New matchmaking system is a failure

[Februs]

Trying to learn your class is a ranked environment is selfish and only hurting your team's rating as you are using their time to learn your class.

I get what you're saying here, but that's not exactly fair to new players. Telling a new player that they're not allowed to queue into Feast because they're still learning their class is basically the same thing as telling them they're simply not allowed to play that game mode, ever, because they'll never have enough PvP experience to play it without actually playing it. That's a pretty selfish attitude in itself, because it prioritizes the enjoyment and entitlement of experienced players over new ones who have just as much a right to be there as anyone else.

Now, I do agree that throwing them in fresh is obviously a bad idea, but at the moment we don't really have another option. I mean, where are the new players supposed to go to learn? Front Lines? They'll be lucky to get into one match a day, and they'll be playing a game mode that is completely different from the intensity of Feast. I can almost guarantee that if you take a player who's PvP experience is exclusive to Front Lines and dropped them in Feast, they'd be no better off than someone who is completely fresh at PvP. The same goes for 8v8 Feast, which is just as dead.

In the end, this is a problem for SE to fix. They seriously need to buckle down and figure out a way to ease the damn learning curve on new players. A pre-season would have been a hell of a good start. A pre-season which had Preliminary/Season qualifier requirements would have been even better. Then there's the practice mode that everyone was asking for in season one ... SE has options, for sure. They just need to explore which of those options would be best, instead of letting the PvP community spit venom at each other because of unfortunate match ups.

[MixZ]

Not saying they don't belong in the Feast just not rated if they are not ready. SE has spread itself so wide trying to grab every type of player into their game that none of the systems are really fleshed out. Verminion, Diadim, PotD, Aquapolis, and whatever new thing they included since Heavensward seems like they are just wasting development time to find out what sticks instead of improving upon them.

Just seems they are trying to do everything WoW does but we just don't have the population for that. They need to hone down on certain game mechanics and improve them before thowing more new features and leaving old ones out to dry. Otherwise we have another "the Fold" dying.

[MixZ]

The one thing I always found tough to sallow with SE is how they put just enough systems in (like the Feast scoreboard being very general) for community to turn on each other and do the blame game when they lose, but then this long period of not responding to any improvements. Even at the start of season two I was surprised they barely tried to improve it as I am sure they had enough feedback how to make it better.

[Februs]

Not saying they don't belong in the Feast just not rated if they are not ready.

I understand what you mean, and I don't necessarily disagree with you. It's just that, when it comes to PvP in FFxiv, it's basically Feast or nothing right now. Queue times for alternative game modes ensure that fresh players either get into ranked matched, or they get into no matches at all. It definitely shouldn't be that way, but that's the unfortunate reality of the situation.

I do agree that SE's non-committal attitude towards PvP is the root of the problem, though. They've spread themselves too thinly, and that's mostly because they insist on replacing old game modes instead of fostering them and fixing their flaws. They seemed to be turning over a new leaf when Season One of Feast hit. For a short, happy, time I was actually impressed that they were making an effort to sustain a PvP game mode instead of just putting it out and ignoring it, but their commitment to Season two has been less than encouraging. The lack of a pre-season and the resounding silence from the developers has made me think that they're falling back into their old ways of flagrantly ignoring the PvP community ...

[Enlial]

I can almost guarantee that if you take a player who's PvP experience is exclusive to Front Lines and dropped them in Feast, they'd be no better off than someone who is completely fresh at PvP.

Thats a bit of a hyperbole... Yeah the game modes are very different, but at the very least its certainly better if, to give a few examples, players know that they can sprint without expending tp, understand how ilvl sync works and how to gear, bards and machinists are aware of the range penalty and so on. Not to mention have a few PvP attribute points (and hopefully by extension are aware of their pvp abilities). Going in with 0 puts people at an even further disadvantage.

A preseason would have been really nice though...

And yeah matchmaking is crap. Another thing about it Ive noticed is that at times it tends to match you with the same people, against the same people, repeatedly. Had some nasty losing streaks due to that -_- Its a bit unfair that players from the more populated servers can often check to see if someone is still queuing. Also, hey call me paranoid, but given how much easier its been made I'm almost positive some people are using alts to boost each other. No way to prove it, of course. /shrug.

[Nalien]

For a short, happy, time I was actually impressed that they were making an effort to sustain a PvP game mode instead of just putting it out and ignoring it, but their commitment to Season two has been less than encouraging. The lack of a pre-season and the resounding silence from the developers has made me think that they're falling back into their old ways of flagrantly ignoring the PvP community ...

I suspect they've scheduled for 3 Feast seasons before kicking it into the same ditch as Secure et al... 3.25~3.35, 3.35~3.45, 3.45~3.55, then 4.0 takes us to Lv70 and all current content passes peacefully into the night... No time for pre-seasons with that schedule...

You know what I think they need to do? Give PvP a similar progression system to Palace of the Dead... Remove gear from the equation and just standardize everyones stats, that allows you to effectively manipulate players level... Right now we need i150 for PvP, that means we absolutely have to be Lv60 in order to wear that gear... Remove that, and like Palace of the Dead, you can just boost players levels... That means you can potentially open PvP up to literally everyone, rather than just the people at Lv60... Some issues with that, depending on how far you take it (one does not expect a Lv20 to have any clue what they're doing with Lv60 skills), but just lock ranked behind the level cap and I don't care, more players is more players... It also means you don't need to leave Fold/Secure/Slaughter as they are, they can be made relevant for the new level cap, as can Feast/Seize/Shatter when 4.0 rolls in... That allows them to provide variety without rendering previous modes moot, assuming they also address the roulette...

As it currently is, they're going to be making modes irrelevant... The 2.0 options have to remain there for people who don't buy Heavensward... The Heavensward options have to remain there for people who don't buy whatever is next... Slap a Palace of the Dead style level boost on PvP though? Someone who doesn't buy Heavensward can do Lv60 Secure, perhaps even Lv60 Shatter if SE does the right thing and doesn't split the community by locking modes behind expansions... It would allow them to build up PvP, rather than constantly replacing it...

[Araxes]

Well i think it was a mistake to put a Rated PvP System into a very small PvP community. It also caused Frontlines to be wiped out from the Board and i personaly like Frontlines much more. Why not implement a 2v2 mode without Healers. Most people hate to heal in PvP anyway. First off it would need much less players wich is good for a small pvp comunity and it would open up much faster. Also you dont need to wait until someone forces himself to heal and makes it possible to actualy open a 4v4 match. Lets be honest. the only Reason why it takes up to 26 minutes for a Feast match to open is because noone really wants to Heal and i can totaly understand that. If someone really wants to Heal he can Q up for 4v4.

Just my 2 cents.

[Februs]

Thats a bit of a hyperbole... Yeah the game modes are very different, but at the very least its certainly better if, to give a few examples, players know that they can sprint without expending tp, understand how ilvl sync works and how to gear, bards and machinists are aware of the range penalty and so on. Not to mention have a few PvP attribute points (and hopefully by extension are aware of their pvp abilities).

It's an exaggeration, sure, but it's not as big of an exaggeration as you might think. You'd be amazed at how many casual PvP'ers (typically Front Line players) don't actually know about any of those things. They just get away with it in game modes like Front Lines, because there's just too much going on in large format matches for people to notice if one of their teammates is doing something wrong. There's a lot of dedicated FL players out there who know how PvP works backwards and forwards, but the more casual crowd is a different story. You can get away with only the basics in Front Lines, so details like range restrictions (something you'd need to have read the patch notes or the forums to have learned) are utterly lost on them.

That said, it's still a problem caused by SE's lackluster PvP management. Part of the reason that casual PvP'ers are so lost is because there are absolutely NO quests, dialogue, or tutorials for PvP. Every time SE makes a change or adjustment, the simply post it in the fine print of the patch notes and assume everyone got the memo. This is not the best way to keep the community up to speed, especially when our various weekly PvE responsibilities dominate the majority of our time.

[Februs]

I suspect they've scheduled for 3 Feast seasons before kicking it into the same ditch as Secure et al... 3.25~3.35, 3.35~3.45, 3.45~3.55, then 4.0 takes us to Lv70 and all current content passes peacefully into the night... No time for pre-seasons with that schedule...

I really hope that's not the case ... Personally, I'd rather see Feast become the much needed anchor of PvP, rather than see it replaced as soon as the next expansion comes out. For all of it's problems, which really aren't that terrible, it's still one of the best and most consistent PvP game modes that we have. It's also a closed environment that is easy to adjust and build upon, if SE would just put in the effort to do it. Instead of a whole new game mode at 4.0, I'd rather see them use the massive patch time to completely overhaul the game mode we currently have, give Wolves Den Pier a face lift, adjust and expand the vendors, re-spec our PvP menus, etc. Wolves Den was a disaster, so it's no surprise that it was tossed into a bin, but Feast isn't nearly as bad. There's nothing so broken about it (including the debated matchmaking) that it needs to be swept under a rug and replaced.

As for your progression idea, I'm not sure I agree with it. Honestly, it seems a little overly complicated when they could just simply re-scale all of the PvP game modes up to 60 and re-evaluate the rewards to make them equally competitive. Personally, I'm fine with PvP being an end-game thing, because no one really wants to play with only half their skills. The Front Line Roulette would also benefit greatly from having every FL game mode be on equal footing. As for Feast, that's simple. Pre-seasons and preliminary matches (probably via a token system) would solve that problem, or at least ensure that players have at least some experience with the game mode before they start queuing for Ranked matches.

[Nalien]

As for your progression idea, I'm not sure I agree with it. Honestly, it seems a little overly complicated when they could just simply re-scale all of the PvP game modes up to 60 and re-evaluate the rewards to make them equally competitive.

I don't think that helps grow the playerbase... It locks PvP behind the current expansion and a significant PvE grind... OK new players are going to suck if boosted to the current cap, but so long as they're kept out of competitive I really don't care, most people in Frontlines (and sadly, Feast) already suck regardless... There's also situations where new players may be interested in PvP, but quit during the PvE grind to even get there, that's just limiting PvPs growth... The mechanisms for boosting players to the cap already exist in Palace of the Dead, it shouldn't be too hard to transpose them to PvP... There's potentially a large pool of players that PvP could be opened to (I recall the census data having some shockingly low levels), which is only a good thing IMO, their skill level is fairly irrelevant to me... Like I said, just keep them out of competitive (which needs some form of gate as is anyway) and I'm fine with it...

It would do little for competitive, with that in mind, but I would hope that getting people into PvP earlier would both help with non-competitive queues and boost result in better players in general... That's going to pay off in competitive in the long run... As it is I don't think a non-competitive Feast option is particularly viable... The only issue I really see is that, from the perspective of a newb, suddenly getting Lv60 skills is going to be confusing, although it's not like Lv1s would be queuing up, there would have to be a sensible minimum level, IIRC Grand Companies are locked behind Lv20 so thats the starting point given Frontlines... Regardless of minimum level though, it is still potentially confusing and that's why Palace of the Dead builds players up to 60, if they want to address that it's going to be slightly more complicated to implement, but they can easily address it with something we want them to implement anyway; Some form of PvP tutorial... Slap in a quest upon joining a Grand Company that sends you off to the Wolves Den to make players aware of PvP, then have a Hall of the Novice style introduction that also lets new players play with their Lv60 skills...

Done, PvP is less hidden away and opened up to a much large portion of the playerbase, that's only going to be good for PvP in the long run... How skilled they are ultimately doesn't matter to me, I want the PvP community to grow, and locking it behind the current level cap doesn't help that... That's only going to get worse over time as the level cap rises, unless SE opts to implement level boost potions, but then what's really the difference?