Thank You For the Feast Ticket System

[Zandeth]

Square Enix really just cares about quantity over quality. Quick Chat brought more people to try PvP, yet the overall quality of players went down as there was less proper communication. But SE doesn't see that as an issue because "Hey look, more people are playing now." That's reflected heavily in the ranked situation also as people can just spam matches with little effort to get somewhere. There's less incentive to play good and more to play often, which ironically goes against what Yoshi P wanted FFXIV to be (a more "play when you want to" MMO). The report system is laughable for previously mentioned reasons and more. It feels like they just don't trust us at all. We can bring all the evidence we want, but if SE doesn't see it, it doesn't exist.

Now excuse me as I laugh myself into oblivion once more at the mention of this being an "e-sport".

[Arisato]

You're taking this serious and that's already your first mistake. Not just for E-Sports but Ranked in general. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment and anger.

I don't think taking ranked Feast seriously is a mistake. I believe overall, the pvp Feast community would love to take this seriously and are showing that with the criticisms to improve the Feast experience overall. The problem lies with how SE is taking our criticisms, it really seems they're ignoring us or giving us answers that are half-assed.

[Krolja]

What? You didn't think all the melee needed nerfed? That healing was already too powerful, and now it's more powerful because of those nerfs? You think TBN and Scholars are balanced, too? You are dev team worthy!

[Krolja]

You should be laughing instead - it's a very good punchline.

E-Sports is just a marketing gig. It's gonna amount to a few SE hosted tournaments at the Fanfests or similar events, with lots of sponsor advertisements to try and finance it - if that. It's a show, nothing more. If you expect more, don't.

You're taking this serious and that's already your first mistake. Not just for E-Sports but Ranked in general. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment and anger.

Why wouldn't I take something seriously that has a Ranked mode and offers exclusive rewards for being in the top ranks? I don't follow your logic there.

[Zojha]

I believe overall, the pvp Feast community would love to take this seriously and are showing that with the criticisms to improve the Feast experience overall.

Oh, I have no doubts that the community would love to take it seriously. Not just love to, but do. I see that in every post that gets angry when it is treated no different than other parts of the game like Triple Triad or Lord Verminion - the other "competitive" systems with exclusive rewards. And that is precisely why you are doomed to get disappointed over and over and over. Ranked isn't going to get the attention it would need to become the place you want to see in it - A place for high and fair competition. Especially in solo queue, which is a jokeworthy format for anything but casual scrims. Ironically, it's the only one left.

If you haven't noticed, moderation sucks and they either were unable or didn't bother trying to moderate the chat nor party queue and simply removed both outright. Even if they had the resources to "fix" Feast, they can't justify spending them on such a tiny portion of the playerbase - They can't even do matchmaking within one tier with what they're given and even that is a completely outrageous difference for any competitive game. Hence, they're trying to grow it - That's why they first made ranking up easier and then implemented the token system, to increase the incentive to play and thus activity. And yay, we're back to the actual topic of the thread.
But frankly, I very much doubt the efficiency of that. Top 100 rewards in a game with 300k players is pretty nuts in the first place for an incentive system - You gotta already be expecting only like 1% turnover.

Ultimately, Ranked Feast is not anything special. It is one of many attractions on the fair and not even a very popular one at that. If you take it more serious than that, you are bound to be disappointed. And since, as you said, people really want to take it more serious than that, they are disappointed. For five seasons and counting. And they will continue to be disappointed and complain about falling on deaf ears and whatnot. Over and over. It's getting painful to read at times, like watching a bird fly against the window over and over not realizing there's glass in the way.

[QT_Melon]

One thing I've learned is that it is easier to break things than fix them. It's easier to find ways to circumvent things, than build up more walls of protection. You need only look at how many internet security companies and virus protection programs are constantly playing a game of catch up.

I like PVP and I do generally like that they made it more accessible to many players instead of it having a ton of button bloat and weird skill hierarchy that it had before. I still feel they need to tweak the system and bring balance to many of the jobs.

So it bring us to this: one of the things is I'm not sure I like the PVP community (or at least the way the loud ones are "airing" their concerns). It's not that I don't disagree with many of the concerns. I believe there is a problem with ALTs taking up slots for PVP players, people wintrading which defeats competitive play and bots plaguing the system making it not fun when trying to do Frontlines.

It's frustrating to want to read the feedback when it's littered with passive aggressive insults or just plain outright insults. I get a customer is angry but sometimes people need to take a step back before throwing out "doesn't care".

Like I said earlier it's easier to find ways to break or circumvent a system than fix it. Some of this is likely cultural - as some players will find ways simply due to their upbringing and mentality from where they live and how the development team can figure out how to fix the system without punishing other people (not to mention limits of their own resources).

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Given that there was already a system implemented to create custom PvP hotbars (not entirely unlike what we have now), I'll always contest the "too many buttons" argument, and I played one of the jobs considered complicated, even in PvE. And while balancing had always been questionable, it was certainly better then than now.

Don't get me wrong, some changes in 4.0 really were good. But an entire overhaul of PvP - to the point that it alienated the small-but-dedicated playerbase that enjoyed and supported it despite all the poor misconceptions - really just doesn't sit well with me.

[QT_Melon]

Given that there was already a system implemented to create custom PvP hotbars (not entirely unlike what we have now), I'll always contest the "too many buttons" argument, and I played one of the jobs considered complicated, even in PvE. And while balancing had always been questionable, it was certainly better then than now.

Don't get me wrong, some changes in 4.0 really were good. But an entire overhaul of PvP - to the point that it alienated the small-but-dedicated playerbase that enjoyed and supported it despite all the poor misconceptions - really just doesn't sit well with me.

It took a long time for them to even implement the PVE vs PVP button bloat problem prior to the overhaul. Did it mean they "Didn't care?"

[Gravton]

It took a long time for them to even implement the PVE vs PVP button bloat problem prior to the overhaul. Did it mean they "Didn't care?"

I don understand what your trying to say. Are You complaining about the complainers? If we complain we have to make sure we don't hurt the Dev's feelings? If we don't complain then how do the devs know what to fix? And yes, I think if it takes you 4+ years to fix a problem like win trading, it leaves the impression that you don't care.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Around here, we've had a LOT of issues and concerns go unanswered, or seemingly ignored/overruled for a long time. Just look at any threads concerning the Feast chat restrictions, GC restrictions, and the recent job balance feedback threads made well before they started the official 5th Feast season - without balance changes. It's these matters that have left this PvP community rather terse and expecting almost nothing these days. I dislike it as well as anyone else, but I can't deny what I've seen all this time.