Bring back 24 man PvP please

[Enla]

that is normal for pvp when there are no special events going on.

That's a pretty big indictment that PVP is broken and something needs to be fixed however, if that's how long a 'normal' match takes on your data center. Also that's really not normal for Crystal at all or at least it wasn't before. When no special events are going on here the worst wait was around 40 minutes before the roll back to 24x24x24 being the only way to experience Frontlines. I haven't seen two hour plus queues since the 8v8v8 change was implemented way back when. Not even off peak hours.

[Nalien]

that is normal for pvp when there are no special events going on.

Except it isn't? There were plenty of 24m pops during early/late hours prior to any events. Was my favorite time to queue precisely because 24m was more enjoyable than 72m, and it also didn't line up with any PvE schedules. Ever since they sorted out the queue issues with Freelancer and rotating the maps daily, Frontlines didn't really have any queue issues, unless you were queuing at some absurd hour like 3am. Any reasonable early/late hour it was still popping. Prime time during new content releases (so majority off doing new Trial/Raid/etc) or Tuesday reset 24m could also pop.

Now what do we have? Absolutely no pops until prime time, and if there is anything else going on (Rival Wings community day being another thing that takes a large sum of PvPers away from Frontlines) then the queue dies even in prime time. Even if it's active, say 96 people are in queue? 24 of them are now waiting for a match to end so they can get into the next 72m pop, rather than just having a 24m pop alongside the existing pop.

Removing 24m did absolutely nothing good for Frontlines. All it did was make matters worse, and saying "We'll that's just how it usually is" is a complete lie. Even if it wasn't, and queues were terrible outside events... Why remove 24m then? All it does it make things worse. There was no good reason for removing 24m. "It's hard to get pops outside events, so lets make it harder!", it's an absolutely absurd route for SE to have taken.

[hynaku]

Removal of 24man frontlines killed pvp for me. Only 2 days a week now can queue in primetime for pvp because of my work times. There was no reason at all for them to remove 24 man. So they listen to a few players and not think of the other players that its going to hurt if they remove. Last time I tried to queue waited over 2 hours and never popped.

[Niyuka]

It shows the utter lack of concern for PvP players in this game, from SEs part. Me and others warned this would happen when it was announced, but of course nobody cared, and a few PvE carebears claimed it would be all good. Turns out we were right all along, and SE and the carebears were not.

[Deceptus]

Except it isn't? . . .
Removing 24m did absolutely nothing good for Frontlines. All it did was make matters worse, and saying "We'll that's just how it usually is" is a complete lie. Even if it wasn't, and queues were terrible outside events... Why remove 24m then? All it does it make things worse. There was no good reason for removing 24m. "It's hard to get pops outside events, so lets make it harder!", it's an absolutely absurd route for SE to have taken.

This is 100% my stance on the issue. Removing 24 man did NOTHING to improve the game, it only hurt it and SE is too prideful to admit they messed up.

Which is sad seeing as how this is a company who had to swallow their pride before.

[SturmChurro]

Have they ever even acknowledged the issues since the removal?

[Awha]

Did they simply remove 8v8v8 because they dislike premade groups? I cam see no other reason and even that one is a stretch.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Unorthodox opinion - 8v8v8 was superior because your contribution mattered while 72man is a zergfest where engaging with less than 80% of your group was borderline feeding.

Both fine, but removing 24man was just a plain mistake imo. Just makes off-peak hours unnecessarily painful to queue for.

[Nalien]

Request: If the forum mod who ends up seeing this thread could not move this one to the PvP section, that'd be great. There are enough "Bring back 24m" threads in that section already, and I think everyone would rather have more visibility of the issue from leaving this in the General section.

Did they simply remove 8v8v8 because they dislike premade groups? I cam see no other reason and even that one is a stretch.

From what I've gathered, JP players disliked 24m, so SE removed it for them. Apparently no pops is better than 24m? Not that JP has an issue with pops anyway, they're far more active in PvP than NA/EU so 24m was a rarity for them, while somewhat of a necessity for us. Really doesn't justify the removal of it though... If 24m pops, then 72m wasn't going to. Arguably 24m popping could prevent 72m from forming up, but that is A: An issue with the matchmaking algorithm, and B: Still not entirely true. The entire reason 24m (and 48m, may it rest in peace) were even a thing to begin with was to help get 72m active. People queue up and see a long queue time with no pops? They drop out of queue and don't bother. You get a 24m pop? You stay in queue and keep playing. More people join, eventually 72 or more people are in queue.

The entire point of 24m existing was that it was better than nothing (and I'd actually mirror others opinions that it was better than 72m) and it allowed queues to snowball up towards 72m. It was a perfectly good positive feedback system and it was working perfectly fine, now we're left with a negative feedback loop; Long queues drive people away, queue becomes longer, longer queues drives more away, etc. It really is shocking that they apparently don't even remember why they included 24m to begin with...

Premades is another issue, but I'd say they "fixed" that by limiting players to parties of four. Not that I'd really call that a fix... Premades should be encouraged, not discouraged... This is an MMO, and something like Frontlines is based on working together as a team... Anyone who goes into Frontlines YOLO style and expects to win really is rather delusional... It's large scale team based PvP... Why are SE catering to people who apparently don't get that? Those aren't the players that are going to help PvP in this game grow, they're their for Mog Tomes and Cyborg glamours, and once they've got that they quit PvP until the next new item is added to force them into it again... I'm not even saying people need to form their own premades to fight other premades (although it would be great if people socialized in an MMO, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone ask mid-match if anyone wants to group up as a premade, mostly it's senseless bickering, it's almost like such people don't actually care about trying to win but rather just want to complain ad nauseum), but at least try and coordinate with people and not run off alone like a headless chicken to slaughter, or worse, sit in the corner doing nothing for 10 minutes for 5 free Mog Tomes... Again... Why cater to these kinds of players? Cater to the people who form premades, make Cross-World Linkshells, build a PvP community... Why discourage people from working together in PvP like this? It's utter lunacy...

Not that premades didn't have some issues. Mostly matchmaking though IMO, because there just isn't any in this game. You'd think if 3 premades are queued at the same time, there'd be some kind of matchmaking system to split them up... Nope, XIV doesn't have time for that kind of common sense. It's just as likely to slap them all in the same team as it is to split them up... Of course, at this point anyone who wants to play on the same team just turns Freelancer off (which damages queue times btw) and all join the same Grand Company. Bam. Everyone is on the same team in Maelstrom or whatever. We used to be limited to 8 player teams, now SE tried to limit us to 4 player teams. Now people game the Grand Company aspect of Frontlines to make 24 player premades. Nice fix.

[Odessium]

I play on Mana DC during the weekend until reset on EU. I play with 250 ms ping and it's laggy as hell but at least I get to PvP. Legit no reason to queue on Light DC until reset because I know it's dead. Thanks SE.