Request: Please give us alternate ways to obtain PVP armour and weapons

[Zojha]

You are neglecting so many things here.

As do you. And it's gotten lengthy, so I'll put it in spoiler tags to not clutter the page.

Your entire premise for the first paragraph is: FFXIV players are more sensitive than players of other games. Okay, let's accept that for now. It then doesn't make sense however why those same players would play any other PvP game on the side where it's just as bad. You cannot explain that with toxicity as your only factor.

You might have noticed that yourself, because in the second paragraph, you then point out that this toxicity is largely related to ranked and you can play nonranked modes elsewhere where it isn't as bad. Makes sense, considering that they only restricted the chat in Feast.
What doesn't make sense then however is that Frontlines was dead long before Feast or Ranked were a thing. You can blame bots now, but those weren't a thing back then. Bots weren't a topic during the Seize days. And after a short while of quick 72 man pops, it died down to 24 man pops and ridic queues regardless. Shatter, same thing. We also had unranked 8vs8 Feast for a long while. No bots either, no to low toxicity. But they all died regardless. You're free to look at the JP data centers as well - They don't have a big bot issue. Everything dies just the same regardless.
Those modes also already had rewards - An exclusive achievement set (Field Commander), a mount (Aerodynamics System), the PvP exclusive ADS, the Warsteeds, the Fenrir Pup (Feast Unranked), tomes AND wolf marks. They still died. They also tried having dedicated PvP gear and progression as rewards for PvP in the early days. Result? Dead content and people abusing the lack of players to reliably trade wins.

And because they all died, SE over and over decided to increase the rewards. The first bot sightings apparently came with Garo, XP with Stormblood sealed the deal. That's why it's a "Circus of Bots" now and you don't have those options anymore. Ironically, it's a consequence of your own mindset: To shift the blame for the lack of popularity to side factors.
The issue isn't rewards. The issue isn't toxicity. The issue isn't bots. The real issue is that the gameplay is bad and because of that, the game mode keeps requiring more and more rewards to compensate for the lack of innate enjoyment which in turn lures in the bots who want the rewards without having to slog through the actual content. You can argue that this then creates a feedback loop where bots reduce the enjoyment even further, causing SE to require even more rewards leading to even worse botting. Be my guest. But the root of the whole thing lies elsewhere and remains unaddressed.

As for ranked PvP in general, it's a well known fact the vast majority of the playerbase in a given game isn't interested in it - Blame it on toxicity if you like. Even in the actual "E-Sports" titles, you won't find more than about 10-20% of the playerbase participating in Ranked. That is naturally bound to fail in a game that can't even attain a decently sized regular PvP population.
That's why attaining one is the first priority if you have ambitions to create a ranked mode. They just failed to do that since ARR because their PvP is bad and hasn't gotten much better since. And that's what's my concern here. People name all kinds of factors, but all PvP, ranked or casual, large scale or small scale, keeps dying regardless of them all. So it has to be something else. Something they all have in common. Gameplay is by far and wide the most likely candidate.

Finally, I personally doubt the Ranked PvP community truly grew. I think it largely just shifted around as old people left and new blood came in. If it did in fact grow ever so slightly and I'd have to point fingers on the reasons why, my first bet would be the introduction of wolf collars (I.E. guaranteed rewards for participation) coupled with the fact that the Rating system has been turned into a grind metric until Diamond thanks to skewed gains and losses.

I don't think anyone who didn't play before due to toxicity plays now after the chat ban, because you can be toxic without chat as you yourself ceaselessly point out. And if you are right and the chat ban did not in fact alleviate toxicity in a noteworthy manner as people start to be toxic in different ways, then it logically also cannot be a factor for growth either, because the growth is attributed to toxicity being reduced and you yourself claim that it didn't actually do that. It would be a contradiction in itself if it then did contribute to growth.

[Gallus]

As do you. And it's gotten lengthy, so I'll put it in spoiler tags to not clutter the page.

Right.
/10char

Your entire premise for the first paragraph is: FFXIV players are more sensitive than players of other games. Okay, let's accept that for now. It then doesn't make sense however why those same players would play any other PvP game on the side where it's just as bad. You cannot explain that with toxicity as your only factor.

You said that, not me. From where do you gather that a lot of FFXIV players play ranked modes in other PVP games? From your small circle of friends? From your PVP linkshell? If we are going by that, I don't know a single person (and trust me I know quite a few in my server...) that play a ranked mode of a PVP game including FFXIV (lies, my FC leader is the only one that does, only in FFXIV, he plays The Feast).

You then point out that this toxicity is largely related to ranked and you can play nonranked modes elsewhere where it isn't as bad. Makes sense, considering that they only restricted the chat in Feast.

Precisely.

What doesn't make sense then however is that Frontlines was dead long before Feast or Ranked were a thing. You can blame bots now, but those weren't a thing back then. Bots weren't a topic during the Seize days. And after a short while of quick 72 man pops, it died down to 24 man pops and ridic queues regardless. Shatter, same thing. We also had unranked 8vs8 Feast for a long while. No bots either, no to low toxicity. But they all died regardless. You're free to look at the JP data centers as well - They don't have a big bot issue. Everything dies just the same regardless.

Except it does make sense. These kind of modes eventually got old and the rewards in them were never updated, they were bound to die sooner or later. Toxicity and ranked mode are a strong deterrent to this community but they aren't the beginning and the end of everything. There are indeed other factors. The rewards are an important thing to consider too.

Those modes also already had rewards - An exclusive achievement set (Field Commander), a mount (Aerodynamics System), the PvP exclusive ADS, the Warsteeds, the Fenrir Pup (Feast Unranked), tomes AND wolf marks. They still died. They also tried having dedicated PvP gear and progression as rewards for PvP in the early days. Result? Dead content and people abusing the lack of players to reliably trade wins.

They were alive until everybody got the significant rewards they could get from there. Then the modes died. Tomes and wolf marks are not significant. You can buy the pup from the mb.

The real issue is that the gameplay is bad and because of that, the game mode keeps requiring more and more rewards to compensate for the lack of innate enjoyment which in turn lures in the bots who want the rewards without having to slog through the actual content. You can argue that this then creates a feedback loop where bots reduce the enjoyment even further, causing SE to require even more rewards leading to even worse botting. Be my guest. But the root of the whole thing lies elsewhere and remains unaddressed.

Which is why I suggested the win x amount of games in The Feast normal. Can you even win games in 4v4 botting? Seems rather unlikely...
Bots are a thing in larger scale modes like frontlines or rival wings where your contribution as an individual has barely any effect on the outcome.
Personally, I don't find the current PVP as terrible as you make it out to be, and I blame its little popularity on the generalized little interest of the FFXIV community towards anything PVP related.

As for ranked PvP in general, it's a well known fact the vast majority of the playerbase in a given game isn't interested in it - Blame it on toxicity if you like. Even in the actual "E-Sports" titles, you won't find more than about 10-20% of the playerbase participating in Ranked. That is naturally bound to fail in a game that can't even attain a decently sized regular PvP population.
That's why attaining one is the first priority if you have ambitions to create a ranked mode. They just failed to do that since ARR because their PvP is bad and hasn't gotten much better since. And that's what's my concern here. People name all kinds of factors, but all PvP, ranked or casual, large scale or small scale, keeps dying regardless of them all. So it has to be something else. Something they all have in common. Gameplay is by far and wide the most likely candidate.

little interest of the FFXIV community towards anything PVP related.

I don't think anyone who didn't play before due to toxicity plays now after the chat ban

I'm no one then :P

because you can be toxic without chat as you yourself ceaselessly point out.

Sadly.

And if you are right and the chat ban did not in fact alleviate toxicity in a noteworthy manner as people start to be toxic in different ways, then it logically also cannot be a factor for growth either, because the growth is attributed to toxicity being reduced and you yourself claim that it didn't actually do that. It would be a contradiction in itself if it then did contribute to growth.

You've put a lot of thought into this I see lol. The selling points of the new pvp mode were the chat restriction (that one really sold me) and the new skill system. The new skill system is no longer new, and pretty sure the chat restriction has taught many of us by now that flamers still have ways to do it (they just needed some time to figure out which was the most annoying way for them to grief others).