"The Consequences of Reducing the Skill Gap" (A Video Relevant to the 4.0 Changes)

[Kisagami]

Okay, you guys clearly aren’t getting what is going on on SE’s end.

Not everyone has the time to dedicate days, weeks, months to one game and learn a hard PVP mode. The old PVP just wasn’t used enough; there weren’t enough people to keep the queue times down. Sure you had communities, small ones, but they were a small subset of a community you are nostalgic for. But they need to keep the majority of their players happy. They have more casual players than hardcore esports-like players who live and breathe the game.

A lot of gamers I know personally have to work. Some can work up to 12-14 hour days. If a game is too difficult, or requires too much time to learn, it gates these people out of the game. These paying customers are rushing off to easier games where you can play casually just for the story or for a few hours a week without heing too left behind.

We’re also in the age where gaming addiction is becoming recognized as a legit medical issue such as gambling addiction, and in Asian countries like Japan, there have been people dying because of how much time they dedicate or play to game, to get as you say “better.”. Reading guides, tactics, etc. on an obsessive level. And that is bad for their health, but necessary to get better in some of these games for some people. It’s quite bad in Japan, Korea, and China, from what I have read. They want a healthy environment where they can attract a large player base. Where the game isn’t cut off from casual players, who work, play other games to, or just son’t have time to dedicate time to constanly to get better. The pace here is casual.

It’s been been said SE makes a lot of their money for people buying subscriptions just to get through content or story, then let it lapse until something new comes out. Sure, there’s a huge nostalgia for those who love difficulty and earning their way up through an uphill climb, but the vast majority of players, or the community, aren’t into that. SE, like most buisnesses, cater to what retains the majority of their players.

From the many communities I know, who do not participate on forums here, the new PVP is much easier to learn and get into. Even if you’re not good at it, you can try it and have some success following the teams or even just exploring. Coming in, intending to die a lot, and just seeing it inspired my friends to play it - just like we do drunken dungeon runs TO die and laugh at our shortcomings. We don’t want our games too serious. Hell, we’re even a shits and giggles FC at Cult of the Chocobo. If the game was so difficult, we’d lose OUR community of casual players who can’t play as hard or as long to “constantly improve” just to advance. Some of us are just here for the story. And the easy PVP was the only reason my FC came out to try it in the first place - even if we lost, we got a small amount of coins, and I actually got better at my score and tactics just playing it easy at my own pace. I’d go from bottom of the rankings, to at least mid. Cutting me off and making me miserable just to get a little credit for effort isn’t fun for me. I’d drop PVP instantly if I had to worry about competiting, surviving, and living up to the hardcore player’s expectations with keeping track lf 32 skills. My anxiety can’t take it.

They make more money from casual players... that’s all I can say. We have more players now than we did back in 3.0. And way more than since 1.0. At the end lf the day, there’s numerous reasons SE is doing what they are doing, and while they are an ethical company, they’re still a company that needs to make a profit. Instead of catering to an older generation of gamers, they’re making themselves more prominent in the new generation, that want a game to be a game... not a stressful environment where they have turn over from people not wanting to adapt. A game, to the vast majority of us, isn’t a challenge. Its just something fun to do to pass the time.

So one small community dies... but another rises. That’s what happens with change. People don’t like change. But sometimes they happen for the good of greater numbers.

Basically, I see your argument more as “back in my day,” for Seniors. It was more difficult and more rewarding for them. They don’t like how the system changed to make things more accessible to others because it was “too easy.” But making it more accessible, and easier, opened up more things to more people. Its a cycle that will always happen with technological advances.

It’s also late and I may be rambling, but honestly, all your threads are about the good old days and now you’re even blaming the new generation. Things change. That’s progress.

Edit: So, I started thinking, and it reminds me of something I learned from The Jimquistion. At least a shower thought if you will from watching this video about EA changinb matchmaking in a manipulative way to hold people longer in the games without turnover. https://youtu.be/E_QaTtvI2tg

They mentioned Crash Bandicoot had a level system that if a game was too hard for someone, instead of the person putting the game down out of rage or unwillingness to learn, the game made it easier so they’d keep playing and have a positive, less frustrated experience with their game. That created less turnover; otherwise they’d be losing those customers. And... Crash Bandicoot is a beloved series that many point to as a challenge. Challenges don’t keep players as much or spread it by word of mouth to other people. Positive experiences do.

To compete, and gain more customers outside of the hardcore base, is more profitable and more accessible. It also earns them more money in the long term by making people happy, making them feel awesome, which is what many gamers love: the win. The gratification. Feeling gander than what they do in RL. So, yes, more less skilled players, but far more payers...

I understand some of your frustrations, but more frustrating or too difficult of content just to get through a story personally turns me off. And it turns a lot of my other non-competitive friends off. Having a game where content was more casual, more rewarding, keeps us longer.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Alright, this is just absolute nonsense now.

I taught someone how to play MCH in PvP - Heavensward MCH, that was so "complicated" back then - and by simply paying attention, PRACTICING, and their own efforts, they were nearly playing to my level within 4 days. I'm hardly an amazing teacher, so you can rule that out, but that begs the question: is it really that difficult to learn then?

No, it wasn't. Now, another question: For all the people avoiding and buying into the negative stigmas of PvP then, were they even trying to learn? Was it so difficult to understand the same kit you had at 60, plus 5 or 6 PvP-only skills, 2 of which were a self heal and a self cleanse? Really? I was there; you can't expect me to buy that when giving people sound advice is met with indifference, defiance, or crap excuses, then you watch that same person get blown up constantly. Nor would I be patient if said person turns around and tries to complain about how "hard" PvP is or how "no one tried to help" them. And yes, I've seen someone play that card. Many times.

I'm gonna just throw out the bit about gaming addiction. Not only is that a completely separate issue, it doesn't even apply here. And let's not try to tie gaming addiction to simple desire to play better or do better in a game. That's nonsense.

From the many communities I know, who do not participate on forums here, the new PVP is much easier to learn and get into. Even if you’re not good at it, you can try it and have some success following the teams or even just exploring. Coming in, intending to die a lot, and just seeing it inspired my friends to play it - just like we do drunken dungeon runs TO die and laugh at our shortcomings. We don’t want our games too serious. Hell, we’re even a shits and giggles FC at Cult of the Chocobo. If the game was so difficult, we’d lose OUR community of casual players who can’t play as hard or as long to “constantly improve” just to advance. Some of us are just here for the story. And the easy PVP was the only reason my FC came out to try it in the first place - even if we lost, we got a small amount of coins, and I actually got better at my score and tactics just playing it easy at my own pace. I’d go from bottom of the rankings, to at least mid. Cutting me off and making me miserable just to get a little credit for effort isn’t fun for me. I’d drop PVP instantly if I had to worry about competiting, surviving, and living up to the hardcore player’s expectations with keeping track lf 32 skills. My anxiety can’t take it.

I have. . . SO many issues with this entire paragraph. Like, legit would risk a ban if I really spoke my mind here, but let me patiently address this: First off, IT'S PVP. You're not there to "just follow teams" or explore. You're there to compete. It's literally on the label. Failure to understand and accept this before you step in is already a huge problem. You are there to compete; you can take in the view on your own time.

Second, people that enjoy PvP don't "come in expecting to die a lot" and I say this being a HUGE risk-taker. We understand there are situations where you're just at a disadvantage, and someone like me can easily understand when an idea goes very wrong and it's going to blow up in my face. Even then, I don't expect to die a lot. That kind of defeatist mindset has no place in a competitive mode, and it's the difference between playing well and dragging a team down. Want to do drunken runs or fool around? Bring your own team in, or in the Feast, create custom matches. Don't drag a bunch of other players down with your desire to play subpar for kicks. That's exactly what drives people away from Alliance Raids or makes for long, frustrating runs.

Third, "Some of us are here for the story" is one big crap excuse. I like the story too, but when I queue for PvP, I'm there for the challenge and competition. Yes, somewhere in the back of my mind, I understand Frontlines and the Feast are just joint military training for the GCs, and that Astragalos is a training complex to simulate war games against Garlean magitek using Goblin machina, but it's no less a competition. And I'm there to compete. If you are not, you are in the wrong place. Similarly, I don't make up reasons to try and be competitive or compete with anyone in cooperative content because it has no place there. So "some of us are here for the story" is a crap excuse and needs to be thrown out right now.

Fouth. . . "keep the casuals happy" (basically). Is that right? Okay, bye Savage. Bye Ultimate. You're just gated, "1%" content and you apparently don't belong in this game because if the "casuals" aren't happy, it's not worth it. Is that it? Who's next? Who's the next smallest denomination in the game we can get rid of because it's not "casual" enough, in a game that already keeps the bar set pretty low for more than half the content? This kind of crap logic is what kills a game. Already, an entire community was fractured by changes to the content they enjoy (and welcomed others to try, despite being widely shunned), and that's okay? Seriously? If you understand nothing I've said, understand this: The moment you can point to any group within the playerbase at large and say "you and what you like doesn't matter. You're too small. We're getting rid of/changing it." you've just started down a VERY slippery slope. The moment you ignore their feedback, don't respond to requests or concerns, and even make big controversial changes and expect them to just roll over and take it, you're losing them. And guess what's been happening with PvP all this time? Is it any surprise some have just walked away from it and the game as of 4.0? It was a final slap in the face, made only further insulting by people who CLEARLY didn't know what we'd been through chiming in saying "oh what a great idea! This is such a great change!"

Wait til it's you and your content you like.

You talk about about people wanting a game to be a game and not a stressful environment they have to turn over from people not wanting to adapt? Welcome to the big issue with 4.0 PvP. People didn't want to adapt before, STILL don't, and now they don't have to. That failure to adapt is what makes it stressful. Stressful for me when I give good advice and someone who doesn't know what they're doing wants to be the big dog and tell me how wrong I am. Okay. I get quiet. Then we lose. People get upset and stressed that they can't win. "It's because we're the Falcons." "It's because they're a premade." NO, it's because you don't know what you're doing, and you've driven out the ones that did! Am I to feel sorry for my enemy's failure to adapt? Am I to perhaps hold back? Not bloody likely. I will HAPPILY be the wall people who can't adapt aren't able to get past. If you want a game that's not a challenge, there's the entire 90% of the game that isn't already. Don't justify watering down PvP - a competitive mode by definition - because you don't want a challenge. That is complete, utter nonsense. And "just something to do to pass the time" is a large reason people lose and don't understand why. Some of us know what to do. Some of us aren't just doing it to pass the time. For us, it was, and still is our endgame. If someone can't handle that, perhaps it's they who needs to adapt. We don't change the rules of established competitions because someone doesn't understand how to perform well.

You say "one small community dies", but no, there isn't a replacement. Not unless you're saying bots, XP farmers, and people just "passing the time" hold as much weight as players that actively taught each other, competed with AND cooperated with each other, built up communities across servers WELL before any cross server functionality was ever added, and even with the larger body of the FFXIV community shunning and insulting them constantly, still extended a welcome to any and all who would make effort to learn. IS that what you're saying? Spare me the "greater good" bit. That comes off as self-righteous and insulting.

If you think this is a "back in my day" rant, you may want to rewatch the video. You've missed the point entirely, and only made terrible counterpoints instead.

[Zojha]

The old PVP just wasn’t used enough; there weren’t enough people to keep the queue times down.

And looking at the queues nowadays, it's not gotten all that much better. I'm an off-hour player (EU player on Balmung), so I tend to notice it first when people abandon the queues, because the time at which games pop at all shifts further and further back into my sleep schedule. My queues nowadays are largely the same as back in the late Seal Rock days, a bit faster due to a lack of faction restrictions and bots. Sure, they are 'trying' to grow the playerbase and that much should be positively acknowledged, but the strategies they are employing to do so are... doubtful and of questionable long-term success. Short-term isn't debatable - We had 72man insta-queues day and night come Garo and when SB launched. But that has long fizzled out.

And honestly, I don't think the real issue is "difficulty" or "complexity" - League of Legends boasts 100 Million monthly active players, even if you assume half of that are smurfs, that's ginormous and it's ironically one of the go-to games for casual players in this game when they want PvP, in spite of it's fairly large complexity (First thing you do is learn like 300++ character skills and passives with their telegraphs, the maps mechanics and geography and over hundred items and their effects by heart). A quick boot up of Steam shows over 500k DotA2 players currently playing and that game is... oh boy. It's a hulking mess of convoluted mechanics in which even bots can drill you into the dirt easily if you come unprepared.

Accessibility is an issue of course - I don't think there's any successful PvP game on a subscription fee and PvP usually isn't gated by weeks to months of PvE/bot grind. But let's be real here: Even if this game's PvP came as a super accessible standalone F2P title, it wouldn't stand a chance, neither the old nor the new incarnation. It'd be kept alive in the shadowy corners of the net on a private server by a poor, blessed soul that keeps hoping his baby will one day be understood and accepted by society.

And that, IMO, is the bigger issue. I know a great many players, dedicated and casual alike, that are playing far more complicated PvP games than this on a regular basis, but they won't touch this game's PvP for more than a day or two after a new mode got released, neither the new nor the old. It's naturally hard to tell why exactly that is, but finding it out via player surveys, analysis and thorough research of game design literature is what the dev team should have done in the first place before doing the PvP revamp. Looking at the aftermath now... they clearly didn't and I turned out to be a fool for hoping otherwise when they announced the revamp.

But oh well... nevermind me. I'm just that rambling forum troll and all that.

[Wintersandman]

Not everyone has the time to dedicate days, weeks, months to one game and learn a hard PVE mode like Savage.

Imagine the outrage if all the people who can't dedicate, days, weeks, months to learn a savage mode before it becomes obsolete. If anything PvP in FFXIV has more time to adapt to a mode, abilities, etc. In 3.0 PvP was gated at iLvl 150 from the beginning. Morale was already irrelevant and gear was purely for glamour and maybe used as catch up for PvE. What did PvE do? It ended at i270. So in order to keep up with PvE content you have to dedicate days, weeks, months to one game just to stay relevant in current raids. This argument is completely invalid.

And looking at the queues nowadays, it's not gotten all that much better. I'm an off-hour player (EU player on Balmung), so I tend to notice it first when people abandon the queues, because the time at which games pop at all shifts further and further back into my sleep schedule. My queues nowadays are largely the same as back in the late Seal Rock days, a bit faster due to a lack of faction restrictions and bots. Sure, they are 'trying' to grow the playerbase and that much should be positively acknowledged, but the strategies they are employing to do so are... doubtful and of questionable long-term success. Short-term isn't debatable - We had 72man insta-queues day and night come Garo and when SB launched. But that has long fizzled out.

And honestly, I don't think the real issue is "difficulty" or "complexity" - League of Legends boasts 100 Million monthly active players, even if you assume half of that are smurfs, that's ginormous and it's ironically one of the go-to games for casual players in this game when they want PvP, in spite of it's fairly large complexity (First thing you do is learn like 300++ character skills and passives with their telegraphs, the maps mechanics and geography and over hundred items and their effects by heart). A quick boot up of Steam shows over 500k DotA2 players currently playing and that game is... oh boy. It's a hulking mess of convoluted mechanics in which even bots can drill you into the dirt easily if you come unprepared.

Accessibility is an issue of course - I don't think there's any successful PvP game on a subscription fee and PvP usually isn't gated by weeks to months of PvE/bot grind. But let's be real here: Even if this game's PvP came as a super accessible standalone F2P title, it wouldn't stand a chance, neither the old nor the new incarnation. It'd be kept alive in the shadowy corners of the net on a private server by a poor, blessed soul that keeps hoping his baby will one day be understood and accepted by society.

And that, IMO, is the bigger issue. I know a great many players, dedicated and casual alike, that are playing far more complicated PvP games than this on a regular basis, but they won't touch this game's PvP for more than a day or two after a new mode got released, neither the new nor the old. It's naturally hard to tell why exactly that is, but finding it out via player surveys, analysis and thorough research of game design literature is what the dev team should have done in the first place before doing the PvP revamp. Looking at the aftermath now... they clearly didn't and I turned out to be a fool for hoping otherwise when they announced the revamp.

I agree with everything Zojha said in here.