I miss the old PvP.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

It is, and always was competitive, even large-scale PvP, despite everyone wanting to treat it as casual. The Feast is effectively the "premier" PvP mode (SE's words, not mine), and has ranked and unranked modes. Frontlines and Rival Wings are large-scale as mentioned before, and while people consider it casual, playing it as such isn't going to bring you victory. You don't have to be super serious, but if you're not playing to win, you're not likely to enjoy it either way.

[SummerScorcher]

Tell that to the 100-0 BRD burst that required their dots, or the SMNs who were getting upwards of 500-600K damage in matches, the Lead Shot kills I got, the DoT kills through Attunement. . . AoE heals were nice, but between DoTs and focused damage, they weren't going to save someone.

The Bard burst really required like, no procs at all. You applied dots, prepped Barrage, then you deleted someone with those skills I said before. That was really it. You just literally pick a target, DoT, banish them to the shadow realm. There wasn't even time to try to heal that target if you did it right. It was ridiculous. . . and still somewhat possible. Not a full 100-0, but the BRD burst is still pretty nasty when done right.

Indeed! If you proc'ed Straighter Shot and neatly wove it inbetween your burst though, there was literally no escape, it was great. It was easily spottable though, and as a DRK it felt great timing Carnal Chill on them just in time to turn that 100-0 burst into 100-80

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Oh yes, we learned to look for the telltale signs of someone setting up a burst in order to try and shut it down. Just another example of a measure of skill and counterplay now taken away by this new system.

[RiyahArp]

My point is that the way you played bard in pve with their pve kit was if anything even more different then than it is now. If anything, bard now kind of makes it a lot easier in pvp because it automatically cycles and condenses the different stances and removes things that wouldn't work in pvp. Some jobs even wind up being better; red mage's vercombo is a pure space saver. If this were 3.0, each job would pare half of its kit off anyways, which made the original point that "3.0 was more cohesive" a bit of a joke. A lot of what was lost in 3.0 was either useless (most jobs aoe and dots) or needed to be gone (constant, oppressive cc, one-trick moves that didn't have counterplay.)

And if they went back to it, you all would still be complaining. People complained a lot in 3.0. There was a lot of change over time; people hated being stunned and one shot by melee lb, they hated mass caster lb, they hated blm sleep spam, they weren't keen on pld able to cc for 10 seconds, and more. Just because time has passed and you have forgotten the bad and glorified the good doesn't mean the bad never existed. You'd also end up just raising the skill ceiling in pvp in addition too.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Speaking strictly for MCH:

I lost my entire burst. Lost the ONE DoT I had. Lost my ability to freely proc shots as my job is intended to do. "Between the Eyes", the almost-broken skill I had as part of my burst is all that remains and is a shadow of its former self. Lost almost all of my CC, but at least I fared better than DRG and MNK. Lost my turrets; I'm the only "pet" job without its pet at all. The turrets, despite the low potency were GREAT for area denial. Healer trying to hide behind a wall? Nope, turret there. Overzealous melee on me? Alright, come fight me inside this Bishop AoE. Wildfire isn't much changed save for duration, but now I HAVE to use it as part of some semblance of a burst where it was an effective feint/insurance before.

I continue to stress that you simply see the bad, and disregard the good. We complained, but we saw many changes made over time that helped. When Sleep was made 6 seconds max (with the old diminishing returns) that was a huge improvement. No one in their right mind would spam sleep and put you on DR for the next minute. I wouldn't mind the old CC durations with the new immediate resistance; I could compromise there. Everyone had CCs, some more than others, yes, but we ALL had them. As for the skill ceiling, it was there, but it wasn't unreachable. If I could teach a guy completely new to PvP to play MCH almost to my level and watch him proceed to learn other jobs that even I can't play well in less than a month's time, everyone can learn. The problem is they didn't WANT to learn, or try to.

Attempts to simplify PvP haven't made the skill ceiling lower at all. A lot of players still can't seem to play well, though now it's not nearly a fault of the kit given to them, not that it ever was. I can still beat nearly any overnight MCH out there (especially the pre-loaders) because I know the job well, and can play it as flexibly as allowed now. But I know what I was capable of before that with the old kit. I know what every job was capable of before, and just how stifled they are now. Now, you don't really HAVE to be good to do well. You just connect the dots, metaphorically speaking. And while that's nice for an immediate appeal, I see it much like fighting games: the flashy special moves pull people in and are useful, but the real skill at higher levels is far more decided with basic applications and skilled play. What SE has done is give us all a limited amount of flashy specials and instead adjusted PvP overall so that you don't HAVE to be skilled with basic applications to do well.

And people still don't seem to get it right.

[RiyahArp]

The DoT was useless, wildfire was a joke then. Healers often put multiple regen up on targets, which was more than enough to soak your DoT, and they had unlimited Esuna, which made you feinting with wildfire humorous. The only reason it wasn't even more broken was because in Feast the healers were literally incapacitated through stunlocks enough that your stuff could be a threat; most of the issue in pvp now is that you no longer have the tools to hobble healers to that extent-actual healing potency has gone down, not up, considering how much we lost in our toolkit. Healers also in general were a lot rarer due to that kind of play, which kept things balanced. Your turret was only useful as targeting chaff; dps was low, and you had instant resummon, meaning you had no penalty for using it ever. You could even despawn and respawn it to avoid it being killed/fill it to full health. Imagine that in RW, it would make even the "zerg mid to activate it" strat useless.

The sleep change only happened when people learned to coordinate it so well that they totally shut down the opposing feast team unless people played perfectly, and if i remember it took two nerfs till it got to 6 sec duration. People used to complain about repose, which was single target an had to be used through stuns...sleep was aoe and swiftcasted. You talk about how high skill enables people, well that was a case where the high skill could totally shut people down.

I think a lot of the difference in outlook is that you mained dps, and I mained healer in it. Feast died in HW precisely because the skill ceiling for healers was so absurdly high in it. I often spent most of the matches having to perfectly time OGCDs in between stuns just to keep my team up, while you were mostly timing your cc and burst. Even now, for all the hate against healers, healing well requires a lot of focus and judgment often against multiple players. You can't help but be aware of the bad when your role is to try and counter it. So when you say "3.0 is better!" you bring back a lot of memories of me dealing with paladins who could stun for 8,4,and2 seconds in a row, and topped it off with silence and pacification. You didn't learn healer in a month, you either suffered through the cheapness or said hell with it, and left.

[Wintersandman]

There was a lot of change over time; people hated being stunned and one shot by melee lb, they hated mass caster lb, they hated blm sleep spam, they weren't keen on pld able to cc for 10 seconds, and more. Just because time has passed and you have forgotten the bad and glorified the good doesn't mean the bad never existed. You'd also end up just raising the skill ceiling in pvp in addition too.

Adding a vit accessory eliminated getting one shot by melee LB which a good healer would spot and top off the person. Sleep and caster LB was only threatening if it was an organized premade but there were also ways to counter that (Spread out). Stun locked by paladin was only a threat if other people were paying attention, otherwise it was annoying and it was only 7 seconds and then the person went immune.

If you want to get technical AoE abilities were not useful in killing a PC but they were useful in keeping an enemy from tagging an objective. Same as such AoE healing was only useful to counteract damage spread, AoE's or DoT damage that wasn't followed through which was useful all in the same right. So yes it was more cohesive. CC abilities were there which provided balance in counteracting any class. The elimination of the PvP abilities homogenized all the classes so they pretty much feel all the same. There were ways to counteract everything and there was no one-trick move that didn't have counterplay.

I only see you complaining about 3.0 and the rest saying they miss it. The people who played regularly outside their daily roulette enjoyed it.

Imagine that in RW, it would make even the "zerg mid to activate it" strat useless.

At least "Hold mid with 3 healers" would have a counter. Shoot one good ninja could take out a healer in 3.0. So even if one healer was holding it, one player could cap mid. You are already stating reasons why the 3.0 toolkit would balance the current healer problem.

[RiyahArp]

Adding a vit accessory eliminated getting one shot by melee LB which a good healer would spot and top off the person. Sleep and caster LB was only threatening if it was an organized premade but there were also ways to counter that (Spread out). Stun locked by paladin was only a threat if other people were paying attention, otherwise it was annoying and it was only 7 seconds and then the person went immune.

You needed about two, and that also gimped your damage. That only preventing being one shot directly, which left you with maybe 1k HP from full HP. Even wearing them, it was still hard to counter, which is why they drastically nerfed it; it often was just direct, forced kill, especially in feast on tanks with medal stacks. The match devolved into waiting till the end to one shot the tank.

And you forget the pld could also silence and pacify, and a healer or blm could sleep or bind/kb. An organize team could chain cc to an absurd extent.

If you want to get technical AoE abilities were not useful in killing a PC but they were useful in keeping an enemy from tagging an objective. Same as such AoE healing was only useful to counteract damage spread, AoE's or DoT damage that wasn't followed through which was useful all in the same right. So yes it was more cohesive. CC abilities were there which provided balance in counteracting any class. The elimination of the PvP abilities homogenized all the classes so they pretty much feel all the same. There were ways to counteract everything and there was no one-trick move that didn't have counterplay.

AOE damage was worthless in damaging, though, when in pve, it was often the most effective on group targets. In shatter, aoe was totally useless since there was no need to activate anything. DoTs were generally a waste of a GCD, and the low durations meant they were unlikely to be reapplied. And yes, there were plenty of one trick moves.

I only see you complaining about 3.0 and the rest saying they miss it. The people who played regularly outside their daily roulette enjoyed it.

I complain mostly to remind people that it had serious issues back then too, and participation was about the same as now. Most of you are just reminiscing about the good old days and are forgetting what it actually was like. Feast died well before any of the simplifications hit or exp was added to it, and both seal rock and shatter declined to 8v8s in the off season too. They didn't just scrap 3.0 out of whimsy, there were serious issues that wound up keeping pvp niche and making it hard to fill the modes. It's not a solution to problems now. I mean the lot of this "pvp community" couldn't even fill ranked light party feast, despite it being a lot more balanced than solo.

[Wintersandman]

Riyah, You can tell when PvP Queues went up and when they went down. Freelancer enabled number of matches went up. You can look at any frontline standing on any server and see the uptick in just pure number of matches plus the people that played them.

You needed about two, and that also gimped your damage. That only preventing being one shot directly, which left you with maybe 1k HP from full HP. Even wearing them, it was still hard to counter, which is why they drastically nerfed it; it often was just direct, forced kill, especially in feast on tanks with medal stacks. The match devolved into waiting till the end to one shot the tank.

If you had a healer, it was easy to counter. You only needed 1 by the way. I can state this confidently as I played a healer, tank, melee, and ranged dps with healer being the lowest MP pool and no points slotted into Vit. I am also going to take your feast comment with a grain of salt seeing how you still have yet to pickup Goten.

And you forget the pld could also silence and pacify, and a healer or blm could sleep or bind/kb. An organize team could chain cc to an absurd extent.

Silence only useful against casters and lasted 1 second. So 8 seconds max of CC that is 4 max GCD's and without backup a Paladin wasn't going to do much to you. Pacify was only useful against melee and required a block to do. If you weren't attacking the PLD they weren't blocking and you couldn't be pacified plus they tickled so there wasn't much point except leaving them until the end.

I complain mostly to remind people that it had serious issues back then too, and participation was about the same as now.

Participation is less now than it was in 3.5 when freelancer was enabled. The only time participation went up was the initial release of Stormblood for the experience. After most people got the experience the fall off was drastic. I am saying this even before RW was released.

Most of you are just reminiscing about the good old days and are forgetting what it actually was like. Feast died well before any of the simplifications hit or exp was added to it, and both seal rock and shatter declined to 8v8s in the off season too.

Um this is a fallacy as I had 2-3 min queues for 8v8's on Primal during off season during 3.5.

They didn't just scrap 3.0 out of whimsy, there were serious issues that wound up keeping pvp niche and making it hard to fill the modes. It's not a solution to problems now. I mean the lot of this "pvp community" couldn't even fill ranked light party feast, despite it being a lot more balanced than solo.

The problem now is queues are worse and only die hard PvP'ers queue for them outside the daily roulette. RW will die off once people obtain their rewards and the PvP community will be left abandoned with a system they don't want.

[RiyahArp]

Riyah, You can tell when PvP Queues went up and when they went down. Freelancer enabled number of matches went up. You can look at any frontline standing on any server and see the uptick in just pure number of matches plus the people that played them.

the standings only show the matches played by the top 100 players per server and overall. The top always played a lot of matches period, but eventually, like all the other times, participation declined one incentives left. if you look per server at the flames for example, the actual amount of matches played by the top 100 were a lot lower, and trended lower over time. There also was Garo and exp that drove shatter participation briefly.

Silence only useful against casters and lasted 1 second. So 8 seconds max of CC that is 4 max GCD's and without backup a Paladin wasn't going to do much to you. Pacify was only useful against melee and required a block to do. If you weren't attacking the PLD they weren't blocking and you couldn't be pacified plus they tickled so there wasn't much point except leaving them until the end.

fluid aura counted as an attack due to damage, and if melee attacked the tank, there's your block. Pacify works on healers because our OGCDs are abilties, and being without tetra or bene does hurt.

Participation is less now than it was in 3.5 when freelancer was enabled. The only time participation went up was the initial release of Stormblood for the experience. After most people got the experience the fall off was drastic. I am saying this even before RW was released.

I get five minute queues on RW at almost all primetime. You have to play at 3 in the morning before queues die down. I get faster queues on RW than trial rouletteas dps, for heaven's sake.

Feast, yes, but we all know Feast had issues.

Um this is a fallacy as I had 2-3 min queues for 8v8's on Primal during off season during 3.5.

because people preferred it to the actual 4v4 to get mounts. Trying to get ranked matches though died same as it does now, and light party never even took off. And now both 8v8 and 4v4 are dead.

If you had a healer, it was easy to counter. You only needed 1 by the way. I can state this confidently as I played a healer, tank, melee, and ranged dps with healer being the lowest MP pool and no points slotted into Vit. I am also going to take your feast comment with a grain of salt seeing how you still have yet to pickup Goten.

Yeah, easy to counter if the healer could pick you out among the other 23 players, and wasn't being focused or pushed themselves. And I played feast mostly in season 1 and 2 pre-Garo, and left when after I got flack from someone for apparently damaging their precious ranking by not being perfect. Considering that whole match was tiring as hell, that was the last straw, and i did 8v8 for a bit. For goten, I don't care; it wasn't a draw for me to get back into feast, because to win it consistently I'd need to do healing again, and I was tired of healing people. Each time I try to do it, I get tired of having the burden, and stop. I have more than enough mounts as it is, and most of the rewards in feast involve being in the top 100.

And apparently, I'm not alone, since when i try to go as dps, i get 20 min+ queues, and as healer, its instant. except for practice modes, which no one bothers with. You talk about doing stuff for roulettes, but feast is an example of what happens when the incentives suck overall.