The Feast

[Zojha]

At this point I think the only way to make pvp popular for NA/EU is to add very substantial, unique non-pvp rewards, like how deep dungeon got IL 235 weapons which are easy to get.

And then everyone rushes in, gets their rewards any means necessary, even if it means intentionally wiping groups, and then is off their merry business - if people even bother at all.

Fact is: People do not care about PvP. They care less about it than about frigging Lord of Verminion. It's not fun, people don't want anything to do with it, just as with Savage raiding. And as long as you don't know "why" people don't care, why they don't find it fun, you cannot effectively do anything about it and throwing rewards at it might just have a negative effect.

[Enlial]

...

You're right. We see this with "omg just dps the ice and win so I can get my mount and never queue for this again"

Why people find it less fun than running the same scripted encounters over and over and over again is beyond me.

[Zojha]

Why people find it less fun than running the same scripted encounters over and over and over again is beyond me.

Some people do not like competition - they like it when everyone gets a slice and the good don't prey on the weak. In PvE, you can win 100% of the time, in PvP, you ideally should win no more nor less than 50% of the time.
Some people do not like playing against healers/constantly replenishing health bars and the burst meta that results from them. Burst or bust does not appeal to everyone.
Some people find it annoying to constantly run after people, especially with sprint involved, doubly with latency.
Some people simply hate being unable to act for extended periods of time - CC is used very sparsely in PvE and typically as failure for messed up mechanics.
If you have like 130ms latency like me, you can also enjoy being unable to hit people that are displayed well in range - in PvE, that latency is a non-issue in 99% of the content.
There's also the community of course, which can be somewhat appalling and ups the pressure - pressure which many people do not want in their pass-time activity.

I can think of many reasons why people don't like PvP in FFXIV. But are they significant? Maybe one or multiple of them don't matter at all! Until you know, though, you can only change things blindly and hope it hits the spot.

[Rufalus]

And then everyone rushes in, gets their rewards any means necessary, even if it means intentionally wiping groups, and then is off their merry business - if people even bother at all.

I mean, maybe. People don't always do the worst thing you expect of them. I think there's already people intentionally throwing matches, just in a smaller pool of players. Growing the pvp playerbase should be the top priority I think with whatever incentives it takes, and even if only a small fraction of newcomers put in effort and stick around, it's still positive growth. What we're seeing now is already worst case scenario, on my data center where unrated 8v8 is dead, frontlines 72 is dead, frontlines 24 is long queue, rated 4v4 is long queue. Right now I'm in a pvp queue, 40 minutes expired so far, on a weekend afternoon.

[Zojha]

I mean, maybe. People don't always do the worst thing you expect of them.

People will maximize their rewards and if intentionally losing and win-trading via PF is the best way to do that, people will do that. It's just how it works when you try to bribe people into content they don't wanna do in the first place, they will attempt to get the rewards with as little effort and time spent doing that content as possible. And once they have the rewards, they'll be off, again, because they were never interested in that content in the first place. Moreover, the reward needs to be within the tolerance threshold of players - nobody cares about Savage despite its rewards simply because it's too much effort.
This is how controlling behaviour with rewards works and why I'm getting increasingly frustrated when people have no better ideas than "slap some rewards on it" for any sort of dead content. If we apply the same logic to 1.0, all SE would have had to do is to pay players for playing, rather than remaking the game to be something people are willing to pay for themselves.
Did you know 8vs8 "and" 4vs4 of the feast had very swift queues when they first came out? I remember waiting no more than 5 minutes. People didn't stick, 8vs8 is dead. Why? Refer to the above. It's not fun and people got their pup/marks.

Worse, you're destroying intrinsic motivation in the process, which is the thing you actually want to foster. Go to google scholar and search for some intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic rewards studies for reference, a few should be freely available.

I totally agree with you that increasing popularity is the top priority. I just think this needs to go the way of gameplay changes, rather than rewards. We don't need more people to "do" PvP, we need more people to "enjoy" PvP - participation will come on its own as a consequence.

[Rufalus]

This is how controlling behaviour with rewards works and why I'm getting increasingly frustrated when people have no better ideas than "slap some rewards on it" for any sort of dead content.

I don't think people will do anything if they can't work towards a realistically attainable reward which is relevant to them. For example if dungeons only gave 5 tomestones per run and there were no roulette bonuses, they wouldn't be run with regularity just for enjoyment. Any kind of content is kept alive by long-term reward incentives, otherwise I guess more people would unsubscribe. If Nidhogg didn't give IL 235 weapons and mounts then it wouldn't last long. I think this genre is built on reward bribery. If people just want to do pvp for pure enjoyment, there are a lot of dedicated pvp games on the market to choose from which will have more pvp content than FF XIV.

[Zojha]

I don't think people will do anything if they can't work towards a realistically attainable reward which is relevant to them.

Agreed - and fun is such a reward. Just as the feeling of accomplishment is. Intrinsic motivation, what I keep saying.

What kept DotA alive, back when it was a WC3 custom map? Or, custom maps in general. How did League of Legends manage, back when the only 'reward' was a new champion after a long IP grind? And how did ARAM become popular to the point they made it a proper mode? How did WoW bring forth a PvP-alt scene (that later was stomped good)? Why do people go great lengths to complete an outfit or decorate their houses? Heck, why do charity workers exist? Not for rewards, I can tell you that.

Dungeons need their rewards because they are the same over and over, which is why they have a very low replay value. The first time is fun and doesn't really need rewards, but the later runs increasingly do, because the natural enjoyment is going down the drain as you keep repeating - what I said earlier, repetition drains enjoyment and thus the intrinsic motivation. That goes for single-player games akin - if the game allows for more freedom and/or choices, it will typically be played more often, as the replay value is higher. PvP innately has a very high replay value, as no game is ever the same. This is how people manage to play League of Legends or Counter Strike for thousands of games, in the prior case even on the same map. So naturally, rewards should be "less" needed than in PvE, not more.

Another little issue with your theory is: PvP is not dead on JP datacenters, even though they get the exact same rewards. How does that work? I surmise they simply enjoy it more - I have a hard time finding another explanation. Could we, perhaps, emulate the effect? I'm sure we could. But not with rewards.