Don't Introduce New Titles for Next Ishgard Restoration

[Jojoya]

Now that the live letter has announced new titles are planned for the new leaderboard ranking season but you're looking for additional feedback...

Please, don't add new titles and achievements for leaderboard rankings.

We were told that the titles would remain the same each season and previous winners would be excluded from future season rankings. That way players wouldn't feel pressured into a stressful competition on a repeat basis for the sake of trying to get whatever the new rewards were.

It worked. People were a lot more relaxed because they knew if they didn't get their title the first time, they'd get another opportunity later. They could decide when they felt ready to compete instead of being pressured into a series of one-time only competitions for a new set of unique rewards.

Do this and you lied to the player base. You're taking away the future opportunity you told them they would have to get those titles, leaving them disappointed. It's not going to encourage them to participate more. It's going to encourage them to stop bothering altogether. They're going to feel betrayed and left without a chance to get a title they wanted to show their contribution to the Restoration.

Those few who remain intent on getting the new titles will be doing so at the expense of their health, family, friends, work, school and other real life activities over the course of a stressful 10 day period that will likely burn them out and cause them to unsubscribe because that's the only way they'll have a chance to earn a title competing against the many players who turned to the bot programs to get their Phase II rankings through blatant, unremorseful cheating and the increasing number of players who will no doubt be doing the exact same thing in Phase III to get the new titles because it worked so well in Phase II.

This isn't a PvP-centric community. Trying to force more of these one time only special reward competitions pitting player against player against bots isn't going to strengthen the community, it's going to destroy it. And that would be ironic because crafting and gathering should be about building a stronger community together.

Is that honestly what you want? What do you gain from it? What does the game gain from it?

If this is just a ploy to try to increase participation in the Restoration, you're going about things the wrong way. Stop promoting the leaderboard titles that only a few hundred "elite" players and bots per world can earn. Start promoting the other Restoration achievements with titles that can be earned by every player.

A large number of players, possibly even a majority, had no clue the "Height of..." achievements and their titles existed for Phase II. Mention those achievements in Diadem shout and players respond "Never heard of them, what are they?".

It's sad, but not surprising. Those achievements were never listed in the patch notes. They were never listed on the Ishgard Restoration page on the Lodestone. If a player knew about them, it was usually because the dataminers chose to break the ToS to help the player community by sharing information about changes and new additions that Square Enix didn't feel was worth mentioning.

Imagine how much participation in Phase II would have increased if only the entire player base had known there were additional titles to be earned by everyone, not just the leaderboard titles reserved for the elite few.

If participation is a problem, there is your solution. Start promoting the things everyone can earn instead of just promoting what can be earned only by a tiny number of elite players.