team, providing a much higher level of defense for your team to stand and fight or make a hasty get away.
  
  
• Offense:
  
  This is where things get tricky for Pld.
  
  In past FL game modes, Pld's often acted as bait and snares. You'd dip into the enemy line until someone was dumb enough to attack you. Then you'd cautiously lead them back to the front (where your Dps were waiting), mark them as a priority target, work a Full Swing + GB DoT + CoS DoT, and then stun lock them while your dps melt their face. Most dps players are over-eager for the kill credit, so this wasn't hard to coordinate. It wasn't uncommon, however, for pre-made parties to have one or two Dps actually mark the Pld so they could keep an eye on them and jump whatever target they stunned. When Pld's weren't doing that, they were working on healer suppression, similar to what you probably know from Wolves Den or Feast.
  
  In Shatter, your opportunities to do this are lower, because people don't attack one another. Even if the Pld snares someone, the dps will be too busy with crystals to help with the burn. That said, a lot of people underestimate a Pld's ability to "creep" on a target. If you don't know, creeping is what happens when people underestimate how much dps a Pld can output. It's a well known stigma that they're pathetically weak (because they are), but that also causes people to ignore them if they don't use their stuns. By the time a Pld uses their full rotation, it could be too late for the target to know what happened to them. It's tricky to do and fails often, but I've scored a lot of kills (even gaining battle highs and fevers) by slowly creeping on a target's hp without them realizing they were actually dying.
  
  In shatter, the players who are least likely to realize what's happening to them are melee dps who are tunnel visioned on a crystal. I've literally stood shoulder to shoulder with mnks, drgs, and nins, and they've not realized that I was actually attacking them not the crystal. If they are isolated (either because their healer is elsewhere, or because line of sight is broken by the crystal), they will be forced to try and run. If they run (assuming you missed your stun), that's one less Dps on the crystal. If they don't, then they're going to die without immediate medical attention. Ranged dps are a little harder to sneak up on, because they tend to get jumpy as soon as they are within five feet of an enemy player. They can be worked on, however, especially if they're in a clutter of distractions. Given that they typically have lower Hp and defense, they're easier to kill. However, you do have to be quick on the stuns if they try to run, as they are more flexible in their movements than melee players. Enemy healers are typically the hardest to creep on, because they have a long standing history of being stun locked by Plds. Naturally, that means that they hate us more than anyone else, and they turn tail or execute a CC of some kind the second they see us coming for them. If you do manage to catch one, though, you can divert their attention from healing their team. This is only favourable if your team is on the offense, mind you, but it's something to consider.
  
  
• Leadership:
  
  I almost forgot this one, because it applies to all Tanks, not just Plds. Typically, Tanks have WAY more time to judge a situation than other players. Their burst are less complicated. Their Hp/defense is higher, and their lack of presence is felt less than healers or dps. That means that, if you have the spine for it, you have more time to examine your map and take charge of the team by making accurate tactical assessments.
  
  Personally, I'm not a big fan of doing this. To do it right means removing yourself from the battle and taking a lot of time to examine your map. You're basically sacrificing your personal play time for the sake of the team. That can be enjoyable in it's own way, of course. When you win with a team who is following your instructions it's very rewarding, but I prefer to be in the thick of things getting my hands dirty. You can't really do that if you want to lead, because you need to anticipate the enemy and call out when the best times to attack or retreat are. For as fast of a reaction as your team needs, you need to be faster to plan their movements; so, you often have to pull out of a fight early to check the map and make a good judgement.
  
  There's also a lot of responsibility with leading, and any losses fall squarely on your shoulders (assuming your team is listening to you). That can be very degrading and demoralizing, especially if you get angry shouts in the chat box. That said, the impact you stand to have on the battle field is FAR greater than simply running headlong into combat. I can tell you right now that I am not the best leader. I make mistakes just like anyone; however, I can also say that the only reason I have my black ADS mount is because I got sick of consistently losing without leadership and decided to take up that mantel. I dropped it like a bad habit the second I got my mount, mind you, but I did get my mount. If someone else is leading, then by all means let them do it (the last thing you need is infighting, after all). However, if there is no leader and the team is losing, consider doing it yourself. Tanks are in the unique position to lead while having the least to lose on the team; so, its not a bad idea to take advantage of that, especially if your only role thus far as been to act as a sentry at your base.

Regardless, a Pld is only truly effective in PvP when they're doing all three of these things at once. You have to exercise good judgement on your CC, party defense, as well as offense to actually be a benefit to your team, and you only truly reach the top of your utility when your team (especially the dps) work with you and take advantage of your actions; so, active marking is often an asset. My best advice for you is to give it your absolute all. Pld's have lower dps than anyone else, so you have to work 3x as hard to make an impact on the battlefield. Whatever role you chose to be filling at any given moment, throw yourself at it like an angry rhino. Balls to the walls. That's the only way to roll as a Pld.

That said, there's only so much utility that you can bring to Front lines as Pld, and having more than one in the team is often not worth the trade off you take to dps or healing. If there is already a Pld in my party who is unwilling to switch, I typically will swap to drg or whm to cover for whatever deficiency is going to be felt the hardest.