So this is PvP now?

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

The balance before was actually good and many facets of the game had counters, even the meta comp had counters. If SE actually cared about PvP back then. And didn't attempt to balance once or twice a year, it'd have been in a better place. All in all, PvP was more balanced back then, than people tend to claim.

This is the truth if I've ever heard it.

[Commander_Justitia]

It's why people need to keep making feedback threads now, so Square can see the issues.

Shatter was released in patch 3.3,you can say that probably 99,5%-99,9% of the frontline matches, since that point over a year ago, were shatter frontline modes. They did 1 change to shatter in that whole time,actually right with the next patch/fix I believe...They reduced the damage crystals take from magical range classes by 50% (physical range classes are still 100% though, seems legit). You really think there was no more feedback ? I know currently only 72man frontline are running at the moment, but have you ever played 24 mode? The HP of the ice crystals are the same (like in 72), you will need like 5-10minutes to destroy one big. PvP mode should be about PvP, but ice points give more points when they are up than killing players. They never changed the priority from PvE to PvP in a PvP mode. Why? If they care more about PvP they have to make the adjustments more frequently and faster to get that solid basis/foundation you are dreaming off and I am not seeing that yet.

On top of this, PVP is actually popping now. Regularly.

Yes, because PvP gives experience and botters and pseudo-afk players fill half of the alliances. Have you ever played during 2am-6am on your datacenter? On mine you will sometimes see 2 premade groups of bots in just 1 grand company alliance. They need to remove experience again from PvP because they cant handle the bots efficiently or make the exp gain so small that it wouldn't matter for them.
When you check frontlines rankings and there are some players with several hundred matches played in the last week (like 500+), you should get a bit suspicious of how they achieve that. The week has 10080 minutes, if you consider one frontline match 15min you get 7500 minutes pure frontlines. Then there would be the waiting time for a pop lets say he is really lucky and get a pop every 3min max. So thats another 1500 minutes. Then you have to wait 1 min before the match even starts, so another 500minutes. Now we get close to 9500 minutes. Ah ofc you need to sleep some time so there you have the remaining 580minutes ~ 10hrs sleep for a week ( thats less than 1,5hrs per day). But hey, that was just the math for 500 matches, there are people with 600+ matches.

[Kaisinel]

Snip.

Stop exaggerating the supposed severe disadvantage jobs had back then. I feel like you don't even know the reason why the meta comp was as powerful as it was, what made mch more desirable than smn, or what drk even had to bring to the table. Again, despite the lack of effort to balance PvP on SE's part, PvP was still fairly balanced. It was not as unbalanced as you seem to think it was. If we're talking from high level play, every job had strong points and abilities to bring to the table that supported actual teamwork and not the lul that is solo queue. There will ALWAYS be a best job for a particular role, always. But like I mentioned to you before, EVERY job has made it into top 100.

You know how they locked Cleric from healers and Rez from SMN? I'd imagine after 10months of 4.0 that SE would have finally decided to bar Vercure/raise from RDM. Yes I agree PvP needed to be separated from PvE, but currently it's a shell of its former self and has never been more shallow.

My only argument to you has always been about people blowing the imbalances in 3.X out of proportions. I don't entirely disagree with it's current direction, stop assuming.

PvP was popping before 4.0, regularly. I'm not really sure why you brought that up? How's getting past platinum in solo queue working out? Or does it not pop?

[Kisama]

I'm finding crafting and gathering to be more fun than 4.0 pvp. This mode is trash.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

On top of this, PVP is actually popping now. Regularly.

When they finally lifted GC restrictions in 3.5 - after 2 years of us asking and begging for it - queues picked up big time. . . It's like giving people something they wanted for 2 years that would overall improve matchmaking would improve queues. Who'd have thought it?

[Praesul]

I still enjoy 4.0 pvp but not as much as HW pvp. I think a lot of the changes made so far have been fantastic, like making pvp a viable method to level up (even if it comes with it's own slew of problems...), removing gear (even though it was never a big deal in the first place) and removing GC rank advantages (this bugged me more than anything else but also wasn't hugely impactful, but it rubbed me the wrong way how other players would literally have BETTER VERSIONS of abilities just because they've been in their GC longer or played longer.)

But they took away so much of the depth that now things seems much more formulaic than before. There's only so much you can do as a player to differentiate yourself from others, only so much you can do to outplay people. Back when I was playing DRK in season 3 and 4, there were general strategies I'd use that I found most effective against most players, but there were also certain strategies I employed against certain that I got to know over time. If they got used to the same cookie cutter strategies every match, I'd switch things up. When they saw the Carnal Chills coming, I'd slow them down in other ways. I'd save dark arts dark passenger when I saw their favorite buffs go up (because they wouldn't use everything at once, they'd only use 1 or 2 things to bait stuff out and then wait until a better opportunity to catch people by surprise), I'd bind them with Unleash to time out their Life Surge or Raging Strikes.... But that's not an option anymore. CC is short and limited, everyone's pool of abilities is really smalling, you don't even have to guess what someone else is going to do because they HAVE nothing else to do. They're going to do the same god damn thing every match and you're going to counter it the same exact way every single match until eventually someone on your team or the enemy team slips and a kill happens. The kill didn't happen because you played well, it happened because someone else played sloppy, and that's not as fun.

[Hecathedrk]

8 vs 8 is a pewpew land.
Frontline is a pewpew land.
I don't know about 4 vs 4 cuz it's not popping at all.
Melee are dying, no one bring sword to a pewpew fight.

[Mirch]

8 vs 8 is a pewpew land.
Frontline is a pewpew land.
I don't know about 4 vs 4 cuz it's not popping at all.
Melee are dying, no one bring sword to a pewpew fight.

Thats because teams lack teamwork, also party composition do matter when party fully utilize their roles. Thanks for giving exp on pvp nice move. Q.Q

[Korihu]

Thats because teams lack teamwork, also party composition do matter when party fully utilize their roles. Thanks for giving exp on pvp nice move. Q.Q

*70k damage BLM*

'im just here for the exp'

[Keelyah]

... maybe im late with this one but literally pvp with 1v1 's has resorted to heal, safe guard and Potion popping?!?! I feel like with the variety of skills we had before although some weaknesses were inevitable there was always a way to actively beat an opponent... now its who can pop healing and safe guards the best. *grabs kleenex box*
T__T really hoping that this is just some beta phase that they are planning on addressing again at some point. PvE gets all the fun these days lol