PVP changes from livestream.

[Wegente]

Will copy/paste this from my reddit post because I'm lazy.

The individual player ability and game complexity is completely going to be removed with this change. With such a long GCD and no secondary effects on most of the abilities everyone will be repeating the same "rotation" over and over, with no skill or thinking required.

What makes PvP different from PvE? The fact that the situations you face require a different, non-scripted approach every time, having you think and choose between the multiple choices you can make.

If you remove all the "niche abilities" that are present now (One Ilm Punch, Blizzard II, Tri-Bind, Arm of the Destroyer, Feint, Flash, Featherfoot, Keen Flurry, just to name a few of them) you completely remove the need for a choice, and consequently dumb down the thinking process involved to something that everyone can do, independently from your skill level.
I'm a MNK and the BLM is attacking me, what should I do? Arm of the Destroyer to interrupt his casts? Stun him? Pop Featherfoot so that he can miss me? With the new system the only thing I will be able to do is hope that the healer keeps me alive while I do my damage combo and the occasional oGCD in-between.

There is a HUGE gap between new PvP players and veteran PvP players right now. And it should be this way, the same way as LCS players in League of Legends are miles above the average players. If you remove all complexity the game will just be about who can press their buttons faster. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you want to make the game more appealing to newer players you should work towards making it more balanced and more fun, if anything. Making it easier to the point even a 5-year old child can play it to its highest potential is just boring and dumb.

[Koltik]

Will copy/paste this from my reddit post because I'm lazy.

The individual player ability and game complexity is completely going to be removed with this change. With such a long GCD and no secondary effects on most of the abilities everyone will be repeating the same "rotation" over and over, with no skill or thinking required.

What makes PvP different from PvE? The fact that the situations you face require a different, non-scripted approach every time, having you think and choose between the multiple choices you can make.

If you remove all the "niche abilities" that are present now (One Ilm Punch, Blizzard II, Tri-Bind, Arm of the Destroyer, Feint, Flash, Featherfoot, Keen Flurry, just to name a few of them) you completely remove the need for a choice, and consequently dumb down the thinking process involved to something that everyone can do, independently from your skill level.
I'm a MNK and the BLM is attacking me, what should I do? Arm of the Destroyer to interrupt his casts? Stun him? Pop Featherfoot so that he can miss me? With the new system the only thing I will be able to do is hope that the healer keeps me alive while I do my damage combo and the occasional oGCD in-between.

There is a HUGE gap between new PvP players and veteran PvP players right now. And it should be this way, the same way as LCS players in League of Legends are miles above the average players. If you remove all complexity the game will just be about who can press their buttons faster. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you want to make the game more appealing to newer players you should work towards making it more balanced and more fun, if anything. Making it easier to the point even a 5-year old child can play it to its highest potential is just boring and dumb.

There were very very few oGCD abilities at 50, yet PvP was a hell of a lot more fun than it is right now at 60. You do not need to have crazy unhealable burst to have fun and competitive PvP.

The choices are still there. Good decision making will still separate the good players from the bad ones. In Feast it'll be the metal count, box prioritization, smart LB's, the works. Removing bloat lets you focus more on strategy, and less on "do i press 1, 2, or 3?".

Having the current gap between new and veteran pvpers is not good for this game. It's nearly impossible for a brand new player to get into PvP as it is right now. I say this as a veteran who has pvped since the minute the original Wolves Den was launched at 6am EST. There are simply too many situations to adjust to, and throwing in 40 abilities just adds to that problem.

[Wegente]

There are simply too many situations to adjust to, and throwing in 40 abilities just adds to that problem.

I agree that the number of abilities can be overwhelming for some players, especially for those new to the game or controller players. But with Stormblood they are going to remove useless abilities or incorporate them, so we're going to have fewer buttons to press to begin with.
And with just the consolidated combos I think we would have been fine as far as hotbar space is concerned. No need to remove other useful abilities from PvP, because at that point the complexity completely goes down the drain.

Of course we haven't seen the PvP actions for all the jobs yet, but even just looking at the DRG ones you can see there are way too many important aspects of PvP missing there:
1) No Stuns (not even from Spineshatter Dive, because when Yoshida was using it the dummy wasn't being stunned. I think - and I REALLY hope I'm wrong - this means they have completely removed CC from Feast)
2) No Defensive CDs
3) No Offensive CDs apart from Battle Litany

This means that DPS will just have to follow their - dumbed down - PvE rotation without being able to choose when to burst someone, just as if they were hitting a dummy.
And if this was the case, I can already see some classes being hands-down better than others, because they can bring higher "raw" damage for their group (an example being DRGs with Disembowel, who will be better than NIN or MNK when paired with BRD/MCH since they will buff their damage as well).

I just hope I'm wrong, really, but I can't see how these changes will make PvP any more enjoyable than it is now.

[Koltik]

I just hope I'm wrong, really, but I can't see how these changes will make PvP any more enjoyable than it is now.

And to be honest you may not be, but from what we've seen so far it's impossible to make a decision one way or the other, or a judgement. We have to wait and see. At least now SE can try to balance properly since PvP will be a controlled environment.

[Petite]

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What concerns me is that there are so few abilities that I fear you'll just be sticking to someone and do your 1111-2222 combo 90% of the time like its a mini-game.

I'm also concerned about how that combo thing will work on jobs other than DRG because DRG already boiled down to just 2 combos.

At least the PvP skills are now separate from the PvE ones and they'll hopefully be better able to tweak and balance each jobs. That's the only positive I have for these changes though.

I'm really disappointed overall, but lets wait and see..

[BloodRubyXII]

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What concerns me is that there are so few abilities that I fear you'll just be sticking to someone and do your 1111-2222 combo 90% of the time like its a mini-game.

I'm also concerned about how that combo thing will work on jobs other than DRG because DRG already boiled down to just 2 combos.

At least the PvP skills are now separate from the PvE ones and they'll hopefully be better able to tweak and balance each jobs. That's the only positive I have for these changes though.

I'm really disappointed overall, but lets wait and see..

The argument I don't get was "this enables us to easier balance pvp without effecting pvp"

...There were already abilities that performed differently in pvp to pve, swiftcast, smn dots and I think monk stun come to mind immediately.

[Kisama]

Nice knowing you guys.

[Zojha]

1) No Stuns (not even from Spineshatter Dive, because when Yoshida was using it the dummy wasn't being stunned. I think - and I REALLY hope I'm wrong - this means they have completely removed CC from Feast)

I can assure you that they did not remove it entirely - when they were talking about black mage in PvP, they specifically named sleep still existing. And I am quite sure that tanks will have CC abilities as well, still. Blizzard 2/Fluid Aura? A clear "maybe". It does look like CC will be less prevalent.

For burst, they do seem to have cut the buffing up part of it, so it won't be quite as telegraphed. Though chances are, it'll also be a lot weaker in turn. I'll also note that disembowel did not place a debuff on the target from what I could glimpse, so synergy will likely be a non-existent thing for the most part.

It's a lot of changes, so it's hard to tell how it'll play out. You have to give it a couple matches before you judge - as many as you'd expect anyone to have right now to have a "valid opinion" of PvP as it currently is.