PvP in this game is an afterthought and it shows

[iAxX23]

It really feels like whoever designed the PVP in this game doesn't even play this game or any other game with a PVP system.

The entire PVP system is based around predicting rather than reacting and adjusting because of the horrible tick rate. Silence going off on the wrong tick means you're down a combo for another 45 seconds so you poke eachother from a distance before trying it again. You can't have a 2.5s GCD and a 1s silence. You can't have a healer spamming heals the entire fight without dipping below half mana.

Making healers so incredibly strong is mind boggling to me, look at any succesful MMO right now that has a functioning PVP system, the healers are generally the weakest, they take more damage, they are more suscetible to CC but they have A LOT of utility and heals. In this game a single DPS will not kill a healer without an LB. They're built like tanks.

There is no fixing this system. I can understand balancing PVE and PVP spells together is a huge challenge, I can accept removing some spells that are available in PVE from PVP or changing them for PVP but absolutely gimping a job and boiling it down to 10 spells is a joke.

There is no fixing this system. Need to be culled just like 1.0 and built from the ground up.

I know there's gonna be a ton of you replying to this with "I've been playing since Season 1 of FEAST, PVP has some small issues but you're overreacting, the PVP system is fine".

No, you have something called Stockholm Syndrome, or you simply don't know any better, you haven't played a different game.

The PVP system is objectively bad. Players have to advertise in PF to queue for PVP, Wolves' Den being more dead than levelling zones on all servers, 10 minute queues to get into Feast and when you do get in there you'll play with/against the same 7 people. Frontlines being pretty much dead outside of a very specific 3 hour window every day.

For the second biggest MMO available right now the PVP community is tiny. I would wager less than 5% of the active player base plays PVP and it's with good reason. It's bad.

[Kuroka]

I know ppl will eat me for that, but id love if theyd ban tanks and healers from pvp. They should level in normal duties anyways and it would make balance a lot easier...

[Divinemights]

It really feels like whoever designed the PVP in this game doesn't even play this game or any other game with a PVP system.
For the second biggest MMO available right now the PVP community is tiny. I would wager less than 5% of the active player base plays PVP and it's with good reason. It's bad.

I read the same type of topic in WoW forum periodically and it already bored the heck out of me.
FF14 was never design with PvP in mind and it is true this is something developed after PvE.
The only known MMORPG deisgn with PvP in mind is the Guild War 2, but do you play that?
No you probably don't because it is lacking content in the PvE side and some other aspects that FF14 rich of
There is no perfect MMORPG that can balance between PvP and PvE, such game doesn't exist this life, or next.
YOu can only choose one that more suitable for you

PS. By the way no healer is stronger than WoW's healer

[Stormfur]

One thing that I've thought about, a looong time ago in 3.x when PVP was abysmally bad... is, why not have an area where users aren't any particular class.. like healer or dancer or whatever, and rather just have them all go at it as freelancers? Same core abilities BUT with traits that you can select and build upon according to your PVP rank.

[Kaiche]

I've been playing since season 1 and I actually agree with you, the biggest problem is the ticks for sure, it harms the game, makes it sluggish and also messes up your bursts, skill usage. I cant tell you the amount of times ive pressed something for it to not activate because of ticks, potions "sticking" in use and skills cancelling due to enemy positioning for the smallest thing; its hella annoying.

Unfortunately they wont / cant fix this without a whole revamp on the gameplay system itself and ofc they aren't going to do that.
It's basically slapped on which is sad because it has potential but only through big steps and changes, doesnt matter how many times you revamp and make it simple enough for toddlers, the core of it is bad and thats just how it is. I'm surprised FRC was a success due to how ticks work.

Lack of updates and care kill pvp too, lack of long-term rewards for all, new maps and balancing being extremely slow to implement / make. It's been like 8 seasons or more of this same boring crystal map with old maps still available, not being used in rotation with no thought or care to add them in for a change of pace, no real experimenting is being done just no love for it and it shows big time.

It's like theres one dude in the office for pvp, who is asigned to do something for pvp every so and so unless its a bigger project like FL.

[Adeacia]

I have no interest in pvp regardless of the game. I don't pay any attention to anything involving it in this game and even I can agree with you.

My belief is that pvp is here for the sole purpose of saying the game has pvp. It's an mmo so people expect it to be there, but the devs were never really interested in adding it to begin with.

[Esmoire]

I kind of treat PvP not as being comparable to PvE; they would have to massively change the game on a functional level for that. I think it's better to see it as a side activity, like Gold Saucer or housing. It's not perfect and it will always have sore spots, though I think there's a lot of simple fun to be had.

Honestly people will hate to hear this but tab target MMOs in general are always going to have very casual, low skill, slow-paced PvP. Especially in the latest decade where everyone is a big balloon of health, almost no precision is required, and it's kept slow enough that their wide audience can play it. It seems FFXIV's development is very segregated with the folks who manage PvP having limited resources allocated, so with that in mind I think they have been doing okay.

Like there's some huge sore spots, like it probably needs something to compensate for the removal of 8v8v8 so people playing on the graveyard hours can enjoy a more light experience besides Feast. I also think they have bungled a lot in trying to force some of the job components from PvE to work in a completely different environment. That said I think a more fair and measured criticism is merited, and in my eyes PvP in FFXIV is goofy but flawed fun, like the rest of the game.

[Rufalus]

I think this is a really good appraisal of the underlying problems with pvp in this game. They've made a few decent changes over the years and introduced some interesting modes/rules, but core issues with the engine deriving from it being a pve-first game hold it back from ever being great, the fairly long GCD and server tick rate chief among them. Re: healers, they've always been the mvp role but it was only with the 4.0 changes that they became godly relative to the other roles. The other roles got a reduced ability to melt them and it really focused the gameplay down to everyone else coordinating their attacks on the healer at certain intervals when their cooldowns are ready to burst. For most people it just wasn't fun and I noticed widespread complaints about healers on the official forums, reddit and gamefaqs at that time. The really hardcore pvpers pushed back and basically said get good, the game is fine.

Well the complaints mostly stopped because a lot of people just stopped doing pvp. It was only fun for the people at the highest skill level. I can't confirm because I don't use addons, but I suspect those are a factor? If a person had a tool to force their skills into the same data packet and align with server ticks, that's a huge advantage in this type of pvp to assist coordination and bursting healers at the exact right moment. Casual players who don't cheat cannot access that kind of assist. I hear that addons can also read the opponent's attack before the game displays the cast bar, which might make it possible for Silence to be reused reactively rather than predictively. Again a fix to the unfun design that's only available by cheating.

[Rufalus]

I know ppl will eat me for that, but id love if theyd ban tanks and healers from pvp. They should level in normal duties anyways and it would make balance a lot easier...

Trying to imagine how this might work. Ok no healing, but to prevent us having to respawn all the time you basically just go Down for the Count status when your HP runs out instead of being KOed, so you are winded and on your knees for 5 seconds, effectively out of the match for a moment. Full recovery and temp invuln when you're back in control so you get a chance to reposition back with your team. In lore pvp is supposed to be a training exercise anyways, not killing. Probably want new map design and rules to go with it. Knockdowns could make sense in an objective-based mode because you prevent the opponent reaching a flag or golden popoto or something.

[Canadane]

I know ppl will eat me for that, but id love if theyd ban tanks and healers from pvp. They should level in normal duties anyways and it would make balance a lot easier...

People probably shouldn't be using ranked feast seasons to level classes...